SoCal Inspiration!

Living in Southern California is bringing on a whole new steaming vat of inspiration. I am absolutely dying to do a vintage/surfer themed session full of VW vans, Keds, Heart shaped sun glasses and beach cruisers. Here's my little inspiration board:

(Click to enlarge)

Sources: intentionallyuntitled.wordpress.com, http://weheartit.com/entry/3273360,http://www.girlyengeeky.nl/english/, http://www.nollie.tv/2010/03/joni-sternbachs-vintage-surfer-portrait-photographs-in-unique-tintype.html, http://shoerepertoire.com/store/2010/05/, http://ursulamayes.com/2011/01/sneak-peak-nirve-bike-shoot/, http://artessencestudio.com/blog/?p=1068, http://shestandsout.wordpress.com/

DIY Prop!

Props are MUY importante. Of utmost importance to those of you who don't habla español.
I am a big time crafter, so when the perfect prop does not materialize its self, I make it materialize. Even if it means I have to kick it old school and break out the paper mache-- which is what I did in this case. I was inspired by my kick ass collection of 75c vintage books I found at a local thrift store. I have an obsession with typography and have been DYING to incorporate that into a photoshoot along with my beautiful, drool inducing old books.

I decided to go with an ampersand (which is the fancy technical name for the "and symbol") because, how cute!?
I started off with sketching one on some cardboard and cutting it out like so:

THEN I covered it with torn up pages from an 80's romance novel about a midwife with amnesia and painted it with yellow and orange paint:

I decided to NOT apply a second coat, because I though the text showing through looked pretty cool.
Here are a few of the cute pictures I took using this uh-dorable prop:

I'm so proud! *Sniff sniff! I will definitely be using more paper mache props in the future.

-Mandy