My photography skills really need some work!

I had a product development week about a month ago when I made a bunch of new things to offer in my shop and at shows. I was getting kind of tired of making the same old things over and over again. I made some really cute things and meant to get some good pictures of them to put in my shop and to blog about here. Like many of my good intentions, it didn't go quite as planned. I brought all of my new products to the Freedom Festival and they were really well received. So well, in fact, that I sold them all before I had a chance to take pictures, so I need to make them all again.


Since I don't have pictures of new products to show, I will show you what I have been up to for the last couple of weeks.

My twins turned one today! They are my last babies, so I am playing dress up with them every opportunity I have. I made everything in this picture: the pettiskirts, the shirts, the hats, the rocking horses, even the babies! I thought it all turned out so cute! Nobody spends such a crazy amount of time making outfits for their kids birthdays, but I really have the "I don't know when to stop" disease, so I did. You can't really tell, but the hats are the same fabric as the numbers on their shirts. I plan to have professional pictures taken in these outfits, so there will be a better view to come. It really is all about the pictures.



The rocking horses were unfinished wood. I painted them (well, actually, I got Patrick to paint them for me) and then I decoupaged patterned paper on them. I am thinking of gluing 1" ribbon streamers along the mane. What do you think? Too much?
This is the cake. It is supposed to be a teddy bear picnic theme. The bears were originally supposed to be wearing party hats, but there were a few problems in the execution. I am not a cake decorator, so I was pretty pleased at the end result of this cake. I decided that the secret to successful cake decorating is in the icing. I made the Wilton buttercream icing recipe and it worked beautifully. It requires a shocking amount of butter and shortening, but has the perfect texture for piping details. The side had a basket weave piped on it. I had no idea how to do one, so I googled it. It looks a little homespun, but I don't think that is a terrible thing when a picnic basket is your inspiration. Each of the babies got their own teddy bear for a smash cake.
The babies were cranky-pants the day of the party because they took crappy naps that morning, so they didn't really get into the spirit of the smash cake concept.
After everyone else had their cake and the attention had died down a little bit, I put Chloe in the high chair and let her have a second attempt at her cake. The second time, she attacked it with reckless abandon and made a mess that any one year old would be proud of.

I am, once again, wishing my photography skills were better. I didn't even get pictures of the decorations (pink and purple tissue paper poufs hanging from the trees) or the centerpieces (pink and purple candies in glasses that looked like ice cream sodas on a bed of hand punched confetti flowers)! Really, what good is it to have the "I don't know when to stop" disease if I can't manage to take a decent picture of my crazy excess?

Anyway, I am done party planning and playing dress-up for the moment, so I guess I will go back to work on making my new products for a second time. I really will get pictures before I sell them this time. Really. Seriously. I mean it....