A Image for Today - Friday

Oh my goodness gorgeous! It is perfect!



Image by: MThree Studio

You should definitely go to her site here and check out the rest of the images from this amazing wedding. The light...perfect, the trees...amazing!

i have to admit if I could do it all over again...it would be in a forest like this. With the light filtering through the leaves and the breeze providing the music by blowing through the canopy...oh *sigh* {what do you expect from some one who grew up in the 'forest'?}

Well...can you say vow renewal? Maybe if like 10 years!

On the Vote

Its almost here! Are you ready to vote?

This is a great video. Its explains things very simply.



What do you think?
Who are you voting for? {don't really answer this...i don't want to know, but i do want you to really think about it}
Where do you see this country in the next 4 years?

Now...Aren't you glad that it is almost November 4th? I have strong beliefs and am willing to defend them...but I sure am glad it is almost over!

An image for Today

It looks sunny, but boy is it chilly!



Image by: aussiegall on flickr

An Image for Today - Wednesday

Sun Baked...



Image By: Jennifer Photography

You Were Once Pre-Viable

Comments made by Sen. Obama on the "Infant Born Alive Act" -- view his words for yourself here {middle of page 85}.

"The testimony during the committee indicated that one of the key concerns was -- is that there was a method of abortion, an induced abortion, where the -- the fetus or child, as -- as some might describe it is still temporarily alive outside the womb. Add one of the concerns that came out in the testimony was the fact that they were not being properly cared for during that brief period of time that they were still living."

In response to the above concern -- "Number one, whenever we define a pre viable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a -- a child...that was delivered to term. That determination...would forbid abortions to take place. ...because...if this is a child {pre viable fetus}, then this would an antiabortion statute. ...it would probably be found unconstitutional {because} this essentially says that a doctor is required to provide treatment to a pre viable child, or fetus..."

A child born alive because of a botched abortion, a living breathing child, is considered {by Sen. Obama} to be a pre viable fetus and is therefore not protected by the Constitution because it is only temporarily alive.

Weren't you also considered 'pre viable' after you were born? The only difference is that some one wanted you and choose to care for you. These 'temporarily alive' children are not wanted so they are left there to starve and wait for their lungs to fail...they are waiting to become fully alive.

It is disturbing that any one could she a child {a pre viable fetus} crying, breathing, and trying to live as already dead and not worthy of the Constitution that protect us every day.

If he feels this way about a helpless child's life, how do you think he will value the life of any human being in this world.

A pre viable fetus...

An Image for Today - Tuesday

venir la promenade avec moi...



Image by: Jennifer Photography

The Loss of Integrity

Have you seen it? Have you read it with your own two eyes?



The news industry has lost all of their integrity and the trust of their audience {or at least the should have}.

This has been progressing over the past few years...the reporting of personal opinions of journalists in every medium.

Even in our local news we are faced with anchors telling us what they recommend we watch tonight or slightly skew the story to fit their personal beliefs. And it has gotten worse.

The presidential debate has brought out the worst in the media. It does not matter which candidate you support you know you have seen it. The media have drug Sen. and Mrs. McCain, the entire Palin Family, Joe the Plummer, and now this report in Florida through the mud. Alternatively, we still do not know the history of Obama or what any of his friends have to say about him or how voter fraud is now so rampant.

Michael Malone {a respected journalist} wrote a piece on this problem and here are a few quotes from the article that you can read here. {It is good and I recommend that you read the whole thing!}

"If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.

That isn't Sen. Obama's fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media's fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.

Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?"

I thought journalists were held to a code of integrity, to follow every story no matter where it leads, and to show there source to prove their legitimacy.

But what really shattered my faith -- and I know the day and place where it happened -- was the war in Lebanon three summers ago. The hotel I was staying at in Windhoek, Namibia, only carried CNN, a network I'd already learned to approach with skepticism. But this was CNN International, which is even worse.

I sat there, first with my jaw hanging down, then actually shouting at the TV, as one field reporter after another reported the carnage of the Israeli attacks on Beirut, with almost no corresponding coverage of the Hezbollah missiles raining down on northern Israel. The reporting was so utterly and shamelessly biased that I sat there for hours watching, assuming that eventually CNNi would get around to telling the rest of the story … but it never happened."


Another article on the topic that I recommend can be found here and is written by Orson Scott Card. Here is a small sample...

"This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them...

...Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?"



Shame on you people in the media who call themselves journalists. You have failed the people of this country to rely on you to provide them with the information that they need to know and understand. Shame on you for ignoring some stories, falsifying others, and lying to all of us {half truths or other wise}.

I am done with you!

Are you done with them too? Have you seen it? Do you think the media can regain their integrity during this election?

An Image for Today

I am starting a new resolution. Every day I will post a new Photograph. I will try to hold to this new commitment and give a little blip about it too {if I can}! Enjoy!



For the Love...




Image by: Jennifer Photography

This image is from the engagement session that I took for our best friends this weekend. You will probably see several more of these pictures as I post my daily images and process their pictures!

Can I say 'Oh my goodness gorgeous!" He has been best friends with Husband since 1st grade and we are happy to welcome Her to our friendship. This is one shot that She requested and I turned out gorgeous! Congratulations you two! I can't wait until the wedding!

The Scraps of Life - Simply Embelished

Add a small embelishment here or a sparkle there. It adds up quickly! Those small embelishments are the most expensive investments in your scrapbook! At a couple of dollars per pop embelishments are becoming increasingly expensive and to a lot of scrapbookers more and more necessary for a good looking page.

Today I would like to introduce you to the most precious and the cheapest embemlishments you will every find...they are FREE!

Your free embelishments are sitting right there in your scrapbook folders just waiting to be clipped and used. Your friends and family spend so much to send you birthday and holiday cards that are gorgeous! What are you going to do with them?...Put them in a box to store away?...Throw them in the trash? How about using them in your scrapbook?

The decorative front of a card and the lines inside {and don't forget what they wrote to you!} can be clipped and used to decorate your pages in place of those expensive store bought embelishments.

Below are pictures of the kids in our wedding and I have used the card that their mom and dad have given us. The card was perfect! a white picket fence of hearts and white puffy clouds. And don't forget about the message and the words that they left for us to remember their part in our day!




In the next I tried adding a little more color and some ideas for cut paper. I matted the pictures and embelishments with offset paper mattes, incomplete mattes and some on a diagonal, and stripes!










What do you think? Have you even faced a stack of greeting cards that you would like to keep, but they are just collecting dust? Do these cards now inspire you to cut them up and paste them in your scrapbooks?

What do you do with all of those cards that you get?

How do you embelish your scrapbook on a budget when store bought trinkets are getting so expensive?

The Scraps of Life - Where to Start

Do you collect everything that links itself to your memories? As these trinkets stack up I collect them an put them into a folder. I keep a folder for every month to collect birthday cards, holiday cards, or any event that may come up. Looking at the memories with a relative time associated them will motivate you to keep on top of archiving them!

When I find some time to sit down and scrapbook I keep it simple. Our family is lucky enough to have major events spread out though out the year so I like to stick to one book spread for each month {it also helps to remind you of how time flies by when each page represent one month!}. First things first, I pull out the folder of memories and spread them out so that I can get a look at the big picture.

Once everything is out there it is easier to settle on a color scheme or theme for the month. Is there anything that all of these scraps have in common - a color, a flower, maybe a phrase?

Like with any project you have to lay the ground work first. {now this is important!} Pick two colors of paper {2 pieces of each} that fit your memories and each other. These two colors are your background colors, one color on the left and one on the right. With the other two pieces you can make photo mats, bars, and a few embelishments. For example, the background color on the right becomes embelishments on the left. What do you think of the example pages below?





This simple idea can save a lot of money and frustration because you can use plain old solid color papers. There's no need for the expensive specialty papers and the page automatically looks like it is planned and has a theme. Not only that...I follow this process through out the entire scrapbook and the entire thing looks like it belongs together as consecutive pages!

An entire book that looks coordinated, imagine that! And it was easy and cheap too! Have you ever tried a process like this? Do you like the look of simple cut paper embelishments? Once you perfected this process try more cut paper ideas! Branch out to different shapes and lines or maybe even throw in a small amount of a third color for a pop!



Let me know...Did it work for you?




Don't miss the next post! The best embelishments you will ever need and there free!

The Scraps of Life

We collect bits and pieces, tokens that remind us of little parts of our lives. I admit it. I tend to keep everything (from birthday cards to hospital bracelets)...I am a pack rat. These tokens remind us of times we shared together, how we felt at the time, and how far we have progressed. We all want to display them and keep them safe from the hands of time, but its so expensive to invest in those beautiful scrapbook pages and lets face it...not everyone has the creative mind to put together stunning page after stunning page.

After our wedding I found myself with a large stack of cards, hundreds of pictures, and not enough income to waste away in the pages of a book. That's when I started my simple process to scrapbook the stories of my life.

Over the next few days I will lead you through this process and show you what I have done with some paper, cards, trinkets and the stories that they tell...



Picture from Albright Creative Imagery