New Product: Photo Collage

As you may remember from Oliver's recent session, he did a cake smash for his 1st birthday. His mom Nicole had asked if I could do a photo collage so she could purchase a print to hang on his bedroom wall, and this is one of the versions I came up with (Nicole actually ended up choosing a slightly different version to coordinate with Oliver's room - you can see it in my Facebook album here):



As you can see, this collage works well to showcase a Cake Smash session! I just love how it tells a story and allows the parents to display a lot of photos without taking up an entire wall. This particular photo collage comes in 3 sizes - 8x8, 10x10, and 12x12 and you can choose 16 photos from your session (or a few less if you want some written squares as shown above). Pricing is as follows:

8x8 print - $25
10x10 print - $30
12x12 print - $35

I do have some other collage options available with various numbers of photo openings so please feel free to email me if you'd like to see some examples.

Hope you all are having a great week!

Willa: 1 Year

You may recognize Willa along with her parents Amie and Jeff from the blog last fall when I took her 6 month photos. We had such a great time back in September, so I was definitely looking forward to seeing them again when Amie booked a session to document Willa's 1 year. We met last weekend at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon (which by the way, is one of my favorite little towns - they have lights on the trees on Main Street! All year long! It's so quaint and I love it.) and took advantage of the warm weather. Despite Willa's long weekend of traveling, she did a great job and gave me lots of smiles! Here are some of my favorites from their session...

It must be said that Willa has to be one of the best dressed little girls I've ever met. Amie has fantastic taste and the clothes she picks out for Willa's sessions (not to mention how she and Jeff always complement Willa's ensembles) are perfection. I love that she chooses bright, fun colors and isn't afraid to mix in a pattern or two. If anyone is wondering, Willa's clothing came from Gymboree and Crazy 8.

Ok, now we're really onto the photos - I love this first series, Willa has such a great smile!





















I love these photos of Willa with Amie and Jeff individually, they're so sweet.












And of course, I had to take a photo of these fabulous shoes! They were so adorable, I couldn't resist.

Oliver: 1 Year

I first met Oliver last summer when his mom Nicole booked me for a baby session. Oliver was just 10 weeks old and I just couldn't get enough of his pouty little lips and chubby cheeks, so you can imagine my excitement when Nicole contacted me about coming back to Des Moines for his 1 year photos. One thing I love about Nicole is she has great ideas and so when she suggested a cake smash as part of the session, I was super excited.

The session started out at the Des Moines Botanical Gardens, which was perfect - lots of pretty greenery and flowers everywhere made it feel a little more like spring. I wish we had something like this in the Iowa City area, it would be wonderful for winter photo sessions. Oliver was ready for his session from the start, although he definitely kept my on my toes as he's walking around a ton and curious about everything!











I love this photo, just look at that smile!






After we finished up at the Botanical Gardens, we headed back to Nicole and James' home to take the cake smash photos but first we had to get a few more beauty shots. A model's work is never done...




Then came Oliver the Owl's photo debut! Nicole is throwing an owl themed party for Oliver's 1st birthday at the end of the month and found this adorable hat on Etsy (love that place). I proposed the idea of doing a sort of "nest" for the photo and here's how it turned out!


After all that work, it was finally time for Oliver to enjoy his first taste of birthday cake. He's never had any sweets, so Nicole and James were interested to see his reaction. These pictures are some of my all time favorites - it was such a fun way to end the session. Thanks again to Nicole, James, and Oliver for inviting me back to take your photos - it was great seeing you all again and I hope you like the preview!