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Ailee Petrovic

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Week in Review

Talk about hitting the ground running! We got home from Colorado last Tuesday (Meredith was a LIFESAVER and picked us up from the airport in my car after I got our departure date wrong!), and haven’t stopped moving since then. I’ve taken multiple sets of photos (including Destiny’s and Carrie’s!), gone to a gender reveal party for our good friends, Amanda and Scott, met and photographed our close friends, Sydney and Philip’s baby, Camden, helped Ivana and Bob to unpack their new house, caught up on cuddles with sweet Milly (how do they grow so quickly?!), enjoyed a family dinner with my parents and older sister, gone to an Orange Theory class with my former trainer from BP, suffered in the Houston humidity for some late night runs, and organized our house.

A quick shoutout to my sweet friend, Julie, who recently launched an Instagram account – @YoungWildandFriedman – sharing good kid activities and recipes. She is truly super mom, and I encourage you to follow her! She sent us a snack box for the plane, as well as a bead activity set and Isla loved both! 

What I haven’t done is catch up on emails! So alas, a short week-in-review today (with tons of photos) as I’m going to reply to some clients now. 

Isla’s Forest-Inspired Durango Room with Mouse + Magpie

We’ve only been home for one day, and I’m already missing that gorgeous Colorado weather, the walkability of Durango, and the relaxing family time. I have had a few people ask about where we stay when we’re there, and the answer is that my parent’s bought a vacation house there in 2012 after visiting for a bike race a few years earlier. We visited for the first time in 2013 (twice), then have been fortunate enough to spend 4-6 weeks a year there since Isla was born in 2014.

The house has four bedrooms on the second floor, then a third floor with little rooms with sloped, roofline ceilings. Isla has historically just slept on the second floor next to us, but as she’s gotten older, she has spent more and more time on the third floor. The three third-floor bedrooms rarely have people stay in them, so they were sparsely furnished with beds and a nightstand. On our first day in Durango, Isla went upstairs and laid her claim on the north facing bedroom. She loves being up there! I thought it would be fun to decorate the tiny little room!

As soon as I saw the adorable products on Mouse + Magpie‘s website, I knew I wanted to do a forest-themed room, with rabbits, owls and squirrels everywhere. Mouse + Magpie is a child inspired, adult curated collection of delightfully designed products and furnishings created specifically for little people with big imaginations.

The recently launched company currently includes a series of bedroom items, such as framed art, prints, pillows, blankets and lamps. I chose one of each! The Mouse + Magpie items in the room are the Squirrel Lamp, Patchwork Sherpa Blanket, Busy Squirrel Banner Pillow, Squirrel Clock, Busy Squirrel Banner Print, Squirrel Friends Framed Print, and Framed Squirrel Friends Print. I am obsessed with all of them, but my favorite is probably the sweet squirrel friends pillow. That print is so adorable!

You Can Buy My Lightroom Preset!

I recently sent one of my best friends, Meredith of Cake & Confetti, my Adobe Lightroom preset and she has been encouraging me to sell it ever since. As an FYI, a preset is a pre-determined position for all (or some) of the of sliders in Lightroom. With a click of a button, you can get all of the settings I use for editing my photos.

I honestly doubted myself and thought nobody would want to buy it, but after asking my Instagram followers on my Story a few days ago, I was proven wrong – people were actually interested!! I stayed up late that night packaging it up and making a one-pager document with details on how to install it and things to adjust.

The next day, I made it available on my website, and I anxiously refreshed my shop page, doing a happy dance around the living room every time one sold! Then, people started tagging me in their stories, showing before and after photos – without and without the preset applied. It made me so happy that I cried! I love what I do, and I love teaching others how to do the same. 

The most commonly asked question I received after posting details about the preset is: Do I need to have the Lightroom Desktop App vs. Mobile App? The answer is yes! Here’s my pitch: If you like to take photos of your kids, fur babies, travels, etc. then it is so worthwhile paying for! Adobe Lightroom AND Photoshop is only $9.99 a month – that’s just $1 more than the cost of two Starbucks Frappacinos. Plus, it’s a subscription service, so you can cancel it when you don’t want to use it anymore. I honestly think that it’s a service everyone with a DSLR should have. 

The preset costs $40, but until midnight tomorrow, Thursday, June 22, it’s going to be on sale for $30 (no code needed). After that, it’ll return to $40. I highly recommend that you buy it now! Please feel free to email me with any questions you may have and send me before and afters if you love it as much as I do! 

I shared some before/after photos on my Instagram story over the weekend, but wanted to share a few more and the small additional edits I did to get to the final photo. A quick note to anyone who purchases it (and this is covered in the one-pager you receive) – the preset typically requires no Temperature/Tint adjustment if the photo is taken outside. You may have to adjust these two if you take a photo inside (see last example below), because I don’t know what your lighting conditions are! Make sure to play around with those settings if it doesn’t look like the photos below.

Buy the preset now!

Week in Review

We’re more than halfway through June, can you believe it? I keep on seeing snaps of people in Houston complaining about how miserably hot it is, and I’m dreading our return this week for that reason (but so excited to see everyone!). It’s been in the high 80s here, and we’ve been melting, so I can’t imagine!

This past weekend, we went on the T-Rex Express train ride to a dino camp, where Isla got to do lots of dinosaur related activities. After getting over an initial shock/fear of the people dressed up as dinos, she had the best time, and has been wanting to go back to see Mr. Bones at the station every day!

We also celebrated Father’s Day yesterday by spending the entire day together (except for Sasha’s bike ride) – we went down to the river to let Belle swim, ate lunch at our new favorite spot, got Cream Bean Berry ice cream, strolled along Main Street, ate our favorite meal for dinner at Carver’s and spent the rest of the day together in the yard. It was wonderful. 

I also decided to sell my Lightroom editing presets on Saturday! It was an exciting business decision and I’ve loved seeing before and after pictures on Instagram from people who purchased it! I’m going to do a blog post this week outlining more details! If you’re interested in buying it, click here!

Happy Father’s Day!

Happiest Father’s Day to all of the amazing dads out there. I am so lucky to have the most incredible, devoted husband who loves our girls unconditionally. He is most happy when he’s surrounded by “his girls” (Emilia, Isla, me and Belle). He works hard to provide us the best life we could imagine and is always scheming up ways to make it better. Sasha is a huge dreamer, and we love that about him! He is an excellent role model to both of his daughters, and I hope they inherit his drive to be the best version of themselves. He always wants to ‘mazi’ (Serbian word for snuggle), and I pray we’re still mazing as a family for many, many years to come!

Sending a ‘Happy Father’s Day’ message to my Dad too! He’s in Houston right now – we thought we’d be celebrating together in Durango, but he is recovering from surgery last week. I could not love my dad more than I do. He makes me laugh (potentially more than anyone in the world). There are so many things that I do and think, ‘Wow, I am just a clone of my father.’ Ha! Sasha thinks so as well.

I’m beyond blessed to have these two dads in my life (and Sasha’s amazing dad, LJ, too!). I took a few photos of Sasha and his girls the other day, and I basically want them framed all over the house. Family photos without me in them? Favorites. Ha! 

Hope you have the best day with the ones you love!