Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Charley KateAs you’ve probably already gathered from sporatic pictures I’ve posted on Facebook and Instagram, my youngest sister had a baby not too long ago.  I was honored to be able to be there with her and her husband for the actual birth.  It was an incredible experience to watch little Charley Kate come into the world.  It reminded me so much of my own babies and what a miracle each one of them is.  There is nothing like watching a new life come into the world.

Charley Kate has been welcomed with many open arms and she is doing wonderful at home with her big brother, Hudson.

I am so excited to share the birth of Baby Charley!  Her newborn sessions will be posted soon!

 

I have been soaking up all of the creativity and beauty of this project in the past couple of weeks.  Each post makes me want to change something in my house, similar to when I veg on the couch with a hot drink and Pinterest.  Today I’m feeling like purging all of my clutter, moving to a quaint 1920s bungalow, and remodeling all of my bathrooms.  Thanks, Deb Schwedhelm.  I probably won’t get to that today, but I’m definitely going to add to my ‘to-do’ list, creating family albums from all of our pictures.  How cool are those?
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One of the challenges of being a military family and moving every 2-3 years is trying to make your belongings work, from home to home. The homes we have lived in over the years have all been so very different — in style, square footage, layout, etc.  Our last home in Kansas was 2700 square feet, 5 bedroom and 3 bathrooms.  Our home, here in Tampa, is a 1920s spanish-style home, 1600 square feet, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.  We do our best with making our furniture work from house to house, but photographs seem to come and go.  There’s a bunch in our storage facility right now, due to lack of wall space.  I also like to have a good mix on my walls — my photographs, photographs from others (that’s I’ve purchased) and art prints.
This is our living room entryway.  The large print is 34×34 framed.  I wish it was much larger.
My family books.  One of my greatest treasures.  I’ve been making an annual family book ever since I started photography, in 2006.  I’ve blogged about my book-making process quite a bit over the years.  My book this year was over 108 pages.  They make my heart so happy and I love that the kids will periodically pull out the books and start looking at them, giggling as they do.  I can’t wait to look at these books 10 years from now.
If you turn 180 degrees from the credenza, you see our living room fireplace, which displays my most favorite family photograph, taken by Leah Zawadzki, while we were stationed in San Diego.  This is another photograph I wish was larger, but it has moved this way from house to house.  Do you see the HOPE in the print?  Many people don’t at first.
The display shelves in my little one’s shared bedroom.  They’re always doing little projects so the shelves have taken on a mix of photographs, art prints and craft projects.
And my 14-year-old’s display shelves.  This is where Kiele keeps many of the photos of her Dad.  He lives in California and they are only able to see each other a few times a year.
This is our bedroom dresser.  It’s a mix of old treasures, mostly of my kids, when they were babies.
And the bedroom nightstand, which has a homecoming photo, from Steve’s military homecoming in 2008 (photographed by Peta Mazey).
The start of a wall collage in my office.  I plan to keep adding framed prints to this wall.  The ‘Remember Who You Are.’ print is one of my polaroids printed as a 20×20.
The inspiration boards, to the left of my desk, which has become quite the mix of inspiration, drawings from my kids and photographs.  This area changes with time and seems to be getting messier and messier but…I love it.
This is really the only real hallway in our entire house.  A lensbaby photo of Sky on one wall and a portrait of each of the kids on the other wall.
 I have a pretty big mix of custom and store-purchased frames throughout my house.  These silver frames are from CB2.  I love them because you can have vertical and horizontal displayed side-by-side in the same frame.  Not a bad price either.
My husband just finished renovating our main bathroom yesterday (although still missing some of the hardware).  I put this photo up, but I might end up doing a collage something like the image on the right.  Still deciding.  So proud of my husband and so excited to finally have a second bathroom back. :-)
Thanks, Deb!

Thank you, Tamara!

If you’ve missed any of my guest bloggers for this project, you can find the right here:

 

StaceyWoods

Aubry Startin

Breeze Floyd

Carey Pace

Nancy Lary

Jules Trandem

Amy Lockheart

Jasmine Johnson

Hope Toliver

Kristina Buskirk Sara

Tegman

 

Gail Pomare

 

I’m so excited that Hope Toliver agreed to share a glimpse of her home with us today!  I love that she’s sharing both the art on her walls and the art that’s in transition because, in reality, whose house is really ever “done”?  I have a stack of images that I’ve printed out and have no plan for … yet, sitting in my office.  Hopefully by the end of the month I will have a plan for it all.  And, Hope, I am so envious of that hallway.  It has the most beautiful light!  (Take a peek at Hope and her beautiful girls making good use of that hallway HERE.)  

 

I have had a huge love affair with photography for quite a while, but I’m sad to say that i don’t have any work of my own currently framed.  I’ve had the best of intentions and even have a folder on my pc for those images that I consider canvas worthy.
But for now, I proudly display the work of other artists.
At the entrance to my home, I have this large signature frame with a rather tiny (4 by 6) print.
In my daughter’s “piano lounge” we have a wall that I hope to eventually make a gallery wall, with several framed images.  For now, there is an image of my oldest and two gallery framed 11 by 14 images of our twins.  I love seeing the comparison from them at 3 weeks to 2.5 years old.
Above the fire place, we have a 20 by 24 family maternity image and then two collage frames with images from our wedding day and engagement session.
Here are several other images I have purchased with the goal of framing but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Photos by:
  John Lew, Denice Toombs, & Brenda Horan
 Lora Swinson
Here are some of my own favorite images of 2011 that will be printed as canvases and soon be displayed on my own walls.
Thanks for looking!
Thanks, Hope!
If you’ve missed any of my guest bloggers for this project, you can find the right here:
Joyce Smith
StaceyWoods
Aubry Startin
Breeze Floyd

Carey Pace

Nancy Lary

Jules Trandem

Amy Lockheart

Jasmine Johnson

Unlike my sister Jennifer aka Tatertots and Jello, I do not do regular giveaways or contests on my blog.  Therefore, I have no idea how to get my image from Random.org to my blog.  So you’ll just have to trust me that, using the entries from 1-29, lucky #24 was chosen.  That means Kat wins a year membership to the wonderfully fabulous Bloom Forum!!!

Thank you for all of the entries.  Even if you didn’t win, please consider joining the forum.  You will not regret it!

Happy Weekending!!!

The Bloom Forum

 

 

 

I’m not really a shoe person.

I have  cankles so lots of shoes don’t look good on me.

I’d rather spend my money on a lens or a pair of jeans or something fun for my kids.  So I didn’t have any favorite shoes for this week.

And at this point my kids’ shoes are well worn and not very inspiring.

But what did inspire me was the light coming in from the french doors as I was thinking about this assignment.  So I rummaged through my daughter’s closet and found her homecoming shoes.  I set the self timer, stuck my feet into those heels, and stood in the doorway.

Viola!

Shoes

bay area photographer wendy vonsosen

Now head on over to Breeze Floyd Connecticut Photographer for her rendition of this week’s SHOES theme.