A few weeks ago I attended my sister Ashley’s baby shower at her home with her close friends and family.  Instead of games, we did crafts.  With my other sister, Jennifer of Tatertots and Jello in attendance, it was no surprised that some sort of craft would be involved.  We made adorable headbands and stenciled sweet onesies.  The shower was hosted by Ashley’s talented sister-in-law Jessica Luengo.  We enjoyed the most delicious and healthy foods, many of which came straight from Jessica’s new cookbook, Cooking Healthy Together.  I have never enjoyed healthy eating more!  It was a lovely afternoon and we are all so excited for Baby Charlie Kate to make her appearance in a few short weeks!

For more information on Jessica’s new cookbook or to order one of your own, head over to her WEBSITE.

Jobrina Hofleit | Goodyear AZ Photographer 

Shea Parker | Clinton MS photographer 

Hope Toliver | Tulsa OK Photographer

We’re at month 8 of this Lifestyle Project and I love that it pushes me to shoot life as it’s happening.  Be sure to make the rounds this week and take a peek into the lives of my fellow photogs starting with my friend Deb Schwedhelm | Tampa Child and Family Photographer.

Since we’ve been going 50 different ways lately, I’m calling this, “What March Looks Like”.

Early this month, my husband and I snuck away for a night to a company retreat and had dinner at a winery in this amazing cask room.

Our son had his 11th birthday and we celebrated with cake, presents, and the midnight showing of Hunger Games on opening night.  I’m still catching up on my sleep!

The same son was also in his first musical this month.  Our town ‘s Children’s Musical Theater presented their rendition of “Oklahoma” and it was so much fun to watch!

Junior Prom was last night.  The anticipation leading up to it reminded me a little of my own prom.  Everyone looked wonderful and had a ridiculously fun time.

While that one was at prom and the other was at theater, we snuck off with just two kids and ate ourselves into a chinese food coma.

And not to seem too organized or scheduled, we did have a little downtime.

Be sure to make the round this month starting with  Deb Schwedhelm | Tampa Child and Family Photographer.  Someday.  Someday, I will meet her in real life and get a peek into that creative mind of hers.

If you’ve never been to New Orleans, Louisiana, I highly recommend going at least once.  It’s such a unique place with rich history, beautiful old mansions, fascinating architecture, delicious food, a thriving art vibe, and amazing music.    We shopped at the French Market and ate beignets more than once at Cafe Du Monde.  I even tried shrimp and grits, alligator sausage, red beans and rice, and jambalaya.   Luckily we did a lot of walking that weekend!  I stayed an extra day and visited the Garden District where Alyssa and I took a walking tour of the big beautiful old mansions, including Anne Rice’s home.  It was a wonderful trip!  Here are a few of the highlights.

We were fortunate to have the sweetest girls modeling for us for two of the five days.  I’m sure they were as exhausted as we were by the end of the week.

If you’re a high school junior or senior in the Bay Area and have not had your senior portraits done yet, contact me.  I would love to work with you!

Happy Tuesday!

One of my senior sessions was featured on Inside the Locker and I couldn’t be more thrilled! Especially because it was a senior guy session and it was one of my very favorites. So if you get the chance, check it out!

AND, remember when I shot Kira Stone’s album cover for her single, Peter Pan?  Well, itunes featured her in their top up and coming artists!  Woo-hoo!  I’m thrilled, and not at all surprised, at her success.  And I’m loving seeing my art pop up in places like itunes!!!

Have a wonderful weekend!

I’m a seasoned mom now, and could probably write a pretty concise essay on what’s important and all the minutia that’s not, knowing what I do now.  One thing I have learned is the importance of establishing good homework habits early on.  We’re big believers in life-long education at our house and try to teach our kids that education comes first.  That’s why our rule is ‘homework first’.  My older kids have established pretty good homework habits and will get their school work done as soon as they come home.  My youngest, on the other hand, is just learning that first grade means homework, and homework gets done right after school.

He and I sit down every afternoon with a snack, a pencil, and his homework packet and set to work.  Some days things go smoothly and easily, and some days it takes everything in me not to “help” him along a little to make time go faster.  A few weeks ago I had my camera handy in the kitchen and decided to document this routine.  Although it’s  somewhat mundane and routine, it’s part of our life right now and it’s typical enough for me to want to remember it in all of its mundane glory.  It’s the kind of routine that will soon be forgotten if it isn’t documented somewhere to remember.

I hope this inspires you to slow down and recognize the typical and mundane routines of life, and to document them to create  memories.

I love it!  Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, our mornings are often blanketed with thick fog.  It lasts until just about the time I drop off the last of my kids at school.  I can not tell you how many mornings I’ve been driving through the fog on carpool duty loooooonging to stop the car, pile the kids out into the beautiful fog and photograph them.  But of course, that isn’t realistic.  The kids have no desire to pose out in the damp chill first thing in the morning and I definitely wouldn’t want to try to explain to the office lady why they are late for school.  So needless to say, we hadn’t been able to capture the foggy mornings…

until last week.  My daughter had to miss school one morning for a doctor appointment across the bay, and that morning just happened to be full of fog.  I wasn’t sure if the fog would last until I dropped the boys off at school, but I grabbed my camera just in case.  Luck was on our side and there was just enough fog lingering, once my carpool duties were done, to drive up to the hills for a few shots before heading to the doctor.  My vision for this image included a billowing white gown, trees, and mysterious fog.  Well, I failed to share this plan with my daughter, so she was wearing comfy sweats and sneakers instead.  I knew I wouldn’t have another opportunity for a fog session before this {elevate} post was due, so we forged ahead and shot anyway.

I’ve decided to share my before and after images for this post.  There are so many steps involved in creating these Fine Art Photography images and I wanted to give you a little sense of how manipulation is often involved in some of the images.  Some are more manipulated than others, but this one has some obvious changes.

This is the before, SOOC (straight out of the camera) image I decided to use.

You can see there was a pile of wood on the left side that I removed.  I’ve got the trees that I wanted as well as the fog.  What I’m missing is the dress.  I decided to go with black instead of white since she is already wearing black.  I decided to add a skirt instead a dress and found the perfect one when I Googled.  I saved it, cut, and pasted it onto her and then played around with it to size it just right.  I then had to add some grass to the bottom of the skirt to make it look more natural.  Then I converted it to black and white and added a little more fog.  I used  Florabella’s whitewash texture  set to luminosity, smoothed out the fog a bit more, played around with the selective color blacks and neutrals until I liked what I saw, and saved it.  I came back to the image a few more times and tweaked a few things that I didn’t like.  All in all I’m pretty happy with the final image.  I do miss the white billowing gown, but I’ll save that for another foggy morning.

I hope you’ll make the rounds to the other girls participating this month.  I can’t wait to see what they’ve come up with!  Head on over to Renee Popat | Hyderabad Photographer, the newest member of our circle.

Never doubt yourself.  Just keep going…

Happy Sunday!

Second, I want to thank all of my readers who came by to have a peek, to get inspired, and who left love for each blogger.  I know, from comments on the blog as well as emails to me, that this project has been a jumping off point for many people to get their photos printed out this year.  That makes my heart sing.

Third, I was also inspired by all the wonderful ideas from the project.  I shared a few of them on Tatertots and Jello yesterday, where I will be a monthly contributor this year!  TT&J is a mecca of fabulous DIY, craft, home, and life ideas.  If you haven’t ever been, stop over and roam around.    I shared a sneak peek at one of my wall projects I’ve been working on.  And I wanted to share the rest of them today.  As is the case with many of you, my walls are still a work in progress.  I have a few more ideas I didn’t get to this past month but have every intention of finishing soon.

I am definitely creating a memory book for 2011… eventually… but for now, I found this free template from Paislee Press and created a 12×12 print full of images from the year.  I framed it in a 20×20 with a simple white matte from Aaron Brothers.

In the same room I framed several pictures of my kids and our family in black frames, some with mats, some without and included a star and a couple of signs.

In the same room above the fireplace I printed a 20×20 canvas through Black River Imaging of one of our Project12 photos from last year.  I love it because it’s totally us, with no pretenses.   (BTW, does anyone know what kind of paint to use to paint out the brass on my fireplaces???)

I loved the clipboard idea so I bought several, painted them with chalkboard paint, and hung them in the kitchen.  I love the fact that you can change out the photos so often and easily.

Up the staircase I decided to do a wall gallery of black frames with white mats.  I’m planning on adding to it little by little and including some of the kids’ artwork as well.

In the living room I have two ledges from my last house that I’ve propped a few larger mounted prints on.  I love that I can change those out often as well.  (Printed through MPixPro, except for the flag picture which is a metal printed through BRI)

And finally, in the same room I have cathedral ceilings and I knew whatever I hung had to be big!  And indeed that is just what I did.  I had four 30×40 canvases printed (Black River Imaging) of my kids and hung them right above my entry table.  It’s the first thing people see when they walk in our home.  I love them!  I’ve posted them on the blog before and have had several people comment that they are bigger in person than they look in pictures.

I wish I could incorporate all of the ideas that were shared into my home, but I don’t have that many walls!  I’m still hoping to create some sort of ancestor wall like Sara Tegman shared, a beautiful photo box like Gretchen Davis has, a beautiful bulletin board for snaps like Rachel Chaney’s, and an inspiration board like so many of you all have.  And that should cover all my remaining walls at the moment.

This has been such a fun project!  I’m considering doing something similar in the future so get those walls ready!

AND FINALLY…

The winner of the 16×24 standout is…

Staci Bailey!!!

Congratulations and everyone who entered the giveaway will be emailed a promo code for your next print order from MPix!

Happy Wednesday!