woensdag 28 januari 2015

27 in 27

On Saturday I turned 27 and like every year I make a list of things I want to accomplish in the next 365 days. Because I wanted to focus on the 365 days I have as a 27 year old, instead of focussing on the turning 28, I decided to call my list 27 in 27 this year (and not 27 before 28 like I normally would have). That's the only things I changed this year, the list is still the same: 27 things I want to accomplish or do in the next 365 days in order to get the most out of my year.

NL // Geen 27 before 28 dit jaar. De naam van die lijst deed mij plots te veel denken aan 28 worden. Alsof ik geen zin heb in 27 zijn. Geen 28 puntjes op mij lijst dus, maar 27 dingen die mijn 27ste levensjaar keihard de-max-wijs-maat gaan maken. De volgende maanden zijn mijn laatste op de schoolbanken, daarna is het tijd voor iets helemaal anders! Vanaf april hoop ik een beetje meer tijd voor mijzelf te hebben omdat ik dan aan mijn stage begin (en al mijn projecten moeten tegen dan allemaal af zijn). Daarna volgt hopelijk een vlotte werkzoektocht, maar vooral veel meer tijd om een aantal hobby's opnieuw op te nemen. Jup, ik ga mij uitleven in jaar 27. Dat is een belofte aan mijzelf. De lijst is dan ook vooral genieten en niet veel moeten dit jaar. Ontspanning staat voorop!

  1. Starting a course illustration and comic design at art school
  2. Do the 50 book challenge (16/50)
  3. Buy a book in a local/independent bookstore every month (2/12)
  4. Learning how to silk screen
  5. Graduate as a graphic designer
  6. Find a job
  7. Getting the number of unread books in my bookcase down (starting at: 27)
  8. Make a vlog
  9. Do a 365 days project
  10. Comment more on blogs and social media
  11. Illustrate a (very) short story
  12. Finish five sewing projects
  13. Blog 27 successive days
  14. Make 12 illustrations
  15. Visit 27 new places
  16. See 27 new t(o me) movies (4/27)
  17. Go driving the car 27 time (also know as getting serious about my driving license) (1/27)
  18. Make a piece of furniture myself
  19. Photograph more non-blog related things
  20. Blog more
  21. Make a short animation
  22. Watch all the Star Wars movies (marathon style)
  23. Play Magicka with the Boy
  24. Find a day planner that works for me
  25. Discover & start a new sport
  26. Go hiking more (monthly would be cool)
  27. Dye my hair pink

So, those are the 27 things I want to accomplish this year. I'm very eager to start them (some of them I already started) and I'll try to keep you guys posted about the progress I make. I'll probably post a 27 in 27 post once in a while, but also look out on Facebook and Instagram, I'll use them for mini #NKC27in27 updates (yes, I made a hashtag).

NL // Zo, dat zijn de 27 dingen die ik graag in de volgende 365 dagen wil voltooien. Ik ben alleszins heel erg enthousiast (aan sommige dingen ben ik al begonnen!) en ik ga proberen om regelmatig een blogpost te posten met een update. Naast blogposts ga ik wellicht ook Facebook en Instagram gebruiken voor mini #NKC27in27 updates te geven (jup, kheb een hashtag).

vrijdag 23 januari 2015

26 before 27 - Wrap-Up

Tomorrow is my birthday (hooray! ^-^), so it's high tide for a little wrap-up post of my 26 before 27 list. This wrap-up post is purely as a matter of form, because I haven't done anything extra since my last update. This past year was so much busier then I'd ever expected. I had to go to class almost each day and when I got home I had to work for school assignments. The next 5 months will probably exactly the same level of bat shit crazy school life (seriously, my master studies at the UGent are peanuts compared, I had tones of time back then) and I'll be less ambitious with my next list. I even contemplated just skipping a year, because I finished so little of the points on this list, but that's life and I can't let it beat me down.

NL // Morgen is het mijn verjaardag (hiep hiep!) en het is dus hoog tijd om mijn 26 before 27 lijst nog eens te overlopen en af te sluiten. Om eerlijk te zijn is er niet veel meer afgestreept sinds mijn laatste update. De afgelopen 365 dagen waren zo belachelijk druk voor mij, dat het mij niet echt verbaast dat ik zo weinig heb kunnen afstrepen. Naast naar school gaan en 's avonds aan mijn opdrachten werken, was er niet zoveel fut meer over om aan andere dingen te werken. De volgende vijf maanden zullen wellicht niet veel beter zijn en ik heb het overwogen om gewoon geen lijst te maken en een jaartje over te slaan. Alleen, onverwachte dingen zijn een beetje onderdeel van het leven zeker? Ik kan toch niet opgeven vooraleer het jaar goed begonnen is? Neen dus. Die nieuwe lijst komt er aan, zij het misschien minder ambitieus dan de laatste.

Making Illustrations

01. Make some 365 - I was meaning to make something new and creative every day for 365 days, but then I failed a couple of days in. I just had too much other things to do.

02. Draw something completely with my Wacom drawing tablet - Nope, also didn't happen. I drew things for school, but I don't want to count them.

03. Make 52 illustrations - I made a couple of illustrations, no more then 8. Allas.

04. Make one skirt every month - I thought I would be able to sew in the summer, but I only made one skirt and then it was back to working on assignments again.

Books read during the read-a-thon

05. Read thirty books - Yes, this one I did complete! I read 38 books in 2014 and I'm pretty excited about this.

06. Work out for an hour, two times a week - I'm not sure everyone will agree with me on this one, but I think I completed this one. I didn't exercise like I was planning to, but I went to school by bike for the whole of the year. My school is about 7,5 km's of my house, so I think that's pretty bad ass for somebody who didn't do any exercises before and never used her bike for trips that were longer than 15 minutes.

Sint-Petersburg's Church of the Savior on Blood

07. Drink Vodka in Moscow - I did this and I even enjoyed it. I also still need to blog about my trip. Bad blogger.

8. Organise a craft party - This one hasn't happened yet, but it's not for a lack of trying. Me and some of my classmates still want to do this, but since we have so much school assignments it has been hard to find a good date. We already had to reschedule it tree times.

A Car full of stuff for the second hand store

09. Go through the 100 Things Challenge - I didn't literally follow the 100 things challenge's rules, as in: I didn't count the things I threw away and maybe I didn't do it in just tree months. I did a whole car full of goods to my local thrift shop, I threw away tons of old magazines and stuff that was broken and lost it's importance. And right now, there are two boxes filling up again with things for the thrift store. I did well with this one.

10. Finish my Chores list - The Chores list is something of a never ending list. You'll stripe one thing of and the next thing will pop-up. So I didn't finish my list, but I made a lot of progress and that's what this was all about.

11. Design a (non-school related) poster - Didn't happen

12. Make a Boomerang card - Also nope. I didn't make the time for doing this one or the one before.

Cake I made for the Boy's birthday

13. Prepare a five courses menu - On the Boy's birthday I made him a five courses dinner, which was, even though I say this myself, extremely yummy (and way too much ;)).

14. Get my driving license - I went driving two times and then it never happened again. I seriously need to make this happen next year.

15. Discover some cool new café's and resto's in Ghent - We went and discovered ourselves some good places. I'm planning on putting a new Ghent City Guide online, so some of those places might make it there.

16. Read my Printmaking Bible and use them techniques - Boohoo, sadly no. This is the coolest book I own and I contemplated doing my CREARES about manual printing techniques so I could experiment with this book and different techniques, but I picked the book cover design instead. A girl had to make choices.

Stashbusting!

17. 3 out, 1 in challenge: For every piece of fabric I buy, I need to give away or use three fabrics I already have - This one I also completed. At the beginning of the year I went through my fabric stash, made a selection and decided to give away or sell 24 pieces of fabric. I bought only 5 or 6 pieces of fabric this year, a couple of which I immediately used. Later in the year I didn't had the time to make new things and I also didn't buy any new fabrics any more.

18. Keep a visual journal - I started a journal and I used it a couple of times, but it didn't become a habit and most of the time I just didn't know what to do with it.

Hiking at the Hoge Veluwe

19. Go hiking in the High Fens - We went to the Hoge Veluwe instead, so this counts for me. I just wanted to spent some time hiking in nature and that's exactly what we did.

20. Read the Game of Thrones - I'm not sure why I failed this one. After I read my 30 books I should have started on the first book, but instead I read other books and tried to reach 40 books. I'll just have to read them this year.

Hiking at the Hoge Veluwe

21. Go a weekend away - We went to the Hoge Veluwe and had a great time hiking and cycling.

22. Go sketching on location - I didn't do this as much as I wanted to, but when we went to Planckendael in November I sat in the elephant quarters for a while and tried sketching them.

Sketching on location in Planckendael

23. Create my dream wardrobe: Find out my clothing "style", keep the things I love and wear, get rid of the rest - I put a whole bunch of clothes in a suitcase, so I could think about keeping them or giving them away and I wrote a blogpost about finding my perfect wardrobe. And then I forgot all about creating my perfect wardrobe. Oops.

24. Do a photo shoot with our kitties! - Hasn't happened sadly enough. Although I still want to do this very much, I think Loki & Schrödinger would look dashing with a little bow tie.

25. Read one Dutch literary classic - I managed to do this. I read De Aanslag by Willem Elschot during the read-a-thon week in September. It was the only dutch book I read this year and if this wouldn't have been on this list, I would have read no dutch books.

26. Design a fabric pattern - Nope, never happened.

Feeding Lori's at Planckendael Eentje dat niet op mijn lijst stond: Lori's voederen! Nochtans wel heel erg leuk!

So that was my 26 before 27 list. I managed to finish 12 things, I started some that I never finished and some things I never started at all. It seems that this is the thing with these lists, they're always very ambitious and I never complete them. Maybe I'll do better next year. Although, to be completely honest, making them and trying and having fun during the year is always more important than actually finishing.

NL // Zo, dat was mijn 26 voor 27 lijst. Ik slaagde erin om 12 dingen af te strepen. Sommmige puntjes begon ik, maar raakten nooit af en aan anderen begon ik zelfs gewoon nooit. Dat is iets wat heel typerend is voor mijn lijstje: ieder jaar ben ik te ambitieus en ik kan ze nooit voltooien. Misschien dat het volgend jaar wel een keer lukt, al moet ik toegeven dat het daar eigenlijk niet om gaat bij mij. Ik vind het leuk om een lijstje samen te dromen, te proberen, te vergeten, maar ook gewoon om mij te amuseren gedurende het jaar.

donderdag 22 januari 2015

Zes boeken waar ik naar uitkijk in 2015

In 2015 verschijnen er een hoop nieuwe boeken. De meeste daarvan zijn nog nobele onbekenden die misschien mijn pad gaan kruisen, maar sommigen staan nu al op mijn "te lezen" lijst voor 2015. Omdat het vervolg beoeken zijn in geweldige series of omdat ik een vorig boek van een bepaald schrijv(st)er las en gigantisch uitkijk naar het volgende boek.

1. Fairest + 2. Winter

In 2015 komt Marissa Meyer uit met twee nieuwe boeken in de Lunar Chronicles serie en ik kijken enorm uit naar beide. Om te beginnen krijgen we Fairest, een tussenboek tussen de eerste drie boeken uit de Lunar Chronicles en nummertje vier die later dit jaar uitkomt. In Fairest krijgt Queen Levana een hoofdrol, wat op zich wel cool is, want hoe vaak krijgt de slechterik uit een fantasy serie 250 pagina's alleen aan hun gewijd? Nummer vier in de reeks komt normaal in het najaar uit en heet Winter, een boek waarin Cinder & Snow White een rol inspelen en de maan. So excited!

Verschijnt: Fairest komt in februari 2015 uit, op Winter is het nog wachten tot november.

3. Hidden Huntress

Hidden Huntress door Danielle L. Jensen is nog een boek waar ik naar uitkijk. Het is het tweede boek in de Malediction Trilogy en in 2014 las ik het eerste boek uit die reeks, Stolen Songbird. Stolen Songbird gaat over Cécile die ontvoerd wordt door de trollen om met hun kroonprins te trouwens zodat de vloek die op Trollus ligt gebroken wordt. Ook al was het verhaal hier en daar voorspelbaar, ik genoot toch echt van dit boek. Het was lang geleden dat ik nog zo een portie fantasy pur sang had geproefd (heksen, trollen, koningen, geschaakte jongedames, intriges, magie,...) en ik kijk echt wel uit naar deel twee in deze trilogie.

Verschijnt: Juni 2015.

4. A Darker Shade of Magic

A Darker Shade of Magic is het nieuwe boek van V.E. Schwab en zoals ik al in mijn review van Vicious schreef: ik kijk enorm uit naar dit boek! Schwab neemt ons deze keer mee naar een fantasy setting waar er magiërs zijn die tussen verschillende dimensies kunnen reizen en het speelt zich af in die verschillende versies van London. Zo is er Grey London, waar er geen magie is, White London, waar iedereen vecht voor magie en is er Red London, waar de hoofdpersonage de ambassadeur van is. Ooit was er ook een Black London, maar daar spreekt niemand nog over. Klinkt alleszins behoorlijk intrigerend, vind ik en mag ik ook nog even wijzen op de cover? Zo een mooie cover, alleen al daarom wil ik dit boek!

Verschijnt: beschikbaar vanaf 24 februari 2015.

5. Carry On

In 2014 las ik ook Fangirl van Rainbow Rowell, een boek dat ik heel graag gelezen heb, vooral (en ik weet dat niet iedereen hier zo over denkt) omwille van de fanfic stukjes over Simon Snow in het boek. Toen ik hoorde dat Rowell ook effectief een boek zou schrijven over Simon Snow en het fantasy universum waar Cath uit Fangirl zo een fan van is, kon ik dat alleen maar toejuichen. Het boek gaat Carry On heten.

Verschijnt: October 2015.

6. The Darkest Part of the Forest

Tot slot nog een boek waar er heel wat Booktubers naar uitkijken en waar ik ook wel heel nieuwsgierig naar geworden ben: The Darkest Part of the Forest van Holly Black. Een boek over een jongen, met horens op zijn hoofd, die in een glazen kist in het midden van het bos ligt en jarenlang niet wakker wordt. Tot hij op een dag wel wakker wordt en alles verandert. Het boek is blijkbaar op de donkere traditionele sprookjes gebaseerd (die zonder Disney sausje over) en gaat over feeën. Ik heb bijna nog nooit iets gelezen over feeën, dus dat lijkt mij ook wel eens leuk.

Verschijnt: The Darkest Part of the Forest is beschikbaar sinds 13 januari!

Zijn er boeken waar jullie naar uitkijken in 2015?

zondag 18 januari 2015

Review: Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Vicious was het eerste boek dat ik van schrijfster V.E. Schwab las. Het bleek een donker verhaal vol anti-helden en mensen met een hoek af. En met Victor... Ik kan alleen maar zeggen: het deed me watertanden naar meer. Veel meer.

Ok, ten eerste: kijk naar die cover! Hoe zalig is die? Hij geeft voor mij perfect de toon en sfeer van dit boek weer: donker en met een megalomaan kantje. Ik ben misschien een beetje biased, aangezien het niemand minder dan Victo Ngai was die deze cover ontwierp.

In Vicious maken we kennis met Victor en Eli. Twee beste vrienden die samen op zoek gaan naar het bestaan van ExtraOrdinaries, ofte mensen met bovenmenselijke gaven. De twee ontdekken dat EO's echt bestaan en proberen uit te vissen hoe je een EO maakt. Tien jaar later komen we opnieuw bij Victor terecht, die op dat moment juist uit de gevangenis ontsnapt is en naarstig op zoek is naar Eli...

Wat er precies is in het verleden gebeurd is, kom je als lezer stapsgewijs te weten. Schwab wisselt steeds af tussen de standpunten van verschillende hoofdpersonages en tussen hun verleden en het heden. Dit zorgt er voor dat alle personages uitgediept worden, maar ook dat je gaat meeleven met de personages, ondanks hun dubieuze persoonlijkheden.

De vertelstijl, de bovennatuurlijke gaven en de personages die allemaal een serieuze hoek af hebben, zorgden ervoor dat ik dit boek echt zalig vond. Vanaf de eerste pagina had het verhaal mij beet (het begint allemaal op een kerkhof) en ik wou het boek eigenlijk gewoon zo snel mogelijk uitlezen!

Vicious maakte mij alleszins nieuwsgierig naar V.E. Schwab's overige boeken, maar vooral naar haar nieuwe boek, A Darker Shade of Magic, dat in februari uit komt. Het boek gaat over magiërs die tussen parallelle werelden kunnen reizen en speelt zich in verschillende versies van London af. Als dat niet goed klinkt, weet ik het ook niet meer. Bovendien heeft het boek een belachelijk mooie cover, alleen al daarom komt er een fysieke versie in mijn boekenkast!

// In January I finally finished reading Vicious. I started this book somewhere last year and although I enjoyed it I didn't had the time to finish reading it until now. I loved this book! Every page and every character (well almost every character). I love how screwed up everyone is and how you can only root for them. If you like twisted stories, super heroes & villains this book is for you.

Vicious door V.E. Schwab
368 pagina's
Engelstalig
Gelezen als e-book

donderdag 15 januari 2015

December Shop Log

I know this post is a bit late, but with the sad weather and my exams it was hard to find the right time & lighting to make decent photos. I did a lot of gift shopping in December and while shopping for other people is fun, I can never stop myself from buying little bits and bops along the way for myself. So I wanted to let you guys see what I indulged myself with in December. I can already say this much: the printed word is a popular object during my shopping sprees.

THE BOOKS

I've skipped it a couple of times, but this year I went to the Boekenfestijn when it passed through Ghent. They used the big hall in Flanders Expo, which was very nice, and because I went on the last day it was also relatively calm. On the down side: I was quite disappointed with the lack of English books. One small table and almost no pockets. There were no classics to be found and no science fiction. The Dutch section was much larger, but as always there are way too much translations and way too little books by Dutch/Flemish authors. I did buy a couple of books:

  • Asian Graphics Now! - Because I can always use a good reference book and I really love the way Asian design can be so clever and different from European design.
  • The Last Unicorn (De Laatste Eenhoorn) by Peter S. Beagle - I actually bought a dutch translation of this book, because it was too cheap to leave it behind. One (or maybe two) of my favourite Booktubers mentioned this book a couple of times and I was intrigued.
  • Tirol Inferno by Annelies Verbeke - This is a book about forty people that are stuck on a skilift. It's written in rhyme and has illustrations by the Belgian illustrator Kaas Verplancke. I knew nothing about this book when I bought it, I only bought it for the illustrations and it doesn't get very good reviews on Goodreads. I am planning on reading it though. Reading rhyme seems like a nice change of pace from the usual stuff I read.

I'm also a bit of a tote bag addict and I even bought two on one day! The first one was the wonderful dinosaur inspired tote bag by Studio Doeke I bought at the Hellen B pop-up shop. It has a dinosaur reference on it, so there was no way I could not buy this, even though it was quite pricey (€15). You can find it on the Studio Doeke website. The other one is a tote bag by Blossom Books, a Dutch publisher of Young Adult books. I saw the bag on their website and when I went shopping in Antwerp a couple of days weeks ago I saw two girls with one of the other Blossom Books tote bag designs. I didn't know where to find them until I suddenly found them at the most wonderful bookstore in Ghent: Het Paard van Troje. And for €3 it was a steal!

THE MAGAZINES

I might have mentioned this a couple of times, but I'm quite the magazine addict. It started in high school with Elle and ever since I'm always buying a couple of magazines each month. This month I bought:

  • 101 Woonideeën - The last edition ever of this awesome magazine. I'll be reading VTWonen all of next year, but it will never be the same.
  • VTWonen - January edition, because when you get a subscription starting in January this means you'll still have to buy the January edition in the shops. Who knew!
  • VTWonen special DIY edition - I would love to make lots of homemade things for our house in the second part of 2015, so I bought some inspiration.
  • Computer Arts - This is a graphic design magazine and normally I don't buy it because is so expensive! This time I splurged and as always it has some awesome content, varying from industry news and interviews to tutorials on typography and design.
  • Flow for Paper Lovers II - Because a girl can never have enough pretty papers she'll probably never use because they're too pretty.

THE OTHER STUFF

  • Copper HAY Scissors - this is something of a mini-tradtition, but last year I bought a pair of special HAY scissors and when I saw the copper ones they had this year I thought I just had to start a new cool collection. Scissors it is and they come in darn handy.
  • Sea urchin skeletons for a little DIY project involving air plants (but I haven't located an air plant seller in Belgium yet)
  • Copper Wire basket at Sissy Boy (not pictured, because it currently holds all of our liquor and I was to lazy to empty it for a picture. Sorry!)

So, did any of you splurged on anything in December? Or maybe in January already?

maandag 12 januari 2015

January Photo-a-Day Instagram Challenge [Day 1 - 8]

My first week of my January Photo-a-Day Instagram Challenge flew by! I didn't take the most exciting photos because I currently have my first semester exams. Studying isn't going great, I think I've surpassed the amount of time any sane human being should spent at school and I'm just very impatient. We have a lot of assignments this year, I'm already way behind on everything and these exams (which are very theoretical and technical and aren't covering things I'll probably ever need as a graphic designer) feel like a waste of time. I could be working on assignments instead! Though I'm not happy about the studying, I'm quite sure I passed the first two exams. Let's hope I can keep this up until January 20th. :)

01. A New Year - On the first day of the year, after eating way too much and enjoying getting some awesome presents, I enjoyed this very beautiful sunset.

02. Resolutions - I've deciced I would put another 365 days project on my birthday list and I've already started my 365 Days of Drawing project.

03. A Present - Some of my presents: I got the Hoghwarts Libraty box set and I coloring books for adults. I'm very excited to read/use these!

04. Forgotten - I haden't baked in forever! I forgot how much I like making delicious smelling food. This was a horse shaped honey-cake and it was delicious!

05. White - I was hoping there would be snow, but alas, the only white things that were surrounding my last week were the pages of my course.

06. Warm - Studying always makes me feel sad and depresed, so I tend to cheer myself up with yummy things. I also still like our Mr. Putin mug (in a sarcastic way of course, I tend to not agree with Russian politics).

07. Work - Working on my typography skills. I've decided to make the first month of my 365 days project typography themed. This should also get my through this first busy month without having to come p with a crazy drawing idea every evening.

08. 10 o'clock - At 10 o'clock in the morning I was sitting in an auditorium, sweating over order calculations and trying to calculate the hourly rate of some kind of printing job. This left me little than taking my picture at 10 o'clock in the evening, by which I lay almost passed out (because dead-tired) on my couch enjoying an Intelligence² debate about whether the world is better of without religion.

zaterdag 3 januari 2015

Link Love

Link Love bannerPhoto by Liane Metzler via unsplash.com

Ladies (and gents), you're reading the second Link Love post in the history of this blog! I've been meaning to write these posts regularly, but because my blog reading slacked, I didn't had enough content to share in these little lovely updates. I'm not making any promises, we'll see how it goes. If you want to know which blog posts I've enjoyed reading the past couple of days or if you need some extra inspiration because you still haven't made up your New Years resolutions, read on!

Inspiration for some New Year's Resolutions:

  • Give yourself a 50 book challenge. Read all about it on The Pretty Books blogs & set yourself a goal!
  • If you don't have a lot of inspiration for creating your own 50 books challenge or you're up for a special edition: Popsugar's 2015 reading challenge might be perfect for you! They made a list of 50 challenges that'll help you read more diversely. The Verbeelding Bookclub on Goodreads also has it's own challenge, so why not join that one?
  • Why you should do a 365 days project
  • The girls at A Beautiful Mess have some good tips to achieve goals and to stay motivated.

vrijdag 2 januari 2015

The January Photo-a-Day Instagram Challenge

Happy New Year everybody! I really hope everybody will have an awesome 2015! I know I'm a bit late, since I forgot to say this in my post yesterday. Of course I forgot, I was too busy thinking about all the ways 2015 will be so much more awesome than 2014.

One of the things I would like to do is to take take more pictures and post them on Instagram. I really like going through old Instagram photos and remembering the things that happen on them. Most of my Instagram pictures are of little insignificant things and if it weren't for Instagram, I would never photograph them and would probably forget them for ever. I'm also planning to print my favourites at the end of the year and make a little Instagram (coffee table) booklet, so I can flip through them regularly and stuff them into my visitor's faces.

January Photo-a-day Instagram Challenge

So, in order to get the hang of photographing random things regularly I made myself a little Photo a Day challenge for the month of January. I made a list of 31 words and every day I have to make a picture that'll fit the word of that day. Since my goal just is to make more pictures and not to brush up my technical photography skills I'll be taking all of my photos with my phone. Maybe I'll try to play with some of it's options but don't expect fancy results. :)

So here are the 31 words I will photograph the following month:

01. a new year
02. resolutions
03. a present
04. forgotten
05. white
06. warm
07. work
08. 10 o'clock
09. green
10. number
11. cosy corner
12. play
13. relax
14. red
15. light
16. illustration
17. black
18. food
19. snuggling
20. blue
21. pet(s)
22. handmade
23. drink
24. (makes me) happy
25. I made...
26. yellow
27. simple
28. book
29. from where I stand
30. sweet
31. weekend

If you want to join, please feel free to do so! Never mind this is the second day of the month already, nobody will notice ;). I'm posting my photos on my Instagram account using #neverkissaphoto2015 and it would be nice to see other people's pictures appear. I'll post an update on this blog every other week, so all you non-IG-ers can follow my progress too.

donderdag 1 januari 2015

Fare well, 2014!

Whilst 2014 is now officially history, I do want to stop and look back on this past year. I must admit 2014 leaves me with a lot of mixed feelings. I don't really want to go down the negative spiral, but I spent way too much time working in 2014. I know everybody is busy, but I have the feeling I spent 2014 working on a constant stream of school assignments, sometimes in a very inefficient way. I did almost no sewing this year, I spent way too little time on crafting projects, or on writing blogposts or spending time with friends. In general: I have the feeling I had almost no real carefree fun in 2014 and it bothers me.

I believe in hard work, but I also believe in play. As it is the balance work/play isn't really doing the balancing thing and I need a change of pace. I'm still figuring out how I can make this work, how I can survive what'll hopefully be my last months, weeks and days in college class rooms and how I can transition into a working life not feeling like dead tired crap all the time.

Ok, now onto the positive looking back part! 2014 wasn't all bad. It's easier to focus on all the bad, not-feeling-good, parts, but that's not how I want to remember this year!

2014 was the year I started blogging on "Never Kiss a Cactus"!

It was the year I enjoyed spring immensely! Savouring every little last petal.

Where we made plans to visit Russia and...

We actually went! I know I didn't post anything about this trip, but I will in 2015. It was a strange and exhilarating experience. Russia is in many ways different and in many ways alike.

Although not everything was as thrilling and most of it was tiring, some school assignments were lot's of fun

I also read a lot of great and awesome books!

I had some new, and sometimes strange, tasting experiences

I did some great finds on flea markets

And although creative learning experiences, like the ones on the photos, were scarce, I had a blast at each and every one of them!

So fare well 2014! You weren't the best year ever. I worked hard and I didn't feel great, but I learned the true value of "play", something I'll probably never forget again. So thank you & goodbye! How was your year? Do you also feel like 2014 wasn't your greatest year ever or did you have a wonderful year?