Friday is upon us again and for me it's been the busiest day of the week! I have a weekend ahead of meeting new clients and having photoshoots with some of my favourite clients, well you're all my favourites of course for different reasons!! On Saturday I have Denise and Stevens Pre-wedding shoot, really looking forward to that and then on Sunday I'm off up to Linden Hall to shoot Adrian and Stephanies pre-wedding shoot so I'm crossing my fingers for more of this gorgeous weather and the photographs should be completely spectacular!!

So I'll end the week with a dreamy photograph of Looby I took in the park the other day, Happy Weekend everyone :)

Few quick photographs

I have such a busy weekend ahead (E-Session tommorrow, big family shoot on Saturday and Portraits in th Park(still time to book a slot) on Sunday) that if I don't post these now they won't get posted so....



Finlay came to see me today but I didn't get many photos of him as he wasn't in posing mode!!


I quite like this one though, he was investigating!!



I got this quick portrait of the girls this evening as the sun was setting.



and this one too!!

Stay tuned for hopefully tons of gorgeous photographs over the weekend!!

Sisters.....

16 months between these two and they're so completely different, although they're 4 and 5, it's like they're 4 and 10, I'll let you guess which is which!!!

Super Popped Snappy Photographs

Thats what I've been spending my time learning to do, it's a combination of photography, light and post processing and what I'm learning more and more is that I need to spend more time in photoshop and maybe a little less in Lightroom because as much as I try in Lightroom I can't seem to achieve this look without further use of photoshop, I'm lucky that CS3 is easing my pain as I get to know it better. I've been using photoshop now for atleast 5 years and I know about 10% it's such a huge and powerful tool!

So today enjoy my progress and look forward to more of this if I'm shooting your portraits or weddings this summer.



With Abigail she was lying down so I didn't quite achieve the skin as light as I would have liked it.



With Looby though I definetly achieved the look I wanted and I am delighted with this photograph.

So thats my second update of the day and great if you're my client or future client, being a photographer means you get better with every day and that can only be a good thing!

On being happy and hopeful...

I'm most definetly feeling the effects of being happy, hopeful and thankful. I really love life at the moment, I love life, my husband, my family, my business and all my wonderful friends and clients, without you all I wouldn't be who I am!

Last night, or late afternoon rather, I looked out the window and saw perfect light, I quickly grabbed my camera and the girls and took a few photos, you can never have enough photos of your children IMHO. I absolutely loved this one!

Did you know that I have a wonderful new and improved website, so much thanks to my wonderful website providers www.theimagefile.com and James! Go on what are you waiting for, check it out, it's delish, especially the galleries which now have big fat juicy photos!!

I need to redesign my blog so that it all fits together nicely, might get down to doing that after tea which tonight I think shall have a Mexican flavour. :)

Happy Monday everyone!

New Haircuts and a Hat

So we all finally got haircuts or atleast I did and so did the girls. No photos of me as I'm chollopy and fat right now, trust me the quadruple chin isn't a good look!!

Girls and Daddy photos though....



Abigail looks very chic don't you think and much older than 5!






Looby just looks a total cutie!



Paul wore a hat!





This is my ultimate favourite photograph from yesterday, it's just gorgeous and I might have to get it on canvas.

If you want to get some gorgeous family photographs taken why not book yourself a photoshoot, either give me a call on the numbers above or click through to my website.

We're all off out for the day to York for Mothers Day, Happy Mothers Day to all those wonderful mums everywhere :)

Mini Photoshoot

So the girls have been off colour this week with the Parvovirus which is rampant "Oop North" and when I suggested a mini photoshoot yesterday afternoon I thought they would refuse point blank but to my surprise they both agreed and I got some brilliant photos of them both, now you know how much of a proud momma I am so I make no apologies for sharing tons of them and if you like what you see and you think you might want to have a photoshoot with your little angels or you're dying to have a great family portrait photograph on your wall then you can either call me on the number on the header or you can click through to Mandy Charlton Designs and book your session! Ok, so without further ado:-


Gorgeous Abigail


She really does grow more beautiful by the day!


She's also a very spirited girl who knows exactly what she wants!


There are more of Looby because she gave me the whole spectrum of Looby faces, this one is silly


This one is giggly


This one is thoughtful!


This one is a little sad and reflective, I think she was probably getting fed up at this point even though the whole session only took 15 minutes!


One of my favorites, Looby, just being Looby, full of sunshine and a joy to behold!

It's a quick kitten update

Yes indeed the kittens are growing, Poppys kittens are now 6 weeks old and Elphabas are 3 weeks old, they're very very cute and total monkeys!

Looby of course is the kitten meister as you can see here:-



Todays kitten of choice happens to be dumpling, he's one of the kittens who will eventually go to a new home, he's gorgeous and I'm sure we'll miss him but whilst he's still here it's so good to have fun!!


New years eve tommorrow, can't quite beleive we're at the end of another year, anyway more on that tommorrow.

Nativity Photos

Well here they are, my angels being angels in their Nativty Play
Too angels in one family, I just wish they were like this all of the time LOL!!

Guess Who We Saw Yesterday

Looby waiting Patiently.Abigail waiting with anticipation. There he is, can you see who it is yet?Taking Orders for the list.Finding out what the children will leave on Christmas eve for him and the reindeers.
Yep, it's Santa, the girls had a blast, we go and see Santa at Heighley Gate garden centre every year, you can see last years visit here. It's the beginning of our festive celebrations and of course I bought a new winter throw, Paul will tell you of my obsession with throws if you ask him nicely!!

Oh and those of you who've just joined my readership, I thought you might care to see a little craft so here's my button tree I mentioned earlier in the week.

L is for.... Oh and Win a Canvas

Lovely Looby with the famous silly expressions!! I particularly love this one. It's rare I get those wonderful candid pics of Looby anymore, she's become far too camera aware in the last year or so and so everytime she senses a lens in her face I get the standard cheesy grin or the silly face has also become quite popular of late, maybe she's been taking tips from her daddy!!

Yes I forgot to mention, last months winners of my Win your wedding album competition were Louise and Craig who are marrying next year at Ramside Hall, can't wait for that wedding, I hear the groom is very fond of his golf!!

So Octobers competition is to win a 16x12 Canvas worth over£120, any wedding photography bookings during October will be entered into my special draw and 1 lucky couple will get their favourite wedding photo enlarged and immortalised in canvas forever!! Details are of course on my website Mandy Charlton Designs.

Don't forget as Christmas approaches and you're stuck for gifts that photographs of a loved one always go down a treat so check out my specials, oh and did you know that Mandy Charlton Designs does gift vouchers, why not buy someone a photoshoot of their very own for Christmas, it's the present bound to impress and whats more I'll even gift wrap it for you in a tasteful box guaranteed to make the recipient smile on Christmas day.

First Day of School

Yes it's that time of year again, Abigail moves to year 1 and Iain is moving to year 6, his last year of juniors and a change of uniform to black and white instead of the yellow and blue. Looby, my baby starts Benton Park Nursery and even though she's a very capable nearly 4 I'm still going to miss my baby when her full time place commences on the 21st. She starts this afternoon and will do afternoons up until then.

She was quite excited about packed lunch so I had to make her a special one which we've popped in the fridge for lunchtime, couldn't leave her out of the packed lunches really could I?

I suppose that the upside of all of this is that I'll have more time for family photoshoots and more time for wedding photography clients, oh and hopefully a little less time where I have to worry about the childcare elements!!

In true Charlton tradition the boot light got left on in the car and this morning when Paul went to start the old dear up she plainly refused so he's had to go on the bus!!! It's funny that things like this always seem to happen to us, needless to say Mr C isn't a very happy bunny at the moment and I'm going to be doing my level best to keep out of his way!!!!

Only 320 days till the next summer holidays, I wonder how life will be then for Mandy Charlton Designs and indeed for Meandering Gardens!!!!........

Angel with a Dirty face

Yep, I've been scrapping, I knew I would do something crafty as it's QVC craft day and that always manages to get me scrapping, I never buy anything but it's just nice to have any form of craft on TV for the day.

This layout has been brewing for ages, I've been desperate for atleast the last year to make a layout purely from felt, well I finally aquired some felt squares during the week and Voila here it is!

Ooh 1 other thing, did you see Dr Who tonight, edge of your seat stuff don't you think, I can't wait to see how this all pans out, and Capn Jack, Fwoarrrrrrrrr

I'm so obsessed with Dr Who, I even had a Dr Who dream last night, and yes complete withj Capn Jack!!! Ooh Capn Jack and Dr Who together and a spare half an hour, the things I could get up to MWhahahahaha

Oh and 1 final thing, did you join in with the butterfly book, if anyone does create one I would love you to share a link so I can see what different crafters do with them.

Play

This layout is packed with vintage loveliness, I took this photograph of my children when we were at Kielder at the weekend and after turning it sepia I printed it on textured cardstock and embellished the layout with lots of cut and ripped Jenni Bowlin papers and other various goodies in that vintage style. I remember when I first started scrapping, I never could master the vintage or distressed style and craved to be as wonderful at it as Snipper, well 3 or 4 years later and I think I might be getting there, I'm certainly happier when I create layouts in this style than I used to be :)