Hearts Full of Joy

senior pics

i finally took senior pics of my gorgeous girl yesterday. we've only been trying to get this done since last fall. but she is more of a springtime girl, so i think this did work out for the best. so fun to have such a lovely subject and live in such beautiful surroundings for photo backdrops.

this is the cabin at the jospeh smith homestead, built for his parents to live in.

the back of the Nauvoo House

the foundation of the ruined half of the Mansion House

the nauvoo grove

 

the Graduation to-do list:

announcements - ready to go, just need photos

photos - taken, need to be ordered

party - planned, invitations partly distributed, need to plan the food

awards assembly - last night, tashi received two local scholarships, and lot of awards

high school music concert - tonight - tashi has a solo with the chorus, and plays piano for the jazz band.

baccalaureate - tashi is speaking

seminary graduation - tashi is speaking

high school graduation - tashi is speaking

 

....i won't start on the wedding to-do list for her older sister (the wedding is 13 days after graduation), it will make me cry.

 

and a senior pic of the older sister (this year's bride) from last year (gloria took these for us, because i wasn't brave enough). so sad & happy to have my two big girls grown up.

 

 

nauvoo in the spring

tashi took the littles to the temple grounds for a photo shoot in early april.

i love her photo skills.

 

redbud ready to bloom

 

 

magnolias

 

the typical state of susie-q's shoes - on the wrong feet.

 

more redbud

 

and a photo by mia, show is showing some surprising photo skills.

flickr

my new flickr account:   http://www.flickr.com/photos/19373030@N04/

it began as a place to post my customers' creations, and i have found it a delightful way to organize my photos.

the column of photos on the right of this blog, under my etsy shop photos, are from flickriver, and show randomly changing photos from "my projects" file on flickr.

oldest & youngest

lexi's senior pics by gloria, one of the great photographers in  my life...thank you!!!! we love them!

she's 18 now! and hates her sweet baby face. people often tell her she looks 14. we frequently remind that she will be grateful as she gets older.

 
and photos of baby grace by tashi, who is not oldest or youngest, but is another one of great photographers in my life.

 

 

this one has a silly baby face that we are definitely grateful for right now, in the moment.

 

ode to an autumn day

a sunny autumn day brings healing to my soul.

~these 2 photos by tashi~

 

this was the view from my living room window yesterday. perhaps it is because i was born in october, but my heart and soul come alive in autumn in a way that doesn't happen any other time of year. i feel the warmth of god's love in the golden autumn glow, and i am filled with wonder and awe at the beauty of his creations.

we have had precious few sunny days this fall, and today is rainy again. but the sunny days that have come have been perfectly spectacular. the mississippi has been a deep clear blue, and so have the skies. everytime i look out a window, i see leaves swirling by. 

my budding photographer tashi has been taking spectacular photos of the autumn scenery. this is a still life she set up for a digital photography assignment:

 

on a lower note, i have finally sifted through all of our recovered photos and discovered that although we recovered almost as many photos as we lost (over 14,000), they were mostly corrupted copies of just a few photos. and strangely, we recovered the photos from every friends' blog post that we have ever looked at. interesting to see how a computer's memory works. i am saddened to have lost so many. but many are backed up. and it was very interesting to take an abbreviated trip through the last 5 years. it caused me to think about my priorities: what i save and don't save, what i take photos of and what i don't, and most importantly, what i WANT to save and photograph and what i don't from here on out. mostly i am grateful that every experience in life presents me with learning opportunities.

lost and found

i haven't posted for the longest time, and the reason is this: shortly after my last post, a computer glitch caused the loss of ALL the photos on our computer. over 14,000 of them. over 5 years worth of photos. yes, some are backed up in random places, but not all of them, as they should have been.

after time spent on the phone with apple, we opted to order the data rescue software, which did work, and most of them have been recovered, but now they are randomly stacked into files selected by the computer or the software, where a photo from last month is next to a photo from 5 years ago, which is next to a photo from last christmas. i am sorting through them, and have hopes of a semblance of total recovery. but there were so many photos i wanted to blog about that have not been located and stored in a proper, locatable file. and so i haven't posted. and there is so much to post about.

tashi is taking a digital photography class in high school and loving it. these photos that she took today in our backyard greeted me as i got on the computer, and i was impressed.

so here is the big leap of posting photos again.

 

 

 

1830s/40s gown

armed with much inspiration and courage from my friend mary (one of several dear mary friends) and her 1840s sewing expertise, i have completed my first really big 1840s sewing endeavor: a gown for tashi. i cut it out and started on it in may or june, but set it aside as the summer became busier. and i questioned my fabric choice that i had originally belabored - although i loved it, it didn't really seem to match tashi and here serene personality. then a few weeks ago our artist friend michael bedard asked tashi to pose as sarah granger kimball for a painting, or series of paintings he is planning based on the beginnings of the relief society in nauvoo. sarah was well educated and cultured and married one of the wealthiest men in nauvoo - and i had the inspiration for finishing the gown that fit her (sarah's) personality. it's as authentic as i could make it without time to sew entirely by hand. it came together smoothly and was a joy to work on. serpentine stripes were the height of fashion in the 1840s. the fabrics were sophisticated and colorful, and intricately detailed then, not plain and drab as we are prone to imagine.

this was my first experience with cartridge pleating a skirt and stitching each little pleat to the waistband, stiffened with horsehair braid, by hand. the bodice is fully lined and full of boning.

these photos were taken during the practice photo shoot, there have been two more since. her ringlets weren't holding (we were copying the hairstyle from a portrait of sarah granger kimball.) we got better at managing the ringlets in subsequent shoots.

 

the photos were taken at the sarah granger kimball home. this first painting is planned to be sarah enjoying the flowers in her beautiful gardens.

life on the mississippi

the flora along the river has been so lovely that i stuck my camera in the car last week so that i could stop and snap some photos when i got the chance.

across from davids chamber:

behind the red brick store:

where warsaw st meets highway 96:

i love fabric

today i was completely captivated by the joy of putting fabrics together into coordinating bundles that bring out the best in each fabric for our shop. i have always loved fabric. i love to touch it. i love to create with it. and i love to photograph it.

 

lovely

i caught tashi swinging in serenity, caught up in her own thoughts, somewhere between all the busy-ness on saturday.