S. Carter Studios

I love having a unique name. There really aren’t very many Sabrena’s out there. Especially spelled with an E. It had its draw backs though. I never had personalized pencils in school or my name printed on my lunch box. I think as a result I became very fond (perhaps obsessed) with seeing my name in print! God must have laughed a little and given me my new last name Deal so that I would find my name in print everywhere. I’ll admit, it’s just as exciting! What does all this have to do with anything? Well, when I was engaged I attended a party that my friend Brittany threw. It was an Uppercase Living party. I loved it! Uppercase living is a fantastic company that creates vinyl expressions which you can apply to almost any surface. You can also create custom expressions by picking fonts, sizes, colors and whatever saying you’d like. The best part is that they are affordable. I should also mention they leave no damage on the surfaces (a bonus for renters!). I was so pleased with my first expression that I decided to host a party myself last year. We had a great time & Josh and I just put up the expression I received as a “gift” for hosting!

The first expression that I used was a stock Monogram with a custom expression: Est. 2009. I applied it to a window pane that I purchased for $3 at the Restore in Lynchburg. We used this as a decoration at the wedding and now it hangs in our dining room!

I invited my friend and S. Carter Studios bride Kelsey to the party and she bought letters which served as monograms on her unity sand containers.

We just recently hung the expression we got at the 2nd party I went to and I was just giddy to see it all come together. We had the piece of scrap wood hanging around, painted it black and applied our expressions to it. The For Ever & Ever part was a stock expression and we custom ordered the amen portion ourselves!

It hangs above our bed and I couldn’t think of a better place for it!

If those photos didn’t leave you feeling inspired check out a few photos I got courtesy of the Uppercase Living product showcase website.

As a monogram at a reception hall.

Living Room Decoration

In a little girl’s bedroom.

For the new baby’s room.

Or for a bridal shower decoration!

Please share your stories if you’ve used Uppercase Living! I am looking forward to browsing and seeing where else I can add more expressions! To find the nearest representative in your area click here!

Angi grew up in Poplar Bluff, Missouri with her mom, step-dad, three brothers, a sister, and a dog.  Solomon grew up in Nonthaburi, Thailand with his parents, two brothers and a sister. How in the world would these two end up meeting, becoming friends, dating, falling in love and finally preparing to be married? Well, Liberty University played a key roll as did soccer, ministry, thai food, thai language & Global English school. She helped him through heart break and he helped her through a broken toe. The rest is three and a half years of history! Angi and I became true and wonderful friends while she spent the year in Thailand. She was there the day I got engaged and I was so thankful to be there when Solomon popped the question to her! I love how he makes her laugh, how he takes such great care of her & really anyone else who happens to be around him. I love how she makes him feel special, loved and important and how she cooks thanksgiving dinner for him, even in April. They are a pretty good pair if I do say so myself, so Josh and I couldn’t help but go all out on their engagement photos! This is a long one so buckle up, but enjoy photos from their 3 part engagement session!

Part 1: Cute & casual

Part 2: Ode to soccer roots

Part 3: Cuddly & Cozy Picnic…inspired by one of their favorite and frequent dates

a plate full of this month’s DIY, button flowers!

We waited a long time for this bling!

Can’t you just imagine how great looking their kids are going to be? Seriously.

That’s all for now but it’s surely not the last you’ll see of these two as we prepare for their end of July wedding!

Well, happy Thursday! I am excited, even more than usual to share with you today’s Take A Look. It’s about US! We’re officially ready to roll with our signature Photo Booth photography and have some great photos to share with you from the first two events we did with the whole set up. Which is quite a load really! Enjoy some photos and we’ll fill you in on the details!

First: Harner Family Photos. The Harners are a wonderful, eclectic family that we know from our church. This is actually a follow up to our 3 year anniversary give away. Preston (mom) entered to win and had to wait 10 months until her whole family could gather in one location. I’m so thankful they waited so we could customize this family shoot for them! Here are a few teasers and the slideshow to accompany them!

S. Carter Studios Platinum Photo Booth: The Harner Family from sabrena deal on Vimeo.

Second: If you follow me on twitter or if you are my Facebook friend then you know I’ve been working on Angi’s Bridal Shower for several weeks now. It happened on Tuesday and I we had a fantastic time! Here are some images from her booth!

My personal favorite from the night!

and a slideshow to accompany with even more!

S. Carter Studios Platinum Photo Booth: Angi’s Shower from sabrena deal on Vimeo.

So, we’re officially ready to book: Weddings, Bridal Showers, Birthday Parties, Office Parties, you name it we’re excited to join you. Please contact us for more info! sabrena (at) scarterstudios (dot) com.

Josh and I live in the house of love, aptly named by my friends who know that while we were engaged everything was the __________ of love. It made perfect sense that when we bought our first home that it would be the house of love. The house of love has been absolutely perfect for us, the most common term to describe it has been, “Cozy.” It’s true! We love to celebrate and share with friends and recently we opened the house of love to one new member: Charleston “Charlie” Deal. We rescued her from the Lynchburg Humane Society on Friday and have spent the weekend loving on her and spending great quality time with each other. Quality time can be hard to come by for a husband who works mandatory 10 hr days, 5 days a week and a wife who battles an “obsession” with being connected to the internet. But, by God’s great grace, we make it work. So I hope that you have had a wonderful, beautiful Valentine’s day celebrating the people in your life that help you understand how very loved you are, whether they are family members, friends or lovers! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Here are some photos of me and my valentines! (Photos of Josh and Me by my beautiful sister Rebecca Carter, Photos with Charlie taken by us with my Canon Powershot SD880 which almost bit the dust in a water bottle incident but lives on, that’s right CANON!)

Today I met Kaydence Grace (about 10 hours old now) and Wyatt Mitchell (about 2 weeks old now). I didn’t do much work,  my dishes didn’t get done and I wasn’t able to put away all my laundry but I got to spend time with real, wonderful people that I love. It was a very good day.

I think it’s kind of funny how much I enjoy a good picture of myself. Trust me, I’m not vain but who doesn’t love to feel beautiful? It’s not just anyone who can make me feel the way that Josh can and so I love his photos of me even more. When we were in CT for Matt and Jen’s wonderful wedding we took part of the afternoon to take some new head shots. I am so pleased with how they turned out that I wanted to share a few with you. Plus, you can see how handsome and talented my wonderful husband is and why I love that he’s my second shooter!

Proudly a Canon photographer!

Now, for the best part…

You may ask yourself, if you know us, why isn’t one of these Josh’s profile picture on Facebook? Oh, because, “These are good, but Rambo is cool.”

Today my friends and I got together for a tea party. I know it’s not something I would usually post about on here but I just think these ladies are some of the best around and so, I took pictures today and wanted to share them with you!

Cranberry scone, an Emily specialty.

I like that we had coffee in our tea cups. Cinnamon coffee was fantastic!

This was our hostess, Emily. She and her husband have been wonderful friends to me and Josh as we were going through our engagement and now into our marriage. If everyone had friends like them, the world would be a very different place! She’s the queen of baking, a coffee specialist and has the brightest smile around.

This is Sara. Sara and I share a love for Brazil. I admire her ability to listen intently to others and have appreciated how she and Matt have been opening their home to us for small group. Sara also has the best laugh and laughs at my jokes, even when they are not funny. Oh, and Sara wore this hat because I wanted to wear my honeymoon hat. What a good friend!

Oh Alisha. I love Alisha for a lot of reasons. She has a very cute and thrifty dress for almost ever occasion. She is just the same shade of sketchy (in a good way) as I am. She and her husband are famous, just check Lynchburg Living. You can count on Alisha to be joyful and funny almost all the time!

Last but not least is Carol. She’s last because she shares this photo with Brinley and he’s going to get his own post! Carol and I just became friends but I appreciate her transparency and boldness very, very much. She’s a fantastic cook and helped me through a rough time even before we were friends, dealing with some issues at school!

These ladies have been shaping my life and my relationship with the Lord. This directly impacts my photography! Thanks girls for your love, friendship and support. Thank you, readers, for taking the time to read about my friends.

So, I have this friend Angi. In May of 2008 Angi said, “So I think I want to run a marathon.” She said this over lunch and Jenna and I agreed that sounded like a cool idea. As if she had said something like, I think I’ll get a hair cut. But she did it! I spent my Valentine’s day eve with Angi staying at the Holiday Lake 4H center and was there cheering her on with the best crew ever during the entire 7 hours and 29 minutes of the Holiday Lake 50K. We had some other friends running the race and it was an amazing thing to see them reach goals that seem beyond plausibility. Of course I brought my camera! Enjoy a few shots from the 32.3 mile race!

This is what 247 runners with headlamps look like at 6:30 am!

Angi running strong after the first four miles!

Sweet action shot of Jon!

Can you imagine when THIS sign is encouraging??

She did it and I am so proud!!

The crew: Levin & Justine, Me, Angi, Solomon, and Andrea

There’s a race in April called Promise Land…maybe we’ll see you there!

So…I did it! I went to my first professional trade show. You might be asking yourself what the big deal about this is but the big deal is that I didn’t seek it out, it fell into my lap. The big deal is also that it wasn’t just any bridal show, it was a Soiree magazine bridal show where only the most sought after vendors in Lynchburg were meeting together. It’s funny, you’d think I would have realized by now that God’s plans for me are much bigger than my own! I have some pictures of my table from event all taken with my pocket cam (Canon PowerShot SD880 IS). Thanks to my friends who dropped by the table including Meredith, Naomi, Brooke, & Andrea who are all getting married this year as well! The show was beautifully done and I sincerely enjoyed meeting so many brides and sharing with them the excitement of planning the most special day of their lives.

The table took me about a week to put together with the help of Ritz, Cobb, Fed Ex Kinkos, and AC Moore!

I could NOT have done it without this man, my future husband, Josh Deal. He is such a source of encouragement and very handy when it comes to customizing and assembling easels! He’s also becoming quite the asset as a second shooter!!

FInally a photo of me with the table. This is more for a historical record because it’s not every day that you take such a big step toward full time photography work!!

This post is called brothers because this was a gift to my brother, Chris, who asked me to take pictures of the two more brothers: Kyle and Carter. Kyle and Carter did a great job. I was very proud of them, you can’t even tell that Kyle doesn’t really like pictures or that Carter has to be reminded to use his easy smile. I love these pictures and I am so glad they were able to be a part of my Thanksgiving! I hope you guys like them too!

I promise I didn’t even have to pose him for this one, he just hopped up there and went at it!

They aren’t usually very straight faced…so I met them halfway…here is our nice, serious face

and the make a crazy face!

Oh Carter….what a trip.

A few with of the whole group! What a crazy life that Beth must lead!

I love this one!

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