Hilary and Eric

I had the pleasure of taking Hilary and Eric's engagement pictures last weekend. The shoot went fabulous! They were both so fun and cooperative. I had such a great time shooting their engagement pictures. By the way, I got both of the ideas for the locations of the shoot from another fabulous photographer, Emily Hartvigsen (her blog here). Here are some of my favorites from the shoot - although there were lots of good ones and I had a hard time choosing!

My Pumpkin Jolly

Teri and Draper invited Karl and I over to carve pumpkins with them. I wanted to use a pattern so I made one in photoshop and brought it over. The result is our little pumpkin who's name is Jolly. Have a look!

Haunted Sugar Beet Factory

So, as most of you know, 1) I am currently student teaching at Provo High School (tomorrow is my last day, I start at Oak Canyon Jr. High on Monday) and 2) I just moved to Spanish Fork.

In my photography class this past week, I assigned a project that was basically a photo collage. We studied the artist David Hockney and then went out and tried to copy his style of work. One student raised their hand and said, "Well are you doing the assignment too?" and I accidentally said, "Of COURSE I am!!" Oops. So last weekend I set out to do my assignment.

The view from our second bedroom window looks out across an old abandoned sugar beet factory. I have been longing to photograph it, but with student teaching taking up all of my time, hobbies have been on the back burner. I was able to kill two birds with one stone and photograph my beloved sugar beet factory for the assignment that I accidentally said I would do. The collage turned out better than I expected!

Also, I am doing some great engagement photos this weekend so stay tuned for some awesome pictures!

Closing Week

Karl and I have our final walkthrough of the house tomorrow and we couldn't be more excited. We drove down to see the house today and we had to tear ourselves out of it after staying for over an hour. (This is an empty house I might add.) I know I haven't been blogging about much else lately, but this is just what is going on with us.

I am student teaching at Provo High and it is a constant stress. This week is going to be crazy! We have the final 2-3 hour walkthrough tomorrow, close on the house on Wednesday, I am in charge of the YM/YW mutual on Wednesday (teaching photography), we get the keys Thursday, we move Thursday/Friday/Saturday, I teach YW for our final sunday in our ward on Sunday. Not to mention every day I have to plan lessons for the kids at Provo High. And I guess I just found out today that Karl told our landlord we would find the next renters for him. Oh well! Life is great and busy. Here are some pictures for the people that like the pictures.

I didn't take a "front of the house" picture because nothing has changed really, except rain gutters and screens. Boring.

Here is a picture of the great kitchen with the stove, dishwasher, and sink added. YIPPEE!!


Close up on the sink for those who are detail-oriented (and yes, those are the deep sinks that we paid $70 extra for):


By the way, don't forget to notice the great carpet!


Now, let's head up the stairs and check out the fabitty fab upstairs.


In this picture, the top of the stairs is on the left. The master bedroom is behind the stairs. Bedroom #1 is the open door at the end of the hall. The baby door that is open is the linen closet. I am standing in Bedroom #2 taking the picture.


Linen closet. I'm on the stairs taking the pic.


Here's me at the opposite end of the hall. Bedroom #2 is visible directly in front of me. The door on the left closest to the Bedroom #2 is the second bathroom. The door closer to me (that's not the linen closet) is the laundry room.


Beautiful Bathroom 2.


Here's Karl on the floor of the master bedroom.


Another master bedroom shot.


Master bath view:


My favorite closet.


I can't wait!

17 day countdown!

Every time Karl and I go and visit our house, we are blown away by the amount of work that has been done on it from the previous week, and then it gets harder to leave and come home to our basement apartment because we are so excited about the house!

We had a pretty open Saturday today so we drove down to see the house. We are closing in 17 days and I can't believe that we are going to be homeowners so soon! Here are some picture updates for those of you who are interested.

Front of the house:


We walked in today and couldn't believe that the cabinets, some flooring, and some crown molding were in already! AND they are doing carpet next week!!! I had thought about painting my cabinets after we move in but I love them too much now to change them.


Here's a picture from the living room. This is that raised bar that we paid extra for, which we LOVE. You can see the pantry in the background.


All of the doors in the house look like this one. I forgot to take pictures of our doors in our actual house, but this is one from the model house center. You can kind of see the doors in some of these pictures in this post.


This is the cute 2nd bathroom upstairs. It has a normal sized tub/shower so I didn't take a picture of that.


Here is my favorite part of the whole house (which is now in competition with the kitchen), the master closet. It spans the whole length of our bedroom.


Master bathtub:


Master bathroom counter:


Can't wait to move in! Will post more pictures after our meeting with the contractor next week.

DIY frames & bookshelf...and house update

Hello! It has been a long time since I have posted anything. School started and I am student teaching at Provo High. Our house is about 3.5 weeks out from being done. Karl has been more busy than ever with work and he is on a last minute business trip to Chicago today, which is why I am finding time to even post this. :)

So a few weeks back, my family came out to visit and my mom wanted to do a craft while she was here. My mom suggested we decoupage some frames, so we loaded up supplies at Michaels/Walmart and came over to my house for a crafting extravaganza!

First step was to paint the plain frame with some special craft glue, then lay your cute tissue paper on the front of it. We tried to smooth out most of the wrinkles but, as we were later convinced, little wrinkles gave our projects charm.


We then continued to paint the glue on and cut the tissue paper until it was just right on the frame: (Hand model courtesy of Lauren!)


The frames turned out great! Here is a picture of Lauren's frame (my mom's cute green frame is out of focus in the background):


Teri's great damask pattern frame:


My frame, that I transformed into a magnet board for my kitchen. I bought buttons and hot glued magnets to the back.


So, after all those frames, Teri and I were HOOKED on decoupaging! We saw an old bookshelf in her house and decided we found a project that was RIPE with opportunity. Here is an old raggedy bookshelf that Teri and her new husband had laying around in their apartment:



We put some nails into it to make it a little more sturdy. We then busted out my new orbital sander (RIDGID - has a lifetime warranty - I got it at Lowe's) and got rid of most of the scuffs and dings:



Since Teri and I are never ones who want to do more work than necessary, we decided to spray paint the bookshelf instead of having to actually paint it with paintbrushes. Here is a shot from the midst of the spray painting journey:


After about 4 cans of paint and zillions of coats, we brought the book shelf inside and decoupaged cute polka dot paper that we had leftover from the frames onto the shelves:


Here is an almost finished version of the shelf:


We then put a few layers of polyurethane on it to make it all nice and shiny, and dent proof. I don't have pictures yet from that stage. :( :( :(

So - lots of crafts. I just went to Honks and the dollar store and picked up a few more things to decoupage because it is SO FUN!!

Here's the house - we can't wait to move in!

Update on the house

Karl and I went to go visit the house today and we were SO EXCITED to see that the house has sprung up from the ground!



Here is a view from the driveway up the front walk way.


When you walk in the house, you look to your left and here is a view of what you see.


Then if you walk in a little bit more you are standing in the living room and you can see this view of the kitchen. The wood poking out into the room is the counter/sink and the bar attached to it.


I didn't take any pictures of up the stairs except this one of me standing in the back bedroom looking into the master bathroom/closet/bedroom. The master closet is the big long skinny room on the right hand side of the picture!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This closet sold me on the house.


Also, for the people who are excited about the view of the "haunted" sugar beet factory, here is a view from the bedroom that I was standing in when I took the picture of the master closet/bathroom:


We are so excited for our house! I bought some packing boxes this week to start packing. I have some more posts to come; Teri and I have been working on a DIY project!