So! Long time no post.... Whoops. So yea.... Biggest news first I suppose and then I will probably ramble as I do usually...

So for people who follow me on Instagram, you will more than likely already know. So Pete and I are officially new home owners! We are moved in and everything! 

For those of you that don't have me on Instagram, here are a few images that I have posted in the last month about our adventures and moving in. Clearly I have been so busy I haven't really had time to put up many.
So first image is Pete literally picking up the keys to our new gaff. I was proper raging, as he got out of work early and I still had to stay in until 5. He at least waited for me before going to the house. 2nd image is the first neighbor we met, very nosy! we later found out that this fluffy high member of the neighbor hood watch is called buster.
3rd is just us "Getting our ducks in a row" figuring out whats what.

I have to admit the first few weeks since moving in, I still feel as though I am house sitting. I have just decided to move all my crap here and try to invoke squatting rights. I am told this is normal though. It's all still very new and strange, I am sure a few people reading this are thinking I am mental.... cheers!

I have even been getting into gardening as we have an amazing little garden here, previous owner kindly left us all her amazing plants, we have apple and pear trees. Blueberry, blackberry, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries and  any other berry plant. Tomatoes and loads of herbs, still haven't gotten round to weeding everything..... It's still on the very large to do list.

Here's a couple of photos of our pear and apple trees. We have also had a few visitors of the four legged fluffy kind to our little garden........ And because I have nothing else to do with my time and we haven't yet been told what their names are. We have named them! so on the bottom right we have Toothless, the middle image is of Gandalf (because he's grey) and Charlie.... cause of the mustache.... yea...... and well you guys already know Valentino. He crawled in the back of our nephews pram and decided it was his new home.... Couldn't resist not putting him up. 

​So enough about my wee hoouse. Work wise, things kind of took a turn for the worst. Literally the week we were going to sign for the house, I was moved from being in house designer to dispatch... Basically the company I work for is incredibly small only 6 of us working there and basically they wanted more support for the actual printing team and basically shuffled everyone's jobs about.

From the company point of view I honestly think it was the right thing to do. It makes total sense. From my point of view, I was completely devastated.

​A lot of people thought I was being a bit over dramatic about the change. I honestly cried for days after it happened, I just felt like I could finally be one of those.....

.....Who say they love their job and everyone pretty much hates....
I was finally doing a job I enjoyed, I had free rein and I actually enjoyed going to work. I even felt like a woman scorned and seriously contemplated walking out.
​
But being an adult and suddenly having a mortgage, mind over heart won.

Not the everything is as doom and gloom as I make it sound. I have to admit though (not that I have been doing my new role long) It really isn't all that bad. I still really miss doing design, its on my mind all the time. I am still from time to time asked to do a few things for customers design wise. We even got a big new sexy machine in work. We are now able to do spot UV and foiling. 

I have even been asked to design a marketing card for the company to use, to send out and show off what we are now able to do on top of everything else. However, after today I feel like the excitement for that was short lived. Due to with my new role I don't really have to much time to do anything mind blowing. I am pretty sure my boss got too excited and ended up just stealing images off google..... 

BUT! now that we have our own place I feel that I was just practicing and getting back into the way of things with using Photoshop and Illustrator. I plan to keep it going whether I am designing on commission or just doing arty farty things for myself. I may continue down the path of wedding stationery, I am not too sure. 

Either way I don't plan to give it up and I feel that after leaving university and having a bit of a fall out with all things arty is finally over. I want to do it all the time, I want to get better at it and I want to keep exploring and practicing. Just doing loads of different things. So I am still getting my office sorted in me hoouse, but I am hoping by the end of this month I will have everything semi set up. 

Plus now that my company has this new toy, I am hoping to maybe get new business cards done. As I very cleverly, locked myself out of my arty email address.... NIIIIIIIIICCCCCCCEEE!

so yea, I finally got a few of my designs that I did design for work. Here are a few of them. Hope you like them. 

The only other piece of design I have really done lately that isn't work related was making a cheesy poster for my partner. Yesterday was our 6 year anniversary.... Scarily all grown up now and proper with having a house together. I decided to make something for the house and for him. It was a song that we were pretty into when we first met and were getting to know each other. So yea... I guess you could call it "our song". (Slightly want to throw up with all the cheesiness). Anyways here is the poster I made 

So yea... that's all from me this month, here's hoping next month is as fun packed!

So a fair bit has gone on this month. My eldest brother turned 30, which is terrifying!

So happy belated birthday again!
The rest of this month has been a bit all over the place! My work got hit by the big computer virus that hit the NHS and hit probably a good few people you may know too.

So for the past two weeks I havent been able to design due to this. At the moment I have over 30 wedding designs although at the moment only some have been put onto paper

As you can see some are clearly better than others. I will hopefully have even more to show next month, especially when I am able to get back into the swing of things.

Minus design and arty farty things. I havent really been up to much (story of my life). I have just been house hunting

This was a little guy we bumped into while waiting on the estate agent to show. Meet Neill.

So yea, I cant really think of anything else that has happened this month..... please enjoy some photos of my fuzzy furball babies

So guys, sorry to disappoint, I have pretty much......done nothing this month. I haven't really gotten around to designing anything. I have just been adjusting to my new job and chilling out really. I have gone to a few things at a local festival. Our open house festival. I saw the Foghorn string band all the way from Portland Oregon. I also went to see Punk in the Park, where some local punk bands played. I even got my face in the paper.... TWICE! 

On the Left here is the foghorn string band. (worst photo ever) It was a really good gig, a little bit of a different genera than what I would usually listen to but they were so good to see live and really chilled people. 

On the right it'a few photos from punk in the park. I went with my brother and our dogs Louis and Sophie. It was again a really good gig. the turn out was awesome and the bands were great!

And the picture that got put in my local paper.... not once.... but twice!

Other than going to the local gigs in my area I also have been doing a bit of harvesting. As well as possibly...... becoming an alcoholic 

This year the birds actually got bored with plums, so we were able to harvest them. So much so that we are making our own plum cider and plum brandy. 

Here is the cider doing it's thing! I will however be designing the labels for these when they are ready to be bottled and hopefully not killing anyone with alcohol poisoning.

I've also been celebrating 5 years with my partner. Ill save you all the lovey dovey stuff.So yea, this is pretty much what I've been doing this month, Also hoping to get back into the workshop to finish things off.

Heres some random cars and cats I made for my partner. and below and random cat that genuinely keeps breaking into his house.

.....we call him stevie.

Small summary of this month, I have a new job, new stuff in my shop, I have made more jewelry and I've just turned another year older.

So very briefly, I have started a new job, so far everything is going really well I am currently working in a local printing company and learning how everything works. The company print things from flyers, posters, cards, calendars, etc. You name it they'll probably do it.. We get a lot of wedding planner stuff come through on a daily basis as well as some estate agency stuff from all over the UK. So it's been really nice having a nosy at all the designs that come through the door. I already feel like I am learning a fair bit. I have only been there two weeks so far but yea, we'll see how it goes.

New stuff in zee shop, remember my bug designs? well i have put them on my red bubble account. Now I haven't finished with the insect designs, I have just been so busy/lazy recently with everything going on I haven't yet finished the whole insect series, but I have uploaded the ones that our finished to my shop. below is some of the items you can buy my patterns on.

you can get these printed and just about anything check out my shop by going to the store section on the menu.

Jewelry wise I haven't done as much this month as I would have liked but I have now got my own workshop at home. If you follow me on Instagram you'll already know all the fun stuff. So I have created my own workshop, I have started making things here and there and to be honest I have been doing more research and buying tools.  

First 3 images are just of my workshop it's self, the view from my window and me working away on a few things.

last three are the creatures I have been making. none of these are finished as of yet. The birds I and still trying to decide if I should solder the birds together to make a pendent or to link them together to make them three separate pendents. The 3rd image is of the rabbit being prepared for some enameling.

I also got some jewelry stuff for my birthday like engraving tools so I am going to try my best and get a bit more work done in the studio/workshop this month. I've also had a little bit of trouble with the enameling but I got some metal work books too so hopefully I'll be able to educate myself a little more.

​Talking of birthday...

Here is an embarrassing photo of me cutting my birthday cake. I have to admit I am also very much into the new Pokemon Go game, so much so that I have renamed my caterpillar cake, caterpie. Here are a few photos of some of my gifts: (thought I had more photos)

4 colouring in books, which to be honest I have been using and it's actually great fun! I also just gave my partner a list of just some stuff I wanted. He liked one of the T-shirts I asked for so much that he bought one for himself.... so I guess we now have to make a schedule on what days we can wear them so we don't clash. I also got some homemade elder-flower champagne which you can see in the above image of me cutting my cake. I ended just doing a Pokemon Go pub crawl in Belfast. it was..... interesting LOL anyways... I think that's everything I have gotten up to this month.