A Whimsical Collaboration

People are often surprised when I mention that the mass majority of my friends from Emerson College in Boston, MA have wound up out here in LA. This is largely attributed to Emerson's LA internship program and the fact that many graduates wish to pursue a career in entertainment. Whatever their reason is for migrating, I feel so lucky to have such a strong network of creative minds out here on the west coast! My friend Maggie Dillon is one such person - she is an incredibly talented makeup artist who approached me several months back about working together on a fun, collaborative photo shoot. We spent the day at Maggie's apartment drinking mimosas, eating treats, laughing, playing dress-up, and creating a number of different setups with a bunch of our friends. Here are some of my favorite photos from our whimsical day! MDillonShoot01 MDillonShoot02 MDillonShoot03

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Thanksgiving and a Post-Feast Bonfire

Thanksgiving happens to be my favorite holiday. It brings loved ones together over a ridiculous amount of delicious food, and it serves as an awesome reminder of how much we have to be grateful for in our lives. Since the majority of my friends are from the east coast, it's become an annual tradition to have a giant Thanksgiving celebration together - or in our case, Friendsgiving. This year was no exception! Corelyn (who is now back on the east coast) even flew to LA for the festivities. She and Jennie led the troops in making yet another AMAZING meal, and Paul was brave enough to host the event. You can see photos of the food on J & C's cooking blog, Garlic My Soul.

Meanwhile, here are some photos of the final kitchen countdown to dinner - including the carving of our 28lb turkey... Thanksgiving01 Thanksgiving02 This look says, "You're not even helping! Get out of my face!" Thanksgiving03

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An Oven + The Beach + Garlic, My Soul

My good friends Jennie & Corelyn are the ladies/culinary goddesses behind Garlic, My Soul. They began their blog as a means to casually document their joint kitchen adventures, but their baby has grown so much over the past couple of years! With the addition of regular guest bloggers, numerous weekly recipes, and loads of photos, they decided it was time to get a new website...and it launches TODAY! In honor of this grand occasion, I figured it was time to (finally) post photos from our shoot.

Corelyn and Jennie first came up with the idea of doing a little kitchen scene on the beach. They came over to my apartment one evening to plan for our shoot and announced, "We may have complicated this....we found an oven."  Yes, a real oven. It had been abandoned on the side of the road, and Corelyn (in a moment of pure brilliance) realized how perfect it was for our shoot and adopted it. Thus, the three of us, along with our saintly friends Rebecca and Jeff, dragged an oven and lots of other goodies onto the beach before sunrise on a quiet spring morning. It was AWESOME. GarlicMySoul46 GarlicMySoul01 GarlicMySoul02

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