The Gallery: Faces

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That Sticky-Fingered minx Tara has done it again! Yet another theme to fox and baffle me:

I adore some of the portrait shots on there (Pinterest) – kids, grandparents, families, friends, strangers. People whose faces are steeped in history or children whose faces show potential and a lifetime ahead of them.

So this week's theme is simply: Faces.

And the reason it baffled me is because my photos for 'Inspiration' were photos of The Boy's face, grrr!

So for most of the day I've struggled, I've seen a few posts here and there and thought "oh, I wish I'd come up with that take!"and in all honesty I've been gutted that I couldn't think of some photos to use. I post so many every week with my 365 project that any I could use would have been seen before.

However, I've just been synching the iPod and came across some classics from my treasure pot. The Boy is rather fond of the front-facing lens on the camera function, and this is what I'll often find on there if he's been left alone with it:

It always makes me chuckle to look through the camera roll and see 4o-odd shots nearly all the same but with a changing facial expression, normally him laughing as he's realising what he's doing!

So I asked him to pull some different faces for me, and this is the result:

Which expressions do you think he's pretending to show?

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The Gallery: My Inspiration

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And so the tricky Tara is back to giving us testing tasks:

Inspirational People.
Who has inspired you? A relative, your own mum, your dad, a close friend, someone famous, a stranger even.

The obvious one for me is my mum; she's amazing and has been through so much. However, she'd hate the thought of me writing anything about her on my blog, so I'm going to honour that.

While she has been the wind beneath my wings (thanks Bette) for many years, and Mr. TheBoyandMe is my rock, my new guiding light is none other than this being:

Is that not the best inspiration of them all?

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More On Monday: Muddy Puddles

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Traditionally, I've used the 'More on Monday' blog-title to explain my Silent Sunday. However, today I'm using it because I had difficulty choosing a picture for my Silent Sunday and therefore I want to share the other photographs.

On Saturday we went to a local country park with lakes and woodland. We went equipped with The Boy's special George muddy puddles wellies and my camera. The Boy, and the mud, did not disappoint. I have decided that I love this time of year with an infant: it's a whole new world to explore of treasures from the trees, sounds echoing around the woodland with a little red nose from the bite in the air.

Autumn is way more exciting than Summer!

This is the photograph that Mr. TheBoyandMe wanted me to use as my Silent Sunday.

After we'd finished jumping in muddy puddles (he was saturated, I need to look out the waterproof all-in-one suit), we went and explored the wooded areas, including a rather fabulous looking tree-trunk.

And then daddy and The Boy pretended to be aeroplanes.

I seriously love this photo because of the way that The Boy is looking at his daddy, sheer adoration.

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I am linking this up to CoombeMill's Country Kids linky

Country Kids from Coombe Mill Farm Holidays Cornwall

The Gallery: A Photographic Moment in Time

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When Tara announced that the theme of this week's Gallery was in celebration of World Photography Day last Friday, I smiled to myself. I love photographs, I love what they capture: the moments, the emotions, the memories, the treasured times.

It must be a photo from today (or the weekend). Make it a photo to treasure for generations to come; family life, a moment, a precious family member frozen in time, a day out.

Well I did take a cracking shot on that day, only I used it for my Silent Sunday before I'd read the above prompt. It completely epitomised my week with The Boy; something I feel was the biggest mile-stone in his little life so far. It's changed him from a baby boy, passed a toddler, into a little boy properly. Leading up to this event had been a huge emotional roller-coaster, and as much as he was ready for it; I also needed to make sure that I was so as to not put him off!

However, I also took this photo that day; a moment to treasure.

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Photo-Jigsaw

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I've been very lucky to have received a canvas to review from Bags of Love who have a fantastic range of personalised gifts. I am thoroughly impressed with the quality of the print and speed of service and would thoroughly recommend Bags of Love for any personalised photo products.

Thanks to the lovely folk over at Bags of Love, I am lucky enough to be able to offer one reader a prize of a photo jigsaw. However this is no ordinary photo jigsaw, this is a rather cool one that I'm actually quite jealous of!

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Captured on Canvas

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"Would you like to review a photo canvas?" said Bags of Love.

I'll admit now that I've never thought of having one before. I've seen them many times, looked at them quite closely and not always been impressed with the finish. Some of the canvasses can be quite waxy and plasticky in their appearance. However, having browsed through the photo canvas range and styles available from Bags of Love, I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that they don't use the typical technique associated with other photo canvasses. They use 'dye sublimination' which involves fusing inks deeply into the fabric fibres, giving it very vibrant colours which do not fade over time, or crack like plastic shiny coated ink jet canvas.

So I said "aye, go on then!"

I sent them the image on the left; within four days I had received the contents of the image on the right.

Ha! You thought you were going to see my face then didn't you?!

I am really impressed. The fabric is soft, yet strong. The image is printed onto the canvas with incredible accuracy and attention to detail. I've seen canvasses that my mum has been given as a present, and they lack sharpness around the edge of objects or clarity of colours. The close-up below shows the detail in The Boy's features, the hairs on Mr. TheBoyandMe's arm and the softness of the fabric.

I've included the image on the right because this is something that is important to me. I try and buy FSC wood, paper, card, etc where possible. To find out that Bags of Love use FSC pine in their frames makes my inner eco-warrior happy.

This canvas is fabulous. I am a convert, and quite frankly being the stubborn woman that I am, that's saying something. I was also cheeky and asked if I could have a duplicate one for my mum, which they very kindly agreed to! She adores it, and has asked me to investigate getting another one done for her. The photo canvasses produced by Bags of Love are a very good quality and extremely good value for money.

Before I started typing up this review, I sauntered over to their site. Just another photo gift company, supplying photo canvasses, mousemats, key rings, bags (obviously), calendars, yes? No!

Beanbags, cushions, bedding, jewellery boxes, laundry baskets, roller blinds (!), leather bags, wooden jigsaws, radiator covers, and my two personal favourites: wallpaper and deckchairs!

I know, how cool would that be? All these are amongst the very cool gift ideas available to buy, which would be perfect for birthday presents. Bearing in mind, September is a heavy month for us with family events, we might well be getting some of those birthday presents from Bags of Love!

Thinking further ahead (and I have been feeling a little festive with the Wintery weather recently), we might even be visiting them for some of our Christmas gifts. I bet my mum would love an apron covered in photos of her granchildren, or I could order The Boy a jigsaw of his most favourite thing this year; his trip to Peppa Pig World.

Either way, Bags of Love is a winner and I am going to be shopping there in the future.

I was provided with a photo canvas in order to write this review. I begged them if I could have a duplicate for my mum, and because they're nice they said yes. My opinions are, as always, honest.

The Gallery: Black & White

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The lovely Tara has set us a challenge this week of 'Black and White'.

In my mind straight away popped two photos that I wanted to share for this post and I can't find them now! They're stunning photos as well, one is of my nan when she was approximately twenty years old and was a formal studio photo. She looked so young and happy in it, anticipating the joy of her entire life. The other photo was of my bampi in his army uniform in Africa, he was in the Desert Rats. A few years ago I had the small snapshots blown up and edited to remove the creases, then framed for my mum. The minute she opened them, she did something that I've never seen before, she cried with nostalgia and affection for the parents who died years before.

Unfortunately they are still packed up from her move so I can't even scan them in to show you.

In the meantime I want to share a selection of other gems from the past. They're photos of my mum, my dad and his brother, my brothers, my nan and her sister. All show the simplicity of black and white, the innocence of youth.

Wait! I've found them, so apologies for editing this post to add them both in but they are the ones I originally wanted to show.

Both were taken in the Winter of 1943 while bampi was serving in the Desert Rats. Bampi was 26 and already looks like life serving in World War 2 has taken its toll. Nan was just 21 and still fresh-faced. They married six months after these photos were taken and a year later my mum was born (their only child as my nan suffered a still-birth at 8 months pregnant).

1923 – 1994

1917 – 1980.

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