Weekly Winners, Week Ending 9.4.2010

A sense of familiar away from home

Wrapped up my 365 on August 31 - and yep! I started over again.

Eye spy

The puppy thinks my leg is yummy.

My leg goes from snack to resting place in a matter of second

Be sure to visit Lotus and the other Weekly Winner participants.

365 Days of Pictures. WOW. Thanks, Shutterfly!

As most of you know, last Monday I wrapped up day 365 of taking a photograph a day for 365 days. It wasn’t always easy, some of my pictures were pretty boring (I have several snaps of whatever book I was reading on whatever days — not all days are interesting!) but some of my photographs I was (and AM!) tremendously proud of.

Midway through the project, I purchased a mini 8 x 8 photo book from Shutterfly, filling it with the photos I felt to be my best to that point. There were pictures of my daughters, pictures of the sunset, pictures of my grandpa. When I received my 8×8 book, I was stunned not only by the quality of the book – but just how much it pleased me to have my photos printed and bound in this pretty little book.
8x8photobook

So, I knew that definitely when I completed day 365 I was going to want every day of photographs in a book. That’s right: ONE BOOK, 365 pictures.

A week before the last day, I started compiling my pictures in Shutterfly. The story board format was so incredibly easy to use – I’d choose which pictures I wanted on each page, and then when I was done, Shutterfly would decide the best layout for the photos. If I didn’t like the layout they had chosen, I could select a different one.

EASY.

I was so terribly excited to have all my pictures in one place, and that I’d be receiving them in a book – and then when Shutterfly asked me to do a review, I was glad to – because I was already prepared to buy this book – it was, in fact, already in my shopping cart waiting for me to click “Purchase”. I was already familiar with the ease of use of their photo book system, and the quality of the product. How often do you get the opportunity to talk about a brand you ALREADY LIKE?

8x11_cover

There are so many cover choices! I chose this funky polka dot pattern because I thought it was fun, and it featured tons of my favorite color (green!). I was able to drop in a cover image (picking this image was difficult – and to be honest, picking one photo out of 365? That was the HARDEST PART OF THE WHOLE THING!).

12x12_pagespread

The above is an example of a two page spread – I opted for an 8 x 11 book – and for the most part chose to put four images on each page – and last night, as I flipped through the pages, I was able to watch my year go by, photo by photo and page by page. The little memories I had forgotten about (the bird stuck in my garage, the elephant ear at the homecoming football game, the shortlived flowering season of our rhododendron plant), all on pages for me to treasure forever.

So, It’s Been Fifty Days (And Other Hooey)

Today is day 50 of the Envisage 365 project (Y’all see that link to the right – you can click on it). I can’t believe it’s been 50 days already, and that I haven’t missed a day yet. I’m keeping my images in a few different places – the E365 blog, my Facebook, and Flickr. So many of the women involved in this project are amazing photographers – me? Not so much. But it’s been cool trying to define my day with a picture and already checking out the pictures from the past fifty days and remembering the past month and a half-ish.
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In other drama, Pumpkin has taken to waking up each night at 3:30 a.m. and she doesn’t appear to really need anything: sometimes a diaper change (she wears a diaper or pull up at bed) and to be covered up with a blanket so she can go back to bed. HOW DO I MAKE HER STOP? Seriously, getting up at 3:30 a.m. means that I’m often awake for at least an hour following that. She isn’t teething. She doesn’t seem to be sick. It’s just DRIVING ME NUTS. So, if you have kids that sleep and like sleep, can you please tell me how you made that happen?