Fourth of July

This Fourth of July was unlike any I can ever remember - - chilly, dreary, misty. My camera seldom saw the light of day with the rain but I did manage to capture one cute picture of Max wearing a patriotic top hat. This weeks assignment on the DPS website is Black and White Portraits so this is my submission.

"Tricks" of the Trade

One of the more fun things I get to do is to play tricks on people. I've had a few opportunities lately to work up some fake documents to "scam" people I know. Two of my favorites are below.

This first one is a letter to my husband and unfortunately, it didn't make it very far. He's too smart and figured it out way to quick, I'll have to try harder next time. He, his brother and a friend went on a weekend trip to Wisconsin a few weeks back. On the way up, my husband was behind the wheel of his brothers RV when a deer decided to embark on a suicide mission. Apparently, the deer stuck his head a little far out in traffic and ended up beheaded by the headlights, there was fur down the side of the RV. My sister-in-law asked me to make up a letter from PETA regarding the "accident". I mailed it to him at their shop a few days later, I thought it looked pretty good, but with too many added details, he figured it out!



This other one is a gift I created for one of the owners of the company I work for. His girlfriend was less than appreciative when he bought her the Fruit of the Month Club membership for Christmas a few years back, he wanted to play a trick on her so she would think she was getting Chicken of the Month Club this past Christmas. Unfortunately, it back-fired on him... she was excited about it! When she opened it, her family began arguing over who got what each month and when she found out it wasn't real, she was a bit angry with him - he just can't win! We even printed out a coupon sheet for her to share with friends and family and opened up a fake email address then emailed her a "welcome to the club" note. This one worked out perfectly.... too perfectly!





Stay tuned for some new images to be added soon. I have pictures of some beautiful houses and an adorable new baby girl I will be introducing!

Official Business

I thought I would just throw this out there and see if I got any bites. I have done two of these videos in the past couple weeks for graduations. My job is successful when the graduates mother watches it five times and still cries every time!

Happy Birthday Baby....

It seems so unreal to me that my "baby" just turned THREE! How is that possible. He is growing up so fast... and no, Lisa, this doesn't mean there's gonna be another! Max is all boy - he fights, he kicks, he growls, he screams, he races, he jumps and then he cuddles and kisses. And he is so big. Here are a few of the pictures I took of him to commemorate his third birthday.







Happy Birthday Max!! Mommy Loves You!

Busy Busy Busy....

Tis the season for.... well, booked weekends and exhausting engagements. For the next three weeks we have three graduation parties, one housewarming, one birthday and little time for anything else! No wonder summer always seems too short.

Two of the graduations are my cousins. I had the pleasure of creating my cousin, Wally's graduation invitations. This was supposed to be a quick first draft to get out to his friends for the last day of school. He and his family (and I) like it so well, we printed it out on the "good" paper and sent them out the rest of the invitees. Not too shabby for a first draft!



I am also working diligently on a DVD scrapbook for his party. I will upload that for viewing once it is completed. It's a challenge to make something that you know should tug at the heartstings of the parents yet still be tough enough not to humiliate the poor guy in front of his friends. Should be interesting!

A More Fitting Salute....

We had the opportunity on Tuesday to retake some shots of the car. Fox 42 news is doing a segment on Devin's story (airing Monday May 11, 9pm) and they decided to film the segment front of the tank by the old Legion in Millard. The setting was perfect so we decided to get a few shots and replace the image on the magazine cover with a more appropriate image.

Salute to a Soldier

A friend and coworker of Jeff's found out recently that he will be deployed in the fall. He will be going to Afghanistan and will be there for quite some time. Devin and his wife have had a 1969 Coronet Super Bee for nearly 10 years, yet, haven't found the time and money to make their dream come true. A group of his friends got together and "stole" his car to overhaul it for him. They had several people contribute time and money to the effort and the result was incredible. The car turned out fantastic, inside and out, front to back, it is amazing! After an extremely long two weeks (for the build team and Devin), the car was revealed to Devin on Saturday night. Here are a few shots of the car.







Along with the reveal of the car, I decided to create Devin a custom magazine cover featuring his Super Bee. I took the cover picture about 4:30 on Saturday afternoon when the car was finally complete. The reveal was scheduled for about 6pm so you can imagine panic trying to get everything complete!

Lucky Number Seven

The latest addition to our family arrived late last week. This makes a total of seven grandchildren on my side of the family... thus the title: Lucky Number Seven. My younger brother and his wife welcomed a handsome little boy, Zackary. Here are a few snapshots from the hospital, I am hoping to get to their house one day this weekend and take some more "professional" type photos. I haven't had the chance to experiment with newborn photos and I'm ready for my chance. Poor Zackary... he's my little guinea pig!







This weekend I also have the opportunity to go along with a professional friend of mine to take newborn photos. I have really gotten addicted to photography and wish I was better... what better opportunity than to be able to shadow a professional and maybe learn some tricks of the trade!

A Couple New Projects

Here are two of my recent projects. The first is my daughter, Lucy's fourth birthday invitation. Typically, in my family, we just pick up the phone and call with the date and time of the party. Keep it easy. Keep it simple. Unfortunately, with my creative side, I usually try to make my kids' invitations. I fear the day I run out of time and have to settle for the phone call! Jeff always says I make things too hard on myself, but I enjoy creating things so to me, it's worth every minute of it!




Here is the invitation for my sister-in-law, Tricia's, baby shower. This is probably one of the cutest things I have done in a while. She wanted a book shower, if you're not familiar with the concept, it's simple: instead of attaching a card to the gift, each guest is asked to sign a greeting in a book to help start a library for the baby-to-be. I opted to go with the book theme and created a book style invitation. I used the "Golden Books" as a guide for the binding and the top logo. I created the stork in a race car which matches the bedding set they chose for baby Zack. Inside were four pages, each with a different piece of information: who the shower was for and who was hosting; date, time and place; explanation of the book shower concept and finally, where the parents were registered. It was a pretty big hit! I'm excited at how well it turned out despite a small printing issue....

Lucy is turning FOUR!

I took her 4-Year pictures the other day. DISASTER! Holy cow! I am going to have to accept the fact that either, A. I am lacking the talent of photography or B. I am lacking the discipline of my children (what the hell, maybe both!). Either way, of the 50 shots I took, I got a total of four that actually look decent. Lucy apparently only has one "pose" mastered and anytime I tried to get her to do something different, it just wouldn't work! Ha!









I would be interested in hearing what everyone thinks of these pictures. Any suggestions or ideas.... or just your thoughts!