The first session of the year to hit our client’s section of our website was Annika’s Senior Session. We had a few hiccups at our first location but we found this fantastic field and went to town! Here are a few of my favorites from Annika’s session.

I also put together a few samples of an artistic story board and custom graduation invitations using the photos from Annika’s session. Creating them was quite fun and as we round the second semester of many seniors’ last year I’m looking forward to creating them for all my seniors.

This weekend I did a photo session with Natasha at her dad’s lake house on Lake Livingston. I’m so glad we did the session here. There was great scenery and she looked gorgeous, my job was way easy.

It’s also rare that I get to do a college senior session. Sometimes it’s like there is this void in my client’s photos. We do high school senior portraits and I don’t see them again until they get married. I’m pretty sure this is completely ridiculous. What about when the graduate from college, or get a dog, or buy a house, or heck just for fun?

Anyways that was a total tangent from the subject at hand, which is Natasha and her Lake Front College Senior Session.

]]> http://www.dilibertophotoanddesign.com/2011/12/natasha-a-college-senior-session/feed/ 0 http://www.dilibertophotoanddesign.com/2011/11/thanksgiving-party-printables/ http://www.dilibertophotoanddesign.com/2011/11/thanksgiving-party-printables/#comments Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:45:20 +0000 Chris http://www.dilibertophotoanddesign.com/?p=1913 Introducing our Thanksgiving Party Printables! I’m so excited for these, they were a blast to design and they feel all warm and fall-ish.

I’m pretty sure the turkey is my favorite part. You can purchase them at our etsy shop! And because you heard about it on the blog we’re offering a discount of 10% off all Thanksgiving Party Printables by using the coupon code TURKEYDAY. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

So for this Friday Flight, the thing I want most is for folks to love each other with out condition.

That’s it.

Years ago my grandmother (my mom’s mom) wrote down all of her favorite family recipes in a little notebook for me as a Christmas gift. It meant the world to me then. It means even more to me now that she’s gone (and it will be impossible for me to get through writing this blog post without crying a little).

There is a note in the front of the book that starts, “My sweet baby” I can hear her voice when I read it. She gives some great advice, to use whole milk, real butter, and real cream cheese, “If you’re going to go to the trouble you might as well use the best and freshest ingredients you can get. But then I never worry about fat or calories either!”

If there is ever a fire or natural disaster this book is the one thing in my house I would grab. I cherish it and every time I make a recipe from it it’s like she’s there in the kitchen with me.

Recently a friend gave me a large bunch of home grown organic basil from her garden, which only meant one thing, I needed Gram’s Homemade Pesto Recipe.

3 Cups packed fresh basil (no stems)
2 Large cloves fresh garlic
1/2 Cup pine nuts (or walnuts, or almonds)
3/4 Cup fresh parsley
3/4 Cup fresh grated parmesian or romano
1/2 Cup olive oil
1/4 Cup melted butter
Salt to taste

Bill helped me by pulling all the leaves off the stems, washing them, and making sure none of the flowers or seed pods got mixed in with the leaves.

See flowers and seed pods. I love cooking with him, he’s always so curious and fascinated about things when we cook. It makes me smile.

Combine everything except the butter in a blender and start on low, then move to medium. When pesto is pureed, pour the melted butter into the blender spout as it continues to mix.

Toss with hot, drained pasta.

Her note at the end states, “You can buy pesto in a jar since I got this recipe but it is not nearly as good as the fresh.” I agree completely Gram.

Note: I ended up using a stick blender to finish it off, I think there was just too much in my blender. Pesto will keep for about two weeks in the fridge. After we ate some for dinner the day we made it I added it to ice cube trays and froze it. The ice cube sizes make for great serving sizes.

For months I’ve been thinking about what to do for a Christmas themed photo session day for my clients. I’ve also been dreaming about a beach photo session day. And one fine day I thought Christmas AND the Beach, genius! So I’ve partnered with my good friend Andrea over at Ethan Avery Photography and we’re going doing Christmas on the Beach photo session day on Saturday, November 19th.

We’ll have sweet props and furniture and some Christmas type props too so we can turn this shoot into whichever you like or both! And while these shoots are great for families and for Christmas cards I’m opening them up to all my seniors and couples as well. So if you’re looking for something a little different this is it.

Please remember space is very limited so be sure you call or e-mail us soon to reserve your session! And as always if you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask.

Focus, this post is not about Oklahoma. It’s about Texas, errr, Texas homecoming.

I grew up here in Houston, in the great state of Texas but for some odd reason (maybe it was private school for a few years, or that my public school was a magnet school for the arts with no sports teams) but I never went to homecoming or had a mum or did that whole court thing. Even in college it was kind of a forced event, we didn’t have a football team so we had homecoming in the dead of January winter during basketball season. Even still, there were no mums.

The only mum experience I can recall is I had a friend who was a few years older than me growing up and she had mums hanging on her bedroom wall. That’s it.

So when two of my friends said, “I have to make a mum for my son’s date, I have no idea what I’m doing can you help?” I thought, neither do I but I’m crafty so sure, why not.

Enter Mum-Stravaganza.

I knew two things.

1. There was some kind of white flower attached at the top.
2. The bigger it was and the more crap that was attached the better.

Number two gets my brain reeling, gaudy things get me excited, because I prefer to go above and beyond. Through out the planning and shopping stages for the mum I offered the following suggestions: we should put one of those fake birds on it, no a real bird, no a chicken (which offers the benefits of fresh eggs). My friend said no. Then I said, OOO there’s that fake fruit and vegetables in the floral section, NO, a loaf of fake bread. She said no to that too. I did get feathers in there, and some zebra print ribbon. But had she said yes to all of my suggestions that mum would have been awesome (insane).

So after a trip to every craft store in town we ended up with this for mum #1:

And there WAS a picture of the table with all of Mum #2′s stuff, but it seems to have gone the way of lost sock matches and children’s pencils.

It was about 9 hours of glitter, yards of ribbon, tulle, feathers, staples, high level planning, hot glue and hot glue gun burns. Basically it was awesome, and I felt like a real Texan.

At the end of the 9 Hours we ended up with these:

I now know more than two things about homecoming mums.

1. see above
2. see above
3. The mums should be personalized to the girls with their names, hobbies, accolades and favorite candy attached or represented.

4. Freshman and Sophomores get mums in school colors, Juniors get Silver, Black and White, Seniors get Gold.
5. They should hang around the girl’s neck.
6. Reinforcements are important.
7. Build it up in layers.

8. High temperature hot glue on your skin will leave giant painful blisters (I may have known this before).
9. Start with a less expensive item in the back, we used tulle and cut it into strips. You could barely see it by the end but it added a lot of girth and puffiness.
10. Get creative and go away from the “mum” section of the store. We got stuff from the party, scrapbooking, christmas, floral, and fabric sections.
11. Making these things with three other women is an insane amount of fun.

Is it silly to say I’m already looking forward to next year?

I recently had the honor of creating this custom invitation for one of my loyal etsy clients. I love doing custom work, it gives me a chance to be completely creative and artsy. I’m very happy with how this one turned out, I was going for a 1950s “wish you were here” postcard type feel. My favorite part is the boat silhouette, which I created of the actual boat they’d be cruising on.

Thank you for the awesome job, and happy sailing!

I’m more excited for the holidays this year than I have ever been. I’m pretty sure the excitement started in July, yes, July. I’ve been doing a bit of Christmas shopping here and there. I’ve been planning holiday craft projects and gathering materials. I’ve also been testing out new cookie and brownie recipes (much to the delight of Bill’s coworkers). I’m way ahead of the game this year.

Sometimes I get an idea for a recipe stuck in my head. It festers there until I make it. Rocky road brownies were the latest.

I’m weird in the way I bake. I never fully follow a recipe, I use it as a guide, and every time I make something I change it up. That is until I’ve got it perfect (my chocolate chip cookie recipe is just about there). These Rocky Road Brownies are way in the beginning stages, I mean I used a boxed brownie mix.

Step 1: Follow the directions on the brownie mix (I used the one to make gooey brownies), spray a cupcake tin with non-stick spray, spoon the brownie mix into the pan (just like you’d do for cupcakes, minus the cupcake papers). Bake them for 5 minutes less than what is recommended.

Step 2: CHOP. I had a container of mixed nuts so I took a handful out and chopped em. I imagine a true rocky road would have more than a few kinds of rocks and definitely lots of different sizes, so I just applied that theory to the nuts.

Step 3: Marshmallows. I didn’t have mini ones so I chopped up some regular sized ones. I kind of liked the look of this in the end, more rough, more rocky road-esque.

Step 4: Chocolate chips. I’m very particular on my chocolate chips. I always use semi-sweet and I much prefer the ghirardelli brand because they are insane. Insanely delicious.

Step 5: Melt your caramel in the microwave (or if you’re super hard core on the stove).

NOTICE: Do not get distracted by chopping, your husband, or your dog. Stay by the microwave. Watch the carmel with a stern eye. If you don’t, this will happen.

Step 6: Pull those brownies out 5 minutes before they’re done. Sprinkle on the toppings (a little from each pile). And drizzle (whats left) of your caramel on top. Pop them back in the oven for another 5 minutes.

I’m still working on this timing of this I’ve got a lot of variables.

1. My oven does not heat to the temp I set it at, it heats about 50 degrees below the setting.
2. My oven does not cook evenly (it’s from 1985, I don’t blame it entirely).
3. Different brownies cook at different temps.

The goal is you want the chocolate and caramel to melt and merge everything together. You also want the marshmallows to get a tad brown, not light on fire, just lightly brown.

So there are several things I’d change the next time I make these.

Less brownie mix and more toppings per cup.
Do not explode caramel all over the microwave.
Perfection of that oven heating business.