Inspired Naturally – Kate MacAndrew, artist and school workshop leader based in Derbyshire

I just thought I’d pop by again and leave you with this little clip from Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle …

 ….it always makes me smile

This year my goals look like this:

* Complete the Great North Run again and enjoy training for it

*Complete the London Moonwalk again

* Keep my new gym routine up, going 2 – 3 times a week

*Try to experiment with different types of food to make mealtimes more exciting

*Dedicate time to painting so I get the chance to complete more original pieces of artwork

* Continue experimenting with my sewing machine

* Have fun preparing for the BCTF in Harrogate

* Seek out new possibilities for all aspects of my business

 Sources:

1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8

Do you have a list of goals for 2012? 

Spending Christmas at home with my family and friends was definitely what my body needed. After weeks of being constantly on the go I fell ill (which I mentioned in my last post) and it was eventually on Christmas Eve that I started to feel much better. I think relaxing and winding down was what was necessary for me!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, whatever you got up to. I am very much looing forward to seeing what 2012 brings but before I say goodbye to 2011 completely, I thought I’d share with you a few photos I have taken over the last week:

I was lucky to have two trees this year – I love decorating trees!

 I have also enjoyed decorating other parts of my house…

…and I was very lucky to receive lots of lovely presents which included some Belle and Boo items I love…

The ‘Found’ print to go beside my ‘Lost’ print by Mandy Sutcliffe

a wall decal/sticker to go up in my new office

and a beautiful Boo cushion which I have found a home for in my lounge.

I hope you all enjoy the rest of the holiday and I wish you a very Happy New Year!!

Santa's on The Run!

(The above photo was taken of my auntie and I at the ‘Santa’s on the Run’ event before we completed a 4 mile run to raise money for a local children’s hospice.)

It’s only 6 more sleeps until Santa and that means it’s been too long since my last post! After a whirlwind few weeks what with moving house, a Christmas Fair to prepare for, commissions to complete (not to mention Christmas shopping for friends and family) it has all finally caught up with me. Since last weekend I have been under the weather, suffering from extreme headaches I am due at the doctors later this morning for a second time to see if there’s anything else he can do for me.

That said, I wanted to pop by and wish you all a very merry Christmas and share with you some of the fun things I have been up to over the last few weeks:

I have enjoyed the frosty mornings and capturing these with my camera

I have enjoyed watching William settle into his new home

and enjoyed decorating my Christmas trees.

I have very nearly finished wrapping my presents and am looking forward to having a proper rest over the next couple of weeks. Whatever your plans are for Christmas and New Year have a lovely time!

If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram you may know I have been spoilt these last two days with flowers from both my OH and parents. I don’t know about you but I absolutely LOVE receiving flowers (and giving them too!) I thought they were just too pretty not to share here:

They have certainly made me feel better and brightened up my living room. It has reminded me how much I love to have flowers in my home and I need to remember to add them to my shopping list each week!

Have a lovely weekend everybody

I can’t believe August has already gone and September has arrived, where did the summer go? Despite enjoying the few days of sunshine we did have I must admit I love Autumn. Autumn gives me the excuse to get my jumpers and knitwear out, a reason to wear my many scarves and gloves and also for me to get my favourite pair of boots out again…basically I just love to wrap up warm!

September also brings about the Great North run which I will be taking part in for the fourth time this year. I am running for Macmillan, a wonderful charity close to my heart. (you can see my GNR experiences last year here) This year it takes place on Sunday 18th, just over 2 weeks away! My last long training run of 11 miles is this Saturday and then I’ve got a couple of shorter runs before the big day. I can’t wait to do it all over again

Autumn is also my birthday season, I will be celebrating my 24th birthday on October 4th, I have kept my diary free so I can enjoy time with my family and I have a week away in Yorkshire planned for the following week – so lots to look forward to!

This time of year also makes me feel very reflective and after a conversation I had a couple of days ago with a friend about setting ourselves goals, I was reminded about my ‘life list’ I shared with you in April last year (you can read the post here) It basically consisted of 20 things I would like to do at some point in my life (I’ve seen many life lists on blogs with hundreds of goals/ideas but I wanted to start slowly! Out of my 20 goals I have achieved 6 so far:

Learn how to grow my own fruit and veg – I successfully grew a selection of tomatoes, chillies and peppers last year (read more about this here)

Make my own jam/chutney – Last Christmas I made good use out of my tomatoes by making the most delicious green tomato chutney. It served well as a delicious accompaniment in my fridge and also as gifts for my loved ones.

Learn how to use a sewing machine – I have been working on this, completing my first major project using my sewing machine over the summer (you can read all about this here)

Continue completing the Great North Run – As I mentioned above, September will see me complete this event for the fourth consecutive year.

Go to Paris again – I visited Paris again earlier this year (you can read more about my trip here)

Sponsor a tiger – this was the easiest goal/idea to achieve because my Mum actually bought me a bengal tiger adoption/sponsorship for one of my Christmas presents. So I now have regular updates about a bengal tiger I’m helping throughout the year You can find out more about sponsoring a wild animal here.

Have you got a life list in progress? If so, please share! What are your thoughts on welcoming a new season? Do you long for Summer again or do you happily embrace the shorter days and warmer clothes it brings?

I woke up this morning determined to find time to tackle this today…….to sort this out once and for all —>

My poor desktop is completely COVERED with all sorts of random documents, pictures and folders. One of my worst habits it to create folders on my desktop to try and ‘tidy it up a bit’ or save things I’m working on to the Desktop for ‘easy reference’. Unfortunately there’s a massive flaw in this plan….you end up with so much stuff you can’t see anything properly, it just becomes a jumbled mess!

In my quest to be more organised and productive both online and offline I feel a ‘declutter’ is needed. I inwardly groan when my Mac comes to life and I see the craziness that is my desktop – today I’m going to attempt to clear it – only having my main folders on the right (for example Documents, Pictures, Inspired Naturally etc)

If you have an untidy desktop why don’t you join me in attempting to create a more organised backdrop to work on?

Wish me luck!

I have recently been thinking a lot about my blog and how I’d like to improve it. Similarly to lots of things in my life I always feel like there’s not enough time to do everything and my blog normally takes a back seat.

As I find myself reading more and more blogs and feeling inspired by the amount of creativity and talent out there in the blog world I realised I want to be a part of it – I want to create an online space that documents both my journey into running a creative business and my inspiration.

As if by magic this week I stumbled on the blog ‘A Beautiful mess‘ by Elsie of Red Velvet. It was here after reading lots of past entries and looking at all of Elsie’s blog buttons I found her ‘Blog Love’ e-course. Well, I read the info about it and immediately dove in!

I have read the entire course and am now starting to put together a plan for my blog. I can’t begin to tell you how helpful I am finding the course and how brilliantly Elsie has written it. It is a work-at-your-own-pace course so no need to panic about any deadlines. To find out more click on the Blog Love image below:

To begin my quest to a more nurtured blog I have bought myself a ‘blogging notebook’ – something I can jot ideas for blog posts down to help me organise myself and my time. (Any excuse to buy a pretty new notepad!) 

I  have also been spending time in the garden, catching up with the weeding and not so fun jobs like cleaning the chickens out :/ 

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Today’s post it going to be about positivity. This theme was a surprise to me but something I heard on the radio today inspired me to think about how we view our day-to-day existence and how we can influence our own mood.

Today has been the first day it has been noticeably lighter after 17:00 and I was amazed how good this made me feel! I think everybody forgets what it’s like to come home and still see to walk without needing some form of artificial light. As the days start to get longer I feel like I can accomplish so much more, more hours of daylight definitely mean more hours of productivity for me.

In the radio interview the lady being asked the questions made a really good point: if you wake up in the morning and see it’s raining again, don’t think ‘oh no, it’s wet and miserable’ think ‘yes, it’s another day and I have the opportunity to do something great today.’ This might sound corny but I think if we all had this attitude then our days would be much more enjoyable. I am one of the world’s worst at being negative about the weather- I’m going to try and follow my own advice!

Another thought I’ve had it how positivity affects creativity. For me, the happier I am the more creative I feel and want to be. Is that the same for you? I’m hoping to use the idea of recognizing the positives in situations to help kick-start my painting and designing. I plan to show you the results as I get started!

I challenge you to get positive and see how it helps your productivity!

A change of attitude is in the air!

Hello everybody, I’m back! I think I’d temporarily forgotten how long and tiring moving house is! We have literally not stopped since the end of last week and, even now, we have a few boxes left to unpack. However, the new house is fantastic: situated in a beautifully rural village, open countryside around us and very friendly neighbours. What more could you ask for?! The photo above (sorry about the poor lighting) shows the new wooden sign and clay birds I bought especially for the new house. The sign is from this lovely Etsy shop and the birds from here. I’m hoping things will start to settle down soon so I can dedicate more time to writing posts and also to my artwork. I feel I have been neglecting actually making art and this isn’t a good feeling!

Whilst moving here, as we went in search for food during the unpacking of everything, we came across a little market town a few minutes away with a beautiful vintage furniture/accessories shop, an antiques shop and a FANTASTIC French restaurant (so much so that we’re taking some friends there this weekend) I can’t quite believe it’s all on my doorstep – I hope to take some pictures the next time we go so I can share them with you.

 It looks like I’m going to have my work cut out over the next few days – until my next post have a great rest of the week!