Category Archives: Personal/Behind the Scenes
Personal Post: family traveling to Newport, Oregon
A family trip to Rockaway Beach + the wall that Free Willy/Keiko jumped over
I recently shot a family session at Rockaway Beach in Oregon, which was ADORABLE (did you see this sneak peek?!). After booking it it occurred to me that my family hadn’t been to the beach yet, so we all loaded up into our car at 8am the morning of the session to visit! We had an awesome time, which mostly consisted of breathing in beach air (yay!) and digging our son’s Barrel of Monkey monkeys out of the sand.
When we were packing up to leave the beach, my husband mentioned that we were close to Astoria — like 48 miles close. I had been kind-of-joking-but-really-serious that I wanted to go up to the Hammond Mooring Basin, AKA the home of the wall that Free Willy jumped over (I know it was CGI, but STILL), and we made the decision: we were going to visit.
If you guys haven’t seen the movie/aren’t that into it, I apologize. But for my people who LOOOOOOVEEEEEE this movie: I WAS SO EXCITED OMG.
Continue reading
Personal Post: a few hours in Seattle
BESIDES all of the amazingness that is Portland, one of my favorite things about living here is that we’re close enough to Seattle to drive up and hang out for a while without it being a total pain — or at least I think so! I have a pretty big crush on the city, so I like to see it whenever I can.
In December my husband and I went to a holiday party for a bunch of Seattle photographers (some of whom I know and looooove), and we decided to make it a family thing so everyone could come! We were there for juuuust over 24 hours, so we crammed a whole bunch of fun into the time:
Grocery bags to wrap wedding albums? WHY NOT.
Y’all are going to have to forgive my Alabama ways for a second here — when we moved back to Portland last summer I was ASTOUNDED and GLEEFUL about all of the grocery stores only offering paper bags. It’s so great! You can use them, recycle them, and you don’t have to deal with plastic. We use our leftover paper bags to hold our recycling, and then toss the entire container in the bin outside. Win-win!
HAVING SAID THAT, I sometimes feel like our house is inundated with paper bags: they’re everyyyywhere. So I came up with a solution this past holiday season that I’m now also using for wedding albums and print orders: they’re coming wrapped up in the same bags that once carried my family’s bananas home.
I am a fan of generally pretty things, so I do first wrap the item(s) in colorful paper and ribbons, and THEN wrap it again the paper bag. The paper bag serves an additional function — the paper is durable enough to be post office approved!
ALL OF THIS TO SAY: don’t be surprised if the wrapping around your wedding album has a Safeway or Trader Joe’s logo on the inside.
DVD packaging from Make More Friends
I’ve known Holly for a few years — we met when I co-shot her wedding in Alabama, and have been a fan of her SUPER adorable Etsy shop Make More Friends since day one. I contacted her about crafting DVD cases as part of my packaging, and this is what she fashioned and sent over:
I’m in love! The next batch will feature a few new fabrics, because as I told Holly earlier today — I love the rainbow! Holly also makes seriously adorable felt friends and owls, in case you’re looking for something soft and cuddly to live in your home.
