Retail Therapy

I'm being a bit of a grump at the moment, and I can't seem to kick myself out of it.
There are not enough decaf white caffe's mochas and skinny muffins (see below) to fix my mood; so now I've moved on to some retail therapy, and in the process I've found this great little boutique on ASOS Marketplace - Boutique73

https://marketplace.asos.com/boutique/boutique-73

I haven't actually received my items yet, but I'll keep you updated. I love most of their products, and they seem to have got some pretty good feedback, so I suppose we'll just see.

In the meantime, work is coming along quite nicely, but I can't put any sneak previews up because it's suddenly got very important and top secret, now that's it got competitive for D&AD.
Don't want anyone stealing my best ideas (Yes, I'm looking at you Mr O'Dea)!

But when it's all completed, I'll be sure to put the best bits up on here.

Sleep deprived

Blogging has been a bit scarce this week, but I'm just a bit too tired and lethargic to do anything (including blogging).

I've managed to drag myself out of the house for all my lectures. But I'm walking around a bit like a zombie at the moment because I can't sleep!! Terrible.

Hot water bottle and bed for now. Fingers crossed I'll be back to my blogging best soon. But til then, you can enjoy the attempt I had at leopard print the other day...

Pretty basic. But pretty.

Used some of my spare time this week to have another go at using my nail art pen. 

Subtler than what I've done before. But I quite like it.

Good thing I have fingerless mittens to show off these beauts.

Just annoying how long the bottom layer took to dry. Some nail varnish brands are a pain like that.

Never mind. Time to get back down to some serious work now. Fun, fun!

Industry Design Awards

Our new design brief has been set, and I'm quite excited about it...at the moment.

We have to work on four industry design awards from schemes including D&AD; the Roses Awards and YCN Awards.
There's quite a lot of variety in the briefs, so I'm hoping I find something that suits me perfectly. Fingers crossed.

I took the opportunity, before the workload gets too heavy, to finally sort out the mess that is my studio aka. my room. It still contained the cut-offs, test prints, and spray mount covered remains of the last brief; and it seemed like too much of a task all weekend.

So nice to finally have some clear space to work in again. But it also means that I have no excuse not to get busy now.

Solid work until the weekend, when I have family and friends coming to visit :) Can't wait!!
And the Christmas Parade to turn the town's lights on, followed by a trip to the cinema to see the latest Twilight movie.
I am despicably girly sometimes. But a girl has to do what a girl has to do.

Lazy and liking it

But not loving it. Just feel a bit lazy really.

Did buy myself a cheeky early Christmas present today though...once it's all set up, I shall disclose all.

But even though I intended to have a bit of a lazy stroll through town to start my Christmas browsing, I was naive enough not to realise that absolutely EVERYONE has now started their Christmas shopping.

I forgot that once Halloween and Fireworks night are out of the way, the next big occassion is Christmas, and it becomes the commonly accepted time for the festive shopping to begin, and the carols and Crimbo songs are allowed to be on the radio etc...

I actually watched the stores change all their visual merchandising on Fireworks night for the Christmas shoppers. It was genuinely that soon after/during the Firework 'festivities'.

Ah well, I'll start trying to enjoy the Crimbo spirit; but I am going to have to start going out shopping earlier to avoid the crowds, and have some chance of getting my much needed decaf white caffe mocha from Starbucks. Christmas yums :)

As for my lazy weekend...I'm hitting the gym tomorrow; rewriting my first dissertation draft; and attempting the shopping again.
Or, I may just end up lazing in bed all day. Let's see how motivated I can be.

Finally done!!

After 7 weeks of pretty solid work, I finally completely finished the Graphic Design prospectus I was producing!

We had our big class presentation and hand-in today. So relieved for it to be over now! 

Had become quite stressful in the last 2 weeks in particular.

Quite pleased with the way it looks though! Was definitely worth all the stressing.

Third year looks like it's gonna be a good one. Hard work though.

Above are two examples of spreads from the prospectus, but they all vary in style and layout, with the horizontal lines used wherever quotes are used in the prospectus.

It was interesting to see what other people had done for their first project, but I can't lie, the best part of the day was lunch with the Graphics guys and girls. A nice chance to relax for a bit.

Saying that, first draft of the dissertation is due in tomorrow...eek.

Not gonna let that dampen my mood though.

Bring on the wine and DVDS (and very warm pj's, because my goodness it's cold!!)

Banana muffins

Found the ultimate distraction from work in what are supposed to be, banana muffins.
They turned out a bit more like banana cupcakes, but oh my goodness, they're amazing!!

Banana muffins (with cinnamon!) and coffee. Definitely the way to kickstart your day.

It helps that the process of making them distracted me from work for a solid 30 minutes yesterday.

They may not be pretty, but I don't really care. They're just amazingly tasty.

But can anyone help me with this one...how do you make a muffin, rather than a cupcake?

Muffins seem airy...cupcakes aren't. So how do I make actual muffins?

Almost...

Work is almost done...I think...I hope.

Fingers crossed for me, and if you're lucky, I'll be posting pics up within the next 24 hours!

PS. Brrrrrrrr it's too cold, even in the damn house!

November

Hope everyone had a decent Halloween night. I turned in to a cat for the evening, as you can see...

We also had an actual cat visitor for the night; and a black one at that. Cutest thing ever!

Think we've made a friend for life after the kitty went for a big wander round our house.

I had a lovely weekend at home, and this topped it off perfectly. 

Now tomorrow back to work. Only a week til the deadline!!

Scary, scary =/