Summer photo challenge update #2

It's been a while but I've been in beautiful Italia gathering lots more photos to use for my challenge! I know I'm cheating a little by grouping some photos together...I have no excuses other than these are my favourite photographs!

#2- Sunflare and #11 Macro

 
#4 Beach and #26 Orange

 #8 Water and #13 Summer Fun

I think this photo of my hubby driving a boat around Capri makes him look likes he's part of a 1960s movie!

  #12- Black and White

 

#17- Summer drink

Elderflower champagne- yum yum!

 #18 Relaxation and #21 Summer Read

 #22- Shade/shadows

Pompeii

 #23 - Heat

This white against the blue sea always reminds me of the heat of places like Greece and Italy.

#30- A walk

Reconstruction of Abbey Road- except it's in Pompeii!

Summer photo challenge update #1

Hey all,

Well I've been off on travels this last few days including to lovely Wales which has given me the chance to start taking pictures towards my photo challenge. Like I said in my previous post I would love for people to get involved in this and there are details on the post as to how to do it.

So update number 1.....

#6- A Flower

#9-Summer food

What is better than a burger and chips in an English pub garden in the summer sun?

#14 Bokeh and #15 Summer fruits

Lovely apples growing in the summer evening sunlight

 #16 Landscape

I know this isn't strictly a 'landscape' but I love how you get a taster of the landscape in this picture of what is being seen through the cottage window.

 #27 Reminds you of your childhood

Paddling in streams= childhood bliss

 #29 Clouds

These clouds looked stunning as the sun set over the Welsh hills

Summer photo challenge

Ciao lovely readers! Being a teacher I'm fortunate at the moment to have 6 WHOLE weeks off to recuperate from a manic year. However whilst I am love love loving having some proper free time (most of which I am using to sit in front of the telly and watch the Olympics) I need some challenges to keep me having a little focus at least this summer.

One of these challenges is I've found an awesome (or annoying according to the hubby) app for my phone which helps me learn Italian for our impending trip- hence the greeting at the beginning of my post!

The second challenge I've set myself is to further my photography skills after earlier this year I invested in my first DSLR camera. So, I have written myself a summer photography bucket list which I intend to complete during August. The list is as follows.....

 

More importantly I would love other people to join in my challenge! So there are several ways to do this. Firstly you can upload photos to a Flickr group I've set up here. Secondly you can e-mail me photos that I can upload to my blog (if you do this please give me your name/nickname). Thirdly add comments to my blogs with links to your Flickr accounts or blogs. Fourthly- be creative! Come up with your own way to participate!

I'd rather have more people involved than anything so if you only want to participate in some of the photos then do so! If the only camera you have is your i-phone (and you're addicted to Instagram which is my recent discovery) feel free to join in. How ever much and whatever you want to contribute will be welcomed!

Happy snapping!

P.S. If you can't read the list so well then you can find it on my Pinterest account here or on Flickr here.

There is little better....

....than a steaming mug of hot chocolate made with proper Belgian chocolate and cream. Enough said.

On cupcake goodness...

It has been far too long since I've been on here. I'm currently in the process of trying to balance out my work life with what should be priorities in my life, unfortunately work seems to take precedent these days. That's not to say that I don't love my job, and most importantly think spending 6 hours teaching teenagers as a privilage (yes many would think I am mad) but teenagers are funny, wonderful , unpredictable and certainly stop my life from being dull. Teaching has however meant I've not had the time to do many creative things recently including spending time blogging.

However, I finally had the money (now I'm no longer a student- woooooo!) to spend on a DSLR camera which makes me very hapy and has stirred my blogging juices again. So here is the product of a new camera and some cupcake making for my dear Daddy's birthday. I'm pleased to say it tasted even better than it looked!

My happy place...

I've been having some family time back where I used to live pre getting hitched so have had the time to go to one of my favourite places in the world, the edge above my old village. If I had a difficult decision to make or just wanted some peace and quiet this is where I used to go. I always felt because you were so high up and looking down on the rest of the world that it put everything else in perspective. Do you have a similar place?

A blessing in disguise

So my immune system did me well for 6 months and then has failed me miserably in the last 1 month having had two stinking sets of colds (accompanied by a sore throat before and a nice long cough after) within 4 weeks. This last bout of nastiness has been in the first proper week off I've had since December which meant I actually rested properly but, being me, after sleeping and watching TV for about a day I started to get bored and realised that being stuck inside on a sofa all day meant I had the time to do some crafting- so this is the product of my cold.....

It's from a kit from a really awesome new magazine called Mollie Makes which is a simply beautiful 'lifestyle and craft magazine'. With the first issue they included the felt pieces, templates and instructions for this phone holder which was ridiculously simple to put together but looks rather lovely! It's made my cold seem a whole lot less worse.

Tomorrow's the big day....

Phew! It's been far too long! I'm on my teaching practice at the moment which has meant barely time to breathe let alone blog. However I'm back though maybe sporadically for a while.
Anyway, it's the Royal Wedding tomorrow and I've been so excited about it this week. Every programme about Royal Weddings or Kate and Wills long romance has been watched on TV, every article in the newspaper we read about the preparations has been read, and everytime anything about the Royal Wedding has come up on the news I've grabbed the remote to turn the volume up. Tomorrow I will be with a small group drinking bucks fizz out of commemorative (and very cheesy) paper cups, eating home made jam tarts, watching coverage of the wedding from 8 a.m. in the morning tilllate in the afternoon and no doubt shedding a tear or two.

Taken from MamaPop

My (slight) obsession with the Wedding is to the annoyance of my poor hubby who is so unexcited about the prospect of the Wedding has escaped to Scotland on a walking holiday with another male friend. I'm sure there are many like him but the country, and it seems the world with two billion watchers estimated to be tuning in, are ready to party. The flags are up in London, street parties have been organised across the country and the bank holiday has now started! The British Royal family despite much bad press in recent years are still loved by many, and after all we all love a good wedding to shed a tear over and raise a smile. The country is still realing from the recession, some say this is precisely why we should not be bothered about the wedding tomorrow as it's a drain on tax payers money. However, it's a good excuse for a knees up and if it brings a smile across the country tomorrow I say cheers to Wills and Kate! I just wonder why my invite got lost in the post....

A sweet moment

I cannot believe me and my new hubby have already been married for over six months. Before Christmas I was super busy and run down, which inevitably bubbled into being perhaps a little irritable with my loved one. So when I came in after a long day at work after mulling over in the car what a rubbish wife I am sometimes finding this written on our little chalkboard (G being my hubby).

Day 11- Blog-vent

Finally a bit of crafting to go up. Here are my little blanket-stiched tree decorations which I'm doing in stars and hearts. They're so easy to make, as all they are, are a piece of felt cut out with a blanket stitch embroidered round the edge. Even the hubby thought they were very nice!

Day 2- Blog-vent

It's been another day off school today due to the snow, and I've not felt too well. Hence rather that catching up with university work, as I perhaps should have been doing, I decided to treat myself to a day of sewing. My aim is to make a load of Christmas decorations for our flat this year, and this is the first one I made today.

Day 1- Blog-vent

I'm breaking my rules on what blog-vent is about on the first day, however, Britain (for those who live far away) is covered in a blanket of snow right now. Whilst for those living outside of Britain and where you have a lot of snow, the amount of snow we've got looks a bit pathetic. For most of us Brits though snow causes chaos. We don't get snow regularly enough to warrant buying snow chains for our cars, or for towns/cities to buy an influx of snow ploughs (though you do see the odd one knocking about). The British defence of snow is to either a) go nowhere at all which means 100s of schools close for example or b) go out in the car and end up skidding about all over the place and usually end up stuck in traffic from an accident.

Yesterday I was told not to try and make the normal one hour journey over to where I work, and today the school I'm currently working at was closed and I suspect looking at the weather forcast, may be tomorrow too.
However, snow is Christmassy and of course very pretty so my first blog-vent pic is of a snowy scene just outside our house.

I would like a dress like this please....

...and then somewhere to wear it to! Enough said!

Image from So Vintage Patterns

Christmas Cakes and Sparkly Goodness

I'm sat in our living room exhausted after two long and rather difficult days, with the comforting smell of Christmas cake wafting out the oven making it all feel a little bit better. However, the big dilemma now of course is how to ice it. Trust me I need simple 'dilemmas' like this in my life right now! So, the best idea I've come across so far is this one off the Martha Stewart website...sparkly goodness, eh? Comments/ideas much appreciated please...

Martha Stewart

This week I...

A while back I wrote a blog post with the same title at the end of a lovely, yet a little tough week. It's been another one of those this weesk, so I decided to write a similar type post to remind myself to focus on the good things in life. So this week I;

Got to spend some quality time with my hubby and realised once again what an amazing hubby he is.

Enjoyed running in two beautiful places- along the south coast and in the gorgeous Chatsworth Park.

Made a batch of chocolate brownies which were super delicious- in fact according to my sister-in-law, they were the best she's ever had!

Was reminded of how beautiful autumn leaves are.

Had loads of fun with all my nieces and nephews.

Sung my heart out to the Sound of Music soundtrack.

Ate fish and chips with mushy peas (a rare but delicious treat).

Spent an afternoon in my Mum's cosy flat watching two films whilst supping cups of tea.

Ordered lots of material to make pretty Christmas decorations with.

Enjoyed sitting in front of the telly with my Dad with a glass of wine and a tv dinner.

Remembered what real fresh air smells like (as opposed to city 'fresh' air).

Helped my Dad out in the garden whilst listening to 70s cheese on his Ipod.

Had one of the most delicious meals cooked by my best friend (who used his own homegrown pumkins...genius), and at the same time got to enjoy his fab company.

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat...

Christmas is suddenly creeping up, which makes me particularly happy as it's my favourite time of year. However, amongst my busy schedule of becoming a teacher, doing housework and trying to actually get a bit of chill out time, I've got some Christmas decorations to make for our flat, a Christmas cake, mincemeat, and most adventurous of all, a fabric advent calender which I'm going to give to my two nieces for Christmas. I've already got in mind what I'm going to do, but I've been looking around for some inspiration on colours and I found these at All About You. Aren't they gorgeous? And they're all handmade!

Picture from All About You

 

Picture from All About You

Picture from All About You

Picture from All About You

My own to come soon hopefull!

Bye for now!

Sew pretty!

Hope you get the above pun....sew (or 'so') pretty! Very corny I know. Anyway, I'm trying my hand at embroidery for the first time at the moment, although being a trainee teacher at the moment I have virtually no free time, and when I do I tend to enjoy being in a vegitative state in front of the TV. However for my TV sins I have made some progress and this is what I've done so far. Will keep you updated with my progress as the next part involves French knots and beading which seem a little daunting at the moment. It will eventually form a beatiful thimble pod, or if you glue it altogether an unusual Christmas baubel...you'll see!

Our wedding- the reception

Final part of our wedding at long last...drumrolls please!

All the table names were named after places that were special to us as a couple.

 This isn't the best picture but this was a board that I put together of me and my new hubby growing up which was in the entrance. The little box on the table was for people to write a postcard (rather than in a guest book) and pop it in the box.

 My best man's speech. My face says it all!

 This time, my hubby's best man speech- again the face says it all!

 My best man and I dancing 'Beyonce' stylee!

Our wedding- country photo shoot

After the service, my husband and I chose to go for some photos in a field situated at the back of the village where we'd got married. Having grown up in the village, I'd been for many a walk through this field (including since I'd been seeing by husband many a romantic stroll) and it was also on my running route, so for me it was a very much a place of significance. And this is the result....

Just some more of the reception to come in a few days!