BerLynn Designs // Etsy Shopowner Extraordinaire

I know, I know, I am so behind on blogging. I am really trying to get past the whole, it's got to be a perfect thing. What is it that Elizabeth says to Mr. Darcy, ". . .unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room. . ." Not that I expect to amaze anyone just really not bore anyone. Please tell me that some of you dear people do actually read what I say occasionally. . .not all the time I am sure, but sometimes at least?

Haha! Either way, I will most likely keep writing in the same silly way as I usually do and when I have nothing to say I will just post pretty pictures. ;) Win, win.

I have a dear friend who sells ties and other such cool stuff on Etsy.

She seriously has some amazing things in her shop and is in the process of developing her website and wanted some images for it and for a show she was going to in the Athens, Georgia area. So one day with the threat of rain looming on the horizon, I made my way to her house for some fun product/model shots (after a quick stop at Target to get Liam some nice shoes and a button-down shirt since I had forgotten he was to be one of the models. OOPS!)

The rain held off and we got some beautiful diffused light from the cloudy skies. Here is a selection of the gorgeous ties from Berlynn Designs.

Her husband is Spencer's childhood best friend. He was also the best man at our wedding. He is definitely a trip to be around and I love him like a brother. He has the readiest laugh of anyone I know so when I first started taking pictures of him I was surprised by how incredibly serious he was. I said something off the top of my head to make him laugh which I cannot share here (sorry) and it worked like a charm. Find the tie here.

Details, details, details.

Gotta love a man who can wear pink and pull it off this flawlessly. . . and confidently.

Seriously one of THE cutest baby models I know personally. (Shhh, don't mention that he's the only baby model I know personally.)

Spencer's other best friend stepped in to help out in modelling the skinny tie. He is goofy by nature so this picture came naturally.

A little help from his gorgeous wife. . .

There's something about this series that I just love. I like how they flow.

Isn't this a cool idea for a tie? I love it and how he paired it with the perfect matching shirt and grey slacks. This tie is for sale in her shop here.

HELLO GORGEOUS! ;D

{{SIGH}} What a face. Can you blame me for loving it as much as I do?

Matching ties for father and son? Yes please! How cute are they?

How about matching ties for the whole family? WHAT?!?! That's right, Lady Ties.

I love these shots. Yes, she may slightly resemble an airline stewardess or something of the sort with the luggage around her, but to me, she looks tres chic!

The amazingly talented creator herself modeled a few of her lady ties.

This girl is absolutely gorgeous.

Those dimples, are you kidding? I've always wanted dimples. If I smile REALLY unrealistically big I have one on my cheek under my left eye. Yeah, but I never smile that big. It's not comfortable. Hmmm, I think I may have strayed off topic. . .moving on.

Can this girl work a suit or can she work a suit? HOT stuff.

A little different perspective and a kick-butt shot of the amazing lady tie.

Hope you enjoyed! If you did, feel free to leave some love in the comments section. Love is always a welcome commodity.

contact me or view my online portfolio. . .

Introducing. . .

. . .my dear dear friends Lee and Deniesheia.

We discussed some time ago taking an afternoon to take their pictures but our schedules never seemed to click until one day I just said let's do it this Saturday. And that was that. :) I'm really not as bossy as I sound. . .who am I kidding, yes I am. :(

The star of this post however, is not my friends as much as it is this awesome market bag by another good friend of mine.

This girl is ridiculously talented and you can check out these awesome market bags as well as the kickbutt aprons she makes HERE. And her newly established blog HERE.

I was talking to Spencer about some ideas I had for the pictures of Lee & Deniesheia which included a quaint little vegetable stand, and he was the brilliant one to come up with the idea to use Wendy's rockin' market bags. He has such good ideas sometimes, I think I just might keep him around.

This gentleman seemed to be in charge of this vegetable stand and I just loved his look.

Right here he was laughing because Deniesheia was raving about how good the hot boiled peanuts were before she had even eaten one. She tried to explain to him she could tell by how they smelled and so forth, but he was still amused.

At one point he asked why I was taking pictures of Deniesheia. My reply, "Because she's beautiful of course!"

Ever the diplomat, his response to that was "Well, I could see that." :D

Soon to come, much more of this photo session. ;)

Reaching out through a mental fog

I have been in such a funk recently. I can’t seem to get out of it. I hate how I feel and I know that I am worrying my dear husband. I can’t concentrate on anything and my mind keeps firing off thoughts randomly that I can’t follow to completion. A million things can be getting done and I don’t want to do any of it…correction, I don’t have the motivation to do any of it. I want to wish it all done instantaneously and ::whoosh:: it’s done.

Spencer texted me this morning:

“We are doing a coffee shop called the human bean. I didn’t get it at first.”

What a cool name for a coffee shop.

I’m tempted to cut all my hair off again. I want to go to Cali (isn’t that a cool way of spelling that name…like California) and telling her what I am feeling and having her go at it. Except for the fact that I think that will make me even more unhappy with my fat face. That’s it. Starting today I am going on another sugar free sabbatical. I am announcing it on here so that I can actually stick to it. This time I am not getting any sugar free candy or ice cream as a crutch. Fruit…no sodas…and natural, harder to breakdown sugars like cane juice only occasionally like in my favorite teas.

So I am getting incredibly discouraged with all of my online endeavors because they do not seem to be going anywhere. I get next to no traffic in my shop or in my blog and I just don’t feel the love as I hoped that I would. I think my expectations may be too high. I wanted everything to take off right away reaffirming that I do have talent and people would appreciate that talent if only I got it out there for the world to see. In my head, I knew and know this to be unrealistic but my heart takes it personally.

I’m so excited that my sister-in-law is coming into town today although it is for a sad/sweet reason. Helping mom and pop-in-law move. It is going to be a busy next few weeks. It doesn’t seem real yet.

I have no idea what to get my in-laws for their anniversary coming up in July.

There are so many things that I am going to miss about my in-law’s house. The large inviting living room, the kick butt open kitchen, not to mention the kick butt upstairs shower, the pool that I never took enough advantage of, the amazing hydrangea bush by the back door. . .

Is this not the most beautiful Hydrangea. I absolutely love this flowering bush. It's fast becoming my favorite. {{Soon to be on sale in my shop for anyone who is interested}}

. . .because it is the hardiest most beautiful one I have ever seen…and the memories. I know that selling a house does not mean selling the memories, those are yours to keep, but it does mean selling all the future memories that won’t have the chance to be made there.

I felt the same way when Mom and Dad sold our home of almost 10 years on Lennox Drive. We moved into that 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom home (not just a house) with an ailing grandfather, two teenage girls and the parents. By the time it was sold, only the parents were left. However, good reasons don’t take away the sadness.

Well I Like Them Anyway

To hell with it, I am going to start wearing my own jewelry. I love almost each and every piece of jewelry that I have made. Especially this one and this one. I have been dying to wear them for a while and they are all forlorn in little baggies sadly not desired by anyone but their creator. So I am going to take them out of exile and show them off to the world (or at least the very few people I come in contact with) by wearing them on my neck. . . (or wrist, respectively). The only exception to this is that I will not wear my earrings just in case someone decides that they want them (seeing how that would be unsanitary). In fact, I wore two of the above pieces of jewelry last night to the Kingdom Hall (I love coral jewelry).