popular – Page 7 – Snapshots & My Thoughts by Ailee Petrovic

Décor June 22, 2017

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!

Personal June 21, 2017

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!

Mom Talk June 16, 2017

Our New Newborn Favorites: Solly Wrap

While on vacation, I haven’t shared any other ‘new newborn favorites’ (previously talked about the Owlet Monitor, DockATot and 4Moms Infant Tub), but the product I’m sharing today is one that I use every single day (especially while here in Durango). I swear it’s a must-have for moms with two or more kids. The Solly Wrap (mine is Tigerlily) is the easiest, most comfortable way to ‘baby wear.’ With Isla, we used the BABYBJORN carrier, which we still love, but this wrap is so soft and Emi almost always falls asleep as soon as she’s put into it. I am able to use both my hands to play with and help Isla, while having Emilia wrapped snug on my chest. Plus, it puts her head in the perfect place for all of the kisses!

I love the different colors and patterns of the Solly Wraps, and this is the gift I’ve been buying for second time moms. Emi spends at least three hours every day in it – truly! We walked to the Durango Rec Center yesterday, which is two miles away, and she slept in it on the way there and the way back! It makes my life so much easier. I love having Emi on my chest versus having her in the stroller, because we’re getting skin-to-skin time. There are plenty of benefits of baby wearing, many outlined in this useful article.

What about you? Did you baby wear? Have you tried a Solly Wrap? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Sharing some photos below of my wrap that my sweet friend Courtney Leigh took for us on her property in Montgomery!

Decor May 29, 2017

Isla’s Unicorn Third Birthday Party

Happy Memorial Day! This past Saturday, we celebrated Isla’s third birthday party in Durango, and simply put, it was magical. The birthday girl had asked for a unicorn themed party, so that’s exactly what she got – unicorn everything. It was relatively (for me at least! Ha!) small scale, given that there were only ten people there (including Emilia!). Our best friends, the Behennas (now Emi’s Godparents) were in town, which is why we chose to celebrate a week before her actual birthday on June 4.

Baby March 2, 2017

Our Little Family of Five

On January 29, we became a family of five with the birth of Miss Emilia (can’t forget Belle, our pup!). This sweet girl’s life has been well documented so far (evidenced here in her ‘one month’ update post), but we didn’t have a single photo of the four or five of us! My sweet and insanely talented friend, Courtney (of Courtney Leigh Photography) came over two weeks ago, when Emi was 2.5 weeks old, and took family photos for us, and I couldn’t be happier to have these! Unsurprisingly, Emi slept through the entire thing, but woke at the very end, desperate for milk (side note: nursing in a car in a dress is an interesting feat!).

Below you’ll find a million photos, and believe me, I did my best to narrow them down! She sent a ton, and it took me ages to narrow down my favorite 50-or-so. So without further adieu, here are the updated Petrovic family photos!