Life's Lessons

Sometimes things happen and you don't know what you did to deserve it! Well yesterday was one of those days and today it continued.


But it's moments like the following that make you realise that the small things are not worth worrying about. My 3yr old came home from school this morning - when he got inside the gate and saw me waiting for him he ran over to me with a huge smile and shouted out "Mummy this is for you!". He handed me a flower. Here is the flower - i used my new lightbox to take the photo.

DIY Photography Light Tent

WOW! I am soo impressed with my light tent. I made it all myself with a little help from my 3 yr old son - all in 1 afternoon. At the moment I have just used lamps I had at home - but intend on getting some white halogen portables - the brighter light is needed. I sewed up the cover from cheap white fabric 2 Rials for 2 meters - bargain! The frame is made from pvc pipes. I couldn't get 3 way curved join - so made do with 2 way curved and 3 way straight joins to form a box, cutting smaller bits to fit from the 3 way into the 2 way. Then carboard background taped on. I love that it is portable and easy to use. A cheap alternative to an expensive box that produces great results!

FEATURED SELLER - PPDesigns

I love to browse Etsy!! Here is one of my recent great find shops!! I am totally in AWE of Jen's beautiful photographs!! I love the vibrant colours and the story that each individual picture tells!

http://ppdesigns.etsy.com

Check out her other store also
http://jumpyfrog.etsy.com

Q1. How did you find out about Etsy?
It was a long time ago now but I think I found out about it when I saw it linked to someones blog. I clicked on that link and got lost in Etsy World!

Q2. Why did you decided to sell on Etsy?
I started out as a buyer and thought - hey maybe I can sell some of my own earrings and photographs, hoping it would support my buying habit on etsy! I've been lucky to have made some sales (yay!) but not enough to fully support my etsy shopping habit :)

Q3. What started your interest in Photography?
I've always been a snap-a-holic even from when I was very little. I used to take rolls and rolls of film whether i'd be at school camp, local holidays away or just at friends places. Ofcourse when I got older and was able to venture out to wonderful and far away places I was even more into it trying to capture the beautiful beautiful scenery and views so I could share some of it with family and friends back home.

Q4. Do you have a favourite photograph and if so why?
I was just thinking about this as I was trying to decide which photos I wanted to enlarge and frame to put up in our new house. It's quite hard to decide I guess because every image has a memory attached to it for me.

I'm liking my 'Waterfall at Plitvice Lakes' photo quite abit at the moment. I have it as my laptop wallpaper. I like going to look at it when i'm tired of doing other stuff because its paradise like and I love escaping to paradise!

But to be honest I'm finding it really hard to pick a favourite!

Q5. Do you have an interesting story involved in getting one of your shots?
Well when we were in Norway we got stuck in a small town as we didn't realise buses didn't run on Sundays. The only thing was that we really needed to get to the next little town as we had to get connecting trains to get our ship out to Denmark which we had already paid for. So we were forced to get the one and only taxi in the town to drive us there and it cost us a massive 110GBP (150USD) to get there!! We almost died when we realised the price but I guess it was worth it for the gorgeous photographs we took at the Fjords.

Q6. What do you enjoy photographing the most?
I never really thought about this before until I started my shop and realised that all the photos that I chose to include in my shop were landscape/scenic type shots. So I guess I must be drawn to photographing that! I think it must be because I get blown away by the beauty of it all that i am desperate to try and capture it so I can share with family and friends and also so I won't forget when i'm 90 or something or rather.

Q7. What inspires you most?
This giant world of ours inspires me the most. I love to travel and see different places, experience different cultures and meet people from all sorts of backgrounds. happy. Its refreshing and eye opening at the same time. It reminds me that the world is much much bigger than my backyard and I shouldn't forget that when stressing about little things so much. If I can capture just a little of what this world has to offer in my photographs i'm a very happy chappy :)

Q8. You have another shop on Etsy also. What prompted the start of this shop?
I started http://jumpyfrog.etsy.com when I returned to Sydney at the end of 2008 (I was living in London the last 3.5years). I got reacquainted with my sewing machine when I returned and because the economy is so dead at the moment I had some (lots of) spare time while looking for a job (i'm still looking!). It's kept me busy and given me great little projects to do so I thought why not try and open another shop with all my hand crafted goodies. Maybe it will sustain me just a teeny tiny bit (or at least pay for all my fabric purchases!), while i'm still looking for a job. And thus Jumpy Frog was born!

Scrap Clock

Well I finally finished my Scrap Clock. It took me nearly 1 1/2 weeks. But we did just arrive back from our holiday in australia and the boys needed to be settled back to school and home also. I wanted to get it done so that I could focus back on my jewellery making and setting up my lampwork bead studio.

I love the stamping I did on the lettering - it really added extra dimension to the colour. I found it difficult to cut out the circles as all of the circle cutting gadgets I have just don't seem to function that well. Maybe it's the user... I would love one of those electronic cutout devices!!

Initially I found it difficult to blend the colour - from the photos. I don't just have a shop down the road where I can take my photos and match my paper. I have to use and work with what I have here and accumulate on my trips home to Australia. The odd trip to Dubai is a possibility - but there is 1 shop and it is not exaclty cheap and I am usually not organised enough to have my photos and other embelishments etc at the ready.

I am very pleased with how it turned out and think my boys make gorgeous photos to work with. But thanks must go to Anna Mair (The Unveiled Eye) for the great photos she took!