DIY pregnancy test tweaking

Ever followed a tweaker board...You know what I'm talking about if you have been on baby boards.  Test tweaking is a place where TTC (trying to conceive ) mothers post their home pregnancy tests (HPT)  in order to see an early result by an image tweak. Tweakers use various photo programs to analyze your HPT to see if we can pull out a faint pink line for an early BFP!!  Learn how to tweak your own tests or to help out the fellow tweakers out there!!

To start upload your image to a photo editing site such as photobucket or picmonkey.  I prefere Picmonkey.

Original Picture uploaded to PICMONKEY

To Start go to the sharpen tool and adjust clarity then hit apply! 

The go to the exposure tool and adjust the highlight tool and play with the brightness, shadows and contrast. 

And viola... a nice pink line.  This will not work if you are not pregnant. 

Happy Tweaking!!

DIY burlap wreath

Ever wondered how to make a DIY burlap wreath?!

You will need:

- A wire wreath form

- Burlap ribbon (I used about 2 rolls of 6″ burlap ribbon from Hobby Lobby)

- Floral wire

-Embellishment of your choice (optional)

-Ribbon (optional)

(floral wire not pictured)

If using printed burlap, like I did, pull the ribbon from the bottom of the wreath form print side up.

To make this wreath, simply loop the burlap through the desired section of the wreath form.  

I used two rounds of loops in each wreath section form. 

Continue to loop the burlap around the wire form and secure it with floral wire ribbon when starting a new roll and completing it. 

Optional: I used a thick Jute ribbon to hang my wreath from.  You can also hang this wreath from the form itself. 

I adorned this wreath with a burlap poinsettia flower, but would be cure with a bow or other fancy embellishment :) 

Happy wreath making!!

You can also find this wreath on my etsy shop

Hope you have a Fabulous day, 

<3 Amanda Kay, Viva la Vella

How-To: Tutorial on a custom Blog Header

A tutorial on how to make a blog banner using Picasa instead of a complicated process like with Photoshop.

First you need to download Picasa. It’s free and it should be easy to figure out how to get your pictures from your files into Picasa.  I’ve tried almost everything, and I think it is the best (and most self-explanatory) FREE editing system out there…especially if you are using Blogger.

Once you download Picasa, it is easy to figure out how to "Import" (there's a button) your pictures from your files into Picasa.

Then, you select a photo and press the Collage button on the top of the window. (You can edit your pic first if you want....see the left hand side for tons of options.)

See that little grey circle on the photo? That allows you to make the photo bigger or smaller and also allows you to manipulate the angle…crooked or straight, and allows you to move it everywhere. If you look in the Settings box, you can also chose to add a white border, or a Polaroid border, or create a shadow on your photo.  I chose to go with "picture pile" and moved my photos around. There are many options. After this tutorial I will show a previous header of mine that I did and used "mosiac".

When I’m set I press Create Collage.

Then find the "Text" button and press that.  Play around and see what you like best…this is the “funnest” part…you can move the text where ever you want (even on top of the photos), make it whatever size you want (keep it on the page!), pick the opacity of the text, and determine the color you want it…it has the same grey circle that you manipulate around. 

There are two ways you can do this next step... the first :After you have your words down, click the Apply button and you will go back to the basic Edits. 

You also have the option to leaving a white blank space under your collage and adding text to the lower half of the image and into the white space.  This is created by cropping...You are going to Crop your Collage so it looks like a header, not a huge photo, so press Crop. I make it really even on all sides and bring the crop right up under the writing.

NOW, go to your BLOG via blogger and press the Layout tab. Press Edit on the header part (where your title is.)


Choose your Image (your collage) from your Files. Make sure you press the “Instead of title and description” button first, and make sure the Shrink To Fit button is NOT checked before you upload your picture.

DIY custom Christmas Cards, Birth Announcements, Cards etc.

Did you know that you can create beautiful custom pieces in the comfort of your own home...It is really simple and easy. Picasa is an image organizer and viewer for your digital photos owned by Google. Free to download, and awesome results.

I know there are so many options out there to create beautiful Christmas cards, but do you know you can create your own with Picasa?   The benefits are that you can use as many photos as you want, and say whatever you’d like.  The possibilities are endless...Christmas Cards, Birth announcements, birthday cards, greeting cards etc..  The drawback is that you can use as many photos as you want and the options are endless. So an neurotic person like myself, this took forever doing the font selection as well as the image itself. 

To start:

Select an image...

Then you have multiple options to edit the photo including color options...I love 1960's.

Image after edit with 1960's

Now the fun part... Add text with the wrench icon "text"

Selecting my text options took a while, but then again i am only slightly neurotic. :)

Final product...

And then I uploaded this image and had it printed as a flat image print from Costco, and bought some natural paper envelopes...and viola. 

Have fun, 

Amanda Kay