
Happy Easter everyone! We are relaxing after a wonderful afternoon with family, friends, and tons of food. I am surrounded by gorgeous flowers - a spring bouquet I picked up, Easter lillies from church, and tulips from my mom. I hope you are all having an equally good weekend!



Labels: photography
After all my time in Northern California, I'd never been to the wine country. We traveled there this past weekend for a wedding and had an amazing time! The weather was perfect and the hills are still green and so gorgeous.



Backdrop for the gorgeous wedding ceremony.
We had to make the hour drive to my favorite coastal town, Bodega Bay.Labels: photography, travel
I got to meet the recipient of
this quilt tonight and my oh my is he gorgeous. Four days old. Adam Nathaniel.


What a sweetie!
Labels: photography, quilting
Every year for Christmas I give my husband a photo calendar with photos from the year just finished. I usually just go through
Snapfish or
Kodak. Since I am now the proud owner (finally) of a working color printer, I decided to design his calendar myself.

Each page is 6" wide and 11" tall and has photos from our three 2008 trips - Costa Rica, Chicago, and Las Vegas/Arizona. I highlighted our birthdays, work holidays, and anniversary.

I was going to punch a hole in the top of each page to hang it but I found this cool clip and glued a magnet to the back instead, to hold the pages and hang at work on his magnetic wall.

My original inspiration for this came from
Story by Mia on Etsy with
this calendar - now sold out.

I am so happy with this! It will be fun next year to redesign with 2009 photos.
Labels: paper craft, photography
I'm not big on resolutions, but I thought it might be fun to set a few challenging craft-related goals for 2009 and see how I can do.

#1 - Keep my craft room under control. I want my room to be inspiring (like
Happy Zombie and
Alicia) and right now it is plain and messy!
#2 - Use fabric faster than I buy it. Right now I am stashing fabric a lot faster than I use it and I want to reverse this so I don't feel guilty coming home with the latest and greatest!
#3 - Learn how to sew clothes. I have bought many patterns and books and yardage to do this and never actually made anything I'm proud of. First on my list is a skirt from my Built by Wendy book, but I'd really like to make some clothes for work, too.

If I can handle three this year, maybe I'll try a few more than that in 2010!
Photos courtesy of our trip to the Grand Canyon. Traveling and improving my photography are ongoing goals!Labels: me, photography
A few of my flickr-worthy 2008 photos.2008 was pretty darn good overall. We did lose a furry member of our family, but we gained a new one. We recognized the one year anniversary of the loss of my father, but we celebrated the first birthday of my nephew. I traveled a lot and tried a lot of new things.
A new year always feels like a clean slate. I have high hopes for 2009. I'm ready!
Labels: photography

Merry Christmas, everyone. Enjoy this time of year, take time to appreciate life and family and friends, and look ahead to the promise of a new year!
(Directions for heart-shaped bokeh in
this article.)
Labels: photography
Happy Sunday! I hope those in the States had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was full of family and food (so much food) followed by a few relaxing days at home. Perfect! Our little trip west was also great. We did a few days in Vegas...



Then headed to the Hoover Dam.



And did an awesome 6 mile hike to the Colorado River through a neat little ravine.


We also spent two days at the Grand Canyon but I haven't even gotten to those pictures yet! You could say I was a little picture crazy on this trip. It was a wonderful trip but it's great to be home.
Labels: photography, travel
Happy 5th wedding anniversary to my sweet husband.

Today is also the 11th anniversary of our first date. We were just kids when we started dating. I was only 16. Everyday I feel lucky that we have known each other so long, and grown so much together.

He went out early this morning to pick up these roses. I love them.
Labels: family, photography
We are back from Chicago! It was a quick trip, but I think we managed to squeeze in the main attractions...


We went to the
Museum of Science and Industry, the
Shedd Aquarium,
Millennium Park, the
Hancock Observatory, took an architecture boat tour, visited the
Botanic Gardens, and went to
Oak Park for the Frank Lloyd Wright architecture. Add to that seeing lots of friends and family and it was a fantastic trip!

A few more pictures on flickr.Next up: Why I'm right to be so reluctant to cut into my nice fabric...
52 Nights Update - Night 26 - This is really just to help me remember what week I'm on - Monday was a cheater day since we were hanging out with friends all day in Chicago!
Labels: 52 nights, photography, travel
I've been in a little bit of a slump this past week. A few contributing factors, including a broken big toe (ouch), and a distinct lack of after-work-crafting motivation. So nothing's been done this week, despite ambitious plans to work on several different projects.

I know times like these come and go, that I will feel productive again soon, but it's hard to see that from inside a slump.

One advantage of my toe injury is that I don't have to get up at 5am tomorrow to run with my running club, so I'm hoping that will provide a little extra energy to find my crafting mojo.

In the meantime, I have enjoyed gazing at these amazing lillies, a gift from a good friend who came to visit last weekend. I swear you can smell them in my whole house, just delicious!
Labels: me, photography
I got totally caught up in the laziness of the three day weekend, and didn't do
any crafting yesterday. I putzed around the house, made coffee cake, took care of some long-needed organization projects... but nothing in my craft room despite several due-soon projects!
The package with my king-size batting showed up so I'll soon be madly basting and quilting the master quilt - a couple other projects are going to get priority, so I might miss my Saturday deadline, but not by much.
I'm back on track, I just don't have much to share just yet! Since I hate a post with no pictures, here's another sweet baby!

52 Nights Update - Night 13 was a miserable failure. I did quite well avoiding technology during the day, but in the evening we decided to see what all the
Lost fuss is about and got sucked into Season 1. I'll have better self discipline next week, I hope!
Labels: 52 nights, photography
Monday I had the opportunity to take a few photographs of the daughter of some good friends. This is Izabelle, at 9 weeks:



Even though she was grumpy I still had a lot of fun. I've found a 9-week-old that can't move around much is easier than a squirmy toddler, that's for sure!
Labels: photography
We're back from our trip south! We had a fantastic trip, it was amazing and beautiful, and to top it all off we got upgraded to 1st class on the way home!
Is anyone else having trouble seeing photos on flickr? Only about half of mine are showing up, and I can't see everyone else's either...


I actually got home almost a week ago but arrived home to broken internet, so posting may be sporadic for a little while... They're supposed to fix it tomorrow, but they've said that before! I have a ton to share (not just vacation photos!) so I'll be back as soon as I can!
Labels: photography, travel
For my birthday (...in October...) I got a new lens for my camera. Well, the promise of a new lens - I had to decide if I wanted a better all-purpose lens or a fixed focal length "portrait" lens... After a lot of research I decided to get a lens that will give me the yummy shallow depth of field I love so much... I am already smitten with my new toy!! Just a few examples from the past few days...
My puppy DJ being silly.
My precious sleeping nephew.
Hitch looking out the window.
Our new pelican.Do you see that last photo? That pelican? My mom
made him! Isn't he gorgeous? Living on the gulf coast we have a special place in our hearts for pelicans, and now we have one of our own. My mom is so talented!!
Labels: family, photography