life. photos. scrapbooking.

Giveaway for YOU!

Hey guys.

Things have escalated to a near ridiculous level of crazy around here with Clark being gone... WE MISS YOU!!! Come home soon daddy!!!!

All I can say is... thank God for Mimi's... Mine is certainly getting me through. She's borrowing Clark's cape at the moment and saving us all from our own brand of insanity.

Thanks for comin' Mom. Love ya.

 

So - instead of a thought provoking post about life.... I'm just gonna give away some stuff instead.

Cool?

Cool.

 

And since this guy is the new kid on the block... I thought I'd give a 5x10 mounted print away to one of you!

To ENTER :: leave a comment below. But not just ANY comment...

I wanna know something - what is your favorite kind of cereal?

I'll go first.

My current favorite is Cascadian Farm Organic Granola (fruit and nut) with Stonyfield farm Low-Fat Vanilla Yogurt on top (instead of milk) - and some kind of fresh fruit added in just for kicks.

 

How's THAT for a super girly - put an umbrella in my bowl kinda breakfast... eh?

Though - my old standby has to be plain ol' Raisin Bran. Keeps me regular. What can I say...

What's yours?

I'll leave the contest open until late Wednesday night and pick the winner for Thursday's post.

GOOD LUCK!!!

Baby...

Love.

My baby love... I need you... Oh how I need you!

This is a little sneaky sneak from some time I spent with brand new baby Iris last week. Such fun.

 

Words and photos... O how I need them. That's why I scrapbook. For the pure and simple love of words and photos. That fanciful combination of things is naturally flowing into my professional life as well so it seems. Last week's fine art print... now this...

Hmmmm. Amen to that.

 

So.... The single mom thing has me a-running more crazy than usual so I'm leaving y'all with that today.
Hope you had a great weekend!

 

 

Miss you stinker.

Today, friends, my Clark is going away to Manila, Philippines for a two week work trip. Its an amazing opportunity for him to show what he's made of to the new company he began working for in February. He loves this job and is trying really hard to advance. I'm so proud of him that he got picked for this - even though it will be shaking things up a bit here at home... GO Clark GO!!!

We've never been apart this long our ENTIRE marriage. Plenty of 4 and 5 day trips... but never 14. In fact, we'll be celebrating Father's Day and our 5 year anniversary via Skype.

God bless the internet.

Still, I'm counting these 14 days as lucky. Initially, it was a month. YIKES. Sooooo thankful for just 14.

The great thing is - my family is rallying... my mom, my dad and mother-in-law will all be making their rounds down here to help me out with the two little boogers.

Here's to hoping they are on their BEST behavior. (The kids, I mean. :O) )

I'm also going to be summoning the single-mom toughness that my sister-in-law, Carmi, and many many military wives and husbands embody while thier loved ones are deployed to much more dangerous situations.

How DO they do it? Major props. Our military and their families are so bad-ass.

I need to be bad-ass for the next 14 days.

Channeling my bad-ass self. B-A  B-A  B-A  B-A... Ohhhmmmmmmm....

 

Clark, honey... be careful. Have fun. Kick some serious butt over there. I'll be here holding things down, praying for your protection, and missing you every single second until you come back.

Love you.

xoxo

Kate

 

Goals...

I was thinking about my 33@33 list now that we are in June and half the year is in the can. I've crossed off 9 things so far... Not bad.

No. 11 on my list reads... "create paper goods for sale"

I guess, in a way I do this already. I sell prints to my photography clients... but what I really meant by this item is something paper for sale - that's beyond just the click of the shutter...

Something more like this.

 

A nice combination of my words with my photos.

I jotted this note down the other night, just before I turned off the light.

When I found the scrap of paper in my day planner yesterday, I thought it would make an ideal first print... A nice "goal statement" to help me with my 33@33 goal.

I'm offering them printed 5" x 10 " with a nice woven texture from my professional lab.

Available two ways... mounted on 2mm styrene... so you can simply lean it somewhere without a frame like this... (my favorite!!)

or unmounted so you may frame it any way you wish.

So... here again are the deets...

 

 

"My Goal" 5x10 Fine Art Print with Embassy Texture

Unmounted - $15

Mounted on 2mm Styrene - $25

Shipping - $5.50 to the US

Please Choose

5x10 - unmounted $15.00 5x10 - mounted on 2mm styrene $25.00

5 MONTH Layout! (a week late)

I know... I know... I was a total slacker last week. It's cool. I took some time this weekend to get my rear in gear.

Here's the little bug's 5 month layout. Even tried to break from my usual style with this one...

_{LAYOUT SUPPLIES :: Photoshop CS5, Colbie Solids Paper - Michelle Martin, Dialogue Frames & Spot Embellishments - Paislee Press, Evidence Patterned Papers - Ali Edwards, Circle Numbers - Ali Edwards, Fonts - Pea Roxygirl (my font!) & Adler, Notebook Paper - Katie Pertiet, Torn N Tattered No. 4 Mask - Anna Aspnes}

 

Have to say... I'm loving that I'm trying to "schedule" time for this. If I don't - the way life is right now - it just wouldn't happen. And that would make Katie a very sad girl...

Point blank - saving our memories and DOING something with all the photos I'm taking is important to me - so it gets a small chunk of my week. I used to feel guilty about this since so many other matters are certainly more "pressing" - but truly feel as though this indulgence saves my sanity... albeit one little layout at a time. When I'm making a layout to file away - I'm in my happy place.

Hope you get some time in your happy place this week!

xo

 

 

 

Because I have to...

Hey party people...

Just in case anyone missed it...

 

Amen.

Thankful Thought Album :: The Beginning Anyway

Hi guys! Hope you all had a relaxing weekend.

For the first time in a long time I didn't have to either travel... or work on Sat/Sun... Ahem - I mean - I didn't have to go out on a shoot... I definitely worked... Edit Edit Edit... and edit some more...

But at least I was home with Clark and the kiddies. SO that was relaxing enough.

I did take a little break on Saturday to assemble this...

A week or so ago I purchased a small 4x6 album from Kolo... they are my favorite brand of albums. This is the Noci style - but I also own several of the Trivino style in various colors for my 8.5 x 11 albums (each family member has a color, some have more than one volume). I also own two of the 3-up Hudson photo albums for my wedding photos. LOVE Kolo.

Anyway... I also got my first 4 Thankful Thought photos printed from the lab I like. Once I had everything in front of me I decided the cover of the album needed a little title and sprucing up - and I needed to figure out how to incorporate the journaling.

For the journaling.. I decided to create smilar index style cards by simply adding lines to the Thankful Thoughts overlays then printing them out on cream 8.5 x 11 cardstock.

I made this in Photoshop ::

I printed it out and trimmed it. For the title piece I glued it to a piece of chipboard... then trimmed the whole piece a little tighter for nice crisp edges. I used a Crop-A-Dile to punch holes in it and used some philips head screw looking brads (from Michaels, I think) to dress it up.

Once that was all done I made a little title page with patterned papers, rub ons, buttons and a tag from Paper Source.

_{SUPPLIES :: Patterned Paper : Crate Paper, Rub Ons : American Crafts, Making Memories, Tag : Paper Source, Bakers Twine : Divine Twine, Punches : EK Success, Button : SEI}

TT no. 1 - I just went head and used my own handwriting on the cards - although I could certainly have fit more text if I would've printed them on my computer. Oh well. I think for something like this... doing it in your own hand is a touch more "personal."

TT No. 2

TT No. 3

TT No. 4

There is space inside this album for 9 two-page spreads plus front / back title pages...

Here's the back...

Anyway - I just thought I'd share how this is sorta coming together for me... in case any of you are also participating with Ali.

Now we all just need to wait for her to come out with overlay No. 005... :)

Have a great day!

xo

 

Fun for Friday

Ok - so I'm a big loser and have no real post for you today (even though I took yesterday off too).... boooo HISSS!

I dunno what my excuse is. Life... 2 kids... random stuff popping up...

I know - that's no excuse.

All I know is - it's 12:30am right now and I should be sleeping and not screwing around on the computer trying to decide what I'm going to write.

BUT - I love you guys and feel that I must give you a proper weekend send-off - and promise, in keystrokes, that I'll get my act together next week.

I got lots to share, people. You best believe.

I'll leave you with this video. My mom sent it to me in an email a week or so ago and I couldn't quit laughing.

 

The best line is right at the beginning (so don't miss it!)

"oops man, I pooped my pants"

ya, got it?

Oh, how I love a little bathroom humor.

Here's to a little fun on Friday folks! Have a good one!

 

Isn't She Lovely?

Shannon and husband Seth are due to meet their first baby, Wyatt on or near June 21. Shannon is, in two short words... effortlessly beautiful. Just weeks before her due date.. she was utterly radiant for my camera. Proving my point entirely. Lucky me.

The baby's grandma... is a Master Gardener... so we thought we'd start our session on their property. Seth and Shannon were married here as well so the place holds lots of meaning for them!!

I've been enlisted to photograph Mister W soon after he makes his grand entrance, so stay tuned for that... but in the meantime - Shannon sporting her beautiful bump was just too special to let slip by undocumented.

Here are some of my favorites from our time together. Enjoy!

It was HOT, HOT, HOT and sticky... If I could've come up with 20 posing opportunities in and around the pool - that's where we would've stayed...

But let's face it - I ain't THAT good. :O)

I see you lookin' at me...

Expectant, and excited...

One of my faves... So sweet.

So so pretty here Shannon... love this one.

You'd never know we were getting totally gobbled up by the skeeters at this point!

Then we ventured down the street to a neighbor's private little beach... Thank you Pam and Jim! We love ya!

My fave of the day...

Congratulations Shannon and Seth. Can't wait for the little man to arrive!