New Blog!

I have created a new blog to feature my Etsy page and tutorials! I will soon be posting about my travels abroad and more! Check it out: http://xoxokaitlynmarie.wix.com/xoxo

xoxo, Kaitlyn Marie

DIY Candy Jar

What you will need:
 - Glass Jar with top
- Pot (I used a plastic flower pot, but if you want something more sturdy get a terracotta pot)
- Glass Marble or wooden ball
- Black spray paint
- Chalkboard spray paint (optional)

I wanted to make my mom something special for her birthday, something she would use all the time, something that was not materialistic, and something that she would absolutely love! Her all time favorite candy is Hershey's kisses. So I made a trip to the dollar store and bought a jar with a screw on top and a flower pot. Yes, I spent $2 on this cute gift- granted I had the marble and spray paint at home. (I sadly don't have any before pictures to show because I was in a rush to make this item)

I spray painted the top of the jar black and I used chalkboard spray paint for the flower pot. This will give her a chance to write anything on the base for any occasion.

When everything was dry, I hot glued the glass marble onto the top of the jar and hot glued the jar to the flower pot. **Make sure you let the hot glue dry**

I then added in the Hershey's kisses and wrote on the base with chalk!

Voila! Here is an adorable gift for only $2! I hope you enjoyed this diy and if you have any questions, please ask below!

xoxo, Kaitlyn Marie

Double exposure using Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop is just the neatest gadget. I'm still a beginner at it, but I fell in love with it when I saw double exposure "how to" on Pinterest. I created a free account and I have a 30 day free trial on Adobe's Photoshop. The link is here: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html

To begin, you need a photo starting from the waist up facing the front or side, have good lighting, and not too much commotion going on in the photo. **The background doesn't matter much since you are later going to paint it white or black.

When you find your photo, you will want to paint your background a certain color. **My favorite is white, but you can choose from a variety of photos** Use your brush tool and select your desired color.

 Then you will need to change the type of brush you are using to change the softness. Select Hard round Pressure Opacity and then change your size. **Make sure your opacity is at 100%

Outline the edges of your picture and get as close to the body outline as possible.

Then change your brush to the soft round and select the size. **Make sure your opacity is at 100%

Get closer and closer until you fill in all the desired space. It should look this the picture below. **I had to crop off some hair on my back to make the background completely white.

When you have finished filling in your background (which takes a lot of time and patience), find a photo to create the double exposure effect. I chose a sunset and I chose a NYC picture off the internet. For a colored picture, insert in your desired photo and expand the sides to make it fit the original photo and click the check mark.

You then want to send this photo to the back to click on the layer menu > Arrange > Send to back.

Afterwards, you need to make sure your first picture is selected and select the blending mode. Screen or lighten are your best choices for the double exposure effect, but you can always mess around with the others.

To position your second photo, make sure it is selected, and then click the move tool to drag it to your desired location on the screen.

Voila! You have successfully created the double exposure effect! If you want a black and white photo (like the NYC one), you have a couple more steps, but don't worry it's VERY easy!

Complete the steps above. When you have finished, click on the layer menu > New Adjustment Layer > Black and White. Click the OK button and you can adjust the hues. **I usually just leave them the same**

There you have it! I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask below!

xoxo, Kaitlyn Marie

DIY Floral Crown

Model: My beautiful sister

For a photo shoot today, I was inspired by Pinterest (as always) and made a floral crown. I was in a rush to make this so I don't have as many photos as I would like.

What you need:
- Flowers (I used about 20-25 flowers on my crown)
- Floral wire
- Floral tape
- wire cutters

To start out I made a trip to the dollar store and bought 5 bouquets of flowers and floral wire. Sadly they did not have any floral tape so I had to improvise with tape I had at home-- frog tape (which is for painting...oops).

When I got home, I measured the size of my head and wrapped the floral wire around twice so the base of my crown was sturdy. I then cut each individual flower off leaving about a 1 inch stem.**If you have smaller flowers, take a few and wrap them with the floral tape before taping them to the crown.

I then took each flower and taped it to the crown and continued until the entire crown was filled with beautiful flowers.

The photo shoot was a success and the crown was beautiful! The plus was that it took about 30 minutes! It was an easy DIY at a very low price!

Model: Alana Hughes. So artsy!

  

The reason behind the floral crown was to play around with the double exposure technique in Photoshop. I took beautiful sunsets and city lights and mixed it in with the original photo. It's amazing what Photoshop can do! If you want to learn how to create this effect in Photoshop, click this link: http://xoxokaitlynmarie.blogspot.com/2015/06/double-exposure-using-adobe-photoshop.html

I hope you have no trouble while making your floral crown!

xoxo, Kaitlyn Marie

DIY Seashell Letter

I was inspired by Pinterest to do this beach themed DIY. This fall I am going to a university by the beach so I was thrilled to start this project

I first bought a "K" from Michael's around $3 (with coupon). But if you don't want to spend money, you can always cut your letter out of cardboard or a shoebox. The letter was a brown cardboard color to begin with so I decided to paint the letter white to make my "K" look fuller.

I painted all around my letter and only did one coat because I would have seashells covering the majority of it. **Make sure you paint the insides of your letter**

**Note: Paper towels are not a good idea to paint behind

Next I laid out all the seashells I have collected over the years and let me tell you, I had so many to choose from. I mean buckets of seashells. I'm glad they finally came to good use! Then I started planning what seashells I wanted where. I also added (fake) pearls from an old necklace, little diamond embellishments I had laying around the house, and an old K from a necklace I never wore/will ever wear again (I thought it added a little personality to my already personalized letter). When I liked how everything looked, I hot glued everything down. **Try to pick seashells that are sort of flat so it is easier to hot glue**

I started on one side and hot glued everything, then moved to the other so I wouldn't have a million little seashells moving every time I tried to pick one up and glue it back down. This also gave me an excuse to take a break and have family time.

This little decoration adds a personal touch to a room and is super cute because it gives you a chance to use those seashells sitting in a bucket at home and who doesn't love the beach? I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and I hope you enjoyed making this cute and simple DIY! If you have any questions, feel free to ask below.

xoxo, Kaitlyn Marie

Graduation then & now using Adobe Photoshop

I recently graduated from High School and wanted to create something for my parents since they have been the biggest help through thick and thin. I had an old preschool graduation photo that my parents just raved over on how it was the cutest thing. So it occurred to me that I should recreate the preschool photo and somehow incorporate it in the recreated picture.

Photoshop is just the neatest gadget. I'm still a beginner at it, but I fell in love with it when I saw double exposure "how to" on Pinterest. I created a free account and I have a 30 day free trial on Adobe's Photoshop. The link is here: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html

In my photo, I held up my diploma and used Photoshop to insert the old preschool photo in. Once you download Photoshop, you want to open up your recent photo and click on the quick selection tool. This allows you to select the area you want to delete. **This is the tricky part so be careful when selecting** If the area you want to delete is a solid color, use the magic wand tool to help you out!

This is what your outline should look like

Once you have selected your area and have perfected it, hit the delete button. **Note that your selected area will not delete if your background is locked, so make sure you click the lock to make it disappear 

 

Now you can insert your desired photo into Photoshop and position it so it covers the area you want to replace. Once you have adjusted it, click the check mark at the top. **Make sure you don't have any of the gray and white boxes showing**

For the final step, you must send the second photo to the back. To do so, click on the Layer menu > Arrange > Send to back

Voila! You have successfully recreated your photo and incorporated it into one another! Since this was a present for my parents, I bought a picture frame with a white outline and wrote with a black sharpie a quote from a song I was serenaded to as a child ("Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle). I hope this project was a success and if you have any questions, feel free to ask below!

xoxo, Kaitlyn Marie