Hama coasters.

Every year in July and also in December we struggled with ideas for gifts for teachers. Something that is more original than a box of chocolates, ideally made by a child and, of course, useful! And then we came across the idea of making coasters from Hama beads... Wow, that has opened up a lot of new projects! And lovely handmade gifts for all occasions. Everyone needs a coaster and if a teacher doesn't want to take it home, it can be used at work! Win-win!

Of course we started with Pinterest, I made a board, you are welcome to have a look  - http://uk.pinterest.com/tamaratovey/hama/

A lovely fruit set, very easy to make and looks very stylish! (image from Pinterest)

Another round coaster, looks amazing, we have already made this one a few times (image from Pinterest):

 



Another fun and easy idea for those who love Minions (image from Pinterest):

 

This one looks fantastic once completed and my 6 year old easily made it easily (image from Pinterest):

Busy at work:

 Another lovely idea is to add glow in the dark beads to your set - http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_9/276-4192129-1545026?url=search-alias%3Dtoys&field-keywords=hama+glow&sprefix=hama+glow%2Caps%2C158

 

We wrap them so quickly, but I have managed to take a photo of this one as well:

Hope you found this helpful, I can tell you that once you start you can't stop!

School runs!

That's what we have been up to mostly recently! Can't say that I love running back and forth to school and back! We are still getting used to our new routine, and I can't wait for the half term to come. I love seeing reception children  - so cute in their brand new uniforms and so excited to go to school and equally excited to come out. Seeing my daughter in school uniform is still magical and sad at the same time! And I get to hear the phonics songs -  about snake, and ants and noise airplanes though ones :)!

Please bear with me, I will be back to blogging very soon.

Book club: week 4

First of all I need to do something I promised to myself I won't do - apologize for not very regular posts, I promise to catch up soon and I have some very exciting things! I have been a lot better with updating my Facebook page with the recent work, so if you haven't "liked" it yet, here it is: http://www.facebook.com/TamaraToveyPhotography

Now, the book of the week, well, rather a series about Alfie and Annie Rose by Shirley Hughes. The illustrations are fantastic and so recognizable - showing real life of a family with two little children. So the life is not perfect - with the toys everywhere, with the craziness of trying to do shopping with young children, wet feet from puddle jumping, messy and muddy things, even a burst pipe! But it's a happy life, full of kind deeds, with cute little things that are important to children.The bond between siblings in the books especially resonates with me, because watching my own girls always puts a smile of my face. 
One of the books out of series - "Alfie gets in First" by Shirley Hughes.

This book is about something that happens to me almost every time we come home. My little girl shuts the door from inside and thinks it's very funny. I always make sure I have my keys safely in my jeans pocket unlike Alfie's mum who left her keys in the basket with the shopping inside the house and went out to carry the pushchair in.  So the book is about trying to get an upset Alfie to open the door, while his mum is trying to find a way to get inside the house with the help of their neighbours.

So far we have read "Alfie and the big boys", "An evening at Alfie's", "Alfie's feet", "Alfie gives a hand", "Alfie wins a prize", "Alfie and the birthday surprise", "Annie Rose is my little sister". My favourite thing is take the books as we find them in the library. There is something about going through the shelves and then finding a familiar author or book. I love when books are very recognizable, when the illustrations style is so stong and this set is definitely one of those.

One summer evening...

My biggest inspiration always comes from taking photographs of my own girls. I know there are a few reasons for it. Well, first of all, it's because I'm their mum :) I regularly look back at the photos of them that I took earlier - a few months, a year ago and I'm always amazed by how quickly they grow. It makes me want to take more and more photographs, to preserve every moment, every happy memory I have with them. Because I know that I will value every image even more as the time goes by. Same goes for every client I shoot for, I think of the growing children looking at the framed photographs on the walls, family gathered together turning the pages of a coffee table book. I think about all the memories that will come back.
Apart from documenting up our every day adventures, I also love to organize a little session, especially when I see beautiful light. I love that I have a creative control over the location, the outufits and time. When we had sun for the first time after the weeks of raining, we went out and had some fun:

 

I'm so glad we took some time to do it, just looking at them makes me feel happier and warmer even though it's raining outside!
 

Book club week 2

For my second book I have decided to go with our very recent favourite: "Where the wild things are" by Maurice Sendak.

One of very talented photographers I know through one of photography groups shared photographs of her son in a costume. I have never heard of this book before and seeing the photographs made me want to read it.

Here is the link, please have a look, the photographs are amazing: http://julieanneimages.com/blog/thank-you-mr-sendak/
So, a couple of weeks ago as we were looking through the books at the library, I have spotted it! I was so excited and took the book, thinking it's just for me. Lucy was curious about the book and asked me to read it. To my surprise, she loved it. She asked to keep it a bit longer and we didn't return it with the rest of the books we took out that day, which means a lot. I found the book fascinating, but thought it's one of the children's books that really is mostly for adults. But obviously, the trick is that everybody loves it on different levels.
I am sure it's not the only fantastic book I wasn't aware about, so if you have any great books for children, please feel free to either recommend them in comments or send me an e-mail: tamara@tphotography.co.uk 

Going away... with children!

Travelling before children - have a nap, read a book, watch a movie, listen to some music while relaxing, chat to people next to you, catch up on some work...

Travelling with children .... is very different to put it mildly. Not a relaxing experience for sure, takes a lot of planning and attention. Having gone away recently and realising many of you are still yet to travel to your holiday destination, I thought I would share what has helped me.

1. Snacks! Food always improves the children's mood, it's magic! Plus while they focus on the food, they can't do much else. Hopefully! That's how it worked for us: Carton of apple juice each -  5 minutes of peace. Pack of Organix cheese and chive puffs each - another 5 minutes. A biscuit each - 2 more minutes. Another great thing about snacks is that the more is eaten, the lighter is your bag. Magic, like I said!

2. Things to do - colouring books (don't forget the crayons!!!) sticker books, sketch boards, books to read, "Find Wally" books.

3. New toys. The key is that it has to be something new. I think wrapping them might be a nice touch. And might keep the kids busy for another couple of minutes. Of course, there is a space/weight to consider. I have bought little wind up caterpillars so that my girls can have races with them. They are small and move which makes them interesting!

4. Give your children their own backpacks/suitcases. Adds to the excitement for the kids and you will have less things to carry! Win-win!

5. iPad, DVD-player with a trusty favourite cartoon.

6. Window watching. When Lucy was telling about our holiday, it became clear that she remembers the most were cows, horses and sheep they saw from the train windows!

7. Why not to team up with other parents who are trying to entertain their children. It will be clear from the first couple of minutes if they are interested or not! New friends and new toys work magic as well.

8. I have recently read this great idea about scavenger hunt on Creative Mama blog, which I thought was fantastic - turn the travel time into a game: http://thecreativemama.com/traveling-with-young-scavengers/

Please share in comments if you have more ideas, for me and other parents who might be reading this!

Piece of cake.

I clearly remember when I was a child/teenager, birthday cake tasted significally better the day after the birthday party. My theory is that it's because there is less of it left. Here is my "after birthday" piece of cake.

And as the cake from Lucy's birthday party got so many compliments, I thought I would share the recipe for my friends who said it was very nice and all of the rest of my lovely blog readers. There won't be any photos of the cake making process, in fact, I am lucky I got a photos of this last piece!

I have doubled all the ingredients for both cake and the frosting. I'm sure nobody would have minded if I trippled them!

The cake itself :
Ingredients:

• 140g butter , plus extra for the tin
• 175g golden caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 225g self-raising wholemeal flour
• 50g cocoa powder (I used Cadbury Bournville one)
• ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 250g natural yogurt (I used Yeo Valley organic natural yogurt)

Method:

1. Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter and line the base of a 18 x 28cm cake tin or tray. Put the butter and sugar into a bowl; beat together with electric hand beaters until light and fluffy. add the eggs a little at a time, beating well between each addition. (Mine wasn't really becoming light and fluffy untill I started adding the eggs!)
2. Sieve the flour, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda into the bowl, then tip in any bran left in the sieve. Pour in the natural yogurt. Stir everything to a smooth mixture and spoon into the prepared tin.
3. Bake for 20-25 minutes until just firm and shrinking away from the sides of the tin. Cool in the tin for 5 mins, then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely

The recipe is taken from here. I especially liked all the healthy ingredients like wholemeal flour and natural yogurt and that there isn't that much sugar. But the cake it sweet and tasty.

And for filling and frosting I used Swiss Meringue Buttercream. Here are the ingredients for it (again, I doubled the ingredients):

To frost:
5 egg whites
1 c (200 g) sugar
2 sticks (226 g) butter, room temp
I have decided on almond extract, so 1 tbsp for this proportion, or 2 for the doubled one.

And here is the detailed method, it's long, but it really was easy to make, just be prepared it takes a while. A LOT of mixing time for the electrical mixer. I came across this blog called Wisk Kid when I was looking for a rainbow cake, which I made last spring. In fact, I almost made it for this birthday party (was very tempting to see all the faces when the cake was cut!!!) but the chocolate cake looked a lot healthier. I'm a bit crazy about healthy eating especially for children so I felt bad about feeding them all that food colouring!

Anyways, the Wisk Kid blog even has tuturials for the cake assembly and on frosting a cake, which I have found very useful.

And to finish it off, I have decorated it with Milky Way "Magic Stars". Because it was the only thing Lucy liked out of the party bag she was given at one of the parties we went and gave me the rest of the chocolates. And because it seemed like an easy option. And the first thing the kids ate when given their piece of cake.

Please let me know if you tried to make this cake, I would love to hear how it turned out and also I would love if you share your cake ideas!

Four.

Four. Four years ago I have become a mother...  Four years ago my life has changed forever – I had a little helpless baby who depended on me for everything. And now that little baby is four and is caring big sister as well. I'm so lucky I have her as a daughter! I love her more than I can even begin to express. She is my muse, my helper and surprises me with something new every day.

Happy Birthday my big little girl. I love you!

Happy morning!

Another busy morning, I was in the kitchen making porridge, trying to get everything ready and make it to preschool on time, when I heard another "Muuuum!". I turned around, ready to say "Almost done!" and saw this:

All I could say was: "Aww, thank you so much". Nice big hug and lots of kisses. She said: "Look, a flower, and I wrote your name as well". Just had to get a couple of shots.

Wishing you all a Happy Morning!

Some Christmas cheer on New Year Eve

As I have promised, here are some of my favourite outtakes from my Christmas card shot. I will share my whole process with you, so a little warning, this post has a lot of photos! .

I really wanted to shoot outside, unfortunately it was quite cold so we had to shoot twice, that's why there are two different outfits. Both times were very short, literally 15 minutes each.

Carly, who won the comtetition, sent me this most amazing e-mail packed with ideas and even images to show what she meant. I loved her idea for my girls to hold a blackboard with a chalk writing on it. I have tried practicing and soon realised there is no chance they will hold it together. So I needed two! Well, Lucy being an angel, tried her best to help me, but Klara had other plans. Very cute though J!

 

 

Another idea which I was doing at the same time was to try and shoot as they decorate the tree. Since we went there twice, it has became "our big Christmas tree". We had a very small one this year so if certain someone tries to pull a decoration off it, no damage would happen.

And I really wanted to get a shot of both of them walking and holding hands:

I found two quotes about Christmas that I really liked and they helped me to choose the final image. Well, it was a tie between two images:

"The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other." - Burton Hillis

And here is my chosen "official" image:

"My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?" - Bob Hope

I'm glad I found time to do it even though December was so busy. I shoot almost every day and A few of those images will definately be framed and we had a great time decorating "our" big Christmas tree.

I hope you all had a nice Christmas and I wish you a great New Year! I am looking forward to it and everything it will bring all of us!

The reason I love children!

Last week has been very busy! Now that Lucy is in preschool most of my days I feel like I'm running back and forth all day long! But I love how in the middle of this my children make me slow down and just enjoy live and laugh. We went to visit Lucy's friend and she wanted to take a magic wand we made. So I remembered we had those tutus I made ages ago but she didn't like wearing them. Of course the little one wanted to copy her big sister and I had a little tutu for her. All I had to do was to grab my camera :)

 

 

 

 

None of this was planned, totally spontaneous. It was such a miserable grey day and they completely changed the mood of it. For me, and for the strangers we met on our way. Hope this brightens up your day! Have a nice weekend!

One today!

Our beautiful little girl has turned one today! It has been the hardest year ever, but we managed to get from here:

to here:

Happy birthday my little one! I love you so much!

Happy New Year and sharing our Christmas morning!

This Christmas was very special for us for many reasons. First of all, it's the first one for us as a family of four! But also, because it was the first Christmas we felt that Lucy really understands quite a lot now. I was enjoying seeing Christmas through her eyes. I want to share some of our Christmas morning with you.
We started off opening gifts for Klara because we knew she would soon need a nap:

She loved it!

Lucy's turn:

She is obviously happy with her gift, so happy she wanted to get into it straight away. She loves Gap pijamas:

Another hit was Toy Story 3 DVD from Klara, Lucy is a big fan of Toy Story so she was over the moon!

She wanted to watch parts of it after she unwrapped it:



Thanking Klara for her gift:

Love this photograph!

I hope you had a fantastic time with your families on Christmas!

2011 starts tomorrow and I wish you to have a great year! I don't know what it will bring, but I'm looking forward to it, it'a new beginning, chance for us all to look at the last year and to see what we can do better and set new goals. I know it will be magical!