Snow Happened!

We haven't had snow properly settle in years here so this is all very exciting for me ^_^
I took more photos yesterday and am sure I will today as well but for now here's just one for each day it's snowed so far.



Monday.
We often get snow forecast and then don't actually end up with any so even at this stage I was quite pleased. Watching snow fall is just kind of magic even if it's only a tiny amount.



Tuesday morning was even snowier, a nice sparkly blanket over everything but during the day it was nice and sunny and it started to melt around the edges so I figured that was it for snow.



But I was wrong, this is Wednesday morning (today) and it's still snowing too. I love looking at it so much, I'm wasting a lot of time stood looking out the window. I'm glad I don't have to go anywhere though. I think it's supposed to stop around lunch time and then just be cold and windy so hopefully it won't get worse for people needing to get places but I'll have chance to go for a walk and take some photos. This blog might just end up being snow themed for a while but it doesn't happen very often so I'm ok with that :)

Blackpink House❤

I've liked Blackpink for a while but only really knew about them through their music. Now I've been watching Blackpink House and I'm totally smitten with the four of them. They're so sweet and funny and I love watching anything where there's a lot of eating but food isn't the point of the programme so I obviously love this. The general premise is that they've been given a 100 day vacation (although they definitely still have to work, aside from this programme being made we see them at photoshoots, fan meets and Jisoo being an emcee) and have been moved into a new house full of cameras in Hongdae in Seoul where they get to have a nice time and we get to watch it. It was nice to see them getting excited walking around the area without face masks or anything to hide themselves, even with the camera crew surrounding them it still seemed like they genuinely felt a freedom they hadn't had in a while and it was nice to watch.

It always feels almost obligatory to pick favourites when you like a group. I've never really seen them in anything other than their music videos. I do a lot of my kpop viewing on youtube through the ps3 in the evening and I often choose something and then let it pick videos for me and I've seen various things for some of the other groups I like but I've never sought out any Blackpink other than the music videos and from this alone I would have said Lisa was my favourite but I can't really say why because I didn't even really have much to go on. That was just my instinct or whatever.
Now though that is just nonsense, don't ask me to pick a favourite, how can I even think of such things. It's ridiculous, I love them all equally because they are all brilliant.

There are 7 episodes out so far and I think I read that there will be 12 altogether and I'm already sad about it ending. I love being a fan of stuff, I feel like maybe we lose something "growing up" like how kids draw but then most adults don't. How teenagers are so into stuff and then adults seem to be less bothered by things. Obviously adults still like stuff but it seems different. Adults have a lot of things to concentrate on that teenagers don't have to waste time with but I think time should be found for being fanatic about something. I think that happened to me for a bit in my early-mid twenties, I still had particular things that I was interested in but it was different to that teenage, fanatic interest but now it's come back to me (in it's own way, I'm obviously not seeing things the same as a teenager would) and I just feel like being a big fan of things makes me a better person. I don't know how to explain it but when I really like something even if it's completely unrelated to anything else it makes me be more productive, or look after myself better or if nothing else it just makes me happier for a bit and that's important and awesome. So thank you Blackpink House for making me realise how much I love these girls and giving me something new to be super keen for.

Here's the playlist for the series on their youtube.

My desk ~ Feb 2018

It had been all gloomy for a few days (which feels like forever when you add it into the rest of winter) and then the sun came back and I was sitting at my desk all bright and sunny and I had the urge to take some photos. I have a pretty big desk and when I have a tidy up I get it as clear and open as possible so I have lots of space to work but I inevitably end up putting things down on it (like this bracelet and beads) and working in a tiny little gap in the middle. It's not too bad at the minute though.



I love washi tape so much. I use it packing orders or gifts and in my sketchbooks and diaries or generally if something needs sticking somewhere. I always want more of them and I get sad when I think I see a cool new tape in a shop and then it's a plastic one. I prefer paper tapes. Whenever I get a new tape I stick some in that little book so I can use them up but still have a record of my collection, I really look forward to that book being full, it'll be so satisfying to flip through.



My pencil case is actually a toiletries bag that my mum passed on, I think she got it as a free gift or something. I love it, it looks like hundreds and thousands and holds a lot of pens and they are both important things to me.



I normally shove tissues out of the way and behind things when I take pictures but it's just a fact of my life that there are tissues everywhere all the time. You might think it's gross but they aren't all that gross really and tbh if I threw away a tissue after every little nose blow I'd be using up so many trees and I don't want that on my conscience. There's also always cups but I'm really good at taking them back downstairs with me so they are current tea stains, not old ones.



Some brushes in a cracked Little Mermaid mug and a photo of my nan and me from 2001. I have another photo of her with my grandad in my studio too, I miss them a lot and it's quite comforting to see their faces while I'm working. I should really get a frame for this one.



Some good postcards, Bunny Bissoux, Mais2 and Kiku.



And the whole thing. Like I said, it's not too bad at the minute, a pretty decent work space. I wish I had more stuff on the walls but our whole house is made of mould (thanks landlords, you do a great job) and if I have something good enough to put on the wall I probably don't want to risk it getting ruined. But once my awful drawing posture has settled me in to work I can't see the wall anyway so you know, it'll do ^_^

p.s. I have emptied the bin since taking these photos, it was getting out of hand.

InstaSnowLineStoryApp #18

20-37 ~ 365 2018

I need to start utilising self timers and reflective surfaces or this will get very samey lol. Maybe that's fine anyway but I do want more of me in the photos rather than only ever my face. There's definitely been a few times already where I've forgotten to do it until right before sleep so I for sure want to do better at that. It's hard to not always try and get a "good" photo with a particular pose or angle or to go the other way and almost hide in an over the top expression. Photos are weird, I want these to be as "honest" as possible but also photos will never be the same as what you actually look like just because the nature of photos is they're static and flat and we aren't.

Shop update ~ zines, shirts and badges

I made a little zine every month for 18 months and I'm so proud of them. They showed me that I was doing things when I felt really low and like I was being completely useless. It was time to stop making them but they are a good looking pile of things :)



These shirts were a long time in the making for various reasons but I finally got them listed.




At the end of 2017 I had a lot of drawings that I hadn't done anything with so I got them all into my print to order shops but also made badges. I love using my badge machine so much, please buy lots of badges so I can always make more ^_^ (I'll make more either way)





These Adventure Time badges were made from our 2017 calendar, it was a pretty cool calendar so I didn't want to waste it. Sticking gems or 3d things in general on to a badge is my new favourite thing.

As always, all of these things are listed in my etsy shop :)

Some brain mess

I wrote a really long post that I'm keeping for myself but it was sad and whingey and while that is how I feel and it's fine, it's not what I want to contribute to the world so I've cut it up and tried to include the positives and a bit of what I'm having trouble with, without so much of the negative in there. There is a place for sharing all of the worst bits but that's not what I want to do today :)
I hope this makes sense because when I read it through I have all the other stuff in my head so it's hard to tell *_*

I really want to update my blog more but am having trouble with it. The main thing is I've always tended to blog around photos I've taken but I'm not taking so many photos these days. Not because I don't want to but I just don't feel like I have much to photograph. I've fallen out with Norwich and so don't very often take my camera with me, it feels like home doesn't change enough to take regular photos that wouldn't be repetitive and I don't really go anywhere. This is definitely something I can work on though, I just need to see the interest in what is around me. I know I'd like seeing someone else's everyday "boring" photos so why can't I take mine? I take lots of photos on my phone, mainly of the rats but they're always blurry and my new phone is awful at photos in the house, it tries too hard to make a "good" photo and just totally over saturates everything in a really weird way. They always look like they've got horrible filters on them.

My blog has always really just been a diary but I'm not doing anything. I mainly sit around feeling like I can't make good work, not earning enough money, how do I get more money, I want to go to Japan, I'm not sure that can ever happen because I have no money, then crying about how much I want to visit japan. I don't want much but oh boy do I want to go to Japan.

I take photos and then put them here so if I'm not taking photos I have nothing to put here but I want to be putting things here so I need to figure out what that can be. Maybe I should hone my skills in talking about things I like beyond just, here's a thing, I like it.

My main problem is definitely mental and I'm working on various things and that will hopefully lead to changes. It's an evil circle of needing to work because I need the money but not feeling creative (I'll have ideas when i cant do anything about it and then when i sit down to work i cant think of anything and just start to panic) so maybe I need to do something else, rest, feel inspired and come back to the work but I have no money to go and do something inspiring so then I just feel even more pressure to be creative because I need the money. Damn money.

I'm so lucky and i hate to feel sad and lacking and the fact that i've missed out on stuff is my own fault but that doesn't mean that missing out on things isn't hard to deal with.

I have this blog, twitter, instagram, making videos and keeping a diary and then sketchbooks that I worry about repeating myself or spreading myself too thin and then i think about things to the point where it feels like i've shared it and repeated myself too much when i haven't actually put it anywhere.

The photo and the instagram story version. I really want a screen pen for my phone :)

I'm working on trying to calm down and worry less and just do whatever. it's a tiny thing but the other day in tiger i wanted to take a picture of some pens i'd picked up and i did and it wasn't right so i wanted to take another and someone was trying to get in to look at something i was in the way of so i moved back and then still took my picture. i would normally have been freaked out and nervous of a person and just left, i probably wouldn't have even taken the first picture before the person was even near me. It's not a big thing for most people i assume but it felt like a big thing to me. The fact as well that i just did it, i didn't think about it and then make myself do it i was just in a weird new place where i was moving around in the world not thinking about other people in relation to me. like, not in a dick way, i'm not stomping around being rude but just that i could do what i was doing and other people can do what they're doing and its fine. i don't need to shrink away and not exist. i can exist too.

Basically i'm a whingey baby about things that i should just work harder at to fix and find things to be happy about rather than dwelling on what i don't have. It's hard tho innit.