Once Upon A Time I Used To Draw...

When I was in high school (2006-2011), I was known as the artist kid. I used to spend every minute of everyday doodling on any pieces of paper I could find. I loved art classes and it was the one thing I felt good at, and it made me feel good in return. In my art classes, I felt free and left to express myself in anyway I could possibly think of. I was lucky to have a teacher who understood where I was coming from, and let me explore my artistic side with the tools needed.

I would spend hours creating these little doodles; using mainly black fine liner, drawing lines and circles to cover a whole page. I could spend hours doing these little patterns with my headphones in, and I would occasionally look up and find several people staring at me. It felt good to feel good at something, I would have handfuls of people ask me to draw something for them which was a huge compliment ^.^

I had to create a project in my art class using layers, so I decided to create a simple drawing using a complex method of 'colouring it in'. Me and my mom came up with punching holes from magazines in different colours and layering them one by one to 'colour in' the drawing. I used triangle shaped blue card for the background (which was A LOT easier than the small holes!). It took me roughly 2 weeks to complete and I would spend 1-3 hours per day working on it, getting stressed and annoyed with it along the way. But once it was complete, I felt incredibly proud of myself and it still today is one of my favourite pieces.

I chose to take BTEC Art & Design, and in my final year of high school I had to complete another project which I was given the freedom to choose what I did and how I completed it. I decided to create a big version of the doodles I did throughout school as that was what I was most comfortable doing, and in the project brief, it had to take us over 10 hours to complete. I took 4 pieces of A3 paper and doodled on them individually, and created an overall piece using all 4 pieces:

It's a lot bigger than it seems, this was taken on my phone when it was completed. It took me about 20 hours to complete.

When I was preparing to leave high school and go to college, everyone thought I'd go to art college and go on to become an illustrator of some sorts.. Even I thought about it, but I had bigger ambitions. At the time I wanted to become either a radio presenter or film editor, but I still wasn't completely sure on which courses to take in college. 

I decided to do fine art, health and social care, and applied science in college; but fine art ended up being a disaster and was the reason why I no longer draw. I first had a wonderful, laid back art tutor who motivated and inspired me to be creative. Then when I changed another course, I had to swap art tutors and ended up with someone who was the complete opposite. She was HORRIBLE!!! She thought anything she didn't like wasn't art, if you had a different style to her, she would criticize everything you said and did... and that happened to be me. I started to hate art and dreaded going to the art department, in the end I stopped going and dropped the course completely before finishing the first year.

This was one of the pieces I did in college, I was interested in it but I had no inspiration or motivation, and the tutor completely ruined the experience for me.

I decided to change colleges and start a new course, as I had found a better course suited for me who wanted to become a paramedic. It was in the college next door to my previous college, and the course was a Public Services course. It's a BTEC course but is worth 3 A-Levels and is 2 years overall. I'm currently in my last year of this course and I love it! Since leaving my first college, I haven't drawn since and I don't have any desire too. But I'm a much happier person than I have ever been!

So that's my artistic story and what happened. I'd love to hear if anyone has had any similar experiences!

My Week #50

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY WEEK!! I am now 19 years old! I also saw Placebo live on Thursday with my boyfriend (review in previous post) and it was also pay day on my birthday :) Crazy to think it's only 2 weeks until the new year!

How was your week? Anyone else have a birthday?

Placebo Live @ Birmingham O2 Academy

On Thursday December 12th 2013, me and my boyfriend went to see Placebo live. It was his birthday present to himself but happened to be the day before my 19th birthday.. So it was a joint birthday present >^.^<

We arrived at the O2 Academy at 3pm and the doors opened at 7pm. It was quite a wait and was pretty darn cold outside, but we met two lovely girls who unfortunately I forgot their names :( But the one lady came all the way from Canada to see them! 

The opening act were called Toy which in my personal opinion were a disappointment. It was very synthesized with little vocals in majority of the songs. They weren't very interesting or energetic, and the crowd also didn't seem to into it either. So I haven't become a fan of those guys sadly... After Toy played a 45 minute set-list, it was time for Placebo to come on stage around about 9pm. They placed an hour and 45 minute set-list

Placebo's setlist for Birmingham's O2 Academy on December 12th 2013.

Their performance was definitely one of my favourites, and I'm not even a big fan of the band! Special K, Running Up That Hill, Post Blue, and Blind were some of my favourites! Here are some photos from the night which were taken on my iPhone (if you re-use the photos, please credit me).

My Week #49

This week went really fast, but then again it feels like forever since I've had a bad throat and it only started Monday. Regular week with college and work, nothing exciting really.

How was your week?

My Week #48

My Week #47

My Week #46

My Week #45

My Week #44

This week I was at my nans house sitting and looking after her cat (fun times, not!). It was a super boring week with little to do. I went to a small bonfire/firework party on Saturday with my boyfriends family.

How was your week? Hope it was more exciting than mine!

Changing how I use my monthly inserts for 2014

I haven't been very happy with the presenation of my monthly inserts. I've realized the colour scheme isn't working for me, so I'm preparing a change for my new monthly inserts for 2014.

As you can see, I've been using these coloured sticky hearts from Asda to colour code, but because they're slightly bigger than I'd like, it's quite hard to use more than one on each day. So I've decided to change from stickers to using coloured pens to write in appointments, birthdays, pay days etc. Anything that isn't 100% set in stone (i.e birthdays) will be put on sticky notes until it's done.

I'll still be putting some washi tape at the top of the monthly pages to make it a little pretty, and write something good that happened in that month. And for the days that are before and after that month, I will colour in with different coloured pencils for each month (see above - that was a tester). I may use stickers throughout the months for special events, but it's not a definite.

I've finally come to a decision with how to decorate my monthly pages! This is January 2014, and each month is a different colour with a matching masking tape at the top. I've coloured in each month in advanced so the only decorating I have to do is put stickers on the days for certain events... Which brings me onto my new colour coding system! I have started to use these coloured stickers from Sainsburys; each colour represents something which is written on the Project Life card to remind myself. I also stick notes for things I need to do in that month (for example, I had to make a dentist appointment for February, so I needed to remind myself by the end of January).

My Week #43

This week was an orange theme for Halloween, with a little bit of pink :) I don't have any Halloween themed washi tapes, sticky notes or stickers, so I had to improvise and use what I had. I love seeing everyone elses week decorations, especially for Halloween. I've noticed American's seem to really love Halloween (way more than here in the UK!) so it's really cool seeing all the different decorations. I hope everyone had a nice week :)

My Week #42

This was my week, very simple with a green/nature layout. I had a very boring week with just work and college. I also had a root canal which wasn't too bad! Both the green washi tapes are from ebay, leaf and white post its were from RAKs and the green post it was from Asda.

How was your week?

My Week #41

This week was a red, white, and blue theme... But in the end it pretty much had all the colours of the rainbow ^.^ It was an easy week as you can see, and I lost 3lbs! (2lbs to go until I reach my October goal!). I'm not a massive fan of hello kitty but I do think they're cute to use now and again (and they were sent to me by a new penpal so I thought I'd use them). The kitty sticky note was sent to me by a penpal and the green apple sticky note was by a RAK :) The thin washi tape was from eBay *featured in my last my week post*

Hope you all had a good weekend!

My Week #40

It's absolutely crazy to think how fast this year has flown by, and that in less than 13 weeks we will be in a new year! It's exciting but definitely crazy. 

Anyway, on to my week! So this week I wanted to try out my new thin washi tapes which I bought from eBay (anyone in the UK looking for cheap thin washi tapes, there you go!). They looked super cute and had lovely colours which weren't too bold or pastel. I wanted to keep it minimal again but I tried something new as well. If you look around the rings, I used my heart stickers from Asda as make-shift hole protectors! It was fun but slightly hard to get the hole in the middle of the heart, but overall I think they look nice and I might do this another time in the future if my week is looking a little dull. The stickers and sticky notes I got from RAKs or penpals :)

I put some new top tabs on because my old ones weren't sticking much anymore, so I tried these Martha Stewart tabs (which I was dying to get as you cannot get them in the UK, but some lovely person called Jessica said she would get some for me and send them if I pay for them and p&p which was great!). I absolutely love these, they look clean and cute, and stick very well. It's a shame MS/Avery decided to cut all sticky notes and tabs because the range was so lovely and nearly everyone in the Filofax community want them!

How To Colour Code In Your Filofax

I've noticed that most people who own a Filofax and use it regularly have their own colour coding system. I personally have experimented with different colour coding styles and systems, but none have really worked well for me. I wanted to find out what people currently use and why it works for them. 

These are some photos I've found online of people's colour coding systems for their Filofax (links are below the photo) 

From Label Me Organized

From Imysworld

From Team Filofax

From Inside The Crafters Studio watch Cathy's video on her system here

From Jagged Little Thoughts

My first colour coding system

So above was my first colour coding system which I tried out in my Filofax. I tried to keep it simple and fun, but I ended up not using it. I love the transparent colour stickers from Paperchase, but there aren't many in a pack as they come with big ones and smaller ones. I planned to use them instead of writing in colour on my calendar but I found it was slightly annoying to get the stickers out, so ended up not using them.

At the time of this photo I was keeping a food diary in my Filofax. I was using the vertical week on two pages so I used a different colour for each day so it made the week look more pleasing to the eye.

Youtube Video links:

• Filofax - Color Coding (personal Domino)
• My Filofax Color Coding System

If you have your own colour coding system, leave a comment below with your link or a description :)

October Goals & Clean Eating Challenge

Image from whitspeaks

I decided last month that for the month of October, I would set myself a handful of specific goals which I'd work on throughout the month to achieve by November 1st. I had one specific goal I wanted to work on which was clean eating, but I wanted to add a few more so I had a bigger goal. These are the main goals I've set myself for this month:

1. Eat clean as much as possible
2. Drink 3-4 litres of water everyday
3. Get at least 6 hours of sleep each night
4. Lose 5lbs by November 1st

I have been planning how I will achieve these goals, as I believe in the saying "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail"; I am going to be using my Filofax to help me keep track of my goals and how I'm doing. I won't be writing my food diary in my Filofax, I'll be using an A5 spiral bound notebook for that, but I will be tracking my weight and measurements in my Filofax as well as how much sleep I get. In my food diary (A5 notebook) I will write everything I eat and drink daily each week. 

Made on A4 paper using green polka dot washi tape to stick it up

I've also added a chart on my bedroom wall for motivation. It consists of 60 boxes and one box equals one pound lost (so my goal is to lose 60lbs). Each week I weigh myself, I will take note, and however much weight I've lost, I will put a sticker on the box (so one pound lost = one sticker on the chart). I'm hoping that this will help me see how well I am doing and motivate me to carry on. This is more for an overall goal, but I am aiming to lose 6lbs (1.5lbs per week) by November 1st so it will test my chart out and see how well it works.

My Week #39

This week was a Hello Kitty inspired week! I've never been into HK before, but since I've been kindly send some HK sticky notes, paper, and stickers by some wonderful people (thank you lovelies!) I've really become fond of her :) So this week I tried to keep it simple yet cute and 'girly'. I mainly went to college this week and also worked, I was meant to have a CT scan for my wrist Monday but it was rescheduled for next Wednesday as the machine broke. 

I also got paid last Friday and bought the white Expedit unit from Ikea which is not going to arrive until October 9th!! Crazy! But since I saw paperlovestory use it in her bedroom, I was smitten and had to get it myself (my room is green with white furniture, so it would fit in perfectly). Once it has arrived and I have it set up, I'll post some photos for you! :)

Printable Expense Sheets

I've had a lot of readers email me for my expense sheets (shown above) to download, so here is a downloadable version for all if you want it! Click here (let me know if the link doesn't work, I'm using Google Docs and haven't used it before). If you do download and use them, let me know how you get on with them :)