Howdy! My name is, Angela. I’m an Okie transplanted in Houston, Texas. As they say, I wasn’t born a Texan, but I got here as fast as I could!
I’ve been doing photo editing and restoration since 2005. In the beginning, I worked with several professional photographer friends who taught me many tips and tricks so that I could help them with their heavy photo editing volume. I loved taking each picture and seeing how I could tweak it to make it go from a great photo to a perfect photo.
A few years later, I inherited a large number of family documents, negatives, and photos. Many were in poor condition and in need of serious restoration. That’s a totally different skill set from your typical editing. It often requires drawing items in by hand and making them look real, colorization, and lots and lots of patience.
Around 2015 I began working on friends photos as word spread of what I was doing and they saw my work. It’s something that I truly LOVE doing, and I don’t care if it’s one of my family photos or someone else’s. There’s just something satisfying about taking a broken photo and making it whole again. Each one is like a time capsule. The old outfits, cars, household items, uniforms, etc. History is frozen in time and to me, it’s absolutely fascinating!
Fast forward to Hurricane Harvey in 2017. I live in Houston, Texas and we were one of the cities hit the hardest. So many people lost their precious memories. You can rebuild a house. You can buy more clothes and furniture. You can’t go back in time and obtain lost pictures! Knowing that my family pictures were saved online in multiple places gave me such peace of mind when the storms hit. After the water receded and people were able to go back to their homes, I was able to assist in restoring pictures damaged by water.
That is what I want for all of you. I want everyone to be able to share pictures with family and friends. I want you to have the peace of mind knowing they’re stored digitally and you’ll never lose them.
On a personal note, aside from my love of photo restoration, I also love sewing, quilting, silk ribbon embroidery, jewelry making, scrapbooking, bookbinding, cold process soap making, doll making, painting, crochet, gardening… Let’s just say I’m crafty, otherwise we’ll be here a while!
I’m a mom of three wonderful boys, that are all grown men now. I’m not really sure when that happened, to tell the truth. Time has a nasty way of flying by. The two youngest are currently in South Carolina and my oldest is in Oklahoma. I sure miss getting to see them!! What did we ever do before Skype and Facetime?
I also have an amazingly supportive, devilishly handsome, genius level smart, partner in crime -Vincent. Lucky Cat Restorations wouldn’t be operational without him, so he deserves the most credit. Together we have three furry babies, Zepp, Kashmir and Sakura.
Why Lucky Cat? I love Asian art! Beautiful watercolors or anime, it’s all so delicate, intricate, and feminine but it’s also bold and beautiful at the same time. I also love tattoos. My whole back is a scene with anime angels, roses, butterflies, and the moon. When I hit a slump in 2010-2011 and felt very unlucky, I had my newest tattoo created just for me. I now have a beautiful Maneki Neko (Lucky Cat) on my left arm, to remind me that I make my own luck. I started to call my business, Maneki Neko Restorations, but I figured nobody would be able to spell it.
xoxo, Angela
