mermaids and moss

a tea party

A mother from my daughter's class hosted the sweetest mother/daughter tea party over the weekend. We dressed up in fancy dresses and shoes, and she brought her favorite doll and new camera [and I brought only two more cameras, just a little bit nerdy, maybe].

There was a trampoline...

Beautiful gardens...

Crafts with friends...

... and toads! 

It was a magical afternoon... sipping champagne, as dozens of little princesses traipsed through the woods and the gardens, jumping, running, spinning and catching enormous toads. So much fun.

her very own camera

A certain little girl has been requesting her own camera for months, possibly longer. Sometimes I let her take photos with my phone, but I get nervous that it will get dropped, especially with other little friends grabbing for turns, too. I was looking a bit for cameras on-line the other morning, and my husband mentioned that he still had his old polaroid camera. So, he dusted it off and went to the camera shop to buy a couple packs of expired film. And voila! Our girl has her very first camera.

She used the first pack of film to document our family and home. Taking portraits of the cats, the new garden, her father...

And all day long, she kepting tell me how it was the best day of her life.

After many requests, I stitched up a stack of little books for her to fill. I've made these before, she fills them so quickly with birds and families and lists of things. I also gave her access to my treasured washi tape. She loves it. Me, too.

thank you

We finally, finally finished the thank you cards from our superhero birthday party! Better late than never works best in my house, otherwise I'd just never do anything at all, right? I drew a "thank you" message on the driveway, and shifted and scooted the children until I could fit their little selves and the message into the same frame. A cloudy day probably would have worked better... but the blinded children with crinkled up faces gives it all a bit more character. I used my iPhone and the instagr.am app to take and edit the photo and then had them printed through PostalPix. I pasted the photos to little cards and asked my daughter draw a picture inside each card when she signed her name. They turned out really cute and we're already receiving thank yous for our thank you cards. Yay!

florida : : a family vacation 8.10, part 2

florida : : a family vacation 8.10

{ flashback to August, 2010 — a few of my favorite photos from the Florida trip }

the story of blurb

Over the years, I've managed to find some time to put together a few photo books using blurb to print my books. And, recently, I was pleasantly surprised to be contacted by blurb about one of my Florida vacation books. They liked my book so much that they were asking permission to reprint my book to use for marketing purposes. And they offered to pay me a nice, small hunk of money. I was so surprised. I hadn't entered any contests or posted any descriptions of my book. I just printed this Florida vacation book through the company more than year ago, and it's been sitting on my bookshelf ever since. So, of course, this makes me feel like I should be designing more books and soon... they're so much fun to do.

she wanted a rainbow

I found this cute little app for my iPhone called Lenslight. It's silly and fun. Maybe you're supposed to use it to create realistic effects, but I'm using it for silly and fantastic portraiture. My kids are having lots of fun with it, especially my daughter. She's been requesting to do photo shoots all day. She chooses the pose and props and likes to help choose which effect looks best with each photo. Below is the series that we shot on Sunday. Enjoy!

[ She's a starfish with a big heart ]

hipstamatic on the bay

I can't resist sharing a few more photos from our day trip to the bay... just savoring the memories and looking forward to the next visit. Have I mentioned how much I love vacations? Even if they're only for a day, they really are necessary. And needed.

And then, have I mentioned how much I love my new iPhone? It was a necessary purchase after getting my very old cellphone wet in the bay during the last visit. I love the Hipstamatic app. All of these photos were taken with the Hipstamatic. It's so cute. It reminds me of my old Holga with the tape [don't worry, I still have her] and fun times with ancient Polaroids. I've also become attached to instagr.am. It's another way to share your photos with people all over the world [like flickr]... if you want to follow me I'm called elf_girl. I already have four whole followers. I'm so proud.

I love this one because I think he looks a bit like an otter floating on his back eating shellfish. Do you see the minnows swimming around his feet?

She's searching for shark teeth.

Five very, very small shark teeth were found.

Boats in the thunderstorm.

Sunset on the bay.