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The Very Best Saturday [Bristol, RI]

admin — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:37:26 +0000

I’m fortunate enough to have a pretty wonderful boyfriend, and he further cemented his place in my cold, black heart with the notion of spending an afternoon rummaging through antique stores. In fact, he’d already looked some up. Be still my beating heart! Off to Bristol, RI we went.

This involved 3 of my favorite things: 1. Old shit 2. Shopping 3. Instagram opportunities. And I got to do it with my favorite fella. It was pretty awesome and I’ve got the Instagrams to prove it.

The first place, Alfreds, was cramped full of beautiful things…a lot of Asian art and furniture. We fell in love with this piece and couldn’t leave without it. It needs a better frame but look.at.it.

Next we walked over to Robin Jenkins Antiques. This place was great, it’s small but full of cool things. I am having remorse over not grabbing a pair of vintage specs and a book of circus posters, but I did grab a beautiful sterling ring and a fun shot of her vintage election buttons!

Last up was probably my favorite just because of the sheer volume of amazing junk/treasure, Second Helpings Consignment on Gooding Ave in Bristol.

So much to see and check out the haul we came home with.

Vintage Coca-Cola tray

Close up of two small framed drawings. $6/each!

Trippiest ginger snap tin ever.

AMAZING tin recipe box full of blank cards. Score! Nick spotted this and the Coca-Cola tin for me…he’s good!

And $4.00 worth of fabric, which has glamourized my wall behind the living room TV.

After being struck by a couple of LL Bean catalog models driving a ginormous SUV making an illegal 3-point turn, we settled in for lunch at Leo’s Ristorante on Hope Street. I got the eggplant parm and garlic bread and Nick got a “petite” pizza (that lived up to its name!) The food was delicious though and the staff was very friendly.

I’ve decided I love Bristol and of course, my amazing guy.

[Review] Gala Darling’s Love & Sequins

admin — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:00:39 +0000

Image of Gala Darling from http://galadarling.com

REVIEW: Gala Darling’s Love & Sequins Book/Podcast

LINK: http://galadarling.com/static/love-sequins-podcast

PRICE: $84.00 (Currently $42.00 through 2/28/12) or $12 per chapter ($6.00 right now!)

DESCRIPTION (from the author)

Love & Sequinsis my handbook on being a love letter to the universe. It’s about living magically & celebrating ourselves & it is delivered right to your inbox!

Each chapter is a whopping 10,000 words (or more!) long, & you also get an MP3 of me reading it aloud to you, which is brilliant for boring subway rides or as a kind ofmodern bedtime story!

So I had an admission to make…I’m kind of addicted to self-help, business and motivational books. This spawned early in life but really spread in the last couple of years. Is it possible to have a mid-20s crisis? If so, I’ve had it. Blame radical life changes in a short span of time for my excessive soul-searching, but I figure if I put all this work into my children, my career, my relationship, my apartment and my beloved Pinterest boards and nothing into myself…well that seems pretty stupid.

Anyway, I am only a recent convert to the church of Gala but I just adore her now. When I saw that her book and bootcamp were half off in February, I couldn’t resist the bargain and snapped up the entire book with it’s companion audio files! I am so glad I gave in to my early morning impulse buy because I spent the last week with Gala’s dainty little Kiwi accent in my ears telling me to BE HAPPY, DAMMIT! Of course, that isn’t all the book is about! Here’s a breakdown of the chapters by topic. For descriptions and excerpts, click the link above.

Learning to Love Yourself: Self-adoration, manifesting your ideal persona, channelling your inner Marie Antoinette & everything in between!
The Smart Girl’s Guide to Business: Taking control of your life, finding your passion, loving what you do & making mad bling!
Love, Sex, The Galaxy and Everything: From falling in love to co-habitation, & all the beauty & madness contained within!
A Guide To Manners for the Modern Minx: Etiquette, social graces & charming the pants off total strangers for the uninitiated!
Finding Happiness & Making it Stay: Choosing joy, making magic & devoting your life to love, adventure & deliciousness!
Daintier, Smarter, Better Dressed: A deluxe guide to looking truly fabulous, defining your personal style & being the best-dressed girl at any party!
Blogging 101 : Living & loving online, monetisation in the new world & thinking beyond the 9-5!
Best Friends Forever: Keeping your friendships fresh, finding platonic soul mates & clearing out the fakes, phonies & meanies!
Manifesting & Magic-Making: Using imagination & reverie to create a perfect universe!
International Playgirls Unlimited: Taking to the skies, travelling in style, romance on foreign shores & more!
It’s Up to You, New York, New York! : Decadence & debauchery, enchantment & madness, love & cockroaches!
What I Know For Sure

My favorite chapters were 2, 5 and 7 but I really loved all of them. As I was typing out this list of chapters, I realized I had somehow missed chapter 6…it’s like getting a new chapter! I have listened to all of the chapters twice and will probably listen to them all again sometime. They’re great to listen to while cleaning, and I do that a lot. A LOT.

Love & Sequins has inspired me to do many things. Some of these things include

Rushed out to Barnes and Noble to buy a new journal and consequently proved what a shitty vegetarian I am by purchasing a leather one. I have this problem with shoes and bags, too. Send your letters to “DEAL WITH IT DEPT”.
Bought a sequined bunny ear headband and several masks. They’re “for the photobooth”…sure.
Started blogging here again, and I have many changes scribbled down in the dead cow journal.
Re-organized my entire office area with every good intention to be fabulous and self-employed within my designated, equally fabulous workspace. I have yet to move my laptop there, but I have admired it several times.
Start a new Monday ritual in which I contact three friends and either just say hello or make a date with them. So far this is my favorite.
Corrected a shitty attitude with pure MIND MAGIC several times.

I’d be writing all night if I went through Love & Sequins chapter by chapter, but here are a few of the things I took away from these podcasts.

We cannot always control what happens to us, we CAN control how we react to it. Yes, some dick can swerve in front of you and cause you to spill your delicious and piping hot mocha latte you just purchased on the jeans you just laundered…but you are the one who chooses to either wallow in it or laugh it off. You can assume your day has been ruined and bitch to everyone who will listen (spoiling their day as well) or you can say “oh well” and get the fuck over it. Simple concept, but one few people adhere to. I’d like to give it a go.

We are the master of our own day. Through several chapters in Love & Sequins, Gala reminds us that we need to live in the now. We need to be happy now. Whether it’s quitting our shitty day job to do what we really love, traveling as much as possible, doing yoga in the morning or wearing a tiara to the laundromat…we need to design our lives with happiness in mind.

I do not travel enough. This one doesn’t need much explanation, but just listening to Gala’s tour de New York City in chapter 11 and the preceding on traveling in style, my wanderlust is on FIRE. I love visiting New York City and I think this year’s PDN Expo will also feature several of her “must-sees”.

I recommend this series to any woman (and maybe even some men) who feels uninspired by life right now. If you feel like the universe beats up on you and you have shitty luck, read this book…or at the very least my favorite chapter, #5. You will not regret it!

Blowing the dust off my blog.

admin — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 05:32:37 +0000

A huge part of my New Year’s resolutions (yes, I make them…deal with it) was to blog more and blog HERE instead of just on my work blog. I miss personal blogging, I miss posting photos of my friends and family…so I’m starting this off tonight. I’m spending the pre-wedding season trying to catch up on photos I took in 2011 that never left their RAW format, so expect some old photos to get posted in the next couple of weeks while I clear out the backlog! And there’s A LOT OF THEM.

In the meantime, here’s a photo of Kate as-yet-unpublished from the annual/autumnal Hideout New England meet up…more to come!

Next up: LSG’s fourth annual trip to WEBS!

Weekend Win: Watching Zack Arias on creativeLIVE!

admin — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 21:43:57 +0000

This one’s for the photographers! If you haven’t been watching the FREE weekend classes from creativeLIVE the last year or so, you’ve been missing out! creativeLIVE is online classroom that hosts some of the world’s most innovative photographers and airs their courses live for free on the internet. They believe in peer to peer education and using each other’s knowledge to lift the industry as a whole and as someone who couldn’t stand the rigidness of art school, that’s a philosophy I can get behind 100%. I love sharing information and hope to do something like this someday, so I just love it so much.

Bummed you missed amazing classes with Zack, Jasmine Star, David duChemin, Jeremy Cowart, Bambi Cantrell and Tamara Lackey? No worries, you can buy the DVDs for around a hundred bucks…and they’re beyond worth it.

During the classes there’s tons of fun stuff like quote contests on Twitter and a flickr pool for shots of where viewers are currently watching the class.

Zack’s class this weekend is called Foundations of a Working Photographer and so far it’s been amazing. As I write this, Zack is about to start some outdoor portraits!

Yesterday was an overview of photography and lighting basics, but before you roll your eyes…this wasn’t the usual aperture-does-this type of explanation! Everything Zack talked about I technically *knew* but now I really feel like I GET. Zack was the first photographer to explain the inverse square law in a way I understood in his One Light DVD and his explanation on lens compression and distortion yesterday was equally clarifying.

Technically, I knew what a wide angle will do to a face and I knew that telephoto lenses compressed a background…but it wasn’t until I saw the staggering side-by-side photo examples that I really got how powerful something as simple as lens choice can be.

I also FINALLY feel like I can calculate reciprocal exposures on-demand whereas before it was still EEEP MATH. I suck at math.

I’d rave more, but Zack is getting going and I don’t want to miss anything! Catching this today or tomorrow? Tune in! http://creativelive.com/live

Happy Spring!

admin — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 05:16:26 +0000

Spring is all about new beginnings! I’ve been busy brainstorming and planning for the summer, my spring resolution (cause who can be motivated in the dead of winter for the New Year kind? not I!) is to shoot, shoot, shoot. No excuses, every day. I started my *cough*th attempt at a Project 365 on Sunday, 3/20/11. Album here. I’m putting zero pressure on myself to do anything other than take at least one photo every day, like a visual journal. The thought of pulling off a high-production/thought out photo every single day is a little much for me right now…that’s for next year! For now, I need to carry my camera all the time. Time to thaw out the mojo!

Since I started, having my camera next to me at all times is resulting in Aiden having his own personal paparazzi in the house. Not that he minds…

Out With The Old!

admin — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 21:46:49 +0000

In with the new! Spring Equinox is just around the corner, it’s a new year with new possibilities and I…dear reader…have finally gotten a new camera. I know, I know…”it’s not the camera, blah blah blah”…but I wanted an upgrade anyway! I’m now shooting with a full frame Canon 5D Mark II and I.love.this.camera.

The color!

The clarity!

The ISO!! (Taken @ ISO1000, hand-held)

It’s amazing what a new toy will do to breathe life into you after a long, cold, gray winter indoors. To further my new gear glee, I took friend and fellow ‘tog Sara Patton up on purchasing her Canon 50mm 1.4 lens to upgrade from the cheaper (but excellent) 50mm 1.8. This lens is slow as a beast to focus but otherwise, LOVE LOVE LOVE!

I’m super excited to use them at our upcoming wedding with Julie & John, next weekend in Salem, MA at The Lyceum. Historic salem, new gear and retro/jazz themed wedding? My gig is pretty sweet.

While we grow impatient waiting for Spring, my family and I have been snatching any opportunity to get out and about. We took Zoe to the RI Spring Flower Show to start teaching her how to use my Canon 20D Mary-Margaret was kind enough to give us.

We took Aiden to Newport Creamery for lunch and ice cream…

I’ve taken a LOT of pictures of Aiden. He mostly tolerates it.

I’ve been tugging along the camera to try and get mentally prepared for my fourth? fifth? attempt at a 365 project. I plan to start on the Spring Equinox and Jameswill be starting along with me! We’ve vowed to keep each other on track!

One of my Spring Equinox Resolutions is to blog more on here. I get caught up in Altared Visions work and forget to blog for myself as well!

365.1 – Happy New Year!

admin — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 02:40:59 +0000

Happy New Year to all of you, I hope 2011 brings you happiness, love and all that snazzy stuff.

It’s time for attempt #3 at a 365! Third time’s the charm, right? I rang in the New Year doing what I love for a living and 2011 is all uphill from here.

Our Happy Holidays

admin — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 02:37:54 +0000

Holidays 2010 at The Pod <3

December is for celebration!

admin — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 01:34:56 +0000

(Reposted from AV blog)

December is always a hectic but fun month here. My brother’s birthday, our family Christmas party, my son Aiden’s birthday and then Christmas and the New year roll through one after another and I’ve barely cleaned the cake pan between use. (Alright, my dishwasher has barely cleaned the pan…)

Sometimes I forget to use my camera for me. One of my personal resolutions for the new year is to finally conquer a 365 project. I’ve gotten my hands on a Canon 20D body I will probably tow around in my purse to help keep me going. James wants to do one as well…we’ve got a lot of plans!

To practice, I’ve been using my camera for me all week. It was a good week to start with my family celebrating my daughter Zoe’s 11th birthday, the kids decorating the tree and my son in his brand new (gently used, rescued from storage by James) racecar big boy bed. I can hardly wait to wake up to a juice cup being thrust in my face and I will miss him calling “Goooooood Mooooorrrnnning!” from his crib at 7:30am sharp.

Somewhere along the line, my baby became a boy and my little girl became a tween. Woah. Happy Birthday Zoe, please have mercy on me over the next decade.

Michelle’s DIY Lightbox!

admin — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 16:09:21 +0000

Remember my DIY Lightbox tutorial? Well Michelle, a fellow knitter, wrote me saying she was going to try it out and I asked her to let me know how it went.

Well she did and she kind blew my mind experimenting with backgrounds by putting stuff between the light and tissue…genius!! Look!

Have you made a DIY Lightbox with my tute? Let me know and I’ll link your post! Which reminds me…I should post some more DIY photography stuff! Wedding season is winding down and there’ll be a lot more time for blogging, knitting, blogging about knitting (look, I closed my knitting blog so you non-knitting readers…all 3 of you…will just have to deal!) and best of all…photography for the hell of it.