Mega Giveaway with Amy Leah Photography

I've come back to the blog after a little hiatus to tell you about a super fun giveaway you don't want to miss out on! Amy Leah is a lifestyle wedding photographer based out of Phoenix. I met Amy a fews years back when she photographed a friend of mine's wedding I was in. Her pictures were gorgeous and she was so easy going and fun to work with. I've followed her growing business since then and every time I see something new of her's, I'm in love. You can see what I mean from the photos above. 

In celebration of her new website launch, Amy Leah  has teamed up with some awesome vendors to give away prizes to ONE lucky winner this week. Some of the prizes include a FREE full portrait session from Amy herself, hand painted sign from Reistorations , a handful of some of my greeting cards and so much MORE! For an entry to win first go to Amy's website and check it out. From there you will see all the possible ways to enter like liking Facebook pages, reposting this giveaway, etc. The more entries the more chances to win. Share with your friends and tell them all about our little giveaway to get them in on this great deal too! 

Check back here in a few days to see some new things I've been working on! They're so pretty, you won't wanna miss them too. 

Hello New Year!

2014 feels like it has gotten off to a slow start for me. When the holidays hit it was non stop with projects and deadlines which make it feel like everything "holiday" came to and abrupt ending without even being ready it. And now here we are into the new year and my first blog post of 2014 (you can see I'm way past due too.) So far this year has brought our household a lot of lazy days trying to recover from seasonal sickness going around. Raleigh is going on day 4 with a runny nose and tiny cough and its heartbreaking watching such a tiny human being go through something like this. I get super out of it when my head gets stuffed up so I can only imagine what a little baby must be feeling. yuck! Kelli Murray's post  got me thinking about this new year and what I hope it looks like for me when I look back on it in 2015.

As I think about this new year and all that's ahead for us I think its important to reflect on where I've been. Each year at Christmas its a tradition with Shane's family that we sit down and write out a gift to Jesus, meaning that we give him areas of our lives that we want to trust him more with. Last year my gift was my dreams and family, trusting God with the risk of moving forward with my passions and growing our family even if it felt scary to do so.

2013 brought a lot of great things for us. The beginning of the year started with the news that we were expecting our first child! Shane joined with a new company that has given him more freedom to do what he loves and was made for in coaching basketball and leading players and teams overseas. I dove in head first in being a freelance artist…and that was probably the scariest thing of all for me. We took trips and made memories and welcomed Raleigh in early September which was the greatest thing that happened to us all year. By the end of the year I felt more confident in pursuing my passion for art as people have continued to encourage me along the way. And the second greatest thing that happened to us this year was finding out in December that we'll be welcoming baby #2 next summer! (And if you do the math, yes, that means our kiddos will be less than a year a part! EEK!!)

For this year, the thing that keeps coming to mind is "growth" and trusting Jesus more than ever with what that looks like. I want to grow my business by making new connections. I want to grow my sphere of influence by being more intentional with where I'm at. I want to grow my family (thats obvious). I want to grow as a person learning how to love others better and deeper by thinking of myself less and others more. All of that seems so daunting to me too. I guess the part that always scares me is the risk that it does take to get there and the risk that if I don't do anything about it I'll never, well, grow. So I guess writing it down and putting it our there for everyone to see puts a little bit more motivation behind it for me. I think there's something about saying it out loud that tells me "ok, Coley, now you gotta do it."

So here's to 2014! A year that I know will cause us to grow in more ways than I can even imagine right now. Thanks for following along and being a part of this journey with me!

Advent Calendar

The Advent Calendar is up for sale! You can purchase it here.

Christmas is quickly approaching and I can't wait to celebrate our first holiday with our little one. I wanted to create something special this holiday season that could be remembered and used throughout the years as not only a cute decoration but something that could also be turned into a family tradition. Now that our little family is growing I can't help but think of all the traditions and memories I want to create with my children. The countdown until Christmas is always so exciting when you're a kid. I remember opening the tiny doors on our advent box to be rewarded with a piece of chocolate inside. As I thought about how I wanted to create this I wanted to incorporate the real Christmas story leading up to December 25th. Each card has an illustration on the front that I created and the back is designed with a scripture done in my hand lettering. I decided to take the calendar through the entire Christmas story and this was probably my favorite part in creating the whole thing. Such a sweet thing to read through these passages again and realize the depth to them. I think now as a mother I understand them in a whole new light on so many levels.

I hope you can enjoy these little cards I've created and start your own traditions with your family using them too. 

Personalized Wedding Journals

I created these painted journals recently for a client to give to her bridesmaids. She gave me creative freedom to come up with the design for each, only asking that they would all be slightly different but have the same theme. I went with the colors of her wedding and the outdoorsy feel for them to go along with her big day. I loved painting and hand lettering them for her, knowing that these would be a unique special gift for each of her girls to personally have. I love it when I get asked to create unique pieces for weddings. There's something so special about the day two people say "I do" and getting to create something special for others to remember that day is something I'm always honored to do. 

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Halloween 2013

These are a little past due, but I wanted to post them as long as it was still (somewhat) fresh on my mind. The night was probably more fun for me getting to dress up Raleigh for the first time than it was for her. Especially since she'll have no recollection of it later on. We dressed up the cousins together based on my niece, Maci, insisting she wanted to be a lion. We had been thinking of what they could be together that comes in threes, so I came up with the idea of "lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!" It fit quite well with my second niece, Payton, having the orange hair to go along with her tiger ensemble! The night before  Halloween I made their outfits from whatever we could find around the house. I crocheted Raleigh and Maci's headband and painted Maci and Payton's shirts. It was a cuteness overload when we put them together. A whole lot of laughing and squealing from us moms! 

My sis and bro-in-law have a Halloween tradition of camping out by a fire on the driveway, eating soup, and passing out candy to other characters around the neighborhood. The night was a whole lot of fun and another sweet memory we've made together. I'm so thankful these girlies are going to grow up together. Raleigh already has so much love around her just from her two cousins alone. They'll be able to look back on these pictures when they're older with a treasure of memories to cherish (and maybe some thoughts of "mom, what were you thinking!?!). 

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Happy Fall Y'all

October is here (and almost over) and there are still days it gets up to 90 here in Phoenix! bleh! So to compensate for the lack of crisp fall wether I've yet to feel, I've created some cards to get me in the mood for the changing season. These cards are the originals, no printing done and I've decided to keep it that way and put them up for sale in my Etsy shop.  They are available now for purchase so take a look and get one while they're still around. I'll be creating more originals and making them available to you throughout the season, so keep an eye out! Hopefully as I keep creating them, the fall weather will decide to show up sooner rather than later (fingers crossed).

Hawaiian Inspired Wedding Invitations

I created these custom wedding invitations for a friend recently using watercolor and my own hand-lettering. They were married on the sandy shores of Hawaii so I decided to take some inspiration from that to create their invitations. Tropical and elegant was what I was going for with this one and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I think it fits the couple pretty well too- simple, elegant, dreamy, and beautiful all wrapped in one.