And then there were three....

On a chilly fall Friday night we headed out to take some memory photographs of a glowing friend's pregnancy. There was a RIDICULOUS sunset but unfortunately the trees were in the way & we weren't able to capture the last few minutes with the sun. I was able to capture some really stellar shots. I would like to share some of my favs!

                

              

I'm on Pinterest

I have made it official & have joined Pinterest! Please feel free to follow A Simple Life Unfolds & re-pin my posts!

pinterest.com

Fall Family Snapshots

I had the pleasure of photographing my dearest friend & her 5 adorable children. We had discussed taking some photos so that she doesn't have to purchase the ridiculously expensive (and not to mention terribly generic) ones that they provide at school. *Side note - I was also informed that "handing out school photos" isn't a "thing" any more. What the heck! When we were growing up it was always fun to see how many friends photos you could get. As a matter of fact, I still have my childhood friends proudly displayed in a scrapbook. I guess Instagram has taken away the luxury of good old fashion printed self photos *end of rant.

I got a little out of hand & snapped some photos that weren't just for school photos. They are just all such beautiful people. Here are a few of the ones that melted my heart.

I don't feel right about posting photos of my friends kids on the internet because there is so many weirdos who steal photos.  I have selectively chosen my photos with that in mind :) & I also leave it up to my clients as to what photos they decide to share with the online world.

As with my last post, I edit my photos in Lightroom. I have started to feel more comfortable with the numerous editing options & I am beginning to get a feel for how I like to edit my photos.

Fall Outdoor Display

I just had to share how the outside display turned out!

I found plastic pumpkins at Michaels & I decided to invest because they will last year after year. In previous years I have made the mistake of purchasing a real pumpkin & then when we get a frosty Manitoba night the pumpkin gets ruined. Michaels had a 50% off sale today so I took advantage & bought pumpkins and & string of fall goodness.

I grabbed an outdoor vase, bucket, twigs & burlap & I began to play around with my display! This is what I came up with.

Happy thanksgiving!!

Creating A Fall Table Runner & Centre Piece

Fall is in the air this Thanksgiving weekend & I am loving every minute of it. We have decided to host Thanksgiving dinner at our home on Monday & as I looked around the house it did not look the least bit "fallish" so I made it my daily mission to change that!

Today's post is about creating a table runner & centre piece with nothing more than items I had laying around the house.

Supplies: Burlap, 3 types of decorative ribbon, mod podge, hot glue gun, scissors, foam brush, vase, pine cones & old newspaper

Time until masterpiece is complete: 20 minutes

The Work:
1. I began by laying out my burlap across the table & trimmed it at the desired length. The width of a burlap I had was 4.5". I probably would have preferred it be a bit thicker around 6 or 7 inches;

2. To give the ends a more finished look I trimmed them on an angle;

3. Using my fingers & some mod podge I reinforced the ends of the burlap so that it didn't continue to fray. I was quite generous & applied it about .5 inwards;

4. With some decorative white & gold 2.5" ribbon from Michaels Craft Store, I cut & laid it on top of the burlap runner. Working on top of old newspaper I used a foam brush and mod lodge to secure the ribbon to the burlap. I worked in quarter sections so that the mod podge didn't dry;
** Side note - I wanted to iron both the burlap & the ribbon to ensure that it lay flat. We recently moved into a new home & so most of our stuff is still inconveniently "misplaced". I asked my husband (who is out of town working) if the iron was still in his lunch box, in his truck (yes please re-read that and see how crazy it sounds)! He replied yes so unfortunately this runner did not get a good hot ironing. I made sure to run my hand along while it was drying to ensure it was flat and without any unwanted creases

5. While the runner was laying out to dry I began to mastermind the centre piece. I dug out some old scented pine cones from my Christmas decorations that I purchased at Michaels & put them into an old flower vase I had kicking around;

6. I felt like it was a bit plain and needed help. I had this awesome burlap ribbon & polka dot ribbon on hand that I've been dying to use so I busted out the hot glue gun & laid a small strip onto of the burlap ribbon. After the glue had cooled I secured it around the neck of the vase. Perfection :)

7. Next I put everything together & felt like it still needed some jazzing up. I had a fall coloured wreath that looked wonderful at the base of the vase & I found 2 mosaic mirror candle holders to sit beside the vase. I was more than pleased with the final look of my table for thanksgiving!

If you are needing some help with your outside display hop on over to my post Fall Outdoor Display!

Beginner Photographer Ramble

I have recently been inspired to pursue a hobby in photography. Partly because my husband gave me a very expensive camera that has been sitting in the closet collecting dust, and partly because I have always wanted to learn the art of photography. I have rounded up friends as guinea pigs to be the subjects on the other end of my lens. I thought I would share my first experience on my blog tonight.

Last Sunday I headed out to a few locations to photograph my good friend's little adorable family.

I had done quite a bit of research prior to heading out on the town, but nothing could prepare me for the hiccups I experienced with my Nixon D3100 camera. I could not figure out how to turn the flash off while shooting in "Portrait" & often at times I would hit the button to capture a photo & nothing would happen. I ended up shooting most of the shoot in "Auto Mode" which I felt was cheating. I had learned all about aperture, shutter speed & ISO only to have my camera do all the work for me.

In the end when I uploaded all 200+ photos on to my computer I was pleasantly surprised to find some really stellar shots. I made the decision to purchase an annual subscription to Adobe Light Room & Photo Shop CC . I will admit, I was very overwhelmed with the editing software but after some very helpful tips from my mentor photographer & countless YouTube videos I began to get the hang of softening skin, enhancing eyes, blurring the background, increasing exposure, vibrancy etc. I also played around with the radial & graduated filters. While editing I felt torn between creating the bright vibrant colour photos, or the soft gentle pastel photos. In the end I went with bright colours & high exposure, while toning down some of the greens,yellows, and oranges found this time of year in Manitoba.

I edited down the 200 photos to a round 50 number of definite keepers. I felt in the beginning that I would feel attached to all the photos and would have a hard time deleting some & keeping some, but after time I acted very "cut throat" & if there was one thing about a photo I didn't like, then it got deleted. I'm not going to lie, I spent HOURS editing these photos. After moving on from a photo I found myself going back to change it. I wanted all the photo set to look consistent as a package rather than having for example one photo really bright and white, and the other dark and vibrant. This was rather difficult to achieve.

I was able to present the photos using an online client photo gallery & I think this added a touch of professionalism & allowed her to download all the images at home & right to her computer. She was VERY happy with the end result & I am so excited that I was able to pull this intimidating task off.

I will share a couple of my favourites from the shot, without giving away the identity of my willing subjects ;)

A friend of mine has got me on to VSCO for additional filters to help with the editing process. I downloaded the free package available after having completed editing these photos, but after having played around with a few of them, I think it is going to be very helpful. I also have my eye on a package from Etsy that offers some really beautiful looking filters.

Today I also tackled using Photoshop & Lightroom together. Photoshop has always scared me but I had a request from my next photography subject that I best learn how to photoshop "double chins" and "arm fat". Lightroom does not have the tools to achieve this, so within a half an hour on YouTube I am now able to slim down my subjects in no time on Photoshop & edit in Lightroom interchangeably.

I have to admit this this whole photography thing really escalated real quick in 3 days. I have been up at 6am for the last 3 days, inspired to learn more. It is such an euphoric feeling to be inspired.

Finding a name for my online photography gallery inspired me to provided a link to a blog with the same name, which lead me here to blogger.com. I have been wanting to do a blog for a really long time because I do some much random stuff that I would like to share with the online world.

.....So from this blog you can expect a whole lot of randomness as my Simple Life Unfolds.

Ciao for now!

Creating Loop Holes in a Duvet Comforter

Well this is my first official post to my blog. How exciting!! It is a rainy fall Sunday here in Manitoba & thus a very "Simple Life has Unfolded". Today in our house we have replaced our pot lights in the bathroom, sealed & put moldings around our front door & hung a very heavy mirror. I won't bore you with those details & hop right into the task I endeavoured.

Have you ever noticed how annoying it is when the duvet slips around in the duvet cover & sometimes you are left with nothing but 2 sheets of thin cover?! That is what I have been struggling with & today I decided to take action & do something about it! We purchased our duvet at IKEA & unfortunately it did not come with the handy loop holes you can use you tie the strings of the cover around....very inconvenient if you as me. Luckily my duvet cover came with the tabs sewn in so we were just missing the loop holes on the actual duvet.

So here is what I did to fix the problem:

Time: 35 minutes
Supplies: Needle, white thread, ribbon, scissors

The Work:
1. Cut 4 pieces of ribbon about 1.5 inches long;
2. Thread & knot your needle;
3. Hand sew a piece of the ribbon on each corner of the duvet; be sure you do it on the same side of the blanket. I sewed on a bit of an angle about an inch into the corner. Make sure to do a nice tight knot on each side of the ribbon;

4. After completing sewing all 4 corners of the blanket grab your duvet cover. Reach in and find the tabs located in a corner of the cover. Pull through the tabs through the loop you created on the duvet & tie a bow. Do this on all 4 corners of the duvet & duvet cover;

5. Grab two corners of the duvet & fluff up your duvet by shaking it out;
6. Sit back and admire a perfectly snug duvet in your duvet cover.

Simple life hacks! I will sleep easy tonight knowing that I will be covered by fluffy duvet goodness all night long.