Things are a changin'....

Big things are happening here at obscure details! There is a new website/blog and a new look!

 Check out the link for more info:

obscuredetailsart.wordpress.com/

This blogspot will no longer be the place to go. Its bittersweet. This was my first photoblog, its where the obscuredetails brand got started, but it was time for change. Check out the wordpress DAILY this week, for all sorts of wonderfulness. :-)

This blog is in serious need of some posts, but...I'm getting married in less than a week, so its not going to happen. :-P

 I'm headed back to Maryland on Thursday, and then I'm getting married on Sunday. I should post sometime the week I get back from my honeymoon. I'm so excited to be Mrs. Kelly Carlson! Have a good couple weeks!

Let's get down to the business of it

I was suppose to have posted the photos from the remainde of the "these days..." project a long time ago but haven't done it. Life has been whirl wind for me, with being severely behind on wedding stuff and I have been working on the obscure details brand. I hope to launch all of that in the next month but it may go to the back burner w/ my wedding in only 2 month and a million and 1 details to work out. I am excited to post the remainder of "these days..." but it will have to wait til my wedding invites are mailed. So be patient for just a little longer.

There are 2 options for my these days... Post, I can post it sooner or I can wait and post it after some big changes happen here at obscure details. Post a comment to cast your vote, I want to know what my 2 loyal readers think. :-)

I won't be posting anything for "These Days..." until Monday because my family and I are very busy in Austin right now. I am taking pictures though. :-) Hopefully some of them will be good.

These days

I don't have time to post much so here are my photos for today. I should have been asleep 2 hours ago but thats how it goes. I won't be posting the next 2 days but I will be taking photos they'll all be up on friday. Have a great night!

These Days...Life is an adventure

Today I spent the day running around getting things done. I had 2 doctors appointments, I went to the court house and got the marriage license, I signed the loan for my car, I picked up the u-haul truck. I ate lunch with the wonderful Debbie :-) She tagged along for the second half of my day and was a joy to be with. After that I packed, packed and packed some more. I am ALMOST done packing. I wish I was completely packed but I am not. I have to finish packing my clothes, my crafting and office stuff, my shoes, and my movies and then I will be finished. It seems like a lot but I've gotten at least half of my clothes and office stuff packed and my movies are in a binder I just need to make sure they are all in there. I load a bunch of stuff into the truck so that tomorrow I don't have too much work to do. It was an extremely productive day. Tomorrow is looking much the same. I have to get up early and pack, then I have to get the title and registration sorted, then lunch with Mandy and hopefully a good afternoon with her as well. Then dinner with Sarah Patch in Friendship heights. Then hopefully last minutes things like shower stuff with get packed and I will be in bed before 9 pm. Its a difficult schedule but I believe I can accomplish it all. This moving stuff has become kind of exciting. This life truly is an adventure!

Have a great night!

These Days...Sunday June 6th, 2010

Today was my bridal shower. I have to say, it was fabulous. I have the best friends and family ever. They threw an amazing party that was everything I could have imagined. Everyone who came was fun and friendly and gave me such awesome gifts. It was a perfect day.

My morning started with the hairstylist coming over to test run my hairstyle for my wedding. Next my bridesmaids came over to pick things up. Then they went to Tom & Ray's restaurant in downtown Damascus, while I finished getting ready. I showed up at Tom & Ray's and everyone was arriving. I started to get a little nervous, I wasn't sure what to expect. But like I said, it was fabulous. I had such a great time.

After the shower my best friend and Matron of honor, Mandy went out and got coffee. It was wonderful to get to sit down and talk to her about life and everything. Its been a long time since we've had the chance to just sit and talk one on one. I am very grateful for that time. Because she is amazing part of my life here that I am so sad to leave, I decided to use her as my subject today. I wanted to take photos of her that really show who she is. That is why there are 2 photos of her, one to show her silly quirky side, and the other to show her thoughtfulness and intelligence. She is a wonderful personm and has been like a sister to me and I will miss her dearly.

These Days... Saturday June 5th, 2010

I was having some issues with my photo editing software yesturday and so I was unable to post my photo for the day. But all is fixed for now and so sorry that it's late. Don't worry I do a completely different post for todays photographs. So I was on the metro and there was a guy who sat down 2 rows infront of me and I saw the image form in my mind. I was SO glad I had brought my camera with me when I was running errands downtown or I would have missed this. These are the simple things I enjoy about Maryland/DC.

Have a great night!

I have been thinking for sometime that I needed to go over to the old broken down laundromat in Damascus and take some photos. the laundromat has been there since as long as I can remember. My mom and I would go there anytime that our washer or dryer broke at home and we needed to do laundry. It had these awesome like yellow and orange colored washers and dryers it was very 1970s and I use to LOVE it. There was one time when I was maybe in 9th grade that we needed to go there and it was still open but extremely rundown. My mom and I were there at like 8 o'clock and it had gotten dark and we were the only ones there, it was SUPER creepy and there was this backroom with the door just cracked open but it was completely black in there and i kept thinking I heard noises in there and I wanted to leave and so I saw the door MOVE and freaked out and so my mom was like well its time to go anyway and we go to the main entrance and all of a sudden a man just appears at the main entrance door, like out of no where, totally freaks me out. We haven't been back since. But that's the time when I originally got the idea for doing a photo shoot there. At the time I thought a photo shoot inside would be rad, but since it has closed since then, an indoor shoot would be impossible. The outside has gotten more rundown and I wish desperately that someone would restore the building to its original splendor and make it a historic landmark. I dunno, I would just hate for it to get torn down. Its such a cool place. It even has a self-service car wash behind.

So today I decided that it may have been torn down by the time I'm in Maryland again and so I wanted to at least get a few photos of the place. I was way to chicken to wander too far from my car since a sketchy van was sitting in the parking lot as well. But I got a few shots. I hope to go back there with someone else during more daylight hours and get some more shots. But with all the packing and things I have to do, who knows if that will happen.

So without further ado, here are my photographs for today:

I have to say, that I am a bit frustrated with the change in saturation and color between the version in lightroom and the jpeg I load onto picasa. I am too tired to go back and over-sat and re-load it to post so enjoy the "not quite right" versions of these photos :-/

These Days...

My photograph today, makes me feel like a Cat-Lady. I'm not by definition a Cat-lady, I mean I'm engaged and I have a social life. I most likely wont live my life out knitting at home alone with 7 cats. But, my photo today is of my cat. Her name is Princess, my family has had her since I was in the 2nd grade, which makes her something like 16 years old. She has been a loyal, calm, gentle and loving cat her entire life. I will miss her more than words can express, when I move. The past 2 weeks she's been having some issues that frequently occur in older people, she's a cat and we've never had a cat live quite this long so we are unsure whether this is a normal "old cat" problem or if its indicative of a more serious problem. But, we're worried, and the thought that I might NEVER see her again, is down right devestating to me. So, my photo today is of her.

Have a good night.

These Days... meets Wordless Wednesday (for real this time)

These Days... Tuesday June 1st

This evening we worked on finishing up the little details with the Jam for my bridal shower, so my photo today is of that. Its WAY to grainy for my taste but I didnt have the chance to take a better one.

So here it is.

Tonight was the last night for Monday night 24 crew for me. It was so much fun but so sad at the same time. I am going to miss these girls SO much. Monday night crew has made mondays something i look forward to, instead of something I dread. I wish I could just teleport all my amazing friends from Maryland to Austin so I can still do these kind of things. So my photo tonight is of this Monday night. Its maybe not the strongest image but it has people I care about in it so its good in at least one way.

These Days...

Let me say that I am pretty excited about these days... today. I had an amazing day today. I went to church and learned a lot. I got to stop by and see the family I babysit for one more time before I move (because I left one of my lenses at their house last night), My sister and her daughters came over and we made homemade jam, and listened to music and had a water gun fight, and had dinner together, outside and ate delicious kabob that my Dad cooked on the grill, AND we got Jimmy Cone for dessert. When I think about today, all I can do is close my eyes, smile and sigh in happiness. It was like every perfect summer day of my childhood years. I wish all Sundays could be so great. I know I've posted before about how much I love clothes-lines, it reminds me so much of summer and of my grandmother and of happy things. Well my mom had hung some sheets on the line today to dry, for the first time this year I believe, and it made me so happy. It made me wish I was like 8 years old again, and could run through them and smell the freshness. Since I'm not 8 anymore, I decided to take some photographs of it instead.

I have 2 photos for the These Days... Project, one of the laundry and one of the cute little table setup we had for dinner in the yard. Maybe not the most breath-taking photos but they will certainly remind me of this wonderful Maryland summer day.

Enjoy!

"These Days..." Saturday, May 29th, 2010

With the These Days... project I've been trying to document my last days in Maryland, and/or the things I will miss about Maryland once I'm a citizen of Austin. Well, I spent my evening tonight, not just busy but busy with something I will dearly miss once I move. I came home from Babysitting for the last time in Maryland. I babysit on a pretty regular basis for this one family, and let me tell you, they are A-mazing. The parents are so kind, friendly and funny. The 2 children are so well behaved for their ages and are so much fun. We build forts, we play basketball, we put on concerts/performances, we play hide-and-seek in the "dark" house, we play mother-may-I and Red-light-green-light. We have a BLAST. I am really going to miss this family when I move. This evening was special, since it was the last time I'd be babysitting for them, so I decided that I was going to do something special to commemorate this. So, I went to the store and got supplies for make-your-own Ice cream sundaes, AND I also got a package of parachute-men. Let me tell you the evening was a success. We all had a great time. We even watched a movie. So, I brought my camera along so I could get some pictures of our epic sundae making and this is how I have my photo today. I got a lot of cute photos of the kids, but I won't be posting those here tonight. I hope you like my photo.

I know you all must be thinking, "Didn't she just post a picture of ice cream a couple of days ago?" and the answer would be yes. But this ice cream, while it may not be delicious jimmy cone, is way more special. It was a wonderful time with a family I'm going to miss. So attempt to refrain from calling me a fatty, at least until/if I post another ice cream photo. ;-)

Have a great night.

These Days... Friday May 28th, 2010

So if you couldn't notice by the title of yesturday's post, I'm a bit tired. So tired that I forgot what day it was. Also so tired that I didn't feel like writing anything about the photos. Tonight I feel very much the same. But I will tell you a little about today's photo. Its not a very good photo, but it does show what I enjoyed about my day, which was going to the movies with my mom. I actually didn't enjoy the movie all that much. I don't tend to like chick flicks like this, but my mom does, and I like spending time with her and going to the movies. So here is my picture for the day. Tomorrow will hopefully be much more inspired.

Have a good night!

Wordless Wednesday meets the "These Days..." Project

these days...

I have to tell you all, that I have an amazing commute to work. Its not amazing because its super short or traffic free, but amazing because its a beautiful drive. I want to remember that about my life in Maryland, and so I took a picture at one of my favorite places on my commute. Its not the best photo and I may attempt to take a better one. So here it is:

These Days... Day 3

Today was a good day, even though things didn't go quite as planned the things that did were wonderful. It was nice to have the time to slow down today and just enjoy the little things, like eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I just never have time to do that in the mornings any more and so it was nice to do today. I am going to miss the little things like the cereal bowls my family has had most of my life. I dunno, its such a small thing but it sticks out to me and I'm going to miss it.

My first photo today is of my breakfast for that reason, I'm going to miss this bowl and this mug. My other photos are actually from the place where I'll be having my wedding this fall. I decided to drive over there today and walk around and look for good places for portraits. Its such a beautiful place, it was nice to explore a little bit. So its super late and I would have posted these earlier but I fell asleep by accident and woke up not to long ago to finish up stuff for the day. Have a great night!

These Days... Project Day 2

Today I had a lot that I wanted to capture for this project and I didn't end up photographing any of it. But I did spend sometime packing, and when I was packing I came across my supply of blank canvases and it got me thinking. I sat for awhile with this canvas in front of me and just wondered what it would be. I use to sit and stare at canvas and imagine all the possibilities. I haven't done that in such a long time. So it was nice to take some time to do that, then after I made a stack of the blank ones, I found a bunch of my paintings, some that I love, some that I hate and wish I could just throw away and it was very inspiring for me. I probably spent an entire hour just sitting looking through these paintings of mine. I realized that out of everything I did today, this was the most refreshing and was the thing that reminded me most of my life here in Maryland. So that is what my photo is of today. Its not a particularly great photograph, but it was something worth documenting. I might read this tomorrow when I wake up and think I must have been crazy when I took the photo and wrote this post but, right now its right.

So, enjoy, or not, but this is my day:

These days...

I'm starting something new here today. This idea has been mulling around in my brain for a week or so and I have decided to act on it. I happen to be moving from this wonderful place called the dc metro area, to the amazing city of Austin, TX. This is both a happy and sad occurrence. It will be so difficult to leave everything I know, all my friends and family and move half way across the country. But at the same time, its so exciting to move to Austin, where I'll get to see my Fiance every day, and start a new job, and be where I'm suppose to be.

So, I'm a mix of emotions. The idea is, to photograph my life here in Maryland from Today (Sunday) until Wednesday June 9th, when I leave on my 2 day journey. Originally I thought I would just document the Maryland side of things, but upon further consideration, I have decided that I shall document the entire journey, including the move into my new apartment at the end of June. SO, that means everyday for the next 37 days, I will be posting 1 or 2 photos from my day. Not of random things like I usually do for my photo of the day, but of the things and people that make up my day. To document the things I love about Maryland, about my 2 day drive to Austin, and about my new life. It will most certainly be a challenging thing but, I am sure that I will be glad for it. This is the biggest thing to occur in my life so far, I think its worth documenting.

I have decided to name this little thing of mine the These Days... Project. The title is inspired by a song from the Denison Witmer Recovered Album called These days, the original song is by Jackson Browne. I have had this album since it came out and I just love his rendition of the song, and lately its been stuck in my head.

Today, after church I met up with Miss Sarah Patch. We got lunch in Adams Morgan at Tryst, and then headed down to the National Gallery of Art, to enjoy a Photography Exhibit . It was a great day. I am certainly going to miss spending time with Sarah, she has been one of my good friends since I was in the 5th grade. It was great spending the day with her, and so I made her my subject for my photographs today.

Now I'm off to the grocery and then I'll hopefully get to curl up with some hot tea and talk to the fiance. Have a great night!

Mandy + Joe the Full Post-Wedding Preview

I think this post's title says all that needs to be said. If you've followed my blog for any amount of time, you know that this post has been long coming. So here is the story: back in November the 3 of us headed down to Alexandria, VA and the district to do a little post wedding shoot for them. They had been married about a month and I wanted to try out a new camera. So we made a day of it.

Enjoy!!

The LONG awaited Mandy + Joe Post wedding sneak peak!

So, I know everyone has been waiting, for a very long time to see the rest of the Mandy + Joe post-wedding shoot. It happened back in November and its now Mid-May. But trust me, it will be worth the wait for this last installment. :-) I am almost finished with the entire set, and will most likely be posting the full preview here tomorrow night, but I am just too excited to wait til then, so I thought I would post a little sneak peak.

So enjoy this PDA-licious photo. Mandy and Joe are totally not PDA people, but they pushed thru this inhibition for this session and I think they will be glad for it. So without further ado, I present to you the offical sneak-peak:

Have a great night!

This would be great right now...

Moroccan Mint Tea, Chocolate Salty Oat cookie...

This would be great right now... but maybe with hot tea...

Ashley's Senior Session

I have been itching to post the Full preview of Ashley's senior session for the past week, but I wanted to  finish editing the set before posting. So now that I have finished and given her the images, I am putting up her post.

You met Ashley, a few weeks ago, but please meet her again. :-)

Ashley is my cousin and she happens to be a Senior. She is actually graduating a year early, which makes her fabulous. The Saturday before Easter we headed down to D.C. to take some senior pictures. We started out at the National Botanical Gardens, and then we walked around the Mall, and eventually headed over to the Cherry Blossoms by the Tidal Basin. So I decided to asked her to some questions about herself so we could all get to know her a bit better.

Lets start with the basics, Her birthday is September 1st. Her Favorite color is Purple. Her Favorite Band is Metallica. Her Favorite type of  Food is German. Her Favorite subject in school is English. She'll be attending Kaplan University starting in July this year, and will be in the Nursing assistant program. When asked what her Favorite things to do in her spare time, she responded with "Just volunteering and working at the Hagerstown suns. I like doing anything that requires creativity like crafts and projects." Sounds pretty cool right? She totally is.

Now that we've got the basics, lets move on to the fun stuff!

I asked her If she could travel anywhere in the world where would it be and why? And she responded with such an amazing answer:  "I would travel to Africa where there is high poverty. I think it would help me appreciate what I have more and seeing a new culture would be exciting. Maybe I can get a tan too." Talk about girl after my own heart.

I also asked her If she was the richest person in the world, what would she do with her life/career and she gave a quality answer, that totally makes me smile. She said, "I would help out as much as I can. I would travel and find out more about the world. And okay I'd probably get a nice house and a pool and a pool boy. :] "

My final question was, As a kid, what did she want to be when she grew up. This is another one where her answer isn't all that different from what mine would be. She said, "I could never decide on one thing. I wanted to be a marine biologist for a long time because I love the ocean so much, but right now most of them are sent to cold places to do research and I hate cold weather. I used to watch shark week and all those shows on TV because its so fascinating. I just love the powerful feeling of the ocean."

 

 

She really is amazing and an awesome model to boot. So for your viewing pleasure, a slideshow of Ashley's Senior Session:

 

 
 

Busy Busy Busy

SO I have been Busy Busy Busy this week with editing of photos, wedding stuff, moving out stuff, and work has been super busy with a bunch of special events this past week. To top it all off, I went to my friend Jess Morris's wedding on Saturday to see her become Mrs. Jessica Friley. It was alot of fun. Today My mom, My sister, My aunt and My cousin all went with me to a bridal expo in Gaithersburg. We had a great time, and it gave me some great ideas. The main one is what my table centerpieces will look like. Originally I thought I would do eclectic candle centerpieces but have decided to modify that by adding mason jars with flowers in the center of the table with a mish-mosh of candles surrounding them. I did a test run so that when I meet with the florist, hopefully this week, I'll have something to show her. I thought that since I was going to be taking pictures of them anyway I would post them here as well. Enjoy. Have a great Sunday afternoon!

From blog stuff

sneak peak!

Here is a little sneak peak of Ashley's Senior session. Ashley is my cousin. She is super smart and is graduating a year early, this June, and so we headed down to DC to do some senior portraits. I'll give you more info about her when I do a full post. Enjoy!

I'm back...sort of

It has been a long time since I have posted and I apologize for that. There is a good reason, and that reason is that my computer died on me and is in the process of being fixed. I did a senior session a few weekends back and have been itching to edit the photos and post them but have been unable to. I also have the final post for Mandy + Joe post wedding and the rest of the photos from Melissa's photo shoot. Once I have my computer back I will be full of posts, I promise. :-)

I have also been SUPER busy with wedding planning. Almost all the major aspects have been finalized.  I'm a bit excited, the wedding is only 5 months away.

Hopefully I'll have my computer back in the next few days and I'll be feverishly editing away and hopefully posting by Friday.

I hope everyone has had a great weekend!

So the secret...

So the secret that I was going to post about a few Monday's ago was this photo book I made for my boyfriend for Valentine's Day. I took a bunch of photos of ways to say "I love you" and then put it together with pictures of us and made a book for him. I think he might of liked it, I hope he did any way, I worked so hard on it.

I apologize for not posting about it sooner but, I have a good reason, I got engaged! He proposed on Friday night (2/26) after we went to the opera at the kennedy center. That has caused me to be a bit preoccupied with wedding planning and the logisitics of life after the wedding. Busy Busy Busy, stressful, stressful and busy, that has been my life this past week and a half. I feel as though with all the stress and busyness and work I've been doing that this thing should be planned and ready to go, but it isn't in the least bit, I haven't even decided for sure if its going to be in Austin or in Maryland, I've got to price it all out and then book a location. Tonight I plan on putting in requests for info for a few places in both Austin and Maryland and finding out what they've got to say. Hopefully by Monday I can have a decision about location, so that I can move forward with plans.

This afternoon was my friend Jess's bridal shower, she is getting married in April. It was A LOT of fun. It was so intimate and fun Mandy did an awesome job with things. After that we went over to Glen Echo to walk around and take photos, it was relaxing and fun. THEN I got home and went to David's Bridal to browse and get an idea of what they have so I can be ready for my appointment next Saturday morning. So much to get done but it'll be worth it. Honestly all I really care about is getting to marry the love of my life, the rest is just details. I want to get all that planning out of the way so I can get back to living life more normally, I dont want my life to become consumed with planning this one day for the next 8 months, because it will be over and real life will resume, a much better real life than now, because I will get to live life with my best friend, but still it will be really strange to not be constantly planning. So the faster the planning is over, the better. :-)

So here are the photos from my Valentines day project:

secrets, secrets :-)

So for awhile now I have been working on a secret project. I have taken lots of interesting photos for it but cannnot post them until next Monday for fear of compromising the project. It fills me with so much excitement! I am SO bad at keeping excitibg secrets in, it makes me feel like I'm bursting at the seams. I have also been busy playing catch-up, editing photos of Mandy + Joe as well as finishing up Melissa's session. Should be finished with Melissa's by the end of the week, which will be such a relief.

In other news, I got my cast off today! So exciting, but also kinda rough, because I still have a lot of pain and it limits my use of my left arm a lot, almost more than when I had the cast, only because there is no support and nothing stopping me from jerking or twisting my arm in too hard or in the wrong way. Hopefully it'll get better soon. The boyfriend comes on Sunday the 21st and I'd really prefer to not be injured when he's here.

I am not operating under any false illusions, and so I know that you haven't come to my blog soley to read about my terribly unexciting life, thus I shall post a sneak peak from Mandy + Joe's post-wedding session.

Have a great night!

wordless wednesday

this is the snow that never ends, it goes on and on my friend...

so it snowed for 2 entire days and is going to snow again on Tuesday. I have to say I actually dont really like snow all that much, but I do like taking photographs of snow and hulling up in the house with a cup of hot tea and a good book or movie when its snowing.

Today I decided to venture out and take some photos. Here's the only one I really liked...

Tomorrow I have to leave work early to head back to the doctor to get my arm checked out again and hopefully get this big blue cast off...

My arm still really hurts, actually just about the same as when thet put the cast on, but I hate having the cast on, 1.) because its really itchy and 2.) because I hate the limitations it creates in my normal everyday activities. But we shall see what is to happen next. I'll update in the next couple of days. Have a great night!

P.S.-The photo of my cast was apparently taken last Tuesday, which leads me to believe the meds the doctor gave me caused some me to do some time travelling, because I don't remember taking it :-)

A good excuse

I know it has been quite some time since my last post, but I promise it is not without good reason. That reason is that I have been busy editing photos from my various photo shoots and adventures, and setting up a flickr.

The other really good reason is that I fell shoveling snow and cracked a bone in my elbow and now have a big blue "L"-Shaped cast on left my arm (which happens to be my dominate arm) that makes everything take a lot longer and that makes typing rather difficult. I think more than anything, its just frustrating, because I'm use to the conviences of bending and turning my arm and hand and thus everything in life right now is that much harder. Plus, my arm does hurt a good bit.

But enough of that. Here is proof for you that I have indeed been working on things:

Also check out my flickr. Have a great night and enjoy the snowy-craziness that is maryland this weekend.

What I've been working on...

This past week I have been working hard on Valentine's day mug cozies and other accessories to put up on my etsy and also trying out some cool new techniques. In doing all of that I created a valentines day card that I'll be putting up for sale on my etsy shortly. I just need to see the test card turns out and then I'll place the order. So here is what the front of card is will look like.

Check back around Wednesday either here on the blog or on my etsy to purchase one.
I should have some more valentine's day items up on my etsy by Monday or so. Keep checking back.

 I will be meeting up with my friend Sarah to go to a Haiti benefit show at IOTA in Arlington tonight so I hope everyone has a great night and a good weekend!

Red Valentine's Day Mug Cozy

Here is a photo of the Red Valentine's Day Mug cozy I made for my etsy page. It is now for sale on my etsy page, check it out  here . I'll be posting more Valentine's Day Mug cozies on my etsy soon, so check back later this week for more.

Have a great day!