Week 11 in photos

It was quite a dull week with lots of doctors and hospital appointments and blood tests but thats not interesting but my weekend was really lovely. I went to stay in Napton on the hill which is a little village in the countryside in the midlands near Leamington. I went with my boyfriend and we stayed with his family. I had really missed the countryside (which is also where my family live) as I hadn't seen or experienced it in months and it is where my heart definitely is. We spent the whole weekend eating good food, drinking lots of delicious wine, walking the dogs in the gorgeous countryside and siting by the aga cuddling up with a cup of tea and the dogs. It was a great way to re-charge our batteries and have a nice little escape from day-to-day life. Now i'm back, we are preparing for halloween by making cookies, cake, and spooky decorations. I'm really looking forward to sorting out my vampire costume tomorrow.

Halloween Costume Swap

I was so excited the other morning when this little brown paper parcel arrived at my door. I could tell from the cute pumpkin paper that it was from Lizzette over at Creativity Lizette and that it was my gift for the Halloween costume swap. I had previously told her that my costume for halloween is going to be a vampire so I couldn't wait to see what she was going to make for it.

The handmade gift she made was a stunning necklace which she had sewn 'I bite' onto, it also has a little pendant of some teeth. I love the style of it and it will look great with my homemade red and black vampire cape. The necklace was presented inside a cardboard coffin box which was so intricate with a little rat, spider and lock with key on it.

Another gift she made was an eyeball magnet. It is so unique and such a clever idea and will look great on the fridge. The other items in the box were a coffin cookie cutter, (which we are going to use to make a big pile of cookies for the party) a pumpkin scented candle and some halloween sweets :) it is such a thoughtful gift and I cant wait to see what she thinks of the gift I sent her :)

Week 10 in photos

Firstly, this post is 2 days later than usual because I was so exhausted from my weekend and came down with a horrible cold :( The beginning of my week was quite pleasant with a nice little shopping trip with my housemate (seen in the previous post) then we had a delicious roast cooked for us all by my boyfriend. It was soo nice as it reminded me of home and my mum's sunday roasts. The rest of the week was spent preparing for the weekend. On Thursday me and my housemate Tamsyn went up to Brighton as we got press passes to cover Bastille. The gig was amazing and it really tested my photographic skills as the venue was so crowded. The next day we went to cover Swn Fest in Cardiff. after an 8 hour journey (should have been 4) we arrived in Cardiff and went straight out to town. It was such an amazing night, it had been soo long since i'd been out. The rest of the weekend was spent watching and photographing (photos will be posted soon) amazing live music, eating scrummy food and drinking..... lots. Lets just say that the weekend definitely took the life out of me and i've been pretty poorly since my return home. At least we had an awesome time when we were there and I'm lucky to have my boyfriend looking after me so well.

1: Me, 2: Luke cooking a roast, 3: My housemate, when we stopped for hot choc and shortbread, 4: Roast dinner, 5: Enchiladas that I actually cooked :) 6: Giant bags of sweets, 7: On the road, 8: ....more sweets (pretty aware of how many sweets we ate this week)

The weekend!!!

1: Getting excited before we left, 2: Me and my press pass, 3: Bubble tea (strange but delicious, I recommend giving it a try) 4: Best bagel i've ever eaten, 5: Before a night out.

A little bit of retail therapy

Me and my housemate decided we needed a bit of retail therapy but are both penniless, so we decided to visit our favourite road for shopping. It is very near to our flat and full of junk shops, second-hand book shops, vintage and retro shops and charity shops. So we set ourselves little budgets and saw what we could get. I only took £10 with me and managed to get this little pile of treasures. We also stopped off for a rest in a gorgeous little cafe which we discovered recently and enjoyed a mocha and shortbread, it was such a lovely day out.























I had been looking for a 'make do and mend' print for a long time now but never got round to buying one, then we found this one in a little gallery for £5 and the postcard just 65p. 

The goodies below were found in one of my favourite junk shops, it is full to the ceiling of gorgeous items and the rooms just keep on going and going, I could spend days in that shop rummaging through the boxes of hidden treasures. I need to find a nice cardigan or jumper to sew these buttons onto now. The dish is now holding my rings and the plate is for a candle. The mask below was found in a charity shop, I couldn't resist it for just 50p. I do love a good successful shopping trip where you find loads of great bargains. 

Week 9 in photos

I didnt have much planned for the week, but had a very pleasant first half, with a nice little lunch out with a friend and some friends round ours for a big chilli :) However, then I had another hospital appointment on thursday and was convinced I would be discharged from that particular department as an outpatient, instead I have to go back for more blood tests and follow up appointments, this was very disapointing and frustrating but something i'm used to by now. The weekend started off with a lovely trip to the cinema and drinks with my boyfriend, which was really nice. Saturday didnt go quite so well though, with the realisation that my CFS is getting worse again. This lead to some upset but it finally got me to the decision to make the effort to take more positive steps to improve my health. After all of this, I was lucky to have my first experience with modelling, I definitely feel more comfortable behind the camera rather than in front of it. However we got to dress up in lots of costumes (which I love doing) as we were modelling for the new brochure for a theatre (I will share some of the photos when I see them).

1: Me and luke in costume at the photoshoot, 2: after cinema drinks, 3: glass I decorated for my hairclips from an old candle, 4: delicious chicken with plum sauce, salad and potatoes, 5: new pen holders I made, 6: Halloween chocolate, 7: Photography reading.

I had a lovely little surprise waiting for me on the doorstep the other day - this lovely halloween postcard came from Lizette over at Creativity Lizette. She is my halloween costume swap partner and this postcard is to give me a taster of what is to come. I posted her gift this week too and cannot wait to see what she thinks of it and what she has made for my costume. I'm getting very excited for halloween now, definitely one of my favourite holidays.










Blossom, who is one of our little rats, was a very poorly this week, so bad that we thought she might not pull through. However after lots of attention and cuddles, she is now back to her usual, mischievious self and much healthier. We are so happy and relieved that she got better and made a full recovery.

This has been a longer 'Week in photos' post than usual but it has been a strange week. I look forward to having a very fun week ahead with lots of exciting photography things going on :) Dont forget you only have a week left to enter the Handmade Jewellery Giveaway!!!

Pictures of Pillows

I'm a really big fan of pillows, one of the mottos my mother and I live by is that "you can never have too many pillows" as this is proven in both of our living rooms..... they are everywhere. I love that they can be very personal and give a homely touch to any room as there is a little story behind each one of my cushions. I tend to spend more time in bed than your average person so I have made it a really comfy place which reminds me of my home and my family.

The one above is my favourite of my cushions and is really personal to me (also shown with my sock monkey and his little crochet scarf). I made it when I was very unwell and going through some tough stuff, the cushion helped me to deal with things as it was a fun distraction. I used to make lots of sock monkeys, when making a sock monkey, it takes a whole pair of socks apart from a few inch square of fabric, over time these squares were just thrown into the bottom of my sewing bag, when deciding that I wanted to try patchwork, they seemed like the perfect thing to use. I then added ribbons, buttons and felt shapes, to give it a unique and homemade feel. My dear mum then helped me to make the cushion cover for it to go on and we added a gorgeous ribbon on the back which we found in a charity shop. I love this cushion as I have fond memories of putting it all together and I love the look and feel of it too.

This little owl cushion is a new creation of my mum's she is very talented and came up with the idea of them. I love them, so I was soo happy when I got to be the proud owner of one :) the patterns and colours suit my room really well.







This cushion, I made for my boyfriend for his birthday last week. He absolutely adores badgers and I realised he had no cushions in his room, so I made this cute one for his bed. Here is a quick tutorial of how I created it.

1: Firstly I found an outline of a badger online and printed it out. 2: I then cut it out of black felt by pinning the paper template into place and repeated this for each section of the badger in the correct colours, 3: I then laid out each piece in place, 4: then stitched around each piece to fix them together, I also attached a pearl bead as an eye, 5: I created a cushion cover out of a tea towel, in a simple 3 piece way with poppers for closing (I will do another tutorial for this as I forgot to take photos of this stage) 6: I then cut out leaf shapes from felt and fixed them to the cushion by sewing along them to look like veins in a leaf.

To wrap his gift I used brown paper and garden string, I love the old fashioned and traditional look of it. I also wrapped a bundle of his favourite sweets and chocolate with the inside of an envelope and string to match.

Dont forget to enter my Handmade Jewellery Giveaway!!!

Week 8 in photos

It was quite a quiet week at the beginning, with doctors appointments and being poorly so of course some crafts were done to pass the time. On thursday it was my boyfriends birthday, so we had a lovely day of eating sweets, watching films and drinking at the pub with our friends, then in the evening, we all went for a delicious meal at an american style diner. He loved the badger cushion I made for him too (will put up a post about it soon).

1: Luke and gizmo having a birthday snuggle, 2: name badge I made for myself for a photography based idea i'm working on, 3: back to red nails.... oh how i'd missed u, 4: my little rattie blossom keeping me company when I was ill in bed, 5: new make-up, 6: Me and Luke at the American diner, 7: name badge I made for my housemate Tamsyn for her face painting.

Dont forget to enter my handmade jewellery giveaway!!

Handmade Jewellery Giveaway!!!!

This is my first giveaway!! As you may have read before, I love jewellery making so in some free-time I have made this selection of pieces. One lucky winner will get to choose one set of the jewellery shown below by picking one of the numbers. Each piece of jewellery is one-off and hand crafted by myself.

Its really simple to enter, all you have to do is follow my blog using Google Friend Connect and put a comment below stating that you now follow it.

To be in with an even better chance of winning, 'like my photography Facebook page and comment on here stating that you have done so. Let me know what your favourite thing about photography is in another separate comment below and if you choose to do all three methods of entering the competition you will have 3 chances of winning the jewellery. Please provide your email adress in each individual comment. The winner of this unique jewellery will be picked randomly using a random number generator and will be contacted by email.

This giveaway ends at midnight on Monday 22nd October 2012.

1: matching braclet and earrings set, deep purple colour beads, 2: memory wire wooden bracelet with wire hoop earrings, in blues and pine colours, 3: red flower and pearl earrings and bracelet set, 4: wooden patterned beaded bracelet and necklace set with large wooden pendant.

(All earrings shown, have been changed onto new hooks or hoops after modelling for hygiene reasons) I would like to thank my lovely housemate Amy for modelling the jewellery for me.

Good luck!

Alyse Portraits

Here are some of the photos from a shoot I did with my dear friend Alyse a few months ago. She is a very talented singer/songwriter and asked me to come along to photograph herself and some behind the scenes photos of the filming of her latest music video. The shoot was loads of fun, as it was in my home town I got to see the family and some of my friends, while coming home to delicious home cooked food and a warm comfy bed after each day of shooting. Even though I had to get up at 4 in the morning each day, lots of coffee and chocolate and smiling faces got me through it. It was such fun and everyone who worked on the video was lovely. As Alyse is also a model, the portrait shoot was lots of fun and went very smoothly, we are both soo happy with the end results. Here are some of the portrait photos, if you would like to see the behind the scenes photos and more of the portrait ones then head over to my Facebook page.

Week 7 in photos

It hasn't been the healthiest of weeks, a lot of it was spent ill in bed. I caught another bug and my cough still wont budge leaving me with little sleep and very painful legs. Once I started feeling better mid-week, my boyfriend caught one of the many bugs i've been carrying around, so I went from being looked after to looking after him. However, we had a lovely relaxing few days of films and tea in bed which made us both feel a lot better. I spent a lot of my ill time this week sewing and making things. I spent a few days on my boyfriend's present for his birthday which is this week. I will do a post and tutorial for it soon, I am very proud of it and it was such a fun project to work on. I also made some children's bunting for a child's party and my gift for the Bloggers Halloween Costume Swap. Was a very creative week and I really enjoyed all the projects I worked on. I've already started coming up with ideas of things to make for Christmas presents now. Will have to keep a note of them for the next time i'm feeling unwell.

1: My little sewing machine, 2: coffee coffee coffee, 3: 'Synchronise' dance crew, 4: gingerbread numbers, 5: camembert, 6: snuggled up with a blanket, 7: beautiful fabrics my mum kindly sent me, 8: my first mince pie of the year, bring on winter.