My Capture Your 365 - Days 309 - 314

Through the month of November, the Capture Your 365 photo challenge is focusing on the subject of gratitude. Here are a few things from the past week that I am grateful for:

ISO 800, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/80 sec

ISO 800, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/80 sec

Day 309 - Birthdays: Even though we don't have any November birthdays in our famiy, we can still enjoy candles on a dark autumn night.

ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/60 sec

ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/60 sec

Day 310 - The Little Things: Last week was Compassion's One Meal One Day. This is a day set aside for people to skip a meal,  then donate money to Compassion to help a child living in extreme poverty. I skipped lunch on this day, spent time in prayer for children around the world, and drank a lot of water, thankful that I at least had clean water to drink.

ISO 400, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/20 sec

ISO 400, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/20 sec

Day 311 - Quiet Moments: With only one child at home during the day (and she likes to sleep in!), I am able to spend my quiet moments in the morning soaking in Truth to start my day.

ISO 400, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/40 sec

ISO 400, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/40 sec

Day 312 - R&R: I am so thankful that my children are able to take care of the dishes after dinner at night!

iPhone self portrait at Tuolumne Meadows

iPhone self portrait at Tuolumne Meadows

Day 313 - Challenges: I usually don't put up my iPhone photos for this challenge, but I challenged myself to take a self portrait while we were up in Yosemite over the weekend. Instead of reversing the camera on the phone to get the photo, I actually turned the phone around and manuevered my finger to just the right spot to capture this one. Ta da!

ISO 400, 36mm, f/5.0, 1/40 sec

ISO 400, 36mm, f/5.0, 1/40 sec

Day 314 - Selfless Acts: One other ministry we love to support this time of year is Operation Christmas Child. For years now, we have filled shoe boxes with necessities and trinkets to share God's love with children around the world. It is not too late to fill your own shoe box! National Collection Week this year is November 18th through the 25th.

Have you printed out the November Capture Your 365 photo list yet? 

Capture Your 365

Here are a few of my photos from the latest Capture Your 365 Photo Challenge:

two become one
two become one

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/100 sec

Day 278 – Two Become One: the ‘task’ for this day was to combine two photos using Photoshop Elements or Photoshop. Since I don’t use either one of those programs, I thought it was rather appropriate that we were attending a wedding on this day. Perfect! While I didn’t get a photo of the bride and groom, I was able to capture this photo of their wedding cake table. Very cute cake topper don’t you think?

repetition
repetition

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/3200 sec

Day 280 – Repetition: In our little makeshift beach area in our backyard, I have a cute little table that we found at Hobby Lobby last year. It has a great repeating heart pattern.

mirror image
mirror image

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.0, 1/10 sec

Day 281 – Mirror Image: One of the things I love to do with this challenge is to take a little bit of creative license to make the photo prompt for the day work for me. Since I have started burning fall candles, I thought I would capture the reflection of the candle burning.

spider webs
spider webs

ISO 400, 55mm, f/5.6, 1/13 sec

Day 283 – Spider Webs: Now, I am sure there are a few spider webs in my home right now, but I decided to see if I could find any in our backyard. Looks like this spider has been quite busy!

Grab your October Photo Challenge list and start looking for your everyday photos!

Candy Corn Jar Candle Holder

Candy Corn Jar Candle Holder

A couple of days ago, my blogging friend, Kris, shared a Book Leaf Banner tutorial on her blog. It was just the inspiration I needed to put together a fun project using a couple of my favorite fall items.

candy corns

Do you like candy corns? I sure do. And do you know if you pair them with peanuts for a snack, they taste like Payday bars? Yum! And candy corns are made from great fall colors!

Anyway, back to the project…

project supplies The materials needed for this project are pretty simple:

  • half pint jars
  • mod podge
  • orange, yellow, and white tissue paper
  • foam brush
  • scissors

When I am working on a project like this, I like to use a sheet of wax paper to keep everything from sticking to my table.

tissue paperFirst step, cut the tissue paper into strips. You really don’t need exact measurements for this, you just want to make sure all three strips will cover the jar.

brush mod podge on jar Next, brush the whole outside of the jar with the mod podge.

wrap tissue around jar Then wrap the white and yellow tissue paper around the outside of the jar on top of the mod podge. You can use two strips of white tissue paper if you don’t want the top of the jar to be too clear.

add orange strip 

At this point, you will want to add more mod podge around the middle of the jar, then add the orange strip of tissue paper around the jar. Then carefully, cover the whole outside of the jar with more mod podge. Let the jar set to dry.

jar candle

Once the outside of the jar is dry, add a tealight or votive candle to the jar and enjoy this cute fall decoration in your home!

Giveaway!!

Since I made two of these jars today, I would love to give one away to one of my lucky readers! To enter, leave a comment below. Want to earn extra entries? Pin, tweet, or share this post and you will receive extras entries! Please be sure to leave a comment below for each thing you do. (Open to U.S. residents only. Winner will be drawn next Friday, October 11th.)