Happy (Belated) Holidays!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

The holiday season is known for being a busy time of year, but this year has has seemed extra busy!! There was Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and New Year's. Family came to town, I shot a friend's wedding just 3 days after Christmas, and then that friend's brother had a baby (the same day as the wedding!), which I then took newborn photos of! (Whew!) And in the midst of all these, I took some holiday photos too! (I also may or may not have an exciting side project I'm working on too! ;D but more on that later...)

Needless to say...because of all this, my blogging has grown a bit behind! But it's a new year and now I have LOTS of material to blog! ;) 

I hope you all had a fantastic holiday with family and friends. Here are a few photos from our Christmas this year.

For Christmas dinner we had Shabu-Shabu, also known as hot-pot, where you have boiling soup placed in the middle of the table and gradually add in all sorts of yummy vegetables and meats to cook together in the broth. So delish!!

I got Joe a knife set for our kitchen in the hopes that we will cook together more in the new year, and he bought me my own calligraphy set (in the background of photo-right) to fulfill my life-goal of learning calligraphy! (It's SO cool!!!). 

But I think the true highlight of present-opening was watching our little bro, Lukas, try to open his present from us. Each year we attempt to trick each other with a gift. This one looked big from the outside....but only because Joe tirelessly wrapped it nearly 100 times in newspaper layers. What started off as a beautifully wrapped, relatively large gift, quickly turned into a living room full of shredded paper to reveal a multi-tool pocket knife within.

I'm pretty sure his effort was worth it though. Lukas spent the rest of the evening trying to locate the 30+ tools inside it and figure out what they all did. :)

Well, merry (belated) Christmas everybody!! And I wish you all a happy and productive New Year! I have so many goals and exciting plans for 2014, but with so many projects going on at one time, it hasn't fully hit me yet that 2014 is actually here! Perhaps my new year will start in February. ;)

Pinkd Jewelry

I was like a kid in a candy store! I opened up the bag and all I could see was an assortment of glittering gems and marbled looking stones. I didn't know where to begin! There were just so many choices! And so many pretty things to photograph!!

A couple blog posts ago I talked about one of my awesome 2014 high school seniors, Stephanie, who also happens to be a super talented jewelry artist too! Before her senior photo session, while she was getting her hair and makeup professionally done by my other talented friend Kirstie Wight, I thought it would be fun to photograph some of Stephanie's hand-made creations. I asked if that would be ok and she said, "Sure! It's all over there in that bag!" I didn't really know what to expect but, when I opened what was inside I was floored with how unique and beautiful her jewelry was! Her work truly speaks for itself. Each piece is so professionally crafted you would have no idea that the woman behind it all is only 17 years old! Just looking at her work, you can tell how much thought and care she puts into selecting the stones and jewels she uses for each piece. Each set is truly a work of art.

Below is just a taste of the jewelry she creates. But don't just stop there! Check out even more of her jewelry here, in her online shop!

Happy Thursday

Today, I was surprised with the flowers you see above. By who you ask? Oh, just the sweetest husband aliiiive! When I asked Joe what they were for he replied, "Happy Thursday!!" He, of course, had remembered that it was our 14th "Month-a-versary" of being married and decided to surprise me at lunch to give me flowers. He then proceeded to melt my heart even more by telling me that each flower had a specific meaning. Whaaaat! How cute is that?!?

When Joe went to Spellbound Flowers at Pioneer Square, the lovely lady at the cart began telling him how in the Victorian Era people would send personalized bouquets to the ones they were courting and through the flower's color, type and texture, each bouquet contained a unique message within it. She went through and explained the meanings of each flower in her cart and encouraged him to not just make a pretty bouquet, but one that had a true meaning. She asked him a little bit about the two of us so that she could pick out the perfect flowers. Joe said I was "sweet," that he "likes his food spicy," and that the flowers were to celebrate our 14th month of marriage. From this, she hand-picked the sweetest of the carnation varieties, as well as one that quite literally smells spicy (I never even knew those existed!!!). The two carnations are surrounded by classic romantic roses, but the color of the roses is significant too; yellow for friendship, fading into red for love. And finally, all the flowers are surrounded by fern...a foliage that withstands any weather; holding up through wind and rain, just like a great marriage. (Is your heart melting yet??)

So, for all the ladies out there who want a husband or boyfriend more than anything, my advise to you is: don't just settle for anyone! God answered my prayers, and I am so thankful to have this wonderful man as my husband; but I know, He can (and will) answer your prayers too! There are good guys still out there, and you should wait to find the one that treats you how you deserve--as a wonderful woman, beautiful inside and out. A man who surprises you, shows you love on a daily basis, and says "I love you" more times in a day than you could even count. When you find that guy...trust me, he's a keeper!

To Joe my love, thank you for the flowers :)  Xo.

Wall Arrangements

Ever since our wedding I have been dying to display our wedding pictures around our home! Sure, we have some small 5x7 frames scattered through out, but I wanted something bigger! A statement piece to show off all of our beautiful wedding pictures that we paid so much to have created. Every few days I would think, "Gosh, we really need to do something about all these empty walls in our house...especially that giant, gaping wall behind our couch!" Eventually we put up a 16x20" painting of a pineapple, but in comparison with our large L-shaped couch it really just looked silly. Well that was an entire year ago....and we still hadn't filled up that giant wall with anything other than a pineapple! So this past week, Joe and I set out to change that. I went thrift shopping to acquire a random assortment of rustic looking frames that I loved and using one of my handy photography tools (more on this later!), I designed a digital model of what my wall display would look like! After that, we printed the images through my print lab, took a few days to clean the frames, nail sawtooth hangers to the back of frames that didn't have any, and insert the printed images. And FINALLY, this past Sunday we finished our project and ended up with this!!:

Here are some behind the scenes photos of us getting it nailed up! 

Before:

After: 

After a photo session, the growing trend is to just order digital images and say that you'll print them and hang them up later. But the truth is, most of us never get around to it!! We spend so much money to create beautiful portraits of our family but, after the photo session, the images just get lost somewhere on a hard drive and we never see them again! Your portraits were made to ENJOY! Because of this, after each photo session, I always sit down with my clients to educate them on all the unique ways you can display your images through out your home! One way I do this is by using an app on my iPad to digitally show you what your images would look like on the very walls of your home! I import a photo of your wall, and using specialized software I can show you a large array of digital wall layouts filled with the very photos from your session that we just took! I can even replicate what a Canvas or Standout would look like on your wall versus a framed or matted image!

So the moral of the story is:  Do something with your images!! Don't just settle for digital images that will get lost and never seen again! Enter into a photo session planning on doing something special with the images that are captured.

And don't worry if you don't have any wall space in your home, wall arrangements aren't the only way you can enjoy and display your images. Albums, Image Folios, Image Boxes, and Mini Accordion books are also great little ways to show off photos from your session! 

So, don't be like me and wait an entire year to display your photos! Get them out where you can see and enjoy them!  

Happy Monday everyone!! :)