10 Fun Photo Projects To Start This Weekend

Photo projects are a great way of creating content for your blog and feed. They work for businesses and individuals, and there are loads of ways to do them, dependent on how much time you have to dedicate to the project...

Here are ten of my favourite ideas for starting a photo project:

1. Classic 365! Take a photo a day, of yourself, every day for a year. You don't need to start on January the 1st, dive right in! This group is a great place to go for inspiration.

2. Weekly projects. Two of my favourite bloggers are doing weekly projects right now. Bleubird Vintage is taking a picture of her children every week, and the results are beautiful. Katie from Skunkboy is photographing 52 weekly treats for her and her sweet family

3. Here is a crazy one if you are looking to break out of your comfort zone and improve your photography skills. The 100 Strangers project encourages you to speak to people and take their photo, 100 times over. I love the results of the projects on their website and think it would be such a amazing experience.

4. If you have a relatively interesting life and are into instant gratification (who isn't?) then a Photo An Hour project may be better for you. This is one of my favourites, by American blogger Dainty Squid.

5. Why not try something like my 29 days of Katy and Roo project? Okay, so many of the photos are quite similar and I didn't stretch my photography skills hugely, but I just love the completed project and can't wait to find a place to display these snaps in my home. 

6. If you have the patience, why not try a seasonal project like this beautiful Tree Line one I spotted online. 

7. How about trying to photograph a whole set of something. I love the idea of photographing constellations but I haven't really got the equipment needed. I haven't been able to find a decent example of this online but I know that one exists somewhere and I am determined to find it.

8.  If you don't like taking photos of yourself how about your home a la Elsie Flannigan? I think this would be a fab project for anyone who is working on home renovations to start, what a lovely thing to look back on!

9. One of my all-time favourite photography projects, A Collection A Day. I think you would have have rather a lot of collections to start off with, but I think the photography and styling is just perfect ♥

10. You don't have to commit to a time frame. Why not try dedicating yourself to taking at least 5 photos every night out? Or how about a picture of your pet whenever you see it doing something funny? How about hand over control entirely and let your cat complete your photography project for you?

I hope you'll feel inspired to try one of these little ideas out for yourself! 

Have a lovely weekend ♥♥♥

Sweet Boy

I wanted to return to my blog after a two week gap with something beautiful. Here is 25 photos of my recent photography project where I committed myself to taking more photos of my and my little guy.

I can't wait to get this printed out and up on my living room wall, I just love it so, so much.

I still don't like the way that *I* look in photos. I know that's to do with my own self esteem more than it is what I actually look like. I did read something very interesting about how you look in photos though. The reason, apparently, that you feel you don't look quite 'right' in a photo is because you are used to seeing yourself reflected in a mirror, a mirror image of your own face. If you imagine how different words look in a mirror, you'll start to see where I am going with this.

Because you are used to this image of yourself, when you see a regular, non-mirror version of your face, it looks just slightly 'off' and wrong. Because it's not what you are used to looking at. However, it IS what other people are used to seeing. I tested this theory with someone I know well, get them to stand in front of the mirror and look at them in the reflection. This is something I remind myself constantly of when I am looking through pages of facebook photos and hating my jawline, or my eyebrows, or something else about my face. Maybe it isn't what other people see. 

I didn't mean this to turn into some sort of self-hating rant. I'm a big advocate of the theory that no one else's opinion matters other than you own, and once you are happy with yourself inside you will be happy with the outside too. I hope you love these pictures as much as I do, I'll be back tomorrow with 10 ideas for photo projects you might like to try and how to hashtag them for success in Instagram. I also have some picmonkey tutorials up my sleeve that I can't wait to share.

Katy x

The Next 9 Photos

Here are the next 9 photos in my series, 29 days of Mum & Boy. I'm uploading the photos to Instagram in full colour (#katyandroo) but I love the simplicity of these black and white images. I'm over halfway through through the project now and I love love love the pictures we have so far. My mind is filled with ideas for what I am going to do with them at the end!

Left to right from top: An early morning walk to school // A restless coach journey // Playing in my parents garden // New shoes for him & my favourite pair // Cute funny boy I love // Having fun at the radio station // Playing Lego Batman all day // Big hugs for a sad Mummy // Sulky faces.

Hop on over to here to see the first 9 pictures in this series, and don't forget to follow me on Instagram too :-)

I got a little feature on the Lifestyle page of Hellocotton yesterday, which has led to a boost in emails and adds from lovely readers. I'm always thrilled to hear from anyone reading my little blog. The image above is from the front page of Hellocotton, apparently I'm Up & Coming, which is just fab ♥

29 Days Of Mum and Boy - First 9 Days

I am currently 10 days into the "29 Pictures Of Mum and Boy" photo project that I started on my birthday. I'm so excited to share this first batch of 9 pictures. It's already become a fun part of our day and having these images to cherish always is really something special for me.

The full colour versions can be seen on my instagram feed, or using the hashtag #katyandroo. I have some vague plans of printing all the photos out and doing something with them, but I'm not sure what yet. I think my favourite is the very top left one, those silly faces are a scream and Roo just loves the picture too! As you can see, I've cheated a teensy bit and not got my actual face in some of the shots, there are some days when I just don't like being in front of the camera. I think that is why previous attempts at 365 projects have failed. I would like to think that I could continue this one until maybe his birthday in October? But I'm an instant gratification kind of girl and I'm already itching to have the completed batch of photos so I'll have to see.

 We've just been to the park (where I took today's photo!), to see some friends and then to the supermarket where I picked up all the ingrediants for a delicious roast dinner. Have you ever tried a roast dinner sandwich? It's the best kind of sandwich ever. I'm kind of sort of more looking forward to that later on tonight than I am the actual dinner!

Hope you are having a lovely weekend too. Tomorrow we are off to the West Country for lots of doorknob fondling and child-spoiling down at my parents house. They have WiFi and go to bed extremely early so I plan to use the evenings to line up some Social Media School posts. Click here to visit my previous Social Media School posts :-)

This week...

This week has been pretty weird. I set up my new Linkedin profile and will be pitching for freelance social media work. I also started on a whole lot of home DIY projects that really needed doing. Things that haven't been done in a while, like cleaning the fridge, putting up net curtains that got taken down to wash so long ago that the wire has fallen out of the wall, hanging new pictures, stripping the hallway and hanging a new door.

I have plans this week too. That hallway is going to get painted (once I figure out how to strip the 80's chipboard wallpaper on the outer wall) and there is a wall in my living room screaming for a makeover  to put to use the bunch of pound-shop (dollar store ;-)) photo frames I've been hoarding.

Here are some of my favourite Instagram photos of the week...you can follow me on Instagram, my username is @katyclouds.

Left to right, top to bottom: cheap blueprint copies of favourite smiley photos // sewing net curtain remnants together to make one big enough for my kitchen window // making bread because it's cheaper than buying it (turned out yucky though) // the DIY store for chain for my next halloween wreath DIY // washing stinky bedtime teddies // homework is getting harder // our new favourite game round here is Octonauts snap // stripping wallpaper // visiting horses

Sweet Shop Love

I treated myself to a visit to my very favourite sweet shop at lunchtime today, and snapped a few cheeky Instagram photos whilst I was drooling.

I mostly try and avoid eating sweets, they are bad for you and stuff. But I'm a sucker for penny sweets <3

Those fizzy peaches are a dream...

I can't imagine a day when I might need a big blue marshmallow. But I'm sure it will be a great one.

These lollipops last forever...

This isn't really a thing over here and I'm not sure what I would do with it...pancakes? Ice cream? Toast?

 

Too many choices. I went for dewdrops and apple bon bons.

 

 

I'd love it if you followed me on Instagram. My name on there is @katyclouds.

 

Have a sweet day x