So last night, Looby was on the computer googling, let me tell you a 7 year old with the power of Google is a scary thing.  It was quite sweet though when she found me through a google search, she hadn't faired so well with her daddy so it was a bit like magical surprise when she found me!

She found my blog, I always knew that one day my kids would find it and I'm so glad they did because they spent the next hour looking at old photos of themselves (my blog began in 2006 when Looby was only 2) and watching old home video clips that I put up there, I'm so glad I had the chance to capture her cuteness and bottle it forever.

I looked at my blog stats and realised I rarely blog anymore, well not in comparison to how often I used to, in 2006 I blogged an astonishing 400+ times, this steadily declined and after I started my business it's down to about 60 posts a year.

Looby also noted that my blog was full of strangers and not enough photos of them, I did explain that I blog everything including favourite shots of clients and she's fine with that as long as I blog more photos of them and so dear reader that is the task I am setting myself, I have taken back my blog, given it a fresh look and now it's time to try and use it more often to blog our daily lives and our memories so that when they sit reading with their kids on their laps their kids will also marvel at a 2 year old Looby saying "Bye Bye Everybody".

My quest to document more of our lives has begun....

A little Thursday Update

You may have noticed some not so subtle improvements to my blog, I thought it deserved a makeover after it's looked the same since at least 2008!  So it's meant to be a little less serious and a bit more fun, I also realise that sometimes I post about personal things and sometimes I post about business things, well it's my blog and thats my life so if you're here to learn all about me try the personal tag and if you are here for instance because you're thinking of hiring me as your photographer for your wedding click on the weddings tag!  Simples!

There's been a lot of kitten fun going on in our house with our foster kittens who are now getting towards 5 weeks old, they're so cute!

Poor Looby fell from a cartwheeling twirl and we had to go to casualty, they plastered her up saying it was a broken elbow but when we went to the fracture clinic the next day they decided they didn't know if it was a fracture or tendon damage so they've taken the plaster off again and will xray in 2 weeks and until then she's supposed to wear a sling which she hates!

Can someone tell me whats happened to my tomato plants this year, they're monsters and have overtaken the back of the garden

Sunday, my girls finally got to see the grafitti wall

 You just can't beat a cute kitten

So this week has been another summer holidays week and thats bad for productivity but it's great for having fun with the kids, another couple of weeks though and I'll be devastated when they go back to school, I really love having them all at home with me.

The Lets Go Retro Challenge

Oh boy, I can't even believe I'm about to share this one, photo is so embarrasing!  Shimelle challenged us to go retro and scrapbook an old photo.

The photo is of me and my brother in 1981!!

The journalling reads "1981, I was 7 and my brother was 4, our first school photo together, I think my fringe and my brothers jumper says it all really, welcome to the 80's"

Pretty much everything I've used was from the October Afternoon Rocket Age range as it's perfect for retro photos and the robot stamp I've had for yonks and used it for the very first time here.

A Colour Story Challenge

Shimelle challenged us to create a layout using red white and aqua, a huge challenge for me as they're not colours I usually use but I found a photo from Christmas which needed to be scrapped and this is what I came up with -

The journalling reads "This year santa brought you chipboard letters, for other kids this might have seemed quite random but not for my mini crafting divas"

This is the first Christmas layout I have scrapped for years so I'm pleased as punch that the challenge was set.

The From The Heart Challenge

Shimelle challenged us to make a layout which had the title of I heart or I love and so of course I couldn't think of anything more appropriate than to scrap a photograph of me and hubby from our vow renewal last year, I can't remember who took it but it was either Jamie Emerson or Matt Wagster, a simply gorgeous photo!  I've given the layout a vintage feel and I love the muted pinks, the journalling reads "We've been married for over 11 years and it's still one big adventure, we have so few photos together that I cherish all the ones from our vow renewal last April"

Holy 4th Layout Batman, it's the Grid It Up Scrapbook Challenge

4 layouts in a day and I think possibly my last of the day because phew, creativity is tiring, I wonder if thats why the man of the house has been asleep for the last 3 hours on the settee, no wait, thats Footy, beer and footy on TV!

So Shimelle challenged us to create a scrapbook layout which had a grid of some description -

and so several Instagrams and 1 scrapbook page later I give you Snippets, the journalling reads "I take photos with my iPhone every single day, I have a constant thirst to document our daily lives and even though most of these photos aren't the best quality and it's unlikely they'll ever win any awards they are snippets of my life"

I kept this page quite simple because of the hugerific photo, so just a bit of Kaiser Craft Peechy Keen, some Cosmo Cricket letters, a bit of bling and ribbon and finally a pink plastic rose, who knows where that came from but it just kind of works.

If you are catching up, just starting or planning to scrapbook on through the night have fun!

The Chop Your Paper Challenge

This time Shimelle challenged us to simply use patterened paper to embellish the whole page, now I love embellishments so only using 2 pieces of paper for the whole layout was a bit of a challenge -

I used  2 sheets from Cosmo Crickets Material Girl stack to create Craft Material Girl, a tribute to myself and my love of craft, the journalling reads "In 2004 I discovered Scrapbooking and it literally changed my life, I love my life now and I'm proud to be a scrapbooker"

I've handcut some of the flowers and the other ones along with the owls were Martha Stewart punches, I've raised mostly all of the things from the page and for the middles I've used Ranger Perfect Pearls, this page really was a challenge but I'm happy with it and I got to scrapbook a photo of me which I took with my iPhone one night as I was on my way out for a glam night out!