Yosemite – Vernal Falls, Yosemite Falls, Camping shirts + Free Stencils

Jun 7

They're kind of like Family Reunion shirts, but all different and specifically for camping! I love all of our shirts! Some of the designs I made myself, others I borrowed. From thee interr-net.
*stay wild

Have you ever made your own graphic t-shirt before? They're actually really easy! I've made quite a few now. The droid shirts I made for Star Wars Day might be my favorite and are definitely my kid's favorites!
click here to see my "mermaids have more fun" tee!

So what do you need to make these shirts?

pre-washed t-shirt
printer
freezer paper
piece of cardstock
camping stencils
*click here for the stay wild stencil
X-Acto Knife
cardboard
fabric paint (or acrylic paint + fabric medium)
foam brush
iron

First, print out your stencil on the matte side of the freezer paper. Feel free to adjust the sizing as needed. If you tape the freezer paper to a piece of cardstock, it goes through your printer smoothly.

Use the X-Acto knife to cut out the stencil, keeping any of the "embellishment" pieces.

Lay out your tee on a flat surface and slide a piece of cardboard inside the t-shirt so that the paint won't leak through. Cut a second piece of freezer paper the size of your stencil and slide that, shiny-side-up on top of the cardboard. Center your stencil on the t-shirt with all of its embellishment pieces (matte-side-up) and iron. The stencil will adhere to the freezer paper beneath the layer of fabric so you can dab the fabric paint easily.

Use your foam brush to gently dab the fabric paint to the t-shirt, over the stencil. For dark-colored t-shirts, apply 2-3 coats. For lighter colored t-shirts, one coat should be enough.

Allow to dry and follow the directions on the fabric paint for the rest! It usually asks you to let it dry, then use the steam setting on your iron to set the fabric paint into the shirt.

And voila! Your shirt is done and you are ready to post a million pictures on instagram of you and your cute family camping!

insert "laughing so hard i'm crying" face emoji here!

Alexa falling asleep while in the backpack is one of my favorite parts of this day, but seeing all the blue jays and being about 10 yards away from a deer were really cool, too! Sorry. No picture of that.

love my hunk of a husband!

The Vernal Falls hike is my second favorite! It's a little more difficult than Sentinel Dome, but not too bad. You can hike all the way up to the head of the falls and then beyond to the Upper Falls, but I've only ever been half way.

Yosemite Falls is more like a walk. We did with our double stroller. Didn't get a good pic of us in front of the falls because there were a ton of people and Barrett wasn't a fan of the water spray! Haha!

By-the-way, traveling with friends is the way to go! Not only did we have a great time with them, but you've also got someone to trade photography services with! Thanks for getting pics of our family for us, Ryan!

We love Yosemite!!!

Yosemite – Favorite Pictures

Yosemite – Travel
Yosemite  – Sentinel Dome and Glacier Point
Yosemite – Vernal Falls, Yosemite Falls, Camping shirts + Free Stencils

Susan is a birth photographer/videographer serving Mesa, Arizona and surrounding cities including Chandler, Gilbert, Queen Creek, Scottsdale, and Tempe. Considering a photographer for your birth? Contact Susan for EDD availability.

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May the fourth be with you!

Happy Star Wars Day! We will be spending today recovering from an AWESOME birthday yesterday and watching Star Wars and fast-forwarding through the parts that are too scary.

Aren't these little droid shirts the cutest? We've never really gotten into Star Wars Day before, but we introduced Chelsea to the movies and she loves them! So, Star Wars shirts were a must! I found a bunch of stencils on Pinterest and adjusted them to fit my needs.

Wanna make them? Click the links below to get the stencils, print them off on the matte side of some freezer paper (you can tape the freezer paper to some cardstock so it will run through your printer smoothly), use an x-acto knife to cut out the black on the stencils (keep the white "embellishment" pieces), and use this tutorial for the rest. I purchased the girl's solid colored shirts from Old Navy and just used one of Barrett's white onesies from Carter's. On the girl's shirts, I used the Tulip brand fabric paint and for Barrett's I used the Plaid brand (Marigold color).

BB-8 // original artwork

R2D2 // original artwork

C3P0 // original artwork

The documents are 8.5x11" so they'll print easily from your computer. Feel free to adjust the size to meet your needs!

Thanks for stopping by! And may the force be with you! Always!

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2016 free calendar!

If you haven't already printed off your calendars for this year or haven't found one that you just love yet, never fear! I have created one for you!

I love this calendar because it's kind of like Instagram and, although the calendars with boxes are helpful so I can write things down that need to happen during the week, it's nice to have one that I can glance at, just to see the dates.

So here's what you do: Click here to view and print all the 2016 months, choose your favorite photos, and resize them to be 1350 x 1350 pixels. Then, paste them at the top above the month and days (if you don't have your own photo editing program, pic monkey is a great, and also FREE photo editing site)! Pretty easy. Here's an example:

When you print them off at home (or at the store), print them off 5x7 and then decide how you want them displayed. I hopped on over to Walmart and purchased a small clipboard to keep them all together and display them, but they would be cute as a banner, or even just tacked on a cork board! The whole point is that you have a custom (free!) calendar with sweet photos/reminders from the past year.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Tutorial: Mermaids have more Fun + free printable

Oh hey! If you're popping by from Kallie's blog, Life Through a Lens, thanks for coming! If not, hop on over there to see what I had to say to her readers and get to know Kallie a bit!

Okay, so a little-known fact about me is that I kind of have a thing about mermaids. If I had three grand to drop, you’d better believe I’d buy one of these babies. So it’s not much of a surprise that one of my first ever pins on Pinterest was probably the one of the t-shirt with the phrase “Mermaids have more fun” stamped on front with a sea star and the sea shell standing in for a couple of letters. I’ve been wanting that shirt for a long time but haven’t been able to find it *for a decent price* anywhere!

So you know what that means…

TUTORIAL TIME!

 hat: forever 21 // shirt: me // pants: gap (purchased from plato’s closet, similar here) // flannel: charlotte russe (old) // bracelets: a lil’ bit of fancy

You will need:

“mermaids have more fun” printable via susanstange.com
t-shirt (purchased from hobby lobby, size xl)
fabric paint
foam brush
freezer paper
x-acto knife
iron with steam setting
*check directions on fabric paint
piece of cardboard

First, print off my “Mermaids have more Fun” graphic for free-fitty-free! My graphic is 6x6 inches, but I printed it out on an 8.5x11” piece of paper.

Trace the printable onto the matte side of some freezer paper (the side that is NOT shiny/waxy) and place that on top of the piece of cardboard. Use the X-Acto knife to very carefully trace and cut out the letters (keep letter and sea creature interiors).

Cut another piece of freezer paper the same size as your printable freezer paper. Place a piece of cardboard inside your t-shirt with the freezer paper face up (shiny/waxy-side up) on top of the cardboard. Place your cut out freezer paper printable on top of your t-shirt in the position you want and make sure it’s aligned with the freezer paper underneath. Then iron the freezer paper printable (no steam) on to your shirt. The printable freezer paper will fuse to the freezer paper underneath the t-shirt without sticking to it permanently. Place the letter and sea creature interiors in their proper positions and iron them too. Make sure the freezer paper is securely fused to the t-shirt (we don’t want any fabric paint leaking where it’s not supposed to)!

Following the directions on your fabric paint, use a foam brush to dab the paint onto your t-shirt, filling in the letters and sea creatures. The directions on my fabric paint then told me to let the paint dry for a time. Then I removed the freezer paper and used the steam setting on my iron to “set” the paint onto my shirt (per directions on my fabric paint bottle).

And voila! I finally have my Dream Pinterest shirt!

All photos are c/o Mariasha Rowland Photography

One day, when I am a millionaire, I will buy one of those mermaid tails!

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Lift the Goblet of Gratitude

“There is one thing we can do to make life sweeter, more joyful, even glorious.

We can be grateful.”

“It might sound contrary to the wisdom of the world to suggest that one who is burdened with sorrow should give thanks to God."

"But those who set aside the bottle of bitterness and lift instead the goblet of gratitude can find a purifying drink of healing, peace, and understanding.”

"This type of gratitude transcends whatever is happening around us. It surpasses disappointment, discouragement, and despair."

-Presient Uchtdorf, April 2014 General Conference

“Grateful in Any Circumstances”

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Work, Pray, & Play

Ever since Alexa entered our family nearly three months ago, I’ve had a hard time attaining balance in my life. I’ve been learning how to decide which child needs me first when they’re both asking begging screaming for attention, and I’ve been trying so hard to make sure that there’s enough time in the day for “me time” and “me and husband” time.

Honestly, it’s been a struggle, but I feel with each day, I’m getting better at my balancing act. I put aside my sewing project for a little while and decide to spend just a little more time playing with Chelsea. I make sure that I read my scriptures in the morning and say a prayer to start the day off right. I think some more about figuring out my routine for working out ;)

Then, on the days where I feel like I’ve been on complete survival mode, I’m glad that at the end, I can get down on my knees and thank the Lord that there’s another one tomorrow, because in the end, I’m not perfect, and I never will be, but if I do my best to find that place in my life where I feel peace, I know that eventually, I will get there, and I’ll have earned it.

How do you find your balance?

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Hard is Good

The hardest part about the transition from one child to two is learning how to juggle more than one. I've learned in this transition that if Alexa is crying, I am much quicker to impatience, which is not good news for a two-year-old. I've had to learn to either take care of Alexa first, or put her in her bassinet and let her cry for a minute or two while I take care of Chelsea (depending on situations and needs).

There was one day a week ago where things were just really, really hard. I called my mom and said, jokingly, but desperately, "I don't want to be a mom anymore!" Of course, Mom knew I was over-exaggerating to get my point across and helped me look at things with a better perspective and reminded me that I wasn't perfect, that I was new at this, and that things were going to get better. She also reminded me that Chelsea is undergoing a huge change as well and to try every day to be better at being patient with her.

I wouldn't say that things dramatically changed after that conversation with Mom, that I magically "got a handle" on everything, but things did get better. I remembered what Mom always taught us:

You better believe we rolled our eyes when she hung this saying up on the refrigerator. I even took a pencil to it and crossed out the word "good" to replace it with "bad." Mom got pretty mad at me for that. Years later, Dad made up his own: Hard is hard.

Either way, the more I have grown and experienced, the more I realize that Mom was right. Hard things stink, but if we view them with the proper perspective, they are good for us. Mom reminded me that patience is something that just about everyone has to work on, and just when you think you've got it semi-mastered, something else gets thrown in your face. It's a daily battle, but it's one that I'm determined to win... eventually.

P.S. My sister, Carrie once said, "I want patience and I want it NOW!" Clearly, I have a very quotable family.

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Nursery Art: Dream big Little One

The hardest thing about owning a home is prioritizing. There are SO many things that you have to take care of and if it isn't already decorated and/or painted the way you like, it can be a little overwhelming. What I've been trying to learn is to pace myself and to concentrate on one room at a time. My current obsession concentration is the nursery.

First of all, I've nearly killed myself over choosing the colors for our new little girl's room. I couldn't decide if I wanted to do bright colors or pastel colors. Finally, I think I've mostly decided on bright with a few pastels included. I promise I will share pictures of the room/finished product, but today, I've been working more on my artistic side and I want to share the result. It's amazing how long art can take, but once it's done, you can't help but smile.

It took FOREVER, but I am so pleased with the result! Can't wait to get this nursery finished and get this girl here! She dropped on Sunday and I was experiencing some pretty tough Braxton Hicks (they just felt like hard menstrual cramps), and my Dr. said on Wednesday that I'm dilated to 1 cm. Of course, with pregnancy, all that means nothing. This baby could decide to stay in there for an additional week if she wanted (please don't)!

So I'll keep you posted! Thanks for stopping by and keeping up with me! Be sure to come back again soon because I'm planning another sale very, very soon!

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