Happy New Year!

I hope you a very happy, lucky and sucessfull 2013!

I will start this year with a few resolutions, as it is traditionally done.

Everything is tied to my One Little Word of choice: PLAN. As is the verb to plan, not the noun.

One Little Word is a idea which I believe was started by Ali Edwards, where you choose a word on which to focus for the year. She runs a workshop every year, but I am not using it do to anything creative with it, just to remind me to plan.

I am a huge procrastinator and can be sidetracked easily, so I have to PLAN every day, setting myself small, achievable goals.

Some of my resolutions are to eat better, exercise and educate my children.

I am also doing Project 365 again. A photo a day for the whole year. I hope to do better than I did last time, but I won't consider it a failure if I miss a day or two every now and them. I am more focused in learning and practising in every shot than having a perfect record.

Inspired by the theme suggested in the ILP forum - Myths, Legends and Make Believe - I took my first couple of photos.

I only started officially today (01/01/13), because it's neat that way, but I took a practise shot yesterday.  I taped a Christmas decoration on the window and placed a pot of tulips in front of it.

And today's is called Amazed. The "fairy" is something my son got with his Happy Meal in McDonalds, I was going to put it in the bin, I am glad now that he didn't let me.

Happy Christmas!

Photo album ordered!

I love when I can cross a "to-do" item from my list. The item I crossed last was to make an album of my photo a day project.

What I had set to do initially was to take a photo a day from 31/10/2011 to 30/10/2012.  From the start, I decided I wanted to make an album out of it. {what's the point otherwise? 365 random photos in your hard drive?}. I designed a double page for each week - one photo on the left, 6 on the right. And if I missed a day or two, I'd just reduce the number of photos on the right. Easy, and the album would still look OK, and the number of pages limited to little over a 100 instead of potentially 366!

Last week I finished filling my album and this week I designed the cover and sent it to blurb.com to be printed. Can't wait to see the album.

Here's the cover is designed.

The postage stamp shape is Maling Label No. 4 by Paislee Press. Font is Bebas Neue.

This is the last photo:

No! December already?

I am not what I did in November - it went so quickly and I have nothing to show for it.

Well, almost nothing.  Last post I mentioned I had made some cards for charity and didn't take photos. Afterwards I made some more and took photos of 3 of them.

I am not great at colouring, so at first, since they had to be quick cards I didn't think in using some of my images - but eventually I changed my mind and use the snowman in a few of them.

The sentiments are ready made, a digital download from Sahlin Studios.

I also wanted to use a decorated bauble, but couldn't find anything I liked so I made my own and cut it with the Silhouette.

The outside shape I designed in PSE and the inside is part of a snowflake brush by Ars Grafik. Originally the design was much more intricated, but the Silhouette wasn't cutting it right so I had to simplify it. My kinda card. Minimal.

Thanks for looking!

Reflection time

I am not sure if it is with everybody else - sometimes I am focused in scrapbooking, sometimes it is on photography. At the moment it is photography, I am taking a few photos and have been reading a lot.

I made a few Christmas cards in the weekend, but didn't take any photos before I gave to a friend; she's got a stall in a fair to raise funds for a charity and asked for my contribution.

This is one I made a while ago, I stamped in the cardstock with doily patterns in white and green.  It isa good idea to add  a bit of interest in a plain background. I used the same technique in some of my Christmas cards, using blue cardstock and white and dark blue ink - it looks a bit like snow, which is seasonal.TLF!

September 2012 summary

We didn't do much in September, the only thing I wanted to register was that the kids went back to school on the 3rd. Looking at the layout now I think I should add a little note recording which year they are at and their teachers' names.

The day after...

Halloween last year, I started my Photo-A-Day project. I thought it was project 365, but I forgot to take into account that  2012 was a leap year. Silly me. Not that it mattered, because I didn't take a photo everyday, but I took a photo most of days. I haven't counted how many but I would guess my "success rate" was somewhere between 300 and 320. I have uploaded most of the photos in shuttercal - when I am done, I'll count them up and let you know.

What is worth it? YES. Did I become a better photographer? Probably. What could I have done better? I should have challenged myself more. Did I enjoy it? Yes. 

This Halloween was my first free day, no obligatory photos. But of course, I took some (bad) photos of  my children in costume. Also we drove from Tralee to Dingle and back - beautiful scenery - it was a rainy day with sunshine too,  and we saw a record number of rainbows, 4 or 5 I think. We were in the car and couldn't stop, but I managed to take a few pics from the car.

And yes, I will continue to take a photo a day.

I am giving myself a few days' break. I want to first make an album with all the photos I took. Also I want thing about what I want to accomplish with my second year of photos.

If you have in any way interested in photography, it is a great exercise, I thought I would become to hate it at some stage but it didn't happen. Granted, there were some days (weeks!) when I couldn't think of anything interested to photography but on the whole it was a great experience.