Sunday 22 February 2009

Some of my latest 365 Photos


I'm sure you must have all heard of the 365 by now. Becky Higgins came up with the concept & designed an album, complete with accessories, especially for the purpose of recording a year's worth of photos, simply by taking one photo per day. Any followers of Becky's Blog will be familiar with the fracas that ensued when people actually tried to order the album. It sold out within minutes & a huge amount of people were left disappointed. I love Becky's blog & the debacle was through no fault of hers. The above image is something I've wanted to capture for quite a while. My delicious brad collection. Yes, all mixed up! There is some loose order actually, small, medium & large! I just tip 'em out & roll 'em back in...



I decided that ordering one of Becky's Albums would be a near impossible task as I only learnt of the 365 in early January. I hunted high & low for a suitable album here & ended up finding one in some random store that sells a variety of everything! It's a photo-album with plastic sleeves divided into four equal sections so that, when opened up beyond the first page there are 4 sections to the left & 4 sections to the right. With 8 sections in total I can use 7 sections for my week's worth of photos & the remaining section for my journalling card. I had to buy 2 albums because I had to use the sleeves from one to add to the other because there weren't enough in each to complete the entire year. The albums have a lever-arch mechanism so one can add or subtract plastic sleeves but unfortunately there were no plastic sleeves for sale separately. Luckily the albums cost R70 each (USD7) so they were inexpensive.


This is another photo of some of my nyummy embellishment stash. I have tons of brads, flowers & buttons, so they are on my "hit" list at the mo, of things that I can use with gay abandon! The photo above this one is of my blog (as you can see!) & I love how the light has reflected in a ripple effect on the screen. The idea of the 365 is to take a photo of something that is meaningful in your life on that particular day, in order to give a general overview of your year in the end. The sections in my album take jumbo sized portrait (vertical) prints but I don't want to be limited by having to take all my photos vertically (& keep forgetting anyway!) so I am printing the landscape (horizontal) ones postcard size so that I can fit them into the compartments on a backing card. This adds some visual interest & gives space for some light embellishment.



This is a photo of one of our pc's, with Cami's screensaver - Brandy & Mr. Whiskers. It's her favourite cartoon at the moment.


This is the view from one of our bedroom windows - one I haven't been able to enjoy for 4 months now because I have had to keep the curtains closed. This is because our landlord has been stalling all that time on providing paint to repaint the wooden window frames that were replaced by a carpenter last October (they had been eaten from the inside out by borer beetles). After 4 months of persistence, empty promises on his part & disappointment on mine we were finally given the go ahead & the requisites yesterday & got the job done. Now I can finally enjoy this pretty patch. A little pond with a scooped out bamboo tube serving as a feeder spout for the flow of fresh water to our family of little fishes & noisy frogs!



This is rather depressing evidence of the inefficiency of the municipalities of the new South Africa. It should read "Port Shepstone" but was actually painted by someone & erected by someone else, yet obviously not one of them noted the error. We just laughed...gotta laugh! The photos not perfect. It's not supposed to be. The 365 is supposed to be stress free & achievable. If I have time to edit I do, if not, I don't. As Ali Edward's says - let go of perfection...I had to take this whilst stopped at a traffic light in the rain I tell ya...



Another photo I've been meaning to take for at least a year. Cami enjoying her staple diet - Microwave popcorn. As my mother would say "she survives on the smell of an oiled rag!" This little girl eats next to nothing, weighing 23 kg's at 8.5 years old, and she's tall...She can be coiffed to perfection as she's a natural beauty but this is the real her - Miss Messy Head we call her as she hates to brush her hair & only does so for school in the morning, under duress. I used to style her for photo shoots & have some lovely photographs, but have come to understand that that is not the purpose of scrapbooking. It's all about everyday moments (you guessed it...I'm a serious Ali Edward's fan!)


Reilly in familiar pose. On my bed, doing his homework, in a position (froggy legs) that only he can acheive...


Chelsea & Jack on their way to sleep in Chelsea's bedroom. Our girls share a room, as do our boys, but, because Chelsea & Jack have a later bedtime than our 2 little ones, Jack actually sleeps in Chelsea's bedroom. It's incredibly hot here at the moment, so the boys usually sleep in just boxers. I blacked out the top of the photo for the sake of Jack's reputation, as he was horrified I wanted to blog a photo of him sleeping under a pink & purple duvet cover, lol!



Chelsea is actually a very good scrapbooker, but has given it up (hopefully temporarily) in favour of more frivolous teenage pursuits. At the moment, painting her nails is high on her list of priorities, & yes, the colour of her choice that day is the bottle you see out of the drawer, black! I have to choose my arguments carefully these days & have decided that if anything is removable or undoable I can live with it...



This is my forever baby, Daisy Bucket (named after a scrapbooking line). She's now nearly 4 months old & still seems tiny next to the BFG (Coco). Here she's taking it easy on my scrapping chair. I find I end up standing for the bulk of the time I scrap anyway, so don't mind her commandeering my chair, not that I have a choice!



Here is my firstborn furbaby, Cocoa Blush (named after a paint tint). She loves to lie on the dining room table because the wood is cool for her in this heat. She hates the camera, she thinks it is some type of weapon as she is rather more highly strung than Lazy Bucket. I love how the light shows a perfect reflection of her in the wood.

Well, there you go, that's a selection of 12 out of my 22 photos for February so far. If you like the idea of the 365 but think you are too late or it's too daunting, why not just take some "lifestyle" photos as & when as you could always do a monthly layout instead. If you find it hard to think of what to take, walking around your home & garden is always a good place to start. Also, focus on your hobbies & regular pursuits, as well as, of course, your loved ones (including your pets).

If you are interested in my 365 photos, for ideas/inspiration, please leave a comment, as I'm considering it as a weekly feature, but would hate to bore you all to death, so be honest, is it a hit or a miss???!!!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

ooooH...that was all soooo interesting. I felt like I was almost there with you ... love it, love it ... love Jack and the bed time story!!HaHa ... also, I found it really interesting that my cats seek out all the warm spots over here(Tiggys fav spot is the bonnet of my car after I've driven it!!)and your cats are sleeping in the cool spots ...

Vicki said...

Good for you on finding an alternative to the kit - lots of people here in NZ did that too. I'm not doing it as the thought of doing something with an extra 365 photos was just a bit too daunting.

Michelle Ramsay said...

Most interesting, so please blog it some more!

Jenny in Durbs said...

Good to have you back. I missed out on the 365 photos but think its a great idea - may just do something on my own as I like the thought of recording everyday things. Had a chuckle at Jack's colour issue !! I also think some arguments are best left as you are the only one left disgruntled, you need to go with the flow on some (not always easy)LOL.

Stefanie said...

I love it, keep up the good work, a glimpse into your world is fascinating. The Sheppie sign - that's a keeper too.

Desire Fourie said...

Would love to be kept posted on 365 days in your life. My o my, you do have a massive brad stash ... better start creating layouts just featuring brads, he he he .... Hugs from Desire