I love doing ten on ten during the spring time. So many vibrant colors to capture. Today started out bleak and gloomy, but I got some great news and it mellowed into a pretty balmy evening so all in all a win for a Wednesday!

Tucked up in there is the first PASS of my set of seven architecture licensing exams! woohoo. It has been really hard to move forward with studying for another exam without knowing how I did on the first one, and getting this letter today really put some wind in my sails. phew.

Jump over to Rebekah’s blog to check out all the other amazing sets. Spring time abounds!

One of the most satisfying take aways from Alt Summit each year is the opportunity to take a creative workshop on Saturday after the bulk of the conference is complete. This year, I opted for Tabletop Photography in the hopes that I could play with my new 50mm/1.4 lens, learn some tricks for the blog, and also bolster product photography for our shop.

The teacher for the workshop was Nicole Gerulat from Nicole’s classes. In addition to online classes, she photographs products, food, and magazine features. This workshop was mainly geared toward utilizing light (both natural and artificial), and ways to improve your work flow.

We played around with little indoor scenes (Nicole styled it up for us and then gave us tips on angles and lighting). We also played with detailed shots. This one below was especially fun and challenging, as all the components were highly reflective. It was really fun to get the opportunity to see how an angle change or a little blocking of the light could make a huge difference.

On my own, I decided to try this white macaron jewelry box, because the white was providing a real challenge. And of course I couldn’t resist using my ring as a prop

Nicole also taught us about tethering your camera and essentially using your computer as the capture device. Amazing! I’m looking into the best way to get this set up because I imagine once you improve your efficiency with that trick, there’s no going back.

In just an hour, I feel like Nicole gave me SO much to think about and tips to improve my photography. I’m pretty happy with all these shots (I didn’t spend too much time editing them, so these are pretty much straight out of camera), and I can’t wait to spend some more time with some of her advice.

What skill have you picked up lately?

All images this post are my own, Styling by Nicole Gerulat.

The weekends have been flying by lately, filled to the brim with a combination of social engagements, grasping moments of sunshine, getting the garden started, plus work and studying (more on the studying to come. . .) I actually took a lot of images during a trip to the zoo yesterday, but today was more studious and I just didn’t look up from the books long enough to get a full set of ten. Instead of throwing in images from the weekend, I chose to just share the few quiet moments I did capture today as an honest reflection of where my distracted mind is at lately.

Hope you all had a fulfilling and wonderful weekend.

See other sets at A Bit of Sunshine

Happy tenth everybody! To be totally honest, I spent most of today lying pretty low recovering from a super fun party last night and catching up on Skype with Erik. He and I have both had a really busy few weeks at work and travelling so it was nice to have a few hours to just relax, chat, and watch Netflix together (did you see they added West Wing to Netflix. woot!) So, even though the whole point of the project is to capture the beautiful moments even on these quieter days, I’ve decided to upload photos from the 9th because there were so many gems! It was a busy day, I:

- Did a 5k with my friend Dana and her family. Its the “Love ‘Em or Leave ‘Em” Valentines race, and its one of our faves. Its right by my house, which is sweet for commute time. People get all dresses up in lovey dovey costumes, and Erik and I ran it together when we first first dating and both together in Seattle, so it always reminds me of that. [Also, as we were walking/running we realized that the weekend of the race next year Erik and I will probably be on our way driving home from VA. Hooray!]

- Then we popped up to the zoo since I bought myself a membership for the year, and we were right nearby. The line for the baby lions was too long, but I did snap a couple cute photos of the twins since they were in a particularly fun mood.

- In the evening I hosted a Mardi Gras dinner with my friend Andrea since we weren’t able to actually go to New Orleans this year (pouty face).  She and I spent the afternoon making King Cake and Jambalaya from scratch while strewing beads all over the place. I even whipped up a festive fascinator for the night. It was a really fun party even though the Hurricanes were a wee bit too strong!

[Side note - Andrea did something super cute which was to swap out all the frames in her living room with Mardi Gras photos from years past. I was so fun to relive all those crazy times!]

Hope everyone had a good weekend! As always, visit Rebekah’s site to see all the other Ten on Ten sets.

Happy Monday, all! If you’re looking for our first Alt Summit recap, its up over at the Assemble Shop Blog today. Stay tuned for more visual goodies from Alt here this week

I loved sharing our Northwest Sparkle inspiration board last week. Today I finally get to share my favorites from our engagement session with Carina Skrobecki. I could not recommend a better photographer if you’re looking for one. Carina is super laid back, fun, and made our session such a good time. I think Erik even had lots of fun! I’m super super happy with these photos and cannot WAIT for her to shoot our wedding in 2014.

Because we took these in December, Carina and I went back and forth several times on picking the perfect location where hopefully we wouldn’t get rained out. Our original hope was to take them at Treehouse point, but they were booked full even in the wintertime. So, we came up with the Volunteer Park Conservatory, and I think they actually better here than they would have been in the treehouses anyway. The lighting was so pretty and it was a great choice to keep us out of the rain. But then of course, it didn’t rain. It was actually a gorgeous sunny day! So, after we left the conservatory, we walked through some of the beautiful neighborhoods of Capitol Hill and finished up with a hot cocoa picnic at the Volunteer Park Bandstand.

Carina so perfectly captured our laid back northwest spirit, infused with a little spunk. I had such a hard time choosing just these images from the 85 beautiful frames we were sent. Thanks, Carina, you’re amazing!