Cinnamon in the air & pies in the oven...

Hello Lovelies~

As usual, I hope this week finds you all doing well out there! Things here are falling into a brisk, autumnal state. The days are getting shorter, the temps are doing their daytime/nighttime fluctuation and I've had a strong urge to bake and get my house ready for cooler weather. And bake I did, a friend came over this past weekend and we watched horror movies (Dead Silence. Eeeks!) and the sprinkles and flour were flying. I took what remained of the apples from apple picking a couple of weeks back and made a pie that was delicious (other people told me this, I'm not being immodest). Then, we baked up a huge batch of Halloween cupcakes and iced and decorated those for Halloween. It was sort of a perfect Fall Sunday and that's saying something since Fall has been such a joy so far.

What else? Oh! I have been hired to do a ton of client work lately, which is great! I just finished a couples portrait for a client and friend who needed this image for a family tree project these two are doing at their upcoming wedding. What a sweet, gracious and beautiful couple they are. (And they styled themselves in such a handsome way.) Take a look.

And then another client and friend made a trip from New York to get some head shots done for her acting portfolio. Talk about a joy to work with. So funny, so talented and so smart (not to mention beautiful). We were laughing the entire time. I love my job! Take a look. Stunning, no?

And as we move from Fall towards the holiday season, I've been trying to think of gift-giving that gives back. I'm definitely the less-is-more type in the gift-giving arena: more the thought than the quantity. That being said, I also usually procrastinate and end up at the Mall. Not this year. I've found two great sites that sell beautiful, artisan products made by very talented artists and craftsmen and the money benefits charity. The first site is: Denik. They sell journals with original artwork on the cover like the below. The purchase of these journals benefits both the artist (so they can keep creating beautiful things) and also helps build schools. Win/win.

The second site is: Sevenly. This site also sells artisan products of all types, but the difference here is that the charity changes weekly and so do the products. This week's charity is the Humane Society, so the site is full of great canine products and dog/cat/pet related prints and shirts! Amazing. I love it. I'm all about giving you fresh, artistic ideas that make things better where everyone wins, Lovelies.

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Happy All Hallow's Eve!

Hello Lovelies~

I hope you are all doing well out there. If you celebrate Halloween, I hope your costumes are ready, your little ones are bundled tight and your treats are good (because no one likes raisins, folks). Things have certainly been in the Halloween mood here in the Mill. I just listed 3 limited edition, signed and numbered mini photo books from the Scream Limousine series in the shop and boy are they cute. Hardbound in linen with a magnetic closure, these books contain 10 shots from the series including all of the head shots. Give yourself a gift this Halloween and snag one before they're gone!

Over the weekend, we did our annual tradition of baking Halloween cupcakes. With all the sprinkles we found, they came out great! I call these little beauties Spider Bits Cupcakes.

We also went to see a showing of Nosferatu at a local arts center. I'd seen it before, but this showing was accompanied by an original score and there was popcorn and people were dressed up. So, needless to say, it was a lot of fun. I would definitely recommend seeing it to anyone who likes old horror movies. There are some tense moments.

(One of those moments is NOT when Nosferatu carries his own coffin all over town, including on a boat...)

What else? Oh! I have found some wonderful new work I wanted to show you, Creepies. Richard Barnes is a photographer who has been photographing installations and clean-ups at museums of natural history for years; the workers, the animals wrapped in plastic. As someone who loves taxidermy, I am fascinated by his work, it has an otherworldly quality to it as people vacuum out the spaces and place and remove once-living things from their environs. Great work.

I also found some great vintage circus eye-candy courtesy of Flavorwire the other day. These rare shots were taken from The Circus Book: 1870 - 1950, which of course, I am now coveting. The colors and those faces and of course the costumes, are all inspiring. I may have to shoot some things along this line. But where to find the costumes?

Happy Halloween to you all!

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Dark Packages...

Hello Lovelies!

I hope you are all doing well on this fine Monday. Things are getting busier and busier around here as Halloween approaches.

First, I had the pleasure of seeing one of my favorite rock singers this pastweek! TheGruesome Twosome tour, starring Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper came to Portland and you can bet I was right up front. Now, I don't normally do really hard rock, but the show those two put on was wonderful. The props? The songs? The flamethrowers? Needless to say. If they're coming near you, go. Just do it.

Over the weekend, I got up to a little baking to get into the Halloween mood and these little ghost cupcakes were a result... so yummy. And I sprinkled them with the "spider sprinkle" mix from Wal-Mart. Who knew?

Every year I photograph and design my own Halloween card for family and friends and this year was no exception. I'm sending them out this week, and next week I'll show off the image to you Kiddies. It will be sold as a print in my shop for you Darklings out there as well... just you wait!

So as not to get too dark in this post, I'll balance it out with the work of an adorable artist I recently found via about 40 different sites. Helen Dardik is an illustrator and blogger and mother and about 100 other things and despite the fact that her work is very bright and whimsical, I find I love it. Especially her patterns... I want them as curtains and wallpaper and all over my house. Take a peek!

And to bring things back to center, the work of Lost Fish mixes bright candy-colored pastels with dark and morbid themes and almost Asian-influenced female subjects. This results in a disturbing body of work that you really can't look away from... not that you'd want to anyway. Take a look, very interesting work here:

And let's wrap up with a play recommendation of all things! I saw a production of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps over the weekend, which, unlike the 1935 movie, is a comedy, not a suspense thriller. Full of sight gags and funny one-liners, it's a must-see if it comes to your area. Trust me on this Kiddies... check it out.

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...