Simplicity - my life in mostly photographs

New blog

2012-01-02T00:11:00.000-05:00

I've moved!!

My new blog is Sweet Violet photography & design

I hope you'll follow me there

Thank you so much!

Happy New Years!!

2012-01-01T01:00:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!!

I hope that this year is an amazing year for you and yours... I am so very excited about this year - 2011 was a great year for us and there is just no telling what 2012 will bring. Hopefully new friends here! One of the best things that has happened in my online life is how many wonderful people I've met! I am so thankful for each of you.

I made y'all a desktop calendar to download. (Let me know if you need a different size for your screen) I've also attached the source file so that you can customize it with your own photos, fonts and even re-make it to give away on your own blog.

download 1600x1200 wallpaper here

download 1600x1200 image file here
download fully editable .psd file here

download 1600x1200 wallpaper here

fonts used: Calamity Jane & Bernhard Fashion Hmk

Needless to say - I'm happy

2011-12-30T20:49:00.001-05:00

Several happy things happened today.

The hubs made reservations for our anniversary dinner later this month at The Frog Hollow which is a stunningly good farm-to-table local restaurant and he lined up a babysitter. Serious kudos to him.

I registered the domain for my new blog. I won't tell you what it is yet because the site is a catastrophic mess at the moment. But it won't be for too much longer - I'm very confident that I can get it up and running very soon. I used blogger's domain registration via GoDaddy and Google. It was the easiest thing ever.

I also got some time to photograph my new cameras - the ones my mom gave me for Christmas. I'm so happy with the results. The Pentax was my grandpa's and he used it to take photos at the Atlanta Olympics! Even more special - the Contaflex is another one of my grandpa's cameras that he used to photograph my mom when she was his little girl. I'm totally psyched out of my mind to figure out how to use it to photograph my children. I need to get more batteries for the Pentax before I can use it - but it came with this 50mm lens and a macro converter and a zoom lens! Very cool. Plus my mom gave me some of her old 35mm film. There is some really special film photograph magic coming from my house soon!

Editing notes: I used the Paint the Moon action for PSE called "Vanilla Pop" and tweaked the levels a little to sharpen and deepen the blacks.

Photography gear & your new years resolutions

2011-12-30T00:23:00.002-05:00

I love New Years.

Christmas is okay, I could honestly take it or leave it, but New Years - that is a holiday I can not live without. Twice a year - on New Years and on my birthday - I press the "refresh" button on life, I start over, look ahead and plan to make changes. Sure some years those New Years resolutions look more like wishful thinking than actual plans to make habit-altering reforms, but still - I love it.

For those of you who follow my blog I'm guessing you have a few New Years resolutions of your own and that they might have something to do with your photography. Of course I hope you'll plan to improve your photography by participating in one of my photography e-classes but I'm also guessing that your plans include upgrading your gear, to some extent or another. So I wanted to jot down a few thoughts I had while I was washing my hair and share them here with you.

Learn how to use the camera you have before you invest in a new camera

This, of course, is why I offer photography classes, because I am a firm believer that while your gear does effect your photography the biggest thing you can do to improve your photography is to learn how to use what you have. A few really basic principles and a slight shift in how you are looking at your photos can make a huge impact - with only the investment of a little bit of time and intention. I can tell you I've seen a lot of different photographers with a lot of different quality of gear and I believe it more now than ever: an amazing camera won't make you an amazing photographer.

Upgrade your lens before you upgrade your body

I learned this the hard way. When I upgraded from the Nikon D80 to the D700 I expected to see jaw-dropping improvement (after all I'd just spent a jaw-dropping amount of money on this camera!) and I have to say I didn't see it right away. I notice it now, especially if I go back to using my D80 for a little while, but I didn't at first. Then one of my friends upgraded her lens on her entry-level SLR and voila! the difference really was jaw-dropping, and for a fraction of the cost. If you want to see a big improvement in your photography and you already have an SLR then upgrade your lens. What lens do I recommend? Read that here.

Wait to upgrade your SLR body

I've read lately that there are major upgrades coming to the Pro SLR camera world. With a much-needed upgrade to the Canon 5D Mark II just around the corner as well as a stellar upgrade to the Nikon D700 coming sometime in the very near future my advice is to hold off on that body upgrade until the summer - when the release of the new cameras will (hopefully) drive down the price of the current cameras to a more affordable price range. So if you're thinking that this is your year to go pro - read this post and keep saving.

If you're going to buy a starter SLR - buy it now.

If this is the year you want to dive into SLR photography - now is the time to buy. I recommend Amazon.com as the best place to buy online. I literally spent weeks researching all of the online shops I could find thinking that maybe I'd buy 2nd hand and settled on Amazon.com with a very satisfactory experience. Their prices are practically unbeatable (I did a quick price match of a handful of sites just to make sure that what I was writing is still true and it is - they beat out their competitors by nearly $100) and the confidence I had buying from amazon.com is priceless. Want to know what camera I recommend? I wrote all about it here.

If you've just bought your first SLR learn how to use it.

How could I not mention this?! My ebook is nearly ready and it will (hopefully!) be available to download in full on January first, you can download a little sample of it over here and I also have a class starting January 9 for learning how to use your digital SLR camera.

favorite movies from 2011

2011-12-27T13:35:00.001-05:00

Since my kids have all been home on winter break we've been doing a little bit of cleaning the house and I've found all kinds of scraps of paper in my kids rooms and notebooks upon notebooks of lists, mostly written by my oldest. She gets it from me, I guess. I like writing lists too. One of my favorite lists to keep is my list of favorite movies of the year. Later I'm going to let my girls share their lists of their favorite books that they've read this year.

Family and Kids
Dolphin Tale - one of the best live action family movies of the year.

Rango - my favorite animated family movies of the year, engaging for older kids and adults though I suggest you read a mom's review before you decide if it's going to be okay for your younger kids.

Kung Fu Panda 2 - one of my favorite animated movies for younger kids. My four year old boy really liked it.

Cars 2 - how could you have a list of movies of this year without having Cars 2 on it?

Tangled - technically this is a movie from the end of 2010 but I didn't see it until this year. It's my favorite animated movie for girls of the year.

Ramona and Beezus - The whole family enjoyed this, especially my girls who are ages ten to six. It's a great mix of drama, laughter and romance.

Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer - I really enjoyed watching this movie with my kids, it held the attention of all of my movie-watching aged kids (ages ten to four).

Monte Carlo - a nice, romantic pre-teen movie.

Spy Kids 4: All The Time In The World - surprisingly, this was my favorite Spy Kids movie yet.

Mr. Popper's Penguins- we just watched this the other night and the whole family really enjoyed it.

The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader - my older girls (ages ten and eight) especially enjoyed this movie.

The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! - this is my favorite new series from PBS Kids and the best thing to come from The Cat in the Hat brand since the original book.

Peep and the Big Wide World - another one of our favorite shows from PBS with little science experiments at the end of each episode. It's darling.

BBC Earth: Life - of all of the nature miniseries we've bought this one is my favorite. My four year old asks to watch this nearly every day. The cinematography is exceptional and the entire series is captivating.

Movies to watch with your sisters
The Help - I watched this while wrapping presents. The hubs enjoyed it too, even though it's more of a chick-flick. It's got a great plot, good acting and beautiful costuming. Definitely one to buy.

Jane Eyre - I'm such a sucker for Brit-Lit drama. This one did not disappoint and I thought it managed to hold it's own in a sea of similar movies.

Larry Crowne - If you liked movies like "You've got mail" or other Tom Hank love fests you'll like this one too. It's great with pint of ice cream or a glass of wine.

The Conspirator - another period drama, on the topic of wrongful execution.

The King's Speech - period drama done to perfection. It won all kinds of awards and deserves every one of them. If you like period pieces this one is cinematic deliciousness, and if you know your British Royal history it's doubly so. Based on the story of the current Queen Elizabeth's father.

I Am Number Four - it's a lightweight teen drama with cute actors and a decent plot. My favorite thing about this movie is that the girl (who is also in Glee) is a photographer. Strangely I find myself wanting to watch it over and over.

Beastly - it's horribly predictable and yet a nice teen chick flick. I wish that the story could have been as good as the wardrobe.

Movies to watch with your hubs
Moneyball - I just watched this with the hubs last week and we both really enjoyed it. It's got very good cinematography, a good plot and good acting. It's clean and the hubs stayed awake until the end, that says a lot.

Fast Five - I enjoyed this movie a lot, the hubs watched it two or three times.

Crazy, Stupid Love - I enjoyed it. My favorite line: "it's like you're photoshopped" It's worth reading a review first because this type of movie may not be your cup of tea, but overall I enjoyed it.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Such a fun movie to watch with my hubs. I think this is one of the few movies we saw in the theater. I wouldn't let my kids watch it because the oldest is only ten, but they enjoy plating the LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean video game.

Super 8 - a fun, unique sci-fi movie with excellent performances by the kids who star in this movie. A good plot - not overly relying on special effects.

The Debt - such a good drama. We both enjoyed this movie a lot.

Limitless - I really liked this one too. It had some unexpected twists, and I really liked the supporting cast.

Unknown - such a good drama. Really well done.

Source Code - one of my favorite movies of this year. It drags just a little in the middle but it's worth it to get to the end.

Arthur- this movie was poorly promoted. It's way cleaner than the previews make it seem to be. I enjoyed this movie so much and is a lighthearted, romantic comedy

The Switch - definitely my favorite RomCom of this year. Such a good movie.

The Next Three Days - this is a great drama. Probably my favorite movie from Russell Crowe.

Unstoppable - a great, positive drama. It totally lived up to my expectations.

Everything Must Go - my favorite movie from Will Ferrell - and I'm not a huge fan of his. It's a really good movie about turning your life around.

Inception - if you didn't see this last year you need to see it. It's probably one of the best movies of the decade.

What have your favorite movies been?

The small print: all of the links (except links to reviews) are affiliate links. Every opinion & suggestion is my own.

Upcoming classes and thoughts about the new year...

2011-12-27T00:16:00.000-05:00

Christmas is finally over. I hate to be a grinch about it but I am so glad to be done with Christmas. We had a wonderful few days and I'm looking forward to the next few days of winter break, but I'm glad to be done with all of the pressure and planning.

One of the higlights of my Christmas was that my mom bought me a vintage film SLR camera and she gave me some of her dad's old film camera equipment which ended up being three 35mm film cameras and several lenses. Needless to say - I'm over the moon about it. I can not wait both to photograph the cameras themselves but also to use some of the film my mom gave me. I have been staring at my box of loot all day today, hoping I could get away while the light was good - but there were so many other things to do today and I've got nothing.

My favorite part about this time of year is looking ahead to the new year. I'm a big list maker and New Year's resolution maker. Of course a big part of that list is this blog and my photography classes. I'm working on putting together a couple e-books. One will be out January first and will be a companion to your new SLR camera (Download the first chapter here). I'm thinking that possibly a class on photo editing would be in order for January as well. I'm also going to be working on a lighthearted e-book on how to improve cell phone photography. I'm super-excited about it. You can get a sneak peak here. I'm really interested in what you - my faithful reader - would like to see.

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it's the little things...

2011-12-23T10:47:00.001-05:00

We had our family "Christmas" this morning... I could not have asked for a better morning. The kids were all so thankful, cheerful and have been playing happily all morning long... and I could not be happier

on a personal note...

2011-12-23T02:54:00.000-05:00

this may very well be one of the last times I write on this blog... I'm hoping to have a new one ready to launch January first with a shiny new e-book to go along with your shiny new camera.

It's 2am and finally the last of the presents are wrapped and the pink, blue and green wrapped gifts are sitting by the fireplace. I look at that pile of presents and feel a little bit "what the heck is this all for anyway" I think about the money we spent. I wonder if any of it matters, it feels like this whole holiday is such an ordeal and I wonder if it would scar my children for life if we just skipped Christmas next year and volunteered at the soup kitchen instead. That is when I realize that my mental ramblings really have nothing to do with the underprivileged and everything to do with all the coffee I've been drinking tonight - which makes me prone to mood swings - and as I ride the wave of emotions tonight I have a micro revelation - I am depressed.

Yes, I can be depressed with a heart full of gratitude. Yes, I can be, if not especially, depressed after a wonderful day with my kids. I settled fights peacefully and calmly. I exercised a dump truck load of self-control. Well, at least until I opened a package of Oreos anyway. Today I danced with my daughter who is nearly as tall as I am and marveled at how quickly these years have flown by. It's been a great day and tomorrow should be even better, how can I feel this way? Why are my emotions careening off the cliff edge to this familiar Pied-Pipe'r tune? And like the gentle voice from my best friend the words form in my mind, reminding me that depression isn't just mental or emotional - it's physical. The needle for my gas tank is resting at empty and the little light has come on to remind me to stop at the gas station before I try to do anything else. I take a deep breath. I stop freaking out. I know I'm going to be okay. I remember that I'll feel a lot better in the morning - maybe not first thing in the morning, but well you know what I mean.

I just thought I'd share that in case that's you - feeling bad for how bad you feel. I know. I'm there with you honey.

Now I'm going to let myself be sad, admit that I am frazzled stressed tired and just plain sad and then I'm going to bed and I'm going to have a wonderful day tomorrow watching my kids enjoy their holiday. I can't wait to see their faces, I know it'll be beautiful, not perfect, but beautiful.

a {mostly} failed attempt

2011-12-17T09:55:00.000-05:00

The hubs asked me to have some canvas prints made of the family. I ordered four from Easy Canvas Prints (which I'm going to blog about one of these days!! I had a very good experience ordering from them) but I've got five kids and need to order one more. This has been a real learning experience - ordering canvases - and it's slightly altered how I shoot, mostly in regards to leaving more space around the edge of my shot for cropping a print or wrapping a canvas. So the other day I attempted to photograph Josiah for his canvas print. It was an epic fail. He was uncooperative and would not could not be still long enough to get the type of shot that I'd want to hang on my wall. He's really expressive and very active so trying to get just the right shot is tricky. (Exhibit 100 for why being a professional photographer is a lot harder than you'd think! And why I'm not one at the moment)

love the light on his face and in his eyes - but what a face!!

I love how calm this one looks and I really like the lighting in this shot

if only he was looking at the camera

cue the crazy face!

this is one of my favorites but the expression is still a little off - and I'll need to photoshop his shirt

love that smile - but you can't see his eyes!!

now you can see his eyes but where is the smile?!

Maybe I just need a more cooperative model? My Emma loves to have her picture taken:

White balance is set much too cool

I fixed my white balance by adjusting the Kelvin White Balance on my camera

what is up with the angle on this shot? I think maybe I was shooting too close and got some lens distortion.

this is better - but I'd like to see more eyes

sweet happy snaggle-tooth girl

her model pose

I give up.

random thoughts and a few cute photos

2011-12-16T09:31:00.000-05:00

Eli & Emma

Today is my kid's last day of school for the year. I have mixed feelings about that. I am really looking forward to having them home with me but I'm also not looking forward to all of the stuff I have still left to do to get ready for Christmas which will be so much more difficult with them home.

Yesterday I spent all day on the couch like a lump. I felt like I had the flu - no fun. Today Katie-Abigail is taking my place on the couch with a fever and everything. I'm sorry that she is missing out on her pajama day at school - poor baby.

My to do list is sadly lacking in crossed-out items - still so much shopping, wrapping, and securing a babysitter for upcoming appointments and events. Laundry and recycling overflowing... my blog re-do is in mid-swing. I was hoping I would be done it by now. But it is what it is.

I finally figured out what I'm going to make for the hubs for Christmas this year. I'm not very crafty. One year I crocheted an afghan for him for Christmas and another year I had the kids write out one of his favorite quotes and we decorated one of those customizable travel mugs from starbucks but every other year my gifts have been pretty crappy - he is really hard to buy for and his birthday is right after the New Years so it takes a good bit of planning to do something special for him - and planning is one of my weaknesses.

I'm really missing my family right now. They only live three hours away - so at least we'll see them over the holidays and I am very thankful for that. I just wish we were close enough to spend more time with them and that it wasn't such an event to go visit them.

I wish I could just drop my kids off with my mom while I knock out that last-minute Christmas shopping or that my mother in-law could come spend the night when the hubs and I go out for his Christmas dinner. My mom is participating in my test-drive group for my upcoming photography class for online business-owners and bloggers - and I'd love to be able to do more with her in-person instead of over the phone and via email. I love where I live - but I don't love being so far away from our family.

Eli is nearly 5 months now... he's changing so much! Every day his motor skills are getting better and he gets more interested in the world around him. He discovered the dog the other day and seems very interested in her. Thankfully so far they've been really gentle towards each other. I haven't started him on a bottle or solids yet. But that day is coming! He is really interested in what we're eating and has tried to grab graham crackers and apple sauce packets from his brother and sisters.

Are you sick of Christmas advertisements yet? My inbox and twitter feed has been flooded with reminders about sales and special offers. I thought about blogging a few of those offers from my advertising affiliates but I didn't want to add to the clamor.

Next year I'm starting earlier. All of this waiting to the last minute junk is getting old. Next year I want to buy more from handmade artists and my friends on Etsy. Next year I want to barter more and buy less. Next year I want to make more of the gifts I give - start earlier and follow through on more of my good intentions. Next year I'm also going to start blogging about Christmas earlier. I had SO many ideas but most of them are stuck in my drafts folder.

P.S. Did you see these - Eli is 4 months, some photos of my boys, my boys in black and white, my blog re-design

Wordless Wednesday

2011-12-14T09:37:00.000-05:00

Because I'm too tired to write a proper post... here's a couple photos from the other day when Josiah and I made some gingers bread cookies.

Don't forget to link up with my Photography Challenge

because fonts are so much fun

2011-12-13T15:30:00.000-05:00

My mind is no where near to made up about my name change... still really loving Adelaide, or Adeline like "Sweet Violet Adeline" wouldn't that be pretty? I really love the idea of "Violet Jane" or "Violet Adelaide" Adelaide is my grandmother's middle name (and also apparently the name of a city in Australia) and I have always loved it. Adeline is more popular though and I don't want to create a name that people can't remember.

I was playing with the fonts on my sidebar header thing and then I had a lightbulb moment when I saw how pretty the fonts looked like - I also created one with the font y'all said was your favorite when I posted some font ideas.

P.S. I got that pretty look on the "photography" line by adding a space in between each letter in the word "photography" - it's a great idea when you want a line to be lighter, smaller but take up more space.

Photography Challenge

2011-12-13T08:56:00.001-05:00

Sorry this link-up is a little late today! I'm on my way out the door to take Eli to the hospital for his routine check-up on his hydronephrosis. I'm expecting a long day - he has an ultrasound and an appointment with his urologist. But I'm expecting more good news...

Today's theme is "Life is Art" - there are so many moments everyday, but especially this time of year, that if you just stop and take them in are frame-worthy. Art. Just a simple moment between brothers... a few everyday items, my challenge for you this week is find a moment and capture the art of Life. Can't wait to see them!

P.S. My blog is in the midst of an overhaul... you can follow along here. We'll be back to normal soon!

Details of an edit... my boys subtle b&w

2011-12-13T05:00:00.000-05:00

original

I ran the BlueBerry action for PSE from M4H

reduced opacity to 74%

Next I ran the Baby's Breath action for PE from M4H

I added a gradient map and changed the colors
so that the gradient is from deep gray to light gray instead of from black to white

final edit

What about no header?

2011-12-12T23:49:00.000-05:00

I've noticed this here and there and today when I saw Lemon Jitters removed her header from her newest design I just had to blog about it! Since I'm blogging about blog design. So today I thought I'd re-do my blog layout again - with something fun!!

How do you eliminate your header? In blogger it's not obvious - there might be a better way but this is how I did it.

I did this tutorial this afternoon using a private blog that I have just for testing out template code and things like that...

So here we start with a generic blogger template:

Click on "Template" then on "Customize" then I switched to a simple template

Click over to "Layout"and pick a sidebar

Click on "layout" and then click on the header gadget. Click "remove" to remove the header.

Click back to your template and then click "adjust widths" set the sidebar to the width to 400px

Make sure that you re-size your sidebar header image to 400px as well

I ended up adjusting this to 300px later

Upload your image to your favorite image hosting service and load it as a gadget.

You may need to adjust the title of your blog...

Adjust the title of your blog to 1px & change the color of your title and description to white.

Here is what it looks like with a canvas texture background.

I also tried it with the chevron stripes... which I'm really into right now. (I had to zoom out just a little to get his screen capture)

I think this layout looks really good on a white background - here is a screen capture with white background - but is it too boring?

I didn't mess with the sidebars much since there's lots and lots left to do...

Here's yesterday's layout, in case you missed it.

Blog width & background

2011-12-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

Today I pulled the plug. I erased all of the style code from my blog and set my template back to square one.

Why? Mostly, just for fun.

I love blogging about blogging and this site re-design is a perfect opportunity to do just that. Also I genuinely want input and constructive criticism of my design choices. If you disagree with something I've done or written go ahead and comment! I promise, I'll love you for it.

So today I'm thinking about the big picture: width & background.

I think the style and content of your blog is going to at least partly determine the best width of your blog. A blog that is primarily words should be narrower than the blog that is mostly images. Your photography blog should ideally be big enough to use extra large images. While I was messing in the back-end of blogger I noticed that it's super-easy to change the width of your blog now.

Go to your blog's home screen click on the little down-arrow circled in the image below

Click "Template"

Click "Customize"

Click "Adjust Widths"

Type in the width of your blog or use the slider to adjust the width. The max size is 1500 - on my screen this causes the right edge of the blog to bleed off the edge of the screen.

light gray

black

medium gray

I'm a big fan of medium gray for a background. The light gray looks really blah to me - the black is a little too dramatic for my tastes, but medium gray is sweet. Click on "advanced" to change the solid color of your blog.

Having a nice neutral background for your photography blog is also important. Neutral doesn't have to equal boring. I found some nice chevron stripes at Tiny Sea and I downloaded my canvas textures from Fuzzimo. I've seen subtle patterns work really nice.

Or you can click on the background tab pick one of the backgrounds from blogger or upload your own.

I'm a big fan of simple backgrounds for photography blogs, but journals are an entirely different set of design ideals. Shabby Blogs was one of the first places I downloaded a pre-made background from. There are a lot of choices for pretty much any type of blog. There are also some nice pre-made backgrounds that would work well for photography blogs.

As far as the general design for my blog, You know I'm a huge fan of minimalism. When I come across a blog that shows me an entire weeks worth of posts simultaneously I get overwhelmed and a little confused, except for when it's on a 365 project blog.

What about announcement areas? Do you have an opinion? I like them, I think they are a great way to direct traffic to top posts for the week, but I also find that they take up a lot of design space so I'm on the fence about where and how big it should be.

My little boy is 4 months old!

2011-12-12T05:00:00.000-05:00

Eli is four months old now so I thought I'd take some photos to record his growth

He can roll over now, he can grab objects - especially his feet and he is vocalizing a lot more now.
He likes to be read and sung to. He's chewing on everything, especially his feet and pointer finger.
It's SO sweet to watch him grow! I think I am definitely appreciating it more this time around.

My sweet boys: in black and white

2011-12-11T02:00:00.000-05:00

Here are more photos from the other day and I'm only half-way finished with editing this set! I told you I had lots!! I am still trying to tweak this editing style... these are a little dark but I really like them - even if they're not perfect.

Eli is 4 months old, he's grown so much!

2011-12-10T19:17:00.001-05:00

8 weeks

3 months

4 months

Eli & Josiah

2011-12-10T12:21:00.001-05:00

Eli is 4 months old now, Josiah is 4 years old.

Never underestimate the cuteness of a white shirt

Title fonts...

2011-12-09T20:44:00.001-05:00

Because I know that some of you, my friends are really into this type of thing...

These are a handful of fonts I am thinking about using for my title font. I still haven't totally settled on a name for my new blog. It'll more than likely be violet something or other.

Sidebars

2011-12-09T12:24:00.001-05:00

I was originally planning to write about sidebars sometime after Monday when I begin my site redesign in earnest. But I was talking to a dear blogger friend of mine earlier this week about sidebars and now I just can't put it off any longer!

There are several different types of sidebars I thought I'd mention in this post, so here we go.

No sidebar.
Didn't think it was possible? Oh yes it is.

Most notably Ashley Sisk has been sidebar free for pretty much as long as I can remember - which in my current state of sleep deprivation could have been last week but I'm pretty sure it's been longer than that. I have a huge design crush on this style layout. It keeps content front and center without any distractions.

The down side to having no sidebar though is that there are certain things people tend to look for in the sidebar - a grab badge, though I've noticed a trend towards shifting those to a separate page. Readers typically look for subscription and social media links in a sidebar. Ashley has her GFC (which I'll be blogging about in the VERY near future) in her footer at the moment which is a popular alternative.

Since my blog is, at least at the moment, the only site for my photography eclasses, and therefore puts it more on the side of a business blog than a hobby blog, I don't know that going sidebar-less is the right thing for me to do. I want it to be super quick and easy for my readers to subscribe to my blog, follow me and register for my classes without scrolling to the footer. However, if I ever decide to shift styles towards an art blog removing the sidebar is the first thing I'd do.

Two sidebars
What do you think about this style? I'm still on the fence about it. Does it work best for fashion and style blogs? I don't know. It's a really busy layout. You can see Casey Weigand rocking two sidebars on her blog.

The down side to having two sidebars is that it does detract from your content and makes for a super busy page design. But you can cram a lot of content into that space.

Right or Left?
Most blogs have their main sidebar content on the right side of the page. My opinion on the matter is that it's not earth-shatteringly important. If you're looking to communicate innovation maybe a sidebar on the left would be a hip way to communicate that.

My sidebar pet peves
If pet-peve posts annoy you - I get that ;) Skip this part.

A pseudo sidebar
To be honest these drive me a little nuts. I've seen them lots of places, so maybe I'm in the minority on this one. The first blog that comes to mind is Madeline Bea. It's one way to have a sidebar without really having a sidebar. It keeps the design super-sleek, I'll give you that, but I am not a fan.

The sidebar with scrolling buttons.
This is another design pet peeve of mine , and I'm sorry if that annoys you. If you worked your sweet little fingers to the bone trying to get that code right, well than good for you but it annoys me to no end. If you don't want a long list of buttons on your sidebar maybe you should have a text list instead, or maybe a separate page on your blog.

The sidebar that hangs off the edge of my screen.
This is something I've noticed becoming increasingly common and it really bothers me, especially if they offer paid spots on their blog. I don't want to pay for an ad and only have half of it display properly. This is an instance I think, when more is less.

The unformatted sidebar.
If this is you please, for the love of all things beautiful in the world, fix it! If you don't know how I've written a couple tutorials on the basic HTML code you need to know to format grab badges appropriately. I'm sure you could barter or ask a more design savvy friend for some help. Nothing screams "I don't take my blog seriously" louder than an unformatted collection of buttons.

I know a lot of this is on the negative side, I'm sorry about that. Also don't forget - this is just my personal opinion. You should always design your blogs layout to make YOU happy first.

So what do you think I should add or take away from my sidebar?
I am thinking I'll delete most of my affiliate links in my re-design. They take a good bit of time to maintain - time I could be using to build my blog and connect with my readers. I am registered with LinkShare and ShareASale but I've only made about forty bucks from affiliate links in the entire time I've had this blog and of more than half of that has come since I broke 700 followers. I read that affiliate links aren't really worth the time it takes to maintain them until after you've reached 1K followers and I'm thinking maybe there's something to that.

I am also thinking I may delete my blog frog widget as well. Do you use it?

My SM links will be re-done as icons instead of the text links I have now. I'll have an easier feedburner registration area and I'll have an email opt-in that I'll blast out whenever registration opens for classes.

I've been thinking I should add photos of each of my kids I haven't added them yet because even though I blog about my kids I don't consider my blog to be a mommy blog. - what do you think?

Is it Saturday yet?

2011-12-09T08:32:00.001-05:00

I went to bed early last night but I am still exhausted today. After only sleeping from 1 or 2am until 7am with at least two or three interruptions I'm pretty sleep deprived but I've always found that catching up on sleep is tricky and sometimes it's easier to run on the adrenaline of sleep deprivation and coffee... on the flip side it feels really good to finally get rolling again after thanksgiving break. Today is Library day for my boys and me! It's one of my favorite days of the week.

I've literally got a hundred photos from the other day that I'm trying to edit to post here - I think I'm going to have to figure out how to do one of those stop-motion mash-ups like on The Paper Mama - my kids are just so stinking cute!

A shout out to Melissa at The Momma Bird - for hosting a giveaway for my photography classes. She's obviously doing an amazing job because I've been gaining followers, getting mentioned in tweets and all those wonderful things that make bloggers feel good :) If you're thinking about promoting your blog or shop advertising with Melissa is the place to go and he rates are super-reasonable.

It's not too late to link up with my photography challenge! The theme is eyes and/or feet.

IROCKSOWHAT is swapping design work for clothes to wear to the design summit. She did an amazing job with Rachel's blog! I'm thinking about asking her to design a couple ads for my re-branding that will appeal to her audience. Also, if you're thinking about advertising your blog hers is another good one to advertise on - when I bought an ad for Bartering Blogger on IROCKSOWHAT she automatically became my #1 traffic source (after my blog).

And in case you didn't know - the SWAP on The Bartering Blogger this week is themed - post your want ads there!! How cool is that? :)

Okay, time to take the kids to the library - I'll be back with more photos soon!! :)

P.S. I'm going to be wiping out my blog design on Monday so be sure to drop by sometime on that day to lend your 2 cents to my re-design. I'll be blogging about everything blog-design related. Got a question or something specific you want me to mention? Let me know!

Christmas Cookie Countdown

2011-12-09T00:00:00.000-05:00

Every year, at about this time of year I make fudge for the hub's birthday. It started during our totally-broke days when this was the only thing I did for his birthday. It's an awesome recipe from the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook

(obviously these photos are kina' old)

ingredients
4 cups sugar
2 5 ounce can (1-1/3 cups total) evaporated milk
1 cup butter or margarine
1 12 ounce package (2 cups) semisweet chocolate pieces
1 7 oz dark or milk chocolate candy bar roughly cut
1 7 ounce jar marshmallow creme
1 cup chopped pecans, peanuts or walnuts
1 teaspoon vanilla

directions
Line a 13x9x2-inch baking pan with foil, wax or parchment paper, extending it over edges of pan. Butter paper/foil; set aside.

Butter sides of a heavy 3-quart saucepan. In saucepan combine sugar, evaporated milk, and butter. Cook and stir over medium-high heat till mixture boils. Reduce heat to medium; continue cooking and stirring for 10 minutes.Remove pan from heat.

Add candy bar, chocolate pieces, marshmallow creme, nuts and vanilla; stir until chocolate melts and mixture is combined. Beat by hand for about 3 minutes or until mixture becomes very thick and starts to loose it gloss. Spread in the prepared pan.

When fudge is firm, use foil to lift it out of pan. Cut fudge into squares. Store in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator. Makes about 4 pounds (96 pieces).

If you're looking for something a little less labor intensive to do with the kids I highly recommend the Betty Crocker mixes. I made the cookies above with the mix below. I cut them into shapes before they baked and then re-cut them once I got them out of the oven. Just so you know - we ate them all in one day, so you might want to buy more than one mix :)

What am I blogging about? And how does that affect my design?

2011-12-07T15:48:00.001-05:00

I've been thinking about my blog re-design a lot lately. I really really hope that I win the giveaway at oh my! handmade goodness but I have got products to launch for the new year and want to be as ready for that as I possibly can be. I can not wait to wipe the slate clean and start over with my blog design. I think I'm going to do it on Monday... so you might want to come give your two cents about it then. I've so appreciated all of your comments about switching to wordpress. I haven't made up my mind about it just yet so if you've got an opinion on the matter I want to hear it!

Thinking about the design of my blog I want it to reflect the why, who and what of my blog as well as who I am as a brand (but that's a post for another day - or at least another cup of coffee)

This is my blog as of today - before the fold.

I zoomed out to see more of my design in one screen capture and this is what I got.

A few things that I've notices about my design is that the things my visitors are looking for are not before the fold (the point at which you have to start scrolling) and not even in a logical spot.

My footer is a hot mess!

So what is my blog about? And how is that communicated in my design?

My blog is about photography - it's a place for me to share my photography and a place for newbie photographers (or at least new to photography blogging) can get connected with the community that I have grown to love so dearly.

Here are the designs from two of my favorite art photography blogs at the moment:

I've been thinking about it though - about if I want to turn my blog towards being an art blog, and there is a big part of me that wants too - but I really don't. As much as I love the idea of romanticizing my life or only showing my best side I know it's not who I am as a blogger or how I want to present myself as a photography teacher. I want to be authentic and honest about my regular, everyday life. Not that art bloggers are in any way dishonest, but they only show one part of there lives. And that's fine. I'm just not that type of blogger right now.

My blog is also about day to day life as a mom - I blog for friends and family to see up to date photos of my kids. I added a tab in my navigation bar to make it easier for family to see just the posts that I've labeled as ones I think will be interesting to them. I need to figure out a way to make that more obvious.

I've been flirting with the idea of adopting a layout similar to the superstar blogger - Casey Leigh Weigland - who is taking the mommy fashion blogging world by storm!

before the fold

screen capture in the middle of the page

I really like the idea of having a blog like Casey's or Jess from irocksowhat but I don't think it is "me" I'm essentially about keeping things simple.

Want to know something? Simple is HARD to do right. I'll tell you that right now.

One food blogger who is doing simple well is Russell at Chasing Delicious. This is my guilty-pleasure reading. It's just so very very good. I've never tried a single recipe (sorry! Russel! Maybe one day) but I click over to read every single post. I LOVE the design of this blog - especially the way that the posts only partially display - but you get enough of the post to get a nice big sample and they are still listed chronologically.

My blog is primarily to promote my photography classes. Would you guess that from before the fold? I have recently started putting a "current class" button just below the fold. I desperately need to have my social media links, a subscription button and a place for people to subscribe to a mailing list (screams of horror!!) before the fold - because from what I've read + experienced these are the best ways of connecting with my future and customers and creating the type of readership base that will convert into sales.

Look at how much this design crams in before the fold! I'm super-impressed.Obviously I have my work cut out for me.

But then again blogging design is only part of the equation. I just ran into what is supposed to be the number one, million dollar mom blog and I was blown away by the lack of design so -I'm going to end my little rant there.

What do you like about your favorite blog's design?

Happy Hump Day Photo Dump

2011-12-07T00:00:00.000-05:00

no caption needed

asleep/awake - my sweet boy!

a little peek into my real-life

my sweet

foot sucker

pretending to read Big Sister's book.

Little Man

doesn't he look like a little break dancer?

he's showing me his "moves"

no, his room is not this clean all of the time

I sure do love his smiles!

Linking up with: The Paper Mama, Project Alicia , And Then, She Snapped, Live and Love Out Loud, Dear Crissy, Love Bug, Fresh Mommy & The NapTimeMomTog

I took SO many photos of Eli today I can't wait to share a few tomorrow!!

To Blogger or not to Blogger

2011-12-06T10:25:00.001-05:00

that is the question...

I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I've noticed a lot of my friends who have switched to a self-hosted blog have also switched to Wordpress.

I don't know about that.

I've used the free version of Word Press once - I was going to try to do a photography class blog there and after twenty minutes I was about ready to pull my hair out! Plus you have to pay for all kinds of unexpected things. Even though it's like the industry standard I pretty much hate it.

If you use Word Press - why? Do you love it? Hate it?

Why did you switch from Blogger? Why should I?

Photography Challenge: Eyes/Feet

2011-12-05T22:14:00.001-05:00

click here for more from this set

My kids all have insanely beautiful eyes - Beth's are expressive and subtly blue gray, Emma's are bright and intensely blue, Katie-Abigail's are dark green and hazel, Josiah has these crazy eyes with brown at the center going to green and blue at the edges. I've never seen eyes like those and I adore them - he is such a mix of my hubs and me. Now our littlest Eli seems like he's going to stick with his beautiful blue eyes. I don't like to "call" it until they're closer to a year, but the blue-eyes of the family are claiming him for their team. I love to photograph eyes. I have two entire sets on Flickr dedicated just to my amazing eyes and eyes-only shots.

Last week was supposed to be eyes but in my post-Thanksgiving meltdown I didn't get a post up - so this week is open to "eyes" OR "feet" or both! Here's one of my little guy doing his new favorite thing - thankfully he's moved on from shrieking to chewing his feet. Today I had him in socks (and not a sleeper) and he nearly destroyed those socks trying to get at his feet! I've got another super-cute pic of feet here... and there is more Eli cuteness coming tomorrow in my hump-day photo dump!

Here's the 411 on this photography challenge - anyone can participate no matter what type of camera you have or your photography skills. You can link up your blog or Flickr photo if you don't have a blog, just please remember to link to your specific post and not your blog homepage. Please link back to my blog above or below the photo you're entering into my challenge you can use the handy-dandy button I've provided and don't forget to leave comments!! That is the fun part about participating in a photography challenge!

Thank you Tiffany for sharing your amazing photos of June's pre-school Thanksgiving feast! I loved Austin Lee Barron's set this past week! Some great shots and I can totally relate to that post. Katherine shared a beautiful shot of her little boys that stole my heart! Adriel wrote a wonderful post with so many beautiful photos about her difficult pregnancy and a lesson in being grateful that took my breath away and reminded me of some of those miraculous moments with my kids - when there was an abnormality on Eli's ultrasound, when I thought I was going to loose Josiah and when we were told Katie-Abigail might be deaf - those were gut-wrenching, heart-stopping moments that have taught me not to take any of my beautiful, perfect children for granted. And I just loved Yvonne's processing in her photo. Thank you to everyone who shared their photos! Can't wait to see your photos for this week's challenge!

Gratitude on a Monday

2011-12-04T22:44:00.001-05:00

I'm writing this on Sunday night, the kids are in bed and it's a rare quiet moment when they are all asleep. The hubs is working on paperwork from last week and getting ready for the week ahead, and I thought I'd go ahead and write this post before I sit down and write out my grocery shopping list for tomorrow and fry whatever brain cells I have left.

We've had our first few days of good and freezing weather. That's what these images are from. I bundled my kids up and we walked to the bus stop - they were bouncing up and down saying "it snowed! it snowed!" it was just heavy frost but they were pretty happy about it. Walking back to my door I noticed some leaves and just had to run in and grab my camera and macro filter and snap a few photos.

I have a confession to make - I've been slacking on my gratitude journal. It's a wonderful practice and I highly recommend it - taking that moment to be thankful and practice an attitude of gratitude no matter our circumstances is so powerful. So anyway this gratitude list is pretty random and stream of consciousness but here I go anyway...

I am thankful for...
central heat - that works well!
gas logs - to take the bite off those chilly mornings
ordering pizza and watching a football game - we've never been ones to watch sports on TV but I'm really enjoying the hubs new-found love of football.

all of the sweet comments y'all left for me on this post
this tweet

setting up our little craptastic Christmas tree - one of the only things I have kept through the ten Christmases the hubs and I have spent together as a family.
spending all of Saturday doling out consequences to my kids for bad attitudes and disobedience but staying calm(ish) and getting to reap the rewards of a much happier group of kiddos by Saturday afternoon.
a healthy baby boy - his beautiful blue eyes and amazing smile
a church home that feels like family
friends with bright smiles and big hugs
not running out of gas while I got stuck in traffic (trying to get around a parade)
Holiday Coffee
Peanut Butter & Honey sandwiches
This moment of calm, quiet, peace & contentment

Where I've come from, where I am where I'm going - as a business owner

2011-12-01T13:23:00.001-05:00

oh my! Handmade Goodness is hosting an amazing giveaway and I have to say that the timing of this giveaway could not be better. I've been chattering away about my re-branding and blog re-design for a week but it's been mulling in the back of my thoughts for the better part of a year.

Taking the time to look back at how far I've come in this short time and look ahead to the things that I want to do in the future is just the thing to be doing right now, plus winning this giveaway would pretty much be the most amazing thing for my business. To get that professional, polished look would give me that edge that I need to be the best solo photography e-class provider on the web.

When I was little I was that annoying kid at the door selling monogrammed stationary, Christmas cards and wrapping paper only instead of getting one of those cool prizes for participating in the program I always choose to get a check and would deposit it strait away into my kids-only savings account at the local bank.

At the dining room table my Dad dreamed aloud about countless entrepreneurial ventures, we dreamed up more movie scripts, novels mysteries and business plans at that table than I will ever be able to remember. In summary: I liked the idea of working for myself and I liked making money.

But growing up has a way of making you set aside your dreams, at least for awhile. I got married young and we got busy with the business of making babies, and while I had the itch to get out and work I could never make it work around my husband's busy work schedule. After our fourth child had grown up a little I took a part time job but while I enjoyed getting out and earning a check I didn't love standing behind a cash register. I knew I wanted to something more, something more creative, something that I could be passionate about.

I started thinking about going to college, maybe taking some classes online. My oldest two children had started school and I started looking ahead to when all of the kids would be in school and was talking about possibly trying to get certified to teach at their school.

Then our local economy went down the drain. Property taxes dropped, houses were foreclosing left and right and the schools were struggling to pay their teachers. Friends who were trying to get jobs with their degree and teaching certification were working in daycare pre-schools. The thought that the only job I could get would be working in a daycare made me feel depressed and a little bit sick to my stomach.
Around this time two things converged - I read an article about a single mom who supported herself solely by blogging and so I started working on my blog, which I had started just for the fun of it as a creative outlet. I gave myself until my nearly two year old entered school to turn blogging into something profitable.

At the same time my friends were encouraging me in my photography. I took photos for a friend for her music page on MySpace, I took photos for another friend for her online shop. It felt like I was on to something, but making a career out of photography was proving to be a lot harder than I thought it would be.

I struggle with depression and one of the things that this effects is my ability to maintain momentum. One day I might be doing well and totally excited about my photography and working hard but then another day I might have a hard day or week (or month) and would loose the all the traction I'd gained.

Sometimes the best ideas come out of the worst circumstances. I was coming to terms with the fact that, at least for now, a professional photography business wasn't a viable career option for me and was feeling really low.

Then one day as my littlest kids were taking a bath I sat beside them with a notebook and I started writing down a bunch of ideas. One of them was "I wonder if people would want to take photography classes from me?" and I put up a survey on my blog to see if there was any interest.

I still remember the first email I got from PayPal saying that someone had made a payment for one of my classes! I jumped up and down and did a happy dance. Teaching that first class was so much more work than I thought it would be but I also felt so validated and encouraged by the positive feedback I received from that class.

I've been teaching photography classes online for a year and a half now. I've written four photography classes and started offering photography mentoring. My photography business has made nearly ten thousand dollars over the eighteen months I've been in business and my blog has grown from less than a hundred hits a week to an average of a hundred hits a day.

Since launching my photography class business our family has also grown by one bright smile and while my pregnancy and having a baby has made teaching photography classes harder I am so glad to have a job that is flexible enough to fit around a baby's schedule so that I could continue working even with a new baby.

I'm glad to have a job that both helps me with my depression - since I always have a project to work on and always have something to keep me moving forward - but also makes allowances for it. If I have a bad day or week it doesn't effect my business too much. I can take the time off when I need to and make it up later.

My classes are done 100% online via email and interaction on Flickr which means that it doesn't interfere with my husband's busy work schedule. I can work no matter what his hours are and don't have to stress about babysitters. I am so glad to have a job that lets me stay at home with my kids. I work mostly after the kids are in bed and so I can be there for them whenever they need me.

The thing that keeps me going though, during the tough spots, late nights, discouragement and insecurity is knowing that what I do helps other people. A few of the moms who have taken my classes have gone on to launch their professional photography careers. Others have been introduced to the wonderful community of photography bloggers that I am involved with - most have gained confidence and learned how to use their cameras to enjoy their hobby even more than before.

I've got lots of ideas for the future of my photography classes, at least for the next year. I plan to launch my first e-book in January. It will be a .pdf version of the tutorials in my SLR eclass. I'm currently writing and testing my fifth class which will launch in February for product & blog photography. I'm currently researching for an advanced SLR class I hope to launch sometime in late spring or summer - September at the latest. I also hope to write an ebook on camera phone photography based on the model in this post.

I hope to venture into design a little more in this upcoming year as well. I really enjoy the design work I've done on my blog and for my friend's blogs and I would like to learn more and offer some blog design services.

As far as a business plan - I'm finding that most of my business comes from word-of-mouth referrals and repeat customers so I'm going to focus on engaging and expanding my audience. I want my blog to become more and more a place where photographers and especially momtographers can engage in a community of fellow photographers and find what they need to grow their skills. I plan on launching an ad campaign in January on some of the bigger lifestyle blogs and also engage in sponsor swaps and provide giveaways. Places I engage with my readers: Twitter // Facebook // Pinterest

So there you have it. - the story of how I've come to be in business and a glimpse into what I hope will be a really bright and happy future.

I'm co-hosting the pre-holiday SWAP

2011-12-01T00:08:00.001-05:00

Well, it's kind of like co-hosting, since I'm the main mama at The Bartering Blogger too! I'm really excited about this swap, it could be a lot of fun!! Here are a few things I have to swap!

set of matching cocoa mugs.

they've spent most of their time with me packed up in a box!

it's time for them to find a new home

set of four glasses with holiday pattern

these also have been boxed up for the past few years

Baby Einstein, Max Lucado & Backyardigans books and a Care Bears DVD

Two books for you (or they would make great gifts)

Black Swan (perfect condition) & Signs

Christmas outfit

appears to be 6-9months

great condition!

got company coming for the holidays? updating your bathroom? Here you go:

Target brand shower curtain

for more photos click here

Additional items to swap: blog header & button design installation and tidying, ad space on my blog, photo editing, guest post, host your giveaway or giveaway a class of mine on your blog, design a photo mug with your photos.

I can't wait to see what you're swapping!!

Here are the details:

What can you swap? Pretty much anything! Clothes, books, movies, decorations. You can also swap things like photo editing, ad space, blog design, hosting a giveaway or a guest post on your blog. Your creativity is the only limit! If you've got an online shop and are looking to get some more exposure this is a great place to swap items for ad space or items you are good at making for items you're not so good at making. You can swap things you don't need or want anymore for something that you do! For more details on what can and can not be swapped and answers to any questions you might have about the swap please click here for my "details" post.

How do you post your swap? Option 1: Just snap a photo with your smart phone of the thing you want to swap and tweet it mentioning @BarteringBloggr and I'll both re-tweet it and add your tweet to the swap linky. It's that quick and easy!

Option 2: Write a post on your blog with a photo of the item(s) you'd like to swap and link it up here with the linky I'll be posting December1. The link-up code that is on this blog will automatically re-post your link on the other hosts blogs (so you won't need to link-up on multiple sites) If you write a blog post for this swap please include the button/grab badge from this post so that you can easily recognize each other's posts for this swap. I'd recommend you list a few things you have to swap and also several things you'd be interested in swapping for. Be as specific as possible!

What next? Feel free to contact the other swappers to arrange your trade, make an offer come to an agreement, swap addresses then carefully package your little piece of happiness and ship it off to your sweet new friend ASAP!

The linky will close on Tuesday December 6 at 11pm EST

Everyone who participates in the swap will receive a $10 gift card to Easy Canvas Prints and one random participant will receive a gift card to Bath & Body Works

get your linky code

Another less-than Worless Wednesday: what's in a name?

2011-11-30T15:03:00.001-05:00

I can hardly believe that it's already been a week since my post about changing up things up here on my blog! Wow this week has already gone by fast.

One of my first questions I have had to ponder since I decided to go ahead and try to complete my rebranding push before the first of the year is a new name for my blog and my "brand" of online photography classes. Like I'd mentioned in my earlier post I don't feel right moving forward with the same name as another photography blog and so begins the journey of trying to re-name and I've found that unless the name just pops into your head naming a business is nothing less than agonizing.

Pretty much everything having to do with Simplicity and Simply Photography is taken five different ways. As I googled different ideas for my blogs new name I realized that I would have to think of something dramatically different from my current name. I thought about naming my blog something along the lines of momtography but again that's taken, along with several variations. I looked at my sweet baby in my favorite sleeper and I think maybe something along the linese of the green striped giraffee. But then I think about the tone of my blog and somehow green striped giraffee Doesn't represent me or my blog well. I have crazy love for Madeline Bea and while I don't know how she ended up with her blog name I know that it's not her name - her name is Megan. That got me thinking - could I come up with something similarly awesome? Pretty much the only name I came up with in that category is Jane Adelaide - it's one of my all-time favorite names but my husband vows none of our kids will ever have it. So it might be a cool name for a blog. When I told my husband about that he just gave me a weird look. Plus I want the name to be easy to remember and flexible enough to grow with me as my classes ands website grow.

The name I am leaning towards at the moment is "Sweet Violet". Violets are my favorite flower and "sweet" just goes really nicely, plus I didn't find any "sweet violet photography" in a google search. I'm considering other options, Lady Violet is one. I thought about "Little Violet" but the hubs said that was diminutive.

Isn't that a great word? It's like something in an old fashioned child's poem or something. It's such a great word, but not exactly a word that I want associated with my photography.

Today I've had this one thought echoing in my brain - don't try so hard. Some things just take time, consistency, patience and perseverance. Sometimes all of this trying so hard does no good at all and just leaves me frustrated and exhausted. I am constantly surprised by the things that do and don't do well on this blog, statistically speaking. The links that generate revenue, the main sources of traffic. They all tell me to stop trying to hard, just be myself and trust that that is okay. At some point I have to stop agonizing and vacillating and just make a decision.

Sometimes you just have to take that next step.

Do you have any thoughts about my new name - I'd also love to hear how you decided to name or rename your blog!

excuse me while I ramble

2011-11-29T22:25:00.001-05:00

Everyone else is asleep... so I just had to burst in here for a minute and scribble something.

I just got back from the most extraordinarily wonderful night out with my birthday girl, Beth who turned ten today. We saw Hugo in 3D and it was perfect. It's very old fashioned feeling, lots of books, a mystery with a perfect little dash or romance. We were like two giddy girls coming out of that theater. If only every day could be her birthday... On our way home we saw the moon... the moon! It was low and orange and only a sliver of it was showing, so close you'd think you could touch it!

Now I'm sitting here, eating a bit of apple pie (it's not very good cold) and drinking a bit of coffee and waiting for my chicken carcass to boil into broth, which, it has just struck me, is an exceptional exercise in futility. It takes pretty much all day to get a good chicken broth. I think I was just desperate to get any good out of that disaster of a meal, plus I have an inordinate amount of work to do.

Eli is in his seat beside me, he keeps making noises, cooing and crying in his sleep. It's just adorable.

Good night.

Catching up

2011-11-29T11:01:00.001-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving from the Raider Family!

Yesterday was a very Monday kind of Monday... it was rainy, my kids were tired, it was my first full day home from our weekend out of town and Eli pretty much wanted to be held all day long. So yeah, I'm pretty much trying to catch up on everything at the moment, and this week's photography challenge is just one of many things that is still waiting to be done.

Emma & Eli at my parent's house

So how was your weekend? We left on Thursday to visit with my parents (yay for time with my mom and sisters!!) and then spent the weekend with the hub's mom. I am so thankful that we live close enough to visit our families at every holiday (even some of the minor ones). I spent most of the weekend babysitting my niece because her dad is in the hospital with a possibly life-threatening infection, he's got type 2 diabetes and has had a really hard few years with a lot of sickness and infections so it hasn't taken anyone by surprise but that doesn't make it any less stressful. We're also all waiting on pins and needles for my sister in-law to give birth to her second baby. It's at times like these that I hate living three hours away from our family. I love where I live at the moment but it sucks not being able to be really helpful. I've also found myself missing my brother a lot this holiday season. So long story short I'm wiped out and struggling just to keep up with necessities.

(L) Eli sleeping on the hubs (R) Mum watching Beth play on the iPad

Today is my oldest's birthday - Beth (aka Big Sister) is already ten years old!! It sure has not gotten any easier now that she's older. It's less physically demanding but much, much more complicated. She celebrated her birthday with breakfast out with her Daddy but ended up with her head in the toilet before leaving for school. Poor baby. This weekend she learned how to play chess with her Papa - I think it might be her new favorite game.

Papa & Katie-Abigail playing Chess

Did you end up doing any Christmas shopping done over Black Friday/Cyber Monday? I did not do one dollar of shopping. I kinda wanted to participate in Small Business Saturday because I so dig the concept but the timing didn't work out for me. Some of my affiliates are continuing their Cyber Monday sales through to today - Imagekind, Blurb, Tiny Prints, Zazzle & MyPublisher are all having big sales - now is also a great time to update your gear on Amazon as they have some killer sales going on right now.

The hubs took this pic on his iPhone4S at my parent's house

Here are some photos I took of my Little Man at Mum & Papa's house:

This wooden rifle was made for my uncle and has been in the family for probable forty years. Josiah had a great time playing with it. I sat beside him and we used our imaginations for a good half hour. He was so quiet about it, I was really surprised. I guess he doesn't realize how much noise guns make.

Below are some photos - just an ordinary moment in the life here. I dug out a kindergarten workbook for Josiah to play with and we did a rock sorting activity.

Okay - so I'm not going to make any promises about what may or may not be happening at the blog this week. I've got some great ideas for posts this week which may (or may not) be published this week. I'm also working on a holiday gift and gear guide so if you've got questions and/or suggestions be sure to let me know!

Don't forget to get ready to participate in this week's SWAP at The Bartering Blogger on Thursday!!

There will be prizes!!! $10 gift cards to Easy Canvases for everyone who participates! Also a gift card to Bath and Body Works for one random participant.

My less-than-wordless-Wednesday

2011-11-23T01:00:00.000-05:00

It's time.

I've been waiting, procrastinating.

I said I was going to do it at the start of summer.

and didn't.

It's time to change.

Eesh. I don't like change.

But it's gotta happen.

During December I'll still be posting photos of my adorable kids and posting the weekly photography link up that you look forward to all week long. (ha!) But I will also be re-designing my blog, re-branding and eventually, re-naming.

You see there is this other Simplicity and they are the real deal. They probably don't even know I exist. I don't want to try to compete with them and while I have loved being "Simplicity" and "Simply Photography" it's time to move on.

and I'm a wreck about it.

I have NO IDEA what I'm doing or what I will do.

But as scary as blank pages are...

They are a place of new beginnings.

I'll be spending my time reading about writing , reading about business, and learning more about website design

I'll also be doing this insanely fun, though not at all original, thing on my blog. Someone who I follow on Google+ did it a few weeks ago and I have been dying to do the same thing ever since. I'll be stripping my blog down to nothing and building it back up from the ground up.

And I'm inviting you in on the process!!

The hubs will thank you at the end of it I'm sure ;) I'm sure you'll be saving him from endless conversations about fonts - and he only has the pre-loaded ones on his laptop. That's how much he doesn't care about fonts. He listens to me anyway, but it would be way more fun to have a go at hashing it out with other people who care about this too... like I could have an entire conversation just on serifs. Is that weird?

So there.

I've said it now.

Here we go!

P.S. The photo at the top is from my very first paid gig - it's loose leaf tea.

Photography Challenge: Gratitude

2011-11-22T01:10:00.001-05:00

Thanks so much for stopping by to visit my blog! It means a lot to me that y'all keep coming back and keep participating. This week's theme is gratitude. Don't we have so much to be thankful for? Even during the rather suckish seasons of life there is always a long, long list of reasons for gratitude.

I was totally planning to do a photoshoot of Eli to post this week - I'm sure I would have made you swoon. He is pretty much nothing but smiles these days - and the most adorable happy baby talk you've ever heard. I am so grateful for him and his presence in my life. But the photo shoot didn't happen. So I was kinda shuffling some ideas around in my head. Then I was inspired by Tiffany's (of June Makes Six) photo from last week's challenge and decided to post an oldie.

This was from soooooooooooo long ago - like eight years ago. (Alright - you can stop laughing now) Beth is about two in this photo and she will be turning ten next week! This photo reminds me to be thankful that I've made it this far.

This photo was taken just when our family turned a corner towards a brighter future. My hubs and I had gone through a pretty tough six months we had both suffered through some pretty serious depression and were living with my parents. A few months after this photo was taken we were back in our own place again, the hubs started a good job in the career he is still in and we got our first lesson on what a difference it makes when you have real honest friendships in your life.

There have been times over the years between then and now when I wasn't sure I'd make it this far as a wife and mom or even just as a person. I'm battered and bruised but so much stronger and am a very different person (for better or worse - hopefully mostly better) than the 20 year old me in this photo. Today I am thankful to be married, to be a mom, to be alive. And of course - I'm thankful for you!! Having this blog and my photography classes has been a great experience and I have made such great friends here.

If you haven't linked up with me before here are a few points of bloggy good manners:

Please link up an original photo - one that you took, not something pretty you found on Pinterest. Those posts are awesome and we all enjoy them but it's not good manners to link that up with a photography challenge.

Please link up your blog post/Flickr page url and not just your blog. So for example the link should look like this:http://faith-simplicity.blogspot.com/2011/10/thankfulness-on-monday.html and not this: http://faith-simplicity.blogspot.com/

Please link back to my blog you can do this by copying and pasting my button code (which you'll find the code for in the handy-dandy box at the top of this post!) into your post, a text link is also fine. Because I'll be choosing a top five please include the link back either directly above or directly below the photo you are linking up thanks - that will help me a lot.

Please leave comments on the other participants blogs - it's more fun if you get comments when you link up!

You can link up either to your blog or to a Flickr page, you don't have to have any certain level of camera or skill to participate - everyone is welcome!

The theme for this week is to share what you are grateful for, but that's just a suggestion. You can link up even if your photo doesn't really fit the challenge theme.

Next week's theme is "Eyes"

Don't forget to VOTE for your favorite from last week's challenge!!

VOTE for your favorite!

2011-11-21T23:16:00.001-05:00

Congratulations to Branson - y'all voted her photo your favorite of my top five! Be sure to check out her submission from last week's challenge as well. It wouldn't be fair to everyone else for me to include her photos from last week in my top five again this week because she would definitely win two weeks in a row. No question or contest. Those photos are just too sweet.

A shout-out to Courtney as well. Her photos were SO adorable!! I hope you'll stop by and give her a little comment love. I also really enjoyed Autumn's photos this week as well!

Picking a top five was so crazy hard!! You posted some really wonderful photos this week. Thanks so much for participating... if you haven't linked up yet I sure hope you will this week!!

Here's my top five in no particular order:

Coffee on a Monday

2011-11-21T13:15:00.001-05:00

I'm sitting here drinking Golden French Toast coffee from the Holiday Coffee Collection for Keurig (click on the link to get the exact details) with Eli sleeping on my chest.

The kids are home from school for the entire week. I enjoy having them home so much. I actually got a shower in the morning while Beth held Eli for me and Emma played with Josiah. Heavenly. I also loved not having to get up and make sandwiches and walk to the bus stop first thing in the morning. I sat on the couch while the kids watched Phineas and Ferb and I enjoyed not doing anything but hand out pop-tarts. It is more stressful and I feel the pressure from the added chaos of managing five little people simultaneously and sometimes I snap, but I'm really happy to have them home.

this photo is from Friday

The kids are playing outside (obviously except for Eli) I love it when I send them out "for a few minutes" and they get lost in play. It is such a wonderful, precious moment. The moment when they're not fighting or complaining. That is magical. The hubs took training wheels off over the weekend and the littles (KA & Jojo) are trying to figure it out. They did brilliantly on Saturday but they are still not 100%.

Living in Georgia has it's benefits, one of which is that you can always count on cold spells to be short-lived. We had a couple days where it was threatening to be winterish but now today I'm sitting here next to an open window wearing a tank top and not the least bit cold. We still have not turned the heat on. On the one or two chilly days we have had I've said "if you're cold go put on a sweatshirt, it'll only be cold for a day or two" it's so much easier to be cold for a day when you know that the next day is going to be warm - and when "cold" is only maybe 60 degrees!

isn't he getting so big?!

Over the weekend Eli turned four months. Can you believe it?! Four months, already. It goes by so quickly. So far he's been exclusively breastfed, I haven't introduced cereal or anything yet - he just seems so little still. I'm sure I introduced juice and cereal to my oldest two by now - it just seems so superfluous at the moment. He's totally satisfied and growing like a spring weed. Plus I have the feeling that he's going to be one of my early weaners. Beth and Katie-Abigail both weaned themselves at about nine months. Emma & Josiah would have nursed until they were four! I had to cut them both off and it was quite a struggle with Josiah - I weaned him finally at two or three. Anyway - Eli only nurses for short periods of time and is easily distracted. I try to capitalize on his sleepy times to get a nice full feeding done (if only for my sake!) so I have a feeling that he'll only nurse as long as it's necessary and then be done as soon as possible. It just makes me cherish these sweet baby days.

I cut Emma's hair this weekend you can see the before & after photos above. She wanted to have less to brush and less for Eli to grab :) She is just the sweetest little girl.

The hubs managed to get all of the laundry done on Sunday - I honestly don't know how he does it! I guess he's more task-oriented than I am and I forget what it was that I was doing. He is amazing. Now just to get it all folded and put away!

Okay - my coffee is gone and it's time to make sandwiches...

macro eyes

2011-11-18T11:00:00.000-05:00

I just had to share these. They're more taken with my Macro Filter and 55-200mm lens. It turned my long lens into some sort of freaky super-macro lens with an insanely shallow depth of field.

Love the reflection in the photo above!
Below are photos of Eli - it's amazing that any of these turned out at all! These were SO tricky to get.

Shades of Autumn:White

2011-11-18T00:00:00.001-05:00

Thank you to Rebecca for pinning a few of my shots from last week into the Shades of Autumn Pinterest Board - it's so awesome to be included in such a great collection of images!!

When I realized the the challenge for this week was white I have to be honest - I freaked out a little. I nearly stopped to pull the weeds on the side of the road just to have something to photograph. This week we went from pretty-fall to ugly-fall in just a day or two. We had a nice little frost and then a hard wind so now all the trees have gone from beautiful to bare. Also, I live in the South. It's not going to snow here until January. At least.

So I gave it a little thought - here is my first attempt for white: marshmallows

Y'all got a sneak peak on Wednesday.

But then I found some more white around my house and neighborhood...

I got this really nice pretty white tone by following a mini-tutorial from Sarah of NapTimeMomTog about Kelvin White Balance. It worked so wonderfully. That is definitely one of the first things I'll be writing about when I write an advanced SLR class.

a bud from the same bush - I have no idea what they are or why they are blooming!

I'm seeing these plants everywhere lately. They look like an ornamental cabbage. Usually they have purple centers but the one the landscapers planted at our subdivision's entrance are white.

And here is a pretty white pansy - perfect for fall!!

The bushes outside my house have these odd little white blooms - I have no idea why - but they were fun to photograph.

I have got such bad writers block at the moment. I'm writing a class I'll be offering in February and it's been really intimidating - it's for product photography and while I love this style of photography and I'm really impressed with my student's progress - the ones who are participating in my test-group - I am having a hard time just sitting down and working it out... So I'm procrastinating. I've taken more photos this week than some months entirely. I've cleaned my kitchen - I even pulled the stove out to clean the sides really well. Yeah - that was when I realized I'm just procrastinating. So I went to Wal-Mart and did some grocery shopping. Between you and me - I'm not a huge fan of the fall/winter holidays. I would just as well put a months worth of groceries on the credit card and hole up in my house.

I really should have been washing dishes

2011-11-17T16:22:00.001-05:00

but I made this instead...

and this...

the fabric strips are from Pugly Pixel

my boys

2011-11-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

it makes me all warm and gooey inside just saying those two sweet words "my boys"

I had my camera out the other day capturing a few photos for the Shades of Autumn Challenge tomorrow and snapped these of my boys.

playing with sister's DS

I was playing with my white balance settings

Wordless Wednesday: Hot Cocoa

2011-11-16T00:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Hump Day to all of my friends! I hope you take a moment to stop and enjoy your day today!

Linking up with:

Photography Challenge: Favorite

2011-11-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

Today's theme is "Your Favorite Photo" and I really struggled with which photo to choose.

I thought I'd post some links to a few of my favorite posts as well. I loved writing this post on lighting, I'm really proud of the photo I took of these gingerbread cookies, I really like the leaf photo I took in that post too. I am super-happy that I finally figured out how to use my speedlight, I adore this Eli photo-dump and this one too, these photos were a step outside of my usual style but one of my favorite sets is this one. I love love love it. But here is my one favorite photo from the past month.

These are also my second-favorite flower. My first favorites are violets. They are wild here so when I seem them I swoon! I think these are called Wood Sorrell. So what what about you? Post a favorite photo from this month, or a snap a new one of your favorite person, place, thing, your favorite thing about this season - whatever you'd like!

If you haven't linked up with me before here are a few points of bloggy good manners:

Please link up an original photo - one that you took, not something pretty you found on Pinterest. Those posts are awesome and we all enjoy them but it's not good manners to link that up with a photography challenge.

Please link up your blog post/Flickr page url and not just your blog. So for example the link should look like this:http://faith-simplicity.blogspot.com/2011/10/thankfulness-on-monday.html and not this: http://faith-simplicity.blogspot.com/

Please link back to my blog you can do this by copying and pasting my button code (which you'll find the code for in the handy-dandy box at the top of this post!) into your post, a text link is also fine. Because I'll be choosing a top five please include the link back either directly above or directly below the photo you are linking up thanks - that will help me a lot.

Please leave comments on the other participants blogs - it's more fun if you get comments when you link up!
You can link up either to your blog or to a Flickr page, you don't have to have any certain level of camera or skill to participate - everyone is welcome!

Next week's theme is "Gratitude"

Don't forget to VOTE for your favorite from last week's challenge!!

Photography Challenge Top 5: Still Life

2011-11-14T19:05:00.001-05:00

Yay for getting posts out on time and my top 5 from last week's photography challenge up on the blog before next week's challenge goes up!

Branson
My Reflection of Something

Misty
Through a Photographer's Eyes

Becky
Rub Some Dirt On It

Jaymi
Live, Love, Travel

Cedar's Photography

survey software

Monday morning... here we go again!

2011-11-14T11:24:00.001-05:00

It kind of blows my mind that at this time next week my kids will be home from school starting their week of fall break. I'm ready (I think) for them to be home for a week. I miss them when they are gone. I wish I could keep them home all of the time - but it wouldn't be fair to them, and I'm sure I'd loose my mind or become insanely depressed again. Been there, done that. No thank you.

This weekend I had a wonderful reminder of why I am doing what I am doing? My pastor was back from a ten day trip to South Africa with a mission team - which included a bestie of mine - it was so great to have him back! The sermon was on heaven, which really makes you stop and think. In light of eternity, how am I spending my time, directing my energy? And why? Sometimes when I think about that it makes my little blog and photography classes totally trivial.

But when I step back and consider why I'm really doing this, at the heart are two things. A desire to stay at home with my kids. If I weren't teaching photography I would be looking for a job outside the home and while I have loved the part time and volunteer jobs that I've had over the last ten years they haven't made much money and haven't been as satisfying as my current at-home job.

A desire to use the money I make to help others I use part of the money I make from my photography classes to sponsor a bed at the Village of Hope in South Africa which cares for HIV positive children. I am also able to support other momtrepreneurs through the ads that I buy for my classes and the products I'm able to purchase because I have some extra spending money that I wouldn't have if I weren't working. I am also looking forward to the time when I can do more, provide a spot for a woman to attend our church retreat who wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise, sponsor a child at the orphanage in Uganda that my friend helps support, go on a missions trip to the Village of Hope in South Africa... these are good things and they take money.

I also teach photography classes because they give me a more structured creative outlet and since I have been teaching them and working hard to improve them my depression has been less - and that is no small thing. If having a job is what it take for me to not become depressed again then bring it.

But the thing that keeps me going, at the end of the day is you. Knowing that there are a handful of moms out there who are able to enjoy their photography more because they took my classes and one or two have been given the confidence to step out and start their photography business is a big deal to me. I like knowing that I can positively affect the lives of other women like that.

Wow - that was a lot longer than I thought it would be!

Snippets from my Gratitude Journal this week:

235) a peaceful drive with my coffee and my boys as I drove to meet the hubs to give him a tool he'd left at the house.

236) a mind bursting with ideas

239) dreaming of when it will be my turn to go to Africa

244) my small group

245) a warm house

246) hot coffee

248) getting through another morning without yelling

249) getting to the bus stop on time

256) snuggles and smiles

265) a house that smells like muffin bread

274) a good nights sleep

Friday Morning Coffee... even though it's not morning, and it's not Friday.

2011-11-12T13:02:00.001-05:00

I was inspired by this post at I should be folding laundry I really enjoyed this peek into her house... so here goes nothing.

I'm holding Eli and drinking coffee while I'm writing this. It's Pumpkin Spice from Green Mountain Coffee (for my Keurig) and it's heavenly! I think my love language must be gifts, because when the hubs brought that home with him on Friday I was over the moon. This is probably my third cup of coffee today. It's been pretty chilly today! I also made some muffin bread and this coffee tastes so good with the muffin bread. But lots of coffee makes me kinda' bitchy so I need to cut myself off.

Beth just finished playing Just Dance 2 on the Wii - this is one of the best games we've bought for the kids. I really want to get them Just Dance Kids or buy some more songs for them during Thanksgiving break. And now the kids are watching some Disney Channel. finally some peace and quiet. (oh man, this coffee is so good!) Katie-Abigail is finally eating some lunch, which she made herself. When I offered to make her lunch earlier she just sat there, picking her toenails saying "no" to everything I offered.

Right now I've got the laundry going. I've been slacking on the laundry lately. It's crazy how quickly each day is going by these days! Housework has been at the bottom of my to-do list, until the weekend comes and I become a whirling fury mom-on-a-mission. The kids weren't real happy when they heard that I wanted them to fold their laundry (why do we do this every time? I'm so glad my mom made me learn how to do laundry - so the fights are so worth it) This load has been in the dryer forever. It's got to be dry by now!

Aw... Eli fell asleep. I just adore how he sleeps on me. Sometimes I think I'd like a whole day - just to sit and hold him. He is so sweet and soft.

Daniel (aka the hubs) is away at a college football game. He left at like 4am and won't be back till late. So I get to go solo today - including a birthday party later today. I'm a little nervous about it, going out with all five by myself is not my favorite thing to do but a mamas gotta do what a mamas gotta do. Plus, I really like this friend's mom and am glad to have that extra "motivator" today to get the housework done before the party. My recycling is overflowing. I need to sort it and pack it up and take it to the recycling center across the street.

Emma decided to make sandwiches for herself and Josiah. It is so sweet when they decide to do this. I have to practically leave the kitchen because I want to "show" them how to do it better and usually end up taking over.

The dog is barking. I am so over this dog. Every time I turn around it seems like this dog is barking at something or about something or chewing up one of the kids toys. I even found her trying to chew on one of my favorite pairs of shoes!

The show the kids are watching is the episode of Good Luck Charlie when the girls go out to watch "Dawn" which makes me think of the new Twilight movie that's coming out. I'm not sure if I want to see it in the theaters or not. I really liked the other movies but they seriously messed up my emotional equilibrium, because life is not as romantic or dramatic as a teenage saga. It also seems like it would be kinda inappropriate to bring my nursing baby along, but I'm not sure I could leave him. The longest I've left him is with Daniel for about ten minutes to get a loaf of bread from the grocery store down the street.

Katie-Abigail is yelling "stop looking at me!" again. Ugh. Sometimes I think it takes the brilliance of a brain surgeon to raise that child. She is a tricky one for sure. Drives me crazy but love her to pieces. She behaves a bit bi-polar sometimes. It's either "the best day ever!!!" or "I hate you and I wish you were dead" um, is there an option "C"?

My coffee cup is empty now and I'm thinking about that muffin bread but I'm trying to save the other loaf for tomorrow... I guess it's time to go put Eli in his bed and get the kids ready for the birthday party. If they're good we might rent Judy Moody tonight.

Touch-up Tips

2011-11-12T02:00:00.000-05:00

Here is my image SOOC. I straitened and cropped just a little. I brightened and sharpened. Ran "Paint the Moon" Sugar Cookies action (an old freebie - not sure if it's still available) and reduced the action to about 50%

Shades of Autumn: Brown

2011-11-11T09:19:00.001-05:00

I am so loving this photography challenge!! Thank you so much Alicia, Kristi & Rebecca for hosting this!

Yesterday my Little man decided he wanted to make Gingerbread cookies. We used the Betty Crocker mix from a bag, quick, easy, turned out perfectly. It seemed like the perfect thing to photograph for this challenge... but I also know how much the hosts of his challenge like outdoors shots so I took my camera outside with me while my girls were at school and my boys were taking a nap.

I tried something new - I put a macro filter on my 55-200 lens. The result? It blew my mind. Not at all what I was expecting. I now had a tiny little depth of field and a magnification that made the sweetgum balls turn into abstract art.

this is one of my favorites from this session - not brown, but I just had to include it!
I was inspired by the photo from Jenny Rain last week and was thinking of that as I took this.

Below are photos I took without the macro filter - but still with my 55-200mm lens. I love all of the different variations and shades of brown there are - right in the backyard.

I brought a few of my favorite pine cones inside to photograph. I still used my long lens (even though I almost never shoot with my 55-200 indoors) and I really like the result.

There's still time to link-up with my photography challenge as well. I'll be picking my top five this weekend!

Also linking up with:

TGIF!! a lighthearted mini-tutorial

2011-11-11T00:04:00.000-05:00

I wanted to do post something kinda' silly today... since it's nearly the weekend. I ha SO much fun doing these. Does that make me a total photog geek?

I may (or may not) include these in my upcoming photography class called "Simply Style" which is especially for online shop owners but would also apply to craft bloggers, review bloggers, food bloggers, DIYers for Before & After pics.

To do this I made use of my poor, neglected wacom bamboo tablet. in photoshop elements.

when you're setting up your shot watch out for these

when choosing a place to shoot make sure it's in indirect light

too close to the bright window light

with flash

without flash

mama needs to dust!

watch out for color cast by artificial light sources

don't place your subject too close to bright sunlight

a black background absorbs the light and takes care of shadows

I think this one is self-explanitory

the horizon line is really bothering me. Need to get a big piece of craft paper or something to take care of this.

too much space between subjects

good connection between subjects

Eli and his little teether "Sophie"

2011-11-10T00:24:00.003-05:00

I ordered this giraffe teether for Eli a while ago. I just had to have it. It seemed so trendy. I couldn't wait to photograph Eli with it. Finally the day came when I was ready to let Eli try to hold it. WOW - watching him struggle to grasp it reminded me what an amazing thing motor skills are!

The toy is made out of 100% natural and okay-for-baby-to-try-to-eat materials and comes from France! That's pretty cool. You can get yours here.

On to what you really want to see now:

by the way, as usual these are all SOOC.

This teether is also a squeaker. Eli thinks it's hilarious.

I thought it was really cute that he was wearing a giraffe sleeper too.

Josiah also thinks that this new toy is the coolest thing ever and is happy to squeak it for Eli... for as long as I can take it!

Linking to:

Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-09T00:50:00.002-05:00

I have SO many photos of these pears just waiting to be uploaded - this is the only one that's made it to my Flickr page so far... it's different anyway and one of the hubs favorites.

I also took an entire series of Eli playing with his new squeaky chewy toy that I think y'all are going to love I know I do. But I accidentally left my camera in the bedroom and don't want to disturb sleeping hubs and Little Man, so they will have to wait until tomorrow.

Linking up with:

Photography Challenge: Still Life

2011-11-08T00:26:00.002-05:00

At the moment I'm incredibly busy. My Simply Basics Photography e-class started today - so far, so good! This seems like it's going to be a great group of women. Today was yet another reminder of why I need to work on my organizational skills though. I'm also working on my Simply Style e-class. I wrote about half of the first tutorial today and hope to get the rest of it out and to my Test Drive group before Wednesday. It's coming together beautifully but at the same time I'm kinda' freaking out about it. There is so much I want to communicate but it's really important to me that I do so gradually and not just have an information dump all at once, so there is a lot of tweaking within the framework of the class before I can even get to writing the material. I also finally ordered some canvass prints of my kids. I got a really good deal and am so far super-happy with the experience. I can't wait to share my experience with y'all once they come in.

I really enjoyed all of your blooper photos from last week!! They kept me laughing, that is for sure. But how do you judge bloopers? So this week there won't be a top five. However I did want to mention a few stand-outs. It was so awesome to have Ashley Sisk participating this week! I also really enjoyed the series a photos on WyTography. Thank you to everyone who linked up this week! Y'all kept me smiling all week long.

Winners from last week's vote!
You voted and here are your favorites -
Natural Beauty My Life Just As It Is
LOL Bunch of Barrons

This week's theme was Still Life so I knew I needed to prepare for this week's challenge and be intentional to carve out time to complete this challenge. It took a bit of musing to figure out a theme for my still life, but then as I was browsing through my archives on Flickr the other day I came across this photo and knew I wanted to re-create it (only better) for this week's still life.

My pears got pretty much destroyed during the process of trying to photograph them. I took a bunch of photos of them outside and have a several with some nice sunflare, I also included my purple scarf in a few hoping that I would be able to post a photo for the Shades of Autumn photo challenge over the weekend (which still hasn't happened - but it will!!)

So here's my photo for this week's challenge. It's SOOC. Hopefully I can post some other edits and versions of the shot.

If you haven't linked up with me before here are a few points of bloggy good manners:
Please link up an original photo - one that you took, not something pretty you found on Pinterest. Those posts are awesome and we all enjoy them but it's not good manners to link that up with a photography challenge.
Please link up your blog post/Flickr page url and not just your blog. So for example the link should look like this:http://faith-simplicity.blogspot.com/2011/10/thankfulness-on-monday.html and not this: http://faith-simplicity.blogspot.com/
Please link back to my blog you can do this by copying and pasting my button code (which you'll find the code for in the handy-dandy box at the top of this post!) into your post, a text link is also fine. Because I'll be choosing a top five please include the link back either directly above or directly below the photo you are linking up thanks - that will help me a lot.
Please leave comments on the other participants blogs at least two or three would be best - it's more fun if you get comments when you link up!
You can link up either to your blog or to a Flickr page, you don't have to have any certain level of camera or skill to participate - everyone is welcome!

Next week's theme is "Your Favorite Photo"

I finally figured out how to use my speedlight!

2011-11-07T00:00:00.000-05:00

The other night I walked into the living room to see Eli propped up on Daniel's tummy while Daniel was dozing on the couch and half-listening to the news.

I knew I wanted to take a photo of it but I also knew that despite my D700's awesome ISO range even it would have a difficult time capturing a scene lit only by the TV. So, feeling quite hesitant, I got out my speed light and started snapping away. I snapped off about a dozen shots before I got something that I liked, but I'm really happy with the results.

Eli was pretty interested in the commercials on the TV

watcha doin mommy?

gotta love that hair!

What is a speedlight? Well, it's not a pop-up flash!

It attaches to the top of the camera (called a "hotshoe") and is great for low-light situations. You can also use it in bright light as a fill-light - to fill in the harsh shadows that bright sunlight creates.

It's better than your pop-up flash because it has an attached diffuser, also the flash can be rotated up and down and swiveled so you can bounce the light off of the ceiling, walls, reflectors or umbrellas. It has a much more natural look.
Amazon Links: Nikon // Canon

flash pointed directly at subject

flash bounced off of ceiling

flash pointed directly at subject

flash bounced off of wall

I think the bounced flash looks a lot softer and more natural looking. It's still not perfect but I'm happy to finally fell comfortable using my speedlight!

Eli photo dump

2011-11-05T13:25:00.002-04:00

My little guy is so freaking photogenic he smiles ALL of the time, which is so wonderful! He turns towards the camera when I'm taking pictures of him, which I love! I took a bunch of photos of him the other day and can't wait to sit down and load them into my album that I'll be printing at the end of the year.

see more here

I also took a bunch of photos using my speed-light, but those will have to wait until Monday!

Linking up with:

Sponsors for November & December

2011-11-04T22:45:00.001-04:00

One of my goals for the coming year is to successfully launch a blog sponsorship program, a lot of my blogging friends have done this quite well so here we go...

I currently have an average of about 100+ hits a day. I have over 750 followers on Google Friend Connect 400+ fans on Facebook, 200+ followers on Twitter and Pinterest and a combined following of over 15,000 followers. I have a limit of 4 large ads for each month.

If you're interested in sponsoring my blog please email me at faith {dot} raider {at} gmail {dot} com.

I’d be happy to swap ad space but for one month only, please.

Friday Favorite

2011-11-04T10:34:00.002-04:00

There are a lot more where this one came from... but they'll have to wait until tomorrow - my boys and I are going to the Library now.

Linking up with Bartering Blogger, and then, she {snapped}

Mama's got SWAP

2011-11-03T02:01:00.000-04:00

I have got a bunch more that I'll be adding to this post later today...

I am linking up with the weekly swap on The Bartering Blogger today - I hope you will too!!

Today I'm listing a shower curtain that I don't use anymore.

I bought it from Target spring 2009 (see it here) the collection of coordinating products is still available from Target. It does have a little discoloration on the top edge (pictured above) otherwise it's in perfect condition.

Things I'm interested in swapping for:
*Ad space
*Editing for five photos to get them ready to pint
*providing a giveaway on my blog
*The third book in the Twilight series
*Books - especially devotional, poetry and popular fiction.
*Home accents especially green or neutral or vintage modern.
*girl's dresses (sizes 6 & 8)
*brown or gray sweater or lightweight jacket (for me - size medium/12)

I'll pay shipping for my item if you'll pay to ship yours. You can contact me via twitter or email or leave a comment below with your email address.

me, unedited

2011-11-03T01:05:00.000-04:00

please excuse the craptastic cell pics, I haven't taken any decent photos of myself all month.

It's dark and quiet tonight. The hubs fell asleep on the couch, Josiah is snuggled up next to him watching sprout on TV. He took a long late nap today and hasn't fallen asleep yet.
Now is the time that (if I'm not falling asleep in my chair) I start to think, I start to want to write... and tonight I know exactly what I want to write about.
This morning I read this post that got me thinking.
It was like an echo from a couple of weeks ago when I was at my church's women's retreat. The theme was friendship and of all of the wonderful moments the one thing I wrote down was
Authentic = Real = Intimate
I read this post this afternoon and it was another echo, another prompt in the direction I know I need to go in.
I really struggle with authenticity. In person and online. I tend to try to blend in with the people I'm with - I want to say the thing I think they want to hear, or at least the thing that will make me look good. I want to be real with the person I'm sitting across from, but it's a struggle. I want to be real here but it's hard to know what to say. Even writing a post about being authentic has a temptation towards being trendy.
I tend to want people to believe their perceptions of me are true. I wish they were true. I wish this soft and sensitive person was more caring and less self-sensitive and withdrawn. I wish I were as together as I sometimes appear, I wish I was always as calm as I am in public. I wish my life really was picture-perfect, but it's not. And if I want you to believe all those things about me are true then I have to keep you at arms length, because when you start to get close you start to see the ugly. But who really wants that? I really do want to have friends that come over even when my kitchen is a mess.

Also I find myself self-censoring my photography before I've even picked up my camera and that totally squelches my creativity. I want to be perceived as a brilliant photographer, so I'm constantly worried that my photography won't be good enough. But my absolute favorite photos from this month were totally random and not at all perfect. I literally just waved my camera around while the shutter was held down. I find myself breaking my own rules more and more in my photography... I guess that's a good thing.
Sometimes you just reach a place when you need to stop trying so hard. Just stop and be yourself. I have to stop trying to pretend to be better than I am and just be myself. I'm not a pro-blogger yet, and no matter how much I want to be one or pretend to be one, I'm not there yet. I'm not a pro-photographer yet, no matter how much I'd like to be, it just hasn't happened. I'm just a mom with a camera, who is willing to share what I've learned with others. I'm not a pro, I don't have all the answers but in teaching others I've learned a lot myself. This is tricky, and I have by no means figured it out. Because I honestly don't know who the person is behind the "I really want you to like me" facade is. I see her now and then and I like her, and when I take a deep breath, quiet all the self-doubt and am honest, I think you will too.

I wanted to share this from My Girl (Katie-Abigail) who almost never censors herself - it is SO happy, and the light is SO pretty!! Sorry about how it's rotated. Yes, she is singing the new Stephen Tyler song.

P.S. I hope you'll join me for today's SWAP link-up at The Bartering Blogger!

P.P.S Today I'm guest posting at Michelle from The Mama Bird's Thankfulness series.

wordless wednesday - grocery shopping edition

2011-11-02T12:39:00.002-04:00

Today is grocery shopping day today... so glad that the baby slept through the shopping!

Linking up with:

I also wanted to let y'all know about a couple great deals & affiliate promotions:
FREE Thanksgiving Cards at Tiny Prints today only: CODE: FREETHX11
5 FREE Samples of Holiday cards CODE: 5HOLIDAY expires 11/8
FREE My Mini Photo Book from MyPublisher
FREE extra pages at MyPublisher using CODE: GIFTOFPAGES expires 11/8

Photography Challenge: Blooper!

2011-11-01T08:39:00.000-04:00

The theme this week is blooper - I have so many I could have chosen, and some that could definitely go in the "awkward family photos" file but I won't post that one. This is the first blooper type photo that I thought of - for the non-mom among you this is Eli spitting up while I'm trying to take his photo. Lovely.

I'm so excited about this theme, I can't wait to see your out-takes and bloopers, it should be lots of fun!

If you haven't linked up with me before here are a few points of bloggy good manners:
Please link up an original photo - one that you took, not something pretty you found on Pinterest. Those posts are awesome and we all enjoy them but it's not good manners to link that up with a photography challenge.
Please link up your blog post/Flickr page url and not just your blog. So for example the link should look like this:http://faith-simplicity.blogspot.com/2011/10/thankfulness-on-monday.html and not this: http://faith-simplicity.blogspot.com/
Please link back to my blog you can do this by copying and pasting my button code (which you'll find the code for in the handy-dandy box at the top of this post!) into your post, a text link is also fine. Because I'll be choosing a top five please include the link back either directly above or directly below the photo you are linking up thanks - that will help me a lot.
Please leave comments on the other participants blogs at least two or three would be best - it's more fun if you get comments when you link up!
You can link up either to your blog or to a Flickr page, you don't have to have any certain level of camera or skill to participate - everyone is welcome!

I've changed the voting schedule to be from Tuesday to Tuesday (like I used to do) and moved my top five to a separate post.

Next week's theme is "Still Life"

Click here to vote for your favorite from last week!!

Photography Challenge Top 5

2011-10-31T16:17:00.002-04:00

Natural Beauty
Here are this week's top 5!! IT was very hard to pick just five!

deb duty

this and that

my life just as it is

allison hoffman

tiaras & tantrums

Honorable Mention:
Sarah the NapTime MomTog linked up a wonderful tip about white balance!
Beth at Snapping Away had some beautiful shots of her sweet girls.
Sara from More Photos, Less Words has some really beautiful photos from her trip to Paris.
Nicolasa from My Perspective posted a beautiful landscape
Jess at Old Nichols Farm also posted an adorable photo

LOL

Last week I was busy taking my daughter to the doctor instead of writing the top five post. Here are my top 5 from last week's photography challenge.

not always picture perfect

luvin life photography

cedar's photography

bunch of barrons

falafel and the bee

Honorable Mention:

Amber of Click Pray Love posted some adorable photos of her little guy

Michelle of Photography by Michelle posted some beautiful shots of clover and a funny pic of her fam!

Choosing Gratitude on a Monday

2011-10-31T10:44:00.001-04:00

Good Monday morning! Here we are again at the start of another week - with another opportunity to choose gratitude over resentment or self-pity and to look back over the week and count my blessings...

I am thankful, so thankful that Katie-Abigail's allergic reaction wasn't worse and didn't effect her mouth or throat.

I am thankful for the time I got to spend with Katie-Abigail this week. While it was difficult because of how her medicine effected her mood I am already missing her today, now what she's back at school.

I am thankful to be a work-at-home solo-momtrepreneur and that I didn't have to worry about making up hours or having a frustrated boss this morning.

For a friend who brought us dinner when she heard how difficult this week had become.

For a husband who was willing to pick up dinner for me and who was a big help this week while I was at the end of my rope.

For time spent outside in my backyard, camera in-hand, photographing all of the beautiful things that I usually overlook.

I am thankful for my sweet, snugly, smiling baby boy.

I am thankful for a weekend full of resting and creating.

I am thankful for a week full of work to do here on my blog. I'm also butting together my Simply Style test drive group this week. Today is the last day to jump on board!

I took these photos for:

Product Review: My Publisher

2011-10-31T00:20:00.001-04:00

I recently found a new photo book publisher called My Publisher. I liked their fan page on Facebook and got a coupon code for a free mini-book. So I ordered one and got it in the mail at the end of last week. When I saw that envelope in the mail it was like Christmas had come early to my house - it came just in time to give to my mother in-law who had come for the weekend! Perfect timing, perfect little gift.

I knew, from the moment I started ordering this that it was something I wanted to share with y'all so here we go. My thoughts on My Publisher and the mini photo book.

Ease of order: sometimes I honestly don't care how wonderful a product is - if I can't order it quickly I'm just not going to complete my order. Ordering a photo book needs to be easy to understand, simple to use and highly visual but above all it must be easy to control. All of these needs are satisfied with the mini-book.

The uploader was very easy to use, even with my huge file sizes from using my D700. Some photobook uploaders require that I re-size my photos in order to use their uploader but I didn't have a problem with that.

Once the photos were loaded I was able to pick where each photo would go. It was really easy to manipulate the order of the photos. Not quite as easy as blurb but definitely not frustrating.

I was really hoping that I'd be able to put two vertical images side by side in this layout. I wasn't able to do that - so I had a bunch of white space (or I could have chosen to fill the page and crop the image). It doesn't look great this way, but at least I was able to load those images and maintain the balance of the original composition.

Price: this is one of the things that I really like about My Publisher- their prices are definitely on the low end. Maybe not the craptastic supercenter low prices, but super-low. For example - the mini book that I ordered is regularly only $2.49 - I'd pay that much for a greeting card! I've been getting their promotional emails for a couple weeks and they are always running a really great sale of some kind or another.

Here is just one of them:

Quality of Product: I was very satisfied with the quality of the product I received considering the price that I paid for it. The printing is clear, the colors are good, the binding is sturdy.

This is a truly mini book! I photographed the mini book next to a quarter so you would get a better idea of how truly tiny this photo book is. It's about the size of a business card. However this would be an awesome thing to add to Thank You notes after a wedding or birthday party with a few favorite photos from the event - or at a wedding with photos of the couple. I will definitely be printing these up for my Aunts and Uncles that we don't see as often as we'd like and I know my nieces and nephews will just adore these little books. I printed this one up as a grandma's brag book. I would also like to print one of these to have with my to show people examples of my photography so if we get into a conversation about taking photos of their kids I could show them what I do and then hand them a business card. It's small enough that I could have it with me all of the time without having to lug around a portfolio.

For the sake of full disclosure: While I did sign up for their program in my affiliate network and will get commission, I wouldn't blog about a product that I wasn't 100% behind, so let me give you my honest opinion about this product. This is not for professionals. If I were a professional photographer I would not use this to print mini books for my clients.

The reason why is mostly because of the condition of the cover. Although it's printed on a heavier slightly glossy cardstock than the rest of the book I guess it's not heavy enough - or maybe the packaging needs to be re-done - I don't know exactly why but I thought that the outside binding and cover were less than 100% perfect. Below you can see that the back cover was slightly discolored by a red sheet of paper that was inserted into the package - a "thank you" note, sorta.

However, with that being said I am really excited about My Publisher for personal use and can't wait to try out their other products. I'll be printing a bigger book soon, they also sell calendars and photo cards and offer gift certificates.

Because I'm involved in their affiliate program I have a really great offer to pass along to you:

FREE desktop calendar + template for PSE

2011-10-30T13:23:00.000-04:00

download the wallpaper here & download the template here

download the wallpaper here & download the template here

To use these desktop wallpapers simply click on the link below the picture and save to your computer, go to where you've saved the image on your computer, right click on the image and click "Set as Desktop Wallpaper" if you need this in a different size please leave a note in the comments.

To use your own image download the template (it's a .psd file - if you'd like something else let me know by leaving a comment and I'll see what I can do!) add your own image, change the color of the text to coordinate with your photo and save!

font's used:
Print Clearly
Script MT bold

A little glimpse into my backyard

2011-10-30T11:20:00.000-04:00

I took several dozen photos outside in my backyard yesterday afternoon. Here's one. It's always such a great experience looking at the world through my lens, capturing little details that I may not have noticed before. Especially after this stressful week it was so relaxing and re-invigorating to get a few minutes to take some photos. See the sooc one (and a few more versions of this edit) here.

Shades of Autumn: red

2011-10-28T19:37:00.000-04:00

Thanks to everyone who has been praying for me today - it was so much better than yesterday. I actually got a few minutes of peace and quiet today. I let Katie-Abigail paint, one of her most therapeutic activities, and she was overall more calm. The swelling and redness in her face has diminished significantly as well, however she is still extremely itchy, even with all of the medicine she is taking.

I made some muffins (pictured above) and muffin bread from a recipe that my friend texted me. Yes, it is that easy.

Here's the recipe:

1 15oz can pumpkin

1 spice cake mix

1/3 cup water

They are very moist so don't over-bake them. I think I baked the muffins at 350(f) for about 15-20 minutes and the muffin bread was closer to 30 minutes. Yum! Couldn't be easier!

The color challenge today is red - my favorite mug is red and I've been drinking tons of coffee lately (four cups today!) I have to really work at not over-doing it in the caffeine department when the weather turns. I love coffee and tea. Also apples are red and autumnal. So there you go. At least today's post has a photo! Hopefully I'l get a chance to photograph some of the pretty leaves around here tomorrow!

things I did today

2011-10-27T22:55:00.001-04:00

played Candy Land with Josiah & Katie-Abigail (aka "the littles")
unpacked boxes of DVDs that have been sitting in the garage since we moved
(it's what KA wanted to do today)
had a dance party with the littles to the end credit music of their movie
unpacked boxes of little kid books
read books
listened to Katie-Abigail read to me
ate chocolate cake in a bowl of milk
looked through photo albums
listened to CDs I haven't played in years
settled a gazillion fights
said "Josiah, stop!" and "Katie-Abigail, calm down" at least a hundred times

Katie-Abigail, reading to me
her poor face is so itchy!

things I didn't do today
reply to emails
read any blogs (boo)
take a good photo with my "big" camera.
cook dinner (I'm so thankful for sweet hubbys who pick up dinner on the way home!)

I am somewhat in awe of my former-self that managed to stay at home all day, every day with all of my kids and I still managed to cook dinner every night and get at least a little bit of stuff done, even when my kids were littler. This is hard. I have to be on and stay on every single minute. If I stop to send a tweet or read my Facebook page I'm interrupted by fights and literally have to pull the kids off of each other. The doctor warned me that this medicine that Katie-Abigail is taking is mood altering and she might be more fragile. I wasn't mentally prepared for how exhausting that would be for me. By two o'clock I'm exhausted, by five I'm beat, by eight I'm falling asleep in my chair. I finally just got my shower - at ten pm.

This is hard.

Smiling helps. When I feel like I'm starting to loose it I smile at Eli and bask in his huge, infant grin. I hug my kids and tell them how much I love them. Even though at the moment I'm wishing I could just hand the baby to Daniel the moment he walks in the door. I remind myself that this is only for a little while and everything will be easier soon. I take a moment to be grateful that my situation could be lots worse but it's not. I am so blessed. I put on some nice music and remind myself again that I'm so blessed.

Natural Beauty
deb duty this and that my life just as it is allison hoffman tiaras & tantrums
	Results

LOL
not always picture luvin life photography cedar's photography bunch of barrons falafel and the bee
	Results