Happy Birthday Mum!!!

 

The main reason for our two weekends with my family is that it's my Mum's 50th birthday today.

Isn't that exciting!

Happy 50th birthday Mum!

I love you and I can't wait to see you in a couple of days and spend another weekend celebrating with you. I hope you have a wonderful day. Thank you for not just being the best Mum that Mikela and I could have asked for but one of our best friends too x

p.s. how amazing are the photos of my Mum when she was little?! I love them!

A birthday weekend...

I've been a bit anxious about my birthday this year, it's been hard celebrating my life for the last ten years on a date when so many people lost theirs and I knew this year would be particularly poignant and upsetting. Luckily my parents and Thomas were amazing, they took me away for the weekend to the beach and I got lots of hugs and licks from Harry* (in fact he came and sat next to me that birthday morning just to lick my face, I couldn't believe it) so here are a few of my phone photos from the weekend.

I took a few fuji's on the beach too but it was kind of nice to be camera free for the weekend after carrying around 6 in Paris.

Every year on my birthday for the past ten years, I've taken a moment to remember the terrible events that happened in 2001 and then another moment to appreciate everything and everyone in my life, I am truly glad to be alive and to have such amazing people in my life (friends included, how wonderful was yesterday's post?) and all I really wanted this year was to be with the people that I love and to go on the beach... and that's what I got.

*Harry is the dog btw, its totally acceptable for him to lick my face, haha, I thought I better clarify that...

With a little help from my friends...

Hey, its GeeGee and C here, we know this is a little late but it’s never too late to wish your best friend Happy Birthday!!! We decided to put this post together because Rhianne did one for each of us on our birthdays. We have been friends for 7 amazing years and we have shared so many experiences with each other.
We first met at the University back in 2004. Uni was an amazing time and one of the best bits was our trip to Berlin in 2006 (we look so young!)We loved our nights out and getting dolled up. This photo is from a Masquerade Ball that we were invited to in 2006. Then we went off on our placement year. C and Rhianne saw each other once over this time (C was in Leeds and Rhianne was in London) but we didn’t see G for almost a year because she decided to take herself off to South Africa! We made up for it in Final Year with lots of nights out, random get togethers and fancy dress!
Before we knew it, it was time to graduate. C and Rhianne stayed in Leeds but G moved back down south (150 miles away sob!) but we were determined to stay in touch. There were lots of events planned from graduation to Disney on Ice, birthdays and a trip to Ireland next month.Rhianne, you are one of the best. You pick us up when we are down, educate us on cameras (she’s obsessed, didn’t you know?), make us laugh, give us advice and overall you are one of the best friends we could ever had. (You are blubbing now, aren’t you?).
We 3 are one strong unit and nothing will ever break this bond.

We will have a proper celebration when G comes up on the 23rd.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

p.s. Rhianne's birthday was Sunday so its only a little late...

A little celebration with a dash of honesty...

So far this week has sucked.

After such an amazing weekend, it seems even worse than it actually is in comparison.

Mostly I've been disappointed... and there's nothing you can do about being disappointed in something. It's beyond your control and all you can really do is react to a situation... and this week I've been so surprised, I haven't really reacted well (especially with unexpected ankle pain too). Sometimes I wonder if I set my expectations too high... but right now, I think that my expectations are just right and that if I'm disappointed then perhaps there is a good reason for it.

Anyway, I'm trying to write this post about how the week may be turning around... and how

somehow my little blog manages to turn my frown upside down

(admittedly I have failed slightly at this and just ranted... oops. it feels good though haha)

This month is my little blogs 2nd birthday.

Can you believe that? I'm pretty sure it's first birthday was only yesterday... but there you go. Time flies when you're having fun.

and....

this morning I woke up to 600 followers through blogger!!

600 you guys!!! I still can't believe it - my faith in myself has just burst through the roof. It astounds me that so many people have stuck around and you still want to read along...

For some reason I really struggled with 500 - I hit a solid wall of terror. Alot of my favourite blogs when I started (years ago now haha) had around 500 followers, I thought perhaps it was a fluke... and people would start to drop away, bored of photos and my small obsession with cameras. There was no way my blog was as good as my favourite blogs...

But now, perhaps I'm starting to believe it is - that my photos are good enough, that my life is worth sharing... it's funny how it can take 2 years, some cameras, 600 amazing strangers and alot of worrying to realise something like that.

I don't have any massive giveaways planned to celebrate or anything really to offer you - I'm a little too unorganised for that... (that and I outdid myself with Diana mini week!) so really I'm just writing this post to say thank you.

Thank you for reading, thank you for sticking through the good and the bad, thank you for your comments, emails, messages, tweets etc... thank you for supporting me and in turn, my blog and shop... and thank you for being you.

Happy Wednesday lovelies! The week can only get better now right??

Happy birthday C!

We went to a gig last night (Smoke Fairies and Sea of Bees, amazing!) where every song sung by the Sea of Bees singer was a gift to one of her friends... I loved that idea but as I can't really write a great song, I figured I'd have to write a post instead.

I met C in my first year of University (7 years ago I think? See first picture! How young were we?!) and we've been amazing friends ever since - in fact I have no idea how I would have got through Uni without her!

Our other partner in crime G is coming to Leeds tonight for a day of fun, food, fuji mini's and frolics tomorrow and I'm pretty sure I'll hug them both like the last photo!

Happy 25th Birthday C

(the pink is just for you as I doubt you'll see it often on here any other time...)

I hope you have a wonderful day, thank you so much for being a truly wonderful friend, I'd be completely lost without you even now.

Happy weekend everyone,

I think it's going to be an amazing one!

p.s. I'm pretty sure C will show her Mum this, so Hi C's Mum :) x

Happy New Year!!

I hope you all celebrate the New Year in a fantastic fashion (we're going to be xmen!!) and Happy 2011.

Love Rhianne and Thomas

Time to celebrate!

As I was looking through my posts from around Christmas last year, I realised that it has been a year since I opened my etsy shop! How crazy is that?!?!

Where has the time gone?

Although I haven't been putting as much effort into my shop as I should have, I recently joined the Female Photographers of Etsy to find some inspiration and helpful tips on how to really get my etsy feet off the ground - and luckily the wonderful Jennifer from Jennifer Squires Productions has been helping me with some amazing advice in my shop.

Anyway, to celebrate my Etsy shops one year birthday I've decided to have a sale!!

If you buy any item within my shop you will get one 5x7 print of your choice for free!!

Which means that the prints are effectively buy one get one free - and if you buy a calender - you can choose any of the prints within the shop to get free with it!

Just write the print that you would like to have for free in the message to seller box when you purchase your item.

I've also decided to add some of my favourite prints from Krakow to the shop - so there are now 8 prints available in the Krakow section!

Thank you so much to everyone who has been supportive of my shop - either in buying prints, blogging about it or hosting a giveaway of my prints, I truly appreciate how lucky I am to be able to share my prints with you and I can't wait to see how the next year goes.

Our first ever BBQ

So this was a little while ago now but the Sunday after my birthday, Thomas and I hosted our first BBQ! We went all out! We made our own BBQ sauce and garlic mayonaise, we had beer butt chicken, chilli, burgers, sausages, olives, salad, the works... and it was amazing!! I want to have another one already...

{In the garden with Mum and Lil Sis!}

{The BBQ's!}

{BBQ'ing in our new shoes! oh my, mine are so pretty!}

{Yum!}

And to top it all off, C made me a DIANA CAMERA birthday cake!!! Isn't it amazing??? And it was delicious!!

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!

So....

{May all your wishes today come true, by Toomy☺}

...tomorrow is my little blogs one year birthday/blog anniversary thing

and today I just reached 300 followers

how amazing/ridiculous/fantastic/bewildering/exciting is that!!

I'll be honest, my blog started off pretty rubbish - I've never done anything like this before and it took me a good couple of months to get into the swing of it but now I am incredibly pleased with it, with all the amazing people I have met through my blog and some of the great projects and swaps* that I have been involved in through my blog.

Tomorrow I have a great giveaway planned which I am so excited about, so I thought I better get the gushing, teeny bit of crying and amazement out of the way today :)

A massive thank you to everyone who reads my blog - I probably wouldn't have continued to blog if Jessica, Jamie and Amy didn't start to follow my blog way back when. I always try to read everyone's blog and reading other blogs is definitely an inspiration for writing mine.

Here's to another year!

*talking of swaps, have you seen Megan's stationary swap? I love stationary, what a great idea!

10 Things to do before 2010 revisited...

Can you believe its December already?? I am amazed! I wrote this list way back in June and I am so excited by how everything has turned out!

1. Go to the cinema and see Up! Everyone is talking about how great it is and its not out over here yet.... boo!
   We saw it in 3D! I cried like a baby and totally fell in love with Dug "But its a talking dog!!"
2. Visit Wales (I've never been before, I'm very excited)
   Check! See numerous posts lol.
3. Get a holga camera (again very excited)
   Plus a diana! I'm setting my sights higher next year! Polaroid!!
4. Buy boyfriend an amazing birthday present - his birthday was in April, oops.
5. Do another Pay it Forward thing (or maybe a swap) its so much fun!!
   Well I never saw this one coming - yeay for the photo swap and again thank you to everyone taking part.
6. Get some yellow tights - I keep going on about them and I still haven't found a pair
   I brought some - I still haven't worn them yet though - oops!! I've still got the rest of the month...
7. Learn how to use a sewing machine (and perhaps even buy one first) I want to try this...
   Yeah... this one isn't happening...
8. Read the books that are piled on my bookcase which I haven't read yet.
   Or this one... I've read maybe one...
9. Bake my own chocolate French Macarons, yum
   YES!! And they were amazing - I even think tastier than the Laduree chocolate ones (though not the red fruits - that was delicious!)
10. Make something in a slow cooker - but what to make..?
    Does stew and risotto count in a big pot...? Probably not...

Well overall I think 7/10 isn't too bad - I'm going to have to wear the tights though and try using the slow cooker - lets see if I can so that this month :)

Happy December!!

Things I've learnt from blogs this week... and a holiday!

Hey my lovelies, so today is the first day of my holidays (and my birthday, woo) It feels like this week has taken forever as we wait for our holiday to start but I am more than ready for a weekend of celebrations with my family and a week in Wales with Boyfriend's family!

All the guest posts are ready to go and hopefully they will all post ok (the scheduling thing makes me a little nervous still...) I hope that you love reading them as much as I have and you will love all my lovely guest posters blogs, I promise :)

Here are a few great links to start off the weekend!

• These are the cutest camera cases ever!
• I want a wall like this one day!
• What a great idea for a wedding day (via Fleur Avenue)
• Lit up dresses hanging in trees... looks amazing!
• This is my favourite of Cup of Jo's Secrets to a happy marriage so far - I'm always leaving notes around for Boyfriend...
  

I hope you all have wonderful weekends and a great week next week and I shall see you a week on Monday with far too many photos!

20 Facts about Boyfriend and Me...

I saw this at A 'Cheery' Disposition and inspired by Adele's 'Things that Make Ian and Adele, well, Ian and Adele' I decided that now was the time to share a few snippets about us!!

I was originally going to do ten but as I got my 20th follower (oh my gosh...) I decided to celebrate!! Thank you so much to everyone who follows (and reads!) my blog - I really can't believe it! Hope you enjoy these facts!

1. We met at College
2. We were both very shy and had to be coherced into talking to each other
3. He was the coolest boy from his high school and I was one of the geekiest girls from mine
4. We went to two different universities
5. I had a bit of a Bella breakdown when he first went away (not my best moments...)
6. ...which is why I'm on team Edward!
7. We spent 3 years long distance
8. Now we struggle with a couple of days apart
9. We have been together longer than all of our friends who are getting engaged/married...
10. We have had 4 homes together
11. and we have loved each one!
12. He loves cats and I love dogs
13. I love High Fidelity because it reminds me of when Boyfriend made me mix tapes
14. We still have the first ones in my Hifi
15. Now he makes me mix CD's
16. He is great at getting up in the morning... I really am not!
17. I still get excited when I get a text message/email/phone call of him
18. We love going out to eat (possibly too much)
19. We are both addicted to Rock Band
20. He is better at it than me...

Hi especially to Gabby and Shelby! Check out their blogs!

Here's to Happiness (Boyfriend)

To celebrate my 10th follower (I'm into the double figures now, wow!!) I bullied asked Boyfriend into thinking up his Here's to Happiness list - I think he may have put the first one in for my benefit but it still makes me all glowy :)

Boyfriend's Here's to Happiness List:

1. Spending time with Rhianne
2. Seeing cats and dogs out and about
3. Eating lunch in the park when they've just cut the grass
4. Going to concerts
5. Finding a cool t shirt or record in a charity shop
6. Watching a Norwich City match (his favorite football team)
7. Yo Gabba Gabba!
8. Going to ATP
9. Playing on the xbox.
10. Going out for a nice meal

So my two latest followers are:

Adele: Poptart
I stumbled onto her blog a few weeks ago and its lovely, so excited to have new blog friends in England.

Katie: Leeds Grub
I think I have followed this blog for almost as long as I have been blogging - we love food so a blog focusing on just Leeds is extremely handy and brilliant (I found Bon Bons through this blog and also got a free coffee, yeay)

p.s. I have to admit Yo Gabba Gabba would be in my top ten as well - we have been watching it alot! Have you seen it? Its amazing!

Birthday Card (Helen) Part II

Today is Helen and her twin brothers birthday, so I thought I would share the finished version of her birthday card with you, but first...

How cute were they when they were lickle? I love this picture!

Here is a scan of the final version, I sewed two borders around it and added a few beads. It looked pretty cute in the end so I was happy. I hope she likes it.

My 100th Post!

{image from here}

Well here we are… the 100th post! I can’t really believe that I have written that many, especially considering my confession in March and that I haven’t had a blog for very long. (my first post was Feb!) How wrong I was to think that I didn’t need a blog!

It took me while to think about what I wanted to write about for my 100th blog – I knew it had to be something special! So in following the theme of lists that have been batting around the blogging world (here and here) I decided to start my own!

10 ways my blog has changed my life (for the better):

1. My favourite colour has changed to yellow (a rather substantial change, red was my favourite colour for a long time!)
2. I’ve realised its fun to takes things as they come and do something on a whim.
3. I have discovered some wonderful people (see huge blogroll!)
4. I read more – about everything!
5. I have a fringe (I love it!)
6. I took the plunge and tried red lipstick (also love…)
7. Flickr, Etsy and Poladroid - need I say anymore…
8. I've accepted design no longer dominates my life (tough after a 4 year design degree)
9. I now look forward to getting on a computer, rather than dreading it.
10. I appreciate the little things more and how lucky I am to be in love.

I started my blog as an attempt to offload my negative emotions, however it has become a celebration of things I like, things that make me happy and distractions from the negative aspects of life… which really is an awful lot better.