Snow, Really ~ Chicago Suburban Photographer

Is yours a family that LOVES snow? Looks like Mother Nature finally has heard your call! Why not capture your family doing what they love this winter? Sledding, snow angels, snowball fights.

In other words, schedule a snow session this winter!

Who's up for a challenge?

It's the new year again. That time when we all make resolutions, knowing we only 75% intend to keep them. Let's not address the photography goals I made for myself last year. A month or so later I went and got myself pregnant and was suddenly too tired to do much of anything. (But I did make my website! And I did try to carry my camera with me more. And I did do some maternity, i.e. my own.)

The new year is also the time when a lot of photographers begin challenges. 365 challenges. 52 week challenges. More power to them, I say. Anyone who successfully completes a 365 (366 this year) challenge gets a major "You Rock" award from me. I know better than to start that type of challenge. I don't like to set myself up for failure. When Cooper was born my goal was to take a portrait a day for 30 days. I think I got to day 14, but I'm going to blame exhaustion for that one. Still, it would be nice to try to give my creative muscles a stretch in a completely "no-pressure, failure-proof, I-work-full-time-and-have-two-kids-and-am-writing-this-blogpost-on-the-train-because-I-have-a-killer-commute-but-I'm-not-complaining" kind of way.

So I saw the Project 24 challenge on the Florabella Facebook page the other day, and thought this might be the kind of challenge for me. Here's the challenge:

Sounds good, right? No deadlines, no rules. What could possibly go wrong? So here goes nothing. I'm jumping on the challenge bandwagon. Of course, I wouldn't mind some help. You know, the occasional comment, like: "Hey Katie. You haven't posted a challenge photo in a whole. Stop being such a slouch and get on it already." And I'd definitely welcome some company. You know, comments like: "Hey Katie. I'm doing the Project 24 challenge, too. Here's a link to my latest photo." Who's with me? You don't even have to post it to the Florabella page necessarily. Just do it for fun and post to your own blog or flickr or whatever. No really. Think about it.

In the mean time, here's my first attempt, No. 19-Light and Dark. And in the spirit of "truly anyone can play along," I'll tell you that this was taken with my iPhone camera on the train (did I mention about my commute?) and processed with photoshop express on my phone.

Happy New Year!

p.s. The book is called Let the Great World Spin, and it's by Colum McCann, and yes, I would definitely recommend it!

Favorite Images of 2011

I started to put together a blog post of my favorite images from 2011, but it quickly became apparent that I had too many favorites to make a single blog post practical since, in general, I'm not a fan of freezing up people's computers as they try to load a post with 30+ pictures.

So instead, I put together a short slideshow of my favorites. What an amazing year! I hope you enjoy these images as much as I do:

p.s. This beautiful version of "You Are My Sunshine" is sung by Elizabeth Mitchell.

Testing, Testing, 1..2...3..

Is anyone out there? You know what happens when you have a baby and don't update your blog for two months? People stop reading! NOOOOOO!!!!! Come back, come back!

Isn't this reason enough to come back?

Cooper James Shores was born October 21, 2011, and he has already brought us such joy. We are just getting back into the swing of things, but I didn't want anyone to miss out on seeing Cooper's newborn pictures. I am already starting to think about his three month pictures. Where does the time go?

I'll be back soon with a special Favorites of 2011 post, so keep checking in!

Fall Mini-Sessions 2011 ~ Chicago / Lake County Family Photography

What an AWESOME weekend of fall mini-sessions! Despite the craziness of shooting around weather and the impending arrival of a baby (that would be mine), I loved every minute of capturing the beautiful families who came out to join me for mini-sessions this year. It was wonderful to see so many faces I've seen before as well as a few new ones.

This weekend was made all the more special because it officially wrapped up my shooting schedule for 2012 as we await the birth of this new babe. Didn't make it out to your own KSP portrait session in 2011? Don't despair! I will be back and ready to shoot in the new year. Who's up for a snow session this winter?

Project Nursery: Step 6

Step 6: ART!!!

As promised, I am back to share the art we used to polish off the nursery walls. This is where I really planned to bring the vintage book theme into play, so a while back I started trolling etsy and some local stores and markets for vintage books that I thought might fit the bill.

Originally, I had planned to gather some inexpensive old books and cut them up to create a large gallery, but in the end, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. A couple of the books, in particular, I really fell in love with, and I just could not take scissors to them. Instead, I sweet-talked the hubster into taking them into work and surreptitiously using the color copier to copy out the pages I wanted (Shhhhh! No telling on him!). I'm so glad I did it that way because Max and I have already enjoyed a few hours reading several of the books I purchased, and now they are on display in the nursery to see and be read.

Here is the final illustration gallery over the crib. Don't mind the blurred out frame. We recently settled on a name for this babe but have decided not to share it until he arrives, and that frame includes the baby's first initial, so it will have to remain blurred until further notice.

Clockwise from top left, the illustrations came from Peter Pan, Dick and Jane, Raggedy Ann, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Where the Wild Things Are, and The Travels of Babar.

A vintage book nursery, clearly, must include lots and lots of books, but traditional book shelves, while practical, don't show off the part of a book that most appeals to a child: the cover. The solution is to turn the books around, of course! Although these ledge-style shelves can be found at any number of children's retailers these days, my father-in-law graciously agreed to make them for me, thus saving me some money and allowing me to customize the size and color for the nursery. He even called Land of Nod to get the exact specifications for their shelves! Thank you, Al, for the awesome shelves!

Lastly, I wanted a piece of art in the nursery that incorporates our faith, since it is an important part of our family and I want to pass it on to our boys. I settled on this passage which is found, in various forms, throughout the Bible. The final product, itself, was a DIY effort. I covered a blank canvas purchased from Hobby Lobby with some scrap fabric and stapled it to the back. I arranged the text as a photo in photoshop and had it printed on regular photo paper. Then I used modge podge to attach the photo to the fabric and modge podged over the top of the photo only. Here's the final result:

Only a few more things remain to finish up the room. I'll probably wait to do a final reveal of everything until after baby arrives because I am planning to use some photos of the little man himself to complete the walls. But it looks like the little guy could be arriving any day now, so you might not have long to wait!

Project Nursery: Step 5

Who's ready for some TEXTILES?!?!?!?

Oh yeah. You know you've been waiting and waiting for this! Right? (Just go with it.)

To start with, let's reminisce about the DIY no-sew crib skirt from this post. Once my additional fabric arrived, I finished that puppy up and got it in place. Next I had to wait for the bumper to arrive. I ordered a custom-made bumper from this Etsy vendor. The way it worked was I selected and purchased the fabric, then sent it to her and she whipped it up into this lovely six-panel bumper. (I'm guessing her sewing machine skills are bit up on mine). The bumper arrived today and it is so pretty! Rather than being one long piece, it is six separate panels that tie together onto the crib.

As far as I can tell so far there are pros and cons to this approach. Pro: since our crib does not have any slats in the back, we can always remove the back two panels since they are unnecessary and don't have anything to tie on to. Con: if we want to use the back two panels, they droop forward a little bit, so I'll have to throw some velcro or something onto them to hold them up. In reality, I'll probably just ditch the back two panels once the baby is sleeping in the crib full time, but for now the whole thing looks pretty nice.

I also finally got around to whipping up some happy yellow curtains for the room. I gave the sewing machine one more shot. It didn't go well (so the Mighty Mender now resides at the Goodwill). But not to worry. Remember, I have a long and successful history with iron-on hem. Curtains? Piece of cake! Yes, you too can DIY some basic panel curtains in no time. All you have to know how to do is a) cut straight, b) fold and pin, c) iron in creases, and d) iron on the iron-on hem. Voila!

I chose to hang mine using curtain clips, but if you make your top seam wide enough, you can run a curtain rod through them, too. Here's a close up of my handi-work and the curtain clips.

And for my last (for now) textile project, I used some fabric remnants to make a book-themed bunting for over the closet. (Because it's practically illegal to design a baby nursery without bunting these days.) My plan for the bunting was to not only pull in the book theme, but also bring some aqua touches into the room. I LOVE the result. (FYI this is also a no-sew project. I assembled everything with hot glue). Aren't you totally digging that aqua chevron fabric? I know, me too.

By the way, you should pretend that fabric hanging out on the rocking chair is a quilt. It will be. One day. And in case you're wondering, the book pages in the bunting are from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and were purchased from this Etsy vendor (she tore up the book, not me. I still can't bring myself to deconstruct a book for this room. Yet). Oh and all the fabric came from the designer Premier Prints, but I purchased a lot of it from Fabric.com and also from BuyFabrics.com.

So, you likey? Me likey. No rest for the weary, however. Only five more weeks to go and there's still much to be done. Stay tuned for my next trick....ART!!!