Forgotten Film

Mike found a roll of film he had developed and scanned yesterday... over 30 gorgeous photos of several of our photo adventures. Seriously... they're beautiful! They were shot on our Holga using 200 speed Color Negative film so they definitely have their quirks. Here are a couple and then you can click HERE to see some more! If you don't follow Mike's blog I think you should! He's so passionate about photography so hopefully you'll be inspired!





Don't the double exposure on the last one make it look so ghostly?!

CLICK HERE to view more on this blog! You can also see others at HIS FLICKR!

PS; I just realized the Sunday Spotlight never posted yesterday! Whoops! Guess it'll be moved to this Sunday! Silly Blogger!

MIXTAPE MONDAY: guilty pleasures.

I'll be the first to admit that the next couple of mixtapes these upcoming few weeks may not be everyone's cup o' tea. I'll also admit that the subject matter is far from something normally shared on this little ol' blog, too. What I mean by that is that below you will find some of the most memorable Top 40 songs to date... all things that I am reluctantly admitting to loving. Some of them are as recent as the past couple of years, and some as old as the very early 80s! These are songs that I also find to be a great workout mix. I'm not sure why, but they hype me up and put me in such a good mood. Yea... even that jerk Kanye. I'm sure there are a ton that I'm forgetting. Would you believe me if I told you I had a running list in my "Little Book of Ideas" of guilty pleasure songs?! I need to find that page!

I think this is a good playlist for wanting to just put some pep in your step. Work in an office and need some jazzy hands while typing? Plug in your headphones and play this little diddy. It always makes me want to get stuff done! So what if it's embarrassing!



Now... time for you to confess! What are some of your all-time favorite guilty pleasure songs?! (Really! I want to know! I probably love them, too!)

Don't Go Chasin' Waterfalls

With yesterday's adventure I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to give a shout out to my girls of TLC in the title. I'm sorry, it was just too good to be true. (Luv ~n~ miss u, Left Eye!) After a very exhausting night at work Friday (and a few yelling matches), Mike and I were determined to sleep in. Of course we were woken to a yummy breakfast way too early so we ate and passed out again for a few hours. We finally got up, went through some rolls of film we had developed and then we decided to get on with the day. It was a late start, but better late than never, right?! We had plans to try and find this ominous waterfall my stepdad had told us about but it was proven futile. Instead we opted for a much more convenient water show on the Natchez Trace Parkway. This little waterfall (or falls, I should say) was quite the spectacle for several out-of-state visitors. It was a hike and a half down, and even more so up. The lighting wasn't all that great for outfit photos, and to be honest, I wasn't really feeling them anyway. So we have 2 measly photos of my outfit and then about a billion for the adventure. Instax, too, but as usual they will come at a later date!

Yesterday we also booked our hotel for our roadtrip in March with Susannah and Chris. We will be in Wilmington Thursday March 3rd until Monday March 7th so if you have any suggestions on things to do or see or places to stop on the way (Think I-40 to Knoxville, Asheville, Charlotte and then the coast!) then we'd love to hear them! It's going to be such a fun trip with such fun people. I'm already getting giddy!

Today we're spending the day doing errands and such with my parents in Franklin. Hopefully that'll be nice! Monday is the day we wrap up everything with the move! We're done with the house luckily but we still have to go finish everything off at the office. Off I go! xo

Dress: Forever 21
Belt: Forever 21
Tights: Target
Flats: Target
Cardigan: Target

A Few Nikon SLR Photos...

Mike and I played around with our Nikon F60 SLR yesterday (and there are a few from a previous adventure) so I thought I'd share some of them with you today. I'm only going to post a couple and then I'll link you over to Mike's blog where he shares the rest! (I don't want to steal his thunder!)

We were using 200 speed film with a Nikkor 80mm-200mm f/2.8 lens on a Nikon F60 body.

These first few were the only ones shot by me. Mike is a camera hog ;P Kidding!






And these are a few from Mike:








You can see more of the set at his blog by CLICKING HERE!

Today we're going to go adventure again and take even more photos! And instead of sporting a heavy-body SLR, I'm going with a $1.99 disposable camera! I can't wait!

Giveaway Winner Announced!

I'm so excited to announce the winner of the January Giveaway here at LCH! The winner will be receiving a Diana Mini 35mm Camera as a prize! I'm overwhelmed by the positive response from the giveaway and how many lovely people I've met because of it! I knew that giveaways like this would be something totally awesome to offer up to y'all because you seriously rock my world! You make blogging so fun so I'm excited I have a way to give back!

and the winner is....

Gracie Blue!

(I love that your name is Gracie Blue and your email Gracie Green! :P)

Congratulations Gracie! I'll be emailing you shortly!

Thanks to everyone who played along! Stay tuned for the February giveaway which will go up on Tuesday, February 1st! If you liked this giveaway then I'm sure you'll like the next one!

Huckleberry Grapevine

I'm sure you're wondering what the heck "Huckleberry Grapevine" even means, and to be quite honest, I'm pondering the same thing as I'm typing this. I'm sitting on the couch in the living room and I was trying to think of what to call this outfit post when Mike chimed in with just that... Huckleberry Grapevine. So it goes! But when I think about it, Huckleberry really is a perfect name for it... being the quintessential American tale of youth and adventure. The grapevine part is all subject to your imagination, but we're going to roll with it.

If you've followed my blog for any amount of time you're probably well aware of my love for all things nautical. I'm not huge on "patriotic" Americanized things, but give me some red, white and blue, and maybe a dash of gold, and I'm sold! This dress was picked up earlier this week at Forever 21 in Cool Springs. It was under $20, lightweight, and also came in red! Of course I bought both, but the red will have to wait for another day. The red belt is my all-time favorite (I'm pretty sure I say that every single time I write about it) but it was scored for well under 50 cents at Goodwill a long long time ago. The tights are super torn and ripped all over but they're from Target as are the black flats. The purse is a total knockoff (and yes, I have learned my lesson, let's not preach!) but I had yet to pair it with anything so I figured I should show it some sunshine.

Today's weather was incredible. Incredible! Though the weather widget claims the high was only supposed to be 46 degrees I know for a fact it hit 55 today! Both Mike and I abandoned our coats and frolicked in the sun while exploring the town. We drove way out on Darbytown Road past the residential areas and we ended up at a low-water bridge. We decided to play with our toys (read: all of our cameras) and shoot some outfit photos as well.

We have a million and one rolls of film to develop this weekend and many more instax photos to scan, but I promise to share all of those soon! For now we're going to go play on the Kinect before I have to get ready for work!

By the way, tonight is the last night to enter the Diana Mini Giveaway! I'll be announcing the winner tomorrow so stay tuned! And get pumped for February's giveaway!

Dress: Forever 21
Belt: Thrifted
Tights: Target
Flats: Target
Purse: NYC
Headband: c/o Sunshine & Carousels

Instax Mini vs. Instax 210

One of the questions I get very very often is which FujiFilm Instax camera I prefer over the other. Of course I welcome them with open arms because I'm pretty passionate about both of them, but I felt like maybe it was time to dish it all out in the form of a blog update and also to open up the comments to your personal reviews and opinions, too! Because this is just that... my opinion! I'd love to hear what others think! I'll forewarn you that this will be image heavy!



So we'll start with the Instax Mini since that was the first one I purchased back in November 2009! I wanted to treat myself to something nice and that cute little brown camera was just smiling at me! Let me preface these by saying this: If you want to buy them for the cheapest price, buy via Amazon.com! At least in my experience! I purchased my Mini for $70 + tax and film and I purchased my 210 for $80! I saw them at Urban Outfitters earlier this week for $105 and $135 respectively! Yikes!

Instax Mini - Choco

Pros:

• Convenient size. Easy to fit in a bag and carry out.
• Credit card size photos fit nicely in wallet.
• Photo size makes for great Christmas ornaments!
• Takes great photos indoors with low-light!
• Takes even better photos outside.
• The aperture settings are easy to understand and sensible.
• They make great impromptu business cards! (Try it!)
• Comes in different colors.

Cons:

• The picture size is half the size of the 210 yet roughly the same price.
• It is very aperture-sensitive. Easy to over and under expose!
• Really only "work" vertically. Horizontal photos are hard to compose.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Instax Wide 210

Pros:

• Larger picture size makes more of an impact.
• Comes with a close-up adapter for self shot portraits.
• Takes nice outdoor photos with decent lighting.
• Works both vertically and horizontally without appearing "odd".

Cons:

• Far from the best at indoor photos.
• Blurry shots produced if you forget the close-up adapter at times.
• Heavy and large! The 210 is very very bulky and makes it hard to carry around.

Verdict

My personal opinion is so very very torn. Mike and I have had the conversation multiple times and it's hard to really choose between the two. I love the size of the pictures from the 210, but I guess if I had to choose just one (like, life or death situation here!) then I'd go with the Mini because it's small enough for me to carry around, I can use the pictures for so many things, and it really handles low light situations well. Plus who can deny the cute and quirky personality of an alien-looking brown camera?!

But I'm interested in what you think! Do you own either camera? Which do you prefer? Are there things about each of them that would make it/break it for you? Let me hear about them in the comments!

Click through the jump below to see a whole heck of a lot of instax images! I scanned them in yesterday so why not share them?! (Note: I could've scanned them at a higher resolution so they're a bit blurry! Whoops!) Seriously... there are a lot of pictures after this jump! Haha