Hmmm… I wonder if it’s a nice day outside?

It is! I need to go get my hat and boots!

Hello Chickens! Can I come in?

Any eggs today?

There was one day of glorious spring weekend weather when all children were healthy and nit free…. and we made the most of it before the rain returned.
What’s the weather like where you are?

Join in Wordless Wednesday with My Little Drummer Boys!

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Wordless Wednesday – Noey’s Adventure is a post from: picklebums.com

It’s the photos that are crazy and blurry…

It’s the photos where no one is looking…

It’s the photos where he has a dummy in his mouth…

It’s the photos that have a strange blue glow from the blue tarp walls…

It’s the perfectly imperfect photos that really capture the moment…

Thankfully Trish from My Little Drummer Boys doesn’t mind a few words with her Wordless Wednesday, so pop on over and link up!

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Wordless Wednesday – Imperfect Photos. is a post from: picklebums.com

I think Noey likes his new hat!

Thanks to Beanie Designs for sending us this gorgeous baby hat, it is so soft and lovely and very cute!

And wow I am really am almost wordless today – so I’m linking up with My Little Drummer Boys’ Aussie Wordless Wednesday!

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Wordless Wednesday – A New Hat for Noey. is a post from: picklebums.com

As we’ve been packing up the study I’ve been finding boxes and folders of the big kids art that I’ve saved. I guess I thought that one day I’d do something with the piles of paintings and drawings and collages. The reality is that we don’t have the space to store all this art properly and some of it is deteriorating quite fast. Some of the paintings from preschool four years ago are already discolored and brittle – butchers paper just doesn’t last.

We have framed a few precious pieces of art and have them hanging around our home, but the rest of the pile needed to be dealt with. So I got out my camera and started taking photos of each piece. Along the way I learnt a few things about photographing kid’s art.

• Find somewhere with as much natural light as possible and use your flash as well (preferably diffused – you could try this nifty DIY trick of you have a DSLR with a fixed flash).
• You need to be directly above the art work to get the best shot. Stand on a chair or a table, or even better on a ladder.
• Try to flatten out as many of the folds and creases as possible.
• Don’t worry too much if there are ripped or missing bits around the edges, a lot of preschool art is not a ‘recognisable object’ so if you have to crop out problem areas you will still have a good representation.
• Light balance your images in your photo editing software to make sure your whites are strong and clear, it makes the rest of the image ‘pop’.
• Save your edited image files in .png or .psd format using as large a size and as high resolution as you can – you can always shrink images without loosing quality but you can’t make them bigger.
• Save several copies of your images so you always have a back up, it’s probably worth looking at buying online backup space for these precious works of art as well as for our other photos too.

So what am I going to do with all these photos? Well I am not sure yet, perhaps I’ll make each of them a photo book with their art for Christmas, like this one by the talented Kaye Winecki. Or perhaps I will print mini version of each work of art and frame them in one big display, like this one from Jen at A Thousand Words. But whatever I decide to do with them, at least I know the art is safe now, and I can happily chuck out all the boxes and folders!

What do you do with all your kid’s art?

Oops! I almost forgot… you can also find me posting about friendship at Childhood101 today : No One Will Play With Me – Helping Your Child Make Friends

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Photographing Kid’s Art. is a post from: picklebums.com

I do have other cute children…. but they won’t stay still enough for me to photograph them.

Play Wordless Wednesdays with the Aussies over at My Little Drummer Boys.

I’m sharing recipes for sweet treats and talking about public tantrums over on my facebook page this week, pop on over and say hi.

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Wordless Wednesday – The Pumpkin Edition is a post from: picklebums.com

I was reading blogs the other day when I came across the lovely Hello Owl and her ‘Push’ photo challenge.

Now I am not going to win any awards for my photography. I rarely set my lovely DSLR on anything but auto and when I attempt to learn about F-stops and aperture the information just refuses to stay in my brain. Lately I’ve not taken many photos. Sure, I snap a photo here and there to go with my blog posts, but I’m not just taking photos to record life any more, and I am going to be sad about that in years to come.

So I’m jumping in and letting the fabulous Danielle inspire, encourage and PUSH me to just take more damn photos!

This week’s Push theme is ‘love’.

Now I had all these fun idea of photographing my baby boy playing with hearts…. but he wasn’t up for that game and this is about as good as I got on that front.

So I gave up and just enjoyed taking photos of my boy in his gorgeous hand-me-down hat. Because I’m loving that he’s getting to wear this hat now that the weather is colder and I’m loving all the love that has been handed down with it…

Do you need a little ‘push’ to take more photos? Go on, do it, you’ll be glad you did in ten years time when you have lots of photos of the wonderful every day things to look back on.

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Push! is a post from: picklebums.com

Not quite wordless today as one of the things I love most about our tiny and ready to die fridge is that it’s covered in magnetic words. Now that the girls can read, we all have fun making them say ridiculous things! I think we need to get another set, we need more words, and a bigger fridge to put them on!

I was inspired to post a photo of my fridge by the lovely Jen from Semantically Driven, pop on over and check our here fridge… and then share your own!
I’m also playing Wordless (almost) Wednesday with My Little Drummer Boys!

And one last thing….
I’ve randomly selected a winner for my Art Not Craft Ebook give away. Umatji is the lucky commenter who has won the ebook. If you didn’t win you can still purchase Art Not Craft at the special promotional price of $12.95 (for a limited time – this is an affiliate link).

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Wordless Wednesday and an Ebook Winner! is a post from: picklebums.com

Ooops! I totally forgot to post my last colour hunt photo last week! So here it is today…. Yellow!

I spy: two fairies, seven stars and cows crossing the road.

Playing Wordless Wednesday with the gorgeous My Little Drummer Boys today, pop on over and say hi!

In other news….
I’ve got a post up over at Childhood101 today. Would you let your 7-10 year old use facebook?
And I’ve been selected as a Blogger With Xfactor… don’t be scared by cartoon me, if you ‘share me’ on facebook or twitter I could win and ipad, and there are loads of other awesome bloggers to check out too.

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Colour Hunt – Yellow is a post from: picklebums.com

I promised my kids an adventure today! So we drove up our mountain and we adventured…

This was my Sunday Selection – pop on by Frog Ponds Rock to see more fabulous photos!

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Sunday Selections – Adventuring! is a post from: picklebums.com

I spy with my little eye a three headed dragon, two convertibles (cause red ones go faster) and lots of train bits.

Next week is the last of our colour hunt photos – we are hunting for yellow if you’d like to join in!

Join in Wordless Wednesday with lots of other Aussies over at My Little Drummer Boys

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Colour Hunt – Red is a post from: picklebums.com