Raised In Cotton

Marathon Baking and Decorating

Hope your Thanksgiving was delightful and filled with many beautiful family moments like mine was. Since Thanksgiving, I have been in a marathon baking and decorating mode trying to ready the farmhouse for Christmas. We spent the last 72 hours hanging the Christmas wreaths and stringing tiny white lights on the trees. I found the cutest 4 ft real pine trees at Lowe's over the weekend. The best part is they come with their own stands. I placed one in a orchard basket and the other in a 5 gallon crock for each of my window seating areas. More farmhouse photos on the way to share with you:)

Nothing beats the fresh scent of Christmas trees don't you think? Along with decorating, I had to have some of my favorite yummy Peppermint Bark ~ recipe here~

 *The winner of the Matthew Mead Holiday Magazine is #26, Danielle~ Congratulations! 

*Also, just in time for Christmas, Jo~Anne Coletti has published a beautiful new magazine called The Feminine Home that would be a great gift for a friend or yourself. More details on Jo~Anne's blog.

I am forever Thankful for you Dear Friends. Your continued encouragement, sweet words and support mean the world to me:)

Wishing You

Matthew Mead Holiday Giveaway

I was fortunate to receive a second copy of the beautiful Holiday "book-azine" by Matthew Mead and I would love to give it away to one of you;) Just leave me a comment and I will draw a name on Friday~

Have a Lovely Thanksgiving Dear Friends~

The Prize

The prize of spending time with 100+ friends last week at the Silver Bella Event in Omaha is the gift of inspiration I always return home with. I completed the soldered jewelry piece above in one of my classes and to me it just summed up the entire weekend. 

Refreshing your soul with wonderful friendships in the name of creativity is always a beautiful Prize don't you think?

Mom Captures

Please forgive the gushing Mom post~ I am just a little bit proud of my youngest Son who is graduating from College in December.  Building my photography portfolio means adding a few portraits and Thankfully he was a willing model~ Dressed in his favorite cowboy boots and Levis, we did a little photo session recently and took advantage of the beautiful natural light~

Sun flare capture~

Baby blues capture.

Post Catholic school education tattoo capture.

Favorite boots and Levis capture.

Walking away from his Mama capture~

 

 

 

 

Golden Hour

As a photographer, you soon realize that getting a great shot is all about finding the best light. If you're doing natural light photography there are a couple of times during the day you may want to take advantage of.   The Golden Hour (sometimes referred to as the Magic Hour) is often defined as the first and last hour of sunlight in the day when the special quality of light yields particularly beautiful photographs.  It basically has to do with the angle of the sun that helps cast a softer and more diffuse light.  This past weekend we went to our favorite cabin and I used the Golden Hour right before sunset to capture these photos~

One other tip is to try experimenting with the White Balance settings on your camera (Auto, Custom, Cloudy, Shade, Tungsten ) to get a different cast on your images.  The idea is to have some creative fun while being a light chaser:)  

May All Your Christmases Be White

Thought I would start this post with some photo's of the Curious Sofa Holiday Open House last week~ Deb and staff once again did their creative magic to produce a swoon worthy evening. Cream, champagne, white, tarnished gold and silver with a dusting of glitter~ be still my heart. The birch shelf that Deb made along with embellished ironstone plates just about did me in!  Go check out her blog for more details and photo's.

Lastly.........