Claire Bear is turning 1!

Hi my lovely readers! Hope your week is going well so far. Today, I come to you with some shots of Claire that I took a couple of days ago. I can’t believe that on the 19th she will be one years old! It seems like she just arrived!

I loved using this vintage yo-yo quilt as my backdrop! It’s like a field of multi-colored flowers. :)

I shot these upstairs in the hallway where we have a skylight directly overhead. It gave me great even, natural light.

 

She is actually wearing her sisters tank top…so she is swimming in it but I love the lace edges and it happened to be within reach so I figured, what the heck?

This one is a bit blurry so forgive me but I had to include it because…well…that grin is just too cute!

I will be sure to capture more photos at her birthday party!

Much love to you all!

xo,

Ivy

Weekend away: Oregon wine country

Hi there! How’s it going? Okay, so I promised I would be back with some pics from our little weekend getaway. I have to admit that my big camera was left in the hotel room because I am so addicted to Instagram. It was fun to capture the moments in a spontaneous (and easy) way with my phone!

We stayed in the historic town of McMinnville at the 3rd Street Flats. They are beautifully decorated, European style flats full of gorgeous decor, charm and local art. The complimentary bottle of wine and chocolates didn’t hurt either. Love this place and would stay again! We could walk to all the restaurants, bars, cafes, tasting rooms and shops!

That first night we ate at the beautiful and romantic La Rambla! Spanish Tapas and fancy cocktails. Yes, please.

Now don’t laugh but the whole point of this trip was, yes, to be romantic and go wine tasting but it was to also work on the re-design of my blog. I rarely ever get Chris’ undivided attention (and talent) so I took advantage of the situation and we parked at the Cornerstone cafe to geek out together and actually get some things accomplished! Grace & Ivy will be new and improved very soon! ;)

After a little hard work, we had to go play and taste some wine so we packed up our laptops, hopped in the car and ended up in the tiny town of Carlton.

We stopped into two places we had never tried before. Absolutely loved the French style Burgundy wines at Scott Paul!

And a ten sample (yes ten!) wine flight with chocolates was a delight at Seven of Hearts!

That night we got all dolled up and dined at Thistle. I LOVED this place. Intimate, delicious, charming with a totally vintage vibe. I was right at home.

What a wonderful treat to get away with Chris! It felt amazing to recharge, re-connect and get inspired.  Thank you to my fabulous brother and his beautiful fiancée for taking our kids for the entire weekend!

If you haven’t gotten away with your partner lately…try and plan something. It is so worth it!

xo,

Ivy

Eight Months Old

Hello! How is your week going? My online class is going well and I’m very inspired to continue improving my blog. The family is well, healthy and happy. Life is good…but I gotta say…I’m not sure if it’s all the rain or what but this week has been hard for me. Major doses of self doubt, feelings of apathy and guilt. A desire to be left alone. Super duper irritability – so sorry my sweet family. I’m not sure what’s up with me. Often when we shift we go through an uncomfortable passage, a place of resistance…maybe that’s where I am at. You see, I have lots of new plans. A multitude of ideas and projects that I want to begin. Goals I want to accomplish. Yet all of a sudden I feel heavy and unsure. Last week, I was full of inspiration and energy. What gives? I guess it’s just a funk. Anyhow…enough grumbling. I try to limit that on my blog but for some reason I just needed to share that with you. I have no right to be sad, no reason to be down…but yet I am…and there you have it.

Okay…blah.

How about some cute baby pictures? They always make me smile. I captured these the other day. Little Miss is eight months old now and is turning into quite the character.

Bubbly, loud and rather demanding. Claire is turning out to be very different to my quiet and shy little Grace.

She seems to love the camera and lights up when I take her picture. What a ham…

But soon she was over it. She pulled off the headband and laid back on the pillow as if to say, “I’m spent!”

Have a wonderful rest of the week!

xo,

Photo Love : RadLab Giveaway

Hi everyone! You all know I’m kinda obsessed with my camera and I find so much joy in not only taking pictures but “making” pictures too! I love the versatility and endless possibilities available when using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Experimenting with layers, textures, filters and brushes brings me much happiness and I have to tear myself away from the computer at night! Creativity gives me a caffeine like buzz!

Anyway, my latest favorite tool in conjunction with PS is RadLab! It’s a plug-in that works within PS, PS Elements or Lightroom that you download and oh my goodness – it is addictive! It makes editing photos so super easy (seriously) and I love that you can save what you did in a “recipe” and then apply it to another photo. This works out brilliantly when I’m editing photos for the shop and I want to achieve a consistent look. RadLab makes my post-production SO much faster!

I love it so much that….TODAY I’M GIVING ONE LUCKY READER RADLAB FOR FREE!!!! (worth $150.00)  Yah! To enter, all you need to do is leave a comment and tell me why you want RadLab. The winner will be randomly selected and announced on March 5th! ***Please be aware that you NEED Photoshop Elements 7 (or later) or Photoshop CS3 (or later) to use RadLab.***

I wanted to share a snapshot I took of Grace last summer. It’s not a great shot by any means but with a little RadLab magic it can become something so much better!

Here is the shot after RadLab…

Here is my recipe for this effect:

(if you don’t have RadLab then this won’t make much sense to you, so bear with me.)

{RECIPE: Lights On 100% – Oh, Snap 100% – Punch Out 49% – Contrast 5% – Cool as a Cucumber 70% – Claire-ify 25% – Vario-tone 100% – Iron Mouse 31% – The 600  63%}

Note: I also did some sharpening of her eyes with the sharpen tool and brought more light into her pupils by using the dodge tool.

Voila! A much better pic with better clarity, high-key drama and fresh, crisp color!

Of course, I couldn’t stop there…I went on to do a digital collage piece with this photo. Here it is…Grace helped me and picked out the flower for her hair! :) I’ll show you how I did the digital collage another day.

Had a blast creating these. I hope this encourages you to experiment with your programs no matter what you may have. PicMonkey is a fun, free editing tool to learn on and Photoshop Elements can be purchased for under $80.00, (which is a steal compared to Photoshop) but offers plenty of power to get creative with your shots. Oh and the fabulous folks at RadLab gave me this 15% off coupon code just for my readers! Enter – GRACEANDIVY  at checkout.

Now go play!

xo,

***Full disclosure – I do get a small affiliate cut if any of my readers buy RadLab, just so you know. However, I am promoting it because I truly LOVE it and not for the money. This is the first time I’ve ever had an affiliation with any online product or business.***

Collage Cards

Hi friends,

Hope you are enjoying your weekend. I know Valentine’s is over but I wanted to share the collage card project Grace and I did for her classroom. I think this simple method of creating cards is really fun and can be done for any occasion.

Grace and I have done many collages but I have discovered that the best success is found when I curate the materials. Usually sticking with a theme or color palette allows your kiddo to make choices and express themselves without being overwhelmed. There have been plenty of times when I threw down a mass amount of stickers and papers only to find the Grace got overwhelmed and upset when her finished artwork looked “messy”.  She simply had too many choices in front of her. Providing just a little framework meant that she got to be creative and enjoy her results too. Nothing  is worse than an afternoon spent crafting only to end up with a grumpy kid, a paper strewn floor and glue everywhere. A creative buzz kill.

Before Grace got home from school I had cut out and organized the elements that would be used for the Valentine cards. This made it easy for Grace to make her selections and understand the color palette.

Scrapbook paper and vintage music sheets were punched into hearts using this handy dandy punch. Scrap booking die cuts and sticky jewels make easy embellishments – we had to make 25 of these cards after all! A little glitter was used at the end for a special touch of sparkle and buttons were a fun 3D addition. K & Company has some of the prettiest supplies and are my go to for scrapbooking goodies!

We had so much fun making these! I would have pics of all of them but it was dark by the time we were finished!

Think about making some collage cards with your kids for Easter!

Have a wonderful Sunday!

xo,

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year friends! Hope you all enjoyed the holiday season. We had a very merry time with family and friends but now it’s time to switch gears and get back to work! To be honest, it’s always bittersweet for me. Taking down the Christmas decorations, the twinkling lights and all the pretty trimmings of the season makes me a touch sad. Mostly, I think, because my family leaves and heads back to Montana and the house seems drab after all that glitter and shine.

So, to quickly beat the blues, I decided to do a sisterly photo shoot of my girls today. We have been blessed with crisp, cold days full of bright sunshine (very odd for Portland this time of year) so I figured I better make the best of it. The piles of laundry sat waiting while, Claire, Grace and I played in the gorgeous light. Grace even got into the art direction. She would notice the light change and say “Quick mom, you are losing the light!” Too cute! She directed some shots that I took of her…which I will share with you tomorrow.

So here they are…my six year old and my six month old. Sisters and hopefully, one day, best friends.

How has your New Year so far? Any goals or aspirations you want to share? Me? I want to cook more, read more and exercise more!

Have a beautiful Thursday!

Much love to all!

xo,

P.S. For those of you who are wondering…I am using Photoshop to edit my photos in addition to Rad Lab. I’m in love with Rad Lab! :) It’s a bit of an investment but so worth it and you can try it out for free.