Santa's Little Helper Redux

I had another go at photographing the little one with the lights (actually used different lights which I was happier for her to get hear her mouth).

I think this time was more successful with the white seamless. The two lights at the back are much closer to the paper (so appear brighter without Mike having to process for me in PS). The downside to this is, because I'm using desk lamps instead of proper (read expensive) studio equipment, they intrude into the frame and the photo needed to be cropped right down in Lightroom. See the original photo unprocessed below. So two lamps at the back and two lamps at the front but quite far away from her. I thought I'd need to use a diffuser on the fore lamps but the light didn't seem too harsh as is. Also, it was a brighter day than when I first tried so the ambient light in the room was higher which I think also helped.

What do you think? Do you have any tips for photographing babies? Please leave a comment below.

Happy Caturday - Relax

Leeloo says relaaaaxxx.....

Santa's Little Helper

After looking through my 2015 pictures to select the best ones (its a tradition on my other blog, you can see my previous years here). I was disappointed to realise my creativity had fled with the hormones, sleepiness nights and samey routines! Doh. I resolved to do something about it and see if I could try and get a decent picture of the little one. I wanted to photograph her with Christmas lights but it was really hard stopping every two seconds to stop her eating them! So I took the lights away and replaced with something safe to chew. It was the first time trying the 'seamless' paper too (which isn't very seamless when you need it two sheets wide) so it took more processing than I'd like to get it looking even this good. I expect Mike will get it looking tip top in photoshop with his mad skills (I did the adjustments in LR, I opened PS and was flummoxed). I think I need to watch some tutorials or something ;) I'll try again with the lights once I've got the technique down a bit better, one thing at a time methinks, at least she doesn't look like a fish so that's some progress. What do you think? Do you have any baby photographing tips for me? Please leave them in the comments section below! :)

Happy Caturday!

Dallas 1, Little One 0, for control of the bouncy chair.

Currently...

Linking up with Jenna and Anne for what I am "Currently..." doing.

Currently I'm....

{wishing}  that I was more organised. Christmas is creeping up on me and I've done nothing this year. Also, these 'currently' prompt words always make me feel so disorganised and rubbish, can't cook or sew or anything else really :-/ Does anyone else feel like this? So perhaps also 'wishing' we had some less 1950s-housewife words to play with? :)

{remembering}  so many great trips! I've been doing a #100YrDiary project, where you fill out 10 pages per year (a double page spread per season plus a highlights and yearly photo spread). Its really nice to revisit the photos of so many of our interesting trips (which I've posted about them on my other blog over the years). It does also mean I'm realising how lax my photo backup organisation has gotten! I have 36 years worth to go back and fill in so some fun to come :) Also, starting one off for my daughter.

{wrapping}  my brain around google analytics, boy thats complicated!

{baking}  absolutely nothing, I cannot cook at all :( I am however percolating some blog post ideas if that counts.

{decorating}  hopefully the tree this weekend if we get around to finding it in the loft.


What are you currently doing?

Happy #Caturday

I was going to upload a video of Lizzie today but got distracted by how cute Dallas was when we first got him (see below). He's not that tiny any more thats for sure. Poor old Dallas has almost lost his voice these past few days, for a siamese that is a travesty!

PhotoFriday - 'Minimalism' A small cow.

I don't often double post on photo friday but I've been feeling nostalgic recently and looking at old photos. This fit this weeks PhotoFriday theme. I also posted over on my underwater blog with an oldie.

The Snot Rocket

Ewwww... when you have no frame of reference for having a baby its easy to be grossed out by many things about pregnancy and birth but it seems that the fun just doesn't stop coming once the Little One is here. It never occurred to me that a baby's nose couldn't be wiped like a normal person (not something I'd even considered) until Mike announced we had to get a 'snot rocket'. Nice. So we bought this one from Amazon:
They nicely call it a nasal aspirator. Suffice it to say it's more gross than imagined, and if you get icked out easily I'd stop reading now. Its essentially a little tube where you put one end into the babies nose and the other end in your mouth to suck out the contents ... blerg! There is a little filter in the middle so nothing gets transferred but still. It takes a lot of puff and still makes you feel rather ill.





After a few goes of this we knew there must be something else. We searched out and bought this one...

the Vital Baby Nurture Nasal Decongester. So much better, it just sucks out the contents when you squeeze the bottom and its easy to clean. I was speaking to some of the ladies in a baby group the other day and they were still using the sucky one above hence the reason for this post :) And to all the people without children out there - be glad you don't need a snot rocket!

DIY Blackout Curtains

So it turns out that babies need a lot of sleep! Even on an overcast sort of day like today our dark blue curtains prove woefully inadequate to the task of a dark room during the day, early evening or early morning. Since I'm on maternity leave and super skint I decided that proper blackout blinds were going to be too expensive for just the 3 or 4 months that our little one is in our room (her windows are a different size so we'll think about those later). Cue the DIY project :) So, with some blackout material, some sew & stick velcro and some yellow satin ribbon and we fashioned ourselves some child safe blackout blinds. Below are some before and after pictures, on a sunny day the difference would be even more marked.

What they looked like rolled up...

Nan very kindly sewed the soft side of the velcro to the blackout material at the sewing machine.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

We left a lip of material at the top and bottom to prevent light leak so the only place it gets in are where the velcro is stitched in. If we had bigger borders on our windows (more space to stick the velcro higher up) there would have been no leak at all.


The ribbon is purposefully not stitched on so we can change colour or position if we fancy it.
   

So what do you think?

Introducing Little L

How time flies. It seems like only yesterday that I was bored out of my brain and laying around like a bloated whale waiting to give birth. At 10 days late little L had grown to a hefty 3.87kg (8.5lb)! We're 3 months later and I've finally got around to using my laptop for more than the occasional bill payment. I'd have been much more regular with the blogposts if the blogger app for my phone wasn't so abjectly awful. Here she is in all her tiny glory and we love her more and more with each passing day.

     

thanks to Mike, who took most, if not all of the photos.