Tales of the unexpected with The Boy, my pride and joy.
This week, I've been really amused by the brilliant photos that Burton (one of The Boy's friends) has been taking for his 366 project. I'm not as brave as his mummy and so can't even contemplate doing two 366 projects, however The Boy is constantly snapping away with his VTech Kiddizoom and I have more than enough fodder for a 52, so I'm going for it!
Here's his first shot, bit arty isn't he?
I like photography, anyone who knows this blog knows that. I also like a bargain, which is why I subscribe to Groupon. Every morning, the Groupon e-mails are the first ones I scan to check for bargains; I'm particularly fond of those related to photo products because some of them are excellent opportunities.
I've previously blogged about our experience with a photography studio and started to tell us that as Groupon customers we were only entitled to a certain service. When I stood my ground, he backed down and quite rightly so. It doesn't matter where the custom has come from, a customer is a customer!
My mum mentioned in the middle of August that she'd like some canvasses made and I immediately popped over to Groupon to see what offers they had available. I purchased this one from You Frame on August 19th of last year. At only £12 a canvas, it was a bargain indeed.
Only bargains are not always what they seem. You see, it's not the fault of Groupon, more of the businesses who submit their offers without any real intent in fulfilling them.
Mum and I placed the order for the canvasses on 18th November and we were fairly confident that these would arrive in time for Christmas to give as gifts.
How wrong we were.
When I e-mailed them more than a week before Christmas to ask when it was coming, I had this reply:
Further to your recent communication with us, we would like to apologise for any delays you may have experienced with your order.
Due to huge demand for our special offers, we have experienced some delays with production.
Please be advised, we are now dealing with your request and your photo canvas will be printed within the next 14 working days.
That was 13 days ago.
Today, I had another e-mail from them:
Thank you for your email received and I am very sorry for the delay in our reply.
We have been and still are dealing with an exceptionally high amount of orders and this has caused more of a delay than we anticipated. However, I can confirm that your orders are in production and should be despatched within the next 14 days. I can only apologise for the delay and any inconvenience that this may have caused.
Thank you for your patience, we do very much appreciate it.
With the original apologetic e-mail promising it to be with us within 14 days and that deadline ending tomorrow, I'm guessing that it's not going to be here?
You Frame are currently promising Groupon vouchers a 21 day turn around on their orders.
Personally, I wouldn't hold your breath!
One of the major parts of my blog for the past year has been my 365 project; a photo a day, every day, for the entire year. I've found it rewarding, frustrating, fun, sad, exciting and nostalgic in equal measures. But I've managed it by bedtime every day.
Project 365 is not unique to my blog, there are people taking part all over the world. You only have to search on the hash tag on twitter to see the tweets in varying languages advertising their photographic gem, to realise that.
There were times I didn't think I'd finish it. The middle of February was difficult as I felt that I was producing similar shots or had run out of material. It didn't help that the weather was foul and so we were confined to photography indoors. Once spring started it was easier. I wish I'd had someone to hold my hand and say "come on, you can do this!"
And this is where this weekly linky comes in. Starting next Sunday (8th January), I will open a linky for the day so that anyone taking part in project 366 can link up their favourite photo taken during the course of the previous week.
Hopefully through running this linky people will find support for their photography and their posts, some comment love (trust me, not many daily photos get comments) and some inspiration. You might get to know some new blogs and friends along the way, and find the support to keep going to complete this rewarding task.
The changes in your children (or other subjects) throughout the year are immense, and it is only when you look back through the year's photos that you'll realise how much your little one, and photography, has progressed.
Pop back next Sunday 8th January and link up your favourite 366 photos from this forthcoming week. There's even a funky little badge.
Hope to see you in a week!
I'm a little obsessed with cameras; my own camera of choice is a Canon EOS 300D purchased eight years ago when I was in my final year teaching in Reading. It's taken some amazing photos over the years of many different locations and the difference between that and a standard digital is astounding. We've got a couple of 'point and shoots' in the house, and therefore it was only going to be a matter of time before The Boy wanted to start taking his own photos. He's played on the iPod Touch but the camera on that is quite frankly a bit pants.
Therefore when The Boy was sent a child-friendly camera to review, he was very excited and my DSLR breathed a metaphorical sigh of relief.
The VTech Kidizoom Twist is an improved version of the Kidizoom with a rotating camera lens to face conventionally, angle it through 180° and finally face the photographer to take self-portraits. This in itself makes it a big hit with The Boy who is fascinated with taking pictures of himself and frquently pulls faces at the camera while taking a series of photos. (Just to avoid confusion, the flash is where there is conventionally a lens. Obviously this doesn't work when facing the photographer!)
His ability to take photographs is improving as he remembers to frame the subject in the good-sized screen on the back. There are two ways to take a photograph. Either by pressing the button on the top (in the normal place) or by pressing the 'ok' button. As The Boy's hands are only little, he can't quite reach the main button and therefore happily presses the 'ok' button which rests just above his thumbhold. The camera doesn't react straight away and it's taken a little while for him to understand that he needs to wait until he hears the shutter sound before moving the camera away.
One of the other features of the Kidizoom Twist is the instant photo-editing function. There are a variety of frames and special effects which can be previewed on the screen before taking the photo and they made us chuckle.
The technical bit:
Other functions on this incredibly cool camera are: a sound recorder and audio manipulator (The Boy is too young to understand this properly yet, but I've recorded my voice and then slowed it down or sped it up and it made me chuckle like an eight year old); and five games (again we haven't explored this yet).
The Kidizoom Twist is robust and sturdy. The big grip handles eitherside are rubberised, which a) make it easier to hold, and b) mean if it does drop, it bounces. In fact, everything that protrudes from it, and could get damaged (lens, viewfinders) are rubberised. Clever designing there.
My only negative on this camera is the slight time-delay between pressing the button and the photo being taken. Other than that, this is pretty much perfect.
We were sent the VTech Kidizoom Twist for the purpose of this review. Our opinions are honest and unbiased.
I was tagged by Momma Two ages ago to complete this meme created by her and Mammasaurus. Well she didn't originally tag me, but I sulked on twitter so she told me to consider myself tagged, I favourited, did the leg-work and then forgot to write it!
I am forever finding photos on the iPod Touch taken by The Boy, and I've blogged about them before. They make me chuckle, especially when I find random ones of my feet when we're walking around the supermarket, or of me putting my make-up on but only from the waist down.
Well both Momma and Mamma had been having a conversation late one night on twitter about the same thing, and so created this meme with the objective of showing off the photos that our little ones take. I will confess to giving The Boy the smallest amount of guidance beforehand; showing him how to hold the iPod so that the item he wanted to take a picture of is in the frame. Then I let him go with it, and these are the shots he came up with:
I don't think he did too badly really, in fact the crayons are quite arty!
I want to carry this on for Momma Two and MammaSaurus and so am tagging the following five bloggers, because I know for some of them, that their children are always having a play around with iPods, iPads, LeapPads, etc:
A few years ago I did something for the first time.
I used online photo printing services rather than using our printer. I registered on three or four different sites and used their free prints. It was actually quite useful because it was a good way to compare the quality of the prints. My favourite was Photobox and that has been my photo printing service of choice ever since.
Therefore when they offered me the chance to review one of their diaries I was more than happy to accept and try it out. I've had a small spiral bound diary before which was incredibly useful, but this time I was trying out their large photo diary with the premium black leather-style cover.
So, here's the product description: the large diary is 5x7inches and based on a week-week layout with a photo on each spread. The week-week layout has a line per 'waking' hour to allow for appointments, etc. Each page is good quality, printed on 140gsm premium paper. There is a year planner for that year and the forthcoming year, and seven blank pages for notes at the back.
It has everything that I need in it for school: space to write deadlines, hard-wearing, durable, adaptable and plenty of space for frantic scribblings when I suddenly realise that something applies to me (this often happens). And the best bit? That every time I despair of a class of children who just won't listen, or another impossible task lumped on me, I can look at my son and my husband, and smile knowing that there is something more to the drudgery.
The standard large diary is £14.99, spiral bound with an elasticated fastener, and a hard, matt, plastic cover front and wipe back. The premium, leather-style cover, which has a magnetic catch, has a pen loop and spaces for cards and additional loose papers.
One of the things that I love about Photobox is its simple uploading procedure, and the design process that is easy and straight-forward. The checkout is simple and without the need for a ridiculous amount of steps in order to pay; they accept the main credit cards and paypal.
This is a perfect gift for those that need their lives organised for them and can't be without their schedules. Photobox gets the thumbs up from me!
I was given a voucher code in order to purchase this diary. My opinion is honest and unbiased.
I take an inordinate amount of photographs, on a daily basis I can upload well over fifty shots from my digital SLR. I take part in Silent Sunday every weekend, most of The Gallery prompts and have kept my 365 project going with under sixty days left to complete. That amount of photographs are absurd to leave festering on a hard drive somewhere.
With the Christmas period coming up, it's an ideal opportunity to get these photos off the silicon chips and displayed somewhere proudly. There are a variety of websites out there that have a range of photo-products, only a few that can be trusted to produce good quality products: Snapfish is one of them.
I was invited to try out the range of products that are available from Snapfish and I was impressed! There are the usual cards, canvasses and photobooks, to supplement the obvious digital prints. However, they also have calendars, mugs, coasters, Christmas ornaments, notebooks, magents, personalised toddler storybooks and a range of Disney gifts.
I chose three products:
Wooden Photo Panel
This is a fabulous alternative to the normal canvasses which adorn walls around our houses. This photo panel is perfect for rooms that have high humidity, like a bathroom or kitchen. The photo is printed onto the wooden panel, then protected with UV-resistant, scratch-free coating which has a glossy finish to it. It's available in 7" x 5",10" x 8" and 14" x 11" sizes, we ordered the 10"x8" photo panel and have displayed it in the best place to show a washing line of pants: the downstairs loo!
Individual Placemat
As The Boy is now sitting up to the dinner table with us, as opposed to using his high-chair, I decided to get him a personalised placemat in order to tempt him to eat nicely like mummy and daddy. The placemate is cork-backed which makes it heat-resistant and has a high gloss finish. Snapfish sell the placemats individually, in pairs or in sets of six.The Boy adores his placemat and feels like a big boy, the only problem is that he keeps moving his plate out the way to see his picture!
Photo Jigsaw
The Boy has really developed his ability to complete jigsaws over the past few months. He's now capable of a 35-piece jigsaw (with a bit of help) so I ordered him a 40-piece jigsaw which is 7"x5". The jigsaw is really glossy, thick pieces and a very high quality. However, it's too tricky for The Boy to do at the moment because I picked a picture which had a swath of one-coloured background.
I was really impressed with the range of products from Snapfish and the quality of the finished products. The prices are variable; some are really good value, others are a little more top-end of my budget. However, bearing in mind the quality of the products, I do think the prices are worth it. The website was relatively easy to use as the photos upload quickly and instructions are straight-forward. I did have an issue at the checkout, but I suspect that was due to inputting the gift code at the wrong time.
High quality items that are good value for money.
I was provided with a gift-code in order to choose items for review. My opinions are honest and unbiased.
