22 Craft Ideas With Air Dry Clay.

So much of our sensory play started with this clay. Something I had whipped up in the kitchen and presented to Quinn when he was 17mo and it’s been our lockdown savior!

It’s the texture, how it feels in our hands, the bright white of it! Purely magical.

Honestly, looking back through our images to compile how much we’ve done with the clay the last few months took me by surprise, had we really used it 22 different ways?! It’s just that open ended!

Here We Go! I’m Sharing With You 22 Ideas of What to Do With Our Air Dry Clay!

The Recipe.

Ingredients

1 Cup Baking Soda

1/2 Cup Corn Starch

3/4 Cups Water

How To:

Add all ingredients to a non-stick pan and place over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly until it reaches the consistency of mashed potatoes- about 3-4 minutes.

Here’s What It Looks Like When It’s Done.

Once off the heat, store in an air tight container while it cools down, about 3 minutes, then knead well and have fun!

Yes it’s that simple!!!!

So now this brings us to 22 things you can do with it!

1. Create stamps with hot glue and cardboard to make air dry clay birch trees.

Use the clay as play clay with woodland stampers. Air Dry Clay is a great way for toddlers to discover textures.

2. Create The Moon.

So white and bright this clay is perfect for some process art moons and teaching your little ones about space, shapes, and color. So many language development opportunities!

3. Use natural Dyes to experiment with coloring the dough.

Create woodland shapes to paint later on!

4. Painted Woodland Shapes

Remember Those Woodland Shapes? Time to paint them! Turn them into a fun counting activity like this one!

5. Fathers Day Plaque

Air Dry Clay makes the most perfect keepsakes, we used it with Hot Glue and Cardboard Stamps.

6. Clay Snowmen

Use the clay as play clay to build and unbuild lots of clay snowmen!

7. Nature Mobile

Using loose parts and flowers to mix into the clay we strung them up with dried grapefruit and make a mobile.

8. Rose Petal Clay

The whiteness of the clay makes for the most beautiful base with floral petals!

9. Nature Invitation to Play

I love setting out this clay with dried flowers and I invite Q to make his own petal clay.

10. Hand Prints

Even now looking back at this handprint he’s grown so much in just a few short months!

The white clay naturally takes on the colors of the flowers, so pretty!

11. Colored Clay

You can so easily dye this clay with food coloring or natural dyes and color. Use it like play dough!

12. Create a Flower

You can press into this clay just like play dough. I love presenting it with nature for Q to explore with.

13. Clay Houses

These make for cute decor AND a cute play village!

14. Mixed Sensory Materials

I love setting it out with mixed materials for some process art play with Q.

15. Color With Markers

Q made this discovery all on his own when he chose to color the clay. It turned out beautiful!!

16. Clay Pieces

You can use this clay to make little ornaments for recycled egg carton trees! They make for cute stars and candy canes too!

17. Dinosaur Bones

I love including the clay in invitations to play and drying some as bones for a fun DINO play!

18. Garland

Create some fun cookie cutter shapes and wrap them in twinkle light. Perfectly festive decor.

19. Play Snow

This clay makes for a relatively low mess play snow. We set it out in small world play.

20. Ornaments

This clay makes for the cutest ornaments! You can use anything to stamp into them and cut out some fun shapes!

21. Air Dry Clay Trees

These trees are made with clay and wire hanger! So simple and cute as decor!

22. Gift Tags

This clay makes for a fun eco friendly gift tag option! Stamp some fun shapes into them, add some names, tie on some nature – endless opportunities!

How will you play? Tag me @livethescottcottage so I can share how you’ve created with air dry clay!

https://www.instagram.com/livethescottcottage/

Autumn Inspired Toddler Crafts

September is here! We’ve spent the first week diving fully into the autumn spirit with crafts and sensory play. Sharing our favorites from the week to provide some autumn inspiration!

Apple Stamping

This activity is as simple as cutting an apple in half, setting out some red paint, paper, and diving in! For little hands, placing something into the apple like a fork or corn holder, will help them stamp better. I decided to set out some sponges cut into apple shapes which Q loved!

Baby Wipe Tie Dye Leaves

Tye Dyeing wipes are such an easy toddler craft. You simply roll up some baby wipes and tie rubber bands around them, set out some washable markers, and let your little one have at them! Once done, unwrap the wipes, leave them out to dry, and then cut out some fun leaf shapes. Use a hole puncher and string some twine and tie them up to a large stick. We ran around underneath them outside!

Baby’s Breath Tree Stamping

Have some baby’s breath laying around from an old bouquet of flowers, or even a head of broccoli? This is a great toddler activity. Q adores stamping! I set out some red, orange, and yellow tempera paint on a palette, with two tree print outs for Q to have fun with! He loved dipping in the baby’s breath and adding fall “leaves” to the trees.

Dried Autumn Bouquet Silhouette

If your little one is anyone like mine, they’ll love this activity. He LOVES to glue. This activity is all about gluing fun.

How to: Dried Autumn Bouquet Silhouette
1. Take a profile picture of your little one – helps to have someone/ something distracting them to get a clear shot!
2. I uploaded the image to photoshop, used quick select to choose his face only, used brush tool to fill in the selected space all black, and copied to a new document on white then printed two copies. Swipe all the way to the right to see this
3. If you don’t have photoshop, you can print out you photo, cut out the face, tape to black construction paper and cut around the shape!

4. I set out a few bouquets I had sitting in the sun to dry out, along with red/ orange/yellow tissue paper squares, and glue! Q loves to glue ! He started by pasting down some of the tissue paper, and we added layers of glue, using a paint brush, and started layering on the dried flowers.
5. Once complete and dry, I used a craft knife to it around the silhouette and pasted it to a new sheet of white paper.
6. Frame and hang !

Contact Paper Pumpkins

This is a great one for introducing the concept of “coloring in the lines”. We love contact paper around here. It takes just a new moments to set out, and is so much fun! Great for fine motor skills. You use transparent tape to stick the non-sticky side to a window (or wall), and then peel back to reveal the sticky side! I then used a craft knife to cut out some pumpkin shapes from craft paper and then cutting holes within them just to reveal two pumpkin outlines.

Then I set out some orange tissue paper squares and let Q explore! He did so great with place the squares inside the pumpkins and we talked about the color orange! This would be cute to do with jack-o-lanterns too come Cctober !

Fall Marbled Air Dry Clay

This clay seriously takes minutes to make and about 5 minutes till it’s cool enough to handle.
1/2 cup corn starch
1 cup baking soda
3/4 cups water
Medium low heat until consistency of mashed potatoes and pulls completely away from the pan.
Let sit in airtight container till cool enough to handle.

We set out our clay with washable markers and “colored” it, and i set our various autumnal elements for Q to explore pressing into the clay. This is a great process craft activity for toddlers! He loves to roll out the dough, cut shapes into them and press in various elements.

Recycled Apple Tree

Have a piece of cardboard laying around and an egg carton? This is a great activity for little hands and fine motor skills. You can even involve your little one by helping you paint!

I painted a tree onto a piece of cardboard and then cut out some egg carton cups and painted them red and hot glued them to the tree. Then using my air dry clay recipe above, I shaped 20 apples and had Q help me paint them red. Then we played and explored plopping the apples into the cups and counting them together.

Leaf Stickers

Activities can be as simple as tossing out some stickers and a sheet of paper and calling it a day! I love to toss in a fun fall theme by presenting Q with a tree and setting out some felt stickers. Q had more fun throwing the leaves over the paper to watch them fall then even using them as stickers! I love seein the mind at play!

Following along over at IG: @livethescottcottage for more fall inspiration. I can’t wait to see what you and your LOs get up to this autumn season!

Natural Dye with Kids

How to use natural ingredients to dye fabric with kids as young as 18 months old!

The natural dyeing obsession started with white kitchen tea towels that were stained and I wasn’t quite ready to part with. I started to do some research to make use of something from around my house to dye the towels with. I found a package of expired black tea and knew this was it! Soon after this experiment I turned to other beautiful natural ingredients to modify each technique to involve our toddler as much as possible in the process.

Keep reading to see instructions how to dye with kids using black tea, avocado pits, black beans, dandelions, beets, and blackberries.

I love activities like this to do with Quinn. There are so many opportunities for language development and he’s always really curious and interested in what I’m doing and saying.

Black Tea

Stained white tea towels get a new life after dyeing with black tea

Its actually quite simple to do this activity. The longest time spent is cutting the strings from the tea bags!

You’ll need 50 tea bags for this. Once i removed all the strings I brought a large pot of water to a boil and set the tea bags inside. I let it continue to boil for about 20 minutes and turned off the heat and let the water come to room temperate with the tea bags still submerged.

The color of the water will look as shown here, you can also see I used a large dutch oven for this. When using natural dyes you should use a non-food pot, this one is slightly damaged so we don’t use it anymore- perfect to give it second life with natural dyeing.

Time to soak the fabric.

I let the fabric soak in water while the dye cooled to room temperature, and then I set the wet but not soaked, towels in the pot for about 3 hours while Q napped.

Q loved getting to stir up the fabric in the pot!

This is the opportunity to involve the kids. I explained to Q as we dropped the towels how they would change color. It’s a great sensory activity to smell the wonderful aromas of tea!

Time to see what you’ve created!

3 hours of soaking later, I had Q help me remove the towels and wring them out. I hung them on a line in the yard and Q loved running around underneath them.

Tip: Wear dark colored clothes when dyeing to prevent staining what you’re wearing. Also you can wear gloves to prevent hands staining, but I just wash ours well afterward.

Avocado Pits

If anyone would have told me boiling avocado pits creates pink dye, I would have said they were lying.

SERIOUSLY though! Look at that pink! Through all my experimenting this was definitely my favorite natural dye. Avocado pits have natural tannins so you do not need to treat the fabric with a mordant before you dye it. Mordant’s help natural dyed adhere to the fabric.

I used seven avocado pits that i collected over 10 days and left on our kitchen counter

The first step is to clean off the avocado pits, this a great step to involve the kids.

I had Q help me gently wash off the avocado pits and place them in a large stainless steel non-food pot.

Then, i brought them to a slow boil uncovered and let them simmer for about 1 hour while Q and I played!

Prepping the Fabric: As I mentioned avocado pits have natural tannins so you do not need to prep it.

However, I wanted to see how using soy milk as a mordant would change the effect. I wet the tote bag and soaked half in soy milk while I prepped the dye. Ultimately, it was just slightly darker where it was soaked in soy milk.

Once the hour had passed, I took it off the heat and let it cool for about 2 hours.

You can drop your fabric right in the hot water, but I wanted to be able to involve Q in placing in the fabric so we let it cool off. Once cool, I removed the tote bag from the soy milk and rinsed with cold water. Then Q helped me place it right in the dye.

Then I let the bag soak in the dye overnight to get a deeper pink color. In the morning I took it out to hang outside, out of direct sunlight.

While wet it looks more bright pink, then fades to a softer pink.

I decided to stencil on some letters to make this our library book bag!

I used white acrylic paint and leaves to dry brush on some texture.

So excited how this one came out!

Black Beans

This was a super easy one!

Again, who would have known that you could dye with the liquid left over from black beans.

We LOVE black beans and eat them all the time – our favorite being plant based black bean burgers- Y U M! What’s great about this technique is you soak the dried black beans as you would to eat them over night, i used 1 1 lb bag, and then you reserve the liquid and use the beans to eat still!

While the beans soaked overnight I also soaked a t-shirt overnight in soy milk as a mordant.

I reserved the black bean liquid into a mason jar.

I chose to do a stained white T-Shirt to bring second lift to it. After the T-Shirt soaked overnight, I rinsed with cold water and used rubber bands to create a tie dye pattern.

I then set the shirt into the dye liquid to soak overnight – i know another overnight – but i promise it’s worth it!

Then it’s finally time to take it out and see your creations! This is !s favorite part.

Q loved taking the shirt in and out of the liquid!

My husband watched as we unveiled the shirt, and was SHOCKED. The black beans had made a purple dye!

Note: After a few washes the dye lightens to a light blue- see here!

This technique is definitely another favorite!

Dandelions

Who would have known you could dye with dandelions.

Sadly, dandelion season is now over, and I say sadly because they were Qs favorite thing to pick! But more happily, my allergies have finally gotten a break!!!!

This is a great one to do with kids. I set out an air tight glass jar and Q ran around picking all the dandelions he could find, over two days we had about 50. I had him place them all in the water, I sealed up the jar and placed it in a sunny spot in the yard for 2 weeks. I don’t think it actually needs this long, but to be honest we got busy!!!!

So two weeks has gone by and I decided to dye another stained t-shirt, stained white shirts are a common for a toddler!

It’s as simple as treating the fabric with a mordant, I used soy milk, and let the shirt soak for an overnight in it. I tied it up with rubber bands, and placed in the dye jar for 24 hours.

Again, Q’s favorite part was dunking the fabric in and out of the liquid!

I had him help me take it out, squeeze gently out some of the liquid and I hung it on the line to dry.

Note: It’s also common for this dye to fade after washing!

Beets

Beets were fun, AND messy.

I decided to dye another cotton tote bag that we use as a BIG toy day bag and you’ll see here some muslin cotton pieces Q is holding. These are cut up pieces from a stained baby blanket I decided to try to dye pieces of each in every dye we try for some natural dyed scarves to play with!

Step One: Treat the fabric. I set the bag and 2 cups of white vinegar and 8 cups of water on the stove top and simmered for 2 hours.

Step Two: At the same time I peeled and chopped into 3 inch pieces beets and placed them in a large stainless steel pot and filled with water. I used about 5 beets.

Once complete, I let the beet water come to room temperature and left the bag in the vinegar water to soak still off the heat until the beet water was cool enough for Q to dunk the fabric into.

I tied up the tote bag with rubber bands and let the tote bag soak for 48 hours and then removed it and hung outside, in the shade, to dry. I love how it came out!!

I even ended up using the boiled beets in some fun sensory play, making a beet puree and foam for Q to play with!!!

Blackberries

A great idea for how to use blackberries that are past their prime!

Another home find, I noticed some of our blackberries in the fridge a bit past their point of wanting to be eaten.

Step One: I set 1 cup of blackberries into 8 cups of water and let them come to a boil and then I simmered for 1 hour.

Step 2: I set a small tote bag in 2 cups of salt to 8 cups of water in a pan on the stove and brought to a boil and simmered for 1 hour.

I watched both pots carefully making sure both had enough water in them.

Once an hour has passed, I strained the blackberries from the dye liquid and placed the dye liquid back into the pot.

I then rinsed the little tote bag off with cold water and tied up with rubber bands to make a fun pattern.

I decided to place in the dye so some of the bag wasn’t completely submerged to see how it would effect the outcome.

I let the bag soak in the dye for 24 hours, then had Q help me remove it for a fun surprise!

Tip: Blackberry dye tends to become a more gray color after you wash it.

Once it was all dry Q loved running around with it collecting nature!

What an amazing summer of natural dye experiments it has been so far?? Which is your favorite? I have to say mine is avocado pits! Drop me a note and let me know if you give any a try!

Oceanside Sensory Activities for Kids

How to pack and plan for easy seaside sensory fun with kids!

Q got to spend a weekend with his cousins at the shore and it was his first time around others kids in almost 16 weeks!

His first reaction was an ear to ear smile and it completely melted my heart. We’d been having so much fun lately with our sensory play I thought it would be fun to pack up some activities for the kids to do together at the shore!

I knew I wanted to keep the beach play easy to set up in under 5 minutes, pack items to spark imagination, and pack items that would span interest across many ages! I also wanted to pack materials to use in the morning before the beach and on the beach.

I love reusing play materials so I went through our sensory storage bins to develop my pack list for the beach.

Here’s my pack list:

-Dyed Rice
-Colored Chickpeas
-Play Dough
-Treasure Chest & Coins
-Sand Slime
-Ubbi Stacking Lighthouse Cups
-Trays + Tools
-Peg Dolls
-Play Dough Stamps

Dyed Rice

We use tons of dyed rice in our sensory play and it often can be a little messy indoors, so reusing some of our dyed rice was perfect for the beach! The fun surprise is when you add in water the food coloring starts to soak off the rice and turn the water the color of the rice! I chose to bring blue rice to make some ocean & lagoon trays!

How to make dyed rice:

1 1/2 cups rice ( I use jasmine rice)
1 tbsp white vinegar
Gel food coloring (just a little bit!)

Mix in a reusable container ( or in a ziplock bag) and spread on a baking sheet to dry, about 20 minutes.

Colored Chickpeas

Chickpeas have been another sensory favorite and they’re just so pretty! We’d been using them a lot at home and I thought these would fit well into our beachside play.

How to make colored chickpeas:

Two 1 lb bags of dried chickpeas
Tempera Paint

Separate the dried chickpeas into three containers (or ziplock bags). Squeeze in a few drops of tempera paint (I used blue, turquoise, and purple.) Mix very well and spread on parchment paper covered baking sheet. Dries in about 30 minutes!

Play Dough

I love making home made play dough. I can’t believe I only recently started making it but I am totally hooked!! It’s so easy, soft, AND taste safe(just in case!). Made with all organic ingredients so none of the yuckiness!

I decided to make mermaid play dough by mixing three colors together and adding glitter! I also brought some sand colored playdough that was dyed naturally with avocado pits.

How to make mermaid play dough:

1 Cup Flour
2 tsp Cream of Tartar
1/3 Cup Salt
1 Cup Water
1 tbsp Grapeseed Oil
Little Bit of Gel Food Coloring

Add flour, salt, cream of tartar, and grapeseed oil to a non stick pan over medium heat. Mix a little gel food coloring into 1 cup of water and add to the pan. Cook over medium constantly stirring until well incorporating the ingredients until smooth and the play dough completely pulls away from the pan. Then place on parchment paper to cool.

Repeat the recipe x3, using three different colors. I used mint, pink, and purple! Then I divided each color by three and rolled them into logs to twist them together to incorporate the colors. Once incorporated, but not completely mixed, i placed in air tight containers, topped with glitter and packed them away for the beach!

We used the play dough in so many ways both in the mornings at the house and at the beach. After playing with it a lot the colors will continue to mix together.

Treasure Chest & Coins

This was an awesome thrifty find, and perfect for some beach play! I found this little treasure box at Hobby Lobby for $4.99 and these “gold” coins for $0.29. They were on clearance from St. Patricks Day and the kids didn’t even notice the clover designs on them. I love a good thrifty find! One of the days I hid the treasure in the sand, we used the treasure on a pirate sand castle, hid and found items within the box, placed our found beach treasure within the box, seriously the uses were endless. This was one of the “bulkier” items to bring but so worth it!

Sand Slime

I knew I wanted to give sand slime a try and it was SO WEIRD !!! I loved every second of it and so did the kids! Q at 20 months old could care less but his cousins who are 4 and 7 LOVED it.

How to make sand slime:

1 Cup Sand
1 Cup Water
6 tsp psyllium husk

Mix together in a nonstick pan until boiling and stir out the clumps, cook for about 10 minutes until SLIMEY!

All natural ingredients and so much fun!

Ubbi Stacking Lighthouse, Trays, & Buckets

Stacking toys like this are so versatile and great for toddlers! Love this one since it’s beach themed and it nests so nicely in to itself. This was only the true “beach toy” I brought with us!

Pictured here are two metal trays, which were $5 each from target and we use these in play all the time! I love wooden sensory trays but these are great for messy place, light, and portable.

I found some little buckets from Hobby Lobby, brought a few spoons I scoured at a local supermarket which got a ton of great use each beach day!

Peg Dolls

I always see such cute peg dolls on etsy I decided to make some beach themed ones for our shore trip! I made a pirate due to go with our treasure play and a mermaid duo for our mermaid play!

Also you can see here I brought a little fishing net to throw down for an added element of fun!

I got the wooden peg dolls for under $4 for all of them, and used acrylic paints and paint pens to create them!

Play Dough Stamps

These are a thrifty craft! Just wine corks and wooden craft pieces that were under $5 from amazon! Easy enough for me to hot glue the wooden pieces to the wine corks. The girls loved these, and Q too! They took just minutes to make and I wasn’t worried about loosing them on the beach! Also something I wanted to factor in with what I was bringing!

Here are some of the invitations to play using just these few materials over days of fun!

Chickpea Mermaid Lagoon & Mermaid Play Dough Invitation to Play

Find the Buried Treasure Invitation to Play

Play Dough Star Fish and Dyed Rice Ocean Sensory Invitation to Play

Pirate Invitation to Play and Dyed Rice Lagoon

Farmhouse Girls Weekend

TJ & Q

“Good friends are like stars. You don’t always see them, but you know they’re always there.”
-Unknown

I was fortunate enough to make some amazing friends through college. I like to say fate had to do with meeting my husband, and fate must have come into play with meeting my friend Lizzie. Our bond was instantaneous, she is one of the kindest, loving, most selfless people I have ever met and some of my fondest college memories are with her, even just spending but one semester together and after that being hours apart from one another. I felt so lucky to have met a friend that I knew would be forever. I admire her selflessness and endless hard work to become a nurse and now with the state of world I admire her dedication and selflessness to be on the front lines. In case you can’t tell, I simply love this woman.

March 2018 while we caught up she shared a photo of a positive pregnancy test that literally made me yell our loud, i couldn’t even type the words fast enough that I was pregnant TOO. The conversation became the first of hundreds as we got to experience pregnancy together being due a little over a week apart from one another. We bonded through the ups, the downs, the fears, the excitement, the anticipation, found out we were both expecting boys, and after we welcomed our boys into the world, we bonded through the endless sleepless nights and the most common question being a new mom “am I doing this right?!”.

Now, these baby boys were to be friends whether they knew this or not! Being hours away we couldn’t just hop in a car and go to one another, so we made a plan.

So began the search to find a meeting point between us both.

This was when we found the most adorable two bedroom home on a farm out in Honey Brook, Pennsylvania on AirBNB. On a sunny June day I packed up Quinn & endless amounts of baby things and Lizzie packed up TJ & endless amounts of baby things and we headed to the farmhouse.

Every detail of this home was perfection, it was a perfect setting for a relaxing night together with the babies to introduce them to each other!

How many trips back and forth to the car to load in for a 1 night overnight with a baby?

The answer is… endless.

I feel like as many times as I’ve packed up Q for overnights, before he was 12 months old he still needed SO much stuff! I had a going list on my phone but still would forget things.

I always try to remind myself of the basics of absolute needs.

Baby Overnight Essentials!

First feeding essentials, Formula and bottles (with all the parts – one time on an outing i seriously forgot a bottle nipple and had to go back home – whoops)

Baby purees, spoons, bibs, since at that point he was eating some various purees along with the formulas! PUFFS – all the puffs.

Diapering: Diapers, Wipes, Diaper Cream

Sleeping: PJs with 2 backups, overnight diapers, sleepsack

Clothes: 5 maybe 6 Outfits – packing clothes for him is where I struggle the most. Will he be hot? Will he be cold? Will he spit up / poop through something? I always like to have more then enough back ups! I learned this the hard way on a transatlantic flight once with him – that you really can’t have enough back ups!

So we’re all settled in and have officially obsessed over every detail, so it’s time for the boys to meet!

Getting to meet TJ and seeing the two of them together made my heart melt into a million pieces. Now what to do in Honey Brook, PA? Our first stop was September Farm Cheese. This Amish run shop and restaurant was the perfect stop for some lunch and picking up something to make for dinner, and lots of cheese of course.

Cheese Shop – Done, Up Next, Cows!

The shop stood on the cutest farm with cows, naturally we had to walk over to show them to the boys. Almost a year later Quinn’s favorite animal noise is “Moo” – I wonder if he remembers..

We sat the boys side by side and they were just happy as could be. I love getting to capture some simple moments between them. Storm clouds were starting to roll in, so we headed back to the farmhouse so the boys could nap.

Nap time for babies, wine & cheese plate time for mamas

One of the best parts of this farmhouse, being that we were in Amish country, was getting to watch the horse and buggies fly by the kitchen window. We got the boys asleep in their pack and plays and sat back to reminisce and catch up.

Of course I wasn’t going to let their introduction go by without some matching onesies.

Did we just become best friends?
Yep!
– “Step Brothers”

I absolutely love their expressions in this one. Like MOM REALLY, ONE MORE PIC?!

Bath Time!

Little did we know, the best part of this farmhouse would be the double farmhouse sink which led to the cutest bath time I have ever experienced, and ever will experience. Bath time for an 8 month old is constant entertainment, these two could have stayed there for hours splashing and watching the water run!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_6662.jpg — I mean….. have you ever seen anything cuter?!

Before the roosters crow, we were up in the morning.

The beautiful sunlight shone in and Q was excited to get up! We put the boys in their Mama’s Boy onesies, because YES one more matching outfit for them, and relaxed as they played on the bed!

It’s memories like these I cannot wait to keep creating. To my amazing friend Lizzie on the front lines through this pandemic, you are a HERO, the most incredible role model to your son and the people around you, I could only aspire to be as selfless as you are every single day, and I love and admire endlessly.

Till the next girls weekend,

xX Morgan

Halloween Themed First Birthday Party

Quinn turned One! I still can’t believe it. Our sweet boy was born October 16th, 11 days before his due date of the 27th. Halloween is my absolute favorite and I was dreaming about his first birthday party since we found out his due date.

Invitations always take me the longest to choose.

It was the same way for our wedding. I was able to make easy decisions with what I wanted with the rest of the details but I find there are just too many invitation options out there! I knew I wanted something with cute Halloween elements and After endless scrolling I landed on the cutest design on Vista Print. I hand wrote out and drew little designs on all the envelopes for a personalized element.

Skeleton Lantern: TJ Maxx, Black Candlesticks : Spray painted collected antiques. Ceramic Black Cauldron: Michaels

The best part of a Halloween themed birthday party is I can start decorating earlier in the month for Halloween and the decorations will carry over to the party. We have two antique butlers in our living room were I love to change out the decor each season. I love using elements like cob webs to have the decor climb vertically to the gallery wall.

Tomb Stone: Michael’s, Black Skeleton Head: Michael’s, Fresh Pumpkins: TJs

You’ll see throughout my posts the seemingly endless amount of brass candlesticks. I chose from our collection of a few hundred about 20 to spray paint black to place around as Halloween decor. I absolutely LOVE how haunting spanish moss can be, i scored a bag on Amazon and scattered it throughout all the decorations.

Spell Sign: Homegoods, Fresh Pumpkins: TJs

Welcome to Quinn’s Pumpkin Patch!

I knew along with the Halloween fun I wanted to set up a small pumpkin patch in our backyard for the kids to play in. We had a large galvanized bin in the backyard that we used for ashes from our smoker that had rusted out on the inside. I decided to take that and use acrylic paints to make a “Pumpkin Patch” bin. My wonderful MIL picked up two large hay bales from a local lot near her and a smaller one which I used to pull apart to scatter hay on the ground. I picked up some large pumpkins from TJs for $3.99 a piece and some Pumpkin Pie sized ones for $0.99 each. My MIL got a few medium sized ones from the lot near her, so we had varying sizes in the pumpkin patch.

Quinn’s Costume: Pubert Addams from the Addam’s family. Ken’s costume, Gomex of course! My MIL sewed Q’s sweater to look just like the one the baby wore in the movie!

I may or may not have sat up the night before blowing up 100 balloons for this balloon arch.

The back of our house is white and pretty plain. Since it would be the backdrop of our party, I thought a balloon arch would be a nice way to decorate a large amount of space for a reasonable price. I bought the kit for $14.99 on Amazon.

For Quinn’s first birthday sign, this large gold frame has been used now time and time again. My husband and I found the frame before our wedding at a salvage yard in Philadelphia where they told us it was saved from a torn down museum basement. I used it for a Welcome sign at our wedding, for a good friends Bridal Shower, and weekly bump pictures while i was pregnant. It felt fitting to create a sign all about Q for the party.

The Menu

We had about 20 people and always cook everything ourselves. The roast pork we shredded and had rolls out with broccoli rabe and provolone – a Philly special.

The Chicken Marsala we made a day ahead, along with the Macaroni and Cheese and Caesar Salad dressing. My MIL made the roasted vegetables a day ahead as well! Cooking so much ahead of time and reheating day of made for seamless service!

Tablescape time

I started the birthday tablescape with a black lace spider web runner I found at hobby lobby for under $5! Then, the best pumpkin i’ve ever found – the large fantasy pumpking I scored at TJs in August- this was one of those pumpkins I wish could last forever! It also makes an appearance in my Thanksgiving post!

My friends dad had been cutting down trees in their yard and cut me a bunch of wood disk pieces that I sanded down and sprayed with clear finish and used to vary heights across the table. The plan for the dining room table was to have all the appetizers spread across. I have a two tiered wood server from Pier 1, adding height is great for adding more space for food.

Down the table I scattered more black spray painted candlesticks, twine pumpkins, fresh pumpkins, orange twinkle lights, skeleton hands (dollar store find!), wooden turned tea light holders. Appetizers included a cheese plate on a Ouija wooden cheese board from homegoods, Spooky 7 layer taco dip, PB & Nutella tea sandwiches, haunted crudite, and pumpkin pie dip. Outside we had scattered various chips and kid friendly snacks!

Boos and Booze

In our kitchen we have a small bar area that’s traveled across 3 apartments and now our home (Since the party, the bar has been replaced by a play kitchen for Q as it lost most of it’s use once Q started to reach everything on the shelves). I found little bottle labels from Target dollar area to add some fun to the bottles, the Boos and Booze banner was also found in the Target Dollar Area, my MIL brought the skeleton glasses, I found the “This could be Boos” cups at Homegoods, straws at Hobby Lobby, spider web from Target, and some large spiders from Michaels. This was a fun drink station that added some decor to our kitchen!

Trick or treat, smell my feet, please take something sweet to eat!

We set up a small candy station in the dining area with treat bags we got from hobby lobby, cauldrons from Target, and signs I made. I wanted to make sure the candy I chose to have in this open containers couldn’t be a possibly choking hazard to Q if anyone dropped anything and he saw it before I did!! I bought a black gauze sheet from JoAnn fabrics I used to drape on this table and some cob webs and black candlesticks to add some spook! I found the little chalkboard at Target a few years back and use it often for different parties!

Treat, no Tricks.

A birthday isn’t a party without some sweets station!

I love this rustic bar we found at Pottery Barn. While we don’t have a huge entertaining space, we added some bar stools and this table get used constantly when we host! I scored the monthly banner from Amazon, just to keep tying in the first birthday fun!

I chose to do some classic pumpkin sugar cookies that come cut- SO easy, made some gluten free brownies, picked up gluten free cupcakes from TJS, and made a spooky fruit plate complete with clementine pumpkins, banana ghosts, and vampire apple sunflower butter bites.

Spooky Tattoo Station & Photo Booth

Our playroom at the time didn’t have must furniture or toys so it was easy to clear a wall for a little photo booth area. I found the BOO balloons, hanging spiders, and black hanging fabric from Hobby Lobby. I purchased the black chalkboard flags which I also used for a “Happy First Birthday” sign in the dining room, and made the “Quinn” banner in here. I used tan and gold polka dot paper for the backdrop and got tombstones from the dollar store to hand across the bottom. I hung this up the day before the party and even kept it up through halloween! I found fun masks at Five Below and witch party hats at home goods and painted a vintage frame black to use as props.

Next to the photo wall I set up a Spooky Tattoo Station with tattoos I got at Hobby Lobby which was a HUGE hit for the kids and they all let covered ( sorry parents!!! )

The happy birthday banner I made and the hand from the movie made an appearance!

Baby Halloween Party Haunted Graveyard

Yes, you read that right. I know it’s a first birthday party but common how FUN is a little graveyard. This idea was 100% my MIL, the design, and execution was all her. I absolutely LOVED how it came out and felt it totally pulled the front of the house into the whole Halloween theme.

She found everything at the dollar store, complete with a “Beware” sign, skeleton parts, and even made little flower vases to put by each gravestone.

Let him eat cake!

Like the invitations, the cake funny enough become one of the things I obsessed over.

Mainly, we’re not cake people. Seriously though – i could never eat a sweet and never care, at our wedding we had cheese wheels stacked up to resemble a cake and “cut the cheese”. Our families don’t even love cake and a few of us at the party have gluten intolerance so wouldn’t eat it either. Cakes to be honest are expensive and I had a vision of how I wanted it to look! Come a few days before the party I finally made the decision, we must have a cake. I went to a few super markets and chatted options and prices and landed on a smaller local store McCafferys as I got to talk to the pastry chef then and there and she totally got my vision and was able to do it in time! I absolutely love how it came out and it was totally budget friendly at $35!

Now, I imagined the “cake smash” and him devouring the cake, but I know our son- calm cool and detail oriented and that’s exactly how i’d describe his cake eating experience.

This kid took his time and enjoyed every second of his piece of cake. It was absolutely hilarious watching him eat it, i’ve never seen a baby savor a piece of cake like that!

All the kids showed up in their Halloween best – and even some of the parents, I mean it IS a costume party after all!

The kids picked their pumpkins, filled their treat bags, and just like that his amazing first birthday celebration was over.

I absolutely loved planning every detail of this party.

It was a day filled with so much happiness and love, we feel so lucky to raise Q around such great family and friends.

Happy Halloween!

xX The Scott Cottage

DIY Dormer Window Fort

Unused window space turned cozy toddler fort!

We’ve lived in Scott Cottage for 5 years now. The upstairs space that the stairs led into I never thought much about. It was an empty space with frames and souvenirs on the shelves where it’s main purpose was a hallway to get to the master bedroom.

We renovated last year to add a bedroom upstairs and as the year has gone on the unused “loft” space has become a play area for Quinn!

It’s been a labor of love as I’ve continued to add to the space. My favorite project has been the dormer window fort up there.

Toddler + Fort = Pure Happiness

Once I knew I wanted to turn the space into a fort, my obsession turned to the fabric. I knew I still wanted the light to come into the room well, so I settled on a white patterned cotton print from JoAnn Fabrics. Then while at JoAnn Fabrics I purchased various fabric squares (Fabric Squares were on sale for $0.99 each!) as I knew I wanted to make a banner for the fort!

Step 1: Measure

I wanted the fort to be no-damage to the walls, so I assembled the fort with white tension rods (which was super easy!). Amazon had a great 5 pack in white which was the exact amount I needed in the measurements of 28″ to 48″. I used the tension rods to “mark up” where the fabric would be hung to measure. You’ll want to set up a tension rod as close to the top of the window as you can get and measure that space from wall to wall by the window and take note of the measurement, ours was 32 inches wide.

Then you’ll want to eye where you want the fort to come out to, place up a tension rod, and measure wall to wall to ensure the measurement matches the first one (it should, but just incase your space is uneven), again this was 32 inches wide.

Then you’ll want to measure the distance between those two tension rods, #1 and #2. These measurements will make up the fabric for the top portion of the fort. This distance was 35 inches long.

Then, where you’ve hung the second tension rod, you’ll measure the distance between that and the floor. This measurement will make up the front panels of the fort. This distance was 58 inches long.

Then you’ll take your measurements to decide how much fabric you’ll need for each portion. The top portion came to 32 inches wide by 35 inches long. I added 7 inches to the length so there would be fabric to become an overhang, bringing the top panel to 32 inches wide by 42 inches long.

For the front panel, this came to 32 inches wide by 58 inches long. I wanted to front panels to hang longer to drape a bit onto the floor so i added 5 inches to this measurement, bringing the front panel to 32 inches wide by 63 inches long. This panel would be cut directly in half, giving me two equal panels of 16 inches wide by 63 inches long.

All in all, I needed 4 yards total of fabric, which led to a little left over as well that I plan to do something with one day!

Step 2: Sewing!

So I cannot sew, it’s one of those things I absolutely wish I could do, and sure I took a sewing class in high school and made some PJ pants but no, I do not remember anything at all. I have a wonderful local friend Katelin with a toddler boy the same age. She graciously sewed the panels for me!

On the top panel, the one width edge would need to be sewed to have a tension rod space to go through, the other end would need to be pressed at where I wanted the overhang and I cut loops out of the fabric (picture below of the loops!) to be sewed along that line so the tension rob can go through and the remaining 5 inches of fabric would hang down in the front.

On the front panels the top width portion would need a tension rod space to go through on both of them. Using sharp fabric scissors I cut out the three panels (top and two front), leaving 1.5 inches extra fabric on each end to allow for the tension rod spaces and folding over to sew the edges. After all the pieces were cut, I remeasured and used an iron to press all the ends and marked off with pins where it needed to be sewed. I pinned sticky notes on each side to mark which to sew first, etc. The long ends needed to be sewed first, so you don’t sew closed the tension rod spaces. I found it really helpful to label everything since it all made sense in my head (hah!) and my friend was the one helping me sew it ! While our toddlers played and we caught up, she sewed all the panels and the loop holes onto the top panel

Step 3: Assemble

Time to put it all together. Starting with the top panel I threaded the tension rod through the one end and hung back at the window. Then i threaded the tension rod through the loop holes and hung back between the walls – looking so far so good!

Now, a third tension rod comes into play. On a third tension rod I threaded both front panels onto it and hung this tension rod directly beneath the outter tension rod with the loop holes, and just like that you have a fort with a top and front panels!

Step 4: Details!

This was the most fun part, adding all the details! I made a banner to hang across the front by tearing fabric bits from fabric squares I picked up at JoAnns and tying them onto a thick rope we had lying around the house. I absolutely love how it came out! By tearing the fabric pieces the ends were unfinished and looked more organic. I hung the banner across the front panel of the fort with command strips. Making the whole fort damage free to the walls!

I found some wall art at Hobby Lobby, one that says “Little Man Cave (No Girls Allowed)” and a cactus which matches some of the other decor in the room.

Comfy Fort = Cozy Toddler & Cats

The most important part of the fort is making it comfy. I found a backrest at Marshall’s – which is his absolute favorite thing and he drags it around the play area – we had two extra king size pillows that placed side by side length wise fit perfectly in the space, with white pottery barn pillow cases. While we were in Prague for the holidays we found a white sherpa rug at a christmas market that we had to have. All our Air BNBs had the softest rugs and pillows and Quinn was obsessed rubbing his face on them. It’s now a toss up who loves the rug more – the cats or Quinn. Then for final comfy touches we had an extra white textured pillow from TJ Maxx that got tossed in and a “wanderer” pillow from Crate & Barrel.

Naturally while laying in fort, you’re going to look up, which inspired me to add some twinkle stars. I found some warm ones on amazon that i strung between two more tension rods, it’s battery operated and has a remote so i don’t have to reach in to turn it on. Quinn now points up to them and says “Staaaa” at night so I can turn them on for him.

We love this addition to our playroom, especially being previously unused dormer window space. Living in a small home I love making use of every space available. Quinn loves to read there, we lay there together on rainy days and look up at the stars, and I often find the cats curled up in there sleeping.

The Year of 3 Thanksgivings.

2019, The year of 3 Thanksgivings

Why Three? Why not?!

Typically we do Thanksgiving x2, One at our home with my family from North Jersey and one in Philadelphia with his family. This year, with Q being 1 and having a few new friends in the area his age we threw a Friendsgiving into the mix!

Thanksgiving 1: Morgan’s Family

My husband and I love to host. I love the bustle around our dining room table, the glow of the candles, the smells, the wine flowing, and all things decorating! In anticipation leading up we’ll spend the time before talking about the menu and i’ll start dreaming up a tablescape. I love to start at our dining room table and go from there.

This year, while on a weekly shopping trip at Trader Joes (Where are all my trader Joes fans!?) the most perfect fantasy pumpkin caught my eye. It was August and they had just put them out (for $6.99!) and no way I was letting that one out of my sight. I love when items get multiple use, and it ended up the centerpiece at Q’s first birthday – more to come on that – and I knew i’d build the thanksgiving table from there.

Center Pumpkin : Trader Joes, Fresh Eucalyptus: Trader Joes, Small White Pumpkins: Trader Joes, Tea Light Candles: Pottery Barn, Green Gourd Garland: Michaels, Twine Pumpkins: Home Goods, Brass Candlesticks: Various Antiques, Silverware: Crate and Barrel, Gold Rimmed Water Glasses: Anthropologie, Steak Knives: West Elm, Napkins: Home Goods, Napkin Rings: Crate and Barrel, Wine Glasses: West Eilm, Dinner Plates: West Elm

Some of the 300 brass candlesticks we collected for our wedding, they typically make an appearance in each tablescape!

I knew the tones of the pumpkin would pair well with greenery, I had scored a lambs ear wreath from hobby lobby ($19.99 – on sale) and started with the pumpkin placed on top. I then ran a garland down the table and beneath the pumpkin that I had found at Michaels last season. With the true “center” of the table now covered, it was time to fill in the spaces. I always pick up at least 8 mini white pumpkins each season and scatter them around the house, they made a nice appearance in the scape. Some twine pumpkins from home goods ($3.99 for the bag – end of last season sale!) and a few twine balls scattered throughout. We collected 300 brass candlesticks for our wedding (more to come on that) and a few almost always make an appearance on the table. Mercury tea light holders from pottery barn are such perfect fillers to have on hand. They’re neutral enough to use in multiple centerpieces. I love pieces like these that can be used time and time again! The finishing touch was some fresh eucalyptus i bought from Trader Joe’s and put out morning of (They leaves dry up after about 2 days) – added bonus here is the lovely scent of eucalyptus – another sensory piece that reminds me of our wedding day ( it was everywhere! ). I even used the extra leaves to write on as place holders- Quinn even got his own place setting!

Bring on all the Green Bean Casserole!

Thanksgiving 2: Friendsgiving

Center Pumpkin: Farmers Market, Fresh Eucalyptus: Trader Joes, Small White Pumpkins: Trader Joes, Tea Light Candles: Pottery Barn, Twine Pumpkins: Home Goods, Brass Candlesticks: Various Antiques, Silverware: Crate and Barrel, Gold Rimmed Water Glasses: Anthropologie, Steak Knives: West Elm, Napkins: West Elm, Napkin Rings: Crate and Barrel, Wine Glasses: West Eilm, Dinner Plates: West Elm, Place Cards: Wood Disks from Hobby Lobby and florals from Michaels, Birch Wood Pieces: Home Goods

We’ve never done a friendsgiving before. Through our lives we’ve been lucky enough to both have friends scattered across the three states (PA, NY, NJ) and then some. Moving to a new town one snowy January day 5 years ago was to be completely honest scary, and exciting, and we stayed hopeful to connect with some local people. Life was busy, and work was busier and then one of the most beautiful unexpected things this year has brought with my son were new locally based friends, (mom friends!) Q has two buddies, Freddy and Caleb and they’re all born within a month of one another.

Any opportunity to switch up the tablescape I gladly take. I knew we’d have more company and would need to make room for the kids at the table so i scaled it slightly down and built out from the center choice of a smaller white pumpkin – I love white pumpkins!

I started with the burlap runner- my cats seem to know when I’m about to change the table up and they hop up and lay in the middle of the table- cat scape! Anywho, after the cats rubbed themselves all over the burlap runner it was time to build from the center. Down went the white pumpkin and I pulled the majority of the elements from our first thanksgiving scape over, just toned down the greenery garland and included a few eucalyptus leaves (now dried!) My favorite part of this set up were the place cards, I took wood disks from hobby lobby and first with a white paint pen wrote everyone’s names in white and then wrote over with a black sharpie which gave them a burned in effect! The kiddos even got their own place cards too!

Our best attempt at wrangling 3 toddlers for a picture

Side Note: Speaking of wrangling in the industry there are actual “child wranglers” that you can hire for kids shoots! They bring fun toys and the best energy you’d ever see – they’re incredible!

The Boys
They had a blast playing white Ken carved the turkey! My MIL got Q this play table from a craftsman in Maryland – just like how our dining room table is full of stories, now he’s writing his own.

Thanksgiving 3: Ken’s Family

A turkey we didn’t cook!
Ken did give his “secret” recipe to his dad (it involves a salt rub and a pizza stone!) but this was the perfect way to end the week of thanksgiving three ways!

Thanksgiving day was finally here, even though we’d been celebrating all week long. We started our morning watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade- and by watching I mean glancing at the TV every so often while Q toddled around the house.

After a relaxing morning we headed to mom-mom and pop-pop’s house in Philadelphia for a delicious dinner!

Earth Day Toddler Craft

We have an 18 month old egg-loving-toddler in the house.

His love for eggs is nothing new, whether hard boiled eggs, scrambled, or with cheese (of course his favorite way) he cannot get enough! Large amounts of eggs led to large amounts of egg cartons that I decided to set aside and save for a rainy quarantine day.

Quarantine has led to lots of crafts, and with earth day being last week I decided to have Quinn’s daily crafts inspired by using recycled materials which we have so much of!

This egg carton wreath is a super easy craft with minimal set up and clean up. I’ve found our 18 month old to LOVE exploring painting on different materials and shapes adding variety to just painting on paper.

Step 1: While toddler sleeps, cut up the egg cartons

I queued up some Netflix, laid out the egg cartons, grabbed some kitchen scissors and got to work. I started by cutting out all the egg cups and then shaping them into different “flowers” in varying shapes and sizes to add variety to the wreath. Once all the flowers were cut out I cut some smaller strips from the egg carton lids to roll up to use as some flower centers.

After cutting out all the flower parts I used the carton lids to cut various shapes of leaves.

Step 2: Paint, Paint, Paint

With some time left before Q typically wakes up I got started on painting the flowers with acrylic paints. I chose to stick with reds, pinks, and oranges because it is spring after all! I mixed some kid friends green tempera paint in various shades to have ready for Q when he woke up.

Q woke up and after some reading – he loves to read when he wakes up – we got to work on the painting together. While he painted the leaves and cardboard wreath backing green, I sat next to him and painted the flowers. We used this time to talk about colors, his favorite being green, and talk about recycling. Being an 18 month old when he was done painting, he signed “all done” and I knew he’d be ready for his favorite activity, play doh!

Step 3: Assemble

I decided to tackle this last step after Q went to sleep for the night. After a jam packed afternoon of painting, play doh, walking, reading, eating, he crashed pretty quickly for the night.

For this step I used a hot glue gun – i haven’t used one in SO long and forgot how fun they are to use- and set up the flowers I had painted and leaves Q had painted across the kitchen table.

Starting in one section I glued some leaves to the base to add some variety and flowers on top of those, ensuring to mix up the colors and styles as I went.

We had a great time making this and LOVE how it came out!

I love including Quinn in projects like this and Earth Day inspired our crafts for the rest of the week. Up next, a pine cone craft using pine cones we collected in the woods on a weekend picnic.

xX The Scott Cottage

DIY Christmas Tree Farm Family Pictures

DIY – Christmas Tree Pictures

Tis the season! Grab something plaid, your camera, and an axe of course. Where are we headed? It’s time to choose that family christmas tree!
…..Or be like us and just go for the pictures

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

“O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, How faithful are thy branches.”
Stuck in my head as I’m writing this, Christmas songs are so dang catchy!

So what brings us to a Christmas tree farm when we have an artificial poorly packed up in the basement from last year? Nostalgia, and Instagram of course!

The Instagram portion is what my husband was joking about the whole time, but we were there to spark some nostalgia and start some fun traditions for Quinn.

I wanted to document our little adventure, and wanted to share how to capture some great Christmas Tree farm images of yourselves!

The smell of pine always reminds me of my dad. Our Christmas Eve tradition was going and getting the Christmas Tree, we’d spend the evening giving it all the trims, unpacking the ornaments, and having him tell me stories of each one. He had his favorites which he’d always put up first and use the christmas lights to feature them just right on the tree. I’d watch him and play pretend in the branches like they were my new barbie dream house- i was tree obsessed!!!

The obsession didn’t change much as I got older, and I try to put our tree up as soon as possible. With the arrival of our son last year, we did something i promised myself i’d never do – we went artificial.

I know… i Know… is it really christmas without that real pine smell? How many Yankee Balsam Fir candles do we need to light to get the same sent? The answer is 3, perfectly placed around the house, do they smell the same? No. Is it close enough, yes!

Cameras out, ready set go! I love my Fuji XT-2. Every image on here was shot by me (or my husband with some tender love and guidance). I was so excited to get a new 16mm prime lens. It’s wonderful in low light and the distortion from the wide angle is so minimal! We arrived around 3pm – the magic hour in New Jersey in November, and we took pictures till the sun dipped over the trees in the distance.

The camera was set up on a tripod for the ones of the three of us, and I knew I’d want some options of framing with pine branches and to get those beautiful sunlight blown out moments. With Ken and Quinn in the frame, I’d adjust and set up till the lighting was just right and with the timer set on 10 sec, i’d run into the picture.

Not going to lie, it’s hard to run in at the right moment, not look super staged, align on what I’m doing, when Ken is doing, and what our toddler is doing.

The best part was being natural and giggling and following Quinn’s direction and we just went with it.

After capturing some shots of the three of us, we let Quinn explore the ground a bit- which usually means him finding something to put in his mouth, like a stick or some rocks, the glamorous life of a toddler! I switched to my 56mm lens and just let him do his thing. the 56mm is great for portraits and those close up moments.

Shot with Fuji XT-2 // Fujinon XF56mmF1.2 R APD

Up on Dada’s shoulders Q went and went I ran into the shot, Q reached down for a kiss all on his own! Shot with Fuji XT-2 // Fujinon XF16mmF1.4 R WR

Quinn’s fussy moments were the best, where Ken would end up tossing him in the air ( or upside down) – Not actually tossing him – but you know what I mean 😉 Shot with Fuji XT-2 // Fujinon XF16mmF1.4 R WR

I rarely have images of us all looking at the camera, more because i love the stollen moments, but we had just finished laughing and all looked at the camera at the right time and this ended up being one of my favorites, and a more “typical” family shot for us! Shot with Fuji XT-2 // Fujinon XF16mmF1.4 R WR

I love a good walking shot- who doesn’t! I played with the aperture to soften some of the trees I used to frame us and ran into the shot and told Ken to “act normal”! We actually only took two images like this and I love them both! Shot with Fuji XT-2 // Fujinon XF16mmF1.4 R WR

I loved this day with the boys. It brought back so many wonderful memories and made me suuuuuper tempted to grab and axe and chop down even a mini tree for the house! However word of reason won, the reason being we’re headed to Europe for a few weeks, and the poor little tree wouldn’t make it without watering – there’s always next year though…

I hope this inspires you to get outside with your camera this holiday season!