On Saturday afternoon once I had finished work, Darren and I had a little trip up to Dunnottar Woods. I've obviously had a few trips up there, including this one from last year but Darren has never been up there before so some serious exploration was on the cards!

I'm pretty sure over the years I've had numerous visits to the woods and seen pretty much all of it but there was areas that we went to that just felt so new and so raw to me that the beauty of them blew me away. At some point I honestly felt like I had been transported to a magical world filled with pixies and faeries and gnomes. 

And back to reality. Honestly though I absolutely love being surrounded by nature and getting lost in it and with camera in hand, I was ready to capture the magic!

If you've been reading this blog for a while you would have known that for majority of this year I have been struggle with the direction of this blog. But I recently read Jemma's blog post about not having a niche and for some reason it's really just stuck with me. 

I love creativity. I love travel. And I love lifestyle posts! I realise these aren't drastically different from ideas and such but for some reason I've been finding it hard to have these actually be all mixed together and on show but there is no logical reason for me to feel this way? These things are things I'm passionate about and things I love doing and spending my life! So now I just need to do it.

But I want to be more writing about these things in more details rather than just passing comments or short posts. I want to share my creativity more like Naomi, Lauren and Amy do. But I also want to write about what's inspiring me and why more. And what places I love and why. I guess I'm saying I want to be saying a lot more of the why rather than just the what. 

I think there is definitely a few changes I need to make to this blog first before I am fully happy with the direction of this blog and how it will move forward from this post. Things including my blog design- both my header image and navigation. I've been wanting to change these up for so long now and I really just need to do it so now I just have to do it. 

So I guess this has just been a little rant about this blog and I hope (?) you've enjoyed reading it either way! I'm looking forward to the changes I make with my little space on the internet and I hope you do too! 

Recently I've been very lucky to receive bits and pieces for me to read and then review on this blog. The latest of these was the 3 Parts Mad Comic* created by writer, Josh Moorby and illustrator, Sarah Docker. I don't tend to read many comics nowadays but after seeing some photos of 3 Parts Mad I honestly couldn't pass up the opportunity to have my own copy!

From receiving the comic in the post and now having read and looked through it, I can honestly tell you I was blown away by how it was put together and how beautiful it looks! Within the comic it is made up of short stories, poetry, flash fiction and stand alone art. One particular thing that blew me away was that every single thing within 3 Parts Mad was hand drawn, painted or written. As someone who still firmly believes that print isn't dead I love how they combined print with traditional creative methods! It really is a unique comic with a fresh approach to how it's done. 

This weeks marks the first birthday of the Creative Bloggers Chat launch on Twitter. Last year I started the first chat pretty quickly after announcing it on my blog here. I don't actually remember what the topic was or how many people were involved in that first chat. But I do know over the course of the year that with creating this chat it has helped me so much and I think it has helped a lot of other people too. 

When I decided to launch the chat last year it was because I felt within the blogging community, especially within the Twitter chat world it was missing something for creative people to come together. But now I feel that with everybody who has been involved with the group over the past year a new community has been built that celebrates creativity in every way and I am so thankful for that. I'm also so thankful that throughout a few different chats people have said things along the lines of this community being supportive of each other and such and that means sooo much to me! 

Anyway, I didn't actually mean this post to be about how the chat has grown, it's meant to be about how we are celebrating the chat. So on Thursday (as usual) myself and with the help from Saoirse, we will be having a big massive Creative sleepover! 

The "sleepover" will basically work pretty much the same as a normal chat but  extended later into the night. People would be free to come and start chatting away anytime before the usual chat starts at 8:30pm (GMT) and I might schedule some tweets for people to interact with before then. After the usual chat finishes an hour later, myself and Saoirse will start up some 'games' for everybody to play- some may even lead to prizes but more of that later in the week! At the moment the games will include things along the lines of best PJ's (that's a hint for you to grab some new cute ones), who can stay the latest and the quickest to doodle something from a prompt set up. 

So that's the lowdown on the birthday extravaganza just now but be sure to keep an eye out over on Twitter and the Facebook group for more info of ways to get involved! I hope to see loads of folk joining on Thursday too! 

Also don't feel like if your blog isn't specifically "creative" or you've never joined in a chat before that you can't join in this sleepover! We want as many people to come and enjoy themselves as possible!

Cake Photo from Pexels
Laptop Photo from Unsplash

Today I started back at Uni for which was the last first day of doing my Undergraduate course in Visual Communications and Media Designs! Okay, yeah fair enough, I technically only had my first day last year at Uni since I've done a 2+2 but that's not the point! 

Anyway, this year is going to be BIG! It means doing my Honors project and needing to start looking for a real job in the real worlds which also means working on my portfolio and even more so (hopefully) a website at some point! 

But, this isn't a blog post...rant about the future, it's about the now and what I'm doing this year! So since I'm away to start doing my Honors project I've been thinking about different topics or areas to look into to focus my project on. At the moment I'm thinking of basing it off my #Create365 project (it is still happening!) and looking into some areas that have been highlighted to me even more since starting this like Art Therapy, Adult Colouring Books, zentangles and mandalas.

I'm not entirely 100% on how I'm going to focus this but I have been thinking of along the lines of "How does the creation within art and design factor into the happiness of people" or something along those lines. If I focus on this kind of question I want to see how people feel after doing things like just normal creative things and seeing how much their mood changes during the process of it. But I also want to focus on how as a person, a creative, student and designer can mix these things together and produce design work that I am happy with (and can fit in my portfolio well) too as there have been plenty projects over the past 3 years that I haven't liked the final outcome.

Anyhoo, these are just kind of initial thoughts and thoughts I will need to add to my Honours Project blog soon! But I'll update here maybe in a few weeks, in the mean time I'll be doing my main updating of my project over at: www.LH-honoursproject.tumblr.com/

At the start of the year I was kindly sent the book Hiraeth A Marc* to review. Earlier in the Summer I was sent the second in the series, Hiraeth A Burden*, again to review! 

The fleet finally arrives home, but to an atmosphere fraught with tension and suspicion. The reunion between Cai and Mona is difficult, as he learns she has given birth to another man's child. The spy has yet to be caught and the community at the Conway, joined by Druids from Cornwall and Gallcia, remain in constant fear of attack from the Irish enemy. 

Mona struggles to combine motherhood with her warrior instincts and when her devastating power erupts again she finds it has become increasingly uncontrollable. The Archdruid fears her vulnerability to the Celtic language could be used by their enemies to destroy them. Cai is given the task of helping her overcome this weakness, but they don't have much time, and can they ever get over their personal conflict? The reason why Mona is wanted so badly by the Irish clan becomes clear when she finally confronts the man who ordered her parent's murder.

Once again like with the first book, I grew attached and found myself utterly connected to the book. In all honesty, you could compare my experience with the book to how Mona can feel being put under the stress of the Celtic language. 

The new book by Jones follows on pretty much exactly where the first one finishes, with the fleets returning home and the home front ready to fight. Throughout this part of the story, the book is focused on finding out who is the traitor amongst the community, as well as trying to break the hold the Celtic language can have over Mona. 

The book follows the same kind of layout as the first one has with different points of views from the characters but mainly focusing on Mona and Cai. With the introduction of so many new characters at the end of the last book, it has meant there has been an influx of new perspectives which could make it confusing for some readers. However, it is an important aspect to the book as we the reader are able to follow the story through every little crack and hole. 

Throughout this book, the usage of mythology and Celtic stories is even more prominent than in the first book- which is a factor I love! Again, it isn't overdone or use in a cliched way that tears down the story. Instead, they are used to aid and help find out more about Mona's powers and possibly an even bigger link with the past. 

Like with the first book, I would recommend this book to people who enjoy fantasy themed books, especially ones focusing on magic and mythology but make sure you read the first book to start with as you may feel a little lost! With there being only one more book left in this series I am excited to find out what is going to happen with Mona and the rest of the gang as the ending of this book set up the last one nicely!

Let me know below if you've read any of this series and what you thought as well!