2016 ALBUM: AUGUST & SEPTEMBER

Making progress with my 2016 album! For those who are new, I've been making an album out of my instagram photos this year. Seeing as the photos more or less fit perfectly in a square mini album, it's probably one of the easiest photo album projects I've ever done. Here's a recap of my August and September chapters!

The main event in August was our trip to Athens. It was Oscar's first time on a plane, and our first holiday as a family of three. We weren't really sure what to expect, but we had a great time and were happy to learn that travelling with the little one really wasn't as challenging as you'd maybe think.

September eased us into Autumn, with cozy days spent at home and the changing leaves outside. It's not my favorite season by any means, but there's just something about it that makes me want to stay home and cook and bake and spend time in the kitchen. 

Also, can anyone explain to me how this year has flown by so quickly? We're almost in December and I can't understand how that's happened!

You can see the rest of my album by clicking on the "2016 album" label at the bottom of this post, and as always, you can follow me on instagram, my username is @hildeandhercamera.

DIY BABY EWOK COSTUME

Hey guys! Hope everyone had a fun Halloween! Halloween isn't really a big deal here in Norway, but every year people celebrate it a little bit more, which I'm quite excited about with my Americanized third culture kid upbringing. I still remember my first Halloween in Houston about 2 decades ago--the decorations, the costumes, the masses of candy! In a few years when Oscar is a bit older, I'd love to go visit some American friends so he can experience a proper Halloween. Plus, any excuse to dress up and have some fun during this dark and cold season is a big fat yes in my book. 

And now that we have a kid and we have every excuse to partake in the Halloween festivities (like we needed an excuse before, Bo is no stranger to dress up...), I thought I'd share how we made Oscar's ewok costume. It was really simple to throw together with stuff we already had around the house, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. 

The outfit is basically made up of three components; the bear suit, the hood and the spear. The bear suit was a hand me down from some friends, but I'm pretty sure you can buy similar suits all over the place. H&M sell them for sure. The hood was made out of one of Graeme's old brown t-shirts, where I just added two "bone style" buttons on the top and some leather strips around (Wicket was my inspo). Graeme made the spear out of a bamboo stick, some string, and a piece of wood he whittled to the shape of a stone and spray painted grey. He glued it all together with a glue gun. While the wooden spear is obviously more baby appropriate than a stone one, the spray paint wasn't exactly edible, so Oscar was under pretty strict observation while he was playing with it. Everything he touches ends up in his mouth these days. 

Yub nub!

DIANA F+ // COPENHAGEN

The most awful thing happened last week. I was taking out the film of our Olympus OM10 to get the photos from our recent trip to Athens developed, when it became apparent that THERE WAS NO FILM IN THE CAMERA. That's right. I "took" a whole roll of film, only to discover there was never any film in the camera in the first place. Devastated doesn't cover it! In fact, I was so upset that I ended up organizing part of the basement, just to get my mind off it. (Sidenote: how organized would my house be if I forgot to put film in my cameras more often?)

So instead of posting photos of ancient runes and sunshine, here's some photos I took in Copenhagen last year. Two of Graeme's friends were running a marathon, so Graeme and I jumped on the ferry and met up with them (no running for us though, walking all over town trying  to keep up with the runners was enough for us!). These were shot with my trusty Diana F+. which I actually haven't used in a while, on black and white Ilford XP2 super 400 120 film. 

We're headed to the cabin for a couple of days today, maybe I should bring this camera with me? Regardless of which camera I'm taking though, I'll definitely make sure there's actually film in it this time! 

OSCAR'S BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENTS

I finally sent out Oscar's birth announcements/thank you cards! Like everything these days, they took me way longer to finish than I had hoped for, but alas, they are finally done. And look how tiny he is! He's actually less than a day old in this photo. Graeme took a bunch in the hospital hotel room while I was away on an informational meeting for first time mothers about breast feeding. I'm so, so happy he did this. I love that we have these pictures of this ridiculously tiny, brand new Oscar. In fact, I ended up printing out a couple of these photos and framing them.

I made these using Photoshop and Illustrator, and then printed them at home on my Canon iP8750. I actually got Graeme to make me some icons in Illustrator to show the time of birth, the date, and his weight and length, but then ended up abandoning them all together in favor of just text. And I ended up making two versions too, one in Norwegian and one in English with pounds rather than grams. (Can anyone explain to me why Brits have to use both metric and imperial measurements?)

To be honest, I'm not 100% happy with how they printed. The white text doesn't pop as much as the digital version, and the printed images turned out a bit grainy. I don't usually have this problem when I'm printing photos, so I'm guessing my printer just works better on photo paper rather than card stock. But as I was printing double sided, photo paper wasn't really an option. Maybe next time I make something like this I'll get it printed professionally?

DIY NAME BANNER

Sometimes I still can't quite phantom that Graeme and I are parents. It's just a little hard to get my head around the fact that we've made a tiny little human, and that this tiny little human is going to grow in to a full-sized adult one day. Today Oscar turned four months. Growing up so fast! He's super smiley and talkative these days, and while we were on holiday a few weeks ago he had his first laugh. It's as goofy as his smile and we love it. This week we also started introducing solids to his diet, and he started sleeping in his own room. He still wakes for a feed around four or five, but it's going pretty well so far (though I probably just jinxed it there! Haha).

So I made this little name banner to hang on the outside of his door, and I love walking past it. It's a super simple DIY inspired by these (which are so cool and versatile!). I printed out the letters I was going to use (in this font), and cut them out and used them as a pattern to cut out the banner in some navy textured card. I just used scissors, but it probably would have been an advantage to use a craft knife for the more complicated letters. To hang it up, I used some white yarn and a few bits of tape, and the yarn blends in with the door pretty well, making it look pretty seamless. Super simple. :)

Yay for quick and easy projects!

2016 ALBUM: JUNE & JULY

You know, I was doing really well with keeping up with this project. Since I'm using photos from Instagram and printing everything at home, it's a pretty simple project. But then one day, when I was printing out some June photos of Oscar, I noticed my sweet, sweet boy was coming out blue! I had run out of ink! It took me a while before I managed to remember to get new ink cartages, and then I think it took me an even longer time before I managed to remember to install said ink cartages. In fact, it wasn't until I needed the printer to print out some boarding passes that I finally got around to it. But without any further ado, here's the chapters for June and July.

To no one's surprise, the June and July chapters of my 2016 album are full of photos of Oscar. I really want to fit the whole year in one mini album, so I'm actively trying to keep things short but it's very hard. We went to my parents' cabin both in June and July, so I included a few photos from that. The rest are pretty much all photos of Oscar, and a couple of everyday shots.

Sadly, I've run out of plastic pockets now, so still playing catchup! Hopefully it won't take me as long to get them as it did with the ink, as we're already almost in September! It totally feels like fall here already, with cooler temperatures and rain. Our apple tree is full of apples, and I've noticed the leaves have started to change color. But for once I'm actually looking a bit forward to the new season, with cozy cups of tea and knitting projects. I've already started lighting candles at home. What are your plans for September?

A DOUGLAS ADAMS INSPIRED BABY MOBILE

It has taken me way longer than it should have to finish off this mobile. And, if I'd have known it would help our Oscar sleep, I sure would have finished it a lot quicker! But it was just so hard to decide on what mobile to make him. You guys, there is SO many cute mobiles out there, so much amazing inspiration. I wanted something cute, and simple, and was really drawn to clouds for some reason. Or stars? Or geometric shapes? Or mountains, or woodland creatures, or sea creatures, or, or... Sometimes I find it really hard to narrow down my inspiration and decide exactly what project I want to spend my energy on. Actually, that's not sometimes, that's all the time.

Anyway, I went through various prototypes in various materials before eventually making something I was happy with, and as a result I also have a good stash of unused felt and jersey that I'm not sure what to do with. Eventually though, I crocheted some clouds that I liked, and while searching for raindrop patterns found a cute whale one. I thus decided to scrap my cloud-and-raindrop plans, crocheted the whale instead, and decided to add a bowl of petunias and turn it into a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy mobile. I reckon it goes pretty well with this banner that's also inspired by Douglas Adams and hangs on the opposite wall right by his changing table (as a bit of a reminder when we're changing the worst diapers, ha!).

To make the whale I used this pattern, and to make the clouds I used a variation of this pattern, as I wanted my clouds to not be completely uniform. The pattern for the bowl of petunias I just made up, and added a coin to the stuffing to weigh it down and balance with the whale (though you can see it's still not perfectly balanced). I then hung all the elements on an embroidery hoop, and covered the embroidery hoop with the same white yarn I used to crochet the clouds and hang the other elements with. And done!

"Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now."

- Douglas Adams, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

GREYSCALE BABY BLANKET

I became an aunt again last week! My sister gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, weighing in at 3970 g and measuring 50 cm long. I'm loving that Oscar will be growing up with a cousin so close in age.

As a small gift to the little one (who has not yet been named), I decided to knit a baby blanket similar to this one I knitted for Oscar. Oscar loves being swaddled, so we've gotten tons of use for it. I think I might even knit a second one! It's such a basic knit, so it's really quick to make. Unless of course, you are constantly being interrupted by a little bub who needs your attention. If it wasn't for naps, this thing would have never been finished!

Naturally, I got Oscar to model the blanket for me. As you can see, he's currently in the middle of losing his baby hair. Hope his new hair grows back soon, as right now he's sporting a hairstyle similar to his grandpa haha. And he's been smiling tons recently, a real goofball smile, but of course all he was willing to give me today was this little smirk. Still melts my heart though! And he seemed pretty happy with the blanket, so hopefully my little nephew will be too!

OLYMPUS OM10 / PRAGUE

I finally got some old film developed! And one of those rolls of film included these photos I took when we were in Prague last October. Our original honeymoon plans got put a bit on hold due to me getting a new job, so this was sort of a mini honeymoon for us instead. We had an awesome trip! Prague was so beautiful with all the autumn colors, and we ate so much good food. Unfortunately though, I wasn't able to try the beer as I was pregnant, so I'll definitely have to come back some time!

These photos were all shot on the Olympus OM10, using 35mm Kodak Portra 400 film. I love how crisp the colors come out, perfect to show off the contrast between those red roofs and blue skies. It's technically Graeme's camera, but I think I'll definitely be borrowing it again in the future!

2016 ALBUM: MAY

Another month is over! And boy, has it been a special one. It might have started out a bit slow, but it certainly got a bit busier when our little Oscar arrived. Now he rules the household and takes up majority of our time, which means that putting together these few couple of pages took way longer than normal haha. But I'm still up to date with this album, and I'm happy with that!

Its also dawning on me that there's a good chance I won't be able to fit the whole year into this tiny album, which is a bit annoying. I've tried to keep it short for each month, but I clearly need to make more of an effort there. Also, yes, it reads "waiiing game" on the above photo spread. I ran out of t's and only realized once I'd started putting down the other letters. D'oh! So the extra "i" is really just a placeholder until i get some more t's.

And now we're already in June! We were hoping to be heading to Manchester this weekend for a friend's wedding, but unfortunately Oscar's late arrival made it a bit difficult. So instead, Graeme's parents are taking the opportunity to come visit and meet their grandson. We haven't seen them in person since Christmas, so looking forward to that! What are your plans for June?

KNITTED BABY BEANIE

Oh my, how time flies. Oscar is already two and a half weeks old, and he's already grown so much that he's starting to fit into the newborn sized onesies (he was far too small for them when he came home from the hospital). How did that even happen?

And so far, we seem to be adjusting well. We've had a couple of challenging nights, but for the most part he lets us sleep pretty well through the night, and spends most of his time napping. He's actually currently on my lap, napping away as I type this. Because in the time it took me to start writing this post, he's demanded that I stop everything I'm doing to change and feed him, and he's now happily snoring away. Yeah, our household basically revolves around him these days.

And since everything runs on Oscar time, I haven't had much of a chance to do anything else. Any project I started before Oscar was born has basically been put on hold. That baby mobile for his crib that I started on the day I went into labor lies unfinished, and this Christmas present I started making hasn't been touched since he got here (no, no, calm down, I wasn't being overly organized, I was just trying to keep myself busy while waiting for him to arrive). So this knitted baby beanie I'm sharing here today is actually something I knitted a good while ago, when Graeme and I were enjoying a weekend at my parents cabin. But I'm kinda glad I waited a while to post it, because, you guys, have you seen my little hat model?

I used the leftover yarn I had from this blanket to make this beanie. It's a very simple and quick hat to knit, where you start at the bottom and decrease at the top. To make, cast on 72 stitches on size 3.5 double pointed knitting needles. Knit two, purl two for about 10 rows, or until you have the rolled edge as big as you'd like it to be. Then, knit one row to make a natural fold for the rolled edge. This step isn't technically necessary, but it makes the folded edge a lot neater. Continue by knitting two and purling two as you did before, until you've knitted about 10 cm. Then, to decrease, repeat the following until the end of the row: * knit two, purl two, knit two, purl two, knit two together, purl two, knit two, purl two, knit two, purl two together *. For the next row repeat: * knit two, purl two, knit two, purl one, knit two together, purl two, knit two, purl two, knit one, purl two together * until the end of the row. Continue like this until you're just knitting and purling two and two together, and finish off by pulling the yarn through the remaining stitches. Make a bobble and attach to the top of the beanie. Place hat on baby.

Don't take too many photos of said baby in beanie though, or he'll end up making this face:

Oh, how I love that little angry face. Oscar the Grouch.

And also: after telling you all about how I have tons of unfinished projects and seemingly no time to do anything about them...guess who went out and bought yarn for a new project today?