These beautiful little darlings were a pleasure to create with today! Mom & Dad were wonderful to.. the entire day was very special :)

I had the lovely opportunity to photograph a beautiful couple last night in the sun... so much fun!

My very best girlie friend got married this past weekend & I was honored to have the pleasure of taking their photos! She was a gorgeous bride!! Love you lots Dona!

For a little while now I've been editing a series of photos which I took of a beautiful young model named Jade, to promote the very sweet idea for an artistic photo shoot, which you may or may not have heard of. 
It's called a *Rock the Dress* shoot!
These photos are just a sampling of what is possible for those of you who just didn't quite get the images you wanted while wearing that gorgeous wedding gown or beautiful prom dress! We can get very creative with no time restraints, time of day & perfect lighting!
 I'm full of ideas & summer is almost here...Let's create art!

Maybe it might seem odd to folks that im posting a pic of a giant pine cone but there is a story to it :) 
I had a great weekend with my love Scotty down in Seattle, going to a huge Christmas craft show at the Tacoma dome & hitting all sorts of thrift stores etc .. but one little thing that we did was the most thought provoking by far. We went to an estate sale. 

I don't know how many of you have been to an actual 'Estate Sale'. The real thing... where the reason you are there, in a persons home, is because they have passed away & their family has hired a company to come in and liquidate all of their personal belongings. I have been to a few but this one was different. I wanted to go because frankly, the photos I saw of the furniture on craigslist that were going to be sold reminded me a lot of things I remember my own grandparents having. Fine furniture, gilded items, beautiful things & the like. 
So the craigslist ad said that the sale was over at 4pm due to the apartment complex rules & in typical me style, we drove up at 4:02 :) I wasn't sure if they were going to let us in but I figured, ah, what the heck, it's worth a shot. So we go to the front door of the apartment & some fellows are being let in with a dolly to pick up furniture that was purchased & I say with puppy dog eyes, 'are we too late for the sale? We came all the way from Canada...' She eyes us up & says, 'ok, go quick!'  I hear her say on the intercom "a couple is coming up, they are from Canada" lol.. i guess we have pull?

So up we go in the elevator & enter the apartment which was 3 floors up. The absolutely amazing view of the Seattle skyline hit us right in the face when we walked in.
 I quickly do my "scan for the good stuff"... surprisingly, there was still good stuff left. I nabbed some ornate Borghese trinket boxes which I was super surprised that an antique dealer had not scooped up, a beautiful little hand painted cabinet, a couple of sweet round occasional tables, a cool assortment of hobnail glass & because the sale was over & I was the last one in, it was all 50% off. NICE! 

So I've gathered my goodies & i'm doing the last look around, reflecting on the fact that this was the last of these peoples worldly treasures when I spot this lonely cardboard box in the corner with what looks like a chunk of wood sticking out. As the lady is wrapping up my treasures, I go take a quick peek. Low & behold, there in the box, are thee biggest pine cones I have ever seen! They are giants! My mind starts wandering as to where in world they could be from... the mystical redwood forest maybe? I scoop them up & add them to my pile. They are the real treasures :) 
All weekend they were buried in the back of our truck in the box they had been in for, Im very sure, a reeally long time. I brought them in the house when we got home & laid them all out, big to small. This is a collection. A collection of memories from someones life! There are giant ones & tiny ones. Smooth ones & prickly ones. Shiny ones & iridescent ones. Natural memoirs of good times & trips gone by in a cardboard box in the leftovers of these folks fancy Seattle apartment was the best find of all :)

This summer has been a whirlwind of fun for me & creating art with pregnant tummies has been a big part of it :) some painted, some au-natural.. the goal is the same... extremely beautiful women celebrating their pregnancies by having me create art with them!! have i said lately that I LOVE what i do?!

to see a full gallery of my belly art please click here for painted tummies!

I looooove color! I wanted to alter this image to bring out the feeling of it in a pretty way. Good morning Starshine!

UPDATE! :)
I've had a bunch of questions as to what the pieces are in this bird bath so here goes...
There are 20 pieces in this birdbath all together...
 #1-the bottom piece is a large plate. I've heard that old microwave plates work well for this & you can cover them with dirt or mulch.
 #2- a bowl with a square foot. 
#3- a square decanter. 
#'s 4,5,6,7,8,9,10 are custard bowls. 
#11 is the large pickle dish with handles,
#'s 12,13 & 14 are more custard dishes. 
#15 is a cut glass candle holder. 
#16 (which is sort of hidden inside #15) is a smaller cut glass candle holder.
#17 is the twin of 16 turned upside down.
#18 is the small pickle dish with handles.
#19 is the finial (top, lid) from #3 (the square decanter) 
last but not least, #20 is my little black & clear swirled birdie! 
I find if you use thicker glass everything is much sturdier & use quite a bit of glue & allow to dry very thoroughly, gluing 2, maybe 3 pieces together at a time. I'm creating my next one with mostly all pieces of glass with a familiar vintage pattern called Early American Prescut Pattern by Anchor Hocking. It's also called the Star of David pattern & I think everyone had a cream & covered sugar bowl in their home! It's been fun finding pieces to make the bird bath & I'm almost ready to start gluing! :)