Best Bread Recipe Ever!

I had the whole day off today so I decided to make some bread! I was starving and we didn't have anything in the fridge so making bread seemed wayyy easier than going to Hy-Vee :) Oddly enough, my sister just posted a recipe tonight as well. Check it out here.


After making bread, my mom, Brian and I went out shopping for our Super Bowl on Sunday! What a process! Next year, I think I'll leave it to mom and Brian! Not my cup of tea! Oh and why we were out, my mom bought me some hardwood floors for the studio for my birthday! That will be a whole other post! I'm sure it'll be quite the site putting that project together!


I have a TON of shoots this month so I'm excited to be posting some fun and crazy sets! Here is the bread recipe along with some pictures of the messy process..


Braided Bread


1/4 cup warm water
2 1/2 tsp yeast (one yeast packet)
1 TBSP sugar
1 cup hot water
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 TBSP butter
2 1/2 cups flour
1 egg
1 3/4-2 cups more flour

In a glass bowl, combine the warm water, yeast and sugar and set aside for 10 minutes.

In your mixer, combine the hot water, salt, sugar and butter and mix. Once the yeast has risen, add 2 1/2 cups flour, 1 egg and the yeast. Mix all together (using your mixing paddle arm.)

Add 1 1/4 cups more flour and mix until a ball forms. If the dough is still too soft, add more flour until the dough feels like squishy play-dough. Take the paddle arm off your mixer and put the hook are on. Turn mixer to the number "2" setting (if you have a Kitchen Aid Mixer) and let machine knead the dough for 7 minutes. OR knead the dough by hand for 5-7 minutes on a hard surface.

Spray a large clean bowl with cooking spray. Put the dough in the bowl and cover with a cloth to keep from drying out. Place the bowl in a warm place (like the oven with just the light turned on). A good trick my mom taught me is to turn on your oven for just 10 seconds to let it warm up. Then turn it off and put your dough in there to rise. Don’t let the oven heat for too long though, or it will bake your dough (rather than rising it). Just a few seconds is all you need to get it warm in there. Let the dough rise for a couple of hours

Using a knife, divide the dough into two parts. Divid those 2 parts until 6 balls and roll out to 10 inch long ropes. Take three ropes and braid them as usual and secure the ends.

Place each braided bread onto a cookie sheet.

My new favorite bread recipe!


Don't foreget! Only 4 more days to grab this deal! I can't wait to meet my new clients :) There is no money up front as you pay when you use the coupon!

Balloons Save The Day!

I knew there was a reason why I randomly bought balloons the other night! Do you ever walk into Target with only 3 items on your list and you have to go back for a cart because you ended up "needing" way more than those 3 items? Yeah that happened to me Tuesday night. Again. However, they saved my life on Wednesday for both shoots! Who knew they could make kids soo happy!? These girls were some of the most behaved kids I've ever seen! They politely sat there and smiled! AND they are only 2 and 4! How did they get so lucky?!

So I have a few days off before my next shoot. This is what I plan on doing with some free time..

Not quite sure what I want it to say though. Happy Friday!

New daily deal site!

Only 11 more days to purchase our Save Money Omaha deal! We are offering a 1 hour photo shoot that includes 1 8x10, 2 5x7's and 2 4x6's as well as 1 image on a disc with copyrights for only $59! Go check out their site as they are a newer company and looking to get the word out! Click here for details..

Happy Wednesday!

After last night's late night constructing these, I got to put them to use this morning for this cute, fun family! All I needed were a few balloons and these kiddos were content :) 

Off to the next shoot..

Behind the Scenes!

So I've had many people ask what it takes to come up with a set and how long it takes to prepare each set/shoot. Well, I finally took the time to take some pics (very very bad might I add) as I prepared for a few shoots today! Mind you, I started at 9:20pm and am just now finishing up at 1:50am..don't start these projects the night before folks!

I would strongly advise to consume some sort of caffeine before starting :) This was my choice; Starbucks Cinnamon Dolce Latte. I actually hate coffee and get sick every time but my beloved Scooters was closed, so I couldn't get my peanut butter smoothie.

My Iphone camera is completely kaput. Very grainy.


Here are all of my items for this particular shoot. This shoot is for a 1 year old boy and a family. For the sake of time, I'll just show you the set for the little boy. I decided to go with a "travel theme". I am making pom poms (I wish they had a more manly name, but they don't) and will have vintage suitcases and old maps for my props. Here is a picture of all of my items to make the pom poms..

I don't have a clue why I bought balloons.

To make the pom poms, all you have to do is glue a cupcake liner directly to a styrofoam ball. Make sure to glue them pretty close together to have that rippled effect. This is a lengthy project and it took me around 2 hours to complete 3! 

And here is the finished product with all 3 of them hung..

After my props are hung, I attempt to hang my backdrop. For every shoot, I usually have a different background which usually isn't a big deal but my boyfriend/bookkeeper/cook/pain in my arse was out of town so I had to do everything by myself! UGH! AND to make matters worse, I wasn't using a typical cloth/muslin backdrop. I was using seamless paper this time! Super heavy! I really wouldn't tackle this one on your own folks. So here is the beast! Believe it or not, this sucker fit into my SUV! 

After it's all set up..

You will see the finished product later today after the shoot :) 

Happy New Year!

What a year it has been for us! It started off very typical with us being slow during the winter due to the weather and not having an indoor space to hold studio shoots. I had envied people who had indoor space! Spring and summer started and I was getting the itch to make this bigger and better. I wanted this to be my sole job. My career. I was tired of being a part-time photographer. Enter the Omaha Daily Deal. This deal literally shot us into full-time whether we wanted it or not! We had no choice! It was awesome! We sold 70 deals in 2 days and we haven't looked back since. It has been non-stop since August and we wouldn't have it any other way.

We are very fortunate to have had the Daily Deal feature the business as we have met some of the nicest, most generous people I have ever met. I loved working with each and every one of them and can't wait to see them all again in the future!

Since we were growing so fast and one of our goals for 2011 was to buy a house, we started looking at houses with walk-out basements to be able to have an in home studio.We ended up closing on our house just before Christmas! So from here on out, we are no longer limited in what we can do. Being able to shoot indoors and outdoors is one of the best feelings ever. I can now do what I love year around!

For 2012, Brooklyns Photography is going to start using this blog to display our progress as we design the studio, showcase our sets and show off all of these cute photos along the way! Oh and perhaps some videos and recipes as well :) It's going to be a mix of everything from photography, designing the studio to what I'm cooking for dinner tonight!

Hope everyone has a great 2012! Take a look back at some of our favorite photos of 2011 :)

Can't wait to see these two next month!

Such a fun family!

One of those most fun weddings of all time! 

We took only TWO photos of us this whole year. It's our goal to take more!

Check us out and go "Like Us"!

Hey Everyone! Sorry it's been weeks since I've updated the good ol blog. It's been crazy busy! I always had hoped to be full-time in photography and had always wished to be soo busy that I was pulling my hair out. Well, that's happening now! Since I'm in the middle of busy season, I am only going to be updating my Facebook on a daily basis rather than the blog. It's much faster and that way I only have to post once versus twice. Once it slows down a bit, I'll resume blogging! So go check us out at http://www.facebook.com/brooklynflint

You do not have to have Facebook to check out our business page!