Let it snow!

Ok, full disclosure this post title is deceptive I will admit.. one because you would never hear me genuinely mean the phrase 'let it snow' unless I didn't have to leave the house at all (snow is ok if I'm suitably dressed I guess but I hate icey conditions) and two - because it is incredibly mild in the UK at the moment - so mild it doesn't even feel like Winter let alone Christmas!

These photos are actually from the end of November when the weather was acting like you would actually expect and I even braved it outside to take them - mostly because we were walking to an inside heated pool and also because I was sharing the snow excitement with my one of my favourite small humans and some of my favourite fully grown adults too.

We stayed in a lovely holiday park for the weekend in the Peak District called Darwin Forest that is similar to Center Parks with lodges and facilities like a pool, gym etc. And waking up to the snow made us almost forget we were in England, isn't it pretty!

With the tradition of the weather not acting like it should at the moment, I'm expecting to be taking my next snow photos in a freak April snow storm!

Camera: Canon EOS 750
Film: West Yorkshire Cameras Black and White C41 film
Location: Darwin Forest Park, England

My word of 2015 Final Review

Yup, its that time of year again - nearly time for a new year and a new word, can you believe it? I've been working through my Unravelling workbook from Susannah Conway and as I got to the 2016 section I came to a complete stop because I honestly hadn't even thought about a word for 2016 yet and I was flummoxed. 2015 has been so incredibly busy, next year hadn't even entered my mind yet.

My word for 2015 - GIVE

For 2015 I chose the word give. And although my intentions were truly good and I was in a very good place when I wrote my post about it in July - the wedding totally derailed me. Which seems like a bizarre thing to say - but holy wow, weddings are tough! Especially if you're already anxiety/depression/meltdown prone like me ha. Add in the fact that from May, we had a large event each month through to September - a welcoming party for my favourite one year old, two hen parties and two weddings (including ours). Each month I gave and I gave and each event was beautiful, magical, so fun and memorable... and our wedding well, it was perfect. I keep trying to think of other words - but it really was perfect, everything about it.

But even though our day was truly amazing, I've been exhausted ever since - totally beat. Creating something perfect is hard - and we really did create it - we made as much as we could, we put together as much as we could, it was all I thought about for months and all I worked on too in my spare time. I gave it my all, and ultimately, I forgot to leave a little bit to get me through the rest of the year. Oops.

So for 2016 - I've decided that I don't need to beat 2015 - because it really has been the amazing year I wanted and hoped for. Instead I need a word that isn't quite so um, generous and well, giving, ha. I need something real, something that feels right yet isn't going to exhaust me or take from me in any way like 'give' unexpectedly did. Though I guess when I assign myself a word like GIVE for the year, I only have myself to blame haha.

I'm starting Susannah's Find Your Word emails this week and I'm hoping the right word comes to me before December is over and hopefully I'll have a word of 2016 post to share soon :)

Did anyone else pick a word for 2015? How has your word influenced your year? Have you chosen your 2016 word already?

~ 2016 Freebie Calendar ~

Following on from my last post about 2016 Calendars from Snapfish - today seemed like the perfect time to share my yearly freebie For the easily distracted... calendar download- hurray! Although a quick look at my blog archives is saying I didn't actually make one last year - I apologise for that - this year I am on the ball haha.

Like previous years, I've chosen my favourite photos from the last 12 months - and I actually had a lot more photos than I thought to chose from - it felt like it had been a slow photography year (its definitely been a slow blogging photos year) but I've actually taken quite a lot more photos than I realised, hurray.

As well as photos, I've also added some of my favourite photography quotes and I will admit, its those that make this so exciting to me. Sometimes I don't have the words to say how I feel about taking photos (just sometimes...) and the ones I've included really do sum up a lot of my own opinions better than I ever could.

I really love the final result so I hope that you do too - click on the following button to download your own copy.

2016 Calendars with Snapfish

As Christmas is drawing so much nearer, I've started to think about perfect Christmas gifts for people and I will say one thing about having a wedding - it makes giving gifts for Christmas super easy as everyone wants to see photos and re experience our amazing day. 

I'd already put together some photo books for ourselves and our parents through Truprint - so when I saw this opportunity with Snapfish to create calendars I was more than happy to be involved as I was so thrilled with the quality of our books and I knew that the products from Snapfish came from the same supplier as Truprint.  In total I made three calendars - two with wedding photos and a desktop calendar of my own photos for myself (treat yo self) and I'm so pleased to say that they all met my very high expectations.

First up I made a calendar for Thomas (don't worry he's seen it and loves it, I'm not ruining his Christmas haha) and I was so thrilled to see a chalkboard background within the calendar pre-sets as one of our themes was chalkboard stationary. I was just as excited to see a wide range of fonts to match the layouts as well. I spent a lot of time working on our invitations, order of service, presentation boards and other stationary things weddings need - so to have something that echoed that look was really important.

I really enjoyed the Snapfish website for putting together the calendar pages - the images were easy to load and to drag into layouts that you could either create or use pre-sets for. The text options also allowed for me to add one of our readings from the church across the pages too (The Awesome Book of Love by Dallas Clayton - it makes me cry every time and it was read so beautifully by our friend Kay on the day, happy happy). In fact I don't think I could have created a better or more perfect calendar to represent our day and I know Thomas agrees too.

I won't share any more photos of the smaller wedding calender - as that is a surprise gift for someone (hehe) but I will say that the interface was just as easy to use and put together with the different size calendar. The options were a bit more limited creatively due to the space requirements for the photos however I didn't think that was a negative thing as the result was again just what I wanted.

Last up is a treat for myself - a collection of my favourite 12 film photos from the year as well as some inspirational photography quotes. Again I had an idea of what I wanted and it was very easy to create with the Snapfish interface and options provided.  The printing quality of the photos is also really great, I rarely print my photos any more so to see them off the screen was a real treat.

I can't wait to have this on my desk properly next year (it is currently sat safely and patiently in my desk drawer ha).

If you're looking to create some 2016 Calendars yourself Snapfish provide a really great range of options and having tried out a selection of their calendars, I can definitely say that they are a company I would recommend using.   Will you be making any photography related presents this year? 

~ I've been dabbling with the idea of working with companies on my blog lately and every so often an opportunity pops up that I find really exciting... and this is one of them. The products were sent to me to review - but all thoughts are my own. ~