So I know I’ve talked several times about my meetup group that I LOVE and this weekend we had a party for one of our co-organizers, Kristen who is leaving .  She is pursuing her dream job down in Florida and while we all will miss her terribly we are happy for her new adventure!  Kristen is one of those people that you cannot help but love immediately, she is so sweet and bubbly and is so great to new members of the group.  I like call her the walking encyclopedia of the group because she remembers so much about people after one meeting!  I can barely remember names and she not only remembers names but small details you might have told her in passing.  Random story here but at one breakfast meetup there was a new person and after finding out where they were from she quickly grabbed another group member who was from the same area and got them talking.  I was really blown away by her in that moment because not only is her memory incredible but she is the type of person to go out of her way to make you feel welcome and accepted.  When I first joined last year I was only able to make one meetup and I met Kristen, fast forward to this spring when I rsvped for another meetup and she sent me a message about how happy she was that I was coming out for another meetup.  I was so excited to see her again when I got that message!  This is just the type of person Kristen is, she genuinely cares about people and wants to know what is going on with your life!  Writing this post I’m realizing that our group is really going to be losing a huge part of the heart of our group.  I hope that if she finds a new meetup in Florida they realize how lucky they are to get her and if they don’t she can refer them to me and I’ll make sure they know how lucky they are!

In honor of her deserting us we had a Desserting Party where everyone brought fun sweets!  I volunteered to do a crazy booth and had a blast at the party store picking up fun props, every crazy booth needs props!  I think everyone had a blast writing messages to Kristen and playing around taking photos, I know I had a blast going though them. Funny story if you follow me on Facebook, so Saturday I posted that I had a bunch of popping balloons and I felt like I was taking enemy fire.  I had stopped at the party store and ordered 12 balloons, before I made it to the car 6 had already popped, the party store blew up another 10 for me to cover the popped ones.  As I was putting those in the car there was more popping!!  They wanted to blow up more but at this point I was getting frazzled by the popping and was like forget it I have 10 left that is fine.  As I’m driving more started popping, by the time I got to the house I had 7 left and 1 popped getting out of the car.  Out of 22 balloons we ended up with 6, so I had 16 balloons pop and I hate the sound of popping balloons.  It startles me and I don’t like that so by the time I got to the house I just wanted to be out of my car and away from the stupid balloons!!!  I seriously was feeling like someone was shooting at me and just getting the balloons instead!  Ok enough of my balloon drama and onto some crazy photos!  I’ve posted the photos here like I would do in a crazy booth album.  Head on over to Facebook to check out all the photos in my gallery under Melissa Arlena Photography!  While you are there don’t forget to Like Us!  You can also check out a slide show in the client galleries!

Contact Me | Portrait Portfolio | Wedding Portfolio | Find us on Facebook

This will sound like a dating questionairre but I swear I did not rip it off from match or eharmony!

1.  Where is your favorite place to go?  Do you love the mountains, a local park, your grandparents lake house?  Your favorite place has meaning to you and that makes your photos there special! 

2.  What is your favorite thing to do? Hobby or interest?  Are you a home renovator and spend all your time at the hardware store?  Do you spend time on your boat?  Is date night spent at the batting cages?  I know photo sessions can be stressful and I want to make sure it is fun for you so if working your nerves off with a few rounds in the batting cage works then lets do your session there!  One of my favorite photographers Melissa Jill did an engagement session at Home Depot because her clients spend all their free time there while renovating their new house.  While searching for a link to that session I found an article Melissa wrote about spicing up an engagement session that I want to share!  Click here!  You can see the Home Depot photos also!   

3.  What is your style?  Are you vintage glam or rustic country?  If you are most comfortable in your jeans and a cute plaid shirt then something very natural like a field or a farm with a barn would be an awesome place for your session.  By the way if you know someone with a farm and a cool paint peeling barn in the area  please let me know I’m on the lookout for one!!  If you love to dress up and are very fashionable lets check out a modern art museum.  Oh how about a winery?  There are so many wonderful places to shoot at a winery, I was up at Tarara Winery a couple months ago and I’m dying to go back and shoot there again.  I would love to incorporate more of the grape fields and the rustic buildings! 

If all else fails pick something quirky!  There is an adorable miniature golf place on Route 1 just before Stafford that I would love to shoot a session at.  It is so cute and painted with pretty colors and I think it would be so much fun!  Another crazy idea would be a vintage flea market or something with lots of unusual props to play around with.  I love Downtown Fredericksburg because it reminds me of Old Town Alexandria and I love the feel of that. 

A location is a lot more then just the backdrop of your photos, it needs to be a place that you feel comfortable in and can relax and have a good time.  At the end of the day though what makes your photos awesome is you and not a specatacular location!  Of course I can’t have a post without a photo so here is this cool old boat I took a photo of over our Memorial Day weekend trip to Colonial Beach.  Between this boat, the field behind it and the water on the other side that right there is 3 awesome spots to shoot all in a 25ft radius.   My point is don’t rule out quirky! lol!

Cool Boat at Colonial Beach Yacht Club

Contact Me | Portrait Portfolio | Wedding Portfolio | Find us on Facebook

To get ready for the party I started brainstorming a few cute props for the booth.  I think everyone loosens up a little when there are fun props to play around with.  With a quick trip to your local party store you can find an array of masks, hats, funny mustaches, boas and beads!  If your wedding has a theme I’ve seen awesome setups including a rowboat for a nautical theme.  My favorite prop for a crazy booth is a pretty chalkboard!  It is fun to write messages to your friends and have your photo taken with it.  A quick look at Etsy and you can find beautiful frames with chalkboards ready for use.  For this project I thought it would be fun to make my own but I wanted to keep the cost under $20 or so per chalkboard.  I spent a day perusing the antique stores of Downtown Fredericksburg Virginia looking for frames that had beautiful details to them but after looking in too many stores to count I couldn’t find what I was looking for in the right price range.  I found lots of beautiful frames but they were over $100 with paintings in them so that just wasn’t working.  On my way home I stopped by the Fred Goodwill to drop off some donations and thought I’d give it a shot.  Score!!!  I found a beautiful frame with lots of details and it was $4, insert happy dance here!!!! I looked for a larger frame but didn’t see anything with the detail I was looking for.  Next stop was Michaels for the rest of the supplies I would need.  You can find these things at your local craft store or hardware store.  As Pioneer Woman says check out the photo below for the cast of characters for this project!

Can I just say that Michaels is probably the store I spend the most time in, I love to just walk around and get inspired! Michaels and I got pretty close when I was getting married, it was getting a little out of control the amount of time we were spending together. They kept giving me 40% off coupons to come back and well I just couldn’t turn those coupons down. So anyway back to my supply list, I knew I needed chalkboard paint, a thin small sheet of wood and chalk. While I was there I stopped by the framing aisle and found the open frames were on sale for 40% off already! Perfect I was able to pick up a larger frame for $15, not as good as my $4 deal but much better then the $100+frames I saw in the antique stores. Next it was off to the wood section in the back where I found the spray paint and the thin birch wood that would be my chalkboard for both frames. I loved that I was able to get everything at Michaels and with my $4 frame the total came out to under $40 for this project, divide that by two frames and I was in my goal range.

Here is a closeup of the board I picked up and the paint I used, I forgot to include the white spray paint as that was something I already had and hadn’t pulled out of the cabinet yet. I used the primer on the birch wood piece as my base coat before the chalkboard paint. I wanted to eliminate multiple coats of chalkboard paint to cover the light wood. You can purchase the birch wood in several sizes I chose a larger size so that I could cut two pieces from it. I ended up using my table saw to cut my pieces but I’ve heard if you purchase your thin piece of wood from Lowes or Home Depot they will cut it to size for you.

So I headed outside with some newspaper, white primer spray paint and my frames. I think I’m a little heavy handed with my spray painting but I try to do the thin light coats they recommend. I watch a lot of HGTV so I tried to mimic the techniques I’ve seen on countless shows. I followed the directions on the can and put the second coat on within an hour. After that I let them sit for 24 hours before I sprayed the high gloss white onto them. Here is the before and after of my $4 frame!

Don’t these frames corners look so pretty in white now!

So unfortunately I don’t have photos of the wood being spray painted as it started raining and I had to run out and grab everything and let it dry in the house. With the rain came dark clouds and bad photo conditions in the house. The wood was easy though, I used the gray primer first and then after that dried I went over it with the chalkboard paint. I waited a day between the two applications but that was just because of my timing on the project. Once they dried I lightly sanded them to take away the rough bumpy finish. Make sure you go lightly or you will have to spray them again. After that I prepped them by covering them with a piece of chalk and then wiping it off with a damp sponge. After that I was able to write on them and wipe it off with a paper towel with no problems! Here is the finished product….
Here is a message for my hubby!

So I have a huge appreciation for Young House Love and all the step by step blog posts they put up. This took me almost an entire day after shooting the photos to edit them and then put them into a blog post and write everything up. The actual project was spread out over a couple days with all the painting but I’m betting you could do it from start to finish in a day if you wanted.

Contact Me | Portrait Portfolio | Wedding Portfolio | Find us on Facebook

So I think making this an every other week column works best for me and since I’ve been pretty good at that schedule so far I’m going to stick with it!

Love It!

1. 3G Networks!  Okay so I had no idea how spoiled we are being in the Northern Virginia area and having almost constant access to AT&T’s 3G network.  David and I both have iphones and surfing the web is usually pretty quick.  I’m not talking desktop cable modem fast but pretty good considering I can get to most internet sites on something that is the size of my hand.  I’m impressed by this!  Last week we traveled to Emerald Isle, NC for a week of beach, sun and fun on our vacation.  The only unfun part was that we were on an ……E network.  I had no idea how spoiled we were until we found ourselves giving up on searching for anything on our phones unless we could connect to a nearby wi-fi network.  I have no idea how I would survive in an E only area it is like going from having indoor plumbing to running out to the outhouse at 2am to use the bathroom.  How do people in E areas survive?!?!?  Ok that may be a little melodramatic but it was a pain in the you know what!  Thank goodness for Wi-Fi and that leads to my second love this week!

2.  Unsecured WiFi!  So I picked the one beach house without wireless internet….oops.  Hey on the list of wants for a beach house I had two- must allow pets and must be beachfront!  I accomplished those two so I was thrilled.  Anyway here is the wonderful thing about beach communities they pack the houses really tight together and they don’t secure their wifi!!!  Yes!!!!  So we had our choice of several networks to connect our phones and laptops to and bask in the speed of someone else’s internet access.  About the only thing we found we could not do was stream a movie from netflix on the computer, our wireless signal was not quite up to the task.  All in all though thank you to every beach house owner who does not secure your wireless internet, I’m a big fan of yours!

3.  Wonderful friends, family and clients!  With David leaving my friends, family and even my awesome clients have been soo sweet and supportive of me.  The kind words on my blog and on facebook mean so much to me.  Thank you for being so awesome!  I know you guys will help keep me busy and distracted so the next 7 months fly by!

I must be having a bad week because I have several Hate It’s to choose from this week.

Hate It!

1. Delivery Companies- Part 1! So I am having a bad week regarding packages apparently and Fedex and USPS are on my hit list.  USPS claims my label somehow separated from a box I shipped and now I have to fill out paperwork for them to find the box.  It was a 20lb box with the label secured by 4 pieces of tape not sure how they just lose each other.  Now I have a very lovely buyer that I’m probably going to have to refund this week and wait for USPS to locate my box if that ever happens. 

2. Delivery Companies- Part 2! Fedex why do you make me feel like a horrible person for not knowing who my neighbors are?  I’m not completely awful; I’ve met them all but I’m terrible with names.  My two babies (camera body and 50mm lens) were shipped back to me from Canon after repairs and imagine my shock after waiting all day with the door wide open was I to find someone else signed for them!!!!  Even worse was that I had no idea who signed for them and there was no note in their system that B. Spode was at XX address.  I’ve gone back and forth between feeling ashamed at having no idea who B. Spode was and being ticked off that they could have given the tools to my livelihood to someone who might not like me.  (Impossible I know   So as I’m riding with David to the airport and freaking out at who has my camera I remembered how to access my countys real estate system that lists all the people who live on my street.  Thank you 3G and iphone for being able to do this while in the car!  I was able to look at the names and find out which neighbor it was and when I got home they had left the packages on my doorstep.  Thank you to good neighbors even if I don’t know your last name!  Fedex I ask that next time you put a note in the delivery report that the package was left at an alternate address so I at least know which house to send the thank you note to!

3.  Goodbyes!  They suck.  If you follow my blog or know me personally then you know my husband David is a Marine and is headed to Afghanistan for the next 7 months.  He spent most of the summer in California but we were able to see each other every couple weeks so that made it easier.  We spent the last week at Emerald Isle and it was nice to just be together making dinner again or just watching the waves crash on the beach.  I was glad that we weren’t trying to cram tons of things into the week it was more just about being together and doing whatever.  I was pretty good on the crying part and held out till the last night and I thank my husband for holding me while I cried and going and finding me tissues when the snot started running everywhere.  The next 7 months are going to be hard but thanks to number 3 on my Love It list I know I will be okay!  Today I am one day closer to him coming home and that is my attitude going forward.

Contact Me | Portrait Portfolio | Wedding Portfolio | Find us on Facebook

I met April at the Fredericksburg Bridal Fair last month and she brought along her Mom and sister, they were all so sweet!  All three of them are completely gorgeous too!  We bonded over our significant others being in the military and away from us at that time.  Her fiancee Ryan is in the Army and was attending OCS (I hope I got that right Ryan, I’m used to Marine terms not Army!)  We also bonded over her wedding colors being the colors I use for my blog and website.  Fast forward to this week and we met up in Downtown Fredericksburg, VA for their engagment session (e-session).  April and Ryan brought along their puppy Atticus and her sister Amy to watch Atticus when he wasn’t in the photo.  Huge thanks to Amy for taking care of Atticus and huge apology that you were eaten alive by mosquitos at one of the locations I thought would be cool to shoot at!  Also Amy anytime you want photos taken call me!!   

We walked all over the downtown area from one end to the other and back again.  I finally got to shoot a couple under the train station where there are all these cool arches and crazy texture.  April and Ryan were so great, they followed directions very well.  My directions usually involve me saying stand in that area and look like you like each other.  After awhile they didn’t need much direction from me, they relaxed and their adorableness (not sure that is a word) came out.  I love how when they look at each other they seem like they are in their own world.  Ok so onto the photos, I had a hard time narrowing them down, I loved them all so much.  April and Ryan you guys were awesome and I am so excited to photograph your wedding next year!  Ryan you are a lucky man because April is going to make an amazing bride!!!

Show April and Ryan some love by commenting below and sharing this post with your friends!  20 comments will earn them a complimentary 8×10 Fine Art print of their favorite image.  Thanks!!!

Contact Me | Portrait Portfolio | Wedding Portfolio | Find us on Facebook

I know I skipped last week, I’m sorry   I was babysitting a 3 & 4 year old and I have no idea how stay at home mom’s get anything done   Maybe since they weren’t my kids I was a little overly paranoid of returning them to their mother broken in some form, you know like bumps and bruises from getting hurt in my care.  So instead I barely let them out of my sight which resulted in not getting much done   This is practice for whenever David and I decide to start producing our own offspring!  I am happy to report they sustained no injuries while in my care despite trying to beat each other up while asleep in the car.  So onto the fun stuff!!!

Love It!

1.  River Tubing!  A couple Sunday’s ago my meetup group scheduled a river tubing meetup on the Rappahannock River.  We had a blast, hanging out in a tube floating down a river is definitely a great way to spend a Sunday!  There were a couple small rapids to run through and I would have loved to run through even more!  It really made me miss whitewater rafting! 

2. Awesome Sessions!  I had an engagement session (e-session) on Monday night in Downtown Fredericksburg and it was fabulous!!!  I prayed on the way out to the session that God would give me a little hand in finding the best light and we found beautiful light almost everywhere.  I finally got to take a client down under the train station where there are all these amazing arches and awesome texture.  I love cool architectural details!  The session will be up on the blog on Friday so please stop by and check it out, April and Ryan are a gorgeous couple and I had the hardest time picking which images to edit!  There were so many awesome ones to choose from, it was like being a kid in a candy store!!!

3. My DVR!  That thing you would take to a desert island yeah for me it would be my DVR.  I know there are logistics of having to take a tv and of course have cable or sat tv installed on the desert island also but I would do it all for my DVR   I think I might need some help with my DVR obsession.  Way back when TIVO was brand new I actually got an RCA version of a DVR, it plugged into the telephone outlet so it could download the tv schedule.  The funniest thing is my roommate got it when she was part of the Jack Diamond Morning Show Free For All Friday audience.  (Man say that 3x fast!!!)  She had no real use for it so she gave it to me and it was like the holy grail!!  No longer was I tied to the couch when my fav shows were on, no longer did I have to sit through commercials!!!  By now I’m sporting the DVR that comes from the cable station.  It is still the most awesome invention next to electricity, television and cable

Hate It!

1. Broken Lenses!  Ugh so there is nothing worse then when your favorite lens stops working unless it stops working in the middle of a wedding reception while you are using it.  That is the pits!!!  To top that I just had the same issue fixed last October and of course the repair warranty expired in April.  If you have a Canon 50mm 1.4 lens be aware that there is an issue with the autofocus motor but it is not deemed by Canon as a known issue.  So that means you have to pay to have it fixed, bummer.   A quick search on Google will show that tons of people have had the same issue.  I adore my 50mm, it is my baby and I use it more then anything else.  If only the next step up to the 50mm 1.2 didn’t cost $1500.  Yes you read that correctly, $1500!  Photographers know though that once you step up to the red ring in Canon lenses you will have a lens that will last you many, many years and outlast any camera body you purchase.  I just can’t get past the price tag right now

2. Getting Nervous!  So I had a consult the other week with a couple I had never met before, they had found me online.  I made sure all my products and stuff was packed up and I had a packet ready for them and I even got to Starbucks early!  So I setup my laptop and made sure everything was in order and I still had like 10min to go.  Long enough to start getting very nervous, the butterflies in my stomach were going crazy and I thought please don’t puke.  I swear it was fact that I was completely prepared that had me nervous, I had nothing to distract me at the last minute while waiting for the clients.  Suddenly I’m worried they will hate me and am reaching a slight panic level because I don’t even know what they look like.  At that point a lovely couple opened the door and had that look on their face that they were a little nervous too and weren’t sure who they were looking for.  My nerves faded away and we had a great consult including finding out that the groom to be had been blowing things up at TBS the week before and that explained why my house was shaking at midnight

3. Sold Out!  So if you saw my post about my outfit for our photo session then you saw the cute JCrew sandals I posted.  Yeah they are sold out unless you are a size 5.  Why!!!!!  I love them, they are adorable, I want them!!!! No!!! I hate Sold Out.  Of course I can’t find anything I like as much because that is just the way it always works.  If you find them for me I will love you forever!!!

Contact Me | Portrait Portfolio | Wedding Portfolio | Find us on Facebook