Harri's Doodle Tag

Hello Everyone. This is my Doodle Tag. This was created by Chloe, and I thought I should share it. I tagged a few of you, but all of you do it!! It's so fun, I loved drawing my pen.

1. Draw your pen
2. Write your name in a font that expresses you (I used my blog name)
3. Draw your favourite animal
4. Just Doodle
5. Tag 3-5 Bloggers

Hope you Enjoy it xx Harri

Getting Excited to Share Crafts with Printstagram

Photos are always special parts of our lives, that help us remember special moments. Before digital cameras, the only way to see photos was to get them developed and to display around the home or tucked away, in neat rows of photo albums. Now, we live in the 'digital' world these days, and memories are always stored away on black boxes, where they can't be seen (hard drives). 

Since the release of the first iPhone, many things have changed. One of the most drastic changes would be the camera. The latest versions can be up against DSLR cameras now. As well as being good cameras, cell phone photos have become very popular. Whipping out your phone that you always have with you, is easier than lugging around an DSLR (I take that back, since I just got a DSLR, I love it so much, I'll take it everywhere!!). Many apps have been created for effects and sharing but major social network, Instagram, has taken over the world of cell phone photography.

Photos on Instagram are shared, liked, commented on then an another photo is posted and the old one is pushed back into the archives. Lost. Social Print Studio has created a online tool called Printstagram, that lets you print your Instagram photos onto small square prints, little books, calendars, posters and much more (if you have read my blog from the beginning, you might remember this post) All those photos that you shared months ago can be printed and become found. 

So I'm getting really excited to collaborate with Printstagram this month. Together we are using their prints and my craftiness to bring you heaps of fun crafts with your photos that you purchase from Printstagram. . This a dream collaboration, as I admire this company for their work. We (The Team at Social Print Studio + I) hope you join in the fun, and make some great ways to share those memories.

When I was writing this post and started talking to Printstagram, the collaboration & this post was going to be in the eyes of someone who does not own a DSLR camera and uses an iPhone for her photos. I received my very own camera for my birthday and am not one of those people now, so some of my opinions have changed.

Turning 14 + A New Camera

Yesterday I turned 14. It was such a fun birthday. My family and cousins had such a great time. I got spoilt yesterday with cards, presents, texts, facebook messages on my timeline...... I even got a lovely email from Barbora wishing me a Happy Birthday all the way from England. Thank you Barbora.

From left to right......Kikki-K Feature Journal, pencils, typo sticky notes, mt Washi Tape Set, typo book, Kikki-K House Stamp, Clarins Lip Gloss, Kikki-k Gift Card, Kikki-K Stamp Pad, Ciate Manicure Kit.

As you can see, everyone knows that I love Kikki-K!!!

For my birthday, my Mum and Dad gave me something I really wanted. A Real Camera. I got such a surprise when I got it,  I was so excited, since I only use my iPhone camera for photos. Maybe I can say, I'm a real blogger now. If you're interested, it's a Canon EOS 1100D. I love using it for taking photos of almost everything. Below is some of the first photos that I took with it.

My sister and Mum spent yesterday afternoon making this lovely cake.....I just love the decorations. We also had cupcakes on the side, since our family is quite big, and the cake it quite small!!! Hope you enjoyed hearing about my birthday!!!

Tomorrow I've got some really special, exciting news to share with you. See you then. xx Harri.

P.S. I'll post the recipe for the chocolate cake soon!!!

Organize: Blog Post Planning

When I first started blogging, I didn't know how to get ideas and when I had idea spurts (if you can call them that) I had to use them all straight away. I didn't store them anywhere. Then I was reading this post of Elsie's and discovered her binder of ideas..........

1. Sticky Note Binder  I use my blog planning notebook/binder for every post. I have magazine clippings and separate sections for sticky notes in different parts of my blog. Each section has it's own colour of sticky note so I can separate them easily if I misplace half of the ideas.

2. Journals + Sketchbooks My second way of planning posts is to carry journals and sketchbooks around. Once the ideas have been pasted into my binder, I plan them out more in a journal. This journal above, I only got for my birthday, so it's quite new, but I did use other journals to plan instead.

3. Pinterest I use Pinterest to gather DIY and recipe ideas, along with design inspiration

How do you gather thoughts and inspiration. I hope this might inspire you to plan your blog posts more. I find I get more inspiration if I actually look for it. xx Harri

P.S. I'll be back this afternoon, I'm going to share with you some photos that I took on my birthday with my new camera!!!

DIY: Photo Hanging Project

As I said earlier, I am going to scrapbook and fill photo albums with memories so I can remember my teen years. This month to celebrate my new year (turning 14 tomorrow!!!), every week I'm going to share ways to display and keep printed photos for you to remember and treasure forever.This post is a way to hang photos in a room on a small wall that you don't use. It is an easy cheap DIY that you can probably make using items already in your household.

Supplies Needed Wooden Pegs, paint and paint brush, twine (colored or plain). 1. Paint the front of the pegs any color you want. I used white because the contrast is nice with my red and white string (it's christmas string, sshh!!). 2. Hang the string up with a pin where you want the photos to hang. I don't have mine from the roof, so I can see all the photos easily.

Have fun pegging up your photos and sharing your memories. This could be perfect in an office, bedroom or living/kitchen. It's up to you.

Let's Talk about Scrapbooking

When I was little, my Mum and I used to always get our camera film developed and then spend an afternoon inserting them into photo albums. My love of photography definitely started very young, but then things changed and I went to school, our lives got busy, my Mum had my little sister and photo albums were forgotten. Can we do 8 years of photo albums now? I've decided that I want to start photo albums remember my teenage years, even if Mum never continues hers. I'm turning 14 on Saturday, so it's a good time to start. Coincidentally last Sunday, my Mum and I started printing photos of our holiday in Queenstown to stick on the wall of our kitchen (above). It's so much easier these days thanks to technology and home photo printers.

Source: A Beautiful Mess

I'm going to do my scrapbooks with a handmade ring binder (I'll show you how next week) and the layout inside will be inspired by Elsie's Project Life album with other patterned cards amongst the photos (above). I'm not going to buy a binder and photo pockets like most who participate in Project Life, instead I'm just going to glue them onto paper with binding rings so I can be more creative with decorating my albums and collecting other keepsakes to go with it.

I hope I can keep up with my photo albums like Elsie and many others can. I really want to be able to remember special moments. I take enother photos, I've just got to put them to good use. How do you collect your photo memories? This month I'm going to be sharing different ways to share and remember the special photos that you should always be able to see and treasure. xx Harri

Bambina Hot Chocolates

Everyone loves a hot chocolate on a winters day (or any day), but this recipe is different as it's made with real chocolate melts. You will need a steam wand on a coffee machine but heated over a stovetop would work (you wouldn't get the foam though).

Recipe from Bambina Cafe 

Ingredients Needed Chocolate Melts, boiling water and milk. 1. Add 8 chocolate melts to a glass. 2. Add a splash of boiling water to the glass (this helps the chocolate melt) 3. Heat or steam milk and pour over chocolate melts and water. 4. Get a spoon and stir it all up so the chocolate spreads throughout the glass. Enjoy.

How I used my handwriting in a font

I'm so excited to share a fun and easy method to create fonts with my own handwriting! I used an app called iFontMaker on the iPad and made my first font in about 15 minutes. :) It was super fun and self-explanatory. Here's how it works:

There are some standard fonts to choose from. You choose a font and then the app guides you through the entire alphabet (uppercase, lowercase, symbols), you draw each letter using the font as a guide for size and shape. It's so fun, I tried many types, a cursive, standard and block lettered one. 

I played around and came up with some examples to share with you. .........

If you would like the download these three silly fonts I made, just for fun, here they are: Red Velvet + Cupcake Crafty + Tall And Skinny. ♥ Heres some instructions to install them Mac & PC

Mini Magazine Notebooks

I always keep at least two or three notebooks with me. I jot lists on them, keep ideas safe and tear pages out to leave notes for my friends. Notebooks is probably why my school bag is so heavy!! Today I want to share a quick (and cheap) way to make your own pretty journals. You can easily whip up heaps at once and use them in the future.

Supplies Needed:  Pretty magazine pages, paper (graph or lined etc), embroidery thread and a needle, scissors, washi tape (optional). Trim pages to the size of your choice (they will be folded in half) Add as many or as few pages as you wish (7-10 pages folded in half is a good size). 2. Cut a pretty magazine page to size (slightly larger than pages) to create a cover. 3. Fold and stitch through the center of pages to bind them together. 4. Add a piece of pretty washi tape onto the spine to hide the thread. I usually leave mine how it is though.