{Engagement Party :: Lalie & Aiden}

Last week Saturday night I had the pleasure of photographing Lalie and Aiden's engagement party. It was a beautiful set up with lovely company! 

Congratulations to the happy couple and wishing you both God's blessings on the new journey that awaits you!

{Albany Weekend :: November}

I had the privilege of spending this past weekend in the beautiful town of Albany! It was gorgeous weather of Saturday and we had a great time getting out on the Kalgan River, as well as heading down to Lowlands and The Deep. 

Now that I'm done with uni and exams for the year I have no excuses for not uploading any photos! Only 33 days until I make the big trek over to Canada, Lord willing and I cannot wait :)

{Sunlight and Smiles}

I love coming home from uni and finding these smiley, happy faces running around outside. Naturally, the first thing I do is grab my camera and get some snaps of their cheeky faces. 

Bare feet and wispy hair

Dress-ups and flowers

Green leaves and cool air

We play like this for hours

Toothless, happy grins 

Piercing blue eyes

Freckle-dotted skin

Sunlight and smiles

 Hanging from a tree is serious business! Just love the look of concentration on his face :)

{I'm Still Here}

Hey Guys! 

Just a quick post to let you all know I'm still alive ;) I know it's been a while since I've posted anything and I'm sorry but life seems to be demanding more and more of my time lately! BUT that's no excuse! 

I am very excited to announce that I have my very own camera now: a Nikon D90! It's secondhand, but I'm rapt with it :) So I'll definitely be having a play around with it and hopefully get some new photos up here soon :)

In the meantime, here are some pretty pink flowers for you to admire straight out of my mother's garden! 

{DIY :: Painted Wooden Sign}

I've always wanted to make my own painted wooden sign and after hunting on Pinterest for some ideas, I found this super-awesome and super-effective technique to get the perfect letters painted on your wooden board! Here's my little tutorial on how I did it. 

What you will need:

- An old wooden board (unless you want a new one)

- Paper

- Computer and printer

- Sticky tape

- Ballpoint pen with no ink

- Acrylic paint

- Paint brush

Step 1 :: Grab a piece of wood. 

I found mine in Dad's backyard wood scrap pile. It was a bit damp so I dried it out by putting it in front of the heater for a few hours. I brushed off any dirt and leaves and gave it a rough sanding.

Step 2 :: Print off your text in the size you want it and cut it into strips. Arrange these strips on your board as desired.

Step 3 :: Use sticky tape to fasten your strips in their position.

Step 4 :: Grab a ballpoint pen that has no ink left in it and trace over your text, pressing down fairly hard so that a groove remains in the wood underneath.

Tip :: If your text is quite long, you might want to take a break to rest your hand ;-)

Remove the paper and the result should look something like this :: 

 Step 5 :: Get your paint and brush and start painting! The idea is that you paint over the grooves you left behind from tracing your text.

I used an acrylic water-based non-toxic paint. It said it was suited for wood on the tube so I figured it would do the job!

As my board is very rustic-looking, I wasn't too worried about having perfectly shaped letters. I used quite a thin brush to do these letters. For the main text I only did it once, however for the word 'Lord' I went over it twice as it was larger.

Here is the end result! 

I added some swirls on either side because I thought it looked a bit bare otherwise.

Depending on where you plan on hanging/displaying your sign, you might want to protect it with a coat of some sort of sealer. I didn't do that with mine because I figured it'll just be inside anyhow so if you want to do that you'll have to find out for yourself how to do it :-)

Hope you enjoyed my first DIY post. I had great fun making this and am going to use it as a gift!