AWOL-Hello

As you’ll have noticed I have neglected my poor blog for the last few weeks. It’s been a hectic old time. It’s been my last few weeks finishing my college course which just swallowed up all my time. I’ve been helping my hub with work related issues, more on that in a later post. The same day as my college open evening was my son’s 4th birthday, and the Saturday meant his birthday party, as usual we don’t do things the easy way. Then I had a little project to do, again another post on that later and basically we’ve all been wiped out and wanted some fun family time together so we’ve been away.

Lucas on the day of his actual 4th Birthday

I’m now back and getting on with the stuff I’ve been building up to for what seems like years.

I just wanted to say hello to those few good people out there that so kindly come and check out my blog of nonsense. I also want to say Thank you to those who leave comments to let me know you are there. I really do appreciate that you keep coming back and now it’s time for me to give you something to read.

I’ve been finding my feet for some time now in many ways. Since having my son 4 years ago I sort of lost my way and lost my identity…I’m sure some of you know what I mean. My photography career took a bit of a bashing, not to say I don’t still love photography, but with most people owning a point and shoot and/or mobile phone with camera capability and most budgets being slashed I was just not getting the flow of work I was used to. It suited me to work around my newborn and then toddler but something changed in me. I lost a little confidence and direction and wondered just who I was. I started buying items for our home from thrift shops and car boots and really enjoyed the thrill of having a house which had different things in to my friends and getting a bargain to boot. I have a love of DIY and love that I can learn how to tile or change door hinges etc. A mummy friend said she was going to try and get on a local college’s interior design course and I thought I’d pop along to the open day with her. I was sold. It wasn’t the swag curtains, pelmets and cushions I thought it would be. I could learn the history of interior design and use some of my old Graphic Design skills as well as my photography. It seemed an ideal way of passing the time until my boy started school. Well that was almost 2 years ago and I just received my results this morning and I now have a certificate for a BTEC National Diploma in Art & Design (3D) Interiors with a triple distinction. Not bad considering the first month or two of the second year I didn’t attend due to delays with build work and then missed quite a bit of time near the end of the 2nd year due to my hubs business issues. I only just managed to get all the work done necessary for the end of year show.

What this course has done is help me to regain the confidence I lost after having my boy and also help me understand what it is I love about homes and furniture. We had a great tutor, called Ian, who filled me with even more of a love for Mid Century design. Now I know what I’m looking for at a car boot or in a charity shop better than I did before. I used to buy what I liked but now I buy for a different pleasure. I have been thinking about it, since last summer, opening an etsy sellers account to sell vintage wares but a few other things have happened since then so although etsy may be the starting point I have been talking to my hub about using his reception area as a sort of shop. It’ll be online but viewing of an item can be done in his work place, that’s presuming that other things go as planned.

A sneaky peak at hubs business premises interior

My final college project was re-space planning and interior designing the whole of my husband’s company premises. It seemed appropriate due to the amount of time I have been spending there lately. He likes it so much he’s considering letting me do most of it, if and when the company is bought out by us. It’s all seeming to be falling into place and this scares me a little. I’m definitely negative until proven wrong whereas some people I know…hub included are positive until proven otherwise. I don’t get that because I think you’d feel more let down that way?! Anyways I digress …so from not knowing where to go I now have many ideas running through my head. I started knitting 18 months ago and really want to do more and sewing has really hit me in the head recently. I made some little gifts for the children attending my son’ s birthday party and they went down a storm and the parents suggested I could be selling them. I also have a friend who is a crafty mum and have asked if she would be interested in joining me in this new venture so fingers crossed she’ll be on board too. All of this is to keep finances in the black whilst I help my husband keep his job and 3 staff jobs. We don’t yet know the outcome of this buying the partnership yet so this is really where I need to be for a few months.

Party Bag Monsters made by me

When college finished, the original plan was to set up a company with my friend in Interior Design, we were just working through some names and how to go about it, when it came to light that the hubs business partner was very ill again. Totally unexpected and threw us all into a tizz.

So that’s pretty much me at this moment in time. I hope this goes some way to explain my sporadic posts but I’m hoping from here that things will start to settle down. If not for us then for my boy as he starts his first year at school this coming September…my big boy: (

Thanks for reading and hope I haven’t put those few special readers off returning. x