Tag Archives: family portraits

Just Too Much Cuteness To Handle With This Family…

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Gotta love a photo shoot with little munchkins!  This fam was a pure delight to photograph at their home – a great way to spend a Saturday morning with so much cuteness!  Everyone did a fantastic job and everyone looked great!  We had a great feeling about this one right away with Jan and Nicole during the consultation since they are a truly delightful couple.  Their youngest was with them for the initial meeting and she was perfectly behaved and the other two were much fun, even showing off some really impressive gymnastic prowess on the trampoline while we were at the house!

Too Much Cuteness…

This session took place entirely on location and the weather was perfect!  There was plenty of green to work with in the backyard so let’s get to it.  We’ll start with a shot of the whole family before we get to some individuals of the girls:

Much Cuteness

Okay how cute are they…?????  And the sass on the little one in that shot is priceless!

Before we look at a few more photos let’s check out some of the fun behind the scenes action of our morning!  First with our 6 second vine with some of the acrobatics I mentioned before!

Next we have the extended replay of the live Periscope broadcast from the session – these are always fun to do where we can share a little of the proceedings in front of a live chat audience who can watch the fun and participate!  If you want to be a part of our broadcasts download the app and follow us at @frameablefaces here or just watch on twitter here.

Okay let’s get to the individual photos of the three princesses!  From oldest to youngest:

Much Cuteness

Love these girls!

Much Cuteness

And the baby…Ally’s camera loved her!

Much Cuteness

We think you would have to agree that there was indeed much cuteness happening on that day and we hope you enjoyed the highlights from the session!

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Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Snapchat: http://snapchat.com/add/frameablefaces
Facebook: http://facebook.com/frameablefaces
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frameablefaces
YouTube: https://youtube.com/frameablefaces
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Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/frameablefaces
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

We Are Posting This ‘Cuz We Love Photographing Cousins!

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It is so nice when cousins are around the same age and enjoy hanging around with each other, and it makes photographing cousins a joy!  This was definitely the case with the crew we’re about to show you.  We have had half of them (the local half) in the studio before around Halloween time for photos, but the other half live out of town so we hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting them before.  They are a beautiful bunch and they belong to one of our mall neighbors – they are Nancy’s grandchildren from across the hall at Nancy’s Linens!  And talk about prepared kids….they were coordinated nicely with the clothes and they had plenty to say about what photos and poses they had planned for their photo session!  There was even a written out list involved!

Siblings together…

We did this session on location at the house of the “local crew” and we did a few rounds of individual photos, sibling group shots and group shots of the whole squad!  The conditions were just perfect that morning for a photo session.  Let’s start with the siblings…

Photographing Cousins

Sibling crew 1 looks awesome!

Now for sibling crew 2:

Photographing Cousins

So cute!

Photographing Cousins

Now let’s get to a couple of the whole crew…  These kids made the job pretty easy.

Photographing Cousins

The goal here was to have some fun and not get too formal – just to get some photos of kids being kids and cousins being cousins and the swing set was a perfect prop to get everyone into place!  We love this last one we’ll leave you with with the youngest of the group on the oldest’s shoulders….  Everyone looks fantastic!

Photographing Cousins

And there you have it!  We had a blast with these guys and we hope you enjoyed the highlights of our day with them!

**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Snapchat: http://snapchat.com/add/frameablefaces
Facebook: http://facebook.com/frameablefaces
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frameablefaces
YouTube: https://youtube.com/frameablefaces
Instagram: https://instagram.com/frameablefaces
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/frameablefaces
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

Excitement For Elona’s Return to the Studio With Her Mom and Dad!

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You have probably seen the canvas of the beautiful little dancer on the wall by my desk in the studio if you’ve spent time here at Frameable Faces.  That’s Elona – one of our favorite little cuties in Frameable Faces history!  We love when she comes by to visit every now and then – she is one of the brightest kids we know and she never ceases to surprise me with her insights every time we have a conversation.  So when we got the call that she would be coming to the studio for a photo session we got very excited indeed!  She is always a delight to photograph!

Excitement For Elona

We love Elona’s mom Harolyn and her dad Ulrich – they’re awesome and we’ve photographed all of them before so we knew this would be great.  Let’s start first with just Elona being Elona!

Elona

Such a cutie!!!

Next we have one of Elona being daddy’s girl with Ulrich…

Elona

Love it.

Now let’s take a look at some of our behind the scenes action from the session.  First with our 6 second vine for your looping pleasure:

And now we have the extended replay of the live Periscope broadcast on our YouTube channel from the session!  If you have not downloaded Periscope yet you can do so and follow us at @FrameableFaces at this link.

So much fun!

Okay let’s get back to a couple more photos from the session first with a classic mommy daughter image!

Elona

Beautiful girls!!!

And we will finish it off with one more of Elona blowing us a little kiss to end it!

Elona

Love that girl!  And there you have it!  You can see why we we had so much excitement for her return!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of our day with her and her parents!

Another Example Of What 20 Years Of Happiness Looks Like!

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When Dena came to the studio and we started chatting we discovered that we had a couple things in common.  A couple mutual friends, sons similar ages – stuff like that.  The usual fun stuff.  So we got to discussing the session during the consultation with the usual details, what to wear, what color backdrops and those sorts of things.  We looked at Saturday May 21st as the date for the session and she said that’s cool – it’s the day after their anniversary.  We said cool – that’s two days after our anniversary!  “Oh” she said “what anniversary is it?  It’s our 20th!”  We said “What?  It’s our 20th too!!!”  How cool!  We got married on consecutive days in 1996!!!  What a great connection – celebrating 20 years one day apart and then together the day after that for a family photo session!  We knew this would be fun.

20 Years Of Happiness…

So Dena and Stephen came with their son Zak who we really liked – he seems like a great kid!!!  Don’t be shocked if you see him again on this blog in the not-so-distant future…  Let’s start with a photo of the happy family on the white background…20 years

Good looking family huh?

Now let’s focus in on just the happy couple…

20 years

Before we get to the last two photos let’s take a look at our behind the scenes footage from the day!  First with our fun little 6 second looping Vine:

Next we have the extended replay of the live Periscope broadcast from the session with a live audience!  If you haven’t downloaded Periscope yet you can do so and follow us at @FrameableFaces at this link.

Okay we have a couple more photos to show – first one of a boy and his mommy!  How sweet!

20 years

And lastly a dude and his truck!

20 years

And there you have it!  We had a great time with these guys – on a similar path as ours!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of their session!

The Frameable Faces Restoration Project!

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Polish WeddingI have always had a keen interest in history on many levels.  In addition to my own personal interest in reading books and visiting historical sites I’ve tried to find ways to incorporate history into Frameable Faces.  Not only are we capturing moments and preserving them forever when we photograph our clients, I have blogged about historical photos of American Presidents, I’ve dabbled with my Life Preservers idea on and off to do interviews with people about their personal histories and I have written about photo restoration.  This leads us to the restoration project…

Photo restoration is a special opportunity for us to help people preserve and even recover a piece of their own history that has been damaged or thought to be lost.  When someone brings in a damaged photo, we have it restored to pristine condition and return it to them and we see the tears of emotion and joy that pour out when they see the results – these are some of the best moments we have here.

Here are a couple of examples:

A lady brought in this last photo she had of her late brother from before he went off to war.  He returned from fighting but he was never the same.  This photo was faded, browned, torn, taped, incomplete and stapled to a manilla envelope (you can actually see the staple at the top of his hat).  It meant a lot to her and it meant a lot to us to present it back to her completely restored.  This is such important work.  Helping people reclaim their history.

The Frameable Faces Restoration Project

Next one of our seniors had a photo of his mom from her passport from when she came to this country as a young child.  It is the only photo that exists of her from before she came to America.  It was tiny and had part of the raised stamping from the passport on it – not exactly in great condition.

Here’s the before:

Restoration Project

Here’s the after:

Restoration Project

Next we have a baby picture of a lady who came to the studio while in her 90’s.  Such a sweet lady, Lucille’s photo had some damage around the edges from the frame it was in, a couple of creases and stains, and the photo was fading a little.

Here’s the before:

Restoration Project

Here’s the after:

Restoration Project

Here is a case of some damage and significant fading on this one… the photo was really starting to disappear and it was small – we couldn’t make it much bigger but we definitely brought her back…

The before:

Restoration Project

 

The after:

Restoration Project

 

Here’s a color wedding photo that had been significantly damaged and faded over time that just needed to be brought back to life…

Before:

Restoration Project

 

After:

Restoration Project

 

We could go on and on with examples of photos we’ve restored…

Enter Periscope and the Restoration Project…

The element we are adding to make this more of a project is the live video element.  We have an amazing community of people we have connected with literally all around the world on Periscope.  If you are unaware of Periscope it is a live streaming app owned by twitter and you can download it and follow us at @frameablefaces at this link.

At any given time in one of our live broadcasts you can be a part of a social video watching and chatting in real time with people from Australia, Israel, Turkey, Brazil, The UK, France, Russia, Malaysia, Serbia, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Germany, Spain, Morocco, Ukraine – the list goes on and on.  If someone in Sweden has an old damaged photo they want to restore they can scan it and send it to us digitally.  Periscope has allowed us to connect with people all over the world!

So with the Frameable Faces Restoration Project we are giving people the opportunity to come on to our channel to show the before and after photos and share the story of the photo with the rest of our community.  We can then record these and put them all together on a playlist on our YouTube channel.  If you don’t want to come on and do a live interview and would prefer to just give us the story separately for the blog that’s fine too!  The main thing is sharing stories with our community, bringing us together, reclaiming and restoring history!

Contact us for details if you’re interested!  You can call the studio at 248-790-7317, email me at doug@frameablefaces.com, or DM us on twitter at @frameablefaces

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Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

 

A Breathtaking Example Of Maternity And Serendipity

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Serendipity is an amazing thing when it happens.  When you get swirled up in it and you know something special is happening it’s an amazing and rare experience.  Do you know what serendipity is?  Here’s the official definition:

Serendipity

Now here’s the way it went down on March 16, 2016 at Frameable Faces…

Me: Frameable Faces this is Doug!

Phone Caller: Uh hello – we have a bit of an urgent situation here with a maternity session….  um – you see my wife…. well are you available to take photos of my wife today?

Me: Wait – is she in labor?????

Phone Caller: Well no she’s not in labor – it’s not an emergency like that or anything.  Let me explain.  Here’s what happened…

What happened was that Nick and Jen were 36 weeks pregnant and had a maternity photo session planned with another studio that day.  They were all prepared with clothing and Jen had her hair and makeup done only to be told that the studio had double booked them and they were out of luck.  Sorry, no go, thanks for playing.  Nick did a quick search on Yelp, came across Frameable Faces and took a chance with a phone call.  Now keep in mind that this is NOT how we do photo sessions here.  We don’t take walk-ins as a general rule with no consultation ahead of time to plan the session where we can get to know the clients and make sure everyone is prepared and on the same page.  But these folks were in a bind and we didn’t have any appointments that afternoon – and my gut (after checking with Ally) said to go with it.

Serendipity…

We were not expecting a session that day, and they were not expecting to have to shift gears and drive almost a half hour to a studio they didn’t know on the fly for a maternity session which can be a relatively intimate affair.  But from the moment they walked in we connected – it felt right and it turned out to be one of the best maternity sessions we’ve ever done.  What a wonderful couple – we even broadcast some of the session live on Periscope and you can watch the replay below, but before we get to that let’s see a couple of the photos!

Serendipity

How cute are they?

We used two different backdrops starting with the black above and the next photo is also on the black with the sari stretched out behind Jen and her hair gently blowing – beautiful!

Serendipity

Now let’s take a look at our behind the scenes action from the session.  First we have our fun 6 second looping Vine:

Now we have the replay of the live Periscope broadcast from our YouTube page!  If you haven’t downloaded Periscope yet you should do so immediately!  You can follow us there (and just about everywhere else) at the handle @frameablefaces at this link:

Here is the link to the broadcast.

Now let’s get back to a couple of gorgeous photos of Jen on the white background.  So beautiful, so angelic!

Serendipity

Breathtaking indeed…  And we’ll leave you with one more:

Serendipity

We can’t wait to meet the baby!  Maybe, just maybe you’ll have a chance to meet the baby here too!  We were thrilled to be able to meet these two, photograph them and present them to you!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights – serendipity indeed.

 

5 Fun Tips On What To Wear For A Family Photo Shoot

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What to wear for a family portrait session is obviously an important topic.  What do you recommend?  Do we need to match?  Can we wear jeans?  These are the questions we get from our clients all the time for family portrait sessions, and they are very important questions!What to wear

What to wear….

Whenever we meet with a family (or the family member in charge) to discuss the game plan for their upcoming session we usually spend a decent amount of time discussing clothing.  Many people have anxiety over this, and while it’s certainly important to look your best when you invest the time and money to get professional portraits, there is no need to stress!  Here are 5 fun and practical tips and ideas that may help…

  1. Consider Casual.  If you are comfortable you will feel comfortable and therefore you will look comfortable.  There is nothing wrong with jeans and t-shirts, polos, or simple blouses.  A family that appears to be relaxed and naturally enjoying being together makes for really nice portraits.  Keep in mind that formal portraits can be beautiful as well, just know that it’s not a rule that professional portraits = formal portraits.  Sometimes the decor of the room or rooms you plan to decorate can help you with this as well.
  2. Coordinate Loosely.  You don’t have to match exactly.  You can put the boys in a blue and the girls in a pink just as an example, with everyone wearing similar style shirts.  Everyone can wear different style shirts of the same color as well – white shirts are fine.  Coordinate by color or style – just look like you are in the same group and belong together.
  3. Avoid crazy patterns.  No Hawaiian shirts for example.  Just use common sense – you want the focus of the photos to be on the people and not on a pattern or a slogan like “I’m With Stupid” on a shirt.
  4. Try a theme.  We had a family do a Detroit sports theme with different jerseys of the 4 major pro teams – the Tigers, Lions, Pistons, and Red Wings.  It was really fun!  You can do it with your favorite college / alma mater too.  We had a family where the dad and son had maize and blue Michigan sweatshirts and the mom and daughter had pink ones on and it was really cute.  I used to think it was silly when I would see a U of M sweatshirt in pink in a store, but from a fashion standpoint it worked for the shoot!  Anything that your family shares together can serve as inspiration.
  5. Be true to yourself and your family.  Certainly you can look to professional photographers for advice because they have plenty of experience with this, and they can make suggestions that work with different backdrops and settings.  Always ask to see examples!  Also remember however that you are the customer and you know your family best.  Be careful of a photographer who won’t listen to you and insists on doing it his or her way.  This is your session after all…

Always remember to have fun and savor the moment.  You deserve credit for wanting to celebrate your family with a professional portrait session and you should enjoy it!  Feel free to add to the discussion – what have been some of your favorite choices for wardrobe?  What say you on the subject of what to wear?

**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Snapchat: http://snapchat.com/add/frameablefaces
Facebook: http://facebook.com/frameablefaces
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frameablefaces
YouTube: https://youtube.com/frameablefaces
Instagram: https://instagram.com/frameablefaces
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/frameablefaces
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

Ethan Loves His Parents….And (Smashing) His Cake!

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Ethan loves his parents for sure.  And he loves his cake.  And smashing his cake.  And devouring his cake.  What’s bad about that?  Okay so maybe too much cake isn’t the very best idea all the time, but for a first birthday photo shoot?  Gotta do it…  Yep.  Just gotta.  Meanwhile Ally has known Ethan’s dad Kyle for a long time and we are huge fans of this fam – Jodie is a sweetheart and Ethan did a fantastic job for their (his) session!  So let’s get to the delicious photos of this delicious kid and eventually his delicious cake!

Ethan Loves His Parents…

We’ll start with the family portrait with the blue / grey backdrop.  Just a classic shot – everyone smiling, everyone happy together!

Ethan Loves

Love that.

Ethan Loves Just Being Ethan…

Let’s give one to Ethan just being a happy little guy – being himself – how great to be 1!

Ethan Loves

How’s that finger taste Ethan?  Think he’s getting ready for the cake…

Before we get to that though, let’s take a look at our fun behind the scenes action from the session.  First with our fun 6 second vine for your looping pleasure:

Next we have the replay of our Periscope broadcast, and if you haven’t downloaded Periscope yet (Apple’s 2015 app of the year) you can do so and follow us at @frameablefaces at this link.

Ethan Loves His Mommy…

We would be remiss if we didn’t also mention that Jodie was actually the birthday girl on this session!  Ethan’s first birthday was technically two days later, and what a birthday present for Jodie – her little one loving on her while she watches over him.  Love this photo…

Ethan Loves

Ethan Loves His Cake!!!

And finally the cake smash!!!  This is a great one to end on of Ethan really starting to go for it….

Ethan Loves

…and clearly happy about it!  That will do it for now – we hope you enjoyed the highlights of our day with this happy family!

Family, Fun and a Little Flannel! What A Crew.

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Photo sessions with this crew over Thanksgiving have become sort of a ritual for us and it’s always a blast as you’ll see in these photos.  Michael and Susie both have grown kids from before they got married to each other but you would never know they weren’t all blood related if you were to hang out with them.  This year there was a new spouse in the mix and she also just fits right in.  We won’t even tell you who goes with whom because the point with this crew is how awesome they are as a whole!  They coordinated with a little flannel this year which is just great, while Michael and Susie stand out as the leaders of the pack in white.  Every year it’s something a little different!

A Little Flannel…

Let’s start first with the “kids” in front of the house in a simple pose – what a great looking group!

Little Flannel

Next before we get into the rest let’s take a look at some fun behind the scenes from the session!  First with our six second looping vine:

Next we have the extended replay of our live Periscope broadcast from our YouTube channel which is a lot of fun.  It’s about 15 minutes long and if you still don’t have Periscope you can download it and follow us at @frameablefaces at this link.

Now one more super fun photo of just the kids before we bring Michael and Susie into the mix:

Little Flannel

…and a lot of fun!

Now we have Michael and Susie joining for the last two fantastic photos!

Little Flannel

We think that one is so fun with them all peaking out from the sides…

Okay one more to wrap it up!

Little Flannel

And so there it is – family, fun and a little flannel!  What could be better?  We hope you enjoyed the highlights from our morning with them!

A SNOWY Family Session With Jason, Taryn And Gia!

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Those of you who have walked by our studio for the last few years have seen a big canvas of the family we are featuring today, and you may have stopped and said “Hey that’s Jason Carr” or “Hey that’s Taryn Asher” or hey that’s “Jason Carr and Taryn Asher” or “Hey why do these people look familiar?”.  Haha!  It’s a really nice and unique family photo outdoors in late fall with an evergreen tree as a backdrop.  We don’t have too many photos like that, so it serves multiple purposes – a unique and fantastic photo, familiar (and frameable of course) faces to the community that make people stop and smile, and it makes us happy because they are just down to earth cool people.

A SNOWY Family Session…

So when Taryn called and said it was time to get back in for another session with their daughter Gia we got excited – we planned the session and decided on Quarton Lake in Birmingham.  What we didn’t plan on was snow!!!  I told Taryn that the forecast was making me a little nervous because there was supposed to be a snow storm coming, and I didn’t expect her to answer that she loved the idea of a snow session!  So yes indeed – it snowed – hard.  The only real significant snow we’ve had so far this year, and needless to say we now have even more unique photos (hint hint)!  We’ve photographed high school seniors in the snow but this family snow session was a first, and the results are spectacular!  Let’s take a look!

Snowy Family Session

How great is that?  Meanwhile Gia is growing up so fast – she is so smart and cute!

Here’s a closer look:

Snowy Family Session

Before we look at a couple more let’s look at our fun behind the scenes video footage – first of our 6 second looping vine:

Next take a look at the extended replay of our live Periscope broadcast from the session!  If you haven’t downloaded Periscope yet you can do so and follow us at @frameablefaces at this link, and also follow both Taryn and Jason on Facebook because they live stream there and they are fun!

Okay let’s get back to a couple more photos…

Snowy Family Session

This is the pose they used for their holiday card – love the background here too…

And here is one more pose with the tree that we love:

Snowy Family Session

And that will do it for now!  We hope you enjoyed these highlights from our day!  Be sure to catch Jason and Taryn on Fox 2 Detroit – we aren’t just friends – we’re fans!

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**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!