One of our homework assignments this week for our Souvenir Foto School was to shoot color.  I went out and looked for something striking and was about to give up when I ran into all this pink.  Who knew there were so many pink buildings in such a small radius in the City of Angels?  I didn’t.  It was such a nice find I felt like I located missing treasure.  If you are practicing your photography I suggest you go out and find some color, it’s a lot of fun, a great way to get yourself shooting and it’s pretty much everywhere.  The best part is you can shoot at pretty much any time of day/night.  I shot this when the sun was super high and bright.  I wouldn’t shoot a portrait or pretty much anything else in that kind of light, but for these color stories it was just right.

This is one of my favorite photographs by one of my all time favorite photographers. I am so excited that on one of my last days here in the City of Angels I will be able to indulge in a Herb Ritts exhibit and an indulgence it will be. I will have to leave my zipcode and *gasp* my car to get to the exhibit. I am spending a last outing with my Bestie, leaving is such sweet sorrow indeed.  I have been in Los Angeles for so long it’s a part of me, like an eccentric relative.  I can complain ad naseum about ‘her’, but if you did I would get all 21 kinds of defensive. My friend Nina said, ‘you”ll be back’, but I don’t know. The way I look at it is everyone here seems to be on their great adventure (since they are from somewhere else), it is my turn to be on my adventure, granted it is a little late in life, but better late than never, right? At least I won’t be sitting in my rocker asking, ‘what if…’. I am a bit terrified about the mosquitoes eating me alive, but other than that all I am looking forward to is a new phase in my existence. I wish we could spend more time enjoying the drive cross country but my husband (gosh, it’s weird saying that) has meetings the following Monday so we are on a tight schedule. Two more days and we are headed out for the unknown. I have never felt so thrilled and terrified at the same time.

Miss B.:   Oh look at that pretty light!  Bella, do you want Mommy to take your picture?

Bella:      Sheesh lady, can you not see that I am totally comfortable?  Don’t you have enough photos of me already? It’s nap time.

Miss B.:  Pretty please?

Bella: Seriously? Sigh…You aren’t going away are you?

Miss B.:  Was that necessary?

Bells:     Completely.

Miss B.: Come on, if you cooperate this will go by so much faster.

Bells: Don’t you have some packing to do? Okay, okay, I’ll pose for one shot, but then you have to leave me alone.

Miss B.: Pinky promise.

Bells:  I’ve been working on this pose for awhile, it’s a little introspective. What do you think?

Miss B.: Not too shabby. Nope, not too shabby at all.

I have sent out my last Besotted Brand parcel from the California studio, sigh…With regret, I am going to have to close the shop for the month of May.  I couldn’t see any way around it, we are driving for a week, looking for a place to live the week after and once we do find a place I will have to unpack the inventory–June is the grand re-opening!  I am pretty excited as I want to bring in a lot of new offerings.  I have new DIY stationery sets, initial hand stamps and so much more.  I have been working with photographer Jamie Simon of Intertwyned Photography to help me with my product shots and I couldn’t be happier.  I am really looking forward to the next phase for Besotted Brand and I hope you are too!

I’ve had a Sephora gift certificate in my wallet since Christmas.  Yes, of course it was burning a hole in it, I am a hardcore beauty addict, but since leaving my job and starting a new business the luxury of shopping at Sephora had become a thing of the past. I was saving the gift certificate for when I really needed it.  I started to hear about this new miracle make-up from Smashbox and I decided I really, really needed it.  The product is a 5-in-1 item- it primes, moisturizes, has SPF 35,  nice coverage and something else I can’t remember (maybe it does your laundry?) it’s their new BB cream (‘BB’ stands for beauty balm). I am pretty picky about my foundation, I have dry skin and hyper pigmentation (from years of hanging out in the sun with Crisco and tin foil, or something like that). I have never had any luck with tinted moisturizer and I really love the Nature Luxe I’ve been using, but…this is a 5-in-1 and I am driving cross country, if I can bring one product instead of 5 (even though I can’t remember the 5th thing it purports to do), well I’m going to look into it.  I’m giving it a huge thumbs up!  I wouldn’t consider this a tinted moisturizer, it gives great buildable coverage and is not as sheer as a  tinted moisturizer, for me this is a good thing, for someone looking for a tinted moisturizer maybe not so much. The first time I tried it without using moisturizer but I found I needed more moisturizer underneath, so the next day I tried with a little dab and it was much smoother. They say you only need a pea size amount and ‘they’ aren’t lying.  A  little goes a long way, this tube should get you through the entire summer and maybe the first couple weeks of fall.  Every time I have worn it my husband has complimented me and said I looked pretty, he also mentioned that he likes me like this– ‘fresh faced and no make-up’.  I like myself with this ‘no make-up’ too.  It’s light enough to still show your own texture through so you don’t look like you are wearing make-up, but it covers everything you want to cover–flawlessly.  It’s a keeper.  Oh, total extra bonus, it supposedly diminshes lines and improves skin moisture in five weeks (guaranteed). They sold me, maybe I’ve sold you?  I ended up using the entire gift certificate (I obviously have no self control) so I will be bragging, sharing my thoughts once I test everything else.