Half Term Holidays, more play and a little less work, my week in Instagrams

It's half term dear reader and I couldn't be happier, I'm spending a few days off work with the kids and are we having all manner of fun and games, well we are in between the times when I want to put them in the cupboards for arguing, fighting and bickering with each other!!

So, what have we been up to -

lets go back a week and my last scrapbooking adventures, I haven't had time since, so this one has handpainted flowers, the ones in the background and it's me at 39, well it was me at 39 but since Slimmingworld began I am definitely improving, more of that in a moment.

keeping it simple for a photo from last year when we went to a wedding as guests, that does not happen very often.

Friday night, date night with hubby at Six Baltic and look, I'm definitely improving, I don't mind this photo of me nearly as much as I usually do.

Saturday, glorious day in Newcastle, I had a lovely day with my family and then a shoot in the evening when the light was much kinder

add aforementioned photo shoot with Looby who was acting as my trusty assistant.

no Sunday Instagramming, 10 photo shoots in Saltwell Park and the favourites from those are coming soon to my blog but mostly you'll find them on my Facebook business page

Monday and we went to the County show, lots of fabulous things to see and do

Tuesday I worked all day editing and doing admin, glamorous life I lead.

yesterday, I worked in the morning and then the Metrocentre beckoned, cue fighting children

and today it was a rainy old day so hubby and I took Abigail and Looby to the Great North Museum, my all time favourite museums which I have been visiting since I was tiny when my granny used to take me, it's also a splendid wedding venue.

and that was my week in Instagrams, back again soon with some photos from my working week.

Work, life, photography, scrapbooking

I Actually could just post that as my blog post, that pretty much sums up everything that has been going on since I blogged last although not as much work as I'd have liked because of the awful weather at weekends, this week I suggest the weather has it's worst days on Thursday, even Friday but definitely, absolutely not on Saturday or Sunday!

so here's a few Instagrams to fill you in on my latest and greatest goings on...

Almost 11, she looks 22, she is 11 now actually but this was just before when she got her new grown up haircut.  I've been going a bit painty and inky mad this week, I'm sure you'll get the picture...

portraits all day on the beach, erm...maybe not!

Caught hubby on his way out on Saturday night looking rather too dashing for his own good, it's just a shame we were both going out separately!

while he was out doing drinking things we all went to one of my best friends on the whole planet to watch Eurovision, it was a cheesefest!

I've been eating a lot of these lately, I will be thinner, I will, I will!

went to Jesmond Dene on Monday afternoon for a photo shoot, yep, the 51st shade of Grey, British Summer Grey.

hubby said this page looks like a mess but clearly it's because he's got no taste or design skills, I love the splashy inky background, it took me ages to get that right.

another inky background and a photograph from 2007 and a trip to Blackpool, it was when I was going through old photographs yesterday that I realised how truly cute my children were when they were little dots of things, I shall try and focus on that when they're having their tween tantrums.

and so a few highlights of the worky things I actually have done will follow this blog, probably tomorrow oh and if you remember me telling you about Google losing my official mandycharltonphotographyblog.com address, well the news is that there is no news, Google engineers are on the case and they still can't fix it, crazy when you think they're one of the most powerful companies in the whole world.

What a week....

It's been one of those weeks dear reader where I've laughed, cried, stamped my feet and wanted to smash things, pretty normal really.

Firstly if you have managed to stay with me at this new URL well done, my other is broken and Googles Engineers have been on the case for the last 3 days, they still haven't fixed it though which is a pain quite frankly!

So apart from blogging troubles I've given two presentations this week, neither about photography, I've edited a wedding and done lots of admin and when I say lots I mean loads!

Also I've managed a few layouts this week,another 2 to share with you

a fantastically stamped page

and a super duper doodled extravaganza of a page

and on Wednesday, this happened....

future stars of comedy my daughters...

Have a wonderful weekend Everyone, enjoy the sunshine which isn't going to happen until Sunday!

Two for Tuesday morning...

It's lovely and sunny this morning in Newcastle and that makes me happy dear reader, today I'm giving a presentation at an event this afternoon and thats mostly my work for the day as really Tuesdays are usually my day off.

Yesterday after a busy morning spent ordering prints and doing admin and then doing house work and shopping I managed a couple of hours creativity.

We've just celebrated Abigails 11th birthday but on my table yesterday I found a photograph of her on her 10th birthday, I'm sure i'll get to 11 soon enough.

and if you want old photos, I took this one when Looby was 3, I wasn't even a photographer, or at least I was making moves towards becoming one but I hadn't started my business, that happened in June 2007 (6 years old next month, yay)  It was at a time when I was just getting over agoraphobia and making moves to be indpendant, we had a lovely holiday in Scotland and when I came back I was super focused on the future.

Have a super focused and positive Tuesday everyone.

Well "Deer", that was a wonderful wedding

How are you my lovely dear reader, have you had a delightful weekend?

Let me tell you about my goings on.

Saturday, I had the loveliest wedding and a lot of the wedding guests looked like this

Yes, the wonderful thing about Whitworth is that it has it's own deer park, it was a beautiful laid back wonderful affair and my assistant and I had an absolute blast

we shot the portraits after dinner so the light was at it's most perfect and it really was yummy light and time spent with a fantastic bride and groom, I really do have the best job in the world.

So what is today about?  Well a little admin sending prints off to the lab and then maybe a couple of hours to myself to relax, listen to the radio and do a little craft and then this evening I'm off to meet with potential clients who are getting married in January, fingers and toes crossed dear reader.

Whatever you have in store this week I hope it's wonderful, stay positive and fabulous things will happen.

Look who I met at yesterdays lovely wedding at Whitworth Hall

It's early Sunday morning and dear reader, I am up bright and early after having a splendid time at yesterdays lovely wedding.  What a dream it was, such a laid back pace and Whitworth Hall is the loveliest place in the North East of England to do wedding photography.

I haven't really had a look at the photos yet, it'll take me a few days to recover and then go back with fresh eyes to start the edit but I did want to share this one of one of the "guests" at Whitworth Hall.

how gorgeous?  you know we really must go back and have lunch there and take the girls, Whitworth of course has it's very own deer park and for a fiver you can wander in the fields with the deer, in with that fiver for a family of four you even get 2 bags of food for the deer and they will come and eat out of your hands, they're much tamer than your average deer although they don't like being touched if you're not offering food, bit like my husband really!!

Today is all about portraits, 5 lovely photo shoots await in Jesmond Dene this afternoon and it looks like being a lovely day, hoping to get some more beauties for my clients like these

so you see, mini shoots aren't just for kids and sometimes they actually feature minis, that doesn't happen very often though.

So my morning plan is lots more coffee and a little craft in the kitchen to chill before I go and do the photography in Jesmond Dene this afternoon.

If you would like to talk to me about shooting your Whitworth Hall wedding or maybe some portraits in Jesmond Dene please do get in touch via email, my facebook business page or my website

It's the weekend, a wedding and portraits on the way

Good Saturday morning to you dear reader, it's bright and not too sunny this morning in Newcastle and that for me is perfect because I have a big wedding today, I'm really looking forward to shooting the wedding of Louise and Mike later today at St Teresas Catholic church in Heaton and then at beautiful Whitworth Hall, thats the one with the deer!

So I thought I'd pop a quick post up with one of yesterdays layouts entitled Do Not Mess With Abigail, there's some hidden journalling on the tag behind the photo but the title sums it up really, she's not one to be messed with.

Crafty people, I have news of bargains, get down to your local TK Maxx or Homestyle because they have tons of crafty bargains including papers, pens, embellishments and ribbons, the Metrocentre Homestyle is particularly good, how I managed to be as restrained as i was and only spend £60 is a miracle but I came away with lots of scrappy bargains and now have enough Gel pens to last me my entire life, whats the betting that those pixies Abigail and Looby have pinched them all by the middle of next week?!

I'll be in Jesmond Dene all day tomorrow or rather all afternoon, I have several mini sessions, next week sees my return to Tynemouth Longsands and it's looking like a very busy day, I have just a couple of sessions remaining, if you would like to book one there are more details and photos on my Facebook business page or you can contact me through my website or even email me.

Have a wonderful weekend, I shall see you on the other side!

Re-New, Re-Visit, Scrapbook...

Dear reader, some of you will have no doubt read this blog forever, well I hope some of you have, I started blogging in 2003/4 and started this blog in early 2005, that seems like forever to me!

So anyway, you may have time to time encountered posts on here where I've been talking about scrapbooking, it's my hobby, the thing I do to relax, something which creatively nourishes me and stretches my arty crafty gluey persuasions for the parts photography cannot reach.  You see I love photos but I want to do something with them, I want to make albums with stories to leave for my ancestors, a kind of window on my life which the girls will inherit and then they can show their children and they can show their children etc.

My girls love to scrapbook, it's the only time they stoop fighting for more than 30 seconds, anything that can accomplish that is quite frankly a miracle!

I don't get very much time to scrapbook because business is so busy constantly but thats fine, yesterday after spending a day catching up in the office on Wednesday I gave myself the afternoon off and completed 4 pages to add to my scrapbooks, 2 of them went straight into the scrapbooks but I thought I would share a couple of pages.

I'm having a lot of fun creating things with Instagrams at the moment and I've found a couple of great companies who can free your Instagrams from the page.  Photobox.co.uk will do lovely quality 5x5 prints and printing.com will do lovely prints which look like polaroids, I'm testing another service based in Australia at the moment, I'll get back to you when I have the prints and have assessed their service.

Ask any contemporary scrapbooker what they love about the hobby and somewhere in there they'll mention the supplies and it's a really lovely treat to yourself to get all those pretty papers, stickers and embellishments.

I do think my style has changed over the years, in the peak of scrapbooking in the mid noughties we would all spend hours/days/weeks creating the perfect scrapbook page of well, sometimes quite frankly, an insignificant moment, those were the days I used to be a buyer for a scrapbooking company and also ran their design team and it was all about who could get published the most, I think we all took ourselves way too seriously, for me now it's just about having fun, it doesn't have to be the latest or greatest product (though I am still very good at scrapbook supply shopping), it's just about telling the story behind the photographs to leave a window to my world for future generations.

So while I am off photographing a wedding and the little people of the North East this weekend why don't you spend some time being creative, getting messy, and giving yourself an excuse to play, nourish your creativity and you'll be a fuller better more relaxed person whatever field you work in.

Happy Weekend dear reader!

It's not all work...

Hello Dear Reader, how long it seems to be since my last post, in real times it's about 2 weeks but that is a while for me.

It's been horribly busy as ever, I never ever seem to stop...except I do, for 3 whole days this week I had fun and frolics and relaxation, all in the aid of Abigails 11th birthday.

I went away and I didn't even take my camera, so here's my weekend in Instagrams -

It started with a day of mini sessions at Tynemouth, note to self, remember the sunscreen next time.

on Saturday evening we did a 6 hour drive down to London to stay in the Jurys Inn, Croydon, this was my Sunday morning view from the 11th floor.

Thorpe Park was our day on Sunday, we thought we'd let the girls beat each other up in a safe environment, they're like North and South Korea at the moment, I've threatened to change my name to referee on several occasions.

Laura, queen of butterfly land

hubby, ruler of the beardy folk

all of the kids trying to photo bomb each other, oh and Dorito, Loobys dog she's had since she was 2 years old and he's been everywhere, he's more well travelled than me!!

shockingly bad couples portrait of us but after 13 years of marriage you take what you can get

Bank holiday monday morning and another theme park beckons, Drayton Manor was our Monday day out

I decided not to go on this after a very traumatic ride on something similar at Flamingo land where I actually prayed out loud for the ride to be over.

we didn't get home until Midnight on Monday and as it was Abigails birthday on Tuesday we let them sleep in and took one of our "Bohemian Rhapsody" days, it's not all about school you know, our bohemian style of parenting is something I'm really proud of and all the kids are doing so well at school, Abigail is doing SATS at the higher level next week so some occasional days off only seem to make them more nourished well balanced children.

We love Alnmouth so much, it's one of our favourite places on the beautiful Northumbrian coastline

Abigail and her daddy taking a stroll

love this one, they stopped arguing for a whole minute and then Abigail got very wet and then very sandy and then complained we'd ruined her birthday because she was too sandy, the girl cracks me up!!

oh thats me, I made a sand portrait of me before i straighten my hair in the mornings!

It was lovely to take some time out, just keeps me refreshed and I love family time so much, it's really hard to switch off when you love your business but it's necessary so you don't burn out.

I'll be back with a regular worky type post tomorrow with tons of new portraits of the little people of the north, i have another full day on Sunday and on Saturday I have a wedding at one of my favourite venues, Whitworth Hall near Durham, they have their own deer park you know!