2015 in review ❤

Hello chums, I know that in my last post I mentioned that the next one would probably be Star Wars themed... but as you can see, this is not the case. Since 2015 is now drawing to a close, I thought I'd keep up the annual tradition of taking a look back at the year gone by and writing a little bit about it. 

rest assured I WILL definitely blog about Star Wars in the New Year. I'm going to see 'The Force Awakens' for the third time next week (yes, really) so I'll make time to write about my love for all things Star Wars then instead.

so, on with the post. 2015 was a funny old year, as always there were some highs and lows along with plenty of laughter and tears. But then isn't every year like that?!

this is usually the point where I launch into a list of bullet points highlighting some of the ups and downs of the year... and you know what, I'd hate to disappoint so here you go!

this year I...

• spent two weeks in Larnaca, Cyprus with my lovely parents back in February. It was a really nice trip and it was also the first time I'd been back to Cyprus since I was a child. I got to visit a beautiful 9th Century BC church (read about it HERE) all while enjoying the balmy Cypriot weather.  

• was officially diagnosed with Aspergers. After 10 years battling with ongoing depression and anxiety I finally got some answers this year when my therapist suggested that I might have Aspergers. This kicked off a spate of written, audio and visual tests that culminated in a 3 hour interview in August where I received my diagnosis from a clinical psychiatrist and consultant psychologist from the UK. It's been fascinating learning about it all and why I'm the way I am. 

• got discharged from the local Mental Health Service. I originally started treatment back in February 2014 and I'm happy to announce that I was discharged in November of this year. I know that things won't be easy without the regular help of the service, but I'll do my best to get on with things by myself.  I'm hoping regular walks to the Glen will help.

• saw a great increase in online sales. In 2015 I really pushed myself to promote my work online, especially via Instagram, and eventually it started to pay off because I've had a definite boost in international sales this year. To put it into perspective, this time last year I got 5 orders in the whole of December, whereas this year I've had 111 orders since December 1st. 

• became a Godmother to a super sweet little girl. Back in September, Hayley one of my best friends from my college days kindly asked me to be Godmother to her youngest daughter Imogen. Obviously I said I'd be totally honoured and the Christening day was so lovely (read about it HERE if you like). I'm so grateful to Hayley for letting me be a part of her children's lives, I really love the afternoons I get to spend with her and her lovely girls. 

• dressed up as a 50's style Ghostbuster and spent the day walking around town on Halloween in my customized costume. Yeah I know, I'll never grow up, but this year I literally did not care what people thought of me, and I rather enjoyed my day as a Ghostbuster, I'm sure I'll crack out the outfit again when the new Ghostbusters movie comes out in 2016. 

• read 101 books. This year I managed to complete my Goodreads challenge to read 100 books, next year I'm thinking I might try and push myself to 120, but we'll have to wait and see. It's hard to say what my favourite book of 2015 was, maybe 'The Library at Mount Char' by Scott Hawkins, it was bizarre but brilliant, with an interesting mythology and some brutal characters + well written. 

• reached over 15k followers on Pinterest alone. I'm constantly striving to expand my online audience, it might sound petty and pointless to you if you're not big into the whole social media thing, but I definitely see an increase in sales when I get more followers online so It's worth the work and upkeep. This year my total reach went beyond 21,000 for all of my profiles combined, so fingers crossed that 2016 brings lots more new customers and sales (yes please!).  

• went on local radio and talked about my Art and Aspergers. Yes it might seem odd, but in October I was invited onto the 'Women Today' program on Manx Radio, it was a live show and over the course of an hour I spoke about my artwork, what inspires me and explained a bit about my recent Aspergers diagnosis. It was a lot of fun, a bit nerve-wracking opening up about mental health on live radio but a great experience regardless. 

• still didn't get a new job. I lost my job at the library in May 2014, and I've yet to get another job. I applied to another library but I never got an interview. And to be honest, other than that I haven't even really tried! At first it panicked me, I was starting to struggle financially, but now that the year is nearly over I'm not as down about it all as I probably should be. Yes I have no stable income BUT I get to spend every day doing what I love and that might be a naive viewpoint but It's more positive than getting all 'doom and gloom' about the situation. You never really know what's around the corner, who's to say I won't find a great job in 2016? Or maybe I won't, maybe I'll just continue working for myself instead. Who knows. 

 I can't really think of any more bullet points. But art and design wise, it's been a busy year. In 2015 I produced 100% girly and feminine work because I don't see why I should pretend that I want to design stuff for boys (newsflash, I don't). I added more new members to the 'Candy Doll Club' + developed brand new sticker, patch and pin designs and patterns to expand the Candy Doll Club as a brand. Feedback has been really positive and I love getting messages from customers sharing snaps of their new Girl Gang goodies. So yeah, I think I'm getting there, it might be rather slow progress but it is progress nonetheless. Here's a look at 12 of the new Candy Doll additions from 2015.

as always, it's also been a year of selfies! (For my views on why I think selfies can be super positive, check out this post HERE) Wherever I went on my travels, I made time to snap a pic of my face (I like to remind my Instagram followers that I'm a real life actual person, not just a machine mindlessly churning out girly illustrations) and like I've said before, I don't get many days where I feel good about myself so on the occasions when I look in the mirror and don't burst into tears, I like to take a photo to remind myself that I too can look like a mostly normal human being from time to time! So here are a few of 2015's selfies...

so that was 2015. Books, dressing up, Larnaca, Coventry, Dublin, Cork, France, Andorra, shopping, painting, packaging orders, good friends, great family, medical stuff, psychiatric stuff, airplane rides, boat journeys from hell, road trips, floods, good times and not so good ones. All in all, not a terrible year.

come on 2016, you can do better, I KNOW you can, don't let me down!

I don't have any plans for New Years Eve tomorrow night, my friends are all busy I think. I'm not sure whether or not to make an effort and leave the house, or just lock myself in my room and sleep through the midnight countdown etc. NYE isn't a great night for me to be without plans, I tend to go a bit loopy, I've no idea why but NYE just has that effect on me. It's like everything that's happened in the year comes crashing down on me and It's a bit of an emotional overload that I can't always deal with.  

I'm a bit scared to be honest, but hopefully this year I'll handle things a bit better than I did last year.

thanks for visiting, see you next year...

Happy Day ♥

hello dearhearts, crikey it's been exactly a month since my last post on here, i'm really not too great at this whole blogging malarkey am I?!
wait, don't answer that...

anyway I'm here now and I wanted to fill you in on a few of the things that have happened recently to keep me away from here... but then I thought 'nah'.

so instead i'm going to tell you about what I did last weekend because you see last Sunday I became a Godmother! woooooo!!!

I was over the moon when one of my very best friends Hayley, whom I've known since College, asked me to be Godmother to her youngest daughter Imogen. I mean obviously I said 'yes' otherwise I wouldn't be writing this blog. Although I was a little disappointed as I'd originally thought Hayley was proposing to me... oh well, you can't have everything I suppose!

Little Miss Imogen and her lovely Mama, Hayley.

Hayley and I first met the day we were both interviewed for a place on the Art and Design course. Luckily we both got accepted so on my first day of class she was the ONLY person I recognized or knew, so naturally I became her personal limpet. That was in September 2008 and we're still good friends now, so I couldn't have been quite as annoying as I thought! I feel very lucky to still have her as a friend as she's really nice and possibly even more sarcastic than I am! She has two very beautiful and adorable daughters and I felt very honoured that she chose me to be a Godmother.

the amazing (and delicious) Christening cake!

Anyway, the Christening day was last Sunday at St Peter's Church in Onchan here on the Isle of Man. It was a really lovely day, the sun was out and friends and family sat in the church to watch Miss Imogen Evie Reid get baptized. The Vicar was a little over enthusiastic with the holy water so most of the front two pews got baptized as well. I of course got a handful of water in the face, but I didn't burst into flames so that's one good thing!

proud parents! Hayley and Lewis with Imogen in St Peter's Church.

It was perhaps a little more eventful than planned as poor Imogen accidentally had a bump during the service and suffered a little nosebleed, there were some tears and crying but after that things went off without a hitch and after the Christening it was time for a bit of a party! Hayley and her family put on an amazing spread of food and sweet treats including a chocolate fountain (yum!) and more chips and pasty than you can actually imagine.

Gracie, Imogen's big sister.

along with the tubs of jelly and marshmallows and cookies, there were also some cupcakes that I made for the Christening. I'd met Hayley a few days before to take Gracie to the park and I ended up offering to bake some cupcakes to bring along. Now this might not seem like too big a deal but at the time I was in the early stages of a vile cold/sore throat, I had two commissions on the go and I'm not the most successful baker even at the best of times.

mid baking... oops!

So... as you can see, things got off to a great start. I had to wear a mask while I made them (so as not to give anyone else the dreaded 'cold') and it was going quite well; I'd made up the cake batter, I had everything ready and then, splash! While pouring myself a well earned glass of pop I ended up soaking myself and the kitchen floor creating a big sticky mess. Because apparently I am still a child and not in fact a twenty-four-year-old woman (with polar bear socks).

before and after.

It all turned out fine in the end though, after some very helpful mopping from Mama Boylan (thanks mum!) I ended up with 32 mini cupcakes (at about 11:30pm) so I decided to ice them the next morning ready for the Christening. I love piping pink vanilla buttercream onto cakes, it's surprisingly therapeutic and it's always fun to lick the spoon afterwards. Anyway they seemed popular at the Christening as there were only 2 left by the time I went home but it wasn't until I got back that I realised I completely forgot to try one myself!

the print I designed for the Christening.

It was probably more trouble figuring out how to transport the cakes from my house to the venue than it was to the make the ruddy things and i'll definitely think twice before I volunteer my questionable baking skills again in the future! Luckily my contributions weren't a total loss as Hayley had also (cunningly) managed to get me to volunteer for some less messy work. So as per her request, I designed a simple typography print with Imogen's birth info on for the Christening day. You will have seen it at the start of the post as well. Ducks are Imogen's favourite animal so there's four on the print; one each for her, her big sister Gracie and her Mummy and Daddy.

my gifts for Imogen.

I was definitely in a making mood all week because I ended up making two of Imogen's gifts myself. I stitched together a little pink bunny for her room and then I got my sewing machine out to struggle through making a string of pretty bunting. I love sewing by hand but the sewing machine and I do NOT often see eye to eye (it hates me for some reason) so the bunting is a little wonky, but still looks okay. The other gifts were a special laser-cut keepsake plaque and a cute teeny tiny pearl bracelet with her name + a little silver charm with 'goddaughter' on.

me... all dressed up!

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures at the church and I couldn't manage to lure Imogen away from her mum/dad/grandparents/aunt/uncle to grab a snap with her. So instead you'll have to contend with a shameless selfie of me in the lovely dress I bought just for the Christening (it's from HERE if you're interested).

It was a lot of fun to be part of such a special day for Imogen and her family, so big BIG thanks to Hayley for putting up with me for all these years + asking me to be a part of her child's life!

* * *

as you can probably tell this was more of a personal post today. So if you only come here for the art then i'm sorry but I am a real person and I do sometimes actually go out and DO things. I do have some new illustrated bits n' bobs to share with you but they will have to wait for another time, so I will do my best to post another blog next week maybe.

so until then, thanks for visiting! byeeeeeeee.

Feelin' Thirsty? ❤

Why hello dear readers! It's been a whole WEEK now since I turned 24 and to be honest I don't feel a single bit older. I'll never really grow up so all this birthday and ageing business seems a bit pointless really. I mean i'd have birthday cake and kinder eggs for breakfast every single day if I had my way!

anyway moving swiftly on, you'll be delighted to know that I've just finished another new Candy Doll Club illustration!

 If you keep up with me on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook then you might have seen that I've posted the odd sneak peek WIP shots over the past few weeks as I was working on the illustration during my recent trip to France/Spain/Andorra. Well I've actually finished the design now, so let's meet her properly shall we?!

As you can probably tell, she's quite the sultry pinup babe! But don't be fooled by her sugary sweet appearance, she'll mess you up... if you're dumb enough to try and mess with her!

It's been a while since I worked on a brand new Candy Doll and this one was SO SO SO much fun to work on! Especially the tattoos, I spent hours trying to get them as fun and colourful as possible!

 

Intergalactic space babe themed tattoos + a very tasty beverage to relax and refresh in the sunshine, because every Candy Doll knows that nothing tastes sweeter than a carton of 100% fresh boy tears! Yum.

 

Don't forget a pair of cute bleach striped denim shorts to show off those pretty pins and tasty tattoos! Throw in a few neat little pins and badges and you're good to go.

Sassy brooches on a pink lolita sailor girl top to ward off potential suitors, check. Fight like a girl tatts + a busty mer-babe = Girl Power 24/7!

seriously... SO MUCH FUN!

She's available now on prints and tees and bags and stuff over in my Society6 Shop + there's FREE worldwide shipping on today! So it's a good time to treat yourself to something candy coloured! 

oh and in case you were wondering what's going on with the different coloured bunches, the amazing hairstyle is inspired by super lovely and fab youtube blogger Chloe aka xxchlozaahxx who has the most perfect pink/blue split dyed hair. Check out her Instagram for more magical pics.

so, yeah. Lots of fun to work on a new Candy Doll design, I'm not sure what the next one will be like, I'll have to draw some more inspiration from some of the pastel babes I follow on Instagram and Tumblr.


* * *

in other news, last Thursday my dad took me out to lunch in Peel in the West of the island. I don't get to spend much time with my dad, despite living in the same house as him. We're both very quiet and isolated people, preferring our own company most of the time, and there are enough rooms in this house to mean that we can go days without exchanging more than a 'hello' or 'good morning'. So every now and again we head out to somewhere on the island and get some lunch and have a mooch about the local shops, visit a museum or just wander around and look at stuff.

It sounds strange but it's something we've done since I was a little girl. Obviously I spent time with my dad as a kid, we'd play football and tennis and i'd put furniture together after my dad had given up on the instructions and stormed off. But growing up I would spend most of the week talking to my mum and spending time with her practicing my reading or spelling etc, then on Sundays my dad would take me on the electric railway or to the Laxey Wheel or to get flowers and fruit plants at the garden centre. Or sometimes he would try to teach me how to fish off the bridge in our garden (the river Cornaa runs right alongside our house) but after I dropped the rod into the water I didn't get many more lessons!

Anyway, we went to Peel and had a lovely afternoon watching the boats in the harbour and all of the bikers flooding into the town for lunch and to visit the Castle and the museum (the TT races are on at the moment so our normally quiet island has been overrun with bikers from all over the world!) there were people everywhere and the sun was shining, it was a good day for visitors and locals alike.

And since I had such a nice day I decided to snap a selfie when we got home because my mood was so bright and I don't feel that way very often so I have to make the most of it when I do.

I know, I know, if I get any paler i'll turn into a vampire! But so what, I liked how my hair looked, hence a selfie. For more about my thoughts on 'selfies' and why there should be NO shame in occasionally turning into a big poser and photographing yourself in the mirror, check out my old blog post here

and on that note i'll say goodbye for now!

thanks for stopping by dearhearts 

Lovely Larnaca ❤

hello chums, so it's been a month since my last post and as you can see I appear to have completely ignored my own resolution about trying to blog more this year! But in my defense i've been away for the past 2 weeks and I didn't take my trusty macbook with me, and it turns out that I simply do not have the mental patience to put together a proper blog post on an iPad.

So here we are, I got home on Sunday afternoon, spent all day Monday attending appointments and yesterday I was rearranging my Etsy shop and reading Neil Gaiman's new book so I guess now seems like as good a time as any for telling you a little bit about my recent holiday.

Now if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook then you'll probably have spotted a few snaps of blue skies and sandy beaches and if you follow me on Instagram then you'll have seen a whole bunch of holiday photos, like this one...

a visit to Ayia Napa

Anyway, just before Christmas my lovely parental units surprised me with their plans for a family trip to Larnaca in Cyprus. Now it's been rather a while since I last had a proper holiday anywhere that involved planes and warm weather (don't get me wrong, I adore my near annual trips to Southern Ireland and visits to the West Midlands to see my family, but I get there by boat and car so it's not quite the same).

flying over snow-capped mountains in Austria on our way to Sunny Cyrpus

 My last proper trip abroad was to Tivat in Montenegro in 2011 (read about it here and here if you like) and since then I never really managed to go anywhere because I was finishing my Art degree and then I got a job and so on and so forth.

But now, due to my current unemployment and apparent inability to find other work, I was truly free to travel further afield that Coventry or Cork, hence the trip to Larnaca.

day 1: the view from my balcony!

It was actually my second time visiting Cyrpus, although the last time I was there I was three-years-old and in a buggy so you'll forgive me if all I can remember of my previous trip is sandy beaches, ice cream and a big colourful plastic toy truck I begged my parents to bring all the way home with us (they totally did!), so naturally I was excited about visiting somewhere I hadn't really seen before.

just call me the bird lady! look at all my sparrow friends...

I'm not sure if i've mentioned it on here before but i'm a bit of an Art History nerd and I have an eternal love of Classical Architecture, in particular the original Greek orders, so I was looking forward to seeing crumbling ruins, mosaics and other such lovely sights. As it happened, I didn't really manage to see many of those things. Despite the fact that my dear old dad rented a car during our visit, he refused to drive through any of the cities (although we drove past and around a few of them, several times while we got lost) so I didn't get to see any of the famed historic sights I was promised.*sad face* :(

Dekelia Beach

We did however spend about 6 hours in the car driving to and from Paphos (deemed too busy by my dad) and soon enough Limassol passed us by as well (we didn't even attempt to go near it) before accidentally ending up having coffees in what i'm fairly sure was someone's sitting room up near the Troodos mountains. Getting lost on the road is a normal part of almost every family holiday i've ever been on, my dad always encourages us to 'Look upon it as an Adventure' but after 6+ hours in a car driving past everything worth seeing you start to get a bit fed up.

pretty little candy coloured house in Larnaca

Nevertheless, I still had a lovely time in Cyprus, although the hotel we stayed in was literally in the middle of nowhere (between a gas company, a power station and a British Sovereign Army base) I managed to visit Ayia Napa (eerily quiet during the Winter months, I can only imagine how packed it is in the Summer when the party-goers of Europe descend en masse!) and Larnaca of course, as well as trips to Paralimni, Liopetri, Zygi, Frenaros, Deryneia and sort of Famagusta,

Larnaca Marina

You see one of the most frustrating days of the trip was when we tried to find our way to Famagusta on one of my dad's daft whims. On the maps we had it was only up the coast from Ayia Napa and looked to be a sizeable town, so we headed out and carefully followed the routes with me as map reader in the front while my mum distributed sweets and water from the back of the car. So we stuck to the right roads but kept getting lost because for some strange reason the main roads and motorways had next to no mentions of Famagusta anywhere on the route. 

Lost again! Mama and Papa Boylan in the rental car, time to get the maps out!

 Never one to give up on something like this (ha, tell that to Paphos and Limassol!) my dad kept on until we finally saw signs for Famagusta Hospital and a Famagusta view point. We followed the signs until at last we reached a Military checkpoint.

delicious Greek almond milk chocolate, isn't the packaging gorgeous?!

A Turkish checkpoint I might add, because it turns out Famagusta is in the Northern Turkish part of Cyprus and is in fact... a Ghost Town. That's right, we drove all day trying to find a place that doesn't even really exist anymore, I mean the town is still there but the section on the border is empty and can only be viewed from special view points along the Cypriot border, which cost €2 each, so naturally we didn't get to climb up one and see.

blue skies in Ayia Napa

So after all that we couldn't even get to the ruddy town, so we turned around and drove back to Larnaca scowling and laughing about yet another daft 'Adventure' my dad led us on. In retrospect i should've just googled the place before we went but the hotel didn't have wi-fi in the rooms (shock horror!) and when the public wi-fi areas were busy i neglected to check up on things. So that was that, a wild goose chase that ended with a scary Military checkpoint and a Ghost Town devoid of life. Smashing.

Orange trees growing right outside the hotel + all around Larnaca

I might sound a bit whingey but was actually a really lovely trip, having grown up on an island with the seaside at every turn (the first 4 years of my life were spent in a house on a beach and my high-school was across the road from a beach) i've never really been a big fan of seaside holidays, because the sea is something I usually see several times a day at home.

collecting shells with Mama Boylan

But I can't pretend it wasn't brilliant being able to take off my sandals and go for a paddle every day along the beach behind the hotel, brilliant mainly because I could walk in the surf for hours without complaint whereas if I tried to do that at home i'd probably lose both feet to hypothermia before half-an-hour was up!

paddle paddle!

It's strange but my parents seem to have a habit of island hopping when they go on holidays, after all we live on an island! Over the years they've taken me to Jersey in the Channel Islands a few times, to Majorca, Madeira, Mauritius, Sentosa island in Singapore, Bintan island in Indonesia, Vancouver island, Iceland + Lanzarote, Gibraltar and of course Cyprus (technically a hotel we stayed at in Dubai was on an island but that was man-made so i'm not sure it counts!) So we're quite the island hopping family!

beautiful sunset in Larnaca, as seen from my balcony

Cyprus is the closest i've ever gotten to Greece or Greek Culture, so it was fun to learn a bit about local customs and music. One of my highlights of the trip was getting to visit Agios Lazaros or the Church of Saint Lazarus in central Larnaca. I'd read about the church when I researched Larnaca before we left for the trip, but nothing could compare to seeing it in the flesh.

Agios Lazaros bell tower

This incredible 9th Century church was originally built in 890AD over the original tomb of Saint Lazarus of Bethany, (before most of his remains were taken to Constantinople in 898AD and later to Marseille during the Crusades in the 13th Century where they were subsequently lost)

The Church of Saint Lazarus

although parts of the Church have been rebuilt and replaced over time due to damage from Ottoman/Turkish occupation and fires, it's incredible to think that parts of the building have stood there for so very long. There's a real sense of history surrounding the place, even as you walk across the square that holds the church, you can't help but marvel at how old and worn the stonework is.

beautiful old cloisters

 Agios Lazaros is one of only three surviving Byzantine churches in all of Cyprus, it's impressive from the outside but the interior is so unbelievably beautiful, filled with an intricately carved baroque iconostasis covered with gold leaf and dozens of 17th and 18th Century painted icons. It's breathtaking inside, I could've spent all day wandering around looking at everything but it's a busy place drawing locals and visitors, so I lit a candle in remembrance of my grandparents before heading back to the Marina.

Interior filled with Byzantine, Baroque, Rococo and Gothic details

Unsurprisingly I came back equally as pale and pasty as when I left. My parents caught the sun and actually look like they've been on holiday but I only have to look at sunlight to burn like a lobster so although I made time to sit outside and paddle in the sea each day, I didn't really get anything close to a sun tan. It was deliciously warm after the icy chill back home though, with temperatures of 21˚ and blue skies filled with sunshine, it was a bit of a shock coming back to 5˚ when we landed in Liverpool, even the immigration officer at passport control teased me for my lack of tan and the fact that I was shivering so much. (hey we landed at 11:30pm and it was ruddy cold!).

Hotel Beach

As far as retail therapy goes i have very little to report, although Larnaca was filled with darling little shops filled with handmade jewellery, designer sunglasses/handbags and divine retro styled cosmetics, I didn't really buy much. I know I usually fill my Holiday posts with snaps of my latest purchases, but I flew this time meaning I was restricted on luggage and couldn't really fit much in my case, I mean I got a few cute tops + souvenirs for my friends but that's about it. Boring I know. To make up for it, here's a shameless snap of my face.

Holiday Sunglasses Selfie!

I really enjoyed my time in Cyprus, I was there for 12 days after all, and it was truly lovely. Even if I maybe didn't get to see quite as much of it as i'd have liked, what I did see was beautiful and I think i'd like to go back someday (maybe this time to actually see the famous ruins and mosaics!) but who knows. It can't hurt though right? third time lucky and all that :)

last afternoon in Larnaca before flying home

so... yeah, that's about it. I think I've probably written enough haven't I? I do tend to get a bit carried away when i've been away somewhere and as we've already established it's been years since my last proper trip away, so you'll have to forgive me for all the holiday spam!

the next post will probably involve some sort of new illustration or painting, you know... normal service shall be resumed!

so until next time, that's all folks!