A special little video...

Here is my special little video that I have been working on that was totally inspired by my previous post of Emily's family video on her blog with photos taken by Tara Whitney. I love how it turned out and it makes me tear up a little too when I see the special little bond that Tahlia and Finn have now when they play since Kyra has started school. They have really gravitated to each other. I wish Kyra was in this video too but I'm sure I'll be making more now.

Before having a digital SLR I had a film SLR and a point and shoot digital camera and I used to always take video along with my photos. I'm keen to get back into doing video along with photos as it just captures a whole other element in bringing the photos I love to life. I hope you like it.

I took all the photos and my mum (who I like to drag along on all my crazy ideas) did all the video footage. I think she did a great job filming for me...thanks mum :)

sneak peak...

After being totally green I decided to switch that feeling into inspiration! So, very spare of the moment today when I had a few hours free and I thought that the kids would tolerate the camera in their face for a bit I snapped some cool shots. I dragged my mum along to take video clips as I took photos and I am putting together my own little short clip. I'm liking what I see as I put it together and I will post it as soon as it's finished. While your waiting here is a fav from today, totally unedited as it came out of the camera shot. More to come soon.....

A little bit green...with envy!

My jaw is on the ground at the moment and I needed to tell someone, anyone who will really appreciate just how cool this is and maybe feel just like me....a little bit green with envy, then I'll feel better if you feel the same :)

Check out Emily Falconbridge's Blog. There is the most beautiful, amazing, perfect video and photos of her cool family taken by Tara Whitney and Michel Sandy. You HAVE to watch it...right now! You can see it on Emily or Tara's blog.

People who know me well will confirm that I have said for years and still say constantly " When I have heaps of money to spare I'm going to pay someone what ever it costs to follow me and my little family around and photograph us for the day and just capture everything exactly how it is". This could be the next best thing and especially if you can add on a video that looks like that! It would be worth every cent. I have wanted Tara photos for so long now and am a religious reader of her blog, her style is just so creative and exactly the type of photos I like. Obviously the fact that I am in another country doesn't help my quest but after seeing that I'm saving to get there as of this very second! This would make me so VERY happy!!!!!

When I do photo shoots for peolpe I do little snippets of video also and put it together in a DVD to music for them to see along with there photos and most often it makes them teary...in a good way of course. It is such a nice way to have your memories preserved. I have that same factor that most of us phot crazed mums face and that is that we are always on the other side of the camera, taking the photos or recording the footage.
A good friend of mine keeps reminding me to dream big...well i'll need to dream very big for this one :)

Feeling inspired to scrap!!

It doesn't take much for me to get on a scrapping roll and then I just can't stop! Ideas go crazy in my head and I want to spend every spare second doing pages and creating. My mum is very creative and I know I get my creative gene from her so THANKS MUM! I love feeling of being creative :)
I'm definately feeling very inspired by my chat with Di and Nicole whilst at the park last Monday about being REAL in life and especially inspired by their blog posts (you can see Di's post HERE and Nicole's post HERE). I feel like being real is my big goal in scrapping this year too. I want my kids to know the real me and that when you try your best as a mum then thats the most important thing. The recording of the everyday moments and real life stuff is just as important as recording a birthday or celebration as this is the stuff that will change in generations or be the glimmer that your child needs when going through a bad time in life when older. I did these two pages over the weekend and am happy with how they turned out.

(sorry about the wonky photography of the pages, I really need to practice photographing these pages straight).

The second page is on a white 12x12 it's hard to see the edge when posted I may ink around the edge...I'll think about that one.

I took these photos of myself using the tripod and camera on self timer. I pointed the camera on an angle in my bedroom mirror as I had not very much space to set up a shot so in a sense the camera/tripod was right next to me.


I'm actually really getting into journaling on my pages and have issues now leaving a page blank without saying anything as I'm realising that the story is really the most important thing. I can confess that I used to really hate the idea of journaling as I felt like i was no good at it and it took me forever to get even the smallest paragraph on a page. But I have learnt that my kids won't care that about exact perfect grammer or fancy flowing sentences, they will just be excited to read something, anything. So I hope I can inspire you to journal if you don't even if it's a little bit as it will get easier and even I like reading back what I have written. As we all know to well that time goes by fast and you think you will just always remember but you usually don't if it's not written down...so journal up a storm!!

edited to add...

I'm not sure how to make the photo come up big when you click on it...any ideas anyone???? so here is my journaling from my 2 pages.

{Keeping it real}
It was really early in the morning and we had had pretty much no sleep with Finn that night (I think you are getting teeth poor bubba) so you slept in our bed, then Tahli woke up with a random nightmare and came into bed too. Kyra, you slept in your own bed but woke up so early and saw that everyone was in our bed and thought you better hop into. It was kinda cool to have everyone in but chaotic at the same time, a bit like the way our life has been this past year. Our little family has been through lots of highs and lows. My emotional status is just kinda getting back on track now and I write this so you know that you have a ‘REAL’ mum, one who is not afraid to show emotions and say that things are hard but at the same times loves her life and the way things are. Nothing will ever change the huge amount of love that I have for you all, actually I’m sure that I love you more and more each day, maybe we are just in a season’ of chaos and I’m ok with that. I’m just going to work on making things as fun as possible in between. One thing I know without a doubt is that we are rock solid as a family and no matter what we go though we will always be together. This is one of my favourite family pictures we have together. as it depicts fun in a chaotic world and for that exact reason I love looking at it. My huge goal this year is to find the fun in life and keep it real no matter what chaos is around. From no on the glass is half full.

Thoughts from me-
I’m a busy little mummy who often runs though life. I love my kids and take time to sit and help them learn though playing and often that’s why my house looks like it’s been turned
upside down and the dinner is not ready. The old me (before I was married with kids) would have seriously not coped with this as I loved my perfect house with everything in order and don’t get me wrong the mummy me still loves this but there is a time and a place for it and if it means we get to do a few more drawings or roll out a bit more playdough or sing and dance around concert style for even 10 minutes more in the day I’m happy to stop what I’m doing. You, my 3 precious cheeky ones mean the world to me and I wouldn’t want to miss a second of the fun we have. Time goes by way fast.
I am not a perfect mum, far from it and really is there even a perfect mum out there? It seems like if there is then she is unrealistic and untouchable. I’m happy with being a “REAL” mum. I’ll make mistakes, I’ll get cranky, frustrated and sometimes yell. I’ll put the TV on for a
moments peace, I’ll let the laundry pile up knee high and I’m sure I’ll forget to do important things as there is always a millions things going on in my head at once. I’ll show you emotions and try to explain why I’m feeling the way I am, the happy and the sad times. I’ll try to discuss things with you to work out a fair solution and I’ll make you pack away your toys late in the day even when you don’t want to. One thing I know for sure is that I’m trying to be the best mum I can be and that’s perfect enough for me.
With a great husband and 3 cutie kids in tow we will be on this crazy adventure called life
together and I’ll be there for you in the everyday “life” moments big or small. You know you are able to come to me with anything and I’ll be REAL with you

A few random things.

Well as per usual in my crazy life i have been running, not walking through life and have been doing LOTS! so I'm taking this opportunity to talk about some random things.

Firstly to answer some questions that people have left in the comments section of some posts.

Leanne asked about where I got my family stamp. I drew a design of what I wanted and took it along with a sample of the 7 Gypsies "observation stamp" and had it made up from St George Rubber Stamp Co in Caringbah near my house. This was in November last year. The man there was was an older man and just the sweetest thing and so very helpful, he had a proof of the stamp made the same day which I checked and then made the stamp overnight. It was the quickest service ever. It was $50 for the self inking stamp (this may be cheaper for the plain handle stamp, I'm not sure). At the time I made it up it was for the backs of the envelopes for Christmas cards, I had looked at the stamps on ETSY (Such a fan of ETSY!) but the deliver was long and I would have missed it for Christmas so I went with the local option, I think it works out about the same and I didn't have to pay for the proof. I said to him that when people saw it they might want one too. So if you are wanting one you can ring up and order easily as my order/design is on file and he said he would just change the details for each order. I don't mind sharing :) St George Rubber stamp co is at 7/365 Kingsway Caringbah 2229 and the phone no is 9540 5606.

Next was a question from Renee about my canvas on the wall in the rainbow leg photo. I totally lifted Nicoles idea found here in the archives of Remember When. As soon as I saw Nicoles canvas I had to do one for my girls who also share a room. It was really fast and easy once I had all the photos printed. I'm organising a bigger one for my bedroom wall so when that's finished I'll post it. Nicole, I may need to call on you for help!

Next in the random list is some photos of Me and my friend Jo at Tropfest (sun 22nd) hanging in the VIP section and mixing with the celebs (thanks Kent for giving me your ticket :) We had sooo much fun hanging out and of course walking the red carpet, all the short films were excellent.

Chris Lilley the star of Summer Heights High, he was so cute and happy to pose for a photo, me at the end of the red carpet, Jo and I with the stunning Tara Moss who is so incredibly tall and seriously beautiful, and Australian idol winner Wes Carr who was very fun and happy to have a chat and is still down to earth. He hijacked the camera and took this one himself. Thanks Joey for a fun night!

We went camping last weekend from Friday to Sunday night with 9 other families. It was such fun and we had amazing weather. My kids were so happy all weekend and didn't fight once, they were off playing with their friends and loved the whole camping life style. Finn kept us on our toes as there was a small river next to our sites and he liked to wonder off as kids his age do. He loved hanging with the big kids and playing with the ball. I'm not just saying this because I'm the mum but I think he has good ball skills, he ran and ran kicking the ball and didn't take his eye off it.

As for the whole commune lifestyle, I think I'm up for it (i may have to move to Byron Bay) It was very fun and nice to just sit and hang with friends ALL day and into the night :)

Now I have been super busy running through my crazy life and haven't stopped for a while to scrap which is very depressing because I hate not scrapping and I don't want you all to think that I'm faking that i actually scrap :0) as I've hardly posted any any pages so I thought I'd post some i already had photographed until I get to do some new ones(hopefully later this week)

This is a double 12x12 page of Kyra and the amazing detailed drawing that she was doing at the time.

This next one is about my ipod and the fast exercise songs i had on it (my get skinny for Hawaii mix). I actually have a 8.5x11 page that goes next to it where I put a CD burnt copy of the mix so my kids could easily hear the song when they are older. I plan to do this type of page every once in a while to capture my music mixes and this I know will make me laugh and especially make my kids laugh when we are older when we listen to it. I would love to have a mix tape of my mums fav songs at the same age...they would be so differnt I'm sure.

Well that's all from me at the moment. Thanks everyone who has left encouraging comments, I appreciate hearing from you, I do love hanging out in the "Blog world"