Hello, is it me you're looking for?

I'm sorry I've been a bit MIA recently there's just so much going on. Pretty boring stuff like uni projects getting so much more intense and getting ready to move house. But yes I thought the #BlogGreatness theme for this week was a perfect time to try get back into the swing of things and update you a little bit too!

Now the theme this week is Square which I've used in the respect of good old Instagram! Since I've created a new Instagram account to use for this blog I've gotten back into instagramming so I thought I'd share some latest posts and update you on what's been happening.

While at home I used the time away from people I knew to try out something I've wanted to do for ages. I dip dyed the ends of my hair turquoise! It came out a gorgeous bright bluey green and I loved it. Unfortunately I didn't think about how it would fade and it turned rather green, however now it's a nice pale green that's hardly noticeable. It just wasn't that nice having to return to uni with green hair haha!

The last weekend of the six week holiday was Brads Brass Band Competition in Rotorua. Due to it being close to home this year my parents came along and we enjoyed the weekend listening to music and bonding with Brads family even more. This included a great brunch of the waffles above, gosh they were nice! Brad and his band managed to win the A Class competition which makes them to top brass band in Australasia, and Brad himself won the best soloist in the test piece which is a big thing too! There was heaps of snow on the way home too so we of course stopped for a snowball fight!

Since then it's pretty much been constant work for uni. Being only a few months until my fourth and final year starts my assignments at the moment are basically mini versions of the fourth year projects to get us ready and eager. Unfortunately this means I have so much work to do for all of my classes and it's proving hard to leave time to blog. I'll hopefully get used to it and get back into a nice system seen as my usual system of blogging on a thursday night has kind of been ruined now I have class 9-4 and just crash as soon as I get home (and then do more work for fridays class). Fingers crossed I get back into the swing of things as this blog has really taken a back seat over a couple of months so I really need to pull it forward and get back into it.

But yes how have you been?

Let's do the time warp again!

What are these ugly banners I hear you say! Well if we track back a few years to April 2013 we get to the birth of Sofilly - created on a bit of a whim to flush more creativity into my veins after starting design school just over a month ago. Hopefully we can see through this post that my schooling has been great and my design skills have improved. After coming across this first banner in my files I thought I would have a look at what Sofilly has looked like over the years, and you can join too! I only have the banners although I'm pretty sure theres a website that lets you see your website years ago but I don't want to see the monstrosity it once was!

Anyways these first two came pretty early into the blog; I had a thing for bunting as you can see. I'm glad that ugly ass font in the first banner left the blog as quickly as it entered it, I can't even believe I even liked that! I do remember the second font, Lane Narrow, being my love for almost all of 2013 which you can see in the banner below also. I still like it personally but with that drop shadow no way! 

Awh my first attempt at drawing my banner, I was so proud of this design seriously I instagrammed it and shoved it all over the internet. I don't actually mind it right now although the shading (what shading?!?!) is atrocious like what is that mouth? Here you can see the Lane Narrow continues to stick around in hand drawn form. Also had a fabulous cream tint going to the blog, glad that's gone! 

Aaaaaaand another drawn one, personally worse than the previous. What is that green thing, seriously? Plus my shading got worse, why did I even think this was good enough to place on the internet let alone make it my blog banner. No wonder I didn't have any readers that I knew of back then... That font though.

Oh I had a revelation! We returned to type banners, 2014 Sofi you had some brains in you after all. Not enough to realise that you probably shouldn't have brought back the drop shadow as well as the text but we can deal with that here more than the second one. Not sure what the x is doing all the way over there, thought I'd gotten rid of it in all but my url by now but hey.  

Oh hello you pretty banner you, I remember you from a whole month ago. This was the only banner I had going for about a year, the rest were a few months before I grew tired. I'm hating on Moonflower font now after so many people used it in their final projects last year so it's now gone but I did like this banner. 

Last but not least, my current banner! Pretty much an updated one of the previous one but I love it so much. I drew the type myself with watercolour and then scanned it in to create this. It got so much love at a past #nzbloggers chat that I think I'm going to keep it forever - try and actually keep a brand going. 

This probably isn't the best post to write this on seen as you can see some of the disgusting banners I've had in the past but I promise my skills have gotten much much better. I am a third year graphic design student so if you're wanting banners or sidebar images made for your blog I'm totally up for the job! 

A Year Of Firsts

I came across this idea on a few blogs I've been reading recently and I thought it was a great idea, last year I achieved quite a few things for the first thing so I thought I would make a list of a few things I wanted to do this year!

Attend a blogging event

For the last few weeks I've been involved in the NZ Bloggers chats and the NZ Brunch Club Facebook page. Being able to chat to loads of bloggers from my country has allowed me to start advertising my blog more and reading lots of other blogs. The brunch club holds an event once a month and I was too scared to attend the February event but hopefully this year I will get over my fear of new people and join one of these events!

Do a zoo encounter

I want to go into the meerkat enclosure at my local zoo so much! I'm hoping for tickets for my birthday so fingers crossed. 

Learn how to use my camera properly 

I constantly tell myself to do this but there's just so much involved that I just put it on hold. I know how to basically use the manual setting but I want to be able to take much better quality photos and learn how to use camera raw. 

Leave more time for art

Over the summer I thought it would get so much time for practicing and improving my 'arty' skills but as it turned out I practiced my 'watching a series a day' skills instead. With uni starting in two weeks I want to hopefully have some time throughout the year to do non uni design and art that I enjoy. Maybe design my own font or design some prints to sell. 

Turn 21

Simple enough, it'll happen I just have to do it in the right way! 

Gain 100 Bloglovin followers

Since joining the blogging groups and chats this has been improving so hello you new followers it's nice to have you around! I'm  not in this for the followers but everyone secretly wants as many as possible and if I can manage 100 by the end of the year that'll be amazing! 

Get an A+ overall grade 

I've gotten quite a few great grades but I have yet to achieve an A+ in an overall grade. An overall grade being an average grade of the paper I've gotten into the habit of getting a really good grade in one assessment and an average one in the other leaving me with a above average overall grade. I just wanna get higher than my highest overall grade of A - its a competitive part of me.

Cook more 

Brad and I have a unsaid deal where I do most of the cleaning and washing in the house and he does most of the cooking with me being sous chef however I'd like to take some of the days off of him.

Get happier with my blog

I've been running Sofilly x since April 2013 however I've not really been happy with it really until now. I've been on and off blogging through the course and lately I've gotten the consistency going enough to be happy posting my links to Twitter hopefully by the end of the year I'll be happy posting my links to everywhere and anyone.

Save some money

Due to some unforseen problems last year I had to use a lot of my savings on extra rent and bills etc so I'd love to save some of that back up again. 

Spend it on the good things

I also want to spend some of that saved cash on myself and others and splurge a bit. Not exessively but chocolate, a night out, a nice present or two wont harm anyone. 

I totally recommend sitting down and thinking about this for yourselves, they're almost like mini new year resolutions or goals.