My Thanksgiving

I thought I would post a few shots from Thanksgiving. I promise I will try really hard to keep up with blogging over my Christmas break! I apologize in advance for lack of blog posts.

Some of my favorites. I hope your holiday season is going well! Christmas is right around the corner!

Where Have I Been?

So like I said earlier, it's been a busy few weeks! I've been finishing up big projects, papers and studying up for final tests along with wedding planning fun like getting my dress fitted! Whew. I had another partner project in my Persuasive Graphics class and last night we were finishing up our redesign of LaLa's Lemonade. My teammate Jessica Floe (yep, same gal from Free People) was taking pictures of our misadventures last night and then she created a photo montage of awesome. It pretty much sums up the business, insanity, hard work and just exhausted apathy we've all been experiencing the last few weeks. Enjoy!

Pictures of Christ

A couple weekends ago, the church my mom attends and the one I attend when I'm in Keller had a "Church has left the building" weekend. Life Giving weekend is what they called it. The basic idea is to have every member of the congregation sign up for a volunteer project for the weekend. They provide an extensive list of opportunities that people can sign up for. My mom had the opportunity to be a project this year! They do an excellent job of taking care of their own congregation as well, so when they went searching for families in the church to help, my mom's name popped up due to some bad erosion issues we were having along the side of our house. So bright and early Sunday morning a group of families showed up ready to serve and boy did they! They completely fixed our erosion stuff and they helped us clean up around the house as well. My mom and I talked about what a humbling experience it is to have someone come into your home and clean with you. It was a tough pill to swallow at first, but the blessings that came from that humility were outstanding. Below is a picture that embodies what we determined was the greatest blessing and the entire purpose of Life Giving Weekend. The guys from the church were working away outside when our precious neighbors popped their little heads over the fence (they do that a lot) and the men working were readily explaining what they were doing to them. Later that evening a lot of our neighbors came and talked to my mom about what went on earlier and she was able to explain to them the love of Christ that was shown to her in the form of service. That's the whole goal of this ambitious weekend and I would say that Christ definitely worked through the service provided at my mom's house to touch the lives of many others.

Free People Catalog - Finished!

I got to work with two very awesome ladies on a catalog project over the past few weeks. I thought I would post what we came up with. It's not portfolio final, but I figured you guys were just itching to see it.

I hope you enjoy our catalog. There are a few things we need to tweak, but we will get to that in portfolio class next semester! While you're here you should check out my partners' websites: Jessica Floe and Con He. They are both super talented as well. It was a pleasure working with you girls! Also shout out to our awesome models. We so appreciate you girls working with us! Our catalog is so much more beautiful because of you!

Reuters Best of the Year

I stumbled over a slideshow of what Reuters deemed the best photos of the year. You can find it here. It was such a humbling experience to click through these photos and read what each photographer had written about their experience as they shot these photos. I encourage you to take the time and do the same. We often forget how blessed we are. As a young American, I am extremely wealthy and carefree. To click through these pictures and be reminded of all that is going on throughout the world really helped me forget my complaints really fast. There are both beautiful and very graphic photos throughout this series. I was going to leave you with a few images, but it won't let me upload right now. So, please click through them, which was your favorite? How are you blessed?

Color Me Katie

I haven't done a must follow in a while. I want to introduce you to the blog that got me addicted to blogging. Here's the story behind how I found it. Sophomore year of college, I came back to my dorm to find one of my roommates on the living area floor with lots of poster board eyeballs sprawled all around her. She wanted to stick these crazy eyes on inanimate objects and see how people would react. I thought she was nuts, and then she showed me Katie Sokoler. Katie is a street artist and photographer in New York. She does fun, colorful projects and if you need to smile a stop to her site is a must.

Here are a few of my favorite things that she does:

Fun DIY's:

Insider Improv Everywhere stuff:

And she has the most awesome cat ever: 

Free People Catalog Shoot Preview

Ok, not for the real Free People Catalog! My next project in my Information Graphics Class is a catalog design and my group chose Free People! We did a photo shoot for our images today, and I decided to give you a sneak peek of one of mine. Be looking for some finals to come! Sorry about the late post today! What a whirlwind Monday!

Thanks goes out to two of my amazing residents Leigh and Elle! You girls are life savers.

Monica!

My beautiful little sister turned 17 today! I decided to dedicate a post to her. She's a wonderful, goofy, talented, fun, hilarious, and oh did I mention BEAUTIFUL young lady! I love having her in my family. Happy birthday sistaaa!

Everee Wednesday Contest Sneak Peak

Marc and I entered a contest to win some free engagement pictures and Save the Dates. We got pretty creative, I think. Here's a glimpse of what we were working with. Come back Friday to see if we made it to the voting round and to see some more pictures from our fun shoot!

Red Dirt Adventure Challenge

Last weekend a friend asked me to come out and photograph a race ACU Outdoor Club hosts called the Red Dirt Adventure Challenge (RDAC for short). It was an early morning and a beautiful day! The race consisted of a biking section and a running section. There were quite a few participants and everyone had fun. Here are some of the photos I took!

He raced in the Just for Fun category, and had a fun get up for his bike!

 

These were the trophies of the year. High quality ;-)

 

Congrats to the winners of the race! I'm glad I had the opportunity to help out even in a small way!