Project Wednesday ~Gardening Round Two

I thought for this Project Wednesday I'd let you see the progress in one of the longer term projects- the garden x3

Since Dad's been back quite a lot has changed, both front and back. I've given over the reins a lot as the weather hasn't been nice enough for me to get out (I like it HOT or at least not windy and likely to rain every 5 minutes...) and he has been keen to crack on. Where I'd left bare patches of dirt out the front, Dad has actually got around to putting some bedding plants in, so it should be pretty floral around here once summer actually arrives ;p

Out the back the greenhouse is looking a lot more empty but what lives in there is doing really well! These little tomatoes were ones I bought on special for about a pound for 4 and look at them now! On the other side the plants in the growbag aren't growing quite as fast as I would like, but patience...it's still early yet! I swear this little courgette hasn't been trying at all though...

I got super keen just before Dad got back and bought a polytunnel so I could try and get some vines growing strong before autumn, so there are three plants in there- a courgette, squash and cucumber. The cucumber was the only one I didn't start from seed and although it seemed to love its new home at first, just lately it hasn't seemed very happy. I'm not quite sure what its deal is. The problem with gardening is so many different things can affect plants x.X I'm keeping an eye on it anyway and hoping for the best.

The onions I planted only a month ago are getting on now, happily getting some greenery going and hopfully putting some effort into getting bigger bulbs! The brown onions I planted a few weeks before them are also doing well, I'm not sure if you can tell, but they are definately bigger than the white onions planted a few weeks later!

And last time I was telling you about the garden I was trying another project, something I'd seen in vague form on pinterest; stacking pots x3 Well, here is the finished item, and so far I think it is a pin success! I hope to see the little trailing plants get bigger over the summer and trail down, covering the faded pot a bit XD At least the snapdragons have got some flowers and height, I think it should turn out pretty well overall!
Are you tending a garden? Have you been having any problems with wilt this year? I'm hoping that maybe I just got a little over keen on the watering than something more serious :x I'll let you know anyway :]



Keep up to date with my latest posts by following me! :)
Bloglovin - Twitter - Instagram - Pinterest - Youtube

Sunday Catch Up

I thought this week I had actually do a weekly catch-up, since that is supposed to be what Sundays are for around here XD I keep finding excuses to skive off and write about something else, when I've got every other day of the week for that ;p

So, last Monday I had some time to myself and set about with my Thai smashbook, I keep saying I'm really close to finishing, and I am! But the problem is I'm a massive procrastinator and keep putting it off to do other things. This works with pretty much all my crafts...applications...life. Ahem yeah. I'm pretty good at it! Anyway, I completed the page before this one then got onto this page, which I didn't get time to complete before I went to work. Tuesday was supposed to be a normal shift but I ended up doing a night shift too when a porter rang in sick, I intended to get loads of things done in the extra time I was going to be awake (during my breaks anyway ;p) and actually managed to do a couple too. Not bad for a 16 hour shift. I'll get to write a little more about that later though, as I want to make more of a post about it.
So Wednesday I ended up sleeping a lot, and when I did wake up I went out with Dad plant hunting XD There were a few spots in the front garden that needed a filling. I've not really been in the garden much since Dad came back, part of me feels like I've turned the garden over to him now but a major part of it is that I just haven't had the want as the weather is not very nice recently. I know it's 'wrong' but I really am a fair weather gardener :x

When I got to work I was pretty tired from the night before, but I got help to set up and then got to spend an hour or so watching an advert being made for our hotel! Our staff were the actors which is kind of strange, but not too unexpected when I think about it (cheaper to use staff XD) and everyone got overly embarrassed but seemed to be proud of their work once it was all over. I can't wait to watch the ad on our website when it's released! I got out of doing being in front of the camera because my I don't suit the company standards, even though they apparently value individuality as one of their core principles. If it didn't get me out of something I didn't want to do I'd probably be more annoyed about it XD

Thursday was my long awaited day off- after 8 days on I was more than ready for a day to do what I wanted x3 I'd had a ton of invites from friends of stuff to do and I ended up going over to Wolverhampton to visit a friend who works in a college over there. She also takes a photography course and runs a blog about her start up business, Lachaise Photography. She'd arranged for us to go check out the college darkroom and develop a film! We went for a wander up town first, looking for one thing but coming away with another as ever ;p
When we went up to the college I learnt about the different chemicals and the general process it requires to develop a film into black and white manually. Although I could imagine it would be a pain if this was the only way to develop a film, as someone who is so used to the digital age there is definitely something super cool about 'making pictures' x3 We didn't get time to print any onto paper, but we did check out the results of what we'd done with the help of some bright lights and a free negative reversal app xD It kind of made my appreciate the effort that goes into film developing and why it's so pricey in an age where it's not really needed anymore, even if it is mostly done by machine anyway.

Friday it was back to work, so after a couple of hours at home where I still felt like I was catching up on the sleep I missed out on on Tuesday, I went in to a fairly quiet shift. Face was busy all day though, making a wedding cake for his Mum's Wedding blessing the day after. I took a few progress pictures in case his Mum wanted them, as that's the kind of over infomation share I enjoy about big events XD He's never made a big iced cake before, so this brought a whole bunch of all new challenges, but he had big ideas and was determined to carry them off, and I think he really managed to pull it off...

So Saturday was Face's Mum and Step Dad's wedding blessing. They have been married 8 years now and with this and that going on in their lives, felt it was time! Face and I started early with last-minute preparations, even though the blessing wasn't until the late afternoon. After running here and there all morning we went round to his Mum's place and got all dressed up- trust me, it's not often you'll get me into a dress! Face's sister did my hair, and did an awesome job with it. The shame of not being very feminine-ly minded is that I don't get much chance to see my hair looking cool XD I really liked these curls!
Anyway, the blessing itself was beautiful, barely a dry eye in the house as the vows were being said, everyone feels for this lovely couple! Then we went on to spend the evening at the reception, eating, drinking and chatting to everyone. Although I'm not social I can enjoy the feeling of being around those who are and just absorb the atmosphere :]
Today has been less eventful as I just wasn't feeling it. I tried doing this and that but nothing was striking me so I ended up wasting my time before I went to work, which was crazy dead. So a little cleaning was in order and after a small productivity stint I felt better XD
So that was my week! How was yours? Did you wear your maybe-once-a-year dress? ;p
Catch you soon,



Keep up to date with my latest posts by following me! :)
Bloglovin - Twitter - Instagram - Pinterest - Youtube

Project Wednesday ~Thai Smash Page

This week has been so busy! But the other day I managed to sit down with my Thai smashbook and get on with a couple of pages. I've actually done a bunch of pages after the other week when I said I would do this as my next concentrated project, but I don't want to start getting into detail on these pages when I'm still going page-by-page on my LaDeDah journal :] But I remembered I said I'd show you my progress on this book and I haven't really done that so far, so that's what I thought I'd do today.
So, the first picture there is showing what I've started with- a table full of washi tape, adhesives and other odds and ends! I always find it best to scatter these things around myself before I work as I don't like getting up to get extras when I'm trying to concentrate. I've also got my phone nearby usually, just for a little music so I'm not working in silence. I was in the mood for the Steven Universe soundtrack! x] Youtube can be terribly distracting though so if I find I'm starting to watch it I'll just switch over to the music folder and play that on low instead.

So, first thing to do with all that gathered staff is to try and figure out what looks good! I shuffled the photos around, placing them and replacing them and as you can see after a couple of shuffles I added in some extras to see what they were bringing to the page and its layout. By the third photo I basically knew where it was going and although I liked a couple of the other arrangements too, similar ones were on pages beforehand and I don't like the repetitiveness so soon. But that's okay! Just pushes me to attempt to be more creative ;p

Once everything is placed about where I want it I take a photo on my phone, this is because I very often layer stuff over other things and as I'm gluing things down it all gets misplaced and my memory isn't good enough to remember where I wanted it all to begin with...so this is an easy solution anyway ;p So my phone is off to the side as I start to put double sided sticky tape on the backs of everything, starting with things that are 'lowest' on the page. I prefer double sided tape as it is solid once it goes on- but it isn't very forgiving if you accidentally place a corner on the page while sorting out it's place!

There was a bit of a last minute change here as I refound a stirrer from a drink in one of the photos, and it was obviously more important to be placed on the page than the little sentiment I'd found to be there! So the sentiment got placed further down the page, as I still felt it was pretty appropriate xp Once everything was glued into place I added a few things on to try and bring the page to life a little- touchings of washi tape and a clip xp I do like decorating the pages with these things but I don't want them to take over the point of the page.

So this is the finished article- took about 45 minutes total (mostly cause I'm slow) and I think it's not turned out too badly x3 Do you use a smashbook? Are you methodical like me or do you not mind 'smashing it in' as the tagline suggests?



Keep up to date with my latest posts by following me! :)
Bloglovin - Twitter - Instagram - Pinterest - Youtube

Sunday Catch Up ~Wales and Home

So, this week! It was a good one (mostly cause I wasn't at work for much of it ;p) and you know about most of it from my post the other day, so this is mostly just a few more pics of my time away!

We went to the seaside and I got a little caught up in taking pics of the beach shops laden with cute colourful buckets & spades!

The weather was bad, but as we were sat in a glass fronted cafe eating ice cream, it cleared enough to show off this lovely rainbow over the choppy sea x3

The Haven complex we were staying in had loads of cool little wood carvings about the place, I really liked this set, very Welsh!

Back at home I got straight out into the garden and got 'building' with all the flowers I bought a week or so ago. This basket needs somewhere better to hang than the greenhouse but I haven't found the place for it yet! Maybe Dad will help when he gets back by drilling some holes in a wall somewhere so I can place a bracket XD

I was also pleased to find stuff had been doing well without me about and I've got some pea shoots showing and the dirt is moving on some of the runner beans too. I'm hopefully going to have a ton of peas this year x3
Today I plan to go find a cloche or polytunnel so I can plant my squash and courgette outside, so I'm going to get going now, hope you have a great Sunday!



Keep up to date with my latest posts by following me! :)
Bloglovin - Twitter - Instagram - Pinterest - Youtube

Project Wednesday ~Dossing in the Garden

Well, usually my projects are little more paper based than this weeks, but it's nice to have a change, right?
I had a long weekend this week thanks to my bosses rotaing so I took full advantage to spend most of it in the garden! The weather was supposed to be terrible but it actually turned out pretty good, I even got to see the sun a fair bit! I admit it's getting chillier, but it's not enough to stop me at the moment (if it gets much colder it will though, I'm terrible for avoiding the outdoors!).

I was given some tiny little seed pots that were going to be thrown away so I dived straight in with filling them with compost and now they all have peas or beans in them XD Some other peas that I started off about 3 weeks ago were starting to outgrow their seed tray and although I'd planned for them to be planted out by Dad they were just getting too root-y so they got planted outside, and the seed tray is already being used for broad beans! I still have two more sets of peas to germinate so I'm sure Dad will still have something to do :]

It's not all been legumes though and I've also been paying some attention to the front garden where I hope to plant some flowers for colour. I don't trust vegetables to stay out the front, although the general consensus of the neighbours appears to be that if it comes from the ground its poisonous! Later on in the year I'll probably end up putting some peas out along the fence line though as they've done pretty well there for the last couple of years. (I think people think they are boring sweet peas xp) I'm trying to make a bit of a feature in the front garden with some plant pots as the middle piece is getting so boring to me! The cherry tree is offset from the middle and not big enough yet to draw much attention, so I'm hoping to get this pot set to have lots of nice blooms and some trailing plants down the side. I've never attempted anything like this before so fingers crossed!

Out the back garden I've got two lots of onions in, they like the sunshine so I've tried to get them in prominent spots, and because I don't usually have a lot of luck with getting them to grow as big as I'd like I've done a little research this year and put a whole bunch of compost and slow release plant food in before planting them :] I'm hoping that'll give them a head start while I concentrate on watering to try and get them chunky XD

And of course with all this I feel the need to bring a little paper organisation in somewhere so I created this chart to keep track of everything as it's planted and grows. I'm really looking forward to filling it in, but I feel theres more I could do with a more garden-focussed journal, but I'm not really sure where to start, or how to go about it. Even Pinterest isn't bringing much up for me!
Do you have any ideas, or have you done any garden themed journals or crafts before? I'd love to hear about them!
Catch you soon,

Keep up to date with my latest posts by following me! :)
Bloglovin - Twitter - Instagram - Pinterest

Sunday Catch-up ~Busier than I thought!

Here we are again, back at Sunday! It's been a more eventful week than I hoped at the beginning as one of my coworkers swapped shifts with me so I didn't have to do all 12 starts, which although I lost out on a little money, was way better for my mentality xp I did miss a lot of the good weather by having to be at work, but at least I got to enjoy a little of it, including this great sunset on Thursday, which I nipped out the back gates at work to take a picture of in the middle of service!

Thursday daytime I had a good day trekking around the shops and found a fair bit that I wanted to buy- luckily I'd only taken so much money with me, perhaps something I need to do more often ;p

It did mean on Friday I'd got all that out my system and I got a little time to focus on the garden, dragging planters about an putting in some new things, I still have a lot to do but I'm pleased with how it's all doing so far :] I'll save you from any pics of dirt this week though xp

On Friday I went out with Face to a factory shop nearby where they sell surplus of all the products they make. They sell a load of brand name foods so cheap it's totally worth the trip out to see what you can find x3 This time we found a massive tub of caramel flavour frappe mix! So guess what we did when we got home? They were really good too! I was surprised at how easy it came together with just a little bit of mix.

Yesterday was a super busy day for me, my first day off in over a week and I was ready for it! I dyed my hair in the morning (though the less we speak of that at the moment the better) and then went to get a new tattoo from the girl who does Face's. It was a good afternoon of scratchy pain an i think well worth it! Excuse the picture, I promise you none of it's blood!

In the evening i went to see my friend Sami in Wolverhampton and we went out to Isosushi, which as recently opened up x3 We ate a little too much but it was well worth it! If I had a shop like this near where I live I would be poor with the amount of sticky rice I could buy on demand *.* Maybe one day... After we went back to her house for some Matcha latte and a look around the garden in the dark x3
Today I was waiting for the weather to warm up a little and I'm off to go have a play in the garden again x3 Did you have a good week? Let me know! I'll catch you soon!



Keep up to date with my latest posts by following me! :3
Bloglovin - Twitter - Instagram - Pinterest

Project Wednesday #6- Completed Banksy Diary

Hey, if you were here on Sunday, you may remember that I was thinking about writing about my Thai Smashbook today. Well, I admit, I changed my mind XD Instead, I've decided to write about another ongoing project that has another stage complete: my diary/journal:


Like I said the other day, I've not been consistently writing a diary for a while before this, until about November when I decided to start it back up, give it another go and all that xp
Usually my diaries are full of all sorts of cut-outs and doodles and what not but as this one was just an aim to get back into the swing of things, I thought I would leave it simple and just put stuff in if I really felt like it, rather than feeling I was forced to find something to decorate a page. Because of that, it doesn't make for the most interesting flick though, but those interested in journal-keeping might like the peak into another's book x3
I've moved on now to one of the ones I previewed in my last post on journals- the pink UK ferris wheel book :] I'll let you know how it goes, in fact, I may just go write in it now while I enjoy the sunshine :]
Catch you soon,

Project Wednesday #5 ~La De Dah Smashbook

The weather has been really lovely this week so far, except for Monday, my first day off this week. I took that as an opportunity to get very invested in one of my Smashbooks, so while smashbooks are in mind, for today I thought it was time to come back around to my La-de-Dah book, and show a few more pages from it :]
So, this first set of pages is kinda just one page but I put in an extra page using the front cover of a magazine, then covered the back with pics from inside :] I went to see the Libertines in Hyde Park, London, and I was so excited! They are my favourite band easily and to see them back together again was just overwhelming. This page is a mix of stuff I collected from the BST festival, magazines and even a patch I had lying around x3

This next set of pages is one of my favourites in the whole book! I did a 100 Happy Days challenge with my sister, and and once I was done I got all these tiny pics printed out and spend ages cutting them to size to do this page! The page wasn't big enough for all the pictures though so I put in another 'expansion' page to fit even more pics in. I actually wanted to be able to lift the pics with a washi hinge originally but I couldn't think of a way to do that that wouldn't make the page look messy. So there isn't much writing on this one, just a keep it simple page :]

When I was at work one day I came up with this super awesome idea for a business and spent the next two days or so finalising all the details XD Once I knew exactly how it would all work and what would be included I thought I would make it a page in my smashbook XD I'm not one for making my own businesses so it'll never go further than this page, but it was fun to think about it x3 The right hand page is more of a daydream wish for when I move out.

This is a simple page for my birthday. This page started out being the page after the christmas page but after adding an expansion pack it made it's way more towards the middle of the book! I really think I could've done more with this page, but I didn't seem to have enough little things to stick in to liven it up.

I'll leave you with this one for now. In January our town hosts the first big tattoo convention of the year, Tattoo Freeze. I'd been before but not for a couple of years so I thought it was time to check it out again! I ended up getting a tattoo too, the sparrow in the corner (which by September I had re-worked to look a lot better ;x) but I had a good day and collected a bunch of stuff that needed sticking somewhere ;p
I really enjoy smashbooking, but as with most of the crafts I choose to do, I am not quick at it. These pages all took me quite a while to put together and although some came out better than others I'm pleased with it overall. Give it a few more weeks and maybe I'll put some more up from this La-De-Dah smashbook :]