I was decorating my house with all my “autumn decor” this weekend and came across some funny fall photos from a decade ago. We had the “portrait club membership” at JcPenney’s and took full advantage of it. Birthday photos, fall photos, Christmas photos… you name it. I posted these on Facebook yesterday, but wanted to share them with you here too. My babies…

Have a great Monday everyone… get out and enjoy the sunshine!

I love seeing “Ria” photos in displayed in clients homes. Here are a few more from Will’s nursery. She hung the print in a white frame and used brown paint on the wall to create a bigger “frame”.

And one more from their bathroom… how cute is the saying underneath the photo?

Thanks for sending these in Dani… I will add them to the “photos as art” gallery on my website!

Another little project I have been working on is creating a gallery showing how clients of mine have displayed their photos in their own homes. You can check it out on the blog by clicking here, or view a slideshow HERE. We’d love to have your displayed rialee images featured in this gallery too… please contact us for more information!

We are also getting ready for Halloween at our house…  trying to decide what each of the kids are going to “be”. We are going “low-budget” this year so I told the kids I wouldn’t be purchasing them expensive costumes and that they would have to scrounge around and be a little creative. We’ll see how it goes. I wanted to show you all something that I made to decorated our front porch this year. I have seen these cute pumpkin “towers” in decorating magazines in the past and have always thought I wanted to try and make one. So this year I decided to go for it… isn’t it cute?

Have a great weekend everyone!

~Ria

She ordered four 20×20 canvas gallery wraps with different colored edging… and I just had to go over to her house to see them hung up on the wall. Fabulous.

This area of mixing photography, design, and decorating is something that rialee photography is going to be expanding into very soon. We now have an interior designer on staff who will be conducting viewing/ordering sessions with our clients and helping them decide where and how to display the images from their session in their home. We really want our clients to begin thinking, even BEFORE the session, about what they are going to do with their images in their home. Whether it be a large wall grouping for a family room, some mini gallery wraps for a bathroom, or a fun display for a children’s bedroom; knowing these things beforehand can really help us tailor the session to the clients space and make sure they have images that will compliment the decor of their home. I would love to create a gallery on my website showing how clients have displayed our images in their home. I’m adding it to my to-do list right now!

Have a great weekend everyone!

~Ria

Happy Dog photo sessions can either be held up at the studio, at your home, or at a local park. The style of these portraits will remain the same as my other work… modern, crisp, fresh and most of all REAL!

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A few other things for the blog on this Monday morning…

Several blog readers asked me where they could get their hands on some of those vintage flower frogs that I showed in my post about my house, and I wanted to let you know that I saw quite a few at the Moorhead Antique Mall when I was there this weekend. So grab ‘em before they are gone! [I already bought three of them to add to my collection.]

And while you’re there, make sure to check out our booth. We have lots of new cute spring/summer finds.

 I also wanted to share a few photos I took this weekend of our sweet girl Mya who is pictured in the stripe sweater above. We had only had her for one day when I took that shot and she has changed so much!

Here she is ignoring me. “What’s that you say mommy? You want me to look at you? Okay, but just my eyes. That’s all.”

“Cause grass, bugs, and dirt are super tasty.”

“Oh…you will get me  a TREAT???? I will look up for that!”

“Yes please… treat,treat,treat.”

“….you just said that word to get me to look at you, didn’t you?”

Yes, I regularly wonder what my dogs are thinking, and occasionally make up conversations for them. I am one of “THOSE PEOPLE”. And proud of it.

~Ria

Rialee Photography Studio Tour

Rialee Photography Home Tour

While I was taking photos of my home for this article, I decided to snap some of my favorite things around my house as well…

                   cue Julie Andrews “These are a few of my favorite things”

First… a photo of our living room. Probably my ‘favorite-est’ thing in my house because it is the only room that always stays clean!

1. My collection of vintage green glass bottles… collected from everywhere.

2. A bulletin/inspiration board hanging in our family room… given to me by my BFF!

3.  An old stained-glass style window. A find from The Moorhead Antique Mall.

4. My dining room light fixture from Restoration Hardware.

5. Paperwhites growing in my dining room… haven’t killed ‘em yet!

6. The vintage wall phone hanging in our kitchen from Sturbridge Yankee.

7. A ‘faux’ cake that sits on our kitchen table… can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked if it’s real. My reply? Of course!

1. Family sign… a find from Patina White.

2. Sweet little Mary Charity sits on my kitchen window sill reminding me to pray for her daily. She is our sponsor child from Children’s HopeChest.

3.  The retro 1934 cafe chairs in my dining room from Sundance.

4.  The lamp in our bathroom… a find from an antique store down by the cities.

5.  A flower frog holding a vintage flashcard.

6. The light fixture over my kitchen sink from Rejuvenation.

7. A custom painted wood sign hanging in our foyer… trying to make it our life’s motto.

1. Our “Daily System” from Pottery Barn.

2. The sign hanging in our back hallway from Retro Planet.

3. Vintage letters found at Patina White… yes a little crazy I know but even our garage has a little style!

4. The wire storage system in my laundry room. I got mine from Patina White, but they are also available at Sundance.

5. Vintage egg baskets store pucks, baseballs and golf balls in our garage.

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Don’t forget that registration for the spring PhotographerMAMA workshops begins today at 10am! Click the link for dates, times and details!

~Ria

I had seen these little figurines on someone else’s blog over a year ago and fell in love with them! I checked out Etsy, and only found a couple people who custom paint them and they had quite extensive waiting lists. I placed my order anyway, and they finally came right in time for Christmas. I set my little doll family on the window ledge right above my kitchen sink… they make me sooo happy when I look at them!

I also need to say thank you to all of the people who have e-mailed expressing interest in sponsoring a child in Uganda through Children’s HopeChest. I have to admit I have not done a very good job following up with these people, and making matches with them and the children. So I’m going to post photos of the kids that I actually have profiles for (there are many more available… these are just the ones I kept from the open house.) My mother-in-law already volunteered to sponsor the sweetest little twin boys whose pictures I was going to post…I really wanted them to be able to be sponsored together so thank you Laverne! For those of you who have contacted me, let me know which child you’d like to sponsor and I will mail you the profile so that you can go ahead with the sponsorship. Thank you so much!

Peter–five years old

Florence–six years old

Vicky–four years old    [look at that POSE!]

Regina–five years old

Anna Grace–six years old

James– nine years old

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I will be out of the studio the rest of this week enjoying many fridgid hours in the hockey rink and celebrating the new year. Have a great last week of 2009 everyone!

~Ria

Or possibly, it could be that the Patina White studio event is this weekend!                      

   ***photos from the Patina White blog***                                                                                                                                                                                                           

I just LOVE going to this sale… my home is filled with many Patina White treasures. Beth Schaleben normally has an adorable little store at the Shady Hollow flea market near Detroit Lakes.

But once a year, she holds a “studio event” at her home studio tucked way back in the woods. I love Beth’s style – industrial, shabby and country all mixed together. I am not ashamed to admit that I am a total PatinaWhite copycat and wannabe.  My favorite part of her blog is called “a corner of my world” where she gives a short little photo tour of her uh-MAZ-ing home.

 This got me thinking that maybe during the slower months this winter I could do something like that on my blog … a little photo tour of my home. (See? total copycat.)

Anyway… the big studio event runs this Friday-Sunday, and also next weekend… and I am super excited to go and see what great finds will be there for me this year! I think I put enough links in this post that if you want to go too, you should be able to find out all the necessary info!

One more thing I’d like to note… this Sunday, November 8th, is Orphan Sunday. Watch this video and click here for more info.

Orphan Sunday from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.

Have a great weekend everyone… get out and enjoy that nice weather while we have it!