Life and Olive the Above

It seems everyone goes through that feeling of not having enough hours in the day and I can certainly sympathize right now, though I don’t want to come accross complaining. I’ve been booking up my time with soap making, photographic engagements, floral design and more weddings than you can possibly imagine.

It’s a good predicament to be in, not for everyone, but for me at least. I’m hopeful that one day I won’t have a desk job during the day, or if I do it’ll only be part time so I can have a little more time to do the things that excite me and challenge me.

Yesterday alone Steve and I recieved two wedding invites, one which will conincide nicely with a visit to my parents on Vancouver Island and my dad’s birthday and the other is in Kelowna and well… we can’t go… I’m going to be designing flower arrangements and doing photos for a wedding in Langley the same weekend so unfortunately we’ll have to opt out.

I still haven’t managed to plan a summer vacation just yet but maybe I should get that in the works sooner rather than later. Our usual trip to Orca’s Island for Woodsong has been cancelled this year and we weren’t planning our other usual trip to the Oregon coast so we’re left with the question of what to do!

One thing I know for sure is that I want to arrange our patio to be a little cozier for the next few warm months

Another busy weekend in my life. I’m in a frenzy of activity to have prices sent out to clients for flowers, photos and custom soaps. It’s great to be so busy with the things you love, unfortunate when you realize you still work a desk job full time.

No less I had the pleasure of joining with Jo and Austin as they celebrated their weddding this past Saturday and had a chance to photograph Jess and Jonny in Granville Island on Tuesday! To keep things interesting I thought it best to post some photos!

After a very long and cold winter, even a few days ago chattering in the cold weather, this weekend brought with it plenty of hot sun and I could not have been happier!

I thought I would display a couple shots I took last night while at a fondue party a friend of ours hosted. I am working on getting a great night time shot for an on-line assignment and these were my first two attempts. They are 13 Seconds long with a slow flash.

Well for me winter has always been a season of hot drinks and plenty of projects. School hasn’t always allowed for the former luxury but I have always managed regardless.

I occasionally go through some of my favourite websites seeing if any updates have occurred since my last visit (yes, I know about RSS feeds…) and this one always strikes me because of the beautiful mug and although I’m not a huge fan of Chai, I have always enjoyed brewing my own blend of spices to create a tasty cup. It’s been a long while since I did this last and I feel inspired!

(Inspired by Cookbook Catchall)

Another project I’ve got my eye on is a clutch. I’ve always had a thing for accessories and all the better if I can make it myself. I’ve got a load of great fabric just waiting to be used and this may well be one of those. I found it on Craftster.org a great place to get a little life back in the sewing room or wherever it is you create.

I swear I take on too many projects, but you’d have a difficult time to try and stop me! Soap making, photography and even sewing, they’re all in my repertoire and here are some photos Steve took for me one day of people using my slings. One day we’ll set up a studio and get official looking photos but until then, I’m focusing more on the bath and body care products and slings are mainly just for those who know me and know how much I adore them for all the benefits the kids enjoy but also how fashionable they are.

I’m an avid “do-it-yourselfer” (sure selfer isn’t a word, but so it goes.) Whenever possible I will find a way to do it myself, even if it costs a bit more initially just to know it’ll save me over time and give me the satisfaction of finding an effective solution that I made with my own two hands!

This week was no exception. On Friday, being my first day of freedom since finishing classes I set off to hunt down all the products I would need to keep the business running, while also allowing me to flex my muscles to create a natural all purpose cleaner. After much milling about at the shop I had everything I needed. I headed home to create my masterpiece…. first attempt… a flop. I ended up with a gelatinous lump that was less than desirable. The second one was a go so I filled up a spray bottle and off I went to clean off the counter-tops. They looked lovely and smelled of fresh oranges then I came to the stove and looked at the drip trays and thought about every past attempt at cleaning this blackened miseries. I decided even a little cleaning wouldn’t hurt and the smell they’d been giving off every time I made tea wasn’t the most pleasant so I set off into rough waters and to my absolute amazement they came TOTALLY clean.

I was pumped! It’s as though I get this adrenalin surge when the house is clean and it’s something that I didn’t even expect to get results with. So next I thought about the grout around the bathtub that since we moved in two and a half years ago I haven’t been able to overcome. What happened to it? It came off!

Unfortunately I’d cleaned the dirtiest parts were clean by the time Steve entered the bathroom to check on my progress, but he still wanted a before and after shot.

Before:

After:

When it comes to photography, most of us think of portraits and landscapes, vacations and documentation.

Lets just say this is a whole other world of photography. It all started about two years ago…

Having wracked my brain about a group project a few friends and I finally stumbled upon the idea of memory and how it might play into the project. Each of us created a structure to depict a memory that stood out. I was so fascinated by what came of it that two years later I’ve come back full circle and have started crafting these strange looking things as a way of re-experiencing things that stood out from years past.

I take a somewhat childlike approach and make a fun project and here are what some of them came out like (the actual photos in the flesh are much more fascinating but they’ll make it up another day, these are my test shots as I determined what to do with them and some are not fully completed yet.)

I picked up a camera at an early age, probably before the age of ten and because I was sitting in the aisle at my cousins wedding, I was given the privilege of taking photographs. To everyones amazement the photos turned out to be great and it was then, my parents bought my my first point and shoot camera so I could take photos of my own.

Sure I went through the teenage phase of taking ridiculous photos because my friends thought they’d make a great compositions for me. They thought wrong, and I think I knew it all along but being young and impressionable… well… it happens.

So here I am, I now have a degree in fine arts from a reputable school and I became so busy with life and projects I forgot my first love of photography so I’m trying to bring it all back (well I have been for a while now but it’s baby steps).

Recently I started my own business so I got to take on a whole new type of photography that had been entirely foreign to me. Product photography. It was a matter of a tiny bit of Internet research and a little ingenuity and I made my first light box. At first it was a poor rendition of what I had seen on line but as I continued on I worked out the kinks and now, I’m well on my way to better photographs.

It’s been so long it’s spring already and my wheat grass grows ridiculous amounts every day and I haven’t even had a chance to use it for lack of frozen fruits to make yummy smoothies!

It’s been a rather crazy weekend of photo-shoots. Plenty of great times hamming it up in front of the camera. Having been behind the camera most of my years, Saturday was a great night to let loose and get on the other side. What started out as simply figuring out lighting for the photoshoot tomorrow turned into a full fledged party with wardrobe changes, hair and makeup and everything in between!

Sunday was host to a whole different situation of lighting and photographic tableaus. It has been a whirlwind of band photos for a local group called Dawntreader. Although it started with lighting and location issues everything turned out and we had enough photos to start creating press packs which will be sent out before the release of their coming album in May.

So it seems that when the weather gets cold both Steve and I have our minds adrift with projects, some get it in the spring, we however, get it in the winter as we get snowed into the house. We also contemplate moving around this time every year.

As of late I’ve been hooked on the Apartment Therapy Blogs and they always have so many great ideas floating about that I can hardly keep them all straight. Without the luxury of a workshop to create all the items we dream about it’s more of a collection season, sending out emails to family members to keep on the lookout for good tree clippings and other scrap woods so we can eventually make a trip to Vancouver Island where we’ll create to our hearts content.

For the couple years (maybe even longer as I try and estimate the birth of this idea) I’ve been wanting to use a few lean tree trunks to create some great west coast lamps and using a few offcuts from trees in my family’s yard to create hooks for the house such as these ones found on the apartment therapy blogs.

Yesterday evening marked an evening where we brought out old canvases and began painting over them in hopes of creating a new feel for our cozy little basement suite. We’re starting to notice that the colour of the living room walls just doesn’t classify as art and it’s looking a bit bare so hopefully February will mark a month where our house begins to look more like a home. We also continue to go through the house trying to purge any unnecessary items so that we can live a more streamlined life so we’ll spend less time de-cluttering when guests come to visit!