crossing the pond ... & playing catch up

So once again i have been sucking at this whole blogging thing ... it's been crazy busy here & time has gotten away from me. But tomorrow me & the munchkin are heading across the pond for the next 6 weeks to spend time with family & friends & the hubby who will be joining us in a couple of weeks. To say i'm a little excited it putting it mildly. I will be bouncing my way around california & taking a trip to MO. So with less distractions i'm hoping to get some posts written, the shops up to date (as well as some changes) & of course there will be some sales & a super exciting giveaway. 


So firstly ... whilst i am gone both shops (ooh pretty shiny & love.laugh.believe) will remain open. I will have nothing in stock, & working out of my wonderful mother-in-laws. This means that all items (custom or otherwise) will ship within 7-10 days from California. 


& to start the vacation i have a 20% sale going on in both stores as i cross the pond. Just enter the code "JETPLANE" at check out. The sale runs from about an hour ago to thursday when i make it onto a computer. This doesn't apply to either custom listings or shipping fees. 


& lastly i recently teamed up with the wonderful Cat of Polarity to create some gorgeous lockets available for purchase. I am so so excited by these!


Also stay tuned for an exciting giveaway ... i can't wait to share this. 


I also have a shop over on Society 6 where you can by some of my prints in the form of canvas's, laptop skins & iphone skins. If you have a request for a specific image please let me know. I hope to be adding more items over the coming weeks. 


& don't forget to check out the nelou & laura show ... my current 52 week project that's on week 6!


& lastly be sure to check out some of my new listings from my recent trip to the south of france!

California ...

You ever go somewhere & know that's the place you call home. I don't mean in the sense of a certain house being your home but this place is where you feel you belong. It's like it's part of you & you feel like without it there's somewhere missing. That place for me is California & right now i'm getting some serious home sickness!

In the midst of reading Ansel Adams Autobiography, i'm listing to him describe California in a way that i'd imagine only he could, in such sharp detail you feel as if you are part of one of his photographs. He talks about places i've seen, driven past & experienced myself but now i have to return to in the hopes of seeing the things he saw. I follow blogs such as those belonging to the Ansel Adams Gallery & Sierra Impressions Photography that remind me of the places i've been & grown to love.

The Sierra Nevadas are nothing like little old England where i grew up, vast & empty in places, they seem sharp, harsh & unforgiving compared to the green grass & rolling hills you see in England. But they seem to take over, there's no escaping them & their beauty, & the more i see the more i want to explore new areas. & not just the mountain surrounding my husbands hometown of Bodfish (it has a stop light & a Mcdonalds) but north & south to the coast & the cities. I have yet to discover a part of California i haven't felt as if i've belonged (although i'm not going to lie ... LA might challenge this). I never felt this way in the city i grew up, i was never able to be the person i really was but California lets me be me, it doesn't try & turn me into someone else.

& one day i hope to call California my official home, the place i will spend the rest of my days, hopefully earning my living selling my photographs in a little shop attached to a small gallery in a mountain town somewhere. Where people will buy my books, & notecards & prints & hang them on their walls for the world to see.