Busy busy!

We've been so busy! Oh my god!

We did our first ever wedding on Saturday the 1st of September. It was a big day! We were out for about 10 hours and we filled up about 60GB of memory just taking hundreds...and THOUSANDS of photos!

They'll be uploaded to Facebook every now and then to give the lovely bride a sneak peek!

 We're about 70% through all the photos, and she's looking to get 300+ from us!

I think we did well for our first wedding and we couldn't have asked for a better wedding to have covered! Mai was a lovely, cool, calm and relaxed bride...even when she rocked up almost an hour late to the ceremony! Haha "fashionably late"....

 We also covered our first party.
For Katie's 21st, we set up our lights and camera to make a simple photo booth so she and her friends could come on over and get their photos taken together.

 It was a fun evening, and we all had a giggle going through some of the awesome photos that we took!

A few weeks ago we took some lovely maternity shots for Amanda, who was expecting her little girl to be born in a few weeks.

Well! Amanda JUST managed to sneak those maternity shots in because little Charlotte came along 3 days later!

She's a total sweetie and I love the photos that we took. I'm about halfway through editing them and there will be a couple up on Facebook soon.

 And of course, my little man, Max, turned 1 on August 31st. I had a birthday party for him the day after the wedding, so our weekend was exhausting!

KC did a fantastic job capturing some cute moments of Max, especially that bottom one where he is TOTALLY lapping up all the attention as everyone sang happy birthday to him!
I cannot believe I have a 1 year old already!

Thanks for taking the time to read our massive update.
For more updates, pictures and to contact us, please visit our facebook page: Cardboard Hearts on Facebook

For all prices and booking inquiries, we are easily contacted by facebook or by email at cardboardheartsphotography@hotmail.com

Have a great weekend guys!

Can you feel it?

 Spring is coming!
The days seem to be warming up, and I can feel winter slipping away.

It was a nice warm day today, so I took my little Max outside and introduced him to his new toy! It was supposed to be a birthday surprise, but I'm terrible at waiting.

He enjoyed splashing around in his pool and digging through his sand pit! It was lovely!

And it was a great opportunity for me to test out and get to know my new lens!

In other news, yesterday we had a shoot with the lovely Carla and her family. We did some maternity photos in the studio, then headed to a local park to get some family photos and some 2 year photos of her son.

Here's a little look at Carla's maternity shoot. :)

Our next two weekends are going to be busy busy!
We have two shoots planned for this Saturday, a lovely family shoot and a 21st birthday. Then on the following Saturday, we have our very first wedding! I am very excited, but very nervous! I went out and bought a speedlight and a new lens for this shoot because I want it to be PERFECT!
Then on the Sunday after the wedding, it's my son's first birthday party! I cannot believe that by this time next week, I'll be spending my last few hours with an 11 month old. Time goes far to quickly.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to check us out on Facebook for fantastic deals and offers!
www.facebook.com/cardboardhearts
Keep your eyes peeled for a competition next Friday, to celebrate my son's first birthday! There will be a FREE family/baby/maternity shoot up for grabs!

Four Lovely Ladies!

 KC and I had the pleasure of shooting with Kelly and her three daughters, Emily, Melie and Olive last week. I've just finished editing all of the photos and they are lovely!

What an adorable family! :)

Charlie and Bronte

Last week, KC and I had the pleasure of photographing newborn twins, Charlie and Bronte.

Beautiful, tiny little ladies! They were so lovely!
Little Charlie is the one that is mostly asleep in the photos. She passed out quickly and was a dream to work with!
Little Bronte has a mind of her own, chosing instead to be a little poser.
Eventually both girls drifted off and we got some lovely photos of them!

I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to work with them, they are just beautiful and I am proud of the photos I took.
Hit up our Facebook page for more photos from this shoot, including the photos that KC has taken.

Families

 We've had the pleasure of working with two amazing families over the past few weeks.

I've finally finished editing all the photos for the White Family, all 50 of them! It was a big task, but there was bound to be a lot of pictures with such a lovely big family!

Here are some of my favourites from the shoot. :)

And yesterday, KC and I worked with Natalie and her children Kayla and Alex. They were fun kids to work with and Mum was awesome.

KC has these photos to edit, so I've just added the few that I took on my camera. There will be more to come soon.

Unfortunately our next few weeks are pretty empty. We don't have anything new planned until mid August! I took a lot of bookings over the past couple of weeks, but they're all for September!

Hopefully we will get some business going. I am very keen to take some more lovely photos and meet some new families!

I hope it comes across in our photography, just how much we ENJOY what we do. We don't do this for the money, that's for sure! This is the inverted pay cheque, we spend more money on our business than we earn! We're not very good entrepreneurs haha. But we do love what we do!

This week so far.

We've had a nice and busy week here! 

A Tumblr mama meet up on Wednesday,  a family shoot in Noosa with an amazing family and lots of Max time in between. By Max time I mean, chasing my incredibly energetic 10 month old around while he gets into everything!

Here's a sneak peek of our shoot from Thursday, there will be more to come soon!

We shot the beautiful White Family. 7 kids plus Mum and Dad meant we got a lot of experience and SO many photos! Meeting this amazing family was lovely and I would love to work with them again.

And here's a snippet of what Max, Na and myself got up to on Saturday!

Hope you all had a fantastic week! :)

Bath times.

The boy loves his baths!
When I walk into the bathroom his slow crawls turn to excited gallops as he follows me in.

He stands at the edge of the bath and chats and squeals away as I run the water and put some toys in.

Forever trying to dive right in, I have to stop him as he cocks his leg up to get over the edge.

Once he's in, so begins half an hour of splashing, squealing, chasing toys and examining the plug.

I love sitting with him and just watching him. He is so amazing.

Baby Expo and Skeletons!

 On Saturday, KC and myself took the boys to the Brisbane Pregnancy, Babies and Children's Expo at Southbank.

It was packed! And we had two great big prams! Note to us; Next year, NO BABIES! Haha.

It was nice to look through all the stalls and check out the baby items, KC bought a few things and I discovered the wonder of Baby Mum-Mum rice treats. Max chowed down on the samples that I got and loved them so much that I had to go back and buy a heap of them! Haha.

After the Expo we took the boys and had a nice wind down at the Southbank Parklands.

We had a burger and chips each and watched the boys interact. As usual, Max was a bully to Byron and made him cry.

I also found out Max's skeleton PJ's the day before and was delighted to find that Max fits them! They're a size 1 on his 00-0 body, so a little baggy, but still damn cute!

I think he looks so adorable in them! :D

Afternoon Sun

Hanging out with the boys in the backyard.
Max has Hand Foot and Mouth, so the boys were kept well apart from each other.

You wouldn't think he was sick, judging from those smiles!

Lazy Sundays

 I always call them Lazy Sundays, but when you have a VERY active 9 month old, there's really not much time to be lazy!

With Max on the move, I'm constantly looking for ways to entertain him before he wrecks the house!

At bath time we tried out some Crayola Colour Bubbles. Great big purple bubbles that spray purple dots everywhere when they pop, they make bath time very entertaining!

Max enjoyed popping each of the bubbles as they landed on the water, and painting in the purple goo on the side of the bath tub.

Earlier in the day we did some experimenting with Play Dough! I had bought some the week before and secretly, I was more excited to play with it than Max.

He loved tearing off little pieces of the dough and studying them carefully, inspecting each piece and squishing them between his fingers.

Of course he had to taste the dough, but it only took one taste before he decided that it was gross!

I look forward to many, many more of these "lazy" Sundays. They are the best days for me to spend time and bond with my son. There's no stress on Sundays.

Baby Byron

 

In the studio with baby Byron. He's such a good little poser!

Can't say the same for my son. I have no pictures of him that aren't blurry. 

The boy won't sit still ever!

 Today was a nice sunny day and wasn't too cold! We ventured out into the yard and had some fun with bubbles! I think the dog (Jett) enjoyed the bubbles more than Max!

Later we went over to KC's place to see baby Byron and have a play in the studio.

Byron was being a perfect little poser for his photos when Max totally ruined the shot.

But the series of pictures are just so cute!

I bought a new camera today, a Canon 60D. Upgrading from my faithful 500D. I'll miss my 500D, she served me so well for so long!

I am in love with the 60D. It is fast, efficient, boasts a great image quality and just feels better in my hands.

Max and I spent bath time playing with bubbles this evening and I couldn't help but grab a few cute shots of my cheeky boy!

- Karissa

Wanting Family Portraits on a Budget?

You're in luck!

Cardboard Hearts are offering Family Portraits for just $70 if you book before Friday 15th June. You can book for any date!

Family Portraits are normally $100, so you're saving a nice $30 on the total cost!

What do you get for $70?
- 1-2 hour session at your choice of location (Within Pine Rivers, Brisbane, Redcliffe or Caboolture).
- 10-20 Hi Resolution edited photos on a disc, posted to you. To print over and over again!
- All of your hi res photos at low resolution, re-sized and watermarked, ready for easy upload to social networking sites!
- Subject to availability; 2 photographers, two different styles.

So book now!

All shoots must have the $50 deposit paid 2 weeks before shoot date to confirm the booking. If you are booking for less than 2 weeks time, $50 deposit needs to be paid as soon as possible.
Please remember, the $50 deposit counts towards your total session price! It is NOT an additional fee. Pay your deposit and bring $20 on the day!

Long Weekend!

 

How did you spend your public holiday today?

Max and I had a lazy day in his room, wrecking the joint and pulling out all of his toys.

He has learned two new things that he put on full display today; 

- He can make a kissing face and pucker, then make the smooch noise.

- He enjoys kneeling and sitting on his feet. It looks very cute.

We put up a couple of sheets in his room and used the dull overcast light from the windows to take a few cute pictures. Little rascal wouldn't take his hands out of his mouth though!

Hope you had a fantastic long weekend!

- Karissa

Baby Wyatt

KC photographed beautiful baby Wyatt and his proud parents, Clayton and Izzy, today.

KC will be finished editing the rest of the photos soon, so I will update with a few more in the coming days.

Congrats to his lovely parents, they made a little stunner! :)

Fun in the Park

Meet Max and Byron! Aged 9 and 7 months. These boys are our world and you can look forward to seeing many photos of them! :)

This was during a fun day at New Farm Park, soaking up some sun and having a glorious feast of fish and chips.

Introduction

Welcome to our new blog!

I'll start with an introduction.

My name is Karissa, I am 22 years old. I'm from QLD, Australia and I have a great big passion for photography! In August 2011, my son, Max, was born. My passion for photography turned into a passion for babies and all things baby! So it wasn't long before I put my two favourite things together and decided to enter the market of baby and family photography!

I have a business partner that joined with me in March 2011, her name is KC and she has a little boy called Byron. We have been friends for years and were working separately in the same industry, so it just made sense that we should combine forces and tackle the market together!

At present we are still setting up and getting our name out there, Cardboard Hearts! Tell your friends!

We offer anything baby or family related, as well as branching into real estate, portfolio shots and pet portraits.

Our base is in Kallangur, QLD, where we have an in-home studio set up for our baby and newborn photos.

Our aim is to create beautiful images at a very affordable price. After going to various Pixie Photo shoots with my son and being shocked by the prices that they charge families, I decided that we need people out there that aren't trying to rip you off!

We sell a session, and your images come on a disc for free. You don't buy $100 prints from us. We don't watermark our hi-res photos and once you have paid in full, that disc is yours and those photos can be printed over and over.

Hopefully over the next few weeks this blogger will start looking a bit more like a portfolio and can help spread our name out over the great big www!