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While my business is a HUGE part of my life so are a lot of other things like family, crafting, travel, cooking and vintage things. This is the place where I get to share those things. Thanks for reading!Folks We Love
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Tag Archives: TX
Five Things : Galveston/Anniversary, Busyness, Photographer, Garden, Fabric
1. Galveston- Just after Easter Bill and I went to Galveston, TX to shoot Riann’s one year photos and decided to use the time there (since we had to get a hotel anyway) as a mini anniversary getaway. Our 3rd anniversary was actually this past Tuesday but Bill is in Atlanta for work so we thought it was appropriate to celebrate a little early. We stayed at the San Luis Resort and I highly recommend it. All the rooms have a balcony view of the ocean, they’re huge, and the pool has a swim up bar. Awesome. We spent a lot of time exploring the island, looking for shoot locations and trying out the local fare. I always forget how great Galveston is, I spent a lot of summers there as a kid, and it’s a stones throw from our house (or like an hour’s drive). I need to take advantage of that more.

1. Our feet in the sand (I need a pedicure, don’t judge). 2. The view from our room at the San Luis Resort. 3. A DELISH shrimp Po-Boy from Shrimp N’ Stuff, go there, it’s AMAZING. 4. Breakfast at ShyKatz Deli, adorable little place, great food, great atmosphere. 5. Bill drinking a giant orange juice at Easter breakfast with mom before heading out to Galveston. 6. The new Pleasure Pier, opening soon!!
2. Busyness – In high school I went to a church by myself, not that my parents didn’t go to church I just really liked this one church so they let me go there. It was them allowing me to define my own path and faith. Anywho, on father’s day they gave all the dads this book called The Man in the Mirror. Somehow I ended up taking one home and since I read just about everything back then I thought hey, why not. One of the main things it mentioned was that it was ok to be busy but you had to be busy and balanced. It’s something I’ve always strived for but I think the busy has been outweighing the balanced lately and I’m working on that.
3. I am a photographer. – When there is a desire deeply rooted in your heart it becomes the thing you question the most about yourself. It’s personal and it’s tied to you. I constantly have to remind myself that I am a photographer. When people ask me what I do and I say it out loud I always sound silly to myself, or like I’m faking them out. But I really am a photographer (along with a lot of other things: wife, counselor, graphic designer, christian, daughter, gardener…), and sometimes it surprises me. For example I did a photo session with Tiffany and her two adorable girls and I don’t know if it was their beauty, or the location, or that it was the magic hour or a combination of all of those things but when I finally got the photos on my computer a few of the images made me gasp. I questioned if I actually took them. I don’t mean to sound conceited or anything but they blew my mind a bit, I surprised myself. This both frightens me and excites me, because I think it may mean I actually am a photographer. (You can see more images from their session here.)

4. My Garden Is Growing – We planted our veggie garden a few weeks ago and it’s doing VERY well. I’ll actually be picking our first banana pepper sometime this week. My parsley, cilantro, cucumber, and basil that I planted from seed all came up. I worked in the rain on Sunday putting weed block (that black plastic stuff) all around the outside of the raised beds so I can eventually build little pathways around them. The whole thing makes me SO happy that I just sit out there and stare at my plants. (This picture is actually from two weeks ago.)

5. I Have a Fabric Addiction – I bought more fabric recently from Five Monkey Fabrics on etsy, from Paper Thread Fabrics and Joanne’s. I have about 5 or six sewing projects going all at once. The quilt for the living room, a second quilt (though it’s just in the planning stages), the fabric rose tree skirt, reusable swiffer dusters, a vintage half apron, and this tutorial from A Beautiful Mess. I have SEVERAL others in the hopper too (top of the list is this burp cloth tutorial from Made for all my friends who are about to pop out kiddos). Basically my pinterest has been filled with sewing ideas and fabric swatches.

Posted in Five Things
Also tagged Five Monkey Fabric, galveston, gardening, Paper Thread Fabrics, Photography, Pleasure Pier, sewing, Shrimp N Stuff, ShyKatz, The San Luis Resort
2 Comments
Homecoming Mum – Stravaganza
You hear in Texas, everything is bigger and its true, the hair, the bling, the trucks, the houses, yep pretty much everything. I never really appreciated Texas, or Houston for that matter, until I moved to Oklahoma. Oklahoma is an odd place, land locked but rumored to have more shoreline than any other state (I know, weird).
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?
Posted in Design, House & Home
Also tagged crafts, diliberto photo and design, homecoming, Houston, how to, mum
4 Comments
Custom Invitation :: Sunset Cruise

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!
Posted in Design, Party Styling
Also tagged Cruise Invitation, custom party, custom party invitation, diliberto photo and design, graphic design, Houston, Party Printables, party styling, Sunset
1 Comment
Redefining the Wedding Guest Book
I’ve never understood the traditional guestbook, a small 5×7 book that a bunch of people sign. What do you do with that? I don’t imagine people look through it years later and say, “Look at Aunt Sue’s signature, OH the memories!” Its not something you’d set on your coffee table for guests to flip through. The best thing it could be for would be to practice your friends’ and families’ signatures if ever you and your new beau turn to a life of crime and forgery.
So I’ve decided to redefine the wedding guestbook.

Meet Bethia & Joel’s wedding guestbook. We took their favorite photos from their engagement session, compiled them into a hard bound book, and left some room for signatures and notes to be added by loved ones on their big day.
The engagement session is my favorite to shoot and I think the time where the husband-and-wife-to-be get to really shine. We tailor the session around who they are, their interests, and their love and we’re not restricted by wedding planners, or time constraints of the next thing on the wedding day agenda. Its also the time where I get to really know them before the wedding, which makes the day of so much more comfortable.

I’m also doing all the party printable designs for their wedding. I developed this monogram seal which we used on the back of their guestbook, the invitations, and all around the wedding reception. The book is hinge bound, so the pages lay flat. This way you get to see the whole image, pages don’t bend or crease, and its much easier for family and friends to write messages on.

And that’s how we do wedding guest books here at Diliberto Photo & Design!
Keels & Wheels Show in Seabrook, TX
My dad has been a judge at the Keels & Wheels show since I was in high school. Its become an annual family event (which scored me major points with my husband when we were dating). Here are a few shots from this year’s event.
I may have drooled a little over this one. Meet my dream car.
I’m a huge fan of the random assortment of hood ornaments. This is one of the most original I’ve seen in a while.
And then theres the keels!
Bill drooled a little too…
And these make me smile.
So hecka cool, submarine!
And the Houston Electric Car Club was there too. It was pretty sweet! They’re taking some classic cars and taking them all electric. There’s also plans for electric charging stations all over the city. MMM green! (I think Bill was mostly confused at first.)
Lets all go to the beach. Like pronto!
And thats the Keels & Wheels show, until next year!
Posted in Life, Photography
Also tagged Car Show, Classic Car Show, Keels & Wheels, Photography, Seabrook, Wooden Keels and Classic Wheels
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