Blue Butterfly Toddler

Oh my little Alexandra! Alexandra is such a ham, which is why I have an exceptional amount of photos of her. She is great for the camera, since she has had one in her face for three years and I must say, is quite adorable! This past Halloween, Alexandra wanted to be a “blue butterfly,” so I was thrilled to get started on her outfit. I swear to you, this was not a difficult project and can be made by anyone! I found the wings, tights and leotard at Shelly’s Dance and Costume in West L.A., which I may stress, has leotards in every single shape, size and color! Luckily, I found little butterfly appliques that perfectly matched, at JoAnn Fabric, and the items to assemble the tutu. In this case, I alternated blue with a glittery purple/fuchsia. I finished off her adorable ensemble with a sequined headband from Claire’s.

 

Pasta Marinara – Strega Nona by Tomie DePaola

I am about to ruin the story for you… Strega Nona learned from her mother, Concetta, that the secret ingredient for her steaming hot pasta was love. I love this story because the first dish I ever learned how to make was lasagna with homemade marinara sauce. I grew up watching my grandmother make it every Christmas and it was something that she learned from her grandmother, Concetta. Another reason that this ‘secret ingredient’ resonates with me is because I don’t just love to cook, I love to cook for others. Food brings people together, cheers people up, makes people healthier, it’s magical and I can’t think of anything else that people enjoy as much as food!

Now, I have yet to brave making pasta from scratch but I do make a really good sauce. The recipe you are about to read may seem confusing because there are not exact measurements when it comes to the herbs. It’s something that you have to build with your own palate.

Marinara Sauce

Ingredients

• 4 28 oz cans of the following: 2 cans of tomato sauce, 1 can of diced tomato and 1 can of whole peeled tomato. I feel that the different cuts provide for more texture in the sauce… and don’t get the already spiced and flavored tomatoes.
• 1 onion diced
• 4 cloves of garlic minced
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Oregano: start with about 3 tbsp of oregano (fresh is best, dry is fine or go with a combo)
• Basil: start with about 3 tbsp of basil (fresh is best, dry is fine or go with a combo)
• Thyme: start with about 3 tbsp of thyme (fresh is best, dry is fine or go with a combo)
• 3 bay leaves
• Red pepper flakes (optional if you like a little kick. Just keep adding some until you like the taste, start with maybe a tablespoon)
• Sugar (just in case your sauce is too acidic for your taste, add a little granulated sugar. adding olive oil or Parmesan cheese will also help neutralize the acid)

Assembly

• Saute your diced onion and garlic in about a tbsp of olive oil to bring out the sweet caramelized flavor but don’t brown them.
• Add your onion & garlic to a pot of the tomato sauce along with all of your spices and about 3 tbsp of olive oil.
• Bring to a boil and let simmer for hours and hours. The longer the better. You can even throw it all in a Crockpot on low for eight hours.
• Throughout the day, taste your sauce. Does it need more salt? A fiery kick of red pepper flakes? Does it seem flat and dull, add more herbs. If it seems really acidic, try adding a tbsp or so of olive or about 1/8 to 1/4 cup of granulated sugar. The longer you let your sauce rest, the better it will taste and the more balanced the flavors will become. I never advise to eat your sauce the same day you make it, unless you start really early in the morning.
• Again, this sauce is about you and what your taste buds are telling you – – you can’t screw it up so just go slow and taste as you cook.
• The recipe makes A LOT of sauce (maybe 15-20 servings) and I most often use it for lasagna. So make sure you freeze some, if you don’t use it all, rather than let it go to waste. You can also make a smaller version, just use less ingredients. It’s not like baking, where if you cut the recipe you’ll totally mess it up.

Strega Nona by Tomie DePaola

Bunny Cake Pops

I made these adorable bunny cake pops to bring to an Easter Egg decorating party, they were a huge hit, the kids and adults loved them!

Bunny Cake Pops

Items You Will Need

• 1 – box of your favorite cake mix
• 1 – Baby Cakes, cake pops makers, which you can find on Amazon but also at local stores like Bed,Bath & Beyond. It looks like a waffle maker but makes pops!
• Non-stick spray.
• 12 – white chenille pipe cleaners, which you will use for your bunny ears.
• Package of white Pom-Poms size .28” for your bunny tails.
• Pink M&M’s for your bunny nose.
• White candy melts; easy-to-melt wafers for candy making-molding, dipping or coating.
• Treat Bags 3” x 4”.
• Lollipop sticks (short).
• Blue or black  Food Writer pen for your bunny eyes.
• Glue Dots.
• Scissors.
• Large Zip Lock baggy.
• Wax paper

All of these items can be found at Michaels or JoAnn craft stores

Assembly

• Follow directions on the cake box to make your batter
• Pour all of your batter in a zip lock bag
• Snip a little corner of the bag
• Fill all the cake pop makers cups (fill cup full)
• Close and bake for 5min
• Carefully take cake pops out and continue filling and baking until batter is completely used
• Once all of your pops are baked, pick the pops that are the best looking, place on them on wax paper and put in the fridge for about two hours.
• In the meantime, cut chenille pipe cleaners in half, giving you a total of 24 pipe cleaners
• Melt your white candy (make sure you don’t heat it too much or it won’t coat pop evenly)
• Only take 3 cake pops out at a time (keeping them cold, makes them easier to work with), dip one end of your stick about 1/8” into the melted candy then push the stick ¾ of the way through the cake pop and place your pop back in fridge. You will continue to do this until all your pops have sticks. (The candy keep the stick stuck into the pop)
• When all of your pops have sticks, it’s time to coat your pops with the candy. Take 3 pops out at a time, fully coat your pop carefully with the candy coating, tap off any extra coating. For tips and trick on coating, check out the Bakerella Cake Pop book or website.
• Once these 3 are coated place, with stick upright on wax paper and put the pink M&M nose on.
• Continue to do this until all cake pops are coated and M&M noses are on.
• Wait 1 or 2 hours to dot on the eyes
• Place 1 cake pop inside each bag
• Using chenille pipe cleaners wrap once around top of bag and stick and fold ends in to create a bunny ear look (see photo below).
• Take the pop-pops and use your glue dot to stick the tails on the back of the packaging.
• Take a step back and admire your work!

How to tie ears

Sleepy Newborns

I shoot a lot of weddings, typically almost every weekend, but since growing my own family, I have added more family sessions to my portfolio. It seems like these days, just about everyone I know, and their friends, are pregnant! I’m not exaggerating, I know 18 women who are pregnant or have given birth in the last couple months! It’s so exciting to watch my friends’ families grow but also to capture the babies of all of the couples whose weddings I have photographed over the years, too! Baby Emma was a unique situation because I coincidentally went to high school with her uncle and my youngest sister went to high school with her mom! Just before I delivered my own baby, in February, I had the honor of shooting Jaime’s pregnancy shoot and now I finally got the opportunity to meet this beautiful little girl!

Click HERE for tips and tricks on photographing newborns.

Infant Photography

Infant Photography with Siblings

Infant Photography

Infant Photography

Infant Photography

Infant Photography

 

Love Canvas

I made this canvas for my husband last Father’s Day and it just melted his heart! I had scheduled a photo session for the three of us in anticipation of doing something crafty for Father’s Day, I just wasn’t sure what I was going to do right away. I ended up having some empty space on Kinsey’s wall and thought it would be a perfect spot to hang artwork that really meant something. Now, every time we carry Kinsey in and out of her room, we stop at the canvas, touch the different embellishments and textures and talk about how special daddy is!

Canvas Crafts

Canvas Crafts

 

Items You Will Need and Why

Make sure to calculate your measurements and the quantity you will need in order to figure out how much paper stock and embellishments you will need, BEFORE heading to the store.

• 1 – 12” x 12” canvas.
• 1 – 12” x 12” cardboard (I used a side of a box).
• 1 – 9” x 12” cardstock: aqua color for matting.
• 1 – 9” x 12” pattern paper: white floral and craft.
• Small scrap pieces of cardstock,  pink  and brown, for cutting die cut letters.
• Metal and paper embellishments that coordinate with theme.
• Funky brads and buttons.
• Lace ribbon.
• Ribbon.
• Flowers.
• In regards to your embellishments, keep in mind it’s all about layering and using different textures together, make it unique by adding more or less embellishments.
• Paper cutter.
• 5 pictures.
• Acrylic Paint.
• Scissors.
• Glue gun.
• Double sided adhesive (like scotch ATG 700 double sided tape) or acid free adhesive squares.
• Two way glue pen (made by ZIG Memory System).
• Glue dots.

All of these items can be found at Michaels

Assembly

• Paint your canvas and let it dry completely.
• Cut 9 – 3 ¾” x 3 ¾” square cardboard pieces.
•  Rough up the edges and rip some of the top layer of cardboard exposing the inner corrugated middle.
• Cut 4 white floral craft pattern paper 3 ¼” x  3 ¼”.
• Cut 4 aqua cardstock 3 ¼” x  3 ¼”.
• Cut pictures either 2 ¾” or 3” depending on how much background you would like to show.
• Once you have everything cut, it will be really easy to assemble but I recommend using your hot glue gun to adhere cardboard to the canvas.
• Mount all of your paper items with the double-sided tape, embellishments with glue dot and use the glue pen for adhering your letters down, as you see displayed above.

This canvas would also be a PERFECT Mother’s Day gift for Grandma too!

Springtime at the Farm

Last week we took our girls to Underwood Family Farms in Moorpark to pick some veggies, ride ponies and have some springtime fun! This pennant banner, that we used in the foreground of some cute pictures of our girls, is perfect as a prop for photos, a decorative accent for parties and more. Last year, I made one to hang from the front of Kinsey’s high chair at her first birthday party and then hung it above her crib to decorate her bedroom!

Pennant Banner

Pennant Banner

Springtime Gardening!

Items You Will Need and Where to Find Them

Make sure to calculate your measurements and the quantity you will need in order to figure out how much paper stock and embellishments you will need, BEFORE heading to the store.

• 4 different colored card stocks: Yellow and green for matting, brown for cutting die cut letters and pastel purple for cutting out flowers
• 2 Patterned papers: I went with pastel pink with white polka-dots and pastel stripes to compliment the spring theme.
• 2 wooden kabob sticks 12”
• 3 different colored small pastel brads to compliment the spring theme (those little dots you see on each pennant are the brads, not card stock)
• 6 purple tiny rhinestones
• 34” of Raspberry  1/8” ribbon
• Paper cutter.
• 1/8” hole punch (made by Fiskars)
• ¾” Flower punch  (made by Fiskars)
• Quickutz diecut letters font style Frankie uppercase
• Double sided adhesive (like scotch ATG 700 double sided tape) or acid free adhesive squares.
• Two way glue pen (made by ZIG Memory System)
• Glue dots.

All of these items can be found at Michaels

Assembly

• Cut the pastel pink with white polka-dots paper into triangles, the size is 3” x 3 ½” You can make a template of a triangle first and then use scissors to cut the 6 triangles or you can use your paper trimmer.
• Cut 6 pastel striped papers ¾” x 2 1/16”. I held the striped paper up to the triangle and cut the sides, that way the angle would be the same
• Cut 6 yellow cardstocks 1” x 2 1/8”.  I held the striped paper up to the triangle and cut the sides, that way the angle would be the same
• Cut 6 green cardstocks 1 1/8” x 2 3/16”. I held the striped paper up to the triangle and cut the sides, that way the angle would be the same
• Cut out letters “SPRING” in brown
• Using your 1/8” hole punch, make 2 holes in the top corners of the triangles for ribbon to be pulled through.
• Using two 6” ribbon pieces tie 2 bows
• Punch 6 pastel purple flowers out, use gen pen to adhere tiny rhinestone in the middle of flower.
• Once you have everything cut, it will be really easy to assemble; just mount all of your items with the double-sided tape and use the glue pen for adhering your letters down, as you see displayed above.
• Use a glue dots to adhere flowers, ribbon to kabob sticks and bows to sticks.
• Take the legs of the brad and push them through the paper and spread the legs apart to attach the brads.

Birthday Pennant Banner

Pennant Banner

Pennant Banner

Spring is in the Air

I love weaving in themes or meaningful items into a photo shoot, it doesn’t have to be something obvious or something for everyone to ‘get’, just a little added something that makes the image and memory a little extra special. Eleven years ago, for our two year dating anniversary, my husband and I went traveling through Europe. One of our favorite stops was Keukenhof, a botanical garden just outside of Amsterdam, where nearly 7-million flower bulbs (most of them tulips) are planted nearly every year. Three years later, at our wedding, we chose to have tulips as our centerpiece floral arrangement. Tulips remind us of the 13 years we have spent together; they’re a sign of Spring, which was when we met, and they grow wildly when you give them some TLC and lots of sunshine. This weekend we took our growing family to Descanso Gardens, in La Canada, where I knew we would find some amazing tulips to photograph and use as a backdrop for some quick snapshots of our girls.

Spring Sisters

Photography Q & A

Would you like to know more about photography? Do you want to know how to photograph your own kids? How to choose a wedding photographer? How to work your DSLR? Etc… Visit our Facebook Page to post your question or Tweet your question to @feliciaphoto!

We really would love to hear from you!

Felicia Perry Photography

Steak and Ale Pie for St. Patty’s Day

I know this isn’t the most typical of St. Patrick’s Day dishes like corn beef and cabbage, soda bread and Shepard’s pie; it’s really an English dish, but it’s super delicious and if you use Guinness as your beer, you kinda make it Irish! I chose to post this dish because I personally prefer a crusted pie, as opposed to a Shepard’s pie, which is topped with potato… and have I mentioned, it’s so delicious!

Steak and Ale Pie

Steak and Ale Pie

Ingredients

•    Olive oil
•    1 large onion, diced
•     11/2 cup  diced carrots
•     1lb small potatoes, chopped
•     3-4 celery stalks, chopped
•     1/2 cup mushrooms coarsely chopped
•     3 cloves garlic, mined
•     About 1.5 to 2lb of stew beef
•     A few sprigs fresh rosemary, chopped up
•     Sea salt
•     Freshly ground black pepper
•     15oz of Guinness or similar Irish stout beer
•     2 tablespoons flour
•     1tsp Worcestershire sauce
•     1 to 2 cups Cheddar cheese, freshly grated
•     Two sheets of puff pastry (from the freezer section)
•     1 large free-range egg, beaten

Assembly

• About 1-2 hours before assembling your pie, defrost your pastry by leaving it out (see instructions on package)
• Pre-heat your oven to 375.
• In a dutch oven, heat about 2tbsp of olive oil on medium-high heat and cook the onions until softened (do not brown it). Add the garlic, carrots, celery, potatoes and mushrooms and mix around for a few minutes.
• Add the rosemary, two good pinches of salt, several grinds of pepper, Worcestershire and beef. Mix around and cook for about 5 minutes.
• Add flour, beer and enough water just to cover the veggies. Not too much because you want your stew to cook down and not be watery. Bring to a boil, cover and place in the pre-heated oven for about 2-3 hours. Half way through, mix the stew around a bit.
• You want the meat to be very tender and the water to have been absorbed. If this isn’t the case after about 3 hours, then place the Dutch Oven on the stove and cook down the liquid at about medium heat. Again, make sure the meat is tender and stew is not liquidy.
• When it’s ready, stir in the about 11/4 cups of cheddar. If you get a REALLY strong cheddar, use a little less, if you got a mild cheddar, use a bit more. Set aside.
• Roll out your two sheets of pastry on a floured surface. Place one sheet in the pie dish and pour the stew into the dish, sprinkle with the remaining cheese (about 1/2 cup). Cover your pie with the second sheet. Puncture the top with some slices so that moisture can escape while the pie is cooking.
• Brush the top of the pie with a beaten egg to give it that golden brown color.
• Bake for about 45 minutes.
• Have a little creamed horseradish on hand, if you like a little extra kick when you eat your pie!

Bumble Bee 1st Birthday Invitation

The big 1^st birthday!!!! I started planning my daughters first birthday about six months in advance, as I  knew I wanted to make all of the decorations myself. However, I didn’t think about invitations until two days before I would need to send them out! I was so wrapped up in the decorations that I forgot about the most important aspect of a party – the guests! I was just going to make an online card but after talking with a few friends, they convinced me to make a handmade card to compliment the theme and all of the hard work that I put into everything else.  Needless to say, these are instructions for invitations that can be easily done last minute. I made about 55 of them and was able to get them in the mail a month before the birthday. Phew!

Bumble Bee Themed 1st Birthday Invitation

Items You Will Need and Why

Make sure to calculate your measurements and the quantity you will need in order to figure out how much paper stock and embellishments you will need, BEFORE heading to the store.

• Photographs of your child: The standard print size is 4×6 so order a 4×6 image that you will be able to trim down to 3 ¾” x 4” without losing important information.
• 2 different colored card stock: Yellow for the back layer and white to mount your photo on.
• Patterned paper: I went with black with white polka-dots to compliment the bee theme.
• Fuchsia paper flower.
• Bumble bee 3D embellishment.
• Avery label 2” x 4”
• Avery label  1” x 2 ½”
• Paper cutter.
• Double sided adhesive (like scotch ATG 700 double sided tape) or acid free  adhesive squares.
• Glue dots.

All of these items can be found at Michaels; the labels can also be found at Staples or your nearest office supply store.

Assembly

• Cut the base of your card yellow card-stock 5” x 7”
• Cut the black with white polka-dots pattern paper to 4 ¾” x  6 ¾”
• Cut the white card-stock 4” x 4 ¼” (to mount photo on)
• Cut the photo 3 ¾” x 4”
• Print wording of the invitation on 2” x 4” white labels
• Print wording for gift ideas on 1” x 2 ½” label to be stuck on back of invitation
• Once you have everything cut, it will be really easy to assemble; just mount all of your items with the double-sided tape, as you see displayed above.
• Use a glue dot to adhere flower.