a beautiful little girl

I've had my 50mm lens for a few weeks now and since getting it I've been doing a little flurry of portrait photography. I think it helps that compared to my other lens (28-135mm) this one is positively dinky and so it's much less awkward pointing it in people's faces! Although I think when you're the age of this little girl then you probably don't mind too much either way.

These photos were taken last weekend when my fiancé and I travelled just outside Durham to visit his sister and family. Last time we got to see them his niece was just a week old so it's been great getting to know her a bit more now she's smiling and interacting with people more.

 Baby photography is a completely new thing for me but it is a real privilege to be able to capture some special family moments and I really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to seeing our little niece grow up and I can promise to do my duty as a doting aunty and take many more photos to come as she gets older...

this is to invite you to....

I mentioned in a previous blog that I've been spending a lot of my spare time planning a wedding and here is a chance to see some of what I've been up to!

Seeing as we've now given out all our invites there doesn't seem to be any need to keep it a secret any more!

I was inspired by browsing other wedding invites on Pinterest but we wanted to have something that was still unique to us.

Jonny (my fiance) and I came up with design ideas together which included a hand-drawn tree, map and swirly branches.

The tree on the invitation section is based on a necklace that Jonny gave me when he proposed and the leaves were painstakingly coloured in by hand to have a more authentic gold look that was tricky to achieve with a printer!

The fabric used to tie up the invites is the same material my mum and aunt are using to make our ushers' waistcoats. And the green colour is a fairly close match to the material of the bridesmaid's dresses.

The ivory and walnut coloured card came from a great company I discovered called Eco Craft who produce high quality recycled card and paper. And we also got our labels and envelopes from them too!

Putting the invites together was definitely a team effort and at one point Jonny, me, my two brothers, my mum and my cousin Sorren were all involved in cutting fabric, tying bows, filling in John Lewis cards, colouring in leaves, writing envelopes etc! 

 

My brother Simon refused to look at any design ideas because he wanted the final result to be a surprise! So he was the first to receive an invite meaning we could then get him to help us make the rest!

a tribute to a train enthusiast

This weekend we had a clan gathering at my grandparents house in Bedford. It was my Grandpa's birthday on the Saturday and so it was a good excuse for us all to get together and celebrate. And we had a lot of fun:

There's a prize if you can spot my younger brother Simon!

Also over weekend, I'd been asked to take some photos of the contents of Grandpa's loft...

Grandpa is a very big fan of trains, and has been his whole life. I think the beginnings of this set began to take form 70-80 years ago and there are some really beautiful engines as part of his collection.  The set takes over the entire loft space and comprises of multiple stations, tunnels and settlements, all named after his grandchildren. For example, Jennyhill Tunnel and Benchester Junction or Rhianna's Farm and Emma's wood. It was a real treat to be able to spend an hour or so capturing some of the details, and although I've posted quite a lot of photos here, it's only really a taster of the real thing. The detail is phenomenal, down to the tiny posters on station wall and the minute bus stop signs.

I have fond memories of going up into the loft as a child and playing with the trains. When I was small I could climb underneath the track and stick my head up inside a tunnel to watch Hornby trains zip by in front of my nose! And I think those memories are ones I share with all my cousins and also my Mum and her siblings as the set was already well under-way when they were growing up.

Unfortunately the train set is going to be dismantled soon, so these are some of the last pictures of it. But hopefully they fulfil their purpose to keep a record of an amazing collection and to stop our memories getting too dusty!

The all important keys to wind up the trains