Project 52, Week 38

The last week of term 3! Mia came down with the vomit bug that has been going around town and Charlie made it to Friday night before also succumbing. Luckily Ian and I have managed to avoid it. I am still congratulating us on our immune systems though as the kids got over it pretty quickly and Charlie still went off on the boys camping weekend on Saturday for the long weekend. 

Mia and I were meant to have a girls weekend in Perth but we thought we'd keep our germs at home and not spread the love! By Sunday though we were glad there was an open garden day in town and we walked around and checked out some lovely gardens. We are still on the Monday of the long weekend and expecting the boys home today, I am appreciating the blue sky and am going to get out and do some gardening myself.

Mx

Project 52, Week 37

Another weekend in Perth. Ian and I both enjoyed ourselves at his 20yr high school reunion and we celebrated the first birthday of my best friend's son. The first year of the firstborn is the hardest I think! I finished his quilt in time for his party too. The kids got to spend the night at Aunty Tori and Aunty Claudie's house where they always get spoiled.

Watched "I Am Not Your Guru" and "Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things" loved them both. I Am Not Your Guru is on Netflix if you have it. We've not had it long and the kids are both loving Power Rangers....

Mx

In Love with Sue Bryce

I have been watching Sue Bryce on CreativeLive and I love her! Specifically I've been watching 28 Days of Portrait Photography. Sue is amazingly generous with her knowledge, and funny, and super entertaining, I could watch her all day. In fact that's one of the reasons I stayed back at the Villa on our girls weekend, so I could watch Sue by the pool!

Portraiture is definitely the genre of photography that I'm most enamoured with. It means so much to me to have photos of my kids and our families and I find it such a gift to give photos to people of their loved ones or photos of themselves that they love.

Sue has a  natural light studio and uses big polystyrene boards (poly boards) and foam core sheets that are white one side, black the other, taped together (v-flats) as backgrounds and reflectors. In this video with Sue Bryce, Tiffany Angeles shows how you can pick up the poly boards from the local hardware store in the US. They are a little harder to find here in Australia and not as cheap unfortunately. If you are looking for these in Perth I have sourced both from Foam Sales in Booragoon. I will be picking mine up in a couple of weeks :). The poly boards are $70 (2400 x 1200 x 75mm) and the black/white foam core sheets are $85 (2430 x 1210 x 10mm). It will be fun driving 3 hours home with them on the trailer!

Anyway, I just wanted to tell the world how much I love Sue Bryce, I think she's awesome and I couldn't keep it to myself! I even love watching her when she isn't talking about photography, I bought her CreativeLive with Tiffany Angeles "Make More Money and Discover Your Worth" as well, and her keynote for the 28 Days class where she addresses fear is brilliant. I would encourage anyone to watch it, if you're in to photography or not (watch it here for free on youtube).

Sue has recently launched Sue Bryce Education and if I ever start charging people I will be signing up! I know it would be much more valuable than the $35/month she is charging (a little more in AUD). I might have to start my own portrait business just so I can justify signing up. Then I could write off the new Canon 5D mkIV that's just been released too!!

I suppose that is enough gushing about Sue for now, but there is literally nothing on TV that I would rather watch, and I really am loving her that much.

I hope you all have something to watch that you love as much as I love watching Sue!

Mx

Project 52, Week 36

A busy week preparing for a sixth birthday. I am pleased to say the birthday boy felt suitably spoiled and loved his requested present of a Mario costume even though the "large" size is very small on him. 

eBay was my saviour in finding on theme gifts for our Mario Bros obsessed kidlet. And you know what I love about shopping?... Not much, it's such a pain. So eBay was fabulous. I didn't find exactly what I was after but I found enough and I didn't have to leave home.

Mx

Project 52, Week 35

We had our first sports carnival this week, I'm not sure how I feel about them, it was fine, though Charlie said "I didn't learn anything" and that he was bored. I love that face of determination in the photo above of the flag race. We ended the week with Father's day and a lovely walk around our favourite local rock. We checked on the tadpoles and they were still there with plenty of water and there were heaps of beautiful wild flowers. 

Right now I am taking a quick break from getting the house tidy for a birthday party to eat yoghurt and blog. We had beautiful spring weather yesterday and the day before and I'm disappointed it didn't hang around for today. The noise level in the house with all those kids inside is going to be a little crazy, especially since we only have hard surfaces and the noise bounces around so much! One day when the kids are older we will graduate to having rugs.  

Anyway, I have a cake to finish icing and salads to make for the extended party dinner.

Mx