life-ography: phoenix children's museum

This weekend was wonderful. We've been making the most of our time together and I couldn't be happier. On Saturday we took a trip into Phoenix and explored the Children's Museum. I think both of the girls had a lot of fun and I have to admit it, Marc and I did too.


If you are near the Phoenix area and you have kids you need to get to the Children's Museum. It was a blast. If you have more than one kiddo I definitely recommend going with someone else. It's huge! but so much fun. 
I've been working a lot on my photography lately getting ready for a big event I'm going to be doing next year. Working in manual mode, white balance, editing all that good stuff. Outside and in natural light I feel like I'm golden, inside however, ughh... shoot me. My photos turn out underexposed, grainy, and just blah... It's a work in progress but I'm getting better. If you have any tips for indoor photography please leave a comment. I'd be more than happy to hear some good advice!
What did everyone else do this weekend?

life-ography: lost dutchman picnic

We were lucky enough to have my father-in-law in visit us over my birthday and Memorial day. I love when we get visitors from Pittsburgh, especially Marc's parents. I'm probably the luckiest wife I know because I have such amazing in-laws. I don't know what we'd do without them.

On memorial day we tried to head of to Canyon Lake for a picnic but that ended up being an over crowded mess. Instead of heading all the way back home we decided to stop at the Lost Dutchman camp grounds and trails to have a picnic. I'm really glad we did because it was such a nice, peaceful spot to picnic. I think someday we're going to try hiking there too.

I'm sorry about the photo overload. I was having trouble deciding which ones were my favorites. This is actually just a small selection of the large group of photos I took that day. I get a little click happy when I have my camera with me. I say its a good thing though.

Have you been on any adventures lately?

life-ography: mothers day.

I had a wonderful Mother's Day this year. Every year has been really great but this was really special. This is the first year I was a mother of two and all of my family made it special. My husband, Marc, out did himself too. I felt really special and we really didn't do anything all that crazy. We went to the local farms peach festival and picked our own peaches, Marc made use a delicious dinner, and we just relaxed the rest of the evening. Aurora even made me a card and a necklace. I'm so lucky I have such a wonderful family.



I hope everyone had a wonderful day either as a mother, with your mother, or in remembrance of a great mother.

College, goals, and more.

A lot of you know that I started back to school last year. College has been a trying time for me. Let me dial it back a little bit and give you some back ground on the subject.

Right out of high school I was all packed up and ready to attending Oral Roberts University for Vocal Performance. My stuff never left the drive way. Between having health issues and being scared out of my mind, I didn’t go. My parents were very supportive and I stayed home and enrolled at the Community College of Allegheny County. At first I just started taking random classes but then I discovered they had a theater department. I had a great time there. I got the chance to meet some really wonderful people and have a great time on and off stage. Although my theater classes were going well, my academic classes were, well, not so good. When I got pregnant with Aurora I stopped attending school. Being a mom was way more important to me. I was already working full time and wanted to spend what other time I did have with my family.

As Aurora got older and I changed jobs it seemed like a perfect time to start back to school. I didn’t want to just work in a retail job forever and getting my degree has always been something I just wanted to do. I started classes at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online Division for my Bachelors in Photography in July of 2010. Little did I know when I enrolled that in August we would be packing everything up and moving to Arizona. Somehow through the move I kept my grades up and stayed positive.

This is photo from the last photography class I took. You can see more of my work here. Sadly, a lot of my work was lost when my hard drive died a few months ago.

Everything changed again when little Carolina arrived. Between the two kids and just basic family responsibilities I found it extremely hard to keep up with my classes. I was run down and just tired. I don’t think I turned in one assignment on time and I didn’t participate in any class discussions. I really should have taken a break but I thought I could push through, boy, was I wrong. I commend anyone who has a new child and continues to attend school. It’s really hard to juggle everything.

After a lot of tears and a really bad grade I decided to withdrawal from school. I felt horrible about this. It was like I was giving up. I felt even more terrible because I was spending so much time blogging and I could have been spending that time actually doing homework. It was so hard to get motivated to do anything for school though. Working on my blog has been much more inspiring and helpful. Reading stories from other moms has really been uplifting to me. I want my blog to mean something and to be my full time “job.” I also know it’s important to be educated.

For many reasons I’ve decided that leaving school isn’t the best answer to my problems. I was saying the other day that I felt like every time I take three steps closer to my goals I get shoved ten steps back. What a better way to reach my goals then getting an education to make those dreams happen? Anything worth doing is worth working for. My little big dream is to own my own shop to share my love of handmade goods and artists I adore and I’ve decided to change my major. If I want to own a business I should learn business, right? I think going from a specialized degree, like photography, to business is a smart move. I know it’s going to be super hard but I’m going to push through. I know I have the support of my wonderful family and hopefully you guys too. I’m still going to be doing photography as a hobby; I think that it will make me much happier.

Thanks for letting me rant. I feel much better now that I’ve gotten that off my chest.

So, what are you working hard for?

unplugged and than some.

For the past week or two I’ve been almost completely unplugged. I didn’t really decide to do it, it just kind of happened. I just stopped writing blog post and didn’t really “tweet” nearly as much as I was. I didn’t feel bad about it, nor did the world end, and my phone and computer didn’t blow up they were just silent items I had around.

I was feeling rather overwhelmed between school, family, blogging and Etsy. It was a lot for me to take on and my fuel tank was running on empty. While I finished up my last course before the break I really poured myself into the class. My grade was sinking to beginning with and I had to pull it up somehow. I was completely stressed about it and ready to give up. Wait, give up school? For what exactly? As much as I love to blog and craft nothing should be more important than finishing my degree, well, other than family. When I finally came to the realization that, that was truly what I was contemplating I snapped out of it immediately! I’ve come this far and worked way too hard to just through it all away. With a more positive mentality behind me I managed to pull out a decent grade in the class and some really nice photo projects. The first projects I’ve ever done for school that I’m actually proud of. It reminded me how important this was.

So much about my pervious classes had bogged me down with how things were supposed to be. A majority of my classmates are already practicing photographers and sometimes I felt a little left behind. I have to remember that I’m not there for the same reasons as everyone else. Everyone has their own style and just because I’m not a portrait photographer and I have no interest in ever photographing a wedding, doesn’t mean I can’t be a really good or dare I say great photographer some day. I have a LONG way to go before I can give myself a title but if I don’t start taking myself seriously than who will?

So where am I going with all of this rambling? I promise I have a point. My main point is that I am going to be pulling back a lot from this blog. I’m still going to be posting but I’ve found it very refreshing to be a little less disconnected. I am, however, going to be working on a new blog project. I just started a new blog entitled “kat and camera.” This blog “something with a chance of other stuff” never has really had a focus, it was all about fun and crafty things that I’ve been doing in my life and with my family. “kat and camera” is going to be focused on my photography projects and my journey in school. I feel like I really need to start taking myself seriously if anyone else is going to take me seriously. I know I’m just a student and I have a long way to go but everyone has to start somewhere.

I want to say thank you so much for all the support everyone has given this blog. I promise this is not goodbye. I will still be posting and updating, I’m just heading in a new but very exciting direction. I love all of the people that come and read this blog. Every comment is so special to me. It’s time to grow and spread my wings and see what the next phase will be!

happy memorial day.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Memorial Day!

I cannot be more thankful to those who have served our country. I want to say a big thank you to the families of the men and women who are away from home right working hard. Come home safe.

Aurora's Photo Adventure.

My little three year old, Aurora, drives me crazy and also brings so much joy to my life. Seeing the world through the eyes of a toddler is always an interesting experience. She is amused but the simplest things. We could play hide and seek for hours or pizza parlor tea party and she’ll never get bored with it. Recently she’s become very fond of using my phone to take pictures. She loves flowers and trees and has grown pretty good at working the camera on my phone.


It amazes me how quick she catches on to thing. I think I’ve got a budding photographer on my hands. I love my little artist!

Sorry I haven’t been blogging very much lately (or commenting.) Between blogger being very goofy and my current photography class being extremely difficult I’ve kind of pushed blogging onto the back burner. I promise I will be back in full force next week. There are a lot of wonderful things to come!

Speaking of that; is there anything you could like to see more of from my blog? More blog love? Etsy Finds? Tutorials? Leave a comment and let me know!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

a moment for something cute.

I wanted to just take a second and share something extemely adorable and creative I discovered a little while go. Have you guys seen My Milk Toof? These two little "teef" were created by Inhae Renee Lee, she has an insane imagination and created ickle and Lardee who get into all kinds of fun adventures.






They even have their own book!

Seeing this makes me want to work on stop motion again... maybe... just maybe...

Happy Tuesday Everyone!

journey to etsy: photography.

Well if you've looked for any kind of advice on Etsy one of the first things you'll hear about is having good photographs. There are a ton of people out there that have online shops, and as much as we would hope to be unique, a lot of them are selling the same exact thing. So, what is going to draw a customer to your shop over others? Photographs.

I'm not going to lie; I'm not an avid online shopper. I like to see, touch, and even smell what I'm going to be buying before I buy it. So I want to make sure my photos highlight my products as much as possible for an online shopper. You'd think for a photography major that this would be easy, not so much. I'm still just learning, and I'm a perfectionist when it comes to my photos. Thanks to some advice from two other wonderful bloggers and Etsy seller; Ashley and Chrissy, I decided just to go with it. I'm going to roll with what I've got and just keep perfecting my photos as I go. I can't hurt to change things up and relist on Etsy right?

Etsy Shop Photo Preview.





+++++++

I also discovered two tutorials that I think are really going to help me the next time around.
Ashley from After Nine to Five recommend that I build a lightbox for my photos. I think this is going to be really useful and I'm going to be taking tips from her tutorial over on her blog. {Thanks again!!!}

Maryam from Pamplemousse! also did a great blog guest post on how to Etsy photography. The tutorial is over at The Art of Staying Up All Night and it is really helpful.

Well, I guess that's that! If you have any advice or know of any good tutorials on photographing products please let me know! Or, if you want any advice or critique, I'm still learning but I can help some, right? I can't help it, I love to help!

Now, go take some pictures! ^_^