Home Sweet Home

Not mine.... but Angela's.

Today's post was a request by a good friend of mine, Angela.  I wrote about her engagement back in January, and since then her life has gotten more and more hectic/fabulous.

After the engagement Angela and her fiance Matt Shaw (for some reason I always call him by his first and last name) have sold Matt's house, are in the process of closing on their new house together, and getting ready to sell Angela's house.  I imagine my stress and multiply it by 10. All of this stuff is un-treaded waters for me and it sounds like a lot of work! Angela is handling it all pretty well though.

For some time now, Angela has been asking me to take a picture of her street name which is located on the sidewalk.  It it representative of how long her block has been around, her very first house she bought by herself, and the life she has grown to have living there. I, of course, was happy to help her with this request.

On our way back to from the plaza yesterday, I had the BF help me with the mini-photo shoot. Pulling limbs back and giving me suggestions of different angles.  Eventually though, he told me there were only so many ways you can take a picture of something on a sidewalk so we ended the photo shoot.

Here was the favorite of all of them:

I wasn't content with just the photo itself, so I opted for a little photoshop fun when I stayed in last night. Here's what I ended up with the Smudge Stick filter.

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Happy Friday

Since the temporarily outage with blogger occurred yesterday/this morning. I thought I'd share two posts to make up for mine not going up last night.

Just something simple for the weekend :)

Have a HAPPY Friday and a HAPPY weekend my friends.  Carmine is ready for a drink, are you?

Now I'm not going to lie.... Carmine DID in fact have a few slurps of Angela's beer.  No harm was done during this photo shoot.

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Seeing as Kansas City got close to 15 inches of snow yesterday with the blizzard that blew through here, I thought it would be fitting to include a snow-related Valentine's Day gift suggestion today.

Angela texted me this morning with an idea for a photo she wanted to take relating to Valentine's Day and I LOVED the idea so went for it.

I walked up the street to her house this afternoon for a quick photo shoot.

Angela was rearing and ready to go.  She created a heart in the snow before I even got there!!! I kind of wish I would have seen her running in circles creating the heart and posting those pictures, but I guess these will suffice because her and Matt are so gosh darn cute together!

Angela making sure her heart is big enough to show Matt how much she loves him ;)

Sweet Kisses for the happy couple! 

Angela laughed hysterically throughout the entire shoot! So Cute

Now for the gift giving.... I have emphasized enough how much I love the canvas idea so that is ALWAYS going to be a recommendation for a gift.  But if you are looking to do something a little different and more personal I thought a cute idea would be a picture book to put on his/her coffee table.  This could be a bunch of different pictures from the past, this could be having your own fun photo shoot like Angela and Matt did (I'd be happy to assist with that...).  I mean what better gift to give someone than showing how much you love them because of all the happy moments you have had together.

For these types of gifts I would recommend Snapfish. I've received gifts from there and sent them myself and they have several options for the photo books.  Coincidentally Snapfish has some great deals going on right now for photobooks:

• Save 20% off your purchase, use the code: welcomeback
• 30% off photo books, plus 50 free prints for new customers, use code: babysbook
• Free shipping PLUS 20% off photo books, use code: asbookdec

These should all work right now.  If you have any questions let me know, or if you want me to help brainstorm some other ideas with you I'm more than happy to do that as well!

Happy gift hunting, you have 12 more days to find that perfect gift!

Picture Perfect!

Today was the day! I ordered my Mia picture that Matt made me (Walt gave to me for Christmas) from CanvasOnDemand a couple of weeks ago and I finally got it in!!!

I was ecstatic! I couldn't have imagined my picture to look any better than it did.  It was perfect.  Perfect size. Perfect color. Perfect artwork. Perfect gift. 

I highly recommend this PERFECT gift to anyone looking for gift ideas for a friend, significant other, family, especially if they have a pet! Matt did a great job as did CanvasOnDemand with getting it to look PERFECT on a canvas, and Walt did a great job on his present :) 

Mia was trying to figure out if she had a giant twin or not

Matt Shaw the Designer

For Christmas this past year I told you part of what I gave Walt. Now I want to tell you about his gift to me.

Recently Angela's fiance, Matt Shaw, made an awesome picture of her Italian Greyhound, Carmine.

 Carmine by Matt Shaw

I quickly became obsessed with her picture and was dying to have my own of Mia. Well as it so happens, Walt had asked me what I wanted for Christmas and this was one of the first things that popped into my head!  Walt tracked down Matt Shaw and asked if he would make a picture of Mia for my Christmas gift. Matt said YES! I was SO excited to see the final result. 

Mia by Matt Shaw

I absolutely LOVED it.  Matt was so sweet and altered the background to whatever color I wanted and got it done pretty quickly considering the holiday business and his getting engaged and all :)

If you or someone you know is interested in getting your pet's photo designed, or have another picture in mind, I would highly recommend Matt Shaw.  He gets his work done in a timely manner and for a great deal. To reach him, you can email him at: mshaw8730@gmail.com.  Additional details on getting that perfect gift or decoration for your house:

Price: Negotiable

Timing: Takes about 3 weeks

Requirement: Provide 3 pictures of your pet/subject you would like him to work with and choose from

I plan on using my Groupon from CanvasOnDemand to get mine put on a canvas and so pumped to hang it up in my room!

She's Engaged!!!

After waiting her whole life to meet price charming, my good friend Angela Suzanne Hunter found the love of her life, Matt Shaw.

A little over a year ago the two love birds met. As it turned out they had many things in common.  Mutual friends. Their careers in advertising. They lived two miles away from each other. They both love to have fun and they can both put down a Natty Light or two :)

Angela knew he was the one almost instantly.  I just remember hearing her say "I think he's a keeper!"

After hearing multiple stories about him and seeing a picture of this guy I was just dying to meet him.  So one night when I had had a liiiitttle too much to drink and noticed Angela and her man sitting across from me at Kona Grill I decided to send them some drinks.  She waved me on over and off I went.  She introduced me to Matt Shaw (she never referred to him as Matt, always Matt Shaw, which I thought was a term of endearment). After quick slightly intoxicated introductions, I leaned over to Matt Shaw and said in more or less words, he better not hurt my friend in any way or I'd sick my cat Mia on him!! (You will meet Mia tomorrow on my next post). He assured me he would not.

As it turned out, he also found the love of his life and had intentions to marry her!

So he proposed on New Year's Eve, Eve 2010. Long story short, Angela is the hardest person ever to surprise, and Matt Shaw really wanted this to be a surprise.  After playing sick and suggesting they stay in for the evening, Matt was taking out the recycling at Angela's house and started to yell for her to come over  and see something in her dining room.  Matt Shaw is pretty much on the ground trying to look for something as Angela walked into the room.  He slyly looked up and shifted to one knee and told her how much he loved her and wanted her to spend the rest of her life with him. She said YES!!! Angela now has a BEAUTIFUL ring on her left hand and they couldn't be more happy!

So congrats to Angela and Matt Shaw on your engagement.  I love you both very much and wish all the happiness in the world for you!

P.S. Matt Shaw also has his own blog for you to check out it's called LunchBlogKC

The happy couple and Ang's bling!