A picture of Beau & Ash that a reader posted on my Facebook wall. I thought it was perfect.
Photo of
Make and share this Smoked Sausage, Taters, Peppers and Onions Country Style recipe from Food.com.
I am so pleased to share this amazing budget barn wedding with you today and the fact that this wedding was done on a budget of only $6,000. There is no doubt about it a wedding can cost a fortune but this wedding really demonstrates how on a tight budget you can still get an elegant rustic chic event. This bride was really going for a “A DIY Rustic Country Down-home Southern Barn Wedding” and from the pictures I would say she got exactly that. Thanks to Cali Ashton Photography for allowing us to show off such a great budget friendly wedding. See all our real weddings planned for under $10,000! SEE MORE SOUTHERN BARN WEDDINGS Sources – Photography: Cali Ashton Photography / venue: Grace Chapel Barn, Tennessee
This is a guest post by Zach Ancell. Please stop by his site to see more of his images, www.zachancell.com, and visit my blog, www.zachancellblog.com, if you want to pick up on some more of his tricks. They are both very new sites so he's in the process of getting a bunch of content up […]
Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis redefine the term Hollywood power couple (beyond the purchase of their Los Angeles farm home).
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Old barns have a rustic charm that can make for a unique and memorable wedding venue. With the right decorations, you can transform an old barn into a charming and romantic setting for your reception. This guide will show you how to use draped fabric to decorate a barn for a wedding reception. With a - Part 3
I apologize in advance for this post. If you are sick of seeing photos of my kids, I'm going to subject with more of them today. My middle son is graduating from our homeschool, and being the thrifty mom that I am, I always take their senior photos. I am not a portrait photographer at all (or any real photographer at all), but we both were really happy with some of the shots we got, and with so many pretty
There are all sorts of cottages in England, but we’ve picked these as distinct and recognisable types which are popular today as a dwelling or holiday house.
GMC - nice image
A full out country chic wedding inspiration is why we fell in love with this inspiration shoot and decided we had to share it. A bride in a jean jacket is one of our favorite new country wedding looks and we are just head over heels in love with this wedding bouquet! From the photographer: There is a unique sense of ease that comes with Texas Hill Country Weddings. We wanted to inspire brides to embrace the beauty in it’s simplicity. Free formed florals, dynamic textures and a simple color palette set off this sophisticated and laid back look. Thanks to Misty Sims Photography for sharing this amazing country wedding inspiration shoot. Sources – photography: Misty Sims Photography / event designer: Bee Lavish, Pink Parasol Designs and Coordinating / cake designer: LoveBirds Sweets / favors: Mopsie Embroidery Treasures / dress store: Serendipity Bridal / invitation designer: Sofia Invitations and Prints / jewelry: Viva Revival / beauty: Weddings By Celissa Rae
This is where we call home…currently. We’ve been known to move from time to time, but we have been here...
In the two years since we've owned our house, our landscaping work has pretty much involved two dominant tasks: rip out and plant grass seed. Remember this before and after of the side yard? May 2010 (before) June 2010 (in progress) May 2011 (after) And, now that we have a blank slate to work with, we're ready to create a landscape that involves more than just grass. First on the priority list is a hedge row. While we truly adore our neighbors nextdoor, we both need a little privacy. So, we would like to plant a modest wall of planted shrubs along the fence line. Nothing crazy, but something dense and manicured, that will give us a nice green border, and them some charming privacy. It also had to be evergreen-- we don't want the hedges shedding their leaves every winter. Once the hedge is grown and manicured, we'd keep it about 8 to 10 feet tall. When we started researching hedges, we immediately thought of boxwood. Martha Stewart's endless boxwood driveway perfectly manicured mature boxwood hedges However, we quickly realized that this will NEVER be a feasible option for us. Boxwood grow only a couple of inches per year(!!!) and we hoped for a hedge wall that reached 8 feet someday soon. Also, the cost of one 4' boxwood runs in the hundreds of dollars. Since we need about thirty plants, the cost would have been astronomical. So, we quickly crossed it off the list. From there, we went the other direction and looked into basic, cheap, fast-growing, dense shrubs. This involved researching the varieties of Arbortivae and Leyland cypress. Both are great trees for a hedge wall. But, we're not in love with the foliage (it's a lovely evergreen, but can get mangled and messy if not properly cared for). Also, they need a lot of maintenance if you want a create a manicured wall. These trees have the ability to grow up to 50 feet(!!!), so we would need to keep them in check. This would involve heavy pruning twice a year, and Dave on a ladder with a hedge trimmer. :) Leyland Cypress hedge wall, perfectly manicured. Just before we were ready to commit to the Leyland Cypress, we did a bit more research and came across the Nellie Stevens Holly. Let the heavens rejoice. This seems like the perfect plant for us. This evergreen hybrid grows about 2 feet per year, it's perfect for privacy screens, and it thrives on neglect. Also, from an aesthetics perpective, it produces the most beautiful dark green, tiny waxy leaves (I love!!) and during Christmastime, we'll have bright red berries. Yes, yes, and yes, please. Also, it's cheap. Sign us up. Nellie Stevens Holly Nellie Stevens Holly holly hedge holly hedge We'll need to plant these babies in April. Until then, I would love to hear from some of you. Do you have experience with any of these plants? Have you ever planted something that ended up growing differently than you expected? Please share! ...
The annual Professional Photographers of Iowa convention and print competition was this past weekend. Sara and I took a few days off and headed up to Des Moines to learn from & hang out with some of the top photographers in the country. This was our first time attending and I wasn't sure what it would be like, but it was a blast! We also entered some of our prints in the competition to see how they would compare to what everyone else was doing around the state. Monday night was the awards banquet and the judges seemed to really like our work. We swept the competition in the digital category - 1st, 2nd, 3rd and honorable mention! I also took 2nd place in Mr Photogenic. 6 of my portraits were awarded Distinguished Print & 7 others Honorable Mention. Quite an honor to get so many awards as a new member of PPI. Now that we have a better idea of how prints are judged, we've got a new goal in mind... top photographer! (1st place digital) (2nd place digital) (3rd place - digital) (honorable mention- digital) (2nd place - Mr Photogenic) The following were awarded Distinguished Prints: And these prints awarded Honorable Mention
