Chicks and Rabbits ~ Studio Photos

Some photos taken in my studio recently. An in progress photo of my most recent attempt at trying to get better at using paint. This ended up a mixture of bad and good which is progress because it means I'm trying things to see how it turns out rather than only doing what I think will work👍

These chicks are now stuck to my bike basket and I'm so in love with it.

Their feet were so cute in the packaging😊

I made myself some glittery badges, one a pencil drawing I did and one is cut out of a Scott Pilgrim comic. On the right is a bag I made from a jumper that has never fit quite right but I really liked the colours. Just cut the sleeves off, cutting on the sleeve side of the seam so the main section doesn't unravel, turn inside out and sew across the bottom and turn right way out again. Simple and eco😊

I went into the city with Will and got myself a multi-coloured pencil that I'd seen last time we went out and regretted not buying. It's so much fun to draw with but I need to properly learn how to sharpen a pencil with a knife because the big hole on my sharpener is a fake and doesn't work.

And the start of some new items for my shop. These drawings were the last step before I got the fabrics out to make patches, they're turning out pretty good if I do say so myself.

I re-arranged my work space last week, if you're interested there's a vlog about it here and it also includes the bike basket with chicks attached🐣

Calm and Nice Youtube Channels

I've recently got into Korean vlogs that are really calm, quiet, clean, simple type lifestyle vlogs and I love them. They're really relaxing and I actually find them quite motivating. Maybe it's just that being relaxed makes doing life seem possible, maybe I'm directly inspired by what they're doing. I don't know but either way I'm enjoying them and they're making me feel peaceful and like I can do stuff and that's all that matters really.

Sometimes it feels like a slightly consumerist/trend version of mindfulness that I think should bother me but honestly I don't really care. I can get enjoyment from the videos without losing my own priorities or morals or whatever and if they're happy making them then we're both fine.
I'm know that just because having all neutral tones makes them happy doesn't mean it will make me happy lol.

I'm aware of how I feel about waste and consumerism so while I get some sort of enjoyment out of seeing them hang all their tote bags up nicely it doesn't stop me thinking "I don't think you can call totes "eco bags" if you keep buying more of them..." tote life!
I have to say though that the Korean illustrations I'm seeing on all these things are great so maybe I am at risk of being inspired to buy some Korean stationery...

I should probably just let myself enjoy something without thinking so much about it.

I'm also interested in whether the not showing faces thing is purely for privacy or if it's a conscious aesthetic choice because of how our brains are hard wired to pay attention to faces I think it definitely adds something to the feel of the videos to not be showing them.

I've been mooching around a lot of these calm, Korean vlog channels but here are the two I'm enjoying most at the minute:
CozyDay 코지데이
This channel is run by a couple who share they're sickeningly sweet love for each other through home decor and stationery dates and journaling and I swear as I get older I just get more sentimental because I would have just found it annoying years ago. They make journal pages together. Like, literally one of them holds the paper while the other cuts it. I just can't.



ondo온도
Ondo's vlogs are just so calming. It has that proper "slice of life" feel to it where you can't really explain what's happening, it just is. I love it though. And the food! Oh the food. I'm off to carefully smash some strawberries into my milk.



Now what I really want to find is a similar "clips of my life" type vlogger but of an art weirdo living in Osaka. That'd be perfect viewing for me.
Please share your favourite youtube channels, finding this stuff is so random I'm always open for recommendations🐣💖

Otaku Anime💖

I'm fairly new to anime. As a teenager I'm sorry to admit that I wouldn't have liked it so it's ok that I had no knowledge of it, through my twenties I got more and more interested in japanese culture in general, folklore/traditional and pop culture. I got to a point where I was seeing a lot of stuff connected to various anime/manga and knowing I liked it without actually having a way to consume any of it.
Long story short, over the past couple of years I have had good access to anime, finally, and am ready to start making lists on my blog because what other joy is there in this world!?
I recently used my amazon prime free trial because (although I try to avoid amazon) I needed something quickly for the rats and figured while I had it I'd take advantage of the tv and film on there. I have a few things saved but other than Your Name there wasn't anything available that I already had on my watchlist so I just added a few bits, some totally new to me, some I recognised the title, that seemed like they might suit me and am trying to get through it before the trial ends. I started with Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku which finally brings us to the point of this blog post😂

I love anime about otaku. So far I've found otaku and cute-girls-being-a-bit-fantasy/magical-slice-of-life are my favourite cosy topics. It's not about whether they're the "best" series but these topics always bring me joy. As mentioned in my last post I don't let myself spend enough time with hobbies so I still have a lot of catching up to do in my anime watching but here are a few of the anime that I've watched that have an otaku theme somehow.

Himouto! Umaru-chan
This is one of the first anime I watched and I love her. It's about a girl who out of the house seems like the perfect student, smart, pretty, kind but as soon as she gets home she's a lazy otaku, lounging around playing games, eating snacks and getting her brother to do everything for her. This really fills the otaku theme that I enjoy, I love all the references, I love the slightly mis-named brands and I love her.

Gamers
This is more about the love triangles/misunderstandings of the characters than it is about games but the otaku game references are always there and it's their love of games that links them all together and causes them to meet. I'd like a second season of this, I don't know what happens in the light novels but it didn't feel like it ended. But maybe that's just because I wanted to see different people end up together!

Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku
This one is set in an office rather than a school which is nice just because it's adults rather than kids and it's just so sweet. I watched it on a whim because of the prime trial and ended up really enjoying it. Narumi starts a new job and hopes to keep her otaku side a secret (she's a fujoshi) but it turns out someone she knew when she was younger works there and it comes out because he's an otaku too and doesn't hide it at all. I love that this has four otaku characters, each with a different interest and it's just a perfect mix of otaku stuff and romance and I really want to read the manga now.

Sanrio Boys
I'm not sure if Sanrio Boys entirely counts but they're pretty passionate about their beloved characters and I think that's otaku. Also, it's the sweetest anime about boys being allowed to like cute stuff and I love it to death. I was totally expecting it to just be a fairly shallow advert for Sanrio but it's so. good. There are five characters and they each have a different Sanrio character that they have an attachment to and that's what ends up bringing them all together and it's adorable and good and let boys like cute stuff please it would solve a lot of the worlds problems😭

Comic Girls
Comic Girls is one of my favourites. Again I'm not sure about the technicalities of whether it's an otaku anime but they're all trying to be mangaka and we definitely go to Akihabara during the series so I'm counting it. You can be an otaku for art supplies, right?
This follows four girls that go to live at a special dorm to improve at being mangaka, they each have their own genre and they're just trying their best to be good at drawing comics and supporting each other and tbh I cried a lot. The art connection is too much for me and some of the struggles are just too relatable plus it's cute girls and that's my main weakness. I love Kaos-chan so much😭💖
I really want to read the manga but I'm pretty sure it hasn't been translated which is just sad.

If you can recommend any otaku based anime (or anything else) then I'd be happy to hear about it😊
I've started Dororo (not otaku based but very good) and am having an emotional break down trying to finish it before my trial ends. I'd normally watch something this dramatic/emotional slower but I really want to get to finish it so am just powering through😫

Brain Plant

I had a few quite bad days last week and was thinking about how you have to look after yourself all the time not just when you feel like you need to.

I feel like I'd heard it somewhere else but I'll credit Frannerd mentioning it in a video for making this metaphor stick with me. Your brain /mental well-being / creativity / motivation etc is like a plant, it needs the right amount of water and sunlight all the time to thrive, you can't wait till it's dead and then chuck a load of water on it and expect it to be at it's best.

Last week I think I reached a point where I hadn't been going out of the house, I hadn't been giving full attention to any hobby type things, I was stressed and panicked and consumed by the idea that the only way out of it was to work, sit at my desk and work, stop being lazy.

In the greater picture, yes, I need to work hard to improve my work situation but I can't work if my brain shuts down like it did last week and has done over and over and over. This isn't news, this has happened before, a lot, quite often.

Sometimes it takes time before you can make actual changes. This time might not even be that time. I don't know yet. I feel like such a broken record, on here, in my diary, talking at Will, in my head, "I see what I'm doing wrong, I'm going to change it". But I will. It just takes time and realising the things that need changing and being aware of them is an important step to making the change.

Anyway, I want to spend my life being as creative as possible and for that to be sustainable I need to feed my brain plant. It's ok to read, watch, go for a walk. In fact it's not possible to be creative if you're just stuck in your house alone not taking in anything from the outside world. And it's going to take time to fully recover from this dead plant brain because I can't just chuck a load of water on and expect it to be at it's best. I'm going to give my brain what it needs day to day rather than in random, desperate bursts and I'm going to improve my situation.

The photos are from a walk I took when I realised I was getting stuck, I knew it was going to rain and normally would use that as a reason to stay in the house but does it really matter if I get rained on? It was a good walk.

From the past week or so...

I loved packing this order and was very grateful for how many things they bought ^-^

I'm still always so amazed when someone wants to own something I made, I think I always will be. I know it's a cliche but I make art because I can't not, the fact that other people see anything of interest in it is a really sweet extra💜

I've had a tough brain week this week. So has Sharky. After our last vet visit we tried stopping giving him as much "not rat" food because he's been losing weight and the vet thought giving him extras might be stopping him from eating the rat food that has everything he needs in it. For a week or so we stopped giving him his extras and we're pretty sure he's a brat and that actually made him stop eating the rat food as some sort of protest. Yesterday I tried crushing the rat pellets into some baby food so he can have his treats like the brat he his and we know he's also getting the nutrition from the pellets. I'm pretty sure when we give him the stuff he wants, he also eats more of the pellets and this way he gets even more of the pellets because they're mixed into the treats. Such a spoiled baby lol. He's almost two and not very well though so at this point I'm happy to do anything to keep him happy.

I finally bleached my roots. This is how I section it so I don't miss any bits.

It's still just bleached now though because I can't decide how I want to colour it. I'm not too keen on it just bleached but I prefer it to the roots. I'm sure I'll just chuck some colour on there soon.

I'm still trying to paint more. This day was a bit of a bust brain-wise so I just drew flowers from a book and then painted them whatever random colours. I'm trying to not beat myself up for spending time on things that aren't sellable items. I think in reality I have enough shop stock and make things often enough, it's a bigger audience I need so I need to focus on things to share and building that just as much as I need to be coming up with new stock. It all counts.

I'm working on a weekly vlog at the minute and used these photos of a painting I did as a title card for the day and thought it'd be a cute gif. I'm conflicted with gifs, like, does there need to be something glitching about on every page shouting for your attention while you're trying to read things but also I love gifs.

And then yesterday I actually left the house for the first time all week and since some time into the last week too. This photo is actually from the garden but I went into the city with Will for the library book sale and then we went out a second time in the afternoon but that was just to the supermarket.

I always have Teleprompters by The Uncluded in my head because I really do need to get out more. I am snail under pressure. I'm working on it though ^-^