Sydnie first dance classes.

I decided to teach dance again this year mostly because of this cute little girl.....

So far she is loving it!!! If anyone has promise of being a dancer in our family, it is Sydnie. She gets so excited to go to class, and she pays such good attention. She is not one bit shy about trying all the dance steps I show her, as well as adding a few steps of her own for good measure. She definitely is the best dressed little dancer in her class. I have all of Brianne and Kaylee's old costumes and she has had fun wearing them to class. She looked so cute this last Monday, that I had to snap a few shots.

Here is a cute one I cropped to show her tap shoes, she looked so cute in them. I wanted a full length shot but she was pulling such silly faces I decided to crop it. I actually like the effect.

I decided to post this picture as well. We have been so excited about our grapes this year! We have had so many! Here is a picture of the purple ones. We have at least 4 different varieties. Green are my favorite, the purple ones taste too much like grape jelly to me. It has been fun to be able to just go out and pick a bowl full of fresh grapes this fall, I probably should make some grape juice but most likely I won't. I wish I inherited my moms canning and freezing genes but sadly they are lost on me. So instead I have this picture to remember them by, until next fall.

p.s. I updated my photo blog today as well check it out! I posted a link on my sidebar or you can just click on this one. http://jennhulsphotography.blogspot.com

My 365 Project

So I recently got a bug for photography, and like everything I do, once I start it sort of becomes an obsession until I get it figured out. I have always been interested in photography, but it all seemed too complicated and overwhelming. It seemed easy to put off, because I was busy doing other things. Finally, after talking to a friend, who is also into photography, I decided it was about time to learn how to use my camera that I have had for almost three years now. I have been experimenting with new techniques I have learned and wanted some place to display them. So I spent today designing a new site for my photos. I have heard of other photographers doing a 365 project and thought this would be fun to try. You are suppose to take one picture a day for a whole year. It is a great way to build a portfolio and improve your picture taking skills. So here it is http://jennhulsphotography.blogspot.com/ I hope you will check it out. I really would like to have a whole group of sites like mine linked to each other, so we can share photo's and ideas and knowledge, kind of like a photo club online. Let me know if your interested!!!

Love this girl!!! This is just one of several pictures featured on my new site.

Fall Craft Show

I've been meaning to post these pictures for awhile. The Mini Bazaar actually started its fall show last week, so we are already into the second week of a 6 week show. I thought I better quit putting off posting these pictures. Here is what has been keeping me busy for the last month.

whoops, I didn't realize until I uploaded this picture that the H had been turned funny. Oh well you get the idea.

I thought these would make good baptism gifts. They are cuter than they look in the picture, they have a glass like overlay on the front, kind of like those cute necklaces you see everywhere.

Same thing with these. They also have that glass like overlay on them.

I took some pictures of the Idaho Falls and Salt Lake City Temples and mounted them with a finish that looks like an oil painting. You can't really see it in these pictures, but they turned out really nice. I think I am going to apply the same affect on my next set of family photos. Not only does it make them look better it also protects them as well.

These have been my big sellers. Only a week and I am almost sold out. I applied the same coating as my temple pictures and they turned out better that I even expected. I did quite a few different sayings but only pictured a few.

These turned out fun. I had a lot of fun working with photoshop on these. It allowed me to do some fun lettering with more detail than I can get with vinyl lettering.

Another version. I've got this one hanging on my mantel.

In addition I also did a bunch of flowers for your hair as well as some cute headbands. I didn't take any pictures. But an example is the one on Nancy's baby Chloe's head. I mostly did them for older kids and grown ups but am working on doing an adjustable headband for babies.

Chloe Jackson

Nancy had her baby a few weeks ago, and when I was in Idaho last weekend, I got to practice my photo taking skills on my new niece. I have been trying to learn how to use the manual settings on my camera. I still haven't got them completely figured out, but it really helped make these pictures turn out a lot better than what I have done in the past. I was able to adjust how much light I let into the camera, so even though the lighting wasn't the best, I was still able to take some pretty good pictures. Normally, I would have had to use the flash and I just hate what the flash does to pictures.

Here is the announcement I made for Nancy, with some of the favorite pictures I took.

Obviously, this was one of my two favorites, since it was featured prominently in the announcement. I was excited to finally take a picture that I didn't have to edit the heck out of to make it look decent.

Here is my other favorite. Again not much editing, just a little in the background. I had to make it darker, because the cloth we used to bundle her in was a little see through.

I just loved the composition on this one.


Here is a fun overlay I tried. The picture was cute without the editing, but I thought this technique turned out kind of cool.

This one I decided to crop and put on a background, because it just wouldn't crop the way I wanted it to otherwise.



This one I put a old paper overlay on. Its kind of hard to see the effect with it so small but if you click on it you can see the detail of the effect.


Here is one more editing technique I was experimenting with. I like it, but I like the original better I think.

Here is just one more, I love her face, so sweet, but the lighting wasn't the best. When I cropped it in close it went a little grainy. So I decided to go with the grainy look, and applied the old paper overlay, to make it look like we did it on purpose.

Trip to Idaho

I had to set up for my craft show so we went to Idaho this last weekend. I set up for my show most of the day Saturday, (I hope to post some pictures soon). Then on Sunday I took pictures of Nancy's new baby, (I am still in the editing process but will be posting those pictures soon too.) We went to the Eastern Idaho State fair on Monday. We have never gone on Labor day before, now I know why, it was so crowded. You even had to wait in line to go to the bathroom, we managed to have fun anyway.

Before the fair, we went up to Grandma and Grandpa Huls house. The girls had a good time exploring on Grandpa's farm. Here is Kaylee with an egg she found in the hen house. Shaun scrambled them up later and I had a bite out of curiosity, people say fresh eggs taste so much better. My tongue couldn't taste the difference.

Grandpa's pig just had babies about a month ago. The piglet screamed so loud when Grandpa took it out of the pen that Sydnie was a little nervous to pet it. She finally came around.

I just thought this was kind of funny. Lu Lu is so used to being man handled by these girls that she doesn't even try to resist anymore. She just patiently held on to the trike while Kaylee wheeled her around for a good 5 min.

Here are the girls at the fair, one of the horse stalls also had dogs for sale, they were letting people hold them. John and Natalie and boys are in the background. We had fun following each other around the fair. The girls always like spending time with their cousins.