Polaroid excitement...

{amazing original polaroid painting by Spazberryjam}

Why hasn't anyone brought this yet??

Did you know its polaroid week next week??

I honestly can't believe that I have a polaroid camera and film I can use for it this year - and get this - you can use any instant film - so I actually have two cameras I could use...

Excited yet? I am!!

and...

to add to my excitement even more, one of my favourite polaroid inspirations Susannah Conway is writing a how to book about instant photography.

Happy weekend!! I'm off to take some instant photos :)

Wedding holgas...

First I will say that I didn't take these photos... I didn't have the time to be honest, so I gave my camera to one of my friends who has a Holga 120 - I think he enjoyed that he got to have more than 10 photos to take with my holga 135bc.

{double exposure of the gorgeous bride}

Unfortunately Helga (the holga, not the friend - bit of an odd name for a boy, ha) let me down - out of the whole roll only 4 photos were on the film... I have no idea why - maybe because some were taken inside? or maybe the film was a dud? I don't know and its frustrating!

{One handsome little page boy, I'm in love!}

Luckily for my friend I love these two from the roll and there is still half a roll in the camera waiting to be finished... I'm just really hoping that those turn out so I can give the bride and groom something...

Final photoswap 2009 update!

Hurray, I have finally finished updating the Photoswap blog and I must say I think it looks rather amazing!! Each of the 32 photographers photos included on the blog look wonderful and I am so excited by the Photoswap flickr page as well which includes 355 photos!

Amazing.

I'm definitely thinking of doing another photoswap soon, so watch this space!

Finally...

A post on blogging that I totally agree with... written by the lovely Christina at Down and Out Chic.

It's funny really as alot of people have been writing posts about blogging and some I have agreed with to a point and alot I have just been left feeling frustrated with... I haven't written anything before as I have been trying really hard to ignore the negativity but I have to be honest with you now...

I love blogging, I love my blog - I work incredibly hard on it - and I love the people who read my blog! I love the comments, I love the interaction, I love that I have made friends all around the world... and some close to home. I love that I made something from nothing and that I have found out more out about myself through blogging than I ever imagined I would.

Christina's post focused on being kind, working hard and measuring your success through your own happiness and right now its nice to love my blog without worrying that someone maybe be judging it negatively... or even feeling guilty about it's increased readership.
(I'm honestly still stunned you've all stuck around...)

Blogging is what you make it - there is always going to be negativity but personally I choose to ignore it - there is more positivity within me, my blog, my readers and the blogging world to concentrate on - so lets celebrate that instead!

It really is nice to be nice.

p.s. I hope this makes sense - I don't normally go for opinionated wordy posts.

A perfect wedding...

Isn't it funny how you can go to a family wedding and be completely calm yet when its one of your best friends weddings you pretty much cry through out the whole thing!

I honestly can't think of a time when I saw the bride and groom look as happy as they did on Saturday and their happiness truly makes me happy as well...

Hurray for love!

Polaroids from the weekend...

After all the worry of the polaroids not arriving in time, in the end I only took 3 polaroids over the weekend... It was a lot more complicated than I expected due to chemicals within the newer films and it just wasn't practical to take to the wedding as my dress didn't have any pockets to protect the photos from over exposing.

Although the first photo was too hot when it developed and turned a bit red, the second photo was over exposed somehow and the third one isn't quite focused, I still love them and I can't wait to find somewhere in our house to put them!

Polaroids and weekend away...

{an amazing amount of stuff crammed into my yellow weekend bag}

I'm so excited! My polaroids arrived today, just in time for me to go home and just in time for Kay's wedding!!

Did I say..?

I'm so excited!!



Of course the first polaroid I took had to be of Harry, isn't he cute? Though the polaroid turned out more brown than silver...

I probably won't be around for a few days, though I will try and share somethings but I have lots to do - make favour boxes and truffles, have lunch with my parents, get a manicure, decorate the venue - you know, wedding type things.

Have a good weekend!!

Sometimes...

{photos from the half finished film in my Dad's Olympus OM10 SLR camera}

... I really miss the view from my old room at my parents house.

Bempton Cliffs Panorama photos...

My little panorama plastic camera was an unexpected member of our family last weekend but I must admit, it was so much fun to play with.

Even though it doesn't have a true wide angle lens like the
vivatar slim and wide

(I would love one of those! Its at the top of my charity shop camera hunt list)

and the image is cropped by a template onto the negative I still love how the pictures turned out and it was so easy to carry around and snap away happily with.

{in fact the only problem I had with it was keeping my finger out of the way of the lens!}

{portrait panoramic photos are my favourite}

{you can just see both of our Dad's in this photo, I love it!}

Bempton Cliff's was also an unplanned part of our holiday however I think it may have been one of my favourite places we visited! On Thomas's Mum's birthday (only a few weeks ago) Thomas's Dad promised her that he would take her to see some puffins before her next birthday... he managed to fulfill his promise rather quickly as whilst we were there we saw 4 puffins! Two sleeping curled up and two standing on the cliffs.

Unfortunately none of us had a camera good enough to get a photo but they were absolutely stunning and a real highlight of our weekend.

It's Friday and I'm blogging...

...this makes me incredibly happy!

(Inspired by the lovely Lauren at The Little Things We Do!)

It feels like ages since I blogged on a Friday, so here is a bumber edition of Lauren's fill in the blanks Friday from both this week and last week, hurray!

1. The first thing I do in the morning is hug Thomas and then go back to sleep whilst he gets up and potters around – I’m rubbish at getting up in the morning, I stay in bed as long as I can get away with.

2. Every night before bed I have to check the front door is locked at least 3 times…

3. My favorite thing to do when I'm having a bad day is cook. I’ve really started to enjoy cooking all of our food from scratch and its so therapeutic as well.

4. Something that makes me cringe is embarrassing humour. I can’t watch the office or meet the parents or anything like that… its just too embarrassing for me. I’ve only just started to appreciate Curb your Enthusiasm…

5. Social situations are my favourite, I’ve never been shy and I love to meet new people and chat.

6. I like to collect cameras… hurray!

7. Weekends are for relaxing – at least this weekend will be, I’m determined!

and...

1. The strangest thing I've ever eaten was um, I don’t know to be honest... 2011 edit: Snail! Snail is strange.

2. My best friend is friends are my favourite people in the world – I’d be totally lost without them.

3. If I could live in a different era it would be the future because I’m excited about the possibilities, I obviously watched far too much star trek when I was little!

4. I like cats but I love puppies… I’m working on it…

5. If you only know one thing about me it should be I’m overly emotional when it comes to people and things I love.

6. My favorite book of all time is The Pawn of Propehercy by David Eddings – it opened my eyes to a science fiction and fantasy world and I haven’t looked back since.

7. The one beauty product I couldn't live without is concealer.

8. Blogging is my favourite pastime, its my little haven where I have the greatest blog friends, so much creative inspiration and I love it. Especially now my reader is organised and I can keep up with all your amazing blogs – I’m comment happy, hurray!

9. If I could star in a movie with any actor/actress I would want to work with Elizabeth Taylor when she was younger… she was absolutely stunning and had such presense.

10. One of the best feelings in the world is being happy with yourself… its such a tough place to reach and I don’t feel it everyday but when I do, it’s the best.

and just to complete my Friday here are some fabulous links that I've been saving up!

I love blogging :)

1. After yesterday's tape excitement I am loving all tape inspiration!

2. After yesterday's polaroid excitement, I am loving all polaroid's too!

3. Especially this polaroid engagement story, happy sigh

(via the drifter and the gypsy)

4. The only 'Keep Calm and...' poster I have ever really really wanted... I love it.

5. Some amazing 'things I love about spring' lists from Miss James and Janel.

and

6. Some amazing yellow love sent to me by Cassie.

Thanks Cassie, you made my day!!

Happy Friday! Have a wonderful weekend!

p.s. if anyone else sees any yellow links that I may have missed send them my way, I love them!

Eeeeee!

The polaroid film for the 600 cameras is now available.

Here

I just brought 3 packs!!

Thomas is possibly going to kill me...

It will all be worth it if they arrive in time for the wedding though!

Eeeeeeeeeeee!

p.s. anyone know how long it takes for them to arrive?

p.p.s. I'm so excited - I feel a little bit sick - thats normal right??

Castle Howard with tape!

You may have already seen these on Katrina's blog or the notebook doodles but I'm blogging about it anyway because I am just so excited. When I first put my photoswap post together I spent hours looking for free tape strips to use and now Katrina from Pugly Pixel has some on her blog!

Free Clip Art Tape Strips

As soon as I saw them I knew I had to use them somehow today, so here are the photos from Castle Howard which we visited on the way back from our holiday with some fun use of tape. Hurray!

The mansion was absolutely beautiful and I now really want to watch Brideshead Revisited after looking around the house that it was filmed in.

We love Scarborough!

It's no secret that Thomas and I loooove Scarborough and we both were looking forward to going back and sharing our favourite places with our parents.
(For me it was the beach and the spa, for Thomas the amazing market vaults in town...)

Scarborough also has some great charity shops and I managed to pick up two more cameras for hardly any money - a cute kodak instamatic and a panorama wide pix 35mm camera. Needless to say I started using the second straight away and I can't wait to pick up the film from it on Friday!!

I think my fuji instax loved Scarborough too!

For more Scarborough photos click here, here or here...
{We really love Scarborough!}

Bridlington...

Having lived in Yorkshire for almost 4 years now I am slightly ashamed to admit that before Friday we had never been to Bridlington (or just Brid) and now that we finally have, I just want to go back again!

Aren't these the cutest doors?

A few fuji instax mini's, I love them both!

I'm not sure what happened here...

We only had a couple of hours before we needed to get to the caravan so we spent an hour looking around the Old Town and Priory, before getting the most amazing sandwiches from a local bakery and taking them down to the seafront to eat. (Food not pictured as it was very quickly devoured...)

We even managed a walk along the promenade, an ice cream and of course, a photo of our feet on the beach :)

p.s. can you just see my yashica autofocus in the bottom photo? I just dropped off 4 films to be processed so hopefully I should have more Brid photo next week, hurray!

Amazing new sponsor love!!

Hurray! I'm back in the world of blogging feeling refreshed, slightly sunburnt (it was sunny!!!) and ready to share our wonderful weekend away.
(I took a rather amazing amount of instax minis, oops!!)

However... before I do that I am more than excited about sharing my latest sponsor with you

Readers from way back when will recognise Wendy's lovely shop Studio MME from my first big giveaway at 50 followers (including some of her amazing kodak duaflex photos) and from my Etsy 2009 feature!

So I am absolutely delighted to introduce Megan as my new sponsor as not only is Megan's shop beautiful, showcasing just how incredibly talented Megan is, I also count Megan as a wonderful blog friend as well!

Studi MME now focuses on Victorian Pen and Ink prints with some of my favourites including her Time Travelling Tourists and the stunning locket sets (here and here) by Polarity.

As well as having a fantastic shop which I adore - Megan also has a wonderful blog with her development ideas, amazing featured etsy shops every week and helpful tips for both blogging and etsy.

I can not recommend Megan's Studio MME shop and blog enough!
Go check them out!

p.s. Megan is now offering free shipping to followers of her blog and facebook page - click here to read more details.

Another long weekend!

(photo from Scarborough - we're going to visit again!)

Tomorrow we're going on holiday to Filey with our parents!!
I am sooo excited!!

So I'll be back on Monday with some excited sponsor news
and hopefully with lots of photos!
(even though I haven't actually decided which camera's to take yet...)

I hope everyone has a great weekend, I can't wait to relax, go for a swim

(in a pool, not the sea... its a bit cold for that yet...)

and walk on some sand... hurray!

Hen Party photos!

I'm so excited to say that the Hen Party was a success!! The bride to be loved it and she looked absolutely amazing...

In both her bride to be hat...

and her sash, custom printed tshirt, wings, tutu
and fluffy pink L Plate!
(I look quite underdressed in comparison!)

We went for some amazing Japanese food, where the chef played with fire...

and juggled eggs!

Then we went to a karoake bar, where had our own booth for 3 hours!

Which was amazing and so much fun!

Though I have no idea who put S club 7 on there...

Even the rubber chicken had a great time...

And we took some more fuji mini's for making another scrapbook with, hurray!

p.s. All photos borrowed from various hen's facebooks - thanks girls!

Happy Birthday Thomas!!

So first, Boyfriend's name is Thomas...
(you were hoping for Kosmo, werent you?)

And today he turns 25!!

To celebrate I decided to make him an adventure scrapbook - just like the one that Ellie has in the film Up. We both adore that film and I found loads of old photos last time that I went home that I wanted to use to make something special.

Happy Birthday Thomas!!

I love you

p.s. the photo on the page is nearly 7 years old now, how crazy is that... the cat is timmy and the card is the first valentines card he ever got me...

Hen party sneak preview...

Alot of people took alot of photos over the weekend, so whilst I slowly start to gather them together, here's a sneak preview of my outfit - I seriously love those shoes.

Shoes, tights and skirt from Primark
(Or Pri-mani as my Mum likes to call it)

The one where I pretend its Monday (again...)

So I realised half way through yesterday that it was actually Monday and not Sunday and that I had promised Anna some photos for her Much Love Monday project - obviously today is not Monday... Sorry I'm late again Anna - I do have the perfect pictures though.

Last week the yellow heart sunglasses that I won on Biscuit arrived and I am totally in love with them!

...and they really love hanging out with my latest camera finds...

which I am also totally in love with!

p.s. Did you see Anna's yellow tights this week?
I really need to wear mine soon with these glasses!

p.p.s. My hair was meant to be medium brown - but its almost black.... oops!

Oh oh..

...and just quickly, I've been featured in Rose Red's amazing 'when I was little' series.

I love Rose's blog, her amazing shops and her gorgeous dog, also called Harry!

So check out her fantastic blog and my guest post here!

It's April already?! But I'm not ready...

Oh my, I have such a busy month coming up, its unbelievable!

Its a four day weekend this week (hurray!) so instead of blogging, for the next few days I am going to:

~bake an amazing cake ~

~ finally dye my hair ~

(its in a truly shocking state! )

~ dress up as a fairy ~

(I might even share a picture of that lol)

~ enjoy a fabulous hen (bachelorette) party ~

~ catch up with some of my favourite girls ~

~ try not to cry that one of them is getting married ~

(I'm probably going to cry...)

~ eat far too much food ~

~ hopefully take alot of photos ~

~ignore the fact that Boyfriend is at a stag do ~

(in fact I might even turn my phone off)

~Eat some mini eggs! ~

(my one easter sugary treat...)

and then on Monday I am going to do nothing!

Maybe read a book? Make a nice lunch... have a nap?

Squeeze in a blog post

(though I'm not making any promises...)

who knows...

I can not wait!

I hope you all have an amazing Easter Weekend!

p.s. I might actually catch up with my links and blanks on Monday.

I have a feeling I'll miss not doing them tomorrow...

p.p.s. I won't turn my phone off...