It's time to get personal

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6  ~ All images from Pinterest.

So for lucky people like me who don't have exams at university, we have six weeks off in the middle of the year. While we could spend it sitting on our arses watching episode after episode of Game of Thrones for the fifth time, which I probably will end up doing despite this post, we could also use it as a time for personal projects. Doing a design degree you're often restricted throughout term time to specific briefs and while you can stretch them to suit your style most often they're not really what you had in mind when you wanted to become a designer. So I've done the Game of Thrones arse sitting for the first week but I've also been scrolling Pinterest which has given me so much motivation and creativity to start some projects over the rest of the holidays. 

Create some greeting cards. 
and also hopefully start selling them. I need to work on my watercolour typography to digital skills a wee bit more first but keep your eyes peeled. 

Put up a print wall. 
I have prints, I have frames for them, I have a blank wall... now all I need are nails to put them up. Of course they'll have to be arranged nicely and all but it's simple right? 

Do some freelance. 
Make some fancy new logos for someone, or blog banners, or blog sidebar icons, or anything. Wink wink readers. 

Paint more watercolour. 
Just do more, practice makes perfect and I'm far from perfect. Maybe we'll start with flowers, I found a great tutorial for flowers so let's start there and practice my flower arranging. 

Spend more time on the blog. 
Tweaking background things, changing images, upgrading things. Sorting out things I'm not happy with and frankly just giving Sofilly some attention it hasn't really gotten these past few months while I've been working on uni projects. 

Technically if you want to get picky I could do most of these while doing the Game of Thrones arse sitting but you get the idea. Let's just spend some time with my craft and creativity and hopefully make myself even better for next semester! 

Eleanor & Park ~ Book Review

Image from DeviantArt user candy8496 ~ check out her other work it's great!

I've read Rainbow Rowell before and not being a big fan of Fangirl as much as anyone else I wasn't too sure about how I'd like this one. But after seeing it again and again mentioned throughout the internet I decided to give it a go. I wasn't that disappointed to be quite honest, I hadn't read any blurb about it so after diving in and finding it was another abnormal couple love story I had my doubts but I did enjoy it. I wasn't really keen on the ending and thought it could've been dealt with differently but I won't go giving away any spoilers. Sold as another 'star crossed lovers' book it's expressed in the early pages that Eleanor, your average unpopular redheaded girl, that she's not fond of Romeo and Juliet's story at all calling them 'shallow, confused and then dead'. So it's ironic that she finds herself in her own shallow confused love story with Park, the dated the popular girl in primary and then became invisible boy, all because they shared a seat on the bus to school. This book seems to be similar to those teen love story library books you rent, read once, and return never to read again. I personally would say go for it if you want to read it but although I enjoyed it I probably won't be reaching for it to read again.    

Tumblration

If you like what you see have a look at my tumblr ahbloodyhell for more and have a follow :)

Pretty ideas, bits, and bobs

There's just something so exciting about moving into a new place in that you can pick up all your old stuff and shove it into a new environment and it all looks like 10x more amazing! Of course with the addition of a whole bunch more stuff you bought beforehand cuz it would 'look good in the new house'. Now with the idea of packing boxes being a month away my heads just brimming with ideas about how I (and the boyfriend but mainly I) will make the place look fabby. I've been browsing Tumblr and Pintrest for some basic ideas at the moment and not allowing myself to get too involved in ideas until we've moved in and seen where everything we already have is going to fit. Especially as I'm probably only going to be living there for around 2 weeks before I move back home for the summer until January when the real work kicks in and I'm, as my boyfriend puts it, 'allowed to put all the girly shit everywhere'. Until then the scrolling will continue, mood boards will be created in my head and probably some minor things might be bought oops...

VCD's ruined you!

Fueled by crispy m&m's and coke I've finally reached the end of the first half semester woohoo! Unfortunately I lost my mind and broke down a few minor times during this time but hey I survived and I've handed in pretty much all my work now. I haven't really had any free time to blog or even scroll tumblr so sorry anyone following my tumblr as it hasn't been as busy as usual. But the good thing is I've actually been learning things, shock horror I've been actually learning things from the university I'm paying to teach me things! From this I hope to turn this blog into a more kind of design blog than a lifestyle blog even though it was already leaning towards design so this means a new layout and new style (just as soon as I go home and have time to sort it). I'll hopefully be able to post more artists and inspiration and also my class work. For those of you who don't know I'm studying Bachelor of Design majoring in visual communication design which pretty much is a mixture of graphic design, illustration, digital media, and advertising.

Artist Attraction #2 | Lizzie Mackay

Another artist discovered on Pintrest: Lizzie Mackay... aren't her illustrations beautiful! There's just something about any nicely drawn animals that just make me want to look at every single other piece the artist has produced and these are no different. I had to google her and spend a good hour or so looking through all her pieces on her website here, I really recommend a look as I'll definitely be using some of her work as inspiration for my own x

Greetings loved ones

Just a few little greeting card pieces I've produced the last week, really simple and quirky x

Artist Attraction #1 | Emma Zanelli

I came across this gorgeous illustrator this morning on Pintrest, having stalked pretty much her entire Facebook of photos I came to the conclusion I really love Emma Zanelli of Kiss The Devil design and illustration. She's a freelance illustrator and graphic designer from the United Kingdom. There's just something about the mix of hand drawn pencil and Photoshop that gives me the happy 'yay fab illustration' feeling. She does commissions if you're interested over on her Facebook page so if you're interested in getting Zanelli-fied go check that out, also you should like her page too! I'm loving the contrast of the girly make up and hair with the tattoos, quite a common idea around some artists at the moment. 

You'll never influence the world by copying it.

While purchasing a book for one of my classes I decided to pick up an A6 diary to keep with me at all times. I was inspired by one of my tutor to keep something near me to doodle or write on whenever I had spare time. Basically I wanted to improve my drawing skills and more importantly my pen drawing skills.. I've never really been one to understand the joys of using pen because of my major perfectionist brain I always wanted to erase half my drawings and redo them to make them as perfect as my skills could manage. Here's a few pages that I've done so far, as you can see I've been using it as a place to make lists too and fail at doing things on the list but hey at least I'm trying. Hopefully by the end of the book, 60 pages back and front so 120 drawings in total, I'll be slightly more decent at pen and throwing away my perfectionism... hopefully x