Monday, 16 March 2015

don't forget to leave a comment - you are my social life


...You may have read in my earlier posts that I am trying to post here more often...but what is more often?  It is so easy to document your day with a daily post on Facebook or to take quickly observed moments with a quick press of the button on your phone with Instagram.

I have been thinking over the last few weeks how I want to start using this little space on the internet that I own...I want it to be and feel different to my other on-line spaces.  The problem I have is that I feel that every blog post should come with a little ream of words..a few explanatory lines of what I have been doing. The Why's.  The Where's.  The When's.  It is this that actually takes the time and equally it is this that makes me put off until tomorrow.  We place so much pressure on ourselves to tick boxes, ensuring we have something visually captured to show to readers -  do we almost measure our success these days by the amount of images we can display in a day/a week/a month in the same way we worry if one image has had more likes than another on Facebook.  I have been known to feel slightly anxious if I haven't posted anything for a couple of days. And all the time spaces such as Facebook is becoming harder to understand...you may have over 4000 likes but only a handful of those actually see your news...just think of all that time we makers had before social media raised its important head.

I am not a wordsmith.  I write (type) as I speak ... but mainly my language is visual...

I have finally after many years realised that I can use this space for just that, to just visually document my days but in slightly more detail than a snapshot approach - why has it taken me so long?.  I have also listened to other makers/designers and looked at how they use their space.  So much planning takes place. Preparations of content weeks in advance.  Weekly 'feeding' images all taken in just one day but appear as though they are taken regularly through out the week.  I want to keep working on this journal of mine...I love looking back through the months, it is such a good way to see how The Linen Garden is growing - every week there are new visitors to the flower beds and I treasure that.  It is very easy here to feel that you are talking to an empty auditorium if you don't study weekly your traffic numbers.  But I am not that 'into' the behind the scenes mechanics of 'stats' and 'traffic' and to be honest I really don't have time or most importantly the interest, maybe if I was a full time blogger it make take a bigger slice of my time.

I spend alot of time reading other people's blogs but it is very rare that I leave a comment. Therefore why do I still have this old approach that if no one leaves a comment nobody is really stopping by? The wonderful insecurities of being trapped in your own little internet bubble.  So on that note I am now asking you to 'leave a comment' - I 'would' love to know from you is 'what other little snippets you would like to see here' when you visit.  I adore that you pop by and visit from time to time and I want to make sure you keep stopping by. I work on my own in the studio so your emails/your messages/your comments on all my social media platforms are so so important to me.  You are my weekly social life (true)....so please help me in my research - I would love to know your ideas.........and here is how my month 'visually' has looked so far.....'a splendid March indeed'..... xxxxx


....don't forget to leave your comment....

Tuesday, 17 February 2015

gone out of the window

...well, that's my plan for the year has gone out of the window - not a resolution but a plan - the idea to make time to post here more has not quite taken the path I was wanting..... so let's start again..... and while I re-start my aims and ambitions for this little visual journal that I love - here is one that I did actually stick to - to keep the studio tidy....tidy enough to be able to see the floor... xxxx

Saturday, 24 January 2015

strips of silk tissue


...well january is passing by a bit too quickly than I care to require. A million and one tasks and projects to complete and the days are blurring together too comfortably.  

I have my head down at the moment working on a photo shoot next week - the task today is to produce some interesting ribbons to work with a wedding bouquet.  So I pottered for a while and started to plait and knot and tear lovely pieces of dupion silk - so pretty - like tissue paper. I'll let you know if they were used in the shoot in a few months.







Monday, 12 January 2015

I like my years to blend.....


I know, I know, I am a little late in wishing you all a Happy New Year, but I don't know about you but I feel as if I have been catapulted into the year backwards.  Is it just me, or does anyone else look at the series of number that spell out '2015' and think it looks rather futuristic...I still feel as if I should be in 2005.....

I'm not quite ready to embrace a new year.  I am not very good at this New Year thing at all if I am honest...I can find New Years Eve quite an emotional turn of events....I don't like the idea of placing a full stop to the end of one year and pretending everything is all new and squeeky clean, neither supposedly making amendments to the 'old' me on day one of month one of the next.  I like my years to blend....be seamless....Don't get me wrong I am always there at midnight with my glass of Sherry and Jools Holland embracing the sound of the chimes.....

I have no resolutions (as I never stick to them - ever).....no great diverse business changing plans or goals to accomplish this year.....everything is just swimming rather happily on a sea of floralness.....I am content with my little lot.  

I want to spend this year enjoying just where I am.  I want to spend the year simply planting seeds of the research kind that may indeed bloom the next year.....don't get me wrong, I do have plans and ambitions like the next person....but I have lots of ideas I want to let sail like a dandelion seed and see where they land....

The Linen Garden is blooming with lovely new visitors 
as well as its regular wonderful meanderers and floral appreciators...
and still to this day one of my favourite jobs is packing 
parcels of pretty orders from the shop...
layers of tissue, a floral sticker or two, a loosely tied raffia bow.....
the radio on and into my own little world I go....



I should write here more too - 
and have promised myself just that.  
I like this place of recording - I don't see it as a blog but a journal, 
a sketchbook, a representation of studio life.  
Whether I feel as if I am talking to myself or not...
it is a calm....and rather therapeutic place for me to waffle.


A lot of my time this year will be spent helping at least three, quite diverse from each other, businesses.  This is something that seems to be coming more and more my way as the months twirl by.  I will also be opening some of the diary time and my studio to holding mentoring sessions again to creative businesses - so I suppose I do have some kind of plans in the pipeline.....

.... AND....

I have some very exciting news which I shall be letting you know about here on Thursday...something that I have to pinch myself about....I have known since last May...and can now let you all know this week (it doesn't involve babies by the way - it is not that sort of news).....

So I hope you have had a lovely break over the last few weeks....do you have any plans...made any resolutions....????