Merry Christmas

Here's my family's Christmas card for this year. Turned out pretty cute huh? Anyways. Merry Christmas!

Songs For the Last 3 weeks

I'm very behind on this thing... Not that it matters to anyone.

Perfectly by Chelsea Lee ft. Jason Reeves

Be Here Now by Ray LaMontagne

More In Love With You by Jason Reeves ft. Nelly Joy

Static Waves by Andrew Belle ft. Kaite Herzig

and of course we are in need of some country:

Cruise by Florida Georgia Line

Hey Pretty Girl by Kip Moore

That should be good for now.

Song of the Day: Almost Paradise by Hunter Hayes & Victoria Justice

Love me some Hunter Hayes.

A Vegas Weekend in Pictures

Bellagio water show

Fountain in front of the Venetian

Me & Turf. This guy was on America's Got Talent recently. He didn't win, so he went back to doing what he did before: Street Performances.

Sherese's Farewell

Celeste and I were just looking for a balloon. We didn't find one. So naturally we just tried on the masks instead.

Sunsets

If there is one thing in this world that will never get old, I'd say it's sunrises and sunsets.... really just the sky in general. Sometimes I pull over on the side of the road because the sky is so beautiful I would hate to miss the opportunity to preserve it through an image.

Photograms

This is just a little something we did in my photography class known as photograms. It was a super fun time. 

Loving my major!

So I started school a week ago, and may I just say that I am loving my major! (Art and Visual Communications) School really isn't so bad now that I just get to be creative all the time!
So, for the first assignment in my photography class we had to do self-portraits. Doesn't sound that hard right? Wrong! It took me two days to get one I liked. While I was out in the backyard taking my self portraits using a bar stool as a tripod, the sprinklers came on. Of course. Anyways, here are some of those:

Okay. Nextly, in my 2D design class, we're working on Positive/Negative assignment and I'm not even going to begin to try and describe what that is. Anyway. I had a design that I really liked for some reason, but it wouldn't work for the assignment, so I made a version of it digitally just for fun.

I never appreciated abstract art until I had to try and make some. It's harder than you would think. Anyway. That is all.

Twine&Clothespins

This is what I do on my days off...

If you can't tell, it's a form of picture hanging made of twine, nails and clothespins.

Here's why this hapened:

1. I haven't done something real creative in a long while, so I was already antsy for a new project.
2. My sister got me this magnetic picture hanging thing from Urban Outfitters (and a super cute backpack that I wanted) and it got my creativity wheels turning.

My original idea was to make a frame out of spray painted branches, attach some yarn and hang pictures with clothespins. Well, the whole branch thing didn't really work out for me. We didn't have any in our backyard that were available, and I wasn't up for spending money on this project. So instead I just hung up the yarn with tacks and hung pictures from it that way. I didn't really love it. I was upstairs switching out the laundry when I found some twine and I had a brilliant idea. [That's what the picture is of.]

Here's how I did it.... well here's how I did it without all of my errors:
I decided on a width and height in inches that was divisible by 10 to make the squares easy. Mine is 40in. by 100in. I put nails in the wall every 10 inches around the frame of the hanging. I didn't want my twine to sag once I put pictures on it, so I put nails throughout the hanging.... it's hard to explain, so I'll do it with a picture:

So basically everywhere there is a red dot is where I put a nail. ... Yes, it is a lot of nails. And if you have a problem with nails in the wall, well then it's a good thing I didn't do this in your house.

Anyway. I'm quite pleased with the outcome.

That is all.

Song of the Day: Summer is Over by Jon McLaughlin ft. Sara Bareilles

Two of my favorite artists. Perfect:)

Song of the Day: Skinny Love Cover by Birdy

I love Birdy. That is all.

Song of the Day: Angel Eyes by Love and Theft

I love me some country.

Rajacenna aka one of the most amazing artists ever

Ok. So I wish I was this talented. Check out her website and take a look at her gallery. This girl's gift is beyond incredible.

Song of the Day: Hearts a Mess by Gotye

It's a real weird song.... and music video. But I have to admit I kinda like it.

Song of the Day: Wanted by Hunter Hayes

Sometimes you hear songs on the radio when you're driving that you decide you love instantly. Yeah. This is one of those.

Song of the Day: Glass by Thompson Square

So... I had no idea that these two were married. Until I looked at one of the comments on this video. Anywho... great song.

Song of the Day: Ships in the Night by Mat Kearney

Loving this song right now.

One Direction Parody

Song of the Day: Inventing Shadows by Dia Frampton

Sometimes certain aspects of your life are described perfectly through a song and you think to your self, "Self, this person knows how to describe my life better than I do."

Song of the Day: Out of Goodbyes by Maroon 5 with Lady Antebellum

Sometimes you accidentally stay up until 1am because you're on Youtube finding new music and you happen upon amazing songs such as this one.

Song of the Day: Easy by Rascal Flatts ft. Natasha Beddingfield

Love this song. Rascal Flatts never disappoints.

Song of the Day: Cut by Plumb

The piano in this song is gorgeous. And it's fun to sing to;)

Song of the Day: Turn Around by Samantha Jade

I know the feeling...

Song of the Day: The Trouble With Girls by Scotty McCreery

So. I happen to think Scotty has the voice of an angel. And I happen to love this song. And I happen to think that Scotty is a dream. And I just happened to hear him sing this song live.... yeah. Life is pretty cool sometimes.

Song of the Day: Let Me Down by Kelly Clarkson

I really enjoy this song. Especially the chorus. Parts of it are very relate-able.

Song of the Day: Little Talks by Of Monsters and Men

Love this song [obviously. otherwise it wouldn't be here]

Song of the Day: Poison and Wine by The Civil Wars

One of my absolute all time favorite songs.

Anchors and Mint

4x6 print of white anchor on mint background

I'm bored. And as an art student, this is what I do to curve my boredom. The end.

Song of The Day: I Will by Dia Frampton ft. Black Shelton

Boredom

This is what I do when I have nothing to do...

Song of the Day: Let It Hurt by Rascal Flatts

Song of the Day: Hard to Love by Lee Brice

Song of the Day: Come Wake Me Up by Rascal Flatts

I heard this song this morning at 4:30am driving Am to work. It was quite the discovery. I love it:)

Stadium of Fire

Dress rehearsal on July 3rd.

Happy 4th!

Talking to Celeste who is all the way in Nebraska

Stadium of Fire Chorus Participants

Scotty McCreery! He is a real dream boat.

Scotty!

The Stadium

Waiting to go onstage for the finale

"Quick Amber! Make your, 'Oh my gosh! We're in the same stadium as Scotty McCreery' face."

Those would be the signatures of the Beach Boys. I didn't get them unfortunately. Someone sent them to me in an e-mail.

 Here we go with the story behind the photos. My sister talked me into taking part of the Stadium of Fire chorus. It was my first time ever at the Stadium of Fire. We got to hear the Beach Boys & Scotty McCreery live. It was a great night. I personally wouldn't do it again. I'm not a real fan of choir humor.

Song of the Day: Radioactive by Imagine Dragons

Love Imagine Dragons. Love this song. That's all there is to it.

Song of the Day: Fearless Heart by Katherine Nelson

This has to be one of my favorite religious songs. Fearless Heart by Katherine Nelson.

Me&Am

Yup. She's basically my new best friend. Poor Am...

Wardstock

Me and Whit performing at the 1st annual Wardstock

So. Our singles ward decided to do a combined activity with another ward, "Wardstock". Basically what it was is a bunch of people singing. Like a concert, but with a ton of different performers. My friend Whitney got roped into performing and she convinced me to sing with her. We sang "When You Say Nothing At All" by Alison Krauss. The original:

There was this guy there who sang like, 5 songs. I'm not complaining because he was way good. He has a...band?... called Built of the Architect. His music is pretty good. Anywho.

It was a really good experience for me to sing in front of an audience. I was so nervous and had to hold onto the mic stand so no one would notice that my hands were shaking so bad. We practiced the song only a few times because we had to change our song the day before. Despite the short notice of change, we got the song down. We even added a few awesome harmonies. But of course when we performed, things did not go so well. Our pianists sheet music fell off the piano. Yikes. But people told us that we sounded good, so I guess I should take their word for it.

Song of the Day: Runaway by Mat Kearney

Runaway by Mat Kearney. Lovin this song these days.

Song of the Day: Somebody That I Used to Know by Gotye ft. Kimbra

Definitely makes the soundtrack of my summer.

Mustache?

What do you do when you're bored?

We like to put on 3D glasses without lenses, draw mustaches on our fingers with dry erase markers & take a picture. Or two pictures because we can't get our fingers to go straight. Just in case you were wondering.

YSA Super Summer in Gunlock: Part One

It all started at about 9 in the morning when we (me, am &jam) all left together in one very nice rental car. (Actually it started at 6 in the morning when Amber went to go do Heather's hair for her wedding, but that is a different story entirely). I must say that it felt like one of the shortest drives to Gunlock. At least for me. We stopped once on the way to eat because we all skipped breakfast and Jamie was "eating herself from the inside". So after about 4 and a half hours, we sure did make it to sweet Gunlock.

Somehow, we were among the first to arrive. (Apart from my own mother who went a day early to prepare the way). Since Amber is thoughtful and whatever, she wanted to wait around for everyone, or most everyone, to get there so she could help get them situated and settled. So it was a little boring, but we entertained ourselves for about 37 seconds while we took the photo seen above. Obviously Amber was too bust texting to take anymore pictures with me.

FINALLY, mostly everyone made it to Gunlock. Me and Jam were quite hungry, so we (Amber included) drove to Veyo to see what sort of options they had in regards to food. There was a Mexican food joint, a pie cafe, and a pizza parlor. Pizza looked like the best option. Naturally, in a small town such as Veyo, we were the only customers. But the advantage to this was that our waiter was extra friendly and very aware of our needs as customers. I told Amber that it was like the restaurant on Goonies. The type of place that hides dead bodies and what not. Anywho..... While waiting for our pizzas, Jam showed us some "fat" pictures on her iPhone that she took with the weird app, it basically just makes your face fat. You know the one. Well. I was lucky enough to get a gander at what I would look like if I gained 500 pounds.

Yes. That is what I would look like. Scary stuff. Amber and Jamie were laughing so hard I thought for sure they were going to pass out from not being able to breathe. I wonder what the guys at the pizza place thought of the random hideous outburst of laughter....? Amber got her picture too, but she would probably kill me if I posted it, so.... I won't.

Anyway.... After we were done eating in "Radiator Springs" aka Veyo, we headed back to Gunlock. In our absence there were some new arrivals including my dear sweet friend Whitney. Whit and I went for a walk and talked. And of course we took some pictures.

 Me, Am & Jam

 Me & Whit

 My momma, Am & Me

 Am, Me, & Whit

Dinner was served, after which a  large portion of our group went to Tuacahn to see Hairspray. Those of us not wishing to suffer through it had a lot of free time followed by an outdoor movie. Wondering how we spent our free time. Well we played the cowboy game. What else?

How does one play said cowboy game? Well. You put on a cowboy hat (the kind randomly found in the living room downstairs) and you talk in a hick accent for a few hours. That is all. And it was very fun. Anyway. Outdoor movie. August Rush. Makes me wanna be a musical prodigy real bad. Anyways... that is pretty much day 1 of this fun little getaway.