My First Wedding of 2018 | Polk City Wedding Photographer

This year I decided "Be Bold" would be my phrase for 2018. (Each year I like to pick a phrase or word to focus on through out the year.)

I realized fear was unintentionally controlling some of my life and business decisions/leaps and wanted to change that.

The solution was pretty simple: be bold and don't let fear control me when making decisions.

My first bold business decision was to reach out to a local wedding photographer about a second shooting opportunity. I had no wedding portfolio, but she took a chance on me and boy am I glad she did! We had a great time shooting together and I learned how much I truly enjoy documenting weddings.

I rediscovered how much I love serving others and how life giving it is. 

Even in the extreme heat, joy was evident in just about every moment of the day. Thank you Varonnica Lynn Photography for letting me be apart of this BEAUTIFUL day. Below are my favorite moments from the Polk City wedding.

Ann: Decorah Senior Session | Decorah Senior Photographer

I had a really hard time narrowing down my favorites of Ann’s photos because they are all just so dang cute! I was tempted to upload the entire gallery to this post, but that seemed a little excessive ;) Ann and I began talking about her photos months ago, so it's safe to say we were both excited. As soon as she arrived, she informed me she loves flowers and had bought a bouquet, just in case. It was so fun to incorporate them into a few of her photos. Ann was super smiley and bubbly the entire session and it shows in all of her photos. Don't believe me? See for yourself :) 

DIY Patio Chairs

My husband and I had our eyes on patio furniture this last summer, but didn't like the price tags of what we were seeing, so we decided to take matters into our own hands. We went where I assume all first time DIYers go: Pinterest. After lots of scrolling, we stumbled upon these chairs and knew they were the ones for us. 

Jon grew up doing a lot home projects with his dad and I having a degree in art felt confident we could build the chairs together. We decided to cut the wood ourselves after getting the materials from Lowes (This was a mistake, but a good learning experience). Cutting the wood turned out to be much tricker than we anticipated, but we got through it and became a better team because of it. FYI most places that sell the wood will cut it for free, all you have to do is supply them the measurements. I recommend doing this to save time and frustration if you've never cut wood yourself before. If you enjoy cutting wood in your spare time, then this is the project for you! 

Us after picking up the wood at Lowes and fitting it into our tiny car. 

The directions by Ana White were straight forward and easy to follow. We made a few small and correctable mistakes along the way, but this was just because we were newbies and looked at something too quickly or wrong. My advice would be to triple check everything before cutting and screwing the pieces together. Definitely worth the extra seconds it takes. 

Mia checking out the chairs and making sure they are up to her standards.

After buying the wood we looked for stain. We both gravitated towards the darker, contrasty look and Minwax Red Oak 215 was the perfect fit for us. We also bought a grey stain to add to the dark stain, but after completing the dark stain we decided we liked the color as is. 

The finished chair without cushions

The one thing we didn't anticipate was how hard it would be to find chair cushions under $50 each. We had only paid $50 total for wood didn't want to spend more than that on the cushions. We searched online and in stores and ended up waiting a few weeks. We even looked into making the cushions, but we had no sewing experience and the materials would have cost the same as professionally made cushions. Eventually, we were able to snag two sets for $30 each from Lowes.

The final chairs cushions and all!

In the end, this was a really rewarding and fun project. Jon and I decided once it is warmer out we want to start doing at least one DIY project a month together. Do you have any projects you are looking forward to this spring/summer? Comment and share your favorite DIY projects!