blogging | TheBoyandMe

I Might Be Going MAD

April 19, 2012 by TheBoyAndMe 6 Comments

I've previously written on the TOTS100 that I don't agree with asking for nominations for awards ceremonies, and I maintain that. I personally feel that people should nominate a blog based on the fact that it clearly speaks to you about that subject.

However, I would like to acknowledge that some kind souls have thought my little corner of cyberspace worthy of an award and have therefore nominated me in a few of the categories:

Best writer
Blog of the year
Best family life
Best family fun
Most helpful
Best photography

It means a lot that my tales of life with The Boy and Mr. TBaM have made an impression on some of you. And after my lonesome 365 project last year, and the success of this year's 366, I'm overwhelmed that people have nominated me for Best Photography blog. We have a big discussion group on Facebook for this project, and I'm guessing it's from that that the nomination for Most Helpful Blogger has come. As a primary school teacher, my job is to help, to have people recognise that is humbling. Thank you so very much.

If you'd like to nominate anyone else for the MADs, or if you agree with these above and would like to reinforce that vote, click the badge below to register your vote. But hurry, you have until Friday.

Thank you!

How To Use Camera+: Photo Editing App

April 17, 2012 by TheBoyAndMe 5 Comments

One of my Photography Resolutions this year was to learn how to use apps on mobile devices, i.e. my phone and the iPod Touch. I found out about Instagram and pretty much fell in love with it pretty quickly. But the one thing I don't love about Instagram is the limited filters and editing options.

One of the fabulous bloggers taking part in #Project366 is HPMcQ and she does some pretty fabulous things with her photos. I especially love this photo of hers, and she was kind enough to share her favourite photo editing app with me. It's called Camera+ and I love it.

I thought I'd share with you one way I've used it recently:

I ended up tranforming a below-average photo into something a lot more attractive with a few easy steps.

Still hate the camera on the iPod Touch though, which is why I take photos on my camera, e-mail them across and then edit them that way.

I bought this app and therefore I wasn't asked to blog about it, I wanted to show you how cool it is. Oh and if you fancy voting for me in the BritMums Snap Award, press the button below. Thanks!

Snap Shortlist

366 #14

April 8, 2012 by TheBoyAndMe

I've got another little competition for you! This one is to celebrate the fact that tomorrow is DAY 100 of the project! We've made it to three figures and I'm so proud of everyone for sticking with it.

The competition will be live with next week's linky and the generous Snapfish are offering the winner £35 of credit to make a photo product from their site. I reviewed Snapfish before Christmas and was incredibly impressed with the variety of their products, the price and the finish of the products. I'll post more about the competition later this week but bear in mind that one of you who links up next week will be a winner!

The Project 366 Facebook group is a fabulous community who offer support to those taking part in this photography project, and give much blog love. We've made it a closed group so that not every Tom, Dick or Harry can see the content but if you'd like to join just click the 'ask to join group' button in the top right hand corner of the page.

Choose your favourite photo from the past week and link it up below.
Please add the badge to your linked-up post so that other people know how to find all the other fabulous entries.
If you can spare five minutes to comment on just a few other entries I know they'd appreciate it!

Photo Editing Made Easy

April 5, 2012 by TheBoyAndMe 36 Comments

About this time last year I discovered an amazing online photo editing website called Picnik.com. Simple to use, effective and with a plethora of editing options, I soon subscribed to it and no photo was uploaded onto my blog without having the special Picnik treatment (Ortonish to 50% fade and 1960s to 80%). It was so easy to use as photos were uploaded directly from your computer, auto-adjusted on the click of a button, there was a sliding scale of the strength of the filters applied and a variety of frames to be added. For a special occasion, text and extra clipart could be added. One of the most used features for me was the collage function, and I used it to create every page in my 365 book. The $20ish a year subscription was worth it, especially as I could access it from any computer that had web access.

Then in January of this year, the ever-increasingly arrogant Google announced it was closing Picnik (they had bought it last year) and moving some of the functionality to Google+. Gah! Damn Google+, I didn't have an account, didn't want one and was determined I would not play ball. (I ended up registering one just to see what the fuss was about, then a month later had a warning from them to remove my account, which I did happily, as apparently TheBoy andMe is not a real name. And of course Will.I.Am is)

And then the lovely @EmsyJo told me that there was a successor to Picnik, and it was to be called PicMonkey.

As you can see from the screenshot, it's a cleaner homepage, more sophisticated and a damn sight quicker to use. The three photos up there are sample images to play around with the photo editing options, top left is where a photo (just the one upload at a time for the moment) can be opened or dragged to be edited. And it's really, really quick!

Once in on the main programme there is a simple selection panel on the left-hand side (as with Picnik) and the picture displays in the main window. The main difference for me is when it comes to ease of saving; click the button in the bottom left hand corner, type the file name and about a second later it is saved. No waiting more than ten seconds for it to save.

The marvellous developers behind the phenomenal PicMonkey are actually some of the original engineers behind Picnik so they understand what we want, they know how it all works and they know how to make it better! And it really is.And it's getting better all the time as they work to improve it (before 19th April when Picnik closes).

I'm a huge fan of it already and I wanted to share why. I've taken one of my standard photos from last year and applied some of my favourite filters along with some new additions to their catalogue to it to show what it can do.

There's a great selection of filters to apply, I've featured about half of them. Of course you can also layer them to achieve greater results. Some of the new filters have a crown watermark on them which I am presuming means that they will become part of the possible future subscription service. However, at present there is no sign up and no fee.

The only irony is that unfortunately at the moment PicMonkey don't have the collage function and so I had to use Picnik!

(For another review of what PicMonkey can do, see Domestic Goddesque's post here)

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I am shortlisted in the Britmums Brilliance in Blogging Awards for the 'Snap' category. If you'd like to vote for me, I'd really appreciate you clicking on the button below and choosing my name in that award.

Snap Shortlist

366 #13

April 1, 2012 by TheBoyAndMe

We've had amazing weather for the past week and I'm sure that everyone will have sunny skies and smiley faces in their photos this week. As we rapidly approach Day 100 of the project, I've got another competition lined up for you, but I'm not telling you about it until next week!

Anyone taking part is welcome to join the Project 366 Facebook group. The fabulous community building up there offer support to those taking part in this photography project, and give much blog love. We've made it a closed group so that not every Tom, Dick or Harry can see the content but if you'd like to join just click the 'ask to join group' button in the top right hand corner of the page.

Choose your favourite photo from the past week and link it up below.
Please add the badge to your linked-up post so that other people know how to find all the other fabulous entries.
If you can spare five minutes to comment on just a few other entries I know they'd appreciate it!

ShowOff ShowCase: The One That Should Have Done Better

March 31, 2012 by TheBoyAndMe 3 Comments

This weekend is your opportunity to link-up a post that you wrote that filled you with a sense of satisfaction. You typed that last full stop, pressed 'publish' and thought "yes, this will be a good one!" and waited.

But no bugger actually bothered to read it, or if they did they certainly didn't comment on it!

Why? I can still hear you shouting it at the stats counter/comments log.

Heaven only know why. They didn't deserve it, they were good posts. It's not their fault that they were published on a Bank Holiday or when people were experiencing blog-apathy. They don't deserve to feel inadequate, not when they've done nothing wrong.

This weekend, I'd like you to help that post to hold its head up high! Brush them off, stick my badge at the bottom of the post and show them off for everyone to see. Don't be ashamed of them, help them shout at everyone:

I SHOULD HAVE DONE BETTER!

Snap!

March 27, 2012 by TheBoyAndMe 16 Comments

When I was a child I used to love watching my father and grandfather taking photos, discussing lenses, pouring over the technical aspects of their cameras. It used to drive my mum mad, but I was intrigued. Despite her frustration, mum gave me my first compact camera (film obviously!) when I was about ten and dad set to teaching me how to take photos. He bought me a few SLRs from car boot sales over the years and I learnt a bit, but overall I stuck to the automatic settings.

When I started going out with Mr. TBaM and met my (then) future mother-in-law, she passed on her old Nikon SLR and refreshed my memory of the techniques. Within a few years I'd treated myself to a digital SLR, a Canon EOS 300D, which I still have and use to take the vast majority of my photos.

I love taking photos, I have thousands and thousands of photos taken from June 2009 (The Boy's birth) and I take tens each day; on the iPod, my phone, my dSLR, hubby's compact or even The Boy's Kiddizoom, I use whatever's to hand. Starting my 365 project last year reminded me about the basics of composition, framing, light, etc. and then the fabulous picnik.com (now replaced in my affection by picmonkey.com) helped develop my editing skills.

Why am I telling you all this geeky stuff?

Because to my complete and utter amazement I've been shortlisted in the Britmums Brilliant In Blogging awards. Me! I never get anything like this, I'm a background person. It has meant the absolute world to me that people either a) liked my photos enough, b) felt I represented a good photography blogger or c) felt bloody sorry for me, enough to nominate me.

You see, I just take photos of my son and our life. That anyone likes them amazes me. That people liked them enough to join me in #Project366 astounded me (the response each week is flabberghasting!). But to nominate me in amongst the big players? A serious thank you to every single one of you, it has meant the world to me.

I don't expect to win, have you seen who else is nominated?! However, I just want to share a few photos that I am really proud of for one reason or another, and if you agree with me, please consider voting for me by pressing the button at the bottom of the post.

Snap Shortlist

This is the only time I'll ask, I've been stung by voting competition before and I refuse to get drawn in to it all. I'll tweet this a few times but it's your decision to make.

Thank you!

My BritMums Live Sponsor!

March 25, 2012 by TheBoyAndMe 15 Comments

A little while ago, I mentioned that I was lucky enough to be able to go to BritMums Live this year. Last year I made the decision that I wouldn't attend Cybermummy as I felt it would be too like an INSET day. However, that was a month or two into my blogging life, and by the time June came around, I was insanely jealous of anyone who went and hung off every tweet with the relevant hashtag. I made the decision there and then that come hell or high water I'd be going this year.

And I am.

And so is Mr. TheBoyandMe and The Boy.

Quite frankly the idea of two days and two nights away from them is too much to bear, and so I decided that I'd be taking them with me. On the Saturday, the boys can go and play at the Science Museum while I ~~chat, socialise and get drunk~~ network and develop my blogging ability with the creme de la creme of the blogging world. I can't wait to meet all of my twitter and blogging friends, some for the first time, some I'm friends with in the 'real world'.

I was discussing attending the conference with one of the lovely people that I have regularly reviewed for, who I consider a good friend. She asked me details about it and I explained the ethos behind it. It was at this point that she offered to sponsor me to attend! I very happily accepted sponsorship for the ticket, and would therefore like to present my BritMums Live sponsor:

I am so proud to be representing the best online toy shop that there is! Toyjeanius sells amazing wooden baby and toddler toys, traditional games and fabric role-play accessories that are second to none, items that you wouldn't find in the average high-street toy store. The Boy has always loved the toys that Jean has sent for him to review, be it threading cards from Djeco or the Pally Pirate Noah ship from I'm Toy. Jean is a friendly, caring and hardworking mum who is so interested and fascinated with quality children's toys that she set her own online shop up. I always have an image of her playing with the Haba foods in her kitchen!

So thanks to ToyJeanius, you'll be seeing me at BritMums Live! I may be sporting an owl costume to go with the usual green face and yellow antennae, but I'll be there!

Readers of this blog can gain a 10% discount at ToyJeanius through using the code 'TheBoyandMe' at the checkout!

(It's at this point that I'd like to highlight that I agreed to only accept sponsorship for the ticket; I didn't want to take advantage of Jean's generosity and friendship by having her pay for the hotel and transport fees for my entire family. That's why you've seen so many sponsored posts on here recently, writing those has paid for the other costs.)

366 #11

March 18, 2012 by TheBoyAndMe

I can't quite believe that we're rounding up week eleven here and about to launch into week twelve; it seems to be going so quickly. This, last year, was the point for me when I considered giving up. Now it's just part of my daily routine and I can think of far worse things to have built in on my list of 'to-dos'.

Choose your favourite photo from the past week and link it up below.
Please add the badge to your linked-up post so that other people know how to find all the other fabulous entries.
If you can spare five minutes to comment on just a few other entries I know they'd appreciate it!

366 #10 (with @Bonusprint)

March 11, 2012 by TheBoyAndMe 36 Comments

Welcome to week 10 of 2012's #Project366. We have passed day 70 and day 100 suddenly seems achievable!

Choose your favourite photo from the past week and link it up below.
Please add the badge to your linked-up post so that other people know how to find all the other fabulous entries.
If you can spare five minutes to comment on just a few other entries I know they'd appreciate it!

Today, I've got the second round of the fabulous competition from Bonusprint. The very lovely folk over at Bonusprint are going to be choosing three of the blogs linking up today (and registering in the competition) to win a personalised iPhone4 cover (voucher for £20 if you don't own one) based on the favourite photos that you link up.

In order to be considered for the competition, either fill in the Rafflecopter form below the linky, or if it's playing silly beggars (it doesn't like Google Chrome), please do the following three things:

like Bonusprint's Facebook page
tweet the link to this post
comment below the linky to tell me you've done these.

Please note that Bonusprint will be choosing the winners & will contact you through the e-mails collated and given to them. They may contact you about future Bonusprint offers.

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