The kids had a great time climbing around on the rocks and exploring the cobblestone pathways. Their shoes and clothing showed evidence of this by the end of the night.

Where do I get my inspiration? Everywhere from old books, photos, and movies, to pieces that I find in antique stores.  I also have a father that loves to browse estate sales. He has found so many wonderful things over the years that I have been able to use, and if I am looking for something he is the first one I call.

I have also found many wonderful options for the perfect outfits.  Some of these sites have antique clothing, but most have vintage inspired options:

Grammies Attic                     http://www.grammies-attic.com
The Baby Gardner                http://www.babygardner.com
Little English Clothing          http://www.littleenglish.com
Smock It To Me                    http://www.smockittomeonline.com
Rags Land                            http://ragsland.com
Jolly Rompers                       http://www.jollyrompers.com
Blu Pony Vintage                  http://www.bluponyvintage.com

If you shop the Clearance or Sale items you can find some great deals! I keep tabs on all of my favorite shops that have a Facebook page. If you ‘Like’ my page you will get updates from me with great options for sale items as they are posted.

Here are a few of my favorite vintage inspired photos over the past year:

I started out with some color film figuring that I could always have it printed black and white, but I also brought along my medium format camera to take some true vintage looking photos.

Here is the Christmas Card I put together to pay homage to the 100 year-old photo of this little guy’s great-grandfather.

We started inside for a classic toddler shot on the window seat.  Mom had mentioned that she liked the shots with classic clothing, so I brought a few clothing options along for her to choose from.  I also brought my Hasselblad along to get some medium format shots. I am so glad I did because we got some great shots inside as well as outside. With a regular roll of film you have up to 36 exposures, the medium format only has up to 12 exposures and is a bit trickier to use since it is totally manual. I love the old school look and feel it gives.

With a change of clothing and scenery we let this little guy go.  He played in the leaves for a bit and then showed me how fast he could run. Then it was off to explore the rest of the yard with Mom and Dad. I wish I could have stayed and played, it was so nice out. Maybe next time!

The sun did come out Saturday afternoon and it lit this setting just perfectly.  These photos were to celebrate big sisters birthday.  We even went out for ice-cream after because they were so good!

The black llama was very friendly and loved attention, from my limited experience this isn’t always the norm. They are flighty animals mush like horses can be. The brown llama was not so keen on getting close to the fence when people were around.  The rooster was also very interesting to me.  Not only did he seem to strut his stuff. He seemed to tell me that the hens were his and I had better keep at a distance. Of-course he never came at me, but his eyes said it all…

It quickly became apparent egg hunting too early in the morning resulted in not finding any eggs.  Waiting until 10 o’clock resulted in about 6 eggs! The eggs came in all sorts of colors; green, blue, brown and white. Watching the chickens in their roosts was pretty neat and had a little visitor peek out to see what all the commotion was!

All in all the retreat was a nice, relaxing place with great landscapes.