Happy.

As cheesy as it sounds, and despite how appallingly cringey the earlier posts on this blog are, I am quite pleased to have kept this going. It has been really useful both to refer back to and as a general visual outlet. I was reading a well-known blogger's blog the other day and she was talking about how it will be a nice thing to look back on when she's older and maybe even able to share it with her kids. I think that's kind of a nice thought, and I'm already quite glad to share this now too.

This week my view count has picked up and I actually feel as though I'm talking to someone, hello!
So I thought I would share with you that I'm feeling positive and happy, particularly as I've mainly been feeling unmotivated and sluggish previously.

Here are some things that have made me happy this week.

I might actually have got to grips with driving, and I'm more excited than scared about three-point-turns and reverse parking.

I'm actually able to write on here and update it with apparently readable content.

I now have motivation to start applying for things properly again.

I'm going to Portsmouth tomorrow.

The sun is shining!

My favourite American shows are back, with just The Walking Dead left to wait for.

(via Sophie Spils)

(via Keep Calm Arsenal)

(via 8:Swim)

(via Passion for the Music)

(via Models Own)

(via Verbal Vomit)

One thing that made me angry this week:
My favourite band is The Maccabees and I was unable to get tickets for their upcoming October/November tour because they were selling exclusively out of record stores who declined telephone orders, meaning you had to get the tickets in person. Rough Trade sold out by the end of Saturday.
This sales structure was based upon keeping booking fees down and keeping the shows more local, despite the fact that most ticket sales still involved a booking fee. It was a nice idea but now I am left without a ticket, I'm having Maccabees withdrawal symptoms and I need to hear some new songs, they're so good live and always have really fun support acts. I am hopeful that they will have another, larger tour once their new album is released in the New Year. This just bugged me because I've not seen them live for a long time and haven't heard any new material in a long time and now I have to wait even longer.

Keep Calm and Arrive Late to the Party.

After coming across what is now my latest desktop wallpaper via Hello You Creatives, I became inspired to write a post about the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' brand which has been growing in popularity for two or three years. I became aware of 'Keep Calm and Carry On' after The One Show featured a story on Barter Books.

Barter Books, a second-hand book shop in Northumberland, discovered a copy of the poster in 2000 and due the image being in the public domain, subsequently reprinted the poster for customers, a trend later transferred carried out by others, mugs bags and clothes soon followed. The popularity of the phrase has been linked to a sense of nostalgia for stereotypical 'British-ness' and the ability to keep going, particularly in the times of trouble from which this 'motivational' poster originates. The phrase has also been transferred back onto recent times of hardship in Britain regarding the current recession.


The design was initially printed by the Ministry of Information in 1939 as part of a series of posters sending the message of King George VI to his people that all capable measures were being taken to defend the country. Only a few of these posters actually made it onto walls and the prints remained largely unseen by the general public until it's discovery at Barter Books. The origins of this iconic expression and it's designer are unknown.

With the popularisation of 'Keep Calm and Carry On' not only came a stream of homewares and clothing but also a seemingly endless amount of phrases playing parody to the original. I for one enjoy the phrase as a simple framed poster, but it has to be said that the Etsy shop, Keep Calm Arsenal really have outdone themselves with their wide range of Keep Calm parody prints.


I can't wait to do some proper nesting and have my very own Keep Calm Arsenal print as part of my interior landscape. Here are some of my favourite related Keep Calm and Carry On images that I found while researching for this post (yes I researched it, I used Wikipedia and everything, just because I'm allowed to now).

(via Google)

(via Matt Jones)

(via IamTh3q)

BBC - Who owns 'Keep Calm and Carry On'?

A wide range of Keep Calm and Carry On merchandise is available from numerous different sources. I would recommend 'Googling' it but I found that Etsy comes out on top, particularly for un-cheesy original parody designs.
Keep Calm and Carry On Shop
Keep Calm and Carry On at Heal's
Keep Calm and Carry On at Etsy

POW! Leopard!

Here is what my nails look like today:


Sophie's Pink, Models Own
Peach Puff, Models Own
Tangerine Queen, Models Own
Models Own/WAH Nail Art Pen, Black
Models Own/WAH Nail Art Pen, White
Can we please take a moment to appreciate the ambidexterity demonstrated on my right thumb, I was pretty chuffed. Obviously basically all I do is follow what WAH Nails do as my nail inspiration (I really like their word trend at the moment), but it's not as difficult as it looks and doesn't even take much practise. I'd stay away from stripes until you're really concentrating though, I think that it's the most frustrating design to do if you get it wrong because it's difficult to hide.

Speaking of nail art!
Models Own released an image today of their new line of polishes, the Beetlejuice collection. Beautiful holographic polishes that will be great for Autumn. I'm pleased because Models Own is easily my favourite brand and with these they're now able to keep up with Nail's Inc and 17, who have brought out 3D and magnetised polish respectively. I'm not sure which one I'll get yet but Pinky Brown is seeming mighty tempting as is Aqua Violet, which ever one I choose I am placing high hopes on any being better than the incredible let-down that was GOSH's Purple Heart.

The Beetlejuice Collection:
L-R: Golden Green, Pinky Brown, Purple Blue, Aqua Blue and Emerald Black
These colour changing nail varnishes will be available exclusively from the Models Own website from early November.

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Models Own website

And it's Wednesday, how?

It's funny how a sudden burst of things to do can really get you motivated and make the week fly by - and that's including the two-hour nap I squeezed in yesterday afternoon. It helps today that the sun is out, I always find that if I have things to do, I'm much more likely to do them when it's warm and bright.

I've been full to the brim with idea of how to create more structure within my blog as well as perhaps trying to write both a bit better and about more specific things in one post, rather than ten different things all together.

Yesterday, I had the first face-to-face interview that I've had in ages, probably since the middle of August. I'd like to tell you that it went really well but I really can't ever tell. Interviews are a nightmare; you never know if the person interviewing you has a lot of experience in interviewing (because it is a skill) or even if the person interviewing knows what their looking for. And when they ask you to ask them questions, if you've read up on them and it's self-explanatory you won't need to know anything so you're caught because asking a question can show both lack of interest and lack of knowledge at the same time, even when neither is the case. It seems like a good position though and it's only for three months, plus it's paid, which has been incredibly hard to come by. I'd quite like it, mainly because it will give me something to do and I can tell people what I've been doing and they might actually be interested and not go off into a monologue about how tough the job market is.

This is what I wore to the interview, don't think it's my best, that blazer definitely looks much better with dresses, but that's just my opinion.

What I Wore, 27/09/2011.
Blazer: eBay
Shirt: Dorothy Perkins
Trousers: Primark
Shoes: Primark
If you remember that flyer that I posted last week, I actually got around to putting some up in New Malden today. Not sure how much will come from it, I only targeted the leisure centre and a community centre, but you never know. There's also one up in the window of Noodle Express.


I have a nightclub photography job in the works too - see how I've been keeping the ball rolling this week? - so I've got to get on buying some insurance once the confirmed event dates come through, it will mainly be covering University nights out so things could get sticky, literally.

While I'm here, here are some photos from my phone this week, mainly in and around train stations. Apparently a mysterious 'El Barto' has hit New Malden, who would have thought it?

My interview was in Southwark yesterday and I kind of love that area, particularly the station but some of the café's and shops are quite neat. The office was also in very close proximity to the Tate Modern, somewhere that the pretentious artist in me feels I should visit more often.

Recipe: Oreo Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I suppose I'm somewhat trying to create a bit more structure to my blog and have less really long posts about several different things.

Here is another thing I did at the weekend which I mentioned in my previous post. Moon and I baked cookies!
I know it's actually quite bad of me to bake these kind of things but every now and then isn't going to do anything except make me happy with a full tum.

Tumblr is a source of all kinds of wonderful baked good and these cookies are no exception. Moon posted the link on his Tumblr and that was it settled, we were baking these when I got down to his! The original recipe can be found at How Sweet It Is and we basically followed the recipe exactly, it's just ours look a bit different, and we changed a few things to adapt to our basic British baking knowledge. They were delicious though so I thought I would share the recipe with you, with pictures!

I recommend once baked that you enjoy with a glass of milk, which is exactly how Jessica over at How Sweet It is feels, you can't have anything Oreo without milk.

We followed with American measurements because I have measuring cups and vaguely know the quantity from sight but to get a conversion to weight follow this link.

Makes around 15-20 medium to large sized cookies
Ingredients
1 cup of butter
1 ½ cups of sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups of plain flour
½ cup of cocoa powder (we had ¼ cup of cocoa powder, ¼ cup of Lion milkshake mix)
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 cup of chocolate chips (they didn't have any at Tesco so we put in chunks of milk chocolate)
1 cup of Oreo cookies (we used a whole packet, -2)

Instructions:
1. Cream butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until fluffy.
2. Add flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt and mix until combined.
3. Crush your oreos.
4. Fold in chocolate and crushed Oreos.

5. Add dough to cling film, compact and roll up.


Thankfully this isn't what he usually looks like.6. Refrigerate dough for 2-4 hours (or even overnight).
7. When ready to bake, pre-heat oven to 300 or Gas 6 and cut through your cookie dough roll and place dough onto greased up baking tray (foil/baking paper will also work).

8. Bake for 12-15 minutes then remove from oven and allow to cool.

Once cooled, enjoy!

It may look like a brownie but they easily taste better than any supermarket cookie, delicious.

Another weekend post.

Because at the moment I've been spending nearly every weekday applying for jobs and trying to keep myself busy, I very rarely feel that I should be allowing myself time to get out there and take photographs. It's kind of a sad opening sentence, but I believe it to be very true anyway. It does feel quite silly to tell people I'm not really looking for 'photography things' anymore and I can tell people think it's unimpressive that I still don't even have a normal job so it's no wonder that I'm really finding the whole job hunting experience both depressing and repressive, not to mention pretty stressful.

I have been seeing the weekends as my down time (as though I was a normal person who has a job), no one replies to application emails at weekends anyway. So, I took this weekend to spend some time with Moon in Beare Green. He is feeling equally downtrodden about being lacking in the job department, but he has the added pressure of a dissertation still to do! I got round to finishing 'New Life Stories', the David Attenborough book that Moon bought me for my birthday, I even brought my scrapbook thinking that Moon would have his face in his laptop. It turned out to be quite a good weekend though, we met up with some friends at the pub, had a nose around Crawley and went to a carboot. We also baked the most amazing cookies!

It was just really nice and I enjoyed myself, after probably one of the most boring/frustrating weeks so far, it really does suck not living with each other anymore.

Here are some photos both from last week which don't really fit anywhere else and some photos from the weekend, which is what this post is meant to be about.

This is my Job Seekers booklet, I hate how meticulous it is and basically everything it stands for. I thought I would share it with you in this post because I was unsure when I would have the chance to do so again. I signed on again today, but due to being early (which is meant to be good), it was another wasted appointment, so that was good...

From a passage in 'New Life Stories', it brought a smile to my face.

On the way back from Crawley we passed the road leading up to my old house. We did a creepy thing and drove up it so I could show Moon where I used to live. It was probably the best place I've ever lived and where I remember being happiest in my childhood. There are so many surrounding fields and it's beautiful - I lived in the house on the left, the one of the right used to be a manor house but is now posh flats. It was nice to see that nothing had really changed much.

This is the carboot that Moon took me to on Sunday, it really was great. I think it will be really useful when it comes to furnishing our first place together because everything was so cheap!

There was a lot of character there, which is why I got my camera out, obviously not because I generally love carboot sales. It was nice to document the area, even if I only had my 35mm lens on me.

I thought this black cab being there was quite intriguing, doesn't Stephen Fry drive one of these?

We didn't walk away empty handed either! We stumbled across a pitch that was selling some really cute Scooby Doo and Simpsons glasses that had been collected with Nutella. They were only 30p so we got three of each, you know, just for our someday home.


I think I enjoyed the carboot best, I also think that if I hadn't have been so ridiculously hungry (I don't even know), I would have enjoyed it more. I was also in a hurry because I wanted to have a quick chat with my Gran before I left back for New Malden. I think when I go next time I will try and be in less of a rush.

I've got a face-to-face interview tomorrow, first one I've had in a while, I hope it goes better than the telephone interview I had last week, I didn't get that job because they wanted someone who knew less...

Favourite recent links

Kaylah from The Dainty Squid posted a DIY Stawberry Nails tutorial, which I'll definitely be trying out when I get bored of my current manicure.

Gem Fatales London Fashion Week Vlogs are nice.

Signed up to Hello You Creatives by accident after a mistake while taking referrals from a graduate recruitment agency, but they actually post some really good stuff both on Tumblr and their Facebook. They also have Twitter, it's more fun and less serious but they do have a few opportunities available for creative people if you really look.