Life in Color Photo – Page 341 – Celebrating crafts, kids and the everyday through photographs.

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Celebrating crafts, kids and the everyday through photographs.

And the winners are…

March 10, 2008

Wow you guys, thanks for all the love! I cut up the comments and had Bj draw so I could remain impartial 🙂
The winners are:
Jen Gough
Nicole
Sarah

Congrats guys, I’m off to email you all now and get your addresses so check your junk mail folders.

I spent this weekend being very happy indeed. I got to be with two of my dear friends to celebrate their engagement and take some shots of them. I was oh so nervous to take these photos as I usually shoot kids, and hadn’t done a formal shoot like this. But Kristen and Eric were super fun and relaxed. And of course very good dressers which always helps. Here are some of my favorites from the shoot (which yielded almost three hundred, of which 50 I love, love, love)!

We started off walking around downtown Corvallis (we all went to school there).

Awe come on, I had to do a couple of my tilts!

Her ring is awesome, good job Eric!!!

My favorite?

Then we headed to campus (where we saw Angela, who was also shooting an engagement, how random!)

Inside the MU, I had them moved the signage (why is this not coming up as a word?) that is usually up on the steps, and I like how clean this shot turned out.

Erin do you see this? I went to our nook, remember being all stupid and pretending to be statues there? I took some more of me, will show later.

(oops hit save before I was done posting, now the spaces are going to be all whack).

They had to get someone to let them into the dorms to get this shot, and then walk through a hallway. I stayed outside, but was told that it smelled just the same. 🙂

In the MU again. It was set up for some kind of talk.

Reading the "police beat" from our campus newspaper… "__________ was arrested Wednesday for stealing a figurine from the bookstore, valued at $3.98." Idiot.

Down to the docks. We took a team photo here once and the photographer was on a boat on the river. When we all started to come down on to the same part of the dock together it sunk it lower than it normally goes and spiders started coming up all of the cracks. So Reid was only down for a minimal amount of time as she said it still haunts her. It was pretty creepy.

Seven years together you guys, oh my gosh!!! That is so awesome. I love these guys and I can’t wait to go to there wedding! I’m sure it will be as fabulous as they are.

The reason I decided to do the shoot down there on Saturday was actually because we had a past, present, future alumni event at Reeser Stadium (which is huge now). I got to see so many wonderful people, some of my favorite in the whole world, including my old coaches. My novice coach Jane, especially holds a special place in my heart, and she moved on to head coaching up in Washington my third year on the team, so any time I get to see her it’s great fun. Lots of stories to tell, laughs to share. Not only did we honor our old head coach, Charlie, with a boat dedicated in his honor, but we also kicked off fund raising for a sorely needed boathouse project. It’s sort of a joke with all of us that went there, about how bad the locker rooms are and everything, but it makes it so hard to get good recruits. I think this is a great step, and shows how the university is supporting the crew teams now. Here is a newspaper article from the night.

Hmm what to say about Sunday. We overslept, I can never get used to time change, and Bj’s mom came to visit. And despite everything else I had to do I could not resist going through these happy photos. Then this morning neither of us set alarms and we didn’t get up until 10:30. Let’s hope for better starts tomorrow!

12 comments on And the winners are…
Three Years of all of this.

March 7, 2008

Today is my three year blog anniversary. So weird to think that three years ago I wrote this and put my pigtails out in the world. I don’t even really remember what started me on it. I have always journaled and kept track of my life, I think this really seemed like a great way to do that. The thing I never expected was how much happiness it would bring me. I’m sure I waste buckets of time reading other blogs and working on my own, but I love it. I love to see all the ideas out here. I love to contribute. I love to get comments, and hear from people who are reading. I love that it has made me take so many more pictures (the death of my film camera was this blog).

One thing I’ve heard is that you should have a focus on your blog. That readers will enjoy a more consise story. One just about crafting, or just about renovation, or relationships, etc. At first glance I think my blog sort of lacks that main thing that I talk about. I tend to go all over with what is happening in my life. This will be my 671st post, and I think I have like 72 topics, at least! But I hope what the people who have visited my blog (right now: 179,584 views) come away with is happiness. I try to find the good in everything, and everyone. I don’t always succeed, and I’ve had my share of rough patches these last three years, but for the most part that’s what I put out: the good. And that’s what I want to get back. And I do, over and over (3,109 comments so far). I feel so lucky to be able to live the life I’m living. And I always want to be like this, opptimisitic. So I put together a little project.

This is going to be my go to guide for day to day happiness. When I need a pick me up I can grab this book and do something that will make me happy. Here’s my sort of mission statement for the project:

Lately some people very important in my life have been unhappy. And there is always something to make you like that: physical pain, emotional stress, job worries, relationship problems. But I really think it’s best not to dwell on all the negatives. Or at least step away for a moment. You don’t have to make a book like this but I encourage everyone to make a list of five things. Five things that will make you happy TODAY, five things that will make you happy this week, this month, this year. The last category is five things that when you are old and gray will make you happy knowing you did them; lifetime happiness goals. Here’s what I came up with.

So there you have it. A few of my happy things. As I started working on it I realized just how many things make me happy (lots!) so I cruised past five. And some of them might seem silly to you, but that’s okay because your happiness list should be about what makes YOU happy, not anyone else. I only had a few guidelines for myself. I didn’t want any of the things relying on other people. I didn’t want to put anything regarding food (um, but did cave on the diet coke, mmmm). I tried to balance out the going/buying/making things so that it wasn’t all about stuff. I LOVED this project. It’s still a work in progress. I really need to think about what is going to make my life happy in the long run, but it is fun to include both those things and the instant satisfaction of say, wearing juicy joggins all day!

So in honor of my three years blogging I thought it would be fun to give away three kits for this project. I will put together a set with cover, spiral, Berry Patch punch (if you don’t have one, snag one up as they are going out of business), ribbons, paper and doo-dads. It won’t be exactly like mine, but should be fun. And hey getting mail is happy! If you would like to be included in this little bit of fun simply comment on this post by Monday, March 10th at noon Pacific Time. I’ll print out all the comments and pull three out. I’m still waiting on a few of the supplies for the kits so they won’t ship out right away. Good luck! Love you all!
Try this today!

March 6, 2008

Yesterday Brenda received a little package of goodies I sent her when we did a small swap with each other. She posted about it over on her blog and made a point of mentioning the envelop I put a little note in. When I was cleaning up the craft studio I decided to get rid of a few littler drawer units and things that were holding my post card/stationary stash. These all got filed away in one of the big drawers of my dresser in here. I pulled out one of a stack of envelopes that I had made a while ago to send to Brenda, one of these:

These are the original templates I’ve been using for ten years. The arrows help show you what the finished envelope will look like, and the direction it will go.

Choose a template and a page out of a magazine (the thicker the better, and mags like Martha Stewart that are extra wide and tall work even better for some shapes). Lay the template down adjusting so that the main image is on the front.

Cut it out.

Place the folded up template in the middle of the envelope and then press the edges around it so you will have folds to follow when you remove it.

Get out the rubber cement baby. The only way to go for this project. Either paste it on and hold the pieces together, or (my method of choice) paint each side that is going to be attached and then when they are dry stick them together. It sounds wrong, but works great. See that little thing in the back? It’s a rubber cement eraser, it works like a dream after everything is dry to clean up around the edges.

Attach a fun label like this (an old issue of national geographic will yield dozens) or an Avery label, piece of cardstock, anything that will give you space to write. Note on this type of envelope: if you do decided to have the address run so that the width is shorter than the height you are subject to a small surcharge (at least in the USA). Check USPS.com for details.

There you have it. A practically free project, and hey, you might even be able to sneak this project at work. 🙂

5 comments on Try this today!

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