Mini Font Collection: The Months!

A new mini-font collection is here! Let me introduce you to... KB Fonts: THE MONTHS!

This is a set of 12 new fonts, one for every month of the year :)

If you have my KB Fonts Complete Collection {which you can find here} be sure to check your "My Purchases" page on TPT to download the newbies.

Here they are:

Love to you from me!

XO K

Just Call Me a PhoBLOGrapher!

Hi friends :)

A few days ago I posted all about my new office. I was literally shocked that I got about 6 emails asking me what kind of camera I use. Imagine that, me a photographer?! HA! I was pretty excited though because I have been working my tail off to learn how to use my camera and take better photos. 

Let me just start by saying that I am NOT a professional photographer and that I am well aware that my pictures are not the best and certainly not professional quality. I have just recently begun learning how to work my camera in manual mode and I have nowhere to go but up from here :) I am having fun taking pictures and will share with you a few tips that I am learning along the way!

Here is my beautiful camera. It is a Canon Rebel T3. It is a Digital SLR camera. It is certainly not the most expensive one out there, but it works perfectly for what I need it for. If you are going to purchase one, I do recommend spending a bit more for the Canon Rebel T5. It has 18 megapixels while the T3 has 12.2.  More megapixels basically means that you will have more detail in your images. Be careful though, because more megapixels does not always mean it will capture better images. There are a few other differences as well, but I won't get into the technical mumbo jumbo. To sum it up, the T3 is fabulous for me and I love it. It is wonderful quality for the price. 

I have had my camera for about 2 years now and honestly haven't been using it as more than a 'point and shoot' for most of that time. This summer I finally decided that I would try to actually understand my camera and utilize the features and awesomeness that it has to offer. I started by taking a 3-hour DSLR for Beginners Class at my local photo store, CreativePhoto. At first I was like: woah, this is hard. And then it all started to click (pun intended) for me little by little. By the end of the class, I was much more confident with my skills. It does take practice though and I am still practicing every day to get better. I am not all that good right now, but hope to improve!

LENSES

The Rebel T3 is just the camera body.

There are many lenses that you can purchase to create different styles of photographs. 

Here are the lenses that I currently own:

Quick tip: see that blurry background? It is called "bokeh." I have heard it pronounced like "boca", but apparently the correct way to pronounce it is "bo-ke" bow (like in your hair) and ke (like at the beginning of the word kettle). Who knows. Anyway, the important thing to know is that when the photograph is focused on something with an out of focus background, the blurry background is called bokeh.

Most often when you buy the T3, it will come in some sort of bundle and will include the Canon 18-55 mm Standard Zoom Lens (the top picture). The numbers (18-55) are called the focal length and basically tell you how much your camera will zoom in and out. This was the only lens I had for a long time because I really didn't know any different. I've found that this is a great lens for everyday use.

The second lens is a Canon 75-300mm Telephoto Zoom Lens. I don't use this one very often. It is great for taking photos of things that are far away because you can really zoom in on it.

The last of my lenses is my favorite. The Canon 50mm lens. It is called a prime lens which means that it does not zoom in and out at all. It is my favorite lens to get the bokeh effect with.

I seriously want a few more lenses but MAN are they expensive. I currently have a wide-angle lens on my wishlist :)

There are three important things that you need to know in order to make the most of your camera: aperture, ISO, and shutter speed. I will not even pretend to go into all of the specifics about them because I am still learning myself. I did find some amazing tutorials on Kevin & Amanda that have been extremely helpful to me. I seriously suggest taking a class first though because it can be pretty hard to understand things without having someone explain things first. At least it was for me :)

Here are some awesome tutorials they have:

A Quick Guide to Understanding Your DSLR Camera

What Settings Should I Use: Part 1 ... Part 2

What Lens Should I Use?

Here are few of my favorite snapshots that I have taken recently:

Here's hoping I get better!! The thing is, I'm trying not to stress about whether they are 'professional quality' or not because let's face it, I'm just a regular kindergarten teacher using a regular camera taking pictures of regular stuff.  It's all good though because it's just so much fun to take pictures!

Share some pictures with me :)

I have a few new places to be found.

Did you notice the new tabs across the top?!

Click on those to see new things about me! 

Also, can you come stalk me please? That would be great.

Love you all!

XO K

MY NEW OFFICE REVEAL! EEEEEEEK!

OOOOOOH my goodness. It's finally done. I did it I did it! I finished my office and I am completely obsessed with it. I am not even kidding, I sat in there for like hours yesterday for no apparent reason. I didn't even have any "officey" things to do, but I just love being in that space. It makes me feel creative and happy. Are you ready to see it? I mean reeeeaaaallllyyyy ready?! Ok, here's the big reveal (resisting the urge to scream "move that bus!")

The view from the door:

My favorite part of the entire room is the chalkboard wall. I am soooo happy with how it turned out. Here's a little play by play of how it was created. I bought three 30 oz containers of Rust-Oleum Flat Black Chalkboard Paint. I ended up only using 2 for the entire wall, but am glad I have the extra for other details around the room. I poured the paint in a paint tray and then just rolled it on like regular paint. It is thicker than regular paint so be sure to stir it reeeeeeally well before pouring it into the tray. The paint can get a bit splashy when rolling (I ended up with little black dots all over me) so I suggest using a paint roller that is thicker and more dense instead of the cheapy kind. I painted one coat completely and let it dry for only about 30 minutes. The container says to wait 24 hours between coats, but I am super impatient and was like nooooo thanks, so I waited 30 minutes. It was dry to the touch at that point so I figured it would be fine anyway. I painted another complete coat and let it dry for another 30 minutes. At that point it was looking pretty solid but I decided to give it one more coat, making it 3 total (in a span of like 2 hours). After painting, I let it dry completely for a few days.

After it was completely dry, I was ready to write. When you first paint a chalkboard wall you have to do something called "priming". If you skip this step, then basically everything you write on your board will be permanent.  To prime, you just lay a piece of chalk on it's side and cover the entire wall with chalk. Rub it in pretty good and then erase it with a rag or eraser. I used a car wash mitt that looks like this:

It worked really well surprisingly. I also used a swiffer sweeper pad to collect all the extra dustiness.

Finally, I was ready to write and OMG I was so excited. I mapped everything out first. I found some of my favorite quotes and inspirational thoughts to keep my space creative. I made a powerpoint document with each of the quotes on a black background and played around with what I would want them all to look like. For example:

I'm actually pretty sad because I ran out of room and couldn't fit that one up there so I figured I would share it here. Once I had my little mock ups of what I wanted to do, I just chose spots for things and free-hand wrote each quote. I was careful to be sure the quotes didn't run into one another. I was quite surprised with how well it went, considering it was all free-hand. I was sure it would be horrible hahaha

Here's how it looks from a few different angles:

 

The view from my desk:

Some of my favorite parts of the wall:

Let's talk about the rest of the room! I worked long and hard to find the perfect pieces for every nook and cranny. Found some pretty fab bargains along the way too!

This chair is from Ikea and is called "Muren". This chair has a very funny story. So I was at Ikea with my family. My dad and my sister were pretty sick of shopping since we had been there all day, but me and my mom were still trucking along. They took a little resty on some chairs while we hit up the clearance "as-is" section. I was in the market for an awesome chair but had no luck so far. As we're walking through the clearance, I see these two women looking at this chair. They were sitting in it, looking it over, reclining it (yes, it reclines! score!). They asked 3 employees questions about it. I was staring at that beauty from across the room and just knew it had to be mine. I whisper to my mom and we pretty much hawk them for like 20 minutes. We pretended to be looking at this beautiful cabinet (cough, piece of junk, cough) next to the char and contemplating whether we should get it. Heh heh. So finally the women said, "Well I'm not sure if we can get it today, we didn't bring the right vehicle. Let's walk around and think about it and come back in a bit." AAAAH! The second they walked away we picked that guy up and put it on a cart. Rolled it away right and it was mine. Mwa ha ha! Maybe I should feel bad about that, but I don't. I'm sorry, but they left it there and it was free for the picking. So we picked, and it was amazing. It was 50% off just because it had been a floor model and was in perfect condition. I just Febreezed the **** out of that guy when we got home. Yes please :) 

So I knew I had to have a pop of color to break up the black, gray, and white. I thought teal would be perfect! I looked allll over for pillows and finally found the perfect ones at Tuesday Morning. That little place is adorable and full of unique things at great prices. I also snagged the little basket in the picture below. The white table is one of my favorite things. It was from HomeGoods. It is actually an umbrella holder, but I loved the look of it so I flipped it upside down and am using it as as table. Cool right?! My kindle case just happened to be teal so it matches perfectly :)

These cute letters are actually stamps that I bought from Hobby Lobby. I love the look of them. The sand timer and candle holder are both from HomeGoods and the tiny clock is from Pier 1.

I am OBSESSED with my printer stand. It is from Ikea and is called "Alex". It was super reasonably priced and easy to assemble. The quality is fantastic. I have all of my colored paper sorted in each drawer. Drawer 1: regular white paper, Drawer 2: white cardstock, Drawer 3: colored cardstock, Drawer 4 & 5: assorted colored paper, Drawer 6: printer cartridges and assorted printer things.

Of course there had to be a special spot for the babies:

This adorable galvanized mail holder is from Target. It makes me so happy :) I also painted the light switch plate with chalkboard paint. I'm planning to write something on there at some point.

CHECK OUT this addddddorable trash can. Is it not the cutest little thing?? It is from HomeGoods also. I love how oscar-the-grounchy it is.

Cute little industrial fan and "bee boxes" are from HomeGoods!

My sweet little chair :) Adorbs. Snagged this guy at ikea also. It is the Skruvsta!

My sparkly lamp is the perfect girly touch to balance the industrial pieces throughout the room. Found it at Tuesday Morning!

MY HEADQUARTERS:

This is where the magic happens people.

Isn't that the cutest?

And my final touch is the smell. Literally my FAVORITE smell in the entire world is the Mahogany Teakwood candle from Bath and Body Works. Oh my word, it smells amazing. This candle will make the entire room smell good.

VOILA! I did it! This is my new happy place. I want to live in this room. It makes me feel inspired, creative, and relaxed so mission accomplished!

I want to see your happy place too! Where is your favorite place to be?!

Love you all!

XO Khrys