Baby Shower Decorations for Days!!

What is today, Wednesday? Already?? I feel as if my week has been tucked away somewhere under the dust layers in this house. Monday and Tuesday took me to Mag's college for orientation. As ready as I know she is, her own trust in herself is only emerging as she's willing to take risks. Standing there next to her and the numerous other freshman (with no moms) she says to me I can leave. I asked if she was embarrassed that I was there and she said no, she wanted me there. She was sad that she was such a baby and needed her mom. I smiled, gave her a hug and said that she'd always be MY baby. Then left to sit on the other side of the campus until I got the text "OK, now you can go." Gut wrenching. 

On the drive home she called and said she had met two very nice girls. They included her in (Thank you Lord) and all was good in the 909.

Sunday was my niece's baby shower. I won't even get into how crazy I work. Makes no sense to anyone unless you're related or creative. Luckily my sisters are both! lol

My sister walked in with these beautiful flowers from Devynn's Gardens in Seal Beach.

A must have for every party!

Devynn's Garden in Sunset Beach

AND she walked in with all this food and this adorable bowl as a gift for me!!  

 Scrumptious Chicken Salad Sandwiches, Chinese noodle salad and fruit for days!

My kids made the desserts the night before.

We had purchased several lanterns. After opening them up we realized that they ones from Alin Party (L.B.) were the best. The Martha Stewart lacy ones were good too, however MS's ones that opened up into balls (see ones in pic below) were not so good. Touch or breathe on them wrong and they'd dent. Wouldn't recommend them.

Played games... eggs were to decorate like a baby. And then you had to take care of it all day.

Lastly, I attempted to make table linens even though the bobbins for my daughter's sewing machine were missing. (And the ones I bought to replace didn't work)...

It was a great party and I'm sad to have to put my house back. However, now I can make the linens the way they should be. I'd really like to sell them on etsy. 

Life is moving so fast and I wished that I had time to do more, to finish, to enjoy, to take a step back and say, whew. But on to the next things on my list.

Thank you Sherri for all your work & patience in this. It was a joint venture and quite a venture - adventure! Thank you Debbie, for without the initial invitation created with your art, we wouldn't have had the inspiration and motivation to move in this direction. Last-- thank you Manny and Hayley. For without your sweet Adeline, we would have had a party of none.

Ewe... Grass.

Tomorrow's weather forecast is bringing a shower... baby that is. My niece is expecting her first baby and it's a girl! I made up these sheets for people to fill out for her (thanks to ideas on the web of course and my all too talented artist sister who gave me the floral-print-art) I emailed her a copy of it and she then sent me back another idea. Which I have to say is so much better! My niece loves lambs and we used my sis's sheep on the invitation....

Here is my sis's version! lol Blah Blah.... Don't you love it?

Being that I had printed mine already, I took her creation and tweaked it into a thank you card that my niece can use. Her husband's family is Spanish speaking so I made a bilingual version of my "thank ewe" card. Here is put it on top of her floral print. Thank ewe and Grass see us. 

The back of the card has lines for her to write on and their names were printed on the bottom,

but I took it off for this posting.

I changed the colors;

And then went crazy.

 Grass see us pour looking at my blog. Here's looking at ewe.

Wedding in Temecula - Photoshop Techniques

Shooting a wedding brings many surprises. For me, they are standard yet workable issues. I love to see what I can do with photos in photo shop. Here is my chosen fix for the day. In the first photo you can see what the wedding coordinator got to do. She escorted these two frilly tots down a long stretch and then helped them down stairs. (Earlier that day one of them had shoes on, and the other, just a band aid on her big toe. I'm glad they went barefoot. So cute.)

Sadly, the wedding coordinator didn't make the cut. Or did make the cut... and the youngest did too since she was in a tree-- more or less. So I took out the coordinator holding the sister, and removed the arm that was holding her hand. I created another arm and made it as if she was all on her own. I'm sure her mother will be proud that she is able to walk all the way down those steps by herself. lol

But then it began to really bug me that she looked as if she only had one foot. So, back to photo shop she did go. Adding another foot.

In this one, I added "actions". I used a patina texture and vignette. I wanted her to keep her pristine white dress so I erased any texture that was overlaid on her.

And last, the very first photo on this post shows her up against a fence which has graffiti on it. The fence is actually the steps that she is walking down, just rotated 90 degrees. And the graffiti words and wings were placed as overlays to give the illusion that they are written on the boards.

What have you done in photo shop lately?

Flower Girl

Love this little girl. I'll post her and her sister tomorrow.

Temecula is all about green this time of year. Incredible background.

Temecula Wedding Preview

Here are just a few photos from the Temecula wedding on Saturday. I will post more as I go through them. I like these for different reasons. Which ones do you like and why?

Temecula has some amazing photographic locations. I'm sad that my time was very limited with the bride and groom. I may drive out there again just to play.

Wedding @ Temecula Winery

This weekend gave me the opportunity to shoot a wedding at a Temecula winery. Here is one quick one, straight out of the camera. Just wanted to get something on the blog. I'm posting this one for Communal Global blog. One that shows pics from around the world. Visit it here: http://communalglobal.blogspot.com/

Can't go wrong with an adorable child. She was a delight!