Last week the #capturingcolour gallery was filled with pretty china, patterned plates, ceramics bursting with florals and everything in between. I love having a new theme each week and I also love that people join in from all over the world sharing their colourful images.

I have still got boxes and boxes of my lovely crockery wrapped up in tissue and newspaper from when we moved house. Some boxes go back to Christmas 2013 which were frantically stored away when we sold out house and moved to a temporary home 10 minutes down the road. I look back on that week and still feel exhausted just thinking about it!

No Christmas tree, no furniture, just endless half packed boxes, being carted down the country lane, Rich and I sweating cleaning the house, filling holes and sanding for the new owners to move in just after new year. I think if you can get through a house move you can get through anything, and we did 3 in 18 months! Never ever again!!!

I have started fishing around with a torch for my beloved things, plates I have collected from car boot sales and charity shops, our wedding dinner service that I am determined not to just save for the most important of occasions and actually use and enjoy it. Crockery makes the perfect props and styling those little vignettes last week, helped calm me down, plus I got to share some old favourite images.

And the gallery was just divine. Heavenly styled stories, people sharing their treasured things. A visual treat.

Visit my Instagram post to find the accounts.

But oh my, when I saw this image it just made me want to jump right in! The atmosphere, the celebration, the impeccable styling. I wish I could go on their course!

Go find and follow Party Prep Workshop - there is colourful inspiration by the confetti filled bucket load!

Every week I find new accounts to follow and love that so many join in week on week. I love being part of different Instagram communities so make sure you join in with @its_my_week and their weekly challenge and the other hashtags I adore:

• #natureinthehome 
• #stylingtheseasons 
• #mybelovedhomestyle
• #styleatmine
• #our_nest
• #12monthsofhappystills
• #mymondaymoodboard
• #gatheredstyle
• #itsamoodywednesday
• #byarrangement #mythursdaybreaktime
• #floralfridaycompetition #fridayfaffingcompetition
• #collectedsaturday #frommykitchencompetition
• #mymonthofsundays

This is by no means a full list but they are a few positive and supportive communities which will inspire you (And make you lose even more time on Instagram!).

What are your favourite hashtags? Do you join in with any weekly challenges or monthly prompts? I'd love to hear about them.

Tonight we have been busy packing for the big birthday trip to Paris! Granny is turning 60 and Ollie is turning 4 on Thursday and we shall be heading to London tomorrow evening to meet up with my mum, sister and her family, ready to board the Eurostar Wednesday morning. My brother and sister in law flew in from America to Paris today and are having a few days child free to enjoy wandering around. I cannot wait to join them! 

Have a great week, wherever you are in the world and come and share the colours of your week with the #capturingcolour gallery. Mine started with pastels and I can see red, white and blue for the rest of the week!

#capturingcolour is a weekly theme on Instagram. Tag your photos and post your COLOURS OF MY WEEK images this week. Show us what colours are inspiring you this week. I will share a round up next Monday :)

We had a lovely weekend planned, a trip to a lovely hotel, a real treat for the four of us, plus the westies who had hotel dog baskets waiting. And then a sick bug struck and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. 

No trip to see their little cousin at the splash park near Granny's house and no visit to the beautiful hotel and it's array of photo opportunities around every corner! I'd left our family photo for this Me and Mine post a little on the late side. I'd shared one of my new favourites of us at the Colour Run a couple of weeks ago earlier in the month and then last night it dawned on me what we should photograph.

The new bedtime routine.

I thought having boys would mean you miss out on playing hair dressers, teaching someone how to tie plaits and put on make up. Turns out boys are just as curious! It's just you who ends up the guinea pig! The boys have started this new routine, which I suspect is to eek out bedtime, which is totally working, where they want to play with my hair.

I have always been a sucker for my hair being brushed or plaited, it's like a complete wave of relaxation comes over me and I fall into a trance! So I am quite happy to oblige this calming routine before lights out.

I have to sit in a certain way, they each have their places in the bed. We HAVE to have a mirror on hand to check the progress and pretend it's the screen in the Photo Booth like we are snapping a new passport photo. "Is your face in the circle Mama" Sammy demands over and over again before making a "click" sound!

They always want to apply liquid eyeliner. Like they are supernaturally drawn to the make up that could cause most damage to your duvet covers. And as much blusher ends up on the cheek as does little tiny specks of powder over the pillow cases.

But what does it matter, because I realised it's a really intimate moment between us.

Their concentration, their close proximity, personal space gets put aside to draw on my eyelids and line my lips like a clown in cerise lip stain. I show them I trust them. 

We come to the big reveal and I have to hide my horror that I look a little like a badly made up entertainer in Bangkok because they think I look beautiful. They are so proud that they have helped me be beautiful. I remember my Mum retelling a story once about the day my brother realised she wasn't the most beautiful woman in the world. I think he was about 8 and the illusion was shattered!

The boys have no awareness of what's attractive or what's pretty. They feel love and to them that's what make something beautiful. 

If only we could all stay this way!

And how good is Rich for letting them make him up too. Not quite sure pink is his colour!

The next few weeks are a whirlwind. But a good tornado rather than a destructive one! July is a big work month for me, I am shooting a book. A real actual, I'll be able to hold it in my hands, book. It's the most terrifying thing I have ever done but I am determined not to let my nerves get the better of me. 5 days of non stop food photography with people I admire, people I have worked with for a few years, who know me, know my background, know my blog. 

So I am heading to London on Saturday to help me brush up on my skills, learn from some experts at a Food Photography and Styling course with Emily and Catherine, whilst the boys have fun at the village annual Summer fair. 

Next week is the big birthday week. Mum's 60th and Ollie's 4th Birthday bash in Paris! We have one day at Disneyland and 2 days in paris itself with my brother and sister in law who are flying in from America to join us. If you have any tips hit me with them please!

We have holidays, a big order for the tea company to deliver and extra birthday surprises for my Mum this month. Bring it on. 

Last month I felt completely overwhelmed with the pace of life but this month I am embracing it. It's amazing how a mind set can help you with that illusive balance. I am trying to think more proactively, giving myself space in a day to just plan and next on my list to to try and eat better and get fitter. I look back at photos of us last year and see a different person, whose Summer clothes feel a wee bit tight this July. Small changes lead to big changes and that's what I am going to try. Not set radical goals but stepping stones to a bigger goal at the end. 

It really feels like the beginning of our Summer adventure. I am counting down the days until we step onto the Eurostar, til I get to squeeze my brother (February feels like forever ago) and really spoil my Mum. She does EVERYTHING she can for us all. Now it's our turn to make her feel looked after. I do hope being looked after constitutes fancy dress on the train!

July is full of leap of a cliff moments for us, but we are in it together.

So let's jump!

This month I want to send you to Lucy's blog. Lucy is the blogger I was talking about in this post so I owe her a lot! Without her, I wonder whether this Me and Mine Project might have drifted, but she keeps us all together. Thank you. 

I can't believe it's been a whole year since #capturingcolour started on Instagram. It started as a collaborative project by a pair of lovely bloggers My Two Mums and has evolved into what it is today. I was lucky to be part of the colour loving team a year ago who encouraged their followers to embrace colour, seek out a rainbow on a dark and gloomy day and fill their squares full of every hue you can imagine.

Everyone loves colour, we just love it in different ways and over the last 6 months I've had the pleasure of hosting this wonderful hashtag as part of my blog. Colour is at the heart of everything I do. It changes my mood, it changes the atmosphere of my photos and it's something that unites so many people.

I was so thrilled to be featured in the #nothingisordinary gallery over the weekend, with others sharing their rainbow photos to celebrate the momentous ruling in America. Love always wins.

I share a new theme idea each week and am in awe of the creative talent of the Instagrammers joining in. I feel like I came late to Instagram. I sat in a conference in the Summer of 2013 with a blogger called Lucy and she gave me a 5 minute blasting on how amazing Instagram was and how much I would love it. I thought, rather foolishly, that it was another platform that I would have the pressure to feel like I had to conquer, to understand, to have a very public following on. And it all felt too much. The filters didn't feel right to me, it felt like a playground just for the cool kids. 

How wrong can a girl be?! I chat more on Instagram with some of my closest confidantes than anywhere else! 

I love all my social media platforms, they all have a place but Instagram has my heart. Everyday I feel encouraged, supported, embraced and really quite loved. I feel connected to my followers and am astonished that so many people are interested in my daily photo journal. It blows me away! Thank you. 

That's what it has become, my record of our everyday adventures. Little things, snippets of a moment, not telling the full story but a whisper. A corner of our home, a hand, the edge of a plate. It's a way I can share our story without feeling the need to be in it. Does that make any sense?! I've realised I don't share many photos of me and I guess that's ok, I feel so much more comfortable behind the lens. I just can't do the wistful looks, I don't have the bikini body or the perfect pout. I am a cheesy grin kind of girl. I've tried, but I always end up with two sets of teeth like a lama. I need a selfie stick to hide the chins ;)

Last week's #capturingcolour was all about celebrating favourites. Favourite people, places, old photos and a reason to reshare them! I think the essence of Instagram has changed since it first started. It's not just about sharing the literal moment you are in it's about capturing a feeling, sharing the way you feel at that moment, even with a photo that was taken days or weeks ago. 

So this was my week. 

Sharing snippets from my year all in one week. Favourite new friends and their beautiful homes, favourite drinks that just take me back to a balmy Summer's evening like being hit by a train, and Ollie's pink party. How can my boy be 4 next week?! It feels like he's been 4 for a while, a big boy ready for school, but then his pronunciation will falter and we hear this 3 year old babble, and we love it. 

I asked him at bedtime tonight what he'd really love for his birthday and he said "A thing that comes with sweets, with a Minion, Mama, you know a Minion, with sweets, they come out of his mouth."

Forget the trip to Disneyland Paris next week, in his wildest birthday dreams my boy would just love a Minion theme Pez. That we can do. 

And these were a few favourites of the favourites week! Head over to Instagram to find the accounts...

And don't forget to have a browse through the gallery, every week there are inspiring new accounts to follow. Take a peek. 

But in keeping with the celebration of rainbow pride I saw this colourful photo and loved the caption so much it had to be my ultimate favourite from the week.

Check out Berran's absolutely beautiful feed! It is a treat. 

Now come and join in with this week's theme of CROCKERY. I love seeing people's mugs of tea first thing in the morning, their plates of food at lunchtime and beautifully placed jugs with flowers. Come and be part of the fun!

#capturingcolour is a weekly theme on Instagram. Tag your photos and post your CROCKERY images this week. I will share a round up next Monday :)