Guest Blogger: Jolyn from A Year Of Happy

I am so excited to have Jolyn from A Year of Happy at my house today. She has an amazing photo blog and a blog cafe that you must check out. We met through the 100 Photos Project and I have fallen in love with her pictures. So grab your cup of Monday tea and give a warm welcome to Jolyn.

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Hi! I'm JoLyn and I'm so excited to be visiting at Mamma Tortilla--what an honor it is to be here!

Leslie and I got in touch because we both love photography. Me? I'm really new to the photography game--in fact, I just got my "big-girl" camera for Christmas, and now it hardly ever leaves my side. I am hooked! And I think the internet/blogging world is the perfect place to learn photography, make friends, and share our photos.

For instance, Leslie and I are both participating in a 100 photos project. Every person who wants to play along chooses their own theme. Mine is "Simple Pleasures." This theme goes along with my Happiness Project, which is to look for the good things in life that money can't buy, and write about them on my blog. These two projects are really changing the way I look at life. They are making me notice things I had taken for granted--and the simple things have taken on much more meaning since I started focusing on life through the lens of my camera.

One experience in particular was an early morning when I was driving my son to school, like I do most mornings. I started looking at my world wondering what would make a good photo that day. And I saw this view--it's only about a mile from my home. I see it every single day. But I guess in my rush of activities, I don't really take the time to look. When I looked at it through my lens, I realized how breathtaking it really is!

I've also started taking note of simple things that I might not have seen otherwise. Like the day I was in the airport and saw these two birds sitting on the chairs watching the planes take off and land!

And speaking of birds, I've never paid much attention to them before. But having my camera in hand, I've become an avid bird watcher. On a recent humanitarian trip to Nicaragua, I spent an hour taking photos of the birds on the beach--and loving it!

Another fun project I'm participating in is called "Team Up Thursday". For this project, we are paired with another person, and each week we take a photo based on the week's theme. Then we create a diptych using our two photos. My partner is Arizaphale from Australia. I'm from Utah, so the two of us are having a blast getting to know each other and working together from opposite sides of the world. It's fun to see what our teammates come up with for each week's theme! Here's one of our diptychs--our theme was "Lunch".

As much fun as I'm having with my camera, I'm quickly learning how much I don't know. The method to my madness right now is to take hundreds of photos--and hope one or two get lucky and turn out good! You should have seen me in Nicaragua, madly snapping photo after photo from the window of our moving bus! Luckily, I got a few good ones that really tell the story of our amazing adventures.

I guess for me, photography is about two things: telling a story and finding the joy in life. And no matter how much I learn about how my camera works, that's how I hope it will always be!

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Thank you so much Jolyn for coming over today and visiting :) Don't forget to check out her photo blog and blog cafe.

Leslie

It's A Jungle Out There

My garden has over taken the corner of my backyard. I was happy to come back home from my trip to New York (you will hear more about that in the coming week) to have snap peas and little tomatoes. Austin and I were so excited that our daily watering and tending to the garden has paid off. He even called Scott and told him about the exciting news. So if you look at the first post of my garden and what it looks like now you will see what a jungle it has become :)

Summer Hair Accessories

Summer is here and all the cute outfits are coming out of my closet. The ones that I wasn't able to wear last summer because I was post baby :) Now that I am feeling a little better with my body I got myself in the attic to pull clothes down :) So exciting! So I was out there looking around and came across some really cute hair accessories that could really make an outfit. I am a true believer of the simpler the outfit the better because once you had those amazing accessories...you get that hot outfit :) I love these because they are funky and fun...isn't that what summer is all about?

Hair Wreath by Dedicated

Summer Feather Hair Accessory by Beautiful Mess

Flat Pattern Hair Band by Jezze Prints

Father's Day Gift Ideas

 Father's Day is just around the corner ladies (and gentlemen)! Lets start getting our ideas together and start crafting for the special guys in our lives. Here are couple of things to get your creative juices flowing.

 Father's Day Key Chain by Aly & Ash

 I love you Father's Day Card Template by All About You

Father's Day Tie by The Purl Bee

 Crayon on Etching Metal Tins Tutorial by Roots and Wings Co.

Leslie

9:Eat Some Berries

9:Eat Some Berries, originally uploaded by mamma tortilla.

Reminder and a couple of sidenotes

Don't forget to sign up for the Fabric Swap you have until Friday!! You can't possibly miss out the opportunity of getting someone's fabric treasures. I'm super excited to see what comes in the mail from my fabric swapper person (ok it just sounded good when I said it in my head and it made me giggle:) )

Sidenote: my "I Was Featured" button is not working. Sorry ladies who have it :( Please take the other button in the mean time. Planning to change the blog again so thats why I didn't panic when it went missing! If anyone out there does blog headers, buttons, etc. send me an email: mammatortilla@gmail.com.

Ok another sidenote: I'm ending this post with what was on my deck, in my backyard and IN MY HOUSE recently!!!!!!!!! I'm having a lot of animal encounters lately.