Newborn .:. Baby Alice

Sweet Baby Alice was born back in May. If you'll recall, I took Baby Alice's mom, Emily's maternity pictures about a month prior to her arrival. It was really amazing taking photos of a belly and seeing the same little babe on her first day in the world. I was honored to photograph this little cutie who even opened her eyes and was very alert towards the end of our session. It's a good thing my sister is also having a girl (due in Nov!) to cure my baby fever after meeting this little one. 

Interested in getting your own maternity or newborn photos done? Email me at HousLoveDogBlog@gmail.com for info on pricing & to schedule a time! 

Lindsay & Nick :: Baltimore, MD :: Engagement Photos

A few weekends ago, I had the opportunity to travel up to Baltimore, MD to see my sister and go wedding dress shopping with her. It was a very fun weekend and so amazing to see my sister's face light up when she found her perfect dress. It really is an awesome experience to have just gone through my own wedding and now being able to be there for her as she plans her wedding this upcoming October. 

While I was in town, I really wanted to take some engagement photos for Lindsay and her fiance, Nick, and in turn practice my photography skills with live subjects (namely not Brandon and myself, hehe). Find out more about how Nick proposed last Thanksgiving here. They are a gorgeous couple and their two puppies, my furry niece and nephew, Lucy and Mugsy, are so freaking adorable so it was a very fun photo session! They are true Baltimorons :P (ahem, I mean Baltimoreans)  and the wedding will be nearby so we wanted to grasp the feel of the streets of Baltimore. I really love how they turned out! 

 

 

I am so excited for Lindsay and Nick and can't wait to see how their marriage grows and unfolds! And by the way, aren't they going to make the cutest nieces and nephews for Brandon and me?! 

Peace, 

Allison 

Silhou-whata?!

Hey ya'll, it's been a while! I've been trucking along on my trellis stencil wall in our master bedroom. If you've been following me on Instagram, you probably already knew that (if not you should follow me here). Hopefully I will gain some more momentum this coming weekend and finish it! Fingers crossed.

Anywhoo, I recently had this grand plan to create silhouettes of Brandon, Rhiley, and my faces for the wall above our bedroom TV. These past few days I finally got down to it and finished them and I am in love! 

They were really soo, so simple so I won't really do a full on tutorial but basically the method I used was that I took iPhone profile pics, no not for facebook, but literally our profiles. Then, I determined the size I would need, printed them off, and then cut the profiles out of normal computer paper. I then traced them onto some black card stock, cut them out, and modge podged them onto the wooden plaques I had already spray painted white. I personally used the glossy modge podge because I wanted it to have a slight shine to it but you could just have easily used the matte version. Below is a very grainy iPhone pic but just to show you how the original pictures are easily transferred to silhouettes!

Honestly, the entire total for all 3 silhouettes was about $8, so it's very affordable. I was happily surprised that they really do look distinctly like each of us! I think we will cherish these for years to come as we start our family together. But hopefully our profiles won't change too much after kids, but we will see! 

Hope you like them and are inspired to create your own. Just think how cool it will be to look back at them in 10, 20 years and see how much they have changed! 

Peace, 
Allison 

Happy {Heart} Day 2014

Happy Belated {Heart} day! I hope you had as relaxed and enjoyable a day as we had. Thankfully we had the day off so it was awesome. It started with a delish breakfast in bed of a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel (yum!) and hand dipped chocolate covered strawberries. No joke, a Sherri's Berry's commercial had come on the TV at the gym the other day and I totally pointed to Brandon like these look good *wink, wink*, *hint, hint.* Surprise, surprise he remembered and even MADE them himself. I was impressed!

Once we finally got dressed for the day, we were off to Sam's club (I know, how romantic!) where we picked out a mattress and box spring for our guest bedroom with some of our tax refund. No big deal, it just took us practically a year to have a decent bed for guests to sleep on! So you know what that means?! Who's going to be our first guests now that we have a proper guest living quarters?? By the way, shout out to our AWESOME neighbors who helped us pick up the mattresses in their truck!

We also stopped by Sears at the mall because it was having crazy closing sales on everything. We got a standing miter saw for wicked cheap so I am excited that I can finally do some larger scale building projects! More on that soon.

Finally, we went to the Riverfront park in Columbia where I had seen these awesome red barn doors last week to take some Valentines/ Winter photos on self timer using my tripod. If you didn't know, I love self timer! I'm not going to lie we have gotten some of our favorite travelling photos using self timer. Usually it goes something like this: I set up the camera on a random bench or using my purse to angle the camera on the ground using Brandon as my model, set up the self timer function, and then sprint (sometimes up to 50 yds., no joke haha) to my position, where I quickly wipe the sweat from my sprint, and then try to look as "natural" as possible. It is probably quite the sight to see but it is a thrill nonetheless. Especially when I get the "perfect" shot I was looking for. 

It was a really fun afternoon activity to get some now that we're married shots. I am hoping to do a photo session like this for each season of our newlywed year. By the way, self timer and trying to get a perfect heart with two peoples hands is harder than it sounds.... 

And what kind of winter photos would they be if there wasn't any snow?! We just got hit here in SC with a snow/ ice storm (one of the biggest in like a decade) and an earthquake all in the same week so I'm so glad there was still some snow left on the ground on {Heart} Day. 

His face is priceless.

Newlywed life is treating us pretty well. Although there are definitely those days I want to throw a snowball in his face...just for fun! Hope you had a great Valentines. 

Peace,

Allison