The weekend in phone photos...

 

This weekend was the first of two with my family and I loved every minute of it... and of course I took lots of photos of Harry too :)  I'm counting down the days until this weekend now!

 p.s. This weekend was my little blogs 3rd birthday - time flies when you're having fun.

Thank you so much to everyone who's supported me in the last three years, you have no idea how much it means to me :) x

Bourton on the Water Part 1

For 3 years of my childhood we lived in Oxfordshire and one of my favourite places that I remembered visiting from that time was Bourton-on-the-Water (the website says the Venice of the Cotswolds, I like that description!).


As it was absolutely glorious weather at the weekend, it was understandably busy with tourists and families visiting to paddle in the water so of course we joined in...



Luckily, Bourton was just as cute and lovely as I remembered and we had the best day out!

Goodbye 2010!

In some ways, this post could be a lot like my Goodbye 2009 post... I took a lot of photos of our feet, I brought even more film cameras (I now have quite a ridiculous collection) and we went to the beach a lot. I'm easily pleased :)

However, the best thing about blogging is that you remember the extra special things as well! So here are some special memories from 2010 that I particularly loved!!

In January...

I took my new fuji instax mini out in the snow and got some unexpected results.

In February...

I received some rather amazing mail!

which resulted in some very pretty pictures!

In March...

We went to Edinburgh!!!

(gosh I love it there)

In April...

We went on holiday with our parents and it was so much fun!

And K and P got married! Eep!

In May...

I officially went camera crazy!

In June...

We went to Berwick Upon Tweed

(gosh I love it there too)

In July...

I celebrated a year with my holga in style and shared my favourite holga photos from the year!!

In August...

I had a break and took alot of photos!

In September...

I had a pretty amazing birthday with a new (to me) camera and a bbq with cake!

In October...

We went to KRAKOW!

(gosh I love it there too)

In November...

We recovered from October and my parents came to visit with the little man...

In December...

It snowed...

A lot!

All in all I think 2010 was rather amazing! I still can't believe how many places that we visited and how many new things we did... or even how many pictures that I took.

I can not wait to get into the swing of 2011

I think it has the potential to be amazing too!

Let's go fly a kite...

Have you ever seen a dog try to catch a kite?

Funniest thing I've ever seen.

It could have stayed doing that for hours if it hadn't been called away...

Oh my...

Brian takes pictures of cars...

little wet camera dog tail

Camera Head Illustrations by Angela Kohler

(found here!)

My favourite Holga photos... Part 1!

*warning - this is a long photo post*

Can you believe that since I've had my holga I've taken 14 rolls of film - thats more than one a month and I don't care to think how much money. It's been completely worth it though!

Each film has been a joy and I constantly find myself looking back through my photos, remembering exactly how I felt when I heard the shutter snap and I am always changing which photo is my favourite in each film...

So here is are my current favourites from each film that you may not have seen before.

Roll 1: I heart Kirkstall Abbey!

Roll 2: Our first holga shadow photos, I love the colours!

Roll 3: Hurray for Scarborough and double exposures!

Roll 4: A different side of Birmingham…

Roll 5: Me taking a picture of C taking a picture of G, taking a picture… haha, love it.
Oh and theres another gorgeous Abbey in the background…

Roll 6: I had to include Harry of course!

Roll 7: I love the mountains in the background.

Roll 8: The gorgeous beach at Llandwynn Island

Roll 9: Some pretty bikes in Caernarfon

Roll 10: I’m spotting a trend of bright colours and high contrast!

Roll 11: Playing with my fish eyes lens. I should really use it more…

Roll 12: One of my photoswap photos I sent

Roll 13: A beautiful stream in Malham.

Roll 14: Kirkstall Abbey again, I love it.

Eee, I think I'm going to have to do a similar post again next year, this has been so much fun (though harder to pick just one from each roll than I thought) I love my holga!!

p.s. you guys are amazing, such a fantastic response to the giveaway, I'm happily overwhelmed.

Happy birthday little Holga...

So its been a year and a couple of days since my little Helga the Holga arrived in the post from Hong Kong.

Needless to say, this camera has changed my life.

Its funny how a few pieces of plastic can have such a dramatic affect on your life but its true. Without this camera my love for 35mm film would not have been reignited, I wouldn't have started a rather large collection of cameras, I never would have opened my shop and I definitely wouldn't have had so many people interested in reading about my camera adventures.

(thanks you guys, you are amazing!)

My little holga is my go to camera, I love the colours, I love the sound of the shutter, I love waiting for the photos to be developed, I love its accidents and its surprises and I honestly can't imagine travelling anywhere without it.

I was planning on celebrating my little holga this week but I have so many posts to catch up on and I'm still recovering from the evil wisdom tooth... so my holga week is going to be next week!

I'm hugely excited about it and you definitely should be too!

p.s. If you havent been around long, you should definitely have a look at my holga posts, you'll fall in love too!

When fuji instax mini's go wrong...

On Saturday we went to Malham, the weather was gorgeous, we took a picnic, sat by waterfalls and everything was good.

Until my fuji instax didn't work - cue complete panic...

After opening the back of the film I realised that one of the photos had a small nick in it (can you see in on the top left?) which meant the photo couldn't pass through the rollers, so I had to pull it through resulting in the yellow fuji. The other photo didn't even make it through the rollers (I don't remember why) but I did have fun pushing the chemicals up and around the photo - you can even make out a partial thumb print on it - how cool is that?!

As a result the next two pictures came out with light exposure on them, however you can still make out the pretty waterfall.

In fact I kind of like them...

I really love the two that turned out properly though - especially my little holga - I put her down for a second and though she looked so lovely that I had to take a photo!

Too much fun with clipart...

A few weeks ago I mentioned that Katrina had some free wasabi tape clipart on her blog and now not only does she have that but she also has some cute tags, more fun tape and this amazing paper buffet selection of clipart. Katrina is officially amazing!!

As soon as I saw the new additions I knew I had to play with them and I can honestly say that I had far too much fun putting this together (it's my first digital scrapbook page!) It also provided the perfect opportunity for me to pull together some random fujis and photos that I've been dying to post but I wasn't really to sure how...

For all of Katrina's freebie, click here and if you haven't had enough of lovely tags, bags and doilies, check out her amazing shop on etsy as well...

p.s. the bike photo is for Amy!

p.p.s. I used a program called Paint Net instead of photoshop to put this together, its a bit simpler but its free!

Blanks, links and yellooooow!

This morning I woke up thinking it was Saturday and I'll be honest - I sulked all the way to work that it wasn't - but now I'm so glad its Friday - I love filling out the blanks, sharing some amazing links and encouraging my own obsession with yellow (its bordering on a problem surely..?)

I'm also emailing my favourite girly's, looking forward to my yummy lunch, planning my outfit for tomorrow (which is rare for me lol) and trying not to reblog the amazing cuteness that are puppy photos on Tumblr (eep, too cute!)

( Fill in the Blanks Friday - Inspired, as ever, by the lovely Lauren)

1. Today I am wearing my usual: jeans, little black vest, dark grey cardigan and pointy flat pumps (it tends to be the colours that vary...)
2. My favorite childhood food was my Mum and my Nan's roast dinners and my favorite food now is roast vegetable risotto - I love roast veg and any risotto really - but together... yum!
3. A day that I am too busy to do a blog post is a day that I (really) am too busy.
4. The last movie I saw was Zombieland - we're still quoting from it, haha and the next movie I want to see is Kick Ass (totally agree with Lauren there) and Ponyo - why haven't I seen that yet?!
5. My favorite smell is roast vegetables because it means I'm about to eat some...
6. A weird little quirk I have is I like to do everything in round numbers - if I have to decide on a number it usually ends in an 0 or 5...
7. When I take personality quizzes they always say I'm exactly how I am - how do they do that??

And here are some amazing links for you from my browsing this week - I've really fell in love with blogging again today - I found some great new blogs and I've been slowly sorting my blogroll out and reminding myself of blogs that I still love - hurray for blogging!

1. Make your own mozerella cheese?! I need to do this!
2. An amazing collage with a pug! I love.
3. I love gorgeous illustrations.
4. This is one of those ideas that I wish I had thought of: blogging around the world. Enjoy.
5. My all time favourite outfit is in this perfect yellow post - can you guess which one it is?

I am super excited about this weekend - so far our plans are: a beer festival, yummy curry round our friends, baking, sleeping and making a serious dent in Mass Effect 2!

Have a great (and hopefully sunny) weekend!

p.s. I completely forgot to mention this before but I wrote a guest post for the lovely Chrystal at Geez Louise about my ideal home - if you're interested then click here .

A rather amazing giveaway!!

I love finding new blogs but I especially love when bloggers find me and lead me back to their amazing blogs!!

I've just recently started reading Laura's blog The Madness of Mundanity

but I am already smitten, here are few reasons why

Laura lives in London

(I heart london)

She works in a vintage camera shop

(oh my, I want to visit so bad)

She has just started a Vintage Camera Project, eep!

(I might borrow this idea with my cameras, brilliant!)

She has some amazing charity shop finds

and

she is holding a fabulous giveaway!!

I was hugely tempted to enter but really, I already have a lomolitos camera and some lomography photo clips and we're not eating sugar so no Haribo for me... but I had to share it!

(the polaroid brooch is super cute though...)

And I also wanted to fill out the blanks, so here goes!

I always:

Oversleep

Skip breakfast

Kiss boyfriend goodbye

Cry at sad films (alot)

I sometimes:

Wear heels

Forget to take my glasses off when I fall asleep

don't text back

sing in the shower

I never:

wear skirts - I have the best intentions but it never happens

have warm hands or feet

remember to take my camera when I really should have brought it

stop getting excited about getting to go home.

Happy 101 award

Firstly a massive (and mildly sheepish) thank you to everyone who left comments and tips on my last post... as soon as I hit publish and completely admitted to myself (and you) that I was struggling - everything didn't seem so bad and your comments were so uplifting and supportive.

Hidden amongst the comments was the Happy 101 award from the lovely Courtney at Just a Little Mishap. Thank you Courtney, this was just what I needed to cheer me up and to start this week on a positive note!

Rules: List ten things that makes you happy and do one of them today. Oh. And remember to link to the person who tagged you and pass this little bit of love on to others.

I love happy lists, so here goes!

1. Seeing Boyfriend happy makes me happy! He started a new job today and when he rang me at lunch it sounded like it was going well - he deserves some good luck so yeay!

2 This little puppy is melting my heart at the moment - I seriously can not wait until we can get one

(and yes I will be dressing my puppies in cute little jumpers too)

3. Homemade quorn cottage pie which was rather healthy looking until we put an unhealthy amount of cheese on top - and theres leftovers for sometime this week, yummmm!

4. The whole lace and tape section at Papermash! I looove.

5. Terry's chocolate orange, yum!

6. Kung Fu Panda

"There is no charge for awesomeness... or attractiveness..."

(teehee)

7. Randomly remembering funny parts from films (including number 6) and laughing to myself, much to the bewilderment of people around me (apart from Boyfriend who knows me too well)

8. My sony E-reader... I haven't read this much in a long time and I love it.

9. Loco Roco 2 - possibly the happiest and cutest game ever!

10. Making exciting plans for this year, its going to be fun!

And some lovely ladies that I'm going to pass this onto:

Chloe from Sean and Chloe

Courtney from Green and Pretty

Soul Jane

Lise from Every Last Drop

Rogue from Little blog of Horrors

p.s. I sorted out my reader, woohoo, it is now much more managable and the thing I'm going to do is eat some Terry's chocolate orange (even if it is Boyfriend's!)