May Drawing Challenge - Day 29

hello chums! the theme for today was 'a bicycle' so it will come as no surprise to most of you to see that the doodle i came up with is a little bright red bike...

sweet and simple :)

and until tomorrow that's all folks... xX

May Drawing Challenge - Day 15

the theme for today was 'your shoes' and it turns out that shoes are kind of tricky to draw! for me anyway. not heels so much since i've drawn quite a lot of them in my time but normal shoes... scary stuff!

anyway here's what i had to doodle since these were on my feet when i left the house this morning...

and yes... i really did whip these off again when i got to college so that i could attempt to draw them! if you don't believe me here's a shot of them plonked on my desk!

yeah so i'm kind of glad the room was empty today and that no-one was there to witness me drawing my shoes! :)

and until tomorrow, that's all folks... xX

Happy V Day ♥

so it's that day again, that day when everyone goes yampy and rushes out to buy heart shaped boxes of chocolates and flowers and... stuff

last year i drew a big Valentine's Montage for V day because last year i was slightly more optimistic about the day...

but this year, i didn't bother!

i wandered round my room this morning and took the opportunity to do a little re-decorating, V Day style

ok so actually all i did was write 'love' on my little tiny chalkboard, but it was an improvement seeing as it just said 'gay' before (thank you Mike for that charming message)

i also nailed my little 'love' sign to the wall, just so there's always a bit of love in the room... or something to that effect...

anyway, instead of drawing out more lovey dovey illustrations, this year i just dressed in red clothes and wore red lipstick all day

look i even used the little Heart bag i bought in Cork last summer (see this post - Shopping in the rain)

red swarovski heart earrings + necklace, a red bracelet and a big resin heart pendant... it was totally V Day-tastic

to be honest though i didn't get up to much at college today

i worked on my new cupcake painting for a bit...

then i sorted the little rococo frames, ready for my assessment on thursday

then i sort of gave up for a bit and watched a film on my laptop instead...

after that it was a lovely afternoon of winding embroidery floss onto bobbins... oh the glamour!

actually it wasn't all bad because after college i had to go up to Manx Radio HQ on Douglas Head to collect my flowers...

aren't they gorgeous!!!

i should explain, since i'm such a V Day misery guts, this morning my mum entered me into a little competition on the Manx Radio breakfast show and won me this beautiful little arrangement!

it's so pretty, i've never had any flowers for V Day before full stop so these were a lovely surprise

i hope you've had a great Valentine's Day, whether you're happily married, in a relationship or still single, i wish you the happiest of Valentine's Days

* * *

in other news...

i can't believe i forgot this, Sienna would kill me if she knew i hadn't posted this yet!

she came to stay on Saturday night and after dinner we sat down and made this little flower fairy finger puppet together

isn't it adorable!!!

what a clever little bean she is! such a sweetie as well, she spent most of the evening dancing about it her blue Cinderella 'high heels' and sparkly purple feather boa to Mika's 'Lollipop'

smart girl...

anyway, that's pretty much it for today i think

i have to dash because my dear ol' dad is bringing fish and chips home for us all as a V Day treat

i think my mum would have preferred a nice meal at a restaurant but hey... you can't have everything in life right!!!

until next time, 

that's all folks...

◕‿◕ ♥ 

instead of a farewell in a particular language, i'm going to end tonight's post with a 14 lovely love hearts for today, the 14th of February

Happy Valentine's Day

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

Super Sunday #8 ♥

so it's that time once again

it's time for another 'Super Sunday' post!!!

now this weeks dedication is a little different...

mainly because the person it's dedicated to... doesn't actually exist!

it's dedicated instead to a cartoon character...

anyway, it'll be easier if i just get on with the post

so this weeks 'Super Sunday' post goes out to the fabulous, the gorgeous, the fictional...

Betty Boop

if you've never seen Betty Boop before i suggest you just scroll through the images on here

you'll soon become a fan i'm sure...

now i know i'm a huuuuuge fan of animation and there are undoubtedly countless animated characters that have inspired me over the years but in all honesty, no cartoon character has inspired me half as much as Betty Boop has!

i really don't know what it is about her, i just love the way she's drawn, the colours (red is after all my fave colour and Betty primarily dresses in bright red) the pout, the curves, the 20's hair, her big green eyes... she's just so awesome!

we never did quite work out how i found out about Betty Boop in the first place but all i know is that when i was about ten years old i suddenly HAD to have everything Betty Boop related asap

i remember having Betty pajamas, slippers, bubble bath, soap, lipgloss, hair bands, pens, notebooks, pencil cases, alarm clocks, mugs, shot glasses, keyrings, ornaments, headbands, magnets, posters, calendars, mirrors... the list goes on!

to be honest i went through a phase that meant if it didn't have Betty Boop on it... i wasn't interested!

my bedroom was absolutely chock full of Betty stuff! i had a sort of Betty shrine on my bookshelf (it WAS as sad as it sounds i should point that out) full of all the little Betty ornaments i'd collected from all over the world + a stack of stuff i bought during my trip to Universal Studios (Betty is now owned by Universal so i came back with a LOT of Betty merch) and a load of bits i got in Las Vegas.

I was a really weird child... i went through a 'rainbow' phase as well but that isn't important right now!

the weird thing is that when my older sister Simone was younger, her nickname was 'Betty Boop' on account of her curves and dark hair, i never knew about this until i all of a sudden became obsessed with Betty stuff

what's even weirder is the fact that my older cousin Sharon (whom i didn't even meet until well after my betty obsession had begun) is also a massive Betty Boop fan!!!

AND my two little nieces Madison and Daisy are also huge Betty Boop fans!!! 

and even my little tiny god-daughter + her little sister both love Betty, they even have Betty Boop dolls!

super weird...

of course it was the modern Betty that i knew all about though, i'd never even seen any of the original Betty Boop cartoons from Fleischer Studios 

so naturally i ended up going out and buying Betty Boop Cartoons on DVD...

the old cartoons are amazing though! even the black and white ones

the characters, the voices, the grainy animation, they're just all so sublime!

of course Betty ended up in colour eventually just like the rest of the animation world, but she still got up to the same crazy adventures in multicolour as she did in b/w

like in this colour cartoon from 1935 in which Betty and her boyfriend Freddie have to fight off an evil villain...

i have that one on DVD that's why i wanted to share it with you all

for even more Betty Boop cartoons check out this awesome site that has archives of all the old Betty toons - Cartoons

she certainly looked a lot different back then to how she looks now though!

 in fact it's safe to say that Betty's had a lot of work done since Grim Natwick first drew her in August of 1930

i've calmed down a lot since my childhood and although my bedroom is no longer stuffed full of Betty memorabilia, i do still have a few little reminders of her scattered about the place...

 i realize now though that it's probably because of my early Betty obsession that i ended up drawing Pin-ups and why my Girls always have big pouts, curves and big eyes...

it's also probably why my fave colour is red!

the truth is, i think Betty will always be a part of my life, she's inspired me a lot over the years

in fact she still inspires me now... all the time!

you see! 

right that's enough stuff about Betty, i can't even think of anything else to say other than...

"Betty Boop is AWESOME!!!"

end of

* * *

in other news,

i've had to temporarily abandon the lollipop painting since the BRAND NEW permanant marker i bought recently, decided to run out halfway through me drawing the design onto the canvas

not cool stationary shop... not cool!

anyway, college tomorrow, not sure what i'll do yet, maybe some new felt plush stuff

who knows!

that's all folks...

◕‿◕ ★

Ви благодарам и Довидување

(that's thank you and goodbye in Macedonian on behalf of Macedonia, Благодарам ♥)

Little Lego Christmas Tree ★

so... dudes and dudettes, the time has come at last for me to reveal just what it is that i've been working on for the past few weeks...

are you ready?!

Tah- dah...

that's right folks... i've spent the past 3 weeks designing and building a Lego Christmas Tree!

you see, THIS is why i couldn't tell you what i was building and what colour the Lego was!

so shall i explain it all..

i shall indeed!

about 3 weeks ago i got a message on Twitter asking if i'd be willing to help on a project for Isle of Man Advertising (you can find out all about them HERE - IOM Advertising)

so i gave them my email address then a message came through asking if i knew anyone that would be interested in helping to build a Lego Christmas Tree...

so i volunteered!

i worked with Carroll and Martin to come up with a design and a build plan so big thanks to them for all their help throughout the project (and for putting up with my tantrums)

so after a few meetings at their offices they got the lovely Katie to cart a big box of Lego (1900 bricks) up to me at college and i got to work...

so thank you to Katie as well for delivering it to me

so after a good few hours playing and messing around with the Lego, this was the first EVER design i came up with

the problem was, they all liked my design but they didn't think i'd be able to build it with the bricks supplied!

i got really upset but at the end of the day it was up to them so i had a go at building the one from the designs they'd sent with the Lego

it was impossible to build!!!! 

those are the plans in the background behind the mini model tree, it was just crazy! i could not build it!

and i used to have to do things like this all the time during the IB at my last school!

it made no difference, i couldn't build it

so...

i was allowed to have another go at MY design

so after many emails and photos going back and forth we finally settled on THIS design

so last Friday, before i went away to Coventry, Carroll from IOM Advertising came up to college to collect me + the lego and i re-built it all at their offices in Douglas

then obviously i went to Coventry and Birmingham for a few days (SUPER DUPER trip by the way!)

and on Thursday morning i got up at 3:30am (yikes) to travel to Birmingham airport for my flight back to the IoM.

i landed at 9:25am, Carroll arrived at 9:30am with the Lego and that was that

she helped me unpack it all and we tried to work out how the plinths would work but then she had to go back to the offices

it was her birthday as well! so Carroll, Happy Birthday again for Thursday xX

then it was down to me to get it all built in time (no pressure!!!)

it was SUCH a long day! i literally spent the whole day sat on the floor by my plinths (big thanks to Bill at College for supplying them) building up the tree and moving bits about

this is how it looked early on in the day... a lot like a Pagoda with 7 tiers

eventually (at around 5:30pm) it was FINALLY finished! and we ended up with one big 5 tier tree and two mini ones

also, big thanks to the little boy and his mother that stopped to help me build the 'fence' around the bottom of the tree at about 4pm x

and big thanks to Rosemary Walters from Save the Children who kept popping by to make sure i was still awake and to see if i needed anything, thank you x

and that's it, my little tree is finished at last!

it's been a hectic few weeks i can tell you, 

i've had to keep it all on the hush hush for the past few weeks but the grand opening of the Festival was last night so... now i'm allowed to tell you all!

i took my friend Charlotte (check out her blog here - Loretta Jane's Vintage Boutique) along last night to look at all the trees

every year at Ronaldsway Airport at the Isle of Man, they hold this 'Festival of Trees' to help raise money for 'Save the Children'

local schools and businesses take part and enter trees into the festival and members of the public can vote for their favourite trees and post donations to the charity

it's a great event and always draws a lot of people to the airport to see all the trees.

there are 23 trees in all this year and i have to say, there are some really fun trees dotted about the place.

like the 'Manx Farmers Union' one, entirely made of Manx produce, totally genius

and the Manx Museum's 'i-museum' tree, covered in CD's, vintage film slides, photos and cameras

you can see the King William's College (my old school) entry as well in the background. the one with the little green and silver trees.

the KWC Chapel Choir were also at the Festival opening singing lots of lovely Carols. i couldn't get a photo but they all looked fab in their Choir robes + it was lovely to hear the Choir again after so long

the Lieutenant Governor's wife, Lady Haddacks was there as well to help open the festival.

it was a really festive atmosphere with lots of mince pies, Manx fudge and wine on hand to make people feel merry.

there were some unusual 'trees' there as well, like the Manx Landscapes 'Pottering around' entry

and the Victoria House Nursery entry, it was so beautiful though, and such a clever idea

it was a great evening and all the trees looked great

i'm proud to have been involved in the Festival this year and to have worked on the Lego Tree for 'Alliance and Leicester' (our tag line for the Lego Tree was 'Building for the Future' how AWESOME is that! love it)

it was a lot of work but it was nice to do something different for a change and i'm glad i got the opportunity to do so. 

so all that's left for me to do is ask all you fellow Manxies out there to pop down to the airport and get donating (and to VOTE for my Tree if you'd be so kind...) 

and if you're flying in or out of the IoM anytime soon, don't forget to go and have a skeet at all the trees

thanks x

* * *

in other news...

well there isn't really any other news actually!

i'm so tired from all the Lego times i haven't really been up to much else!

i've a few new Pin-up Girl illustrations to finish so hopefully they'll be ready for my next post

until then

that's all folks...

◕‿◕ ★ xX

Grazie molto e arrivederci

(that's thank you and goodbye in Italian, L'italia è un paese meraviglioso, grazie, mia amico x)