Oh Snap!

Jake had bought me some Christmas gifts online that had came after Christmas, little did I know that he remembered me blabbing in his ear about a fisheye converter for my wide angle lens, months ago. He got me one! it's so fun to play with. We couldn't afford an ACTUAL fisheye, seeing as they START at $300 or more, so I am content with a converter. I need to experiment first. He also got me a Kodak Brownie Twin 20! It originally takes 620 film, which no one around here processes or develops, but I found a way to use 120 film, on a 620 spool without light leaks. fantastic.



This year was splendid. Christmas was merry, as it usually is!
I'm so thankful & blessed to have received:

Wii game console
A few games for nintendo DS (guitar hero & snowboarding)
giftcards to walmart, joann fabrics, pier 1 and a visa.
brown slouchy boots
polaroid film !!! (jake)
an organizer for the craft studio
a monopod (jake)
Kodak Brownie (jake)
fisheye converter (jake)
1960's style dress :D
brown leather coach purse
listography (journal!)

just a few...
Thanks so much to everyone!


I'll share pictures soon!
jenn

SO this is Christmas...

Merry Christmas everyone! We are finally home after a fun filled few days with the parents. Now we are watching the classic Goofy cartoons, with our tree all lit and a mound of gifts by the front door. great stuff. Ok, well I'm watching it while Jake is asleep on the floor. poor guy, was so tired today. He syated up with me last night finishing up Jackson and Andy's pillows that I made them. He even helped me sew the ends! What a sport :)

Anyways, since they aren't much of a surprise anymore and they are all done, I figured I'd share some of my Christmas projects. First I made my Best friend Tasha's daughter, Lilly a "lillybug" doll which turned out pretty well. It was my take on some dolls that I had found on Flickr and loved, inspired by Elsie =).





I also mentioned the pillows that I made, and embroidered for my nephews Jackson and Anderson. I used an embroidery pattern from Elsie's etsy shop for the font and they turned out great. I was so happy when they were finished.






Anyways, I've had a great day so far and got some awesome gifts...including some polaroid film from my awesome husband. I don't know about you, but around here polaroid film has been extremely hard to come across since the recent sad news. But nonetheless have a safe and happy holiday! Back to relaxing!



God Bless.
Jenn.

Christmastime

To Do :

-finish Christmas Cards and mail by tomorrow
-finish up shopping and jake's stocking gifts
-clean up kitchen
-paint bathroom (2 months later...)
-make jello jigglers with jake =)
-make muddies buddies [tradition]
-be sure to finish watching all Christmas movies on dvr =]
-complete embroidery and sew jackson and andy's pillow project
-complete lilly's "lillybug" doll
-set up programs on my laptop again: itunes & photoshop...
-finish editing all pics and transfer to cds to mail out. hopefully by Jan 1st.
-make more pom poms for decor
-finish decorating the house jenn!
-find branches from outside and use inside...
-make Christmas tunes playlist.
-wrap all gifts
-finish working on some small painting projects I started a few weeks ago
-organize studio and bedroom!
-shoot more! I don't shoot nearly enough pictures and now that I'm on break. PERFECT time.
-MAKE PAPER CHAINS! I keep forgetting, but this is one thing I wanna do before the holidays run by!

-enjoy your three weeks off!


Phew. there's bound to be more...but I'm home free! no class until January 12th! What a RELIEF. seriously, it's been sucking the Christmas spirit right out of me. Nonetheless I'm so excited to finally relax and do some crafts, sip some sugar plum tea, watch some corny Christmas movies, and listen to some great holiday tunes!and BLOG of course. Our computers are somewhat fixed. no itunes or photoshop. but I can still keep up with my blogs and online articles.

I'm almost done shopping, a few more things to pick up for Jake and my friends, but our family is mostly done, so I'm not stressing about that. I just want to soak in this next week and really enjoy my family time and take advantage of my crafting and baking and the like. WE went and saw Jackson's Christmas program this week, he was so cute.

I've been following a few magazines online that I saw, Juxtapoz and Hi Fructose and I found some very inspiring artists...I definitely want subscriptions to those...as well as ReadyMade of course. (My favorite) tee hee! Oh and I found some awesome projects in this months issue that I will definitely be trying out on my break!

Anyways...back to my Christmas Cards!





Merry CHRISTmas 2008!
Jenn, Jake & Cody!

less than 2 weeks!

so here is a sneak peak of our Christmas cards this year...


(pistachiohill.etsy.com)

I am in love with letterpress. I only puchased ten, so if you're lucky you might just recieve one! I have a huge to do list for this weekend and next week. Crafts, shopping, and projects for school, oh my! I am excited for next friday to come, we get a pretty long break for the holidays so it will be GREAT to finally relax.

Amongst the busy schedule, both of our laptops and my work computer are down. Great timing eh? It's a long story, but needless to say we might be purchasing an early Christmas gift. So pardon the slackage!

Anyways, off to update my to do list.

jenn.
:]

YES!!!

This week has been crazy! lots of crafts and homework and yadda yadda...however I just wanted to tell you about a wonderful blog I ran across that is having a camera strap giveaway...GO CHECK IT OUT!

jenn!

p.s. be sure to check out her flickr: Photography By Shealynn



Oh & one more thing! You can find one MORE holiday giveaway HERE! Love that girl!



Happpy Holidays!






jenn jenn bo bennn banana fanana.....

Kyle and Kerrie 11.16.08

This weekend we did a session with friend Kyle and Kerrie at the Heritage village/Botanical Gardens in Largo. It was so much fun and we got some fun shots! I'm not completely done editing all of them, but here are a few to share!






There's lots more to come. I love doing the couples shoots, it's so great to really capture their emotions. can't wait for the next!

Feel free to tell me what you think! any suggestions?

slacker.

I know, I know. You don't have to say it.

As a follow up to the last post, we got our place and we love it! So much more spacious than before. Since then, these last few weeks have consisted of:

finishing unpacking all of our junk (and still not done yet)
working
decorating


class attending
craft room organizing
lovely weather (!!!)
lazy couch days, movies included
morning coffee
thrifting
painting
and mapping out my craft ideas for the next few months
Phil Wickham
and flickr hunting
blogging
photographing:


aaaand baking [...ahem, which I hadn't done in quite some time]:



It must be this perfect weather in the evenings that drives me to bake like a mad lady.


I'm currently working on some painting projects, still editing photos which seems endless. I'm trying to craft a majority of my christmas gifts and decorations this year, it's seems to be the way to go with all of our budget costraints for the next few months, I don't mind though, it gets me motivated, creating things. Apparently I'm feeling especially ambitious! I'm getting bored with my blog header, so you'll be seeing a new one soon, hopefully.


My talented best friend made me a hair bow, so I rocked it at church yesterday, everyone seemed to love it.




This quarter has been pretty amazing, I mean, taking photography classes has opened my eyes to alot. I pay more attention to what I'm taking pictures of and really appreciate the older, more timeless photographers like Berenice Abbot and Ansel Adams. I'v found that a few of my more modern day are Shane Mccauley, Peter Yang, Look Here Photography and the list goes on...

I bought some cute fabric this week, *in hopes* of making a camera strap. I'll be posting pictures, I'm sure. and of course, more decorating pics. I'll be making a flickr set of house stuff, so keep an eye out for that!

pee,ess:
I'm so excited for the holidays!

thanks for stopping by!
[jenn]

hip hip hurray!

So Jake and I looked at a new place today! perfect size, perfect price...well kinda. PRAY that everything goes through and that we are moved in within the next few weeks! geeeesh I'm SO excited, you don't even know...YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW! ha. but I can't let me emotions get in the way (or so Jake says). Anywayyyys. We visited the Florida Aquarium today, which I hadn't been to in a very long time...pictures to come, soon! AND I finally got a much needed mani/pedicure. ah. But now I'm going to bed and leaving you with a little sumthin sumthin.




pees owt.
jenn

i can finally smell fall...

Can you believe it? We're finally starting to feel some nice weather here in the sunshine state. It's been beautiful here for the last few days and I pray that it continues! Lately when I walk outside nostalgia hits me! it has been wonderful, indeed. I caught myself singing christmas music today, CHRISTMAS MUSIC and it's just BARELY autumn. I guess I figured I'd get a head start.

I can't even begin to tell you how stressful this week was, but this quarter is finally over and I have a huge pile of art sitting in our room. I'm so thankful that I made it through (thanks to Jake! he's such a huge help and teaches me all sorts of stuff), and with good grades! I actually feel like I'm excelling here and it's great to feel like you are where you belong, doing what you are supposed to be doing. I'm excited for this next quarter, some actual photography classes! but here are some of my favorite pieces from this quarter: 

[complimentary colors]

[monochromatic]

[self portrait, my favorite]

nonetheless, today was one of a kind. I actually got up early on a saturday. crazy I know. We're really into the flea market, especially with this lovely weather! We also grabbed the paper and went to a few local yard sales. I got some more frames to paint for pretty cheap and a new pair of sunglasses for $1. can't beat that. 

Since I finally have a week off after eleven grueling weeks of nonstop work, I'm going to relax! maybe do some scrapping, go and see a movie [finally]. Jake and I are really excited about Fireproof. I can't wait to see it! so that is on my agenda for this week along with taking a much needed day off from work. Then back to the grind on October 6th. Jake starts classes with me, so it'll be interesting going to school together. I don't believe we have any of the same classes, but more than likely at the same time. OH and did I mention we bought a scooter today?! It should arrive sometime next week! geeky as it may seem, we are pretty excited, especially since it get 80-90 mpg. be jealous, lol. Honk if you see us zooming around town on this beast!

g'night!

j&j

flea market finds and such

So this weekend Jake and I decided to go "flea-ing" as it is now known and thrifting just to look and see if we could find any great frames for painting and any other vintage finds that we came across. My first frame turned out pretty good, especially for $.99!


So we went to a few places, found a few things (like so) and then spend saturday night at his parents while I scrapped and he built a shelf! I had fun and this is what I came up with...





Sunday, after church we went to the Oldsmar flea market, which I thought was pretty pricey, considering most of it was junk. but we did find this really cute vintage store where I found some goodies! We found our next kitchen table, it was a chrome 1950'2 style soda shop table, red vinyl chairs included! so I thought the dessert sign thingys that I bought would go perfect! and he gave me a little birdie salt/or pepper shaker for free since we couldn't find it's match, but that was fine with me...still just as cute! But yea, Jake and I have unofficially decided to do a 50's themed kitchen in our next place, which we will hopefully have by the end of october.

A lady at church gave me some old fabric ribbon I had ran across in the decoration storage room, since it would have went to waste...so I can find multiple ways to utilize it!



This week is pretty stressful since it's my last week of class, so pray for us! Oh! and Jake has been scavenging for a scooter, since his underwater car incident HA. He is car-less and we want something that is good on gas, plus, since we will be going to classes together we only really need one car. He wanted a motorcycle (what man doesn't) but I said noooo. did I mention they get 80-90 mpg? I can definitely handle that as geeky as they might look. hehe...

Adios amigos!
j & j

newest creations!

I had some extra time to do some new scrapbook pages this week, therefore I thought I would share them!





I've been in an extremely crafty mood lately. So I'm sure there will be a lot more posts on my recent creations and projects! let me know whwat you think!

Weekend bliss

This weekend Jake and I went to visit my best friend Tasha and her husband Lance in Bushnell. We took pictures and relaxed, and I enjoyed every minute of it...and our pictures turned out pretty well too...