Lately* on Instagram

*As in within the last two months, haha! I'll be organised with it one day I'm sure...

Lately...

 

... I've organised all my negatives and photos. That box is three years of film photos, all labeled, though I do keep finding more around the house still.

... we went to see the Olympic Torch just 5 minutes away from our house.

... I've spotted lots of pretty flowers.

...I've become obsessed with finding green doors...

... developed a love of feet and tile photos.

...made new horse friends...

...enjoyed looking up around Leeds (and taken part in the #lookupleeds tag)...

...been amused by misspelt names, we got mine right eventually but Thomas's is missing the H ...

... hung pretty things up in our house...

I've averaged 90 photos a month since I got Instagram, crazy.
You can see more of my Instagram photos here.

A little catch up...

Last week was crazy busy... this morning was crazy busy. 

In fact I've only just relaxed and finally had time to pull a blog post together.

I have so much to catch up on, argh! 

I spent Saturday morning trying to relax and looking through Flickr and catching up with Photo Meditations.
and I am hooked.
So far I am loving this course, I even created a gallery of my favourite inspirations at the moment on Flickr. I've never used Flickr like that before, so it was very fun to do and so amazing to see photos that I really loved.

I just want to go out with my camera now... shame it's getting dark already.

p.s. this post is a bit messy but I just wanted to get something out there, 

I have no idea what else to say haha. Hi?

  
p.p.s. I've fallen in love with this photo again, I remember thinking the sky was pretty when I took it against the silhouette of the person but I actually love the dramatic lines at the bottom of the photo now too.

New blog layout...

Eeee, I'm excited about this.

So I mentioned a while ago that I was getting twitchy about my blog layout but all I did was update my post and sidebar font... well, but now I've completely updated it.

I wanted something fresh, clean, with less 'stuff' and I wanted a side header (it still changes when you refresh too, yeay). I loved Katrina's layout Lemon Meringue on Powered by Pastries with the smaller header on the side and I loved as well what Ana and Elle did with it - but it wasn't exactly what I wanted... but I think this is.

Some aspects still need tweaking but I'm in no rush to sort everything out straight away, so I apologise if the images to the right still look a bit messy, I think I'll be tweaking it for a while yet, my last layout took me months to get right.

p.s. I finally a have photoshop at work, woo (though I still think Paint.net is amazing for free) so the pretty sparkles are for C and because I've wanted to use the sequins from Pugly Pixel since I first saw them :)

Hello!

I'm back!

And so far, I'm feeling so relaxed and rested... Let's hope that lasts longer than a day. I'm so excited to be back, even though I really enjoyed a break from practically everything in my life, it's good to return to things and remember that I enjoy them.

Thank you so much to everyone who left a comment to see if I was ok - I'm sorry I can't go into more about the bad news - it's not really my news to share but I truly appreciate the comments and emails that I recieved, it really helped. I'm feeling much more able to deal with the news now even if I'm not feeling any better about the news itself and that's a step forward that I'm happy with.

I don't really know where to start now I'm back - I got some new cameras (eep, see one above), I took some photos, I saw a lot of Beatles related things, I played on the xbox (alot), I had a few lay ins, I watched Krufts and lots of films, I had a day in my PJ's, I caught up with some blog reading, I willed our daffodils in the garden to grow faster and I generally took it easy... oh and the highlight of my week was seeing Picasso's Weeping Woman - it was absolutely beautiful!!

I just noticed that I reached 650 followers, so please if you are new here (or you don't comment often, or you just want to...) say hi! I'd love to get to know you and check out your blogs! I'm still blown away that I have more than 10 followers, so thank you again to everyone who sticks around.

It's good to be back!

p.s. The rather lovely and beautiful Illy is having a giveaway of one of my prints on her blog, if you fancy winning one of my prints click here!

A few things!

Yikes, it's November, can you believe that already?? I'm still catching up from September!

How was everyones weekend? Ours was amazing!! Honestly, the party could not have gone any better and everyone was dressed up so well! I'm planning on sharing a few photos soon, so keep an eye out for that.

Just a quick post to share a few other things with you!

1. My uni roommate for two years is now part of a team writing a blog...

and not just any blog but...

The new Hello Gorgeous blog for Benefit Cosmetics UK.

Impressed?!?! I am!

And also slightly jealous, I want to write a blog for my job!

If you're from the UK, please check this out - it's brand new and also a great resource for any new Benefit products that will be coming out (including a rather amazing looking liquid eyeliner, I've now got my eye on...) Pop over and say Hi!

2. Remember my Autumn Styling post with Cushions from last week?

It's now on the Voucher Codes Magazine Website - along with some other choices by lovely UK bloggers!

It's definitely worth a look for some Autumn Inspiration!

3. It's nearly christmas! Which means its time for the beautiful

Micaela from Dolce Vita's Ornament Swap!

I adored the ornament I sent and received last year, so I'm super excited about it this year!

Check out Micaela's post about how to enter!

4. The calenders for my shop are nearly ready - I ended up doing a holga favourites and also a Krakow one - so I hope you are as excited about them as I am.

5. I have so much else to share with you now! I might end up doing two posts a day for a while - I'm quite excited about it, I think I might even do two today :)

A little catch up!

{Thomas and I overlooking the amazing city of Krakow. Happy sigh. }

Hey lovelies!! I am back!

I've missed you! But, how well has my little blog been looked after over the last week?? Such a massive thank you to all the lovely ladies who helped me out - Ashley, Adeline, Andrea, Celeste, Clare, Franca, Caren, Allyn, Elizabeth and Megan - please check out their amazing blogs - you might even find a giveaway and a new layout in there... I hope you enjoyed their posts as much as I did!

Krakow was wonderful, amazing, beautiful and completely overwhelming in the best way possible. Of course I now have 50 fujis to scan and 6 films to develop so I won't be posting about it straight away but I am so so so excited about sharing everything with you! Eeep!!
It's going to be amazing!

Also, I came back to over 500 followers!! Wooohooooo! I wish I had something for you all, a giveaway or something - but I'm so unorganised... lol. I honestly am so happy you are all here though and still completely amazed that you've all stuck around! I love you guys!!

I hope you all had an amazing week - I feel so excited to be back to blogging and I can't wait to catch up with everything I've missed :)

It's nearly August...

Which means it's nearly time for The August Break...

I missed a blog post yesterday - it shouldn't be a big deal but I am completely gutted with myself - I only had two days left for full posts this month and my life overwhelmed me - I'm busy at work, I'm busy planning our move (we found a house, it has a garden but I'm saving pictures for August!) I'm busy balancing my life around our families (which shouldn't really be so much hard work should it?) and my blog suffered.

I know its only one post I missed and I shouldn't be upset but now that amazing post (which is currently still amazing but only in my head) will have to wait until I have the time to do it which will probably be September... and I don't have the time to put together a great post today... The last thing I want to suffer is my blog - its my baby, my safe haven, my access to other blogs and amazing friends... My blog is one of the main things I want to thrive and grow and although I know I will be posting photos - taking this teeny step back right now feels like a leap away.

I know I need it - the fact I'm completely overwhelmed by everything and almost crying over a couple of missing posts (and the fact I can't decide on what to have for lunch...) means I need to break from one of the aspects of my life but now its come to it - I don't want to... I need to, I'm ready to, but I just don't want to...

I guess I'm posting this as a reminder to myself that my blog will still be there - you guys will still be there - I'm not leaving, just prioritising right now... and although prioritising sucks, I do aim to catch up on all your comments (you all leave the best comments!) and catch up on my reader (which is pretty shocking right now...)

So... happy weekend and happy August, I'll see you on Sunday with my first photo!!

A few things...

{Jarritos Love by Pugly Pixel}

It seems like I'm always catching up with everything at the moment but here are a few things I've been meaning to share for a while.

~ I finally finished updating my blogroll ~

It looks rather lovely if I do say so myself - its now broken down alphabetically so its a bit easier to look at and it gave me an excuse to play with Katrina's tape some more...

~ I joined Kristin and Megan's network at BonBon Rose Girls and became a Rosebud ~

I love these girls - their dedication to blogging and the community is amazing so how could I not?

~ Katrina has a new photography shop ~

I love Katrina's photography and her new Pictures and Prints shop is lovely!

(in fact I borrowed a photo from there for this post, isn't it pretty?)

~ I've joined Susannah's August Break ~

What with moving, family visiting, sorting out the photoswap, fun trips with friends and catching up with all your blog comments (I'm so behind sorry!) during August, I decided to take a tiny (teeny tiny) step back blogging wise and I'm going to enjoy blogging with a photo or two a day for a month - it should be fun to share the chaos with you... There's no way I could stop blogging, I don't want to, but sometimes life gets hectic and this seems like a happy and fun compromise... (and I'll prob end up writing things anyway...)

Check out all the participants so far here!

~ A massive hello and welcome to my newest followers! ~

Over 440 seems like such a massive number right? I'm slightly overwhelmed... but excited you're here! If you are new here and haven't left a comment before, please say hi - I love seeing comments and checking out everyone's blogs :)

Happy Thursday!

Back from holiday...

Hello! So I'm back to the real world and mildly stressed out by Leeds buses already... we had such an amazing 10 days though, I almost wish that it wasn't over. I did enjoy sleeping in our bed last night and using our shower this morning however...

We haven't had time to sort through all the photos from the week yet (we took 3 camera's in the end) but I will start going through them straight away - I can't wait to share them with you :)

But, first a massive thank you to my guest bloggers - Paulina, Clara, Wendy, Chelsea, Fallon and Alissa - weren't their posts just amazing!! I could access my email occasionally on my phone in Wales (the O2 signal there is not great) and it was wonderful seeing all the comments that everyone left in response.

Also the biggest thank you to Simon (mentioned here) my sister's boyfriend who rescued the week by making sure that they all got posted. I have no idea what happened but on Sunday, half an hour before we had to leave to catch the train Blogger decided that it didn't want to schedule my posts so he made sure each one was posted on the correct day (phew).

Another thank you to the lovely Nicole at My Teacups in Peony who featured our love story and my parent's love story as part of her It's a love story project. If you haven't seen this project then pop over and have a look - its actually perfect!!

and finally a big hello to all my new followers - Lille Diane, Vania, Lauzc87, Aquaheart, Shokoofeh, **Nicole**, Kirsty, Pixel Wild Child, Kim Bohstedt, Mina (check out this blog, I love!), Lathaj01 and Britt_Martin16 - If anyone has a blog I haven't linked to please let me know! My reader is currently well over 1000+ but I will try and get a chance to read everyone's blog as soon as I can!