Why Don't You Do Photography?

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With a new job comes the obvious questions – where will you be working? who's it for? what's it doing?

I find it a little difficult having done a creative degree that I still have to justify myself despite a few years working real, grown up jobs now.

My last job was in online retail and I used pretty much every skill I had going, including those learnt on my degree - there was a bit of studio and lifestyle photography involved - and that's great, jobs like that are hard to come by. With that being said, it doesn't mean there won't be a time to move on.
It was time to move on, the future of the company wasn't heading in a direction I wanted to join them in so I grabbed what I could at the time.

My new role as a 'Digital Marketing Executive' will hopefully help me add to the Marketing skill set that I want to build upon, while still allowing me to pursue the design aspects I was furthering in my old role. There probably won't be any Photography involved whatsoever, and I'm okay with that.

I guess when I left University I had idealistic views of freelancing or picture researching, then I also wanted to move out... I didn't really have the confidence to do those things back then and I'm probably much better now but at the moment, Photography is my way to de-stress and unwind.

Obviously I'll never say never and Photography is always going to be important to me, but my degree taught me so much more than how to take pretty pictures. Maybe, now realising at 25 that I'm more interested in Creative Marketing and Social Media makes me wonder whether it was the right degree to do but I will always maintain that 18 year olds don't know anything and certainly don't think about seven years down the line. It was right for me at the time and a degree is not a be all and end all of anything.

I think my 'career' has just ended up where it is by chance and while I hope I'll always be able to stay creative, I still feel kind of weird about justifying myself while making this new transition. Truthfully, if someone said I could take photographs of my cat all day, I'd jump at the chance but I can't see that being a readily available opportunity. Right now I'm genuinely just all good with 'doing me' and going wherever the next couple of years takes me. I want a mortgage and that grown up stuff, you know?

Tuesday Tabs #28

Howdy, I hope you're having as an amazing Tuesday as I am. It's been a year and almost a full month since I graduated and I've struggled and muddled my way through life ever since, with semi-exploitative but invaluable internships to my current, confidence-boosting not-what-I-want-to-be-doing-but-will-do-for-now minimum wage job. All that aside, I've grown as a person and am stronger than I've ever been, not that I have to worry about any of that now, because I finally have a really grown-up job!

It was coming to the point where I was on the verge of tears at the beginning of every other shift and I just didn't know what I was doing or where I wanted my life to go. Now I have an escape route and I can see the end, I'm going to be an 'Online Merchandiser' for a company in Reading. Not 100% on discretion right now, but I'll tell you this, I'm bloody excited. I had the interview and was rung while still on the way home, I actually hung up on the MD thanks to my silly touchscreen phone, but this is the best news I've had all year. Pizza tonight to celebrate!

Back to business, here are my favourite things from around the Internet this week. I was going to try and tie this into a 'birthday wishlist' kind of dealio as it's only 9 days until I'm the grand old age of 23, but there's too much going on and I never really know what I want anyway.

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(via It's Nice That)

Michael Cho's comic-inspired artwork is awesome, I wish he did prints. His other art is pretty cool too, you can check out his Blogspot here.


Wire House Envelope Rack, Invotis Orange
Kind of hard to resist now these are on Fab.com with £4.50 off. I've been searching for the perfect envelope rack for a while as Moon just plonks his post everywhere and I'm almost just as bad, this would look so cute on our kitchen counter.


Beach High Waist Skirt, Love Ur Look
How cute is this skirt? Now I have an little excuse for a slight wardrobe expansion, I'm tempted. Love the simple waist detail!


Anorak Twin Rabbit Duvet Cover, Urban Outfitters
I wish Urban Outfitters weren't so stingey with their bed linen, I can't work out if this comes with pillow slips, as well as not having the cash, but this is one of my favourite patterns and I'd be all over it if the description wasn't so vague and if I was a single duvet kind of girl.


Turquoise Brimfield Bookcase, Urban Outfitters
Urban Outfitters announced their furniture range last week, and you should know by now I'm smitten for pretty interiors and these came as I'm looking for something in this kind of area. It's a little big for the flat but we are in need of more storage, I wish this came half the size, the colour is so nice.


Nearly forgot how good Tom The Lion is.


Paper Dress Necklaces, Hug A Porcupine via The Little Dröm Store
So adorable! I like the blue one best. ♥


Marathon La Sardina, Fototo
I've been using Charlotte's La Sardina for a couple of days and although I'm still making a decision, this is definitely the La Sardina I would want should I decide to get one. The images will definitely be the deciding factor but I'm not even halfway through my first roll yet.

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Link Love: ♥

Summer on Film on The Dainty Squid — Summer is always the perfect time to get back into film, I think I'll be taking 35mm to Reading to spare getting robbed. The quality of these images is great too, I definitely want to spend some more time working with film even more after seeing this.

White Layer Cake with Lemon Curd — This will be great for making those multi-coloured 'Pinterest/Tumblr' cakes, thanks to Wrapped Up In Rainbows for sharing.

Dinosaur Bunting from Sass & Belle — Super cute!

Home Sketchbook — This post from Goodnight Little Spoon on the sketchbook about her home she made for a class is really neat. An idea I might be stealing to fill up my own sketchbook, I need a little boost.

Eames Pens & Pencils Mug from Urban Outfitters — I already have so many mugs, but I keep seeing so many pretty ones around. I might start coyly smashing the ones we already have just to pick up beauts like this one.

The Pronunciation Manual — Hours of procrastinating fun to be had.

I'm in the corner.

(via GIRLS Caps)

So, yesterday... I got a job! I am feeling a little less Hannah Horvath than I was the day before yesterday. This now means I can worry less about where my rent money is going to come from and that I won't be stuck in the flat on my own all day. I'm hoping that the hours aren't too bad as I would still like to get to see Moon on the odd occasion, but I'm sure everything will be easy enough to arrange and for now I'm just happy that I've got a job. I'm playing it up like it's something amazing, but really it's just a customer service assistant role with Vue. So I'm still an undiscovered genius, but now I have less money worries, plus I love the cinema and will now get free tickets for myself and everyone so it's pretty sweet. Tomorrow's my induction day so I guess that's when I'll be finding out more, it seems like it's time for another CV update.
As we're on the subject of job hunting, two additional things happened to me yesterday. The first was receiving the bluntest, rudest rejection email I have had throughout the whole time I've been applying for jobs, claiming my CV was too 'Photography-biased' and that maybe if I tried harder, I might have had a shot, yeah okay. The second was a lovely telephone call from Grace at Give A Grad A Go who provided me with a great morale boost regarding my experience and CV, just before I got the offer to start with Vue tomorrow. Maybe the former was just having a bad day, but I thought it was important to mention GAGAG as I've seen them floating about since graduating and I think they need commending on their stellar advice, service and overall polite manner.

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I'll stop rabbiting on now and get the the real point of this post and that was to tell you that I might have gone and broken my clothes-fast after just under a month. Not a bad effort really, and in my defence, two of the items I bought were in the kids section and therefore super-cheap! You know what though, I might even pop out later and break the fast even more, although this time it's much more reasonable - I need dark, smart things of which I have none; smart, yes, dark, yes, but not the two combined.

Multi-way handbag, £12.49 eBay
I blogged about a similar bag last month and although I ordered it a couple of weeks after that, it only arrived yesterday. I have to say I'm slightly disappointed, but I think it might just need a bit of wearing in, as it's very 'out of a warehouse' stiff right now. It's useful to have anyway as I have a 'good' bag and an everyday bag but nothing for in-between so I'm hoping this is where it will come in, for the price I'm not complaining too much anyway. I'm also a bit excited that it doubles as a rucksack.



Dresses, Both £5.99, H&M Kids
These were a confidence boost, I took a bit of Gem Fatale scrimping initiative and ended up wandering into the kids section of H&M yesterday. I couldn't resist the cute heart print which I've seen everywhere lately, and I figured I don't really have anything block-coloured, so why not break my fast with these bargains (I didn't think they would fit anyway)? I got these in the largest kid-size 14y so that's nice to know. If you want a proper look, they're the same dress pattern as these ones on the website.


Belt, £6.99, H&M
This isn't super-exciting but I've not been impressed with my belt collection for ages, it was a toss-up between this minty one or the same one in coral, would it be wrong to go back and pick up the other one too, you can never have too many belts when you have as many dresses as I do.


Cropped blazer, £14.99, H&M
I mainly got this because of how 90s it is, but also because I was a bit bored of my other jackets. It's the perfect colour for when the sun decides to show it's face too.

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Thanks to yesterday's good news I'm not half as sorry for these purchases as I was going to be. As it was the first time I'd bought anything in ages I thought I'd share them with you anyway. Have you found any bargains in the kids section before? I'm pleased more than anything, maybe I'll take the time to browse more often.

Tuesday Tabs #15

Time to de-clutter my tabs bar once more, a much more productive way to wait for paint to dry.

Currently I think I need at least a 28 hour day, that would be good, I can't seem to fit everything in. Doll is settling in almost too well, and although she was being - weirdly - affectionate when I returned from an interview this afternoon, I didn't appreciate her loud wailing outside our bedroom door at 5 o'clock this morning, so our visitors are probably in for a treat when they stay at the weekend...

I'm not sure how much I want to talk about job hunting today, I'll just say it's steady and leave it at that. I can't get any more fed up with it than I am already. Let's just get started, shall we?

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Due to all the stress, I kind of failed April's Photo A Day challenge, so I'm going to try and start again with this months, again from Fat Mum Slim. I might only post it once a week though rather than every day. I didn't like how cluttered it made my blog look if I posted something else. #ocd

(via It's Nice That)

I don't know what Ikea think they're playing at by being this awesome but how good is this? Following the previous week's announcement about their new TV units, I was already pleasantly surprised, but this is too up my street. Ikea are doing all kinds of exciting things at the moment and KNÄPPA is one of them, would love to know when it will be released so I can try one out.

(via The Dainty Squid)

Make A Run For It Skirt, $188.99, Modcloth
I have too many printed animal items of clothing, but this skirt is perfect, and the colour is lovely, definitely in need of more orange in my wardrobe.


Wombat Hug Brooch, $AUS35, Made By White
Wombats are wicked, easily my favourite Australian animal and I don't actually have that many brooches, let alone any wooden ones.


Interview with The Maccabees for Swiss TV Show 'POPBAR'. They say some good things, like how it's silly to cover The Beatles.


How many great movies are coming out in the next few months?! I'm a big one for trying to avoid full-trailers if possible, especially if I've already heard good press about a film or know who's going to be in it. However, I'm a little obsessed by this viral trailer for Ridley Scott's Prometheus, everyone needs to at least watch this trailer, but the film itself, judging from it's official trailer, just looks generally epic.


'LOL I'm just kitten' t-shirt, $28, Burger and Friends


Hand screen-printed Dala horse, Seventy Tree
Ever so slightly gutted that this piece is now no longer available. ;(


Rob Ryan's Bells vase, £35, John Lewis
I'm obsessed with Rob Ryan's 'Bells' series at the moment, it just makes me feel so warm because the words are so beautifully put. I'm also lusting after the plates, but as I wouldn't want to eat off of them and have no where to display them, I'm mainly eyeing up this vase, especially since seeing it on display in the local John Lewis, perf. ♥

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Link Love: ♥

Camera Bag Round-up from A Beautiful Mess — I'm currently waiting on a new bag, but a huge, and I mean huge part of me wishes I had the will-power to save up for a great-quality, pretty camera bag like the ones talked about here. It's a really strong well-rounded overview too, talking a bit more about what else is on offer other than Jo Totes. Don't get me wrong, I adore Jo Totes, I'd just never considered there were other similar brands.

Perfectly-timed Animal Pictures

Per Johansen's Mæt (Full) — Wonderfully, grotesque still life images from Danish photographer Per Johansen.

Make a teddybear from a sock — This is a super-cute craft idea, definitely on my to-do list once I get the never-ending list of everything else out of the way.

Create Your Own Fabric Patterns — Amazing!

It Looks Hard But Isn't: 15 Dishes to Impress Your Guests — Don't think I'm quite ready to impress people with my cooking just yet, but living in your own (non-student) home does bring about a certain notion of 'entertaining' rather than the more manageable 'drinking'. I like cooking anyway, so if nothing else these are some good ideas to test out on Moon at least.

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Currently listening: 'Call Me Maybe' - Carly Rae Jepsen
Currently watching: HBO's 'Girls' (Lena Dunham ♥)

Zzz.

So zapped from this week, I feel like my feet haven't touched the ground. Even when I've not actually been doing anything I've really stuck at keeping myself occupied. Today was a terrible day and I'm pretty sure I spent about a quarter of it in traffic jams, sure I wasn't driving but I had places to be.

Take-three of this week's house hunt in Newbury today and we were incredibly unsuccessful yet again. The first was incredibly overpriced and not that great anyway and the second had a great downstairs but awkward upstairs, not to mention a weird garden (although at least it had one) and was right next to a main road and so noisy inside. We're looking at a couple more on Monday, but Moon will be starting his job and it makes things very up in the air as to when we can view, especially seeing as his job will mainly involve driving so commuting to and from Dorking adds to this and I can't really afford to take the train down there to view houses all the time, especially three times a week.

The job hunt isn't looking much better either, I had a promising email letting me know I was the right candidate for the role but that I lived a bit far away, despite applying for it because it was closer to Newbury. It actually was about halfway between here and there but I never got a response when I explained that travelling wasn't an issue, and I've tried ringing but the contact never seems to be there. I haven't had a lot of time to look for jobs this week but I've been trying, having received two rejection letters by post and one rejection email this week, there's only so much bad luck I think I can continue to get... but onwards and upwards, something's bound to come up soon, etc.

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In slightly more positive news, the lovely NUJDM posse have used a couple of my photos in a report about the Leveson investigations. You can take a look at the articles here, and my photos were used here and here. It's quite hard to believe that NUJDM was nearly a year ago.

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At least the weather has been fun this week, I've nearly finished my chest, and I'm pretty proud of it really, I just hope it doesn't suddenly rain. Here's a photo of Moon looking like a babestation.

This outfit is from Monday, which I know is basically forever ago, but I had to share this dress with you, I'm so pleased with it. I don't know why I ever stopped rummaging in charity shops and online, I blame Portsmouth's shoddy charity offerings. These were taken on a quick walk by the canal whilst we were down in Newbury. We were actually looking at a flat that was practically on the canal, but sadly it was pokey, expensive, and generally not what we're looking for. Location-wise you couldn't fault it though, I'm definitely looking forward to being down there and taking Sunday strolls and feeding swans.


Dress: Charleen's Closet, Etsy
Necklaces: Primark, H&M
Belt: eBay
Tights: Primark
Socks: Primark
Boots: River Island




These guys were failing epically, but what a good effort

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It's time for me to catch up with more of The Tube and have another cup of tea.

Thanks for listening, hopefully I'll stop moaning soon. Have a good weekend.

Motel Rocks Nail Art Competition.

Hello, I've made it through to the finalist's stage of the Motel Rocks Nail Art Competition! It's so exciting and would be so awesome if you could head over to the Facebook page and like my entry because it would be great to win.

I promise I'll post something interesting soon, but I've been so busy job hunting, driving and house hunting that I've not really had anything interesting to show you or to talk about. I was down in Newbury this afternoon looking at places, we saw some game changers as we were pretty dead-set on the one we're viewing tomorrow, we've got to act quickly so it's all quite intense.

I picked up some great fabric in Fabric Land today as I plan on making my own version of Elsie from A Beautiful Mess' plush fox as well as some other things. I also bought some paint to revamp an old chest, I'm in a really DIYing/crafty mood, that might give me something fun to show you.

I hope you had as good a start to your week as I have.x

All your tubing needs.

This is an afternoon well spent, not the finished product as that's a surprise between me and the company I did it for. Basically, Purple Door at the University of Portsmouth have found me a position as a Creative Lead within a Marketing company, pre-interview prep was essentially showing them what I could to on Indesign using a short brief they provided.

The brief was to create a postcard to go at a till in a builders merchant advertising a particular brand of copper tube for plumbing and heating contractors with the main incentive that if they 'like' the brand on Facebook, they can then enter a photo competition and be in the running for winning an iPad.

Here's hoping this is enough to impress them, I'm quite happy with it, obviously I had to do a bit of Google-image trawling but hopefully they'll see past that. Coincidently, earlier today I walked passed a builder's merchants, and they did in fact have post cards at the till, I've tried to make mine as different as possible. From what I saw available, they were mainly straight-forward text so I think that part was pretty successful. Thanks to some help from Moon I've got something a bit less 'obvious' than my initial idea.

Fingers crossed it was worth it. I'm so hungry now.

No, no, urgh.

I so currently feel like this, life would definitely be easier if I were a cat.
I don't think that I wish for that many unattainable things in my life. I just want somewhere nice to live and to be happy and able to go wherever I want, whenever I want. If only it were five years ago, when things were a bit better for graduates, and not so impossible.




Moon and I went house hunting in Newbury today, and most of the day was like this:

It seems like everything at the moment involves some kind of chase, house hunting is even worse than job hunting because they totally out and out reject you, literally on the basis of nothing and even when you haven't seen a property. But the likelihood of things moving forward from the point we're currently at is seeming less and less realistic, so maybe April won't be as big a month as I thought.

I'm already nervous so this news hasn't really added much to my general disposition, I'm just a bit cross and feel like an idiot for just thinking that maybe things wouldn't actually be so difficult for once. < / urgh >

#760: Hello, Monday.

First outing for one of my Flapper Girl lady ties, so lovely.
Good morning!
I hope you had a good weekend, mine was nice. Some of our Uni friends came up to watch the rugby at Moon's on Saturday, I hate sports so I joined them afterwards, it was so good to see everyone and hang out. We went for breakfast at Frankie & Benny's yesterday morning and it was terrible, I've been thinking and I don't think I've ever had a good meal at any Frankie & Benny's restaurant. We laughed it off just because it was so awful, safe to say I don't think we'll be returning, milk for tea/coffee in a shot glass, come on!

So, towards to tail-end of last week I was feeling really demotivated, but the sun is shining and it's a new week. I've already had a promising phone call from Portsmouth University's recruitment agency, Purple Door and I've got a list as long as my arm of jobs to apply for/enquire about so I hope to keep busy.

Here are some things that are exciting and nice about today.

The sun is out and even though I am restricting myself to inside, my room is warm and bright.

I'm seeing Russell Howard this evening.

Hello 22 followers, I hope I live up to expectation.

Crafty Creatives — This is an incredible idea, it's like a Glossybox but for crafts! I think it will provide a much higher standard than those magazines you usually see floating about right about now, already subscribed.

Orla Kiely for Uniqlo — If I can't afford her beautiful homewares, I can still wear her designs, currently lusting after one of the tunics. Here's hoping the local Kingston Uniqlo is stocking it.

Lovely jobs, and not in the falsly advertised reed.co.uk sense.

Models Own new Beetlejuice colours — Was a good excuse to place an order for a new bottle of Top Turquoise and some other pretty springtime shades, can't wait to get them. I only ordered Indian Ocean from the new collection, not for any reason other than that I'm not a 'metallic nails kind of girl' and I thought the other two were a bit too gold/copper for me.

Like any good Internet user, I rounded off my Sunday with videos of cats, there are too many 'awhs' to not share. :3

Here's to a productive and happy week, did I mention I'm seeing Russell Howard tonight? *squee!

Newbury Check-out.

On Wednesday, which I realise is practically light years ago, Moon and I went down to Newbury to check it out and see if it would be a nice place to live, it turns out that it is. It's pretty damn lovely actually, now the challenge seems to be finding rental properties that are available by the end of the month, if you've ever tried this, you will know that it is impossible.

Hopefully something will come up soon as we really need to get our skates on with Moon starting his new job on the 2nd April. Hopefully I will have something myself by then, but I plan on continuing my search once we're down there if I don't have anything. There is a small creative community as well as a few newspapers so I might be lucky.
We tried our hand at online house-hunting yesterday afternoon but were a bit disheartened as most places we liked were either gone or not available soon enough. We were even told rather rudely by Charles Abby (yeah I'll name them because they're not very good), that we're essentially 'unrentable', that is before whoever we spoke to simply hung up. I guess we just won't go with them though as they seemed to be unnecessarily in-depth and basically nosey and others we spoke to were very polite despite having to let us down.

I didn't take many photos while we were there as there was so much to take in. I really like it there though and I look forward to a new adventure. The canals are lovely, as is the town centre, which is so new and pretty. There are so many nice places to explore, not to mention lots of pubs that we can bring our friends to when they visit. ♥


Anywhere that has it's own sausage is obviously the place to be.


How cute is this? It's a night club which stays open until 5:30am on Saturdays, crazy stuff.



This is the adorable collection box outside the RSPCA, there are loads of charity shops in Newbury and most of them look like boutiques (super posh), it will be so much fun to have a nose around once we move there. As we'll be quite skint for cash for a bit, it's quite useful too, especially as I'm a lot more crafty than I was giving myself credit for.




There are so many swans on the canal rather than the standard two, it got a bit lairy.


It feels like I'm closer to moving out, which is what I've wanted for ages, I guess I am a bit nervous but it will be great to have more independence, especially when it's somewhere so pretty.

I think my interview with Sky went okay yesterday but I have a ton of jobs to apply for into next week so I'm not resting on it. If I apply for more, this will hopefully mean more chance of a response.