courtney jade’s blog

When I found out that I was going to be taking Jackson’s 4 year old pictures for his birthday party I was SO excited!! You may remember Jackson’s little brother Emerson from the cake smash session that we did in November. Read the rest of this entry …

This past Sunday I went over to my good friend’s house to do a mini photo shoot for some of her new packaging – which I will be highlighting in another blog post!! Read the rest of this entry …

today i got to photography a beautiful 10 day old baby girl, emerson reese. Read the rest of this entry …

I have been WAY behind on my photo blog posts the past few months, but when I saw that my photos were featured on Hostess with the Mostess today, it reminded me how I really needed to post Emerson’s one year cake smash session photos! Read the rest of this entry …

Moving into a new place is always a little disorienting. There are boxes of things everywhere, some organized nicely, and others full of random things that got thrown together on moving day. It takes a while to get everything in the new place cleaned and ready for things to be unpacked. It takes even longer to unpack.

I think unpacking is one of my least favorite things to do. Ever.
It seems never-ending, especially when you have stairs. Up, down, up, down, now where did Quincey go??? Read the rest of this entry …

January… you are finally here, and you have come too soon.

I took the entire week after Christmas off of work to move into our new home and get all settled in… and get a lot of other things done…. well, to say the least, we are still cleaning/unpacking, and getting settled in. It will probably take a while, but I’m not going to lie, I spent much of the week catching up on some good old R&R! I know, I know, I am guilty of being a lazy daisy this past week… I had so many things planned that I wanted/needed to get done, and I didn’t even try to start on my list.

I think I just needed a week to relax, unwind, soak in all of the newness of our home, and sleep. I have never had such a crazy year as I did last year, and I am looking forward to a very busy and successful 2011 as well! I have a LOT to get done in the means of new pricing/packages, etc. so I can release all of that for all of my fabulous clients! Thanks in advance for your patience, I’m going to try and get all of that wrapped up this coming week to release to everyone!

Also, if you are waiting on the surprise in the mail from me, hopefully that will be ready to go in another week or so as well.

It’s a LOT getting unpacked and settled in, especially when you have an OCD clean freak of a boyfriend <3 (I mean that with all of the dust-free, chemically cleaned, bleached and spotless love in my heart) He has really been amazing with this whole move. In fact, right now he is on his hands and knees scrubbing the bathroom floors, and showers. He takes over the dirty work, and I am SO thankful for him. Seriously.

Anyways, since I love lists, and can’t seem to get away from them… ever. (I think it’s an addiction.. along with my addictions to horizontal stripes, Tillamook and Haggen Daaz ice creams, and hoodies)

Here are some of the awesome moments and memories that 2010 has left me with:

♥  My one year anniversary as a Marketing Associate, with a new title coming soon

♥ More amazing clients and success than I ever could have imagined for this year.

♥ Amazing clients who have turned into great friends.

♥ Another year with my health

♥ Trying new foods, and LIKING them… including a cucumber roll! (Thanks Vishnu)

♥ Making lots of new photo friends, and sharing all sorts of experiences with them. Seriously thankful for them.

♥ Purchasing our very first home with the boy whom I adore more than anyone in this world.

♥ A completely booked summer/autumn season for my photo business

♥ An AMAZING 25th birthday party at the beach with great friends! Seriously the best birthday in a long time… I’m thinking this will need to be a tradition.

♥ Traveling to Costa Rica, my first out of the country trip. Seriously an AWESOME experience. Really gives me the travel bug… there are so many places to explore in this world, I have an entire other list of places I would love to go (see, there I go with the lists again!) If you are planning a destination wedding in 2011 or 2012, let me know! I have some great all-inclusive packages!

♥ New music. I love new music.

♥ Floating the river for the very first time with some very awesome friends.

♥ Making good friends with people at work. I love my work girls!!!

♥ Seeing the Lion King on Broadway with my mom, front row center!!!

♥ Lots of trips to delicious restaurants.

♥ Attending my first Blazer game! Thanks Brooklyn

Things I am looking forward to for 2011

♥ Making our house into our home sweet home

♥ New business approach, organization and pricing structure.

♥ Advancing in my marketing/design career

♥ Valentine’s Day (I have a surprise planned for my lover! Eeee!!) Also, it’s my favorite holiday!

♥ Celebrating my 7 year anniversary with Mark. Wow. Now that is crazy.

♥ Creating my very own office space. I am so excited about this blank slate… now what to do with it…

♥ More networking, friend making, and business learning

♥ Hopefully a trip or two out of the state, possibly out of the country.

♥ Paying off my credit card.

♥ Eating new things, with new friends and old.

♥ Taking more photos!!!

I’m sure there are more, but my washer just made that pretty ding-a-ling noise that it makes, meaning I need to switch it to the dryer now. And I’m hungry! Lol.

Wishing you all a very happy new year, and excitement for the future! <3

For the past 6 years of my life I have been living in apartment after apartment. They have been nice apartments, but there’s just something so temporary feeling about them… it’s hard for me to “nest” or decorate, etc.

Well, I have been keeping this under wraps for quite some time now, but it has been one of the hardest things I’ve had to do! But I’m finally ready to spill the beans!

Mark and I just purchased our first home together!!!!!!!

I am beyond ecstatic, I can hardly express how excited I am. I didn’t want to say anything about it on the internet in fear that something may have fallen through, and then I would have to explain to everyone when they asked “so how is the house coming along?!” that something fell through and we were no longer getting it… and I would probably tear up and cry every. single. time. So to save myself from that possibility, keeping it under wraps was the best option.

But I am SO excited that I can now share it all with you!!! It was a long and stressful process, but everything ended up working out, and Mark and I could not be more thrilled.

warning- LONG post ahead!

It all started about a year ago…

For those of you who don’t know, I actually work full time in the marketing/design department for a mortgage company, so the thought and realization of the possibility and benefits to buying a home have been on the table for just over a year now. In my head, I was ready and excited to buy a year ago. However, Mark, with his ever-steady-let’s-evaluate-every-little-detail attitude (which might sound like a negative thing here, but rest assured I am SO thankful for his “realism” in situations like these) laid it all out and just wasn’t so comfortable doing so at that time. He was still car-less and taking advantage of public transit at the time, so our options for locations of homes would have been very limited. That, and the worry of taking on such a large financial commitment was a little scary… so our home-buying plans came to a halt early 2010.

This year, however, has been a really great one for Mark and I. He is steadily advancing in his company, and I have established myself at my 9-5 as well. Photography has been insanely busy this year for me, Mark was able to purchase a car in the late spring, and things have come a long way in the past year.

While I would secretly look at RMLS every day, and save my favorites, daydreaming about the time when we’d be able to start home-searching ourselves, I knew that patience and persistence would eventually pay off. I don’t know if it was the television being stuck on HGTV for months, or what, but in early September, Mark asked me- “so, what’s going on with the house search?”

“WHAT?!!?!?” I replied. “We can’t afford a house” (Ok, I was having a bad day… you know, the kind where you really didn’t want to look at your bank account, but you knew you should, so you did, and then you regretted it.. kind of… but you realize that you probably shouldn’t have went out to lunch 5 times last week, or bought that really cute dress that was on sale? yea… it was one of those days.)

I re-couped myself and thought about this again. I said “Well, have you been looking for houses? Because I thought you didn’t think it was a good time yet, and you haven’t sent me any houses to look at, so I just assumed you were still on that same page. Plus I didn’t want to pressure you if you did still feel that way.”

“Well no,” he said “but I think it’s time.”

My heart did a few back-flips… these were the words I had been waiting to hear for a year!!!

“OK! I said, well, check out these houses I have saved!” I pull up our Realtor’s website (www.portlandshortsales.com) and showed him my favorites. He liked a few, so I agreed to call our Realtor in the morning and set up a time to view some houses in the next week or so.

We ended up going the following evening (because our Realtor Alex is awesome!) and checking out a few houses. Here is where the story gets interesting…

I thought we were going to look at one house, but Alex actually took us to see the house next door to the one I thought we were looking at. “Why not?” I said, and we checked it out anyways.

We. loved. it.

One problem… the house already had an accepted offer in on it, and they weren’t accepting any back-up offers! Bummer. We tried to get into the house next door, but the key was no where to be found.. odd.. but Alex had another home to show us in the area, so we checked it out, and then called it a night. It was great to get a feel for the neighborhood, and we knew we definitely wanted to live in that community, so we just kept an eye out for new listings to pop up.

We ended up making an offer on a short sale house that was on the same block as the one we looked at. It was a beauty! But short sales are a MESS and so we weren’t expecting much to come from it. About two or three weeks after we submitted our first offer on the short sale, the home we toured (and loved) came back up on the market… the other buyer’s financing fell through!

I saw it pop up in my daily listing email and immediately emailed Alex. Mark and I talked it over, and we decided that it would be a much safer road to put an offer in on this house. This house was a bank owned (much better than a short sale!) and there was even a downpayment assistance program available for bank owned homes in this area. (They said they could do some short sales too, but come to find out it would have been a nightmare!)

So we made the decision to put in an offer on the house we toured and loved. We know that the bank already accepted a certain price, so we just went in at that price and hoped for the best! It was about 15k less than the offer we put in on the short sale house, so we were happy with that.

We heard back two days later that the bank had accepted our offer, so we withdrew our offer on the short sale, and now almost 2 months later, we have ourselves a home!!! We got the keys on Friday, and today we went out to the house to take a few photos and have the carpets professionally cleaned!! I am getting SO excited!

We plan on painting and packing this week, and moving on the 26th! Eeeee!!! I can’t wait to be in there and settled. It will cut my hour long commute down to about 10 minutes or less, which I am excited about, however Mark will get the opposite commute… so I’m thinking good thoughts for him…

Anywho, here are some photos of the new place!!

We are in love.
And we are in love with our home.

I can’t wait to show you updates as we get settled in!!! We have ordered our washer and dryer, and we just bought our refrigerator today, we can’t wait for them to show up! I can’t wait to paint, decorate, and make the place OURS. I have been waiting for a long time to do this, and yet I still feel like a very young homeowner.

We feel so excited, happy and thankful that we were able to do this.
It will be a very merry christmas for us this year.  <3

I admit it. I totally fall for it.
Every time.

I just can’t help it. I love beautiful packaging!!!!

One of my favorite places to shop is at Trader Joe’s. My only complaint about that store is that it isn’t bigger, and it doesn’t carry everything I need, so I often find myself making two stops, or just going there for some specific items. However, I totally get sucked in… I end up buying things that I hadn’t set out for in the first place, and often it’s for the simple fact that they look so dang adorable!!! Last year I bought a pumpkin pancake mix because I loved the box it came in so much. I still haven’t made them….

Some of you know, I am a graphic designer by trade. It’s what I went to school for, and I currently hold down a full time job working in marketing doing graphic design on top of my photography business. I know that presenting your product in a professional, beautiful, and creative way can raise your sales, as well as your brand’s awareness. I know that it’s a proven fact that when people are given the option between two identical products, they will always be more prone to choose the one they think appears better, regardless of price.

So when I was at Trader Joe’s the other night, thinking about all of this, I snapped a few pics because I just couldn’t resist!! I wanted to buy them all because I’m a total sucker because I love good design, and good products, but due to current circumstances, I am trying not to load up on too many things I won’t need/use in the near future. Anyways, here are some of the beautiful things I am talking about.

And all of them are SO reasonably priced, nothing here is over $5! Which makes the addiction even worse! LOL!!

Anyways, the point is: branding is key! I think this is something that gets put to the sidelines all too often. I like to present my clients with packaged prints that look like gifts. I want them to be excited from the moment they see the package, until after they see all of the beautiful things they’ve ordered.

To do this, I have put a lot of time and effort into growing my brand, and fine tuning my packaging. I think it is an ever-evolving process, as I’m always finding new and different ideas that I want to incorporate! Regardless, my clients are left with a good feeling

Happy Saturday!! I’m off to eat some pancakes and do a little Christmas shopping! Wooo!!!

You know when you go to the mailbox, and you’re sorting through all of the mail?
Junk, bill, trash, junk, junk, bill, statement, more junk, ripped/torn/destroyed coupon booklet, trash, junk, junk, bill….

And then you come to that piece… that one piece of mail that feels as though you just unwrapped the Wonka Bar with the Golden Ticket inside. You know the one I’m talking about? It’s like a little piece of love all wrapped up.

These pieces of mail are the ones I cherish. A good friend recently described it perfectly to me, she said “tangible mail is a lost art”. I completely agree. There’s nothing quite like getting a hand written note, card, or any other piece of personal mail. These pieces aren’t made out to “Or Current Resident”, they are made out to YOU.

Anyways, back to my story.

Today, I opened my mailbox to find just one such gem!!! My eyes lit up and my grip tightened on the envelope! I couldn’t wait to open it, but first, knowing I was in for a treat, i wanted to take a few photos to share with you all.

A little history about this session…
________________________________________________________________________________

Jessica and I can’t remember how exactly we found each other, but I’m chopping it up to fate.
She is full of colorful ideas, and is a complete inspiration to me! She owns her own company, Modern Moments Custom Designs, where she designs anything and everything you could ever need or want. Logos, cards, announcements, invitations, calendars,  you name it! She takes each design request as it comes and molds your vision into something even more beautiful than you could have ever imagined.
So you can imagine, how when I got the email from her requesting that I do her youngest son’s first birthday photos/cake smash session, how ecstatic I was!!!

We brainstormed for a bit, and she sent me a couple of Inspiration Boards for what she was looking for style-wise for little Emerson’s shoot. I’m talking colors, textures, fabrics, the whole nine yards! Here is one of the boards that she created and sent to me. This really helped me understand exactly what she was looking for!

Not to mention, how completely adorable is that board!?! Can you tell how amazing this woman is yet??
So now that I knew her color palette and general direction, we chose a place- this great little barn that she knew of, close to the pumpkin patch that her family goes to every year.
There was no address,it was  just “about a mile down the road off of the exit, on the right”. I didn’t need directions, once I saw this place, there was no mistaking it!! We shot at an adorable old abandoned barn.

Jessica came with adorable Emerson, props, backdrops, and even cake in tote! We had everything we needed for a stellar photo shoot!!!

We knocked out the session in less than 30 minutes, it must have been a record, and little Emerson was such a great sport!! I’m sure the cake helped a little
The photos turned out AWESOME! I couldn’t have been happier with them!

Fast forward to tonight.

I open my mailbox to find the usual suspect mail-pile. Junk, junk, Bill, Statement…. and wait… what is THIS!?!!
Ok, I admit it, I knew it was coming, and I was waiting for it… But it doesn’t make it any less exciting! It was here!!!

One of the most rewarding parts of being a photographer, is to see my work in context. I LOVE getting birth announcements in the mail, save the dates, or invitations all using the photos that I have taken. It’s just got a cool factor of about 11 (On a scale of 1-10).

So without further a due, here is mister Emerson’s first birthday invitation!

The envelope… of course, the mailing address label is to die for cute!

And then, you open it and the cuteness just doesn’t stop!! Check out the envelope liner! (I swear, she thinks of everything!!)

Yep, that is REAL sewn on burlap, and REAL tied string! The WOW Factor is so high with this piece!!

Oh, and this is just the “slip-cover” for the card!! Just like a real book! Notice the adorable “vol. 1″ since it’s for his first birthday. Also, the price of the book is the date of his birthday… the cleverness just keeps coming!!! She even generously included my logo on there! How *sweet*!!!

Even a barcode!!

Once you remove the slip cover,  you get to the card/invite! The paper is a linen texture, which feels awesome, and goes perfectly with her vintage look and feel.

I am completely in LOVE with how amazing these turned out! Emerson is one lucky little dude! The way she put the photos together with the piece are just awesome! I love the cohesiveness of it all, and I think her overall ideas were exceeded.

If you would like some custom design work done, I highly recommend Jessica! She is super great and easy to work with, and she has a LOT to offer as a designer! You can go to her website, or check out her ETSY.

Sadly, she just broke her arm and is only taking a limited number of orders for the holidays, so if you’re interested, be sure to contact her ASAP!!! Otherwise, keep her in your back pocket, you just never know when you might need some stellar designs!!! Personally, I’m hoping she takes up party planning… you should check out the parties she’s thrown on her blog, the details are scrumptious!!!

<3

I know it’s been quite a while since I have posted, I hope you can forgive me! I’ve been shooting non-stop since August, and it’s been near impossible to even think about blogging.
Anyways, I thought it would be fun to show you a little of what I’ve been up to!

Here are some adorable photos of Luketan + Matt!
They were recently engaged, and wanted some photos to remember the moment!
They are such a sweet couple, and I had a blast at our session. I can tell that they are a perfect match!