Ellie + Matt :: just one

I have been saving a few good posts for all of you and this is a sneak peek of one of them! I hope to get the full post up in the next week.

You guessed it -- Ellie and Matt were married on New Year's Eve and this was their midnight kiss! Oh how I love everything about this image -- the party hats, colored lights, wine glasses, their expressions -- what fun! Moments like this are the reason I love my job so much.


It sounds like most of you want me to blog every day and I am thinking about taking on that challenge again. I have a bunch of things to blog, including some featured weddings that I want to showcase here. Stay tuned for some more good stuff!

I love our gallery wraps!

Sheesh, what is my problem?!?! It looks like I am down to blogging once a week! So...I'm going to take a little poll. Would you rather I attempt blogging every day again or would you rather me blog at a snail's pace? Of course, if you choose to have me blog every day again, there will be a sweet reward for you if I miss a day! Just leave a comment on this post and let me know if I should start a contest for the month of April.

Now, on to the subject line of this post. I absolutely LOVE our gallery wraps!!! Ken and I used Jake Gardner and Justin Axline's images (with permission, of course) and ordered canvases through my canvas vendor. We agonized for weeks over which images to choose and I am so glad we chose the ones we did! I love, love, love them!!!

These canvases are 16x16 squares. Since I'm a big advocate of giving photo credit where photo credit is due, Jake shot the two outer images and Justin shot the middle one.


I love the way these look on the wall!


I love the detail and texture of gallery wraps, but most of all, I love that when Ken and I lie in bed, we can see his Converse. It's perfect!


Every bride and groom should order canvases!!! They are real conversational pieces and everyone will oooh and aaah over them!

Time for an update?

Is that the word on the street? I'm so sorry for neglecting my blog -- I have been crazy busy this week with designing albums, processing sessions, and finalizing print orders as well as doing some much needed painting and decorating in my house.

A quick note -- if you need a spring session, please contact me as soon as possible. I only have a few openings left!

And now how about a sneak peek from a recent session? Meet the gorgeous Sarah. Oh how I love the backlighting!

Nick and Noah

These two handsome men came over to my house for a photo session to celebrate their first birthday.

Yes, that is my bedroom and yes, those are cakes on my bed.


Noah is chunkier than his brother. He likes food. Please note Noah reaching for his brother's cake while his own cake remains perfectly in tact.


Noah is thinking, "haha, look what I got, bro!"


The cake thief totally stuffed his face. How cute!


Meet Nick, the victim of the cake thievery.


I love this...


...but I love this one more!


Time for some normal shots in the kitchen. I'm digging the green.



Clappy clap, happy boy!


I love Nick's expression here. He looks like a baby model, popped collar and all.


Thanks for a fabulous session, Nick and Noah! Jess and Jared, you are raising quite the little charmers! Can't wait to see you all again later this year!

old friends

Today I am thankful for the internet and reconnecting with old friends. It made my day to see Brian and Stephanie's e-mail in my inbox today. We were best friends in college but after I moved, lost my cell phone, and got a new number, we all lost touch with each other. Thank you, internet, for reuniting us after all these years. Brian and Steph, you are so dear to me. I have really missed you!!!

Aren't Laura and Victor's cards adorable? This is also the cover image of their storybook album.


Notice the yellow and white? Yep, I shot this photo in our new master bedroom! It's really coming along -- I can't wait to show you the finished room. What do you think of the colors so far?

Blog Invasion: Birthday Wishes

I wanted to invade Lindsay's Blog to wish her a Super Happy Birthday! Lindsay, you are wonderful! I hope you have had a great Birthday Week!!

Love,
Ken

another teaser

Remember these cakes? Well, here is another teaser from that session. Isn't he a cutie?


Stay tuned for the full blog post coming soon!

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering what Ken surprised me with on day 4 of my birthday week, it was concert tickets and a delightful dragonfly pin. (Dragonflies played a small role in our wedding -- sweet, huh?) He's the best.

yummy owls

Today is day 3 of my birthday week and I am loving it! Every day this week, my amazing husband has surprised me with a gift. Today he sent me the coolest cookie bouquet from Cookies by Design. Boy oh boy, these are the most delicious cookies I have ever tasted! 6 yummy owls, all for me! Aren't they cute?!?!


Some of you may remember the sweet owl earrings Ken bought me for Valentine's Day and you're probably wondering about the significance of the owls by now. It's really just a way for Ken to tease me. (But that's ok with me, because that means he loves me!)

You see, when Ken moved in with me last summer and we started condensing our belongings, I asked him if we could keep a particular lamp he previously had at his place. It was an old wooden looking ceramic owl lamp with a yucky shade but I saw some design potential. He was excited that I liked the lamp because he acquired it from his parents -- it was his dad's lamp and apparently his mom hated it! Ken and I brought it over to my house and I painted the owl black. I thought it would look awesome black with a stark white shade and had planned to use it to contrast with the aqua accent wall in our living room. That little owl looked so good by the time I was done with it. I proudly packed it up in my Xterra and took him to Target to fit him for a shade. Unfortunately, there wasn't a suitable shade at Target, so I brought him back home. I left him in the car because I knew I'd have to take him to another store. The next day, Ken and I opened the door and the owl jumped out of the car and shattered into a million pieces. Ken jokingly referred to me as the great owl murderer, but we both know that the owl took its own life!

When I got the owl cookies today, Ken told me to be careful not to "kill" any of them. I was so careful all day...but near the end of the day, the cookies had a small accident and crashed to the floor in their basket. Many owls were injured. My favorite owl (the brown ruffly one) was decapitated. I called Ken with the terrible news. He laughed -- I think he somehow expected this!

The consensus? I suck at owls. But that's ok because Ken loves me for all I am, and that includes my clumsiness. I couldn't ask for a better husband. He has rocked my world every day since our first date!

elation

Author Doug Larson wrote, "Real elation is when you feel you could touch a star without standing on tiptoe."

That's exactly how I felt the day I met Ken.

In the spirit of happiness, here are some things that make me giddy:

Ken
vintage cameras
beautiful backlighting
babies
homemade lemonade
days on the boat
weddings
hearing our songs unexpectedly on the radio
listening to the rain
cold popsicles on a hot day
scarves
rain boots
cupcakes

And, since photos are nifty, here is one of me with my Kodak Brownie. I love this photo and I love that Ken saw me like this!


Photo by my amazing husband, Ken Johnson.

I love gallery wraps!

Stef is picking up her canvas tomorrow. I know she is super excited so I decided to post some photos here. She ordered a 16x24 black and white metallic gallery wrap. I absolutely love these!!!

The 16x24 is a little too small for this area, but I wanted to emphasize how awesome a black and white canvas looks on a bright colored wall. Clearly Ken and I aren't afraid of color! (I say that, but only one wall in our living room is painted this color. The others are a medium shade of grey.) For those wondering, a 24x36 or three 20x20 squares would have been a perfect fit for this particular space. (It doens't look like it, but our couch is really long.)


I took this photo on a light grey wall in my kitchen to emphasize the wrapped edges.


As you can see, the image extends all the way around the edges of the canvas.


If you have any questions about placing a canvas order, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. And remember, big canvases are $100 off through March 31!

Wow, it's been awhile!

Alright, so when I said I would be taking a break from blogging every day, I didn't mean I would abandon the blog, but it certainly appears that way. I promise I had no intention of going a whole week without posting a blog!!! I pretty much devoted this past week to working on lots of behind the scenes stuff -- designing albums and finalizing print and canvas orders. And, of course, Ken and I have been working on the house!

The guys and I had a pretty fun shoot yesterday. Yeah, that's me with one of my vintage cameras!


Photo by Jake Gardner.

Make sure to stay tuned into the blog this week. I promise we won't have a repeat of last week!!!

bedroom makeover

Ken and I are finally revamping our bedroom and we couldn't be more excited! I began painting today and will hopefully finish everything except the edging tonight. Two small walls down, two huge walls with vaulted ceilings to go. Here is the inspiration for our new bedroom:


Vintage milk glass vases from our wedding, our wedding invitation, our wedding menu, and a Jack Johnson CD. What do you think?

Oh, and if anyone can recommend a local screen printer who would be willing to work with me on a very small project, I would be eternally thankful. Or, if one of you local blog readers happens to be in the screen printing business and can help me out, I'd gladly trade you a photo session for your screen printing services.

One more thing -- now that it's March, I may take a little break from blogging every day. Maybe not though. We'll see.