Just a heads up… Over the next couple of weeks my blog will be transitioning from anowlsnest.com to thelittlestbee.com.
It’d be wonderful for this to happen seamlessly and for anowlsnest.com to redirect you there but, alas, things aren’t lining up quite right in the process.
Anowlsnest.com is set to expire and you’ll be able to view this same blog at anowlsnest.wordpress.com. As soon as thelittlestbee.com is totally ready to go I’ll post here again.
:)
Almost two weeks ago I photographed a very intimate wedding at the Earle Brown Heritage Center in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.
Both the bride and groom flew in from out of state for their wedding day which made their wedding day the first day I met them! I typically prefer to schedule a face to face meeting with my wedding clients before their wedding and at their venue, if possible. But when working with out of state clients this, of course, is rarely possible.
I toured the venue the day before with the wedding coordinator so I knew that two other weddings were taking place there on the same day but when I spotted the bride I was sure she was the one. :)
We introduced each other and got to work – our time together was short and the weather wasn’t overly conducive to a bride in a wedding dress.
Here are a few of my favorites:
There is a big fountain on the Center grounds and just as we headed over there for photos the sun came out from behind the clouds. We eventually found ourselves in a decent lighting situation but the wind was blowing sprinkles on us from the fountain. It made for a few neat photos. :)
These were possibly the only few trees left with trees in all of the Twin Cities metro area.
The bride made genealogy trees for both herself and the groom. During the ceremony their mothers were asked to come up and place them on the mantel.
The ceremony was quick, to the point, emotional, and quite entertaining. :)
They literally tied the knot. :)
And sealed it with a kiss!
Congratulations!! :)
I drove out to Cottage Grove to meet with a couple to review their wedding contract and do their engagement session. It was wonderful to meet them and to explore their wedding venue – Hope Glen Farm. There were quite a few neat photo spots. I can almost imagine their wedding already! We had a lot of fun and here are some of my favorite photos:
Congratulations C+K! I can’t wait to photograph your wedding in 2013!
I absolutely could not wait to get home, upload these photos, and get to work. Last Saturday I spent two hours with these adorable twins. Those two hours were jam packed full of exploration, excitement, snacks, and even tears. When all was send and done I had close to a billion photos to look through. That’s right… a billion.
While you probably wouldn’t mind seeing nearly a billion photos of these cuties I’ll save you a bit of time and show you my most favorite few. And by few, as always, I mean a bunch.
 |
| As the air was quite cool in the morning we began indoors inside the Guthrie Theatre. |
 |
| We went straight up to the Amber Lounge. The girls had some time to get comfortable and do some exploring. |
 |
| They were pretty interested in being held for a while, which is understandable. I was new and we were in a weird yellow room with giant windows. Pretty strange, right? |
 |
| Soon the girls got a bit more comfortable and peered out the windows into the fog. |
 |
| Same eyebrow raised. :) |
 |
| This little one was pretty into doing her own thing.. and quite quickly! |
 |
| We made our way down to the fourth floor where everything was a bit more normal colored. |
 |
| There was so much outside to look at it. I love getting reflections in these windows. :) |
 |
| There are giant comfy black chairs to climb on throughout the theatre. |
 |
| We of course blew kisses. |
 |
| And looked out the windows some more. |
 |
| And constantly asked for more snack. |
 |
| And licked the windows. |
 |
| And wondered why window licking was happening. Ew. |
 |
| After the girls had about enough to exploring inside we went out, just past the Mill City Saturday market. |
 |
| We found this nice wall but the girls weren’t overly interested in looking at me. |
 |
| This little lady spoke to my heart by exploring the numerous rocks. |
 |
| This one was pretty pumped that I brought bubbles along. |
 |
 |
| We managed to get them together for a few seconds at a time. |
 |
| Though that didn’t mean they were actually going to do the same thing or look in the same direction. |
 |
| No comment. :) |
 |
| More snacks. |
 |
| I always get a few of these reaching for my camera shots. Love them. :) |
 |
 |
| :) |
 |
| The girls were nearing the end of their available attention and tolerance for me and my camera. We headed down to the boardwalk for a few more shots before calling it a day. |
This is the last of mini sessions from earlier this month at Minnehaha Falls Park. I was looking forward to this one all day! I used to work with this mama over 1.5 years ago! It was great to meet her family and spend a little time with them. I ended up with so many fun photos!
Here are some of my favorites:
These just about capture everything – close family, confusion, goofing off, runny noses, crying little ones… :)
This mini session from a couple of weeks ago was a whirlwind. I had an opening as someone cancelled last minute. Just prior to my first session starting I got a call from someone who saw via Facebook that I had a cancellation. She was prepared to round up her daughter’s friend and her mom and run to the store for new outfits, and meet me at Minnehaha Falls Park in a couple of hours.
They arrived on time with adorable almost 15 month old friends. One thoughtfully stood still and seemed to consider the sights that autumn brings with it. The other was constantly on the move – up, down, running, dancing. They were just about completely opposite during the entire 25 minutes. My shutter was speedily closing and opening constantly during the entire mini session. The girl’s mom’s did a great job at trying to grab the girl’s attention and attempt to get them to be near each other at least occasionally.
Here are a few of my favorites:
And another adorable fall mini session family: :)
I received a little box at my front door. Inside I found a 4 fl oz bottle of Dermagist Detoxifying Cleanser and a 1.7 fl oz tub of Dermagist Clarifying Cream. I started to use them on Thursday, Sept 27 and did my bet to use them both twice a day, as the instructions suggest.
The fact that I’m reviewing this product is actually a little bit funny. If you know me well or you follow my blog in relative detail you may know that I don’t use much soap, especially big complicated soaps. I make my own laundry detergent, I use baking soda instead of shampoo and body wash, I sometimes make our toothpaste (not right now though, I dropped the ball in buying more coconut oil). So.. me.. reviewing a face cleansing system? I was approached about it and I thought it’d be interesting to try and to do some research about the actual product.
Unfortunately like became absurdly busy since receiving this package so I wasn’t able to do all of the research that I had hoped. But I did a little bit and I’ll share that with you here. I’ll start off by saying I was disappointed that I could not find a full ingredient list on the Dermagist website. It’s possible that it’s there somewhere but I was unable to find it.
Detoxifying Cleanser
Aqua
Sodium coco sulphate – Basically the same thing as Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, which is something that I avoid completely. Sodium coco sulphate (notice the special way of spelling sulfate differently?!) is less pure than SLS so it doesn’t lather quite as well and some companies seem to be using it because it doesn’t have quite as bad as a rap as SLS and sounds “better”. Coco sounds nice, right? Well SCS and SLS are both made from coconuts but that doesn’t change the fact that they’ve been linked to eye, skin, liver, and kidney damage.
Cocamidopropyl betaine – Another surfactant derived from coconuts. It is a known skin, eye, and lung irritant. So… good for your face?
Cocamide MEA – Coconuts, again. This actually safe!
Glycolic acid – A fruit acid most often used to remove rust. Pure Glycolic acid in high concentrations is considered to be deadly. The US government considers any product containing more than 10% Glycolic acid to be hazardous. It is commonly used in cosmetics as an exfoliant.
PEG-12 Dimethicone – Can cause cancer and contains toxins that affect reproduction.
PEG-150 Distearate – Can cause allergic reactions.
I’m not going to continue researching but here are the rest of the ingredients:
Glycol distearate
Pichia/resveratrol ferment extract
Butyrospermum parkii (shea butter)
Matricaria recutita (chamomile) extract
Aloe Vera leaf extract
Citrus Tangerino oil
citrus aurantium dulcis (orange) fragrance
ammonium hydroxide
phenoxyetheanol
Potassium sorbate
Clarifying Cream
Aqua
Cetearyl olivate – Generally considered safe. Has never been found in any human tissue.
Sorbitan olivate – This is a relatively new chemical. It is derived from olive oil and is generally considered to be safe.
Isopropyl palmitate – Again derived from coconut. This is used in many products as it helps to moisturize. It has been known to cause acne, black heads and white heads when used in excess. A little odd wouldn’t you say?
Sodium ascorbyl phosphate (vitamin c) – A powerful antioxidant.
Stopping my research here but the rest of the ingredients listed are as follows:
Cetearyl alcohol
Glycerine
Niaciamide
Pichia/resveratrol ferment extract
Tocopheryl acetate
Sclerotium gum
Citrus aurantium dulcis (orange) fragrance
Iodopropynyl butylcarbamate
Phenoxyethanol
Caprylyl glycol
Regardless of how you feel about the chemicals and possible side effects I just listed I honestly wouldn’t recommend purchasing this product. It’s possible that my skin didn’t react overly well to it because I went from basically rarely washing my face and rarely using soap to using this.
What was my experience?
Both the cleanser and the cream were easy to apply.
I did not at all enjoy the smell of the cleanser so I was less than motivated to keep using it. The cleanser was creamy and didn’t lather too much, which I prefer. It didn’t sting my eyes or leave my skin feeling too dry.
The cream went on well and felt very full of moisture. It did not leave my face feeling like it had a sticky or dry film on it after applying, which I’ve found happens with many facial lotions.
After using both products per manufacturers instructions I found myself with one of the worst pimples I’ve had in a long time. A giant gross and painful whitehead. Not to mention other smaller pimples in various places across my face. I also saw no reduction in any facial scaring, but that could be because I was distracted by the pimples.
The products have a few great reviews on the Dermagist website so it’s possible that my experience was unusual but regardless of the effectiveness of these products I do not recommend them due to the list of the ingredients that I have shared with you. I assume if I kept doing research on the additional ingredients that I didn’t get to I would uncover additional information that wouldn’t sit well with me. But if I didn’t I still won’t use SCS or SLS on my skin or the skin of my family. And the contradictory ingredients in the cream seems somewhat shady to me.
I wanted to like this product. I wanted to find something safe and effective to help out with acne prone skin. But I didn’t find that in Dermagist Detoxifying Cleanser and Dermagist Clarifying Cream. I was prepared to offer a giveaway of this product but I can’t bring myself to giveaway a product that didn’t work well for me and that I will not willingly apply to my own skin.
If you’re still interested though, this set can be purchased for $89.99.
I was not paid for reviewing this product or writing this review. I was given Dermagist products free of charge for the purpose of this review.
Here is another wonderful mini session family! :)
I cannot adequately express to you how many tomatoes we had from our garden this year nor the emotions those tomatoes brought forth. When I noticed there were too many tomato plants growing what did I do? I allowed them all to grow. When I noticed that I’d have 1,000,000,005 tomatoes this year what did I do? I picked every single one. I hate wasting when I grow. So that has left me in somewhat of a panic trying to figure out what to do with all of the tomatoes.
I experienced some wonderful picked vegetables at my CSA’s Chef-in-the-Box demonstration. I immediately thought it’d be a good way to use some of my tomatoes but immediately forgot the quick pickle process right after I asked. Oops.
After some searching online I found a few ideas and modified a few things. I had to remove the sugar and increase amounts as I’m dealing with large volumes of tomatoes here. Seriously.
So here it is… a super simple and quick pickle recipe for tiny tomatoes. It’s easy, yummy, versatiles, and has a bit of a kick!
You’ll need:
1 1/2 c raw apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 c water
8 tsp coarse kosher salt
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp lemon juice
24 oz small tomatoes (cherry, pear, or grape)
1/4 c fresh chopped dill
4 medium thinly sliced garlic cloves
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
Wash the tomatoes and remove the stems.
Combine apple cider vinegar, water, kosher salt, maple syrup, and lemon juice and heat until salt is dissolved. Set aside and let cool for 25 minutes.
Cut the tomatoes in half and put in a large bowl.
Add the dill, garlic, red pepper flakes and mix.
Put the mixture into whatever container you plan to use. This recipe fits perfectly into three mason jars.
Cover the tomatoes with the cider vinegar mixture and let sit open for a few hours.
Refrigerate for up to three weeks and use however you wish!
Some suggestions for use:
As a side
On top of a salad
On chips or crackers, along with sour cream (would be a great hors d’oeuvre or snack for guests)
Give as a hostess gift
an owl's nest 