Getting back into photography

There's definitely something a little bit special about a picture taken with a "big camera", or a DSLR as normal people call them haha.  I decided to pick it up again recently and have been trying to get photos as often as I can.  It's not as easy as it looks, especially since I insist on manually focusing, even on moving kids.  I'm yet to master all the various functions, getting the lighting right, getting the colour right and so on but I'm sort of winging it for now.

I'm always a little envious of those girls who manage to get out there with their camera, especially if they have kiddies like me.  The area we live in, lets say, is a little less than ideal and I don't feel too happy about getting my phone out in public let alone an expensive and hard to hide camera.  So I'm restricted a bit to our little home and outings with Tom.  Still, it's nice to be able to do the little bit that I can.

You can catch my progress at Blipfoto.

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A New (Old) Project

I'm a hoarder, that's for sure.  I've got a fair few of the Mollie Makes kits stashed away and decided to have a go at making one tonight.  It's the Kitschy Digitals Retro Felt Doll kit that came with issue 34.

Mollie Makes issue 34 kit - Kitschy Digitals Retro Felt Doll

Now I've had my run-in with a Mollie Makes kit before, the very first one I ever attempted.  I can't remember which issue it was but suffice to say there was a lot of frustration and a teensy bit of swearing involved.  I realised I wasn't alone when other crafty people online complained of the same problems and the magazine issued a correction to the pattern - hey presto, the pattern worked.

This kit is no different.  I'm not quite sure why Mollie Makes likes to provide embroidery thread for stitching edges.  Even in the picture of this little quirky doll the edges are done with regular cotton which is much easier and would have left me with my fingertips intact for all that battling to get the thread through the very tough felt.

Still, a very cute pattern, though progress is slow:

Dolly Snake - "Kill meeeeee."

My doll resembles something from Silent Hill maybe?  Or a Little Big Planet foe?  She'll look a bit cuter when her innards aren't on display hopefully!

Time to Face Facts

Yep, I'll never be a master website designer.  It's such a headache.  I've been trying for a while now to figure out how to configure my layout and so on and no, it's just not happening.  So I'm taking the chicken way out, and my home will stay here :D  My brain and Wordpress just don't get along nicely.

"So what have I been up to lately?" I hear you not ask.

Nothing much ;)

I am now the proud mother of a pre-schooler and toddler.  Wow, how did that happen?  Somewhere along the daily mundane routines my little baby turned 3 and a school sprung a rather enthusiastic pre-school place on us.  I most definitely wasn't ready, but off she went and hey, here we are six months later.  It's not too bad after all.  My little darling baby is now walking running around, talking, singing, everything really!

My crafting self has been hiding away a bit for the past year or so but is coming out of hibernation.

I've been learning a little bit of Japanese again and getting my geek on with some subbed anime to help me along.

I picked up the DSLR again after a long, long, loooooong hiatus, and here's the result:

Yep, that's my little pudding pop Freybs.  She's a big girl now!  I'd show you some pictures of the big madam but they all came out a little bit drunk.  Better luck next time eh?