All posts filed under: Life Adventures

The Diaries of a Teenage Me.

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I kept a diary from when I was 13 years old until my thirties and sparodically to the present day. I planned a post this week about how my eldest is now 13 and how I have a record of my teens in the form of my diaries. Well, I am sorry to disappoint, but it was too horrendous. Looking back on my 13-14 year old self captured for all eternity in the pages of an Alice in Wonderland Secret Diary (with a lock), it was too awful. I can hardly bear to read the teenage angst and general nonsense  I wrote. Just awful. Only a few years from the first entries when I was about 15 or 16, it became a mite more readable for me, and I found lots of stuff I could not remember, not even when I read it, no recollection of a trip or an encounter with another person.  I thought reading about an event would take me right back to it (thankfully not in many cases!).  I realise that …

Sketching with the Tinkersketch challenge.

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For the month of February I have been joining in with Tinkerlab and doing the Tinkersketch daily challenge. I tried it last year and only made it part way through the month. This year I am loving it! We are half way through February (yikes) and I am still going strong. I see some of the sketches on the #tinkersketch feed and these folks can draw, I mean really draw, their quick sketch is an accurate portrayal. I am more a shapes and colour kinda artist! That said I am very happy with what Tinkersketch has pulled out of my idea cache and I am looking forward to the rest of the month. If you want to see what everyone has been creating, check out the #tinkersketch hashtag over on Instagram. My favourite sketchers to follow are @squiggleandswirl, @soulsk8r, @annofdoodlesandjots, @daintydora, @markonthemark and of course @tinkerlab. Do you like to draw and sketch and make marks generally? I have only really just started to fill sketchbooks again and I am getting so many ideas, not …

Onwards and Upwards. I am shutting down my small business and I am happy about it.

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Last month I made the decision to shut down my small business, CatsEatDogs jewelry. It wasn’t with a heavy heart or a sense of failing that I came to this decision, more the opposite. Once I started to close everything down I felt more and more that I was doing the right thing. There was no ceremonials, no ‘closing down’ sale, just me edging everything over the side of the ‘I’m have made a decision to move on’ waterfall.  I love that waterfall, it is dramatic and gorgeous and exhilarating, especially when you are at the top looking out over it taking big breaths. I closed down my jewelry business because it wasn’t.  It wasn’t a business, I have no clue how to conduct a business, small or otherwise.  I bought beads, arranged them into something I thought was lovely and tried (quite badly) to sell the finished product. I wondered if once I made the decision that I would start to regret it.  I would have to close my Etsy store, tell everyone I …

Create like No-one is Watching.

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Do you create and make for no apparent reason?  Is that ok?  Ok to draw or paint or sew for no reason other than to do it, to practice? Maybe this is a good life lesson, get the equipment and a little guidance and get going.  Try and create as if no-one is watching and no-one cares how it turns out.  Don’t you always feel the pressure to do everything well or wonder why you are bothering?  If I get asked to do or make a specific thing, I get all nervous and jittery and worried that it won’t be good enough.  Will it break, be the right colour, will it be in focus?  If I just grab a handful of beads and tell myself that I will keep it if it does not turn out, or if I pick up my phone and snap a few practice shots, guess what, it often turns out and I feel great about my project. If it doesn’t turn out so well, at least I know I need …

‘I Like’ Fridays featuring heart pendants and movie going.

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This past week has seen some great weather, the raised beds are almost defrosted in the garden and I am almost in a digging and planting frame of mind.  I must be patient, with the planting at least, it is still January and we could get all manner of cold and snow up until March! I do want to get some chili pepper plants started inside, because mine only began producing peppers last year at the beginning of the Autumn and they never got to ripen properly.  So this year I plan to do a better job! So, what have you been up to this week?  Here are a few things I have been liking – Trying out more drawing and painting and I am looking into trying some hand lettering, there are classes at Creative Bug and I borrowed this book from the library. Seeing ‘Mr Turner’ at one of St Louis’s oldest movie theatres this week and I liked it.  Mike Leigh did an amazing job with the costumes and settings, the whole film …

‘I like’ Friday.

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This week I have liked – Reading about the adventures of Quinoa (the girl, not the grain) at That Summer Feeling. Cycling and surfing in the studio at Core 3 Fitness. Reading up on mandalas here and here and making some of my own. Pinterest, I have neglected my boards and I need to organize them and maybe add a couple more.  Any tips? Reading All the Light we Cannot See and Awful Auntie. Making cool photo effects using this technique from Fat Mum Slim. I hope you are liking your Friday!

‘I like’ Fridays – New Year quizzes for 2015.

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Do you make New Year’s Resolutions?  Keep them, break them? I have seen lots of resolution and new year goal making help this year.  Lots of questions, which do you ask, which do you answer? These are some I like – Ten probing questions from Maxabella Loves. A cute quiz and sound advice from Meet Me At Mikes. How about a more in depth workbook from Susannah Conway?  I have this printed and almost started…. Need a spot of handmade business goal setting, check this worksheet out from Handmade Success. Here is a very cool 30 days of questions from Create and Thrive to help any business, I think I will sign up for this one. Or how about  2014 recap  questions from Writing Wishing. One thing I have managed to do is decide on my ‘word of 2015’ which seems to be another big thing for the new year.  Following Susannah Conway’s guidance (I am a big fan, can you tell?!), I came up with a new word for my vocab and a word for the …

‘I Like’ Fridays.

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This week I have been liking these things. Choosing a new book to read.  I have finished ‘Everything I Never Told You’ by Celeste Ng and I really liked it and read it in record time – 2 weeks is a very fast read for me. Nothing like the pressure of getting it back to the library with no renewal option! So, now I have ‘The Memory Garden’ by Mary Rickert and ‘Station Eleven’ by Emily St John Mandel to choose between and I am pretty sure there is no renewal on these either, so I had better get started. Making mince pies with my home made mincemeat using Jamie Oliver’s recipe.  I love mince pies and I only have one pan which makes six at a time.  This is probably for the best, if I made more, I am sure they would disappear just as fast! Planning and making some new jewelry for Christmassy gifts. Helping to organise the 4th grade ‘Winter Holiday’ party during which we shall be making cards for classmates, decorating …

45 things at my 45th Birthday

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It is my birthday today and it is snowing!  Hurrah! I snagged an idea from the lovely Greta at Gfunkified to write 45 things about me on my 45th birthday.  So, here goes. 45 at 45. 1. I am 45 today. 2. I have a degree in Fashion Design. 3. I am reading ‘Everything I Never Told You’ by Celeste Ng. 4. My favourite music at the minute is Twenty One Pilots, George Ezra and Max Jury. 5. I was a teen of the 80’s and my favourite music then was Madness, The Specials, The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. 6. I would like to have met Roald Dahl. 7. I like caramel shortbread very much, thankfully I don’t see it much over here. 8. My favourite season is Autumn. 9. I prefer to be cold than hot. 10. I like scarves. A lot. 11. My favourite way to exercise is hiking, pilates, yoga, boxing and running (sometimes…). 12. My favourite films ever are Cinema Paradiso and Pretty in Pink, although I haven’t seen either …

My Childhood Books

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I was digging around and found some books from when I was little, I still have a few, some paperbacks, my first cookbook and a ‘Magic Roundabout’ story book! Sadly, I don’t have any books from the ‘Ant and Bee’ series which was my absolute favourite when I was a kid and learning to read. I remember visiting the library and making a beeline (ha! see what I did there) for the ‘Ant and Bee’ books. They were lined up on the top shelf and I gathered all I could and checked them out at the desk where the librarian took the tickets from inside the books and stamped the return date on the label inside the front cover. Remember when libraries were full of tickets and drawers and it was all kept track of by pieces of paper which were taken in and out of books as they were borrowed and returned? Of the books I have, I think I have read most of them to my kids and my youngest and I are …