Hannah Curson

Recent Nail Paintings.

2012-02-27T17:00:00.028Z

I've been getting bored of my nails very quickly over the last few weeks, and have been changing them every couple of days. Sometimes to something exciting, sometimes just because I'm wearing a particular colour to work :)

These ones were my valentines nails:

It's a white base coat, a tiny bit of glitter nail polish, then a layer of Models Own Pearly Queen and finally the hearts are done with my nail art pens (which I got from this seller on ebay)

One of my favourite things to do on my nails is five different coloured pastels, so I did that again this week.

I was in Asda the other day and came across some of those nail wraps that seem to be very popular at the moment, and I thought 'what the hell?' and bought a packet.....and was actually very impressed! They're a little fiddly to put on and the ends are a little messy, but I love how they look!

(Please ignore the gaping hole in my thumb in the last two sets - I was drunk and nervous the other day so I was nibbling on my finger and got a little carried away :S disgusting I know!)

I also bought this very cute glitter heart nail polish from ebay, which I had on before the nail wraps, but I forgot to take a photo of them.

Lastly, I recently bought my first bottle of Seche Vite and OH MY GOD amazing!

Some Crafty Bits from this Weekend.

2012-02-26T17:17:00.001Z

After seeing this dreamcatcher photo on weheartit I really wanted to make my own version. My sister's made a few which are for sale in our Folksy shop, Wishcatcher Crafts but this was a special one I made just for me :)

I basically just used an old bangle, wrapped fabric round it and hung all sorts of fabrics and materials, as well as a few charms, from the bottom. I also followed this tutorial to do the stringy bit in the middle of the hoop. Very pleased with how it turned out! I might try and see if I can develop a simpler one to sell in the shop - this one has too many different bits hanging off it, which is fine if I already have all the stuff but I don't so it would wind up being really expensive to buy all the materials.

I also made these paper hearts out of sheets from an old book (I found this idea on a blog but I can't seem to find it again, I'll link to it if I do)

They're very simple to make, just strips of paper at different lengths and held together with split pins. A cute little extra in the corner of my room :)

Most Recent Flickr Upload.

2012-02-25T16:54:00.000Z

Imagine That Magazine Feature (Issue 2)

2012-02-25T14:31:00.002Z

I'm very excited to have my some of my photography featured in issue 2 of Imagine That magazine! I was quoted in their first magazine back in November but to actually have some work printed this time around is amazing.

As a massive Arcade Fire fan I was doubly excited to see Chelsea Cannar's work printed next to mine!

The magazine's actually sold out (already!) but when it becomes available again it's definitely worth checking out, some amazing artists and designers have been featured. Failing that, check out the Imagine That blog (which I've also been featured on!)

Snowy Funtimes.

2012-02-18T16:48:00.004Z

Ok so I lied in my last post. It's taken me a whole week to get my films back, and they're not as good as I was hoping they'd be :( These were all taken on my SuperHeadz Blue Ribbon 35mm Camera and they'd all had to be adjusted in Photoshop because they came out a bit dark. But ho hum. There's a quite a few more to come from other cameras over the next few days.

Also, I apologise for the names. I lack the imagination right now to come up with anything more creative.

Just a Taste.

2012-02-12T08:50:00.001Z

I just uploaded a few quick photos from my backlog onto Flickr. I took three films into Snappy Snaps yesterday (mainly photos of the snow) so I'll get them back tomorrow and have some more exciting photos to upload! I still have quite a few in my backlog (saved to a file on my laptop) as well as more that still need to be scanned in, but I'm too excited about the snow ones to make them wait!

On My Own

Peeking

Deep Dark Forest

Charity Ball.

2012-02-06T17:00:00.007Z

I probably mentioned somewhere on here before that I do some volunteer graphic design for a charity, Action for Family Carers. Anyway, they have an upcoming ball that I designed a poster and some tickets before :) quite simple design, but I think also quite elegant, considering they're for a ball!

Some Snowy Photos.

2012-02-05T17:53:00.001Z

Had great fun out in the snow today! We went for two walks with the dogs, but the second one completely finished me off :( we were out for over 2 hours, and 2 hours trudging through snow is bloody hard work! So my thighs are killing me now.

Anyhoo, as I mentioned in the previous post, I took a load of photos on various film cameras, but here are a few digital ones. Check out this action shot of Logan, he loves snow!

And little Finlay, my snow puppy :)

There are Exmoor ponies on the heathland near where I live. I'm usually terrified of horses, but these ones are actually pretty cute, and I even stroked one of them!

And finally, the main road through my village. Getting to work tomorrow is going to be fun!

Expressing Myself on my Nails.

2012-02-05T16:00:00.000Z

I may have posted some of these before, but I can't remember and I also can't be bothered to look back through my posts, so have them again!

I've just discovered Models Own. I know it's like a staple for professional nail artists, but I was still caught up collecting Barry M Nail Paints. Anyway, I really like the glitter and shimmer ones, so on the four photos above I used Juicy Jules and Pearly Queen. I also got a black nail art pen as a 'free gift' when I bought the two from Boots, which made the £5 price tag seem a bit more worth it!

The white ones above were part in honour of the apparently upcoming snow and partly because it was 'dress down day' at work on friday and I wore a white dress (also in honour of the weather!) I'm weird like that.

Cambridge.

2012-02-05T11:34:00.000Z

So a while back when I did my lemon juice experiments I mentioned that I'd ruined a film with photos on it from my trip to Cambridge, which I was upset about. Then recently I developed a film from my Olympus Trip 35 and what did I find? Photos of Cambridge! Wonderful. But now I'm wondering what else was on the film that got ruined, but I guess I'll never know now!

I did have to do a quick Google search to remind me which college was which, so sorry to any Cambridgites (???) if any of these are wrong!

Corpus Christi College Cambridge

Kings College Cambridge

Queen's College Cambridge

Trinity College Cambridge

Punting

ALSO

There's like 6 inches of snow on the ground! I'm so excited. I've been acting my shoe size (rather than my age) all day! We took Finlay and Logan out for a walk. This was Finlay's first snow and only Logan's second, but he loved it last year and they both loved it today! So cute. I took 4 cameras with me and used a few rolls of film but I won't be able to take them in for developing until next weekend now so I'll have to wait for them :( I took a few on my SLR though so I'll have a look through them in a minute.

Most Recent Flickr Upload.

2012-02-04T20:22:00.000Z

Rainbows

Window

Doing Crafty Things Whilst Preparing for Snow.

2012-02-04T15:23:00.000Z

I've been very absent from blogging recently. I just don't have the time (or the energy) during the week now that I'm working full time :(

But anyway, I'm very excited about some of the crafty things I have lined up :)

Firstly I saw this hama bead earphone tutorial on both the Craft and Creativity Blog and Cut Out and Keep and thought it was a great idea and looked easy to do, so I had a go. I pretty much followed their instructions, but I found if you hold and squeeze the cut beads with my chain nosed pliers they were a lot easier to thread onto the earphones than squeezing them between your fingers. I also used nail scissors rather than a craft knife to cut the beads - much safer!

I also went to the craft shop in my village and stocked up on a few things (mainly ribbon) for the other bits I have planned. I'll post about them once I've actually done them!

As I said in the title of this post, it's meant to snow tonight. I'm excited. Although it'll make getting to work on monday hell (we live on a country lane - not the best when it's icy!)

It's Foggy Out.

2012-01-31T19:13:00.005Z

Lots of lovely foggy photos today :)

It snowed the tiniest amount this morning while I was at work. I'm really hoping it snows more! Speaking of work, it's going really well. I'm getting great feedback and seem to be progressing at a good rate, considering I knew absolutely nothing about financial services before I started and now feel like an expert! Haha doesn't mean I'm giving up on my dream of being a graphic designer, but it's hard to think of that right now because I got paid today and I know the only way into a design career is unpaid internships :( we'll see what the future holds, at least I feel a bit more secure now.

These were all taken with my Superheadz Blue Ribbon Super Fat Lens 35mm camera :)

Warm Me Up.

2012-01-28T12:13:00.000Z

Some nice, cosy, warm photos today, all from a Kodak FunSaver disposable camera :) they look so inviting when it's as cold as it is right now (and yes some of them are from christmas!)

My carling soda can camera came today, so I think I'll take it out with me later to try it out. I still haven't bought any film for my new Diana F+ but I will do, once I get paid on tuesday!

At Last!

2012-01-24T19:46:00.000Z

A freshly scanned (and developed) set of prints just uploaded to my Flickr!

Most of these are from a cheap and crappy disposable camera I got from the 99p store, so there were only actually about 8 photos that came out from the whole lot, and there's a hell of a grain to them! Anything shot inside didn't work so clearly the key with these cameras is to shoot outside (I know it does actually say that on the camera but you can usually get away with it)

Great film grain on this one!

Lifebelt

This is from my new Praktica L2. It works wonderfully, there's some really great quality photos in the set that I'll upload the rest of soon.

New Cameras Coming My Way!

2012-01-22T16:00:00.033Z

I mentioned in an earlier post that my dad bought me a camera for my birthday, a Praktica L2, and well, so did a few other people!

My brothers bought me this:

Split-Cam

It arrived this morning and I'm very excited to try it out, but with being at work during all the daylight hours of the week, I haven't even been able to test the Praktica out yet, so it may have to wait :(

Diana F+

My lovely, lovely friends bought me my first Diana camera (have a look at my wishlist on the right hand side, there's a lot more that I want!) Again it'll have to wait to be tried out, but mainly because this camera uses 120 film and I haven't got any.

I then went a little crazy on ebay, and bought three more cameras! My mum is starting to despair, asking why I need so many cameras, but I just keep telling her it's a hobby, I want to collect them and they all do different things anyway!

HOLGA 35mm Compact Camera K200N

This I bought from holga_universal on ebay, and I got it in black. This one was quite pricy for me, but I'm earning now and I'm excited to try out the filters!

Waterproof 35mm Film Underwater Camera

This camera I have no idea when I'm going to use, but I thought it was fun! I got it from this seller on ebay, and it also comes in a few other colours.

Carling Vive Le Football Spy Cam

Finally I bid on and won this novelty can shaped camera. Again just a bit of fun, I thought it was a bit different!

One of the ebay cameras came in the post today but we have a ridiculously small postbox and no one was in to answer the door so it's gone back to the Royal Mail depot. I hate that you have to wait 24 hours before collecting, because that means monday, everyone's at work all week so I'm not going to get it until next weekend now :(

My camera shelf is pretty full now, and this is before the arrival of the ebay cameras! I may have to get another shelf :S

Fortunes.

2012-01-22T11:43:00.003Z

Photos from my new 'Fortunes' set on Flickr :)

Winter's Not Leaving.

2012-01-21T12:53:00.002Z

It feels weird to be posting this seeing as it's sunny outside, but it's been so ridiculously cold this week that snow would be the only thing that would make it worth it. Not that I'd be able to enjoy it because I'm now at work everyday!

However, in honour of the cold, I thought I'd post these two photos. I took them a while ago (before christmas) at Perrywood Garden Centre, so unfortunately they're not of real snow, then happened to find them on my mac while I was sorting out some of the folders. I used the Film Grain Kit by Colton Rabon (definitely worth downloading if you have Photoshop. His Light Leak Kit is also amazing) to "sexy them up a bit" (they were very uninspiring digital photos before).

Check them out on my Flickr.

IN OTHER NEWS
We've been busy over at 27 Kodak Moments (the photography blog I contribute to) queueing up amazing photographers to feature and setting up the 27 Kodak Moments Flickr Group. We're hoping it'll make it easier for people to submit their photos for feature. So please check it out if you like to experiment with photography and would like a feature on a blog!

Most Recent Flickr Upload.

2012-01-19T20:00:00.002Z

Most Recent Flickr Upload.

2012-01-16T18:52:00.001Z

Finally got round to uploading some more photos to my Flickr! These ones are again from my backlog, as I don't have the energy after work to be scanning new photos in, so they're going to have to wait a little longer.

Birthday Update.

2012-01-14T16:14:00.001Z

It's my birthday today, and I definitely have other things to be doing! However I haven't blogged all week and I kinda miss it! So I thought I'd do a quick update, just to satisfy my longing.

I've just come back from London with my mum and sister. We went to the London Ice Sculpting Festival, which looked like it would be amazing but was actually a bit of a disappointment. There just didn't seem to be much going on, they'd almost finished sculpting by the time we got there and were covering them up with bubble wrap to stop them melting, so anyone arriving later than us wouldn't have been able to see anything! Oh well, still pretty amazing.

We then went to Westfield Stratford. I'd never been to either Westfields so it was a whole new experience for me! I only really wanted to go to Primark and Forever 21 anyway, which I did and got a few things.

This postcard was just posted on my flickr. I found it in an antiques shop. I bought five others as well, some of them were posted earlier than the First World War! This one didn't have a year on it, but since it has birthday greetings on it I thought it was appropriate :)

Cordial Greetings

In other news....
I started my new job this week. I think I mentioned it in a previous post. It's in financial services, so not what I want to be doing, but it's actually been really fun. Probably because we're still in training so we get like a million breaks and free sweets and hot chocolate! The world of financial services is completely new to me, so my brain's a bit frazzled from all the new stuff I've had to learn, but I got 96% on my first week assessment, so clearly it's gone in! Definitely evidence of my 'fast learner' skills which I often put in covering letters! So I have another week of training learning all about the computer systems and stuff, then I move into what's called the Academy, where everything I do will be monitored until they think I'm good enough to work independently :) apparently the average time to get out of the Academy is three months, so I've got a while and don't have to worry too much about it all.

And that's about all I think. I'm off out for dinner tonight with the family (I think we're probably just going to go to Nando's!) then we're going to see War Horse, which I'm very excited about! The tissues are packed because I know I'm going to cry! Haha I did dinner with my friends last night and we're going 'out out' next weekend, so lots of birthday celebrations, which I like!

Oh and that reminds me, presents! My parents got me a Barbour jacket :) with the exception of my little brother the whole family now has one (that's five of us!) so we're going to look super cool when we go on family walks (which thankfully doesn't happen very often) I guess when you live in the country you have to look the part! I got a green one though, just to be different (they all have black or navy). The rest of my family just gave me little things and money, and most of my extended family don't give us presents after we turn 18, which I'm used to by now (18 was six years ago, oh dear!) and it means I don't have to write thank you letters, which is always a bonus!

So that's all for now. That was a lot of writing! I guess that's the way it'll be now - nothing for a week and a massive wordy post at the weekend. I'll try and avoid that though, well done to anyone who actually read this!

Final Weekend of Freedom!

2012-01-08T21:00:00.002Z

Ok so this was my last weekend of freedom before joining the real world and starting my new job (9am tomorrow, having to go to Basildon for training, which will take about an hour in rush hour traffic, boo :P) I therefore tried to make the most of it and get everything I wanted to do done.

SATURDAY

Popped into town with my Dad in the morning. I tried to get my Olympus Trip 35 fixed (the shutter release button has fallen off) but the camera guy couldn't fix it so that sucks. It still works, but I have to use a paintbrush to push the shutter down. Ran a few more errands, including stocking up on Kodak film from Poundland. This is how my box of films looks now:

Bit ridiculous I know. There's about 30 films in there now as well as 5 disposable cameras.

The Happiness Jar I mentioned in a previous post is coming along nicely. I originally bought a jar typically used for jams and preserves, but then found this pink one in TK Maxx and decided I liked it better, so swapped them over.

Also, my sister had a look through some of the quotes and lyrics that are in the jar and declared that most of them aren't actually very happy but oh well, I like to read them anyway.

The frame wall I've been working on is finally up!

Some of the frames are still empty and there's one still with a black and white photo that I want to change to sepia tone (although I can't find the original photo to edit so I may have to just use a new one altogether) oh and the big white rectangle is where my degree certificate is going once it's been framed, but I think it's coming along quite nicely! And the two little white squares are mini canvases which I eventually want to paint on.

SUNDAY

My dad took me to Battlesbridge Antiques Centre where I ended up buying six old postcards (some date back earlier than the First World War!) and I put some of them in the frames on the wall:

I found out that the girl in this postcard is Marie Studholme, an actress born in 1872 and popular in Victorian and Edwardian musical comedy. Cool huh?! Wikipedia also says that 'her attractive features made her one of the most popular postcard beauties of her day', so I'm guessing this isn't a very unique postcard, but I like it all the same!

Most of the postcards had messages on them, some incredibly difficult to read! Is it a coincidence that they were all written in loopy, italic script or did everyone write like that 'in the olden days'?

With a couple of the other frames I just decided to use some floral fabric:

Last but not least, the real reason we went to Battlesbridge - I wanted a new [old] camera :) It's my birthday on saturday so I was going to treat myself, but because it's my birthday my dad bought it for me. Result! After utilising his expert-ish knowledge (certainly more than I know) on cameras, I left with this Praktica L2. I won't know it actually works until I've run a film through it and gotten it developed, but it makes a great noise when you pull the wind on lever thing (I did say I don't know anything about cameras!) and when you press the shutter release, so I know I'm going to love playing around with it!

He also bought me another lens for it :)

Another thing that's kept me busy this weekend is the blog I contribute to, 27 Kodak Moments. The girl who runs it, Louise, realised the page layout didn't fit properly on a PC screen so tried to redesign it but just ended up in a confused mess so I took over on that! It looks much better now I think, I went all out with photo links to the photographers we've featured, as well as a photo wishlist for all the cameras we want! Well, mainly what I want. Louise has pretty much let me have free reign over it as she works a lot and doesn't have a lot of time for it. Although now that I'm going to be working full time I'm definitely going to miss the freedom of not having set days!

So that was my funpacked weekend! My friend Fiona just left, she also works at the company I'm starting work for tomorrow so she's been giving me some tips and stuff :) it's just learning about the business tomorrow anyway so I don't think I'll have to do anything too difficult on the first day. Then I just have to learn stuff about finance. No idea. Wish me luck!

To the Sea, Oh to the Sea.

2012-01-08T15:48:00.002Z

Today's Flickr upload kind of has a beach theme. I just had a lot of photos of beach huts to post!

Birds.

2012-01-07T15:45:00.002Z

Today's Flickr upload is bird themed :)

(stupid name I know but I couldn't think what else to call this, I don't like it much!

New Item!

2012-01-06T18:00:00.017Z

As I mentioned in my previous post, I made this Love Bunting Embroidery Hoop to go on my Frame Wall, and it's now available for sale in my Folksy shop, Wishcatcher Crafts!

I've also dropped the price of several of my other items so now nothing costs more than £5! Bargain eh?! I'm not doing this for profit, and half of everything I sell goes to my sister anyway, so I'm actually losing money. I just like having people like what I make though, so I'm not too bothered. Plus I start my new job on monday, so come the end of the month I will no longer have to live on a shoestring! Can't wait!

UPDATE
I actually listed this yesterday, and it sold today! I've now bought some more materials so there's two more available for sale, plus I still have one for my wall :) I've got great plans for a whole range of these now!

Talk To Me.

2012-01-05T17:09:00.001Z

Purely 'words' photos in today's Flickr upload. I've still got a backlog to clear and I'm so not in the mood to dig my scanner out to scan in some of my more recent photos, which are still sitting in the camera shop sleeves, just waiting.

It's been crappy weather all day; torrential rain, gail force winds, and now I can hear hailstones hitting my window. I took my dog for a walk earlier and he decided to run away and not come back for 10 minutes, so that put me in a bad mood. And then I watched the video in this article about Kristian Anderson, a cancer patient who lost his battle three days ago and left this beautiful tribute for his wife. Literally made me bawl my eyes out :( partly because it's so sad and beautiful, partly for personal reasons, and just generally because life is so short and easily wasted.

The first photo is a complete contradiction to this video. I like that.

Frame Wall.

2012-01-04T23:00:00.003Z

I'm currently redesigning the wall above my bed. I've had six photo frames up there for the last few months but I've been collecting a variety of different frames and pictures etc to try and mix it up a little.

These photos (all found on we♥it, but some of them not recently so sorry for not knowing the original sources) give the kind of idea of what I want the wall to look like:

It's that random, mixed up, wonky, vintage kind of look.

So this is the wall space I have:

There's also this bit on the back wall with my shot glass collection that I'm thinking of having the frames run over onto.

(I'm meant to be getting a bigger bed, which is why the shelf isn't central to the bed but to the wall - it really annoys me!)

Ideas for the frame layout:

This one doesn't include all of the frames I have, and it's on a bit too much of a slope for my liking. (The sheets of paper are from when I couldn't be bothered to take the other frames off the wall, but I soon realised it wasn't giving me a good enough idea of what the wall would look like)

I quite like this version, I think it uses all the frames. I don't like the one on the very top left though, I think it looks out of place.

It's going to be either this version or version 2, can't quite decide.

Now I just have to decide what to put in each frame! Most of the ones above aren't photos of people, more like arty things and drawings and pretty flowers and stuff, so I think I'm going to go down that route. A couple of the frames have embroidered text in them and the embroidery hoops are just fabric (see them in more detail in my previous post), and the largest portrait frame is going to be my degree certificate (I haven't gotten it framed yet so I'll need to wait and see how big that frame is, it's place is currently being held by another frame from my room) so I think it's best if they're not photos of people. I've got plenty of other frames round my room for that!

Just FYI, the majority of the ornate rectangular frames are from TK Maxx, the basic rectangular white ones are from Poundland, a few are from charity shops, the hoops from my local craft shop and the others from Perrywood Garden Centre. And I made the russian doll :)
You can buy the embroidered quotes from my Folksy shop, Wishcatcher Crafts (along with a load of other pretty, girly things) and I hope to soon bring out a range of products featuring the embroidery hoops, as I think they're lovely :) so watch this space!

Crafty Bits and New Job News.

2012-01-03T20:44:00.001Z

No Flickr upload for today, I never got round to it :S Instead I've been doing some fun crafty stuff :) I start my new job next week (it's not in design, but I'm at a stage financially where I really can't afford to be fussy, a job's a job. I'll be working with my brother and best friend though so it's not all bad!) so I'm trying to take the opportunity to get some of the stuff I want to do done before I have no time and energy left to do it :(

Anyway, I have a monthly subscription to Making Magazine. I'm almost at the end of the first year, I bookmark a load of things I want to try each month but never actually get round to it, but as I had most of the materials this time I tried a few out. The first one is called a 'Penny rug bouquet', which is basically a bunch of circular felt flowers. Very easy to make and very pretty :) I'm not going to publish the instructions - they're not on their website so I feel like I shouldn't, but you should be able to work out how they're made just from looking at my photos!

There was also this photo on the cover of the magazine:

(the blue post it notes are from all the things I want to try!)

I really love how the embroidery hoops look on the wall, and I've been collecting a mixture of vintage photo frames over the last few months, to mix and match with pretty mirrors and embroidered text on the wall above my bed (I'm just waiting for my degree certificate to be framed then I'll actually get round to putting it all up!) so these will fit nicely.

I got a few different shaped hoops with lovely hooks on the top to hang them up by from the craft shop in my village. I've just put fabric in a couple of them, but I embroidered bunting with the work love on it for the other (I'm thinking about selling this in my Folksy shop, Wishcatcher Crafts, too) oh and added little pink ribbons and pearls/gold beads for an extra little cutesy touch :)

I'm very excited about these all going on the wall :) I also need to select which photos I want to put in the photo frames. There's about 8 in total. I'm thinking of a few of me with my friends, and the rest with some of my photography.

Finally, another project I'm excited about starting is this:

I can't claim any credit for this idea, I was tagged in this photo on flickr by and the bird took flight..., called the 'happiness project'. It's a jar full of words, photos, phrases and drawings that mean something to Ellie, the girl whose Flickr it is, and her best friend, who gave her the jar. I think it's a really cute idea, and as I've now got quite a few photos in my Words Collection on Flickr, I've got plenty of things to go in the jar. It's hopefully going to be something I can look at if I'm ever feeling down and need some cheering up :)

Floral.

2012-01-02T16:36:00.001Z

Explore.

2012-01-02T11:31:00.001Z

I never really got what the Explore page on Flickr was all about before, I just kinda figured it was a big deal. So imagine my surprise to get a comment on my photo 'Lifetime' saying "Congratulations on Explore!" Naturally I was intrigued, so googled 'how to know if your photo is explored on flickr' and using a very helpful tool called Scout I found out that not only was Lifetime explored on 1 Jan, two of my other photos has been explored as well! I'm very excited about this :)

They're all text photos, so whoever picks the photos for explore must like them!

Lifetime - 1 Jan 2012 #303

Forest Alone - 18 Oct 2011 #253

Keep Us Safe - 20 Oct 2011 #422

Thank You.

2012-01-01T18:00:00.000Z

Happy New Year!

So I handmade my christmas thank you cards this year. I usually just do them on the computer and print them out, because I can never really be bothered to spend time on them. This year though, because I had so few to write (most of my extended family don't give presents after you turn 18. Although I'm now 22 so I probably had the same number to write for the last 4 years, but I had other things to do then I guess!) I though I'd make the effort to make them. Plus I made them tiny to fit in the only envelopes I had (money ones) so I didn't have to write very much ;) (I'm honestly not ungrateful! Haha)

They're meant to be presents, but I had no christmas fabric to make them festive, and some of the bows went a bit wrong. Ahh well!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T14:07:00.003Z

In The Forest.

2011-12-31T14:08:00.003Z

Today's Flickr upload is Forest themed, part of an ongoing project exploring the magnificence of the forest.

Recent Nail Paintings.

2011-12-30T18:19:00.002Z

I'm a complete novice, but ever since getting my nail art pens I've been enjoying experimenting with nail art. With new year now upon us I've been looking around for ideas to try.

I've had fun playing around with glitter nails, but they don't feel right so I've changed them everyday since christmas so far!

Some of my previous tries:

There's about four different glitter nail polishes used here, so in the light a load of different colours are picked up :)

These have been on less than 24 hours :S they looked good until the glitter went on, then I think they just looked a bit tacky. Plus I messed a couple of them up. When I have money I plan on investing in some Seche Vite :)

I also don't really know how to take good photos of my own hands (which I don't like anyway) so the photos aren't great, but you get the general idea of what they look like ;)

I'm not really doing anything special for new years, just going to my friend Lee's with a few others, planning to have some drinks and introduce our friend Hannah to some of the films she has somehow missed, even though we talk about them all the time (namely The Inbetweeners, Anchorman and Team America!) I don't think I'm planning to dress up too much, thinking just a lacy purple coloured dress I bought the other day from H&M. It's a colour I don't think I have anything similar to though in terms of nail polish. I'm going to have a look now for something that'll work :)

I also recently did my sister's nails. I used With-Love Nail Polish from Accessorize in Fudge (which I think is ridiculous that the lid is bigger than the rest of the bottle but whatever) and my white nail art pen to do the bows. Very cute :)

And after some thought (and help from Boom Nails!) I finally settled on a design for my own nails, which doesn't go with my new years dress but is super cute all the same:

(Sorry about the over exposure and out of focus-ness, I did previously mention that I cannot photograph my own nails! :S)

Anyone interested in the colours used?!

Index and middle fingers: Rimmel 60 Seconds in 805 Grey Matter

Ring finger: Collection 2000 Maxiflex in 315 Aztec Gold (with a white undercoat for a lighter look)

Pinkie and thumb: Barry M Nail Paint in 318 Peach Melba

And the nail art pens are from this seller on ebay :)

See some of my previous experiments here, here and here :)

Animals.

2011-12-30T16:59:00.001Z

Today's Flickr upload has an animal theme :)

Cow (+1 in comments)

Home.

2011-12-29T17:00:00.000Z

Today's flickr upload explores the idea of 'home', a new set (found here)

Most Recent Flickr Upload.

2011-12-28T19:28:00.001Z

I've just been doing family stuff since christmas, so here's some photos from my extensive backlog which I'm trying to clear!

Heart Bunting.

2011-12-28T16:00:00.001Z

After lots of lovely comments at likes etc on this photo on the various blogging/pretty pictures sites:

Flickr / Tumblr / We Heart It

I've finally gotten round to making another garland to sell in my Folksy shop, Wishcatcher Crafts.

Heart Bunting

New Items!

2011-12-27T00:14:00.000Z

New items added to my Folksy shop, Wishcatcher Crafts :)

Silver Cross Charm

Floral Cross Charm

Leafy Cross Charm

Christmas Nails.

2011-12-26T20:10:00.001Z

I absolutely fell in love with this manicure from The Polish Well and wanted nails like this for christmas, so I had a go:

The tree was a bit chunky and actually very difficult to paint, but I reckon they look ok! I followed a tip in the original post that suggested painting another layer of the base pink coat over the glitter to produce a more muted and soft glitter effect, which I think works really well :) I also got absolutely caked in glitter when doing that part because I used Fairy Dust as well as glitter nail polish, to produce a stronger glitter look than the nail polish allowed me.

5 Days of Christmas (5).

2011-12-24T15:50:00.000Z

Almost there! Merry Christmas :)

5 Days of Christmas (4).

2011-12-23T14:07:00.000Z

5 Days of Christmas (3).

2011-12-22T11:57:00.001Z

5 Days of Christmas (2).

2011-12-21T09:48:00.000Z

Day two of my christmas photo uploads to my Flickr :) These are from both my Juicebox Camera and my SuperHeadz Blue Ribbon, which obviously didn't agree with the lighting in Altons Garden Centre (where these photos were taken) because they're come out all dark :(

Christmas Nail Art.

2011-12-20T23:06:00.000Z

As with my previous christmas nail art post, I had some fun playing around with my nail art pens :) They have a navy blue base (it took me a long, long time to find the shade of navy I wanted, but I finally found one made by 17 at Boots), then various shades of glitter on top and white stars and spots painted on top. I used the pen end of the nail pens I got from this seller on ebay. I managed to draw the stars on both my right and left hands, and they actually look better on my right hand, which surprises me a lot (I'm right handed)

Sold! (more) (again)

2011-12-20T12:39:00.001Z

I was excited to get another email saying we'd sold some items from our Folksy store, Wishcatcher Crafts :) so of course I was surprised to then recognise the name of the buyer! Turns out my lovely friend Robyn (who I lived with for two years while at university but sadly don't get to see very often nowadays) bought two charm bracelets for her "tea party loving" sisters! I really hope they enjoy them, and there's an extra little gift on the way for Robyn herself (which I won't post a photo of, just in case she sees this post!)

Gold Teapot Charm Bracelet

Silver Teapot Charm Bracelet

Due to issues out of my control regarding postage, my parcel sent to 'H' still hasn't arrived, so I'm sending her another bracelet as a free gift for making her wait, and this way we can see if the original parcel has been lost in the mail or if it's just being really slow because of Christmas (although it's now been a week and I posted it first class :S)

5 Days of Christmas (1).

2011-12-20T09:31:00.004Z

Here is the first of my Flickr christmas uploads. I'm calling it the 5 days of christmas. I have enough photos to do the 12 days of christmas after the big day itself, but these photos are all about the build up to the day so they need to go before really! So it's 5 photos a day, for 5 days, right up until christmas eve :) enjoy!

Oh and this is also the first film back from my Fuuvi Juicebox Camera. The funny way the lens works means got my fingers in the way of a few, but overall I love it!

(anyone catch the Sea Wolf song there?!)

These were all taken the last time I went to London, mainly the windows of Selfridges :)

ALSO
My new MacBook battery arrived! Yay a laptop that works properly again! I've had such bad luck with this laptop so I'm not holding my breath that it'll work for a very long before it finds another reason to go wrong :S

Blog, Blog, Blog Me.

2011-12-20T00:03:00.003Z

The lovely Tasha has tagged me in a blogging game. I never, ever do these things, but this one seems a little more personal and I was actually excited about answering Tasha's questions! It was really difficult try and come up with 11 myself though, so that's why some of them are stupid!

Rules:

1. You must post these rules.

2. Each person must post 11 things about themselves on their blog.

3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.

4. You have to choose 11 people to tag and link them on the post.

5. Go to their page and tell them you have linked him or her.

6. No tag backs.

7. No stuff in the tagging section about ‘you are tagged if you are reading this.’ You legitimately have to tag 11 people.

11 things about me

1. I could not live without my little sister. Obviously I lived before she came along, but now that I know life with her in it, I could not have it any other way.

2. I have a playlist of 'sad songs' (some quite embarrassing) that I listen to when I'm feeling a bit blue and need to let it out.

3. I have almost every Disney Classic on dvd. I have about five left to get, two oldies and some of the new ones.

4. I could eat peanut butter for every meal and not get bored. The crunchy kind.

5. I don't wear jeans, like ever. I'm very much a skirts and dresses kinda gal. I've been working at Royal Mail for the last three weeks and I've had to dig some jeans out of the very back of my wardrobe (a skirt would not be practical!) and it's been super weird to wear them everyday. I'm not enjoying it, I find them so uncomfortable!

6. I take after my father far more than I would like.

7. I'm a hoarder. I can't throw things away. I get that from dad.

8. I'm incredibly weird and annoying when I want to be. More traits I get from my dad. I do love him though.

9. I love the word juggernaut. I have no idea why.

10. I equally love and am terrified of candles.

11. There are more flowers in my bedroom than in my garden (probably, I haven't counted, I just have a hell of a lot of them)

Tasha's Questions:

1. Have you tried macarons? And if you have, what is your favourite flavour?

No I haven't, but I've seen so many photos of them all over tumblr etc that I really want to! But I've never seen them for sale anywhere so I have no idea where to get them from :S

2. What movie(s) do you watch for a pick-me-up?

Home Alone, any time of year. Where the Wild Things Are, makes me cry everytime and I always feel better after a good cry! Haha

3. Are you more of a cat or dog person?

Definitely a dog person. We've never not had a dog since I was born, and we have three at the moment. My dad said he'd move out if we got a cat, he hates them!

4. What is one of the most played songs on your iTunes/iPod/phone etc.?

Arcade Fire - Wake Up. Almost 1000 plays on my itunes, that's not including my two ipods, and it's my ringtone :)

5. Have you had your heart broken before?

I thought so at the time but now I realise it wasn't true love so my heart couldn't have been broken, I was just upset for a bit. I believe if your heart is broken for real, you can never truly get over it.

6. What is your favourite colour?

Purple, but not a dark purple, more of a vintage mauve colour (the colour my bedroom is!)

7. What motivates you more, love or fear? (taken from this video)

That video is amazing, seriously go watch it. Fear motivates me. As someone said in the video, fear of failing.

8. What is the most significant thing that you've accomplished this year?

Getting a First Class Honours degree. I worked so hard for it and it paid off :)

9. Do you believe that there are both light and dark in each person?

Yes. You can't let the darkness win.

10. What is your favourite wild animal?

The polar bear, they're amazing.

11. What do you like best about yourself?

I suppose I can't say nothing?! I like that I'm selfless, often I will do something that I don't particularly want to do but because it will make someone else happy I will do it. Lately I've shown this with all the things I've been doing for my mum, like going to church and offering to run errands/take the dogs out etc to make it a little easier on her. I still don't feel like I do enough though, that's something I'm determined to do more of next year.

My Questions:

1. What do you believe happens when we die?

2. What is your guilty pleasure?

3. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

4. What are you most proud of in your whole entire life?

5. Would you rather be rich and unhappy or poor and happy?

6. Favourite lyrics/line from a song/general quote about life?

7. What is your favourite shape and why?

8. What are your new year resolutions?

9. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be and why?

10. What is your all time favourite christmas film?

11. What is the meaning of life?

I tag: Ruth, Aithche, Julia, Jo, Polly, Sidsel, Little T, Ella, Emily, Charlotte and Yolanda

Some of you are people I talk to quite frequently, the others are people who have followed my blog for a while that I have never really taken the time to get to know, so this is me doing it now!

Most Recent Flickr Upload.

2011-12-19T10:10:00.000Z

Final one (I think) before the christmas photos start posting! I need to go through them first and work out how many are worth posting, but I'd like to have christmas photos posting up until the big day itself, then hopefully it will snow and I'll be out shooting that! Fingers crossed!

As always, check out my Flickr to find out more about the cameras and shooting methods I used :)

Most Recent Flickr Upload.

2011-12-18T17:27:00.000Z

I've been doing christmas stuff today. Me and mum went to a christmas carol concert (first time I've been to church since I was about eight, felt a bit odd :S) then to the weirdest and creepiest garden centre ever. We're doing a 'present tree' in the front garden (I'll take some photos tomorrow when it's light again) and were looking for lights to go on it, but the tree is quite far from the nearest plug and we can't find any lights with long enough leads, so it might be a lightless tree :( we did find some lights to put round the porch though so it looks a little more festive outside now :)

Until I can do some more in the light, here are some photos from my backlog that I just uploaded to flickr:

New Items!

2011-12-17T21:53:00.000Z

I've managed to get my MacBook to turn on again (and I just shelled out £101 to the Apple online store to buy a new battery) so I uploaded a few new charm bracelets to my Folksy store, Wishcatcher Crafts :)

Storybook Charm

Clock Charm

Flower Charm

Plus the Gold Owl Charm is now back in stock, although the previous order for this I posted on wednesday still hasn't arrived with my customer, so Royal Mail you suck :P (and I should know because I work for them! haha)

Most Recent Flickr Upload.

2011-12-17T13:31:00.000Z

My Macbook is failing me right now. The battery has completely died, it doesn't usually work very well anyway but now it's stuck on 0%. It turns on (I'm on it now) but only if the original charger is plugged in, which also doesn't work very well, but it won't charge, and as soon as you remove the charger the laptop turns off :( very difficult, but I have no money to buy a new battery. Damn you Apple.

I had to get on so I could upload a few photos. Got my five films back earlier. I don't know if something's gone wrong with the camera (they're all from my SuperHeadz Blue Ribbon) but most of the photos were really grey and you couldn't really see anything :S plus a load of them didn't come out. I did get some good ones though and I want to upload them next week, but I don't know if I'll be able to with my laptop the way it is :(

Most Recent Flickr Upload.

2011-12-15T12:14:00.001Z

There's pretty much going to be five photos posting a day to try and clear some of the backlog of photos I have on my laptop (120 queued at the moment!) plus I took five films in to be developed yesterday, and still have at least three more ready to go, so I need to get some posted now. The majority of the ones on the films being developed atm are wintery/from christmas shops so I'll leave them to the week leading up until christmas :) Enjoy!

A Little Feature on a Blog :)

2011-12-14T23:26:00.000Z

The lovely Julia Topaz (juliatopaz on Flickr) has just blogged a lovely post featuring my photography work (check it out here) :)

To return the favour here is some of her own brilliant work experimenting with a disposable camera:

As I previously posted, my attempts at slamming the camera failed miserably, but Julia has achieved a wonderful result (photo 2) she's also managed to get a great double exposure (final photo) and I think the two flower photos are simply beautiful :)

Julia says she doesn't consider herself a photographer in any way (her blog is mostly fashion) but she clearly has natural talent for achieving something creative with a disposable camera!

Sold! (more)

2011-12-14T00:31:00.000Z

Just sold another two items from my Folksy shop, Wishcatcher Crafts :)

A lovely girl, I'll call her H, bought two of the charm bracelets I spent so long making last week. And she clearly has good taste because she bought my two favourite ones - the vintage gold camera charm bracelet and the gold owl charm bracelet (which is now out of stock because I only had one owl charm, but I shall buy some more now I know they're liked!)

I said in the item description that you can choose which fabric you want but she didn't specify so she's going to get the two from the pictures below ;) (again something to make more of now, I like to have one of each fabric made so it can be sent straight out, don't like to keep the customer waiting!)

All packaged up and ready to go:

(although I forgot the mini business card things, oh well)

So that takes my sold items up to a grand total of 5 :) and my two previous buyers both left me 100% feedback, so that's a good sign! Now just to decide if I'm going to give my sister a 50% share of the money (after all I bought all the materials and made the bracelets, and paying for the postage. I think I should just give her the money on items she's made that sell ;) )

Recent Flickr Uploads.

2011-12-12T11:15:00.001Z

Christmas Decorating!

2011-12-11T23:42:00.002Z

We put our christmas decorations up today! I turn into such a kid this time of year ;)

First we went to buy a tree. The farm shop we were going to get it from didn't have any big enough so we went to Perrywood Garden Centre instead. Got a good sized one, even though we had to pay a little more (I say we, my parents did! Haha) This was the first real tree we've had in well over 12 years, so that's pretty exciting!

I completely failed at taking good photos of the tree. There weren't that many lights on it, which I don't think helped, but we'd used some up on other places around the house and the remaining ones ended up not working :( damn you Tesco.

OK so here's the tree. It's framed pretty nicely in the window of our living room. The striped blinds add a lovely festive touch I think :) the decorations are all gold as well.

Lights on the fireplace (there was a real fire burning while we were decorating (and Home Alone playing) so it was really rather festive!)

A second mini tree out in the garden room (this is where the dogs live though so we don't really trust it to stay overnight!

We bought these cute little birdhouses from Altons Garden Centre a few weeks ago, and I used them in the garland running up the stairs. I also made string garlands with fir cones, and they turned out a lot better than I was expecting. Meant to be getting some more lights for here as well, but battery powered ones because there's not a plug nearby.

Cute little owly guy:

There's also lights round the top of the stairs:

Finally, a christmas window in the kitchen:

We've also got another tree up in the porch, but due to the light fail we don't have any fairy lights for it yet :(

I also finally got a teacup! I've been wanting one for so, so long but never found one I liked, but I managed to drag my friend Fiona to Battlesbridge Antique Centre where I ended up buying two! And a glass vase thing, I'll upload some photos when I actually get round to taking some :)

Christmas Nail Art.

2011-12-11T09:31:00.000Z

The 24 nail art pens, which I got from this seller on ebay, I ordered a while ago finally arrived today (pictured above with my many other nail polishes (excuse the crappy photo, it was off my phone)) so my sister and I had some fun trying out some christmas nail art designs.

I already had some photos saved to my laptop, but I've tried to find the original source to many of the ideas we tried out, although ours don't look anywhere near as good as theirs, but then we are novices! Links at the end.

I know these are going to be really unpractical when I go to work next week (I'm temping at Royal Mail, and last week's nails were ruined, as well as cracking all the skin round my nails because they were so dry :( ouch)

I'm not sure I like the idea of having feet on my blog, but my sister tried out the santa design, as well as a snowman snow scene, which is super cute so it had to go on! Also excuse the mess because she wasn't considerate enough to clean up the edges before the photo was taken ;) haha

LINKS
The idea for the fairy light nails came from here
Gingerbread man from here
Candy stripes from here
Santa nail from here
Snowman and christmas polkadots from here
Various snowflake designs from here, here and here :)

And the ones you can't really see in the photos are pretty much just variations of snowflakes with glitter on top (bit more hardy for work!)

Most Recent Flickr Upload.

2011-12-10T22:13:00.000Z

Flower Lights

Pierce the Sky

Sunlight

Check out my Flickr for more :)

Wishcatcher Charm Bracelets.

2011-12-10T00:16:00.000Z

Lots being added to my Folksy shop, Wishcatcher Crafts, this weekend! I've been making charm bracelets, with 20 different charms and 15 different fabrics available. Exciting stuff :)

They're being added as I sort the photos out, and there's six up so far.

Imagine That Magazine Feature.

2011-12-07T22:52:00.003Z

As I just posted over on 27 Kodak Moments, a couple of my photographs are going to be featured in the second issue of Imagine That magazine! I previously had a feature on their website for my handmade graphic design work (see it here) and I was quoted in the first issue, so it's exciting to now have some of my photography work printed as well :)

These are the two photographs that will be printed:

It's going to be a full single page feature :) I'm not sure when the magazine will be available to buy but I'll keep you informed.

Recent Flickr Uploads.

2011-12-07T10:58:00.000Z

Check out my flickr here :)

*Wishcatcher Crafts.

2011-12-06T10:54:00.003Z

New items added to mine and my sister's Folksy shop, Wishcatcher Crafts :)

These embroidered quotes are both handmade, by yours truly, including my newly learnt satin stitching skills!

(this quote was actually something said by one of the speakers at my graduation yesterday, and I was feeling very inspired!)

I've been packing up everything I've made so far, because when I sold three items last week I had to remake two of them because I didn't think they were good enough and nothing was packed up, I had no envelopes or anything! So now I'm more prepared, have worked out how to buy postage online so I can have things posted almost straight after they're sold :) much better customer service!

(these bracelets are a WIP, I've ordered some charms that I'm going to put on them so watch out for them to list in the store!)

The whole collection as it currently stands :) I need to get some bigger bags for the frames (and padded envelopes) and as I previously said the charm bracelets are a WIP so they'll need to be bagged up when the charms arrive. I've put a mini business card thing in each bag, although it's just the logo and doesn't actually have the website or anything on, so that's a bit of a fail which needs sorting out, but it's just something to help buyers remember the store!

So once again, go and check out the store HERE :) Thank you!

I Graduated Today!

2011-12-05T18:48:00.002Z

I'm officially no longer a student :( sad times indeed.

(mirror posing photo to show what I was wearing! haha)

The ceremony was at the Barbican Centre, which was a lot nicer than any of my university buildings. First thing we noticed was another girl wearing the same dress as me (this one from Topshop but in navy). She turned out to be my best friend from my course, Claire! We definitely should've talked about what we were wearing before we went! Haha we were also sitting next to each other because it was alphabetical according to course and grade (we both got firsts!) so we had to go up on stage one after the other, but hopefully no one noticed we were wearing the same dress! A girl in the next group also had the dress on, so it was obviously a popular choice! It was ok though because we accessorised differently, and once everyone had their gowns on we all looked the same anyway ;) It was the whole faculty of art, media and design (as well as the faculty of computing) and there are a lot of people I lived with in halls first year studying some sort of art subject so I saw a lot of people I knew :)

Gowns are not comfortable to wear. Well they're probably ok if you're a guy wearing a tie, because you can hook them under the tie so they stay in place. But obviously I wasn't wearing a tie so I had to keep adjusting my gown and hood. We had safety pins but they were pretty hopeless. The hat just gave me a headache, and messed up my hair.

We had professional photographs taken (me and my parents) which were really awkward. I had this fake plastic scroll to hold (which my gown was clipped to to keep it in place, so I couldn't move my arms at all) and the photographer made us stand weirdly, something my dad just laughed about (hold her arm!)

(my view before the tutors and university staff took to the stage)

Then just some hanging around, talking to the few people on my course I actually want to stay in touch with. Then we sat down. I was in the second from front row, which I thought would mean I'd have to pay attention the whole time but all the action was happening over the other side of the stage so I played around on my phone for most of it. Shh naughty! Well it did drag on forever, I was one of the early ones ("also with first class honours...Hannah Curson" that felt good to hear!) so I didn't have to be paying attention for my name the whole time ;) Blah, blah, blah long ass ceremony, really ethnically diverse university so the presenters struggled with a load of the names, making it last longer. One of the tutors (who I think they said was 80) seemed to pass out halfway through so he got lead out. He was looking pretty pale and unwell the whole time before that. The final guy to be presented got the biggest cheer because everyone knew it was finally over!

Then there was mingling, more photographs, drinks, teeny tiny mince pies etc. I was looking for Claire to try and get a photo with her but couldn't find her anywhere so I returned my gown. Then of course I found her, so we got photos of her in her gown and me just in my dress. At least you couldn't really tell we were wearing the same thing!

Then home and out for dinner with my family. Expect to be drinking lots ;)

(mummy bought me a London Met bear as a souvenir! He's called Wesley. I also got a free mug/pen/badge from the Alumni Association because I got a first)

ALSO
I was meant to be starting at Royal Mail today but obviously I couldn't go. I told their recruitment agency (Angard staffing - try your upmost best to avoid ever having to work with them) three times that I couldn't make it today (in person at the reg event and via email because they refused to pick up their phone) but they just sent me the same text in reply saying my start date was the 5th. They also got my hours completely wrong, although that's actually better because I don't want to work nights anymore. Mum reckons I should just show up to the sorting office tomorrow and say 'well I told you I couldn't start on the 5th' but it's a 30min drive away and I don't want to just have to come home again, so I don't know what to do :S I really need the money though (even if it is shitty pay) so I probably will end up going.

A Christmas Weekend in Essex.

2011-12-04T17:17:00.001Z

Lots of photos coming up!

Super busy attending various Christmas events around Essex this weekend. Yesterday we went to a Christmas food and craft fair at Cressing Temple Barns, which was OK, but nowhere near as good as the one we went to in the summer. We also went to the ‘Making Maldon Magical’ Christmas event I designed posters for, which was, in a word, shit! I don’t know if we missed something, because there was a lot of people there, but there just didn’t seem to be anything going on :S there was a parade thing which was so, so embarrassing to watch! Haha it was the ‘christmas court’ from various Essex towns. Oh dear. I saw my posters on display though and the AfFC stall looked to be pretty busy, so that’s good.

Today me and my mum went to RHS Hyde Hall, where there was a Christmas Craft Festival. That was kind of average, but the real highlight was the Christmas Tree Trail by branches of the Women's Institute from across Essex :) On first glance I thought the trees were all decorated by children, but it turns out the 70 trees were all decorated using recycled materials. Some of them were a complete mess, but some of them were very creative, and have given me all sorts of new ideas!

Due to the shape of the garden and the fact that it was a 'trail' I couldn't get a photo with all the trees in, but these should give you some idea:

(my mum really liked this tree, decorated with natural materials, covered CDs and with presents hanging off the bottom - so the only one that would pass for a normal looking tree!)

There were some brilliant tree toppers, including several granny angels and even a Barbie:

Things like yoghurt pots, bottle lids and drinks cans were used to make the decorations:

(a Whiskas cat food pot used to make a christmas kitty - cute!)

(I really loved the use of mini Tiptree jam jars with sequins inside them as decorations)

I've also been hard at work on products for my Folksy shop, Wishcatcher Crafts, so keep an eye out for a post about that soon! Feeling very inspired right now so I want to get crafting!

Forest, Sad Fog and Swans.

2011-11-29T22:47:00.004Z

Most recent uploads to my flickr:

Down the Forest Path

So Sad

Four Swans

Sold!

2011-11-29T17:01:00.001Z

I just posted the first [real] sale from mine and my sister's craft shop on Folksy, Wishcatcher Crafts :) I even ran almost a mile down the road to try and post it before the last post (missed it by 10 minutes though, damn)

We sold a hand braided bracelet (one with the bow) and a mini rosebud brooch:

UPDATE

Sold another rosebud brooch the day after! I'm going to need to make some more now :)

Twig Reindeer.

2011-11-28T18:33:00.004Z

Another crafty day, again using 'Christmas Crafting in No Time' by Clare Youngs for inspiration. This time I tried making the twig reindeer, which are just so adorable! They're very easy to make, just using twigs from the garden, a bit of ribbon and a glue gun to hold it together. I also used spray snow on the antlers, just for a little extra christmassy touch :)

Crafts and Christmas Shopping.

2011-11-26T22:49:00.002Z

Busy weekend so far! I met with Tom from Action for Family Carers this morning, went through my poster ideas. He really liked the designs, just a few little tweaks now before handing them over :)

My grandparents are here to stay for the weekend, the boys went the football (loyal Norwich supporters!) while me, mum, my sister Sophie and my gran, who we call Gar, went to Altons Garden Centre. After a yummy, yummy lunch we went for a look round the christmas shop, and ended up spending over an hour there! Oops. We go every year though and it just gets better and better (and bigger and bigger!) I took a load of photos there on my SuperHeadz Blue Ribbon Camera, so I don't have much to show now.

This little display was so, so beautiful though that I had to share it (excuse the rubbish quality of my phone camera :S it really doesn't do it justice) I'm going to recreate the tree idea below for our front porch; a branch spray painted white, but with lights wrapped round it and a little owl decoration I have hanging off it. We have a strict gold colour scheme for the main tree and decorations, so it's hard to be creative with, but we're going to hand make some decorations out of fir cones and cinnamon sticks and the like, so it'll have more of an earthy feel. We're also getting a real tree for the first time in well over 10 years, so I'm really excited for that!

Of course I had to buy something!

I have a bit of a key obsession, so this little decoration was perfect!

I also got this ice cream shaped decoration. I think it's so amazing, but it's made completely of glass so I'm really scared to do anything with it! Haha plus I don't exactly have anywhere to put it anyway :S The crafty things I keep making are taking up all remaining space in my room!

So, moving onto what I've made today:

This was meant to look like a russian doll, but it didn't really work too well :S still kinda cute though, but I need to work on getting the shape right and mix up the pattern a bit.

I also made this super cute gingerbread man decoration, out of card and cross stitching. Definitely going to have to find somewhere to put it this christmas!

Another project that's in development, from an idea in the Christmas Craft book my mum got. Just need to dig out some string to finish it off.

Finally, I have so many films building up now :s really need to get into town to get them developed. My SuperHeadz camera (after today) only has about 2 photos left on the film so that'll be done soon (the ones with 'B' on the lid are also from this camera, it's been used a lot recently!) my Juicebox Camera also only has a couple of photos left, and that'll be the first print since I got the camera, so I'm really excited to see how that turns out!

I'm going to a car boot sale tomorrow for like the first time ever, so no doubt I'll use up the films there!

Tombola, Face Painting, Balloon Modelling!

2011-11-26T10:00:00.002Z

I'm meeting with the head fundraising volunteer from Action for Family Carers (who I volunteer for) today. He lives in the same village as me, so that works out rather well! I'm going to present to him my ideas for the three posters for the 'Make Maldon Magical' christmas fair.

Here are my three posters:

I'm not doing my usual take-more-than-one-design thing, I don't think it's really necessary for this situation. Plus there's still another week before the fair so there's time to make amendments if necessary :)

Graduation Planning.

2011-11-25T20:48:00.002Z

So my graduation is on December 5th, at the Barbican Centre. My mum took me shopping the other day to find something to wear under my graduation robes. Ede & Ravenscroft say you should wear a white blouse with corresponding business attire. Erm, boring! I'm not doing that! I'm not a fashion blogger by any means, nor do I really know anything about fashion, but I had no idea what to wear to graduation, so maybe I'll inspire someone else with this post! Ha or if you have any feedback on my chosen outfit, that'd be great :)

I got this Structured Sleeveless Skater Dress from Topshop (my mum bought it for me, then I had to go to the jobcentre with the bag, felt a bit guilty :S) I got it in an almost navy colour, but for some reason it's not available on the website in that shade. I thought about getting a shirt to wear under it (apparently the collar is good for holding the gown in place, and I need some sleeves) but I couldn't find anything appropriate, so I'm going with a cream cardigan I borrowed from my mum.

Me and mum also had a bit of a disagreement over shoes. I'm like 5'7/8" so I don't wear heels, like, ever. I was trying to convince mum that I can get some smart flats but she wouldn't accept that, she says I needed at least a little heel. Her definition of a little heel is very different from my definition. So as to avoid her killing me in frustration, I went to Lakeside with my friend Jo, and we looked for shoes. There wasn't much in a nude colour with a small heel, but we eventually found these Low Block Heel / Patent Dolly Shoes from Next. The thing is, me and mum had looked in 3 different Nexts and didn't find anything, so I was surprised that that's where we found them! The heel is a manageable height, and because they're blocky I won't have issues falling over! Haha.

As an alternative to wearing a shirt, I'm going to pin the robe to my dress (it's thick enough to not damage it) with this brooch, which I bought the other day from a christmas craft fair. It's made from a real piece of egg shell!

I will be using this clutch bag, which is also from Topshop, but from a couple of years ago.

I also got some make up to match; I got this Nerd Nail Polish and Lipgloss, both from H&M.

So that's my outfit! I'm actually quite excited for graduation now! Well, except the fact that I'm not working as a graphic designer yet, but at least I'm doing some freelance and voluntary graphic design work, and I've got a temp xmas job at Royal Mail starting the day after graduation (nights 10pm-6am! Aah!) and I got another job offer today, doing financial administration, starting in january :)

I'm also being taken to The Bull Gastro Pub & Willow Room in Great Totham for dinner :) nom nom nom.

Designing for Charity.

2011-11-23T17:16:00.002Z

I spent today at Action for Family Carers, a local charity providing support and information to unpaid carers. I've signed up as an admin volunteer, but I will mainly be designing posters and such for events and advertising.

On December 3rd is the 'Make Maldon Magical' christmas fair, and AfFC have a stall there. They asked me to design three posters, one for each of the fundraising activities; a tombola, face painting and balloon modelling. I took my macbook along to their offices; they only have PCs with no design software and I couldn't cope with that! Haha anything I did had to be able to be transferred to Microsoft Word though, so I used Adobe Illustrator to design the graphics, then laid it out in Word (I'd have preferred to use InDesign, but say if they want to use the same design next year but just update a few things, they wouldn't be able to do that if I'd only done it in InDesign, and I like to cater to their needs :) )

So I had this idea to use stars, in the shape of a christmas tree (well half a christmas tree anyway!) so as well as being unique to each activity, there would be a recurring theme throughout and it would be slightly christmassy. These are the first couple of ideas:

The three posters will be displayed all in a row so I was thinking they could be designed so that when they're next to each other they'll make a whole christmas tree between two of the posters, but I have no way to guarantee which order they'll be put on the display boards, and the stars probably wouldn't line up too well either.

Another idea in development for the ballon modelling poster, a christmas tree made from balloons:

(I'm very proud of this! Designed in Illustrator)

Everything in this post is in development, so please excuse the unfinished designs!