Scrapbooking? What be scrapbooking?

I've actually posted a page! I know.. it's been forever! I will be adding more pages that I've made over the past few months and not taken the time to add them. I always think of it when it's 10 p.m. and I have no light to shoot pages.

Watch the sidebar on the right for new pages!

Snowpocolypse 2011

In case you're wondering how we fared in the snow storm (and we know you're not worried about lil' ol' nobody me. sniffles), we did ok. In fact, if this was 2009-10, we'd just call this TUESDAY.

The wind was blowing like a mutha, which seemed to be the worst of it, especially since we live out here in the open with no wind protection. Gene had yesterday off of work because it was supposed to be worse than Tuesday, but in reality, it was actually decent out and we ended up going to town so we didn't get stir crazy. The least pleasant part of the day was the fact that the chinese place we went to was really cold and we had to wear coats while we ate.

In reality, we didn't get it all that bad. Most of the bad stuff was central Missouri and we're on the very north end. We didn't lose electricity (we'd still have heat if we did!), but if we had, we have our generator from the outage a few years ago!

The snow tried to eat the neon... like it always does. But we have a secret weapon... the neighbor and his bobcat.


Before:

After:

We buy him beer for doing this. He never fails to show up, I wonder why??

Thursday Sparks - An extreme version of you

I've been very inspired lately by fantasy photos. Dressing up, or making up (or both!) to create a fun or sexy or intriquing or scary or weird or exciting photo. I especially love the photo above - since mainly I bought a pink glittery bunny mask at halloween and need someone to put it on. lol. (oh Amberrrrr!)

I would love to see portraits, seniors especially, move in the direction of something more like fashion photography, with a focus on what is important to that person at that moment in their life.

What if she:
Lived on the beach?
Was going off to college at USC?
Was a diving instructor?
Her favorite movie was little mermaid?

What if she:
Loved winter?
Has blue eyes like her mother, and her mother, and her mother?
Dreams of hitting the slopes every weekend?
Is called the "ice princess"?

What if she:
Has had purple hair since 7th grade?
Just got a new tattoo?
Has a costume party every halloween?
Danced hip hop most of her life?

What if she:
Loved birds?
Was a club kid?
Never wore makeup before?
Was embarassed by the gap in her front teeth?

What if she:
Thinks she should have been born in 1942?
Thinks that pin up girls are not beautiful unless they have a booty?
Has a love in her life that has a pin up girl on his shoulder?
Goes to the beach every single weekend?

What if she:
Is going to be an art major?
Looks just like her Great Aunt Mary?
Drinks grape juice twice a day?
Dreams of winter?

What if she:
Raises peacocks?
Favorite place in the world is the zoo?
Marches in Mardi Gras every year?
Is unbearably shy?

What if she:
Were an artist?
Doesn't feel right unless she's wearing red?
Wishes she could paint?
Never felt beautiful?

What if she?
Was moving to Vegas to be a show girl?
Was a mime on weekends?
Is a theatrical major?
Always wears pink?


I hope you see where I'm going with this. I would like to think that a senior portrait could be a little deeper than just sitting next to their basketball because they played starter for 3 years. Oh, those are there, they are done, but they don't really delve deeply in to their personality. That's what I'd like to see happen with portraits. Make the more personal than just a basketball.

I have a feeling I might be asking too much. On the other hand, I have a feeling my hardest sell, will ALWAYS be mom. And her rattan chair from mom's 1983 senior pics.


Well, a girl can dream right?

The Groupon Weekend Getaway - Part 1

Fact #1: I fully admit, that I've turned into a bit of a hotel snob.
Fact #2: I fully admit I have a motel 6 budget.
Fact #3: I am my mothers daughter and hate to pay retail.
Fact #4: I like pretty things
Fact #5: I needed a Christmas gift for the glass man.
Fact #6: I could go on endlessly, but then you'd get bored as usual.

Groupon is a pretty cool place. Well, except for the incredibly stupid descriptions and the moronic cat, other than that it's pretty cool. There are tons of offers there for places and events. Like: restaurants, spas, hair salons, botox (yeah really!), hotels and tons of other stuff. All for 50-80% off retail!

The businesses want to reach more customers so they offer you a screaming deal to get in the door. Pretty cool eh?

So back to the gift part. I bought a Groupon for one night's stay at Hotel Phillips in downtown KC and gave it to Gene as one of his Christmas gifts to be used later. Caveat: he was not allowed to pass this off as my "valentine's gift". He's been warned!

Twice.

I thought it would be fun to share some of the fun things we did on our Groupon weekend (I bought 3 all together), and show you some parts of this historic hotel. In fact, It's on the national register of historic places.

Our room was surprisingly bigger than I expected. I think we might have been upgraded to the executive suite. Nice. If we weren't, then I'm even more impressed.

The front desk staff was very helpful and kind. The woman that checked me in had a thick french accent, and didn't seem annoyed when I had to ask her to repeat herself twice. *oops* (English accent, I can handle pretty well ;)

With our package we also received free parking, which ended up being Valet service. That was so nice! Just call down and the car is there and waiting for you a few minutes later. The valet attendants were really polite people also. Not once did we feel like one staff member was impolite.

Our package also included a bottle of wine which I had just one glass and Gene had most of the rest *lol* I prefer a very sweet desert wine, and he likes his much more dry. It was pretty good, but he liked it better than I did.

We stayed on the 19th floor, which I didn't ask for, but I always want to be as high as I possibly can. Mainly because I love the view! My only complaint was that the windows were kind of dirty so it was hard to get good pics, but really considering the time of year, it's a minor complaint if one at all.

The hotel is an historic art deco period hotel with much of the original decor. Don't expect brand new construction. If you do, then I hear there's a Best Western a few miles a way. Remember that this hotel was built at a time where the average American isn't 325 pounds so the elevators and hallways are a little narrower than what you see in new construction.

Having said that, the decor of the hotel is really stunning, and I'm *not* a big art deco fan. I just wanted to hang out in the lobby and take photos all day. It might be fun to dress up a model or bride in a period dress (I just so happen to have a period gown.. ;) and do some shooting in this lobby.

*must investigate further*

I would say, that my favorite part of the hotel, wasn't even in the hotel... it was the view. We had the best looksee of all downtown. We stayed right next to the Bank of America building and still couldn't see the top of their building it was so tall. It gave the best reflections all times of day and night.

We were very close to Bartle Hall and Sprint Arena. I have dozens of awesome pics of the sculptures on Bartle Hall.

I don't know the name of this building (I'm sure someone reading probably knows), but the lights change that light up the tower all night long. It was straight out our window. And FYI, the pic on the right was handheld at 1/4 second, ISO 320 at 200 mm. Be impressed.

The next morning, we had the last part of our package - it was breakfast for 2 at 12 Baltimore in the hotel. It was very good and there was only one incident where I accidentally shot a sausage patty across the table at Gene while cutting it.

We both recovered beautifully.

Our wait was a little long, and we did get stuck sitting very close to the strangest couple. (she wouldn't speak, and he wouldn't shut up), but really, if we'd gotten around a little earlier (hello, it was sunday!!!) then we wouldn't have had either issue.

The restaurant sounded really pretty good. They had a large pizza with 2 toppings that you can get delivered to your room for $9. That's cheaper than any chain pizza place. I kinda regretted having dinner reservations when I saw that.

This whole package cost us around $90 - with a retail value of $214 (which at retail I thought was a good deal).

Over all, I give this hotel an A. I definitely want to go back again just to explore the hotel a little more and take some more photos... and stay the night!


Tomorrow - I'll share the rest of our Groupon weekend!

The pink boots

"Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world"
- Bette Midler

I used to have this whole other life.

Let me backtrack - whenever I have a hobby I love, I seem to throw my whole heart into it and in a short period of time, it becomes a job. Which is probably a bad idea, but at the time I'm so *in Luvvvvvv* with what I'm doing, that I want to make money at it too. Sadly what happens is that I go in barrels blazing, and in a few years I'm so burnt out I never want to see said job again.

One of these hobbies that turned into a job in the past, was scrapbooking.

Now let's be clear, I still love scrapbooking (I have a stack of pages I need to share), but in reality, how I scrapbook is changing. I sit down and create beautiful wedding albums for other couples - I'll design 40 page album in 4 hours, and wonder why I'm not doing that for myself.

Anyway, so I started out scrapbooking and within a year, I won the Creating Keepsakes Hall of Fame. That turned into a "job" of designing scrapbook pages and teaching all over the place. I was getting at times, 5-10 boxes of scrapbook supplies on my front porch regularly. *overwhelmed*

It was the heyday of scrapbooking and everyone and their dog had a business. I officially started a company making hand dyed tags, paper, envelopes, etc. It actually was doing pretty well for a little company just starting out.

Then toss in a divorce.

I decided that it was time that my little company tried to go bigtime and I wanted to make an attempt to be picked up by one of the big name companies. I knew I had a product that if marketed and packaged right, would be a hit. I just had to find the right company, and sell myself properly. I also wanted it to support myself and my kids financially. What better job could there be?

I decided that I'd go to a trade show in Atlanta and pitch my ideas right on the showroom floor. I wasn't leaving without a yes.

The thing was, I was trying to be frugal at the same time. I needed an outfit, and I wanted to spend exactly $3.00 in the process. Sadly I needed some shoes so that wasn't going to happen.

I stopped into the cheapest shoe place I know - Payless - and looked for the orange sale stickers. Retail was not going to cut it that day. It was very busy, and a woman was there trying on a cream colored pair of boots. I was feeling a little annoyed and dejected watching the process for some reason. I wanted a cute pair of boots, and I didn't want to spend much doing it. Actually, the word I'm looking for is I *couldn't* spend much doing it.

Then, I saw them. A hot pink pair of boots right next to the lady trying on the cream colored version. Maybe?

I slipped those $6.00 beauties on, and they fit like a glove. They looked expensive too. Sold.

I got them home and realized, that even tho pink is my favorite color, I didn't have much to wear them with, so it came down to a white shirt, black slacks and a pink scarf around my neck. Oh, and when I got there, my black leather jacket just pulled it all together. I dare say, I looked pretty damn hotsy.

We flew to Atlanta... wait, actually that's not true. We flew to Nashville and killed some time downtown seeing the sights. Rented a car and off to Atlanta to the show.

I walked in with my shoulders back, my head high, my show samples and my pink boots. One hour later, I was walking out with the promise of a contract of several of my designs. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. I was SO EXCITED for what was to come.

And my feet were KILLING ME.
I couldn't have walked that floor any longer if I wanted to.

Long story short, it really came at a bad time. It was one of the more stressful times in my life. I had a recent divorce, I was trying to make it on my own for the first time in my life, my dad was doing really badly, and the head designer at the new company was making my life a living hell.

The papers came out, I made some money, but not enough to live on... I moved on... and so did they.

I packed my shoes away and my life changed a lot in those 6 years since then. I got married, my dad died, I got a full time job working in KC, and then left it a couple years later, I started a photography company (which does alright!), Seth grew up and left the nest and so on and so on.

This weekend I was having flashbacks. Gene and I were spending the weekend in Kansas City (more on that later!), and again, I needed an outfit.

I was being frugal (do we see a theme?) and wanted to spend exactly $0.00 this time. We were going out to dinner to a fairly nice restaurant, and I wanted to wear something a little more dressy than usual - but not my work pants - I hate those pants. lol.

My necklace my husband had made for me has a hot pink topaz in the center. It's surrounded by tons of diamonds. I feel like I should be riding on the titanic when I'm wearing it, and scared to death I'll lose it, but I wanted to wear it anyway because when are you going to wear a 48 carat topaz to Walmart?

I picked out my favorite pink and purple blousey top that shows WAY too much cleavage but I wear it anyway and a cute little denim skirt.

Shoes!?

Shoes always kicking my ass (pun intended). I still have problems wearing some shoes because of my broken foot, but it's much better.

Then I suddenly remembered.... the pink boots!

I still have them. They are tucked carefully away in the original box at the bottom of the pile (most of my shoes are in clear shoeboxes - so I forget I have these).

It was a perfect solution to the "not too dressy, but dressed up outfit for $0.00".

Are the shoes life altering? No.
Does it really matter what I wore to a resturant? Not really.

But the shoes reminded me of the story of confidence and happiness from long ago, and I wanted to overshare.

Like usual.

{He didn't wear the purple shirt, he wore his pink one, because we're all Will and Jada like that}

Who woulda thought a simple pair of boots would have brought back so many memories?