Good evening guys! I am just quite hurriedly getting ready to go out. This is actually
the second time so far this month apart from going to the post office and like
Tesco Express it's the second time that I've actually left the house this month
which is terrible. The first time was for Ozzy's graduation which was right at
the beginning of the month which was obviously a really lovely big momentous
day and it was just- I don't know- it was nice all-round. I've never been to a
graduation ceremony before and obviously it meant a lot; a big like closing of a
chapter and starting of a new one. Also little things, just being out for a meal
afterwards and also the fact that it was at the o2 or the Millennium Dome which- I
don't know- it was nice being there. I enjoyed being there. Just because I don't
know, we used to go there all the time; me and my friends, when we were a bit younger
just because that was like one of our nearest cinemas to go to so it was nice
just being back there and you know they've got loads of nice restaurants
and things in there. And overall it was just a really momentous and significant
day. And since then you may have seen my like first part of November vlog (I don't
blame you if you didn't watch it because it was purely like postage related,
packaging and posting out the orders for my zines) and that really took over a
large portion of my month so far. And since then I've just been working on a
couple of commissions and also just a few video commitments that I had that
sort of piled up in the background throughout the course of October and
through the start of November. So I still have a couple of videos still left to do
this week pretty much. So honestly the stress levels are still not mellowing
out post-inktober. If I had to put it on a scale I would say my anxiety has been
on like a steady eight for probably the last three or four weeks.
Last month it built and built and built and kind of stayed up so I'm hoping that
once I've done these couple of videos , got that done, I'm gonna take a
week off I've decided and hopefully once all that is like out the way I don't
know... my brain can kind of just settle down, get back to normal, because after that I
shouldn't have any reason to really be stressed out anymore. Today I really felt
myself getting quite kind of... winding myself up a bit so just now I decided to
stop what I was doing- I still have like I said I think like two videos left to
edit, one left to film, I was gonna work on editing this evening before going out
but I decided that I would just save that for another day maybe, probably
tomorrow and just to kind of bring myself back down to more of a normal
level, I sat in bed about an hour eating probably half my body weight in macaroni
cheese and I caught up on all the vlogs that I've missed out on over the last
month or so. So I was watching CatCreature I was watching ByBun as always
and Holly Exley and furrylittlepeach as well and it was just a really nice little
time to myself, nice and relaxing tucked up in bed. If you guys are looking for
videos that will really kind of- I don't know- calm you down and transport you
somewhere completely different, it just makes me feel like you're hanging out
with a friend. I would definitely recommend all of them. Holly especially. I
don't feel like she gets half the amount of attention on her channel that she
should. She makes the most incredible gorgeous artwork and her videos are so
well made and she just seems so lovely. Definitely check her out if you haven't
heard of her but I will have all the people linked below that I just watched
today. I feel like if you enjoy vlogs, if you
enjoy seeing artists making art and like their lives behind the scenes and you
know, just calm and like well produced videos then they tick all those boxes. So
having done that, I felt a bit more like myself. Quite pumped now to be going out.
Getting to see my friends for the first time in quite a while.
We're heading to just a local pub there's a pop quiz on every Thursday and
we're gonna go quizzing. I love love love a pub quiz, it's like my favorite thing
to do. And I don't really get to go to them as
often as I would like to but apparently this is a really good one. I think the
reason I love quizzes so much is just that I was used to
being really clever at school and like since I left school,
because I'm not really using my brain so much anymore my intelligence level has
really gone from like I would say above-average to like 'two plus two is
four, minus one that's three, quick maths'
So even though my brain has kind of turned
to yogurt in the years since I left school, I do have a lot of space for
useless trivia knowledge. There's a lot of like a celebrity facts and all sorts
in my brain so I don't know I just I love watching quiz TV shows. And going to
a quiz, it's just the kind of next level. Obviously can't stay out too late just
because like I said I've got a couple of videos still to work on. Tomorrow will be
Friday and then I want to spend the weekend with Ozzy just because he is
starting a new job next week and we probably won't get to see each other as
often as we used to so it'd be nice just to have that last little weekend
together before our schedules get a bit jumbled up. Which kind of means that
tomorrow I'm gonna have to do all that filming and editing and sort it all out
but we'll see how it goes. And then after that I am planning a week off, I think
from social media. I think my plan at the moment is to delete the social media
apps from my phone because I am constantly checking them. I might only
check my emails a couple of times within the week. I just want to give myself a
little bit of breathing room to sort out the stuff that I you know didn't get
around to in the last month and a half. I'm gonna do a lot of tidying and
organizing I think and just getting to get myself back to zero. Get back to
square one and you know carry on the rest of the month, start a new routine
with like being productive, keep up the momentum that I got from inktober but a
much more you know practical level.
All right so I'm just about on track together on time but I think it's time
for me to stop talking and just crack on get my coat on and get out the house.
(the quiz-master was very eccentric)
'Oh shit, hot diggity-daffodils'
'It's not about me tonight, it's about every son of a bitch with a raffle ticket.'
So I haven't filmed in a while. If I'm being honest ,it's not been the
best week and I kind of just wanted to wait until- I don't know- I didn't want to
come on here and whinge and moan basically because I feel like I do that a lot. So I
just wanted to wait until things had kind of blown over. But to cut a long
story short, well I started the week with an email from a customer- a disappointed
customer- which is probably the worst type of email you can get. Now they were
disappointed, not in what they received, but just the fact that they didn't
receive anything at all. And that's something that happens you know
especially after a big batch of orders like that. Of those 350, there are going
to be some that unfortunately don't make it where they're supposed to go. That's
just how the postal system works. Some things do fall through the gaps. And
thankfully that person was really understanding and just completely, you
know, they accepted that it was something that was out of my control and I can
appreciate that, you know they just wanted their money back, they've been
waiting for quite some time. I would like for them to actually just get what they
ordered if I can. But it turns out that this is part of like a larger problem
that's actually become a little bit worrying just because I now have about
four orders that have gone missing in London in this small bracket of time.
Three of those are the zines, one is actually a commission that I didn't ship
on the same day so that's slightly concerning that something that I sent
out on a different day to the big batch of orders has also gone missing in
London. But as I said it's something that's out of my control. It's a tough
pill to swallow sometimes. Obviously there's something going on and I would
love to be able to give people answers at least. You know, people have trusted me
with their money and I can't explain it for them right now. I can't tell them
what's going on because I don't know, and as understanding as people are and have
been, and I really appreciate that- I do feel it you know. I don't want to
disappoint people and I don't want to seem unprofessional. On top of that, I've
also this week been back and forth every day
with paypal. If you remember in my last vlog I did mention
that PayPal had frozen my account so that I couldn't access any of the money
that I earned with the zine sales, and any other money that I've earned in that
time. So all my patreon payments have gone in there and just you know
different commissions and other print orders have gone into that account. At the
time as as frustrated as I was about it and as much of a inconvenience it was, I
didn't think that it would be a huge issue. I thought that once I provided the
information they wanted we'd be back on. But it's turned out to be one of the
most insane experiences, their service has been absolutely abysmal and having
looked into it I've discovered that this is quite a rampant thing within that
company. So I will actually be making a full video about my experience with
PayPal and why after this experience I will not be using them anymore.
I'd be interested to know if that will affect you guys. You know if you visit a
shop online and they don't accept paypal does that affect whether or not you'll
buy something. For the time being anyway I am only accepting cards, purely right
now because I can't access my PayPal account at the moment. Things are alright
for me financially and as stressful a week it's been, the thing that has helped
me really has just need to be as proactive as I can to just do whatever I
can to sort things out. So every morning every single morning, I have been calling
PayPal just to make sure things are moving forward just to kind of push them
in the right direction. And I've called them twice today already,
I called them twice yesterday. I feel like today maybe today we are making
progress- we're making more progress than we have so far. I've also called Royal
Mail about the postage situation, I've visited the post office, I have submitted
claims for those missing things. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get the money
back for them but I will be able to at least have those looked into, just alert
them to the fact that those things have gone missing and maybe start some kind
of investigation on that. I also emailed everyone else that ordered from within
London around that time just to make sure that their orders are coming
through. And just doing those little things
helps to ease a bit of stress it's just better for me to be doing something than
worrying about it. But just in the last couple of hours or so I decided to just
kind of remind myself that worse things have happened, there's more to life than
you know PayPal and Royal Mail and these problems- as annoying as they are- they
are things that I will be able to solve eventually. You know it's not the end of
the world and the whole point of this week off... this week off was that
I have had a lot of focus on the business side of things over the last
couple of weeks and I really wanted to just kind of take some time to focus on
the art side of things and so far this week I really haven't done that. So what
I'm gonna do right now is probably just stick some YouTube videos on stick some
music or maybe a podcast and do a little bit of painting and my sketchbook. Just
kind of calm myself down a bit. And I'm waiting for Ozzy to finish work and then
I'll head over to his house, spend Saturday there just you know chill
completely, switch off from everything, maybe go for a walk in the woods or
something. Spend some time with him and the cat and then on Sunday I think I'll
be ready to come back and kind of tackle things face on again. I've limited myself
to two calls to paypal a day so I'm all done with PayPal for today. Oh in other
news I did get to have one really lovely day this week where we got to dog-sit a
little puppy called Woody. He was 11 weeks old,
a cavapoo I think- I mean I don't know dogs- but he was the cutest cutest cutest
thing I've ever seen in my life he was so tiny and fluffy and we just had so
much fun running around and he peed on my rug but I loved him anyway. So yeah that's my
little catch-up for now and and I'm gonna crack on with a little bit
of painting hopefully get like two or three coral paintings done now before
the evening.
Hey guys Can't believe it's December already. I'm just
about to start editing this month's vlog but I can imagine it's not gonna be a
great one. I don't think I have a lot of footage to put together and just in
general obviously have not been feeling myself this month. So I apologize if this
has been such a drag to watch. I think in general this time of year a lot of
people will start to feel kind of introspective ... introspective
.... introspective.... introspective and maybe a bit lost a bit disenchanted.
I know I have had to kind of take a break from social media as much as I can.
Just at the moment feeling like I'm not cut out for it but I decided to kind of
just put the camera down, get back into a real life really and just took
some time to appreciate the things that I have and you know I spent time with
friends. Went for a nice Thai meal with my friend Laura and Wing Wednesday
with Annie and Jodie. Hi Annie by the way, I know you're
watching. And yeah just kind of grounding myself a bit in real life and taking the
time to appreciate the things that I have and how lucky I am. The friends I
have and my family and my health and the fact that you know I get to do what I
love everyday as a living and and I have you guys. And I can't tell you enough how
much I appreciate your love and support. And before we get a bit too cheesy, I
thought we would end this one on a bit more of a positive note with some material
items that also bring me joy. So across this month I have been
sort of acquiring a few new things here and there and I thought it'd be cool to
have like a little haul at the end. So some of this stuff was sent to me, some
of it is stuff that I bought myself, some of it's art related, some of it isn't.
It's all a bit random but let me know if you're interested in this kind of thing
and yeah i'll show you what I got. So the first thing is this t-shirt. This is by
the youtuber Nathan Zed. I've never bought youtuber merch before and I've
also never spent like 20 plus pounds on a t-shirt but I really love him, I love
his videos, I love the message that he sends out and I feel like- as far as
YouTube merch goes- there's a really great message behind this and I love the
design of it. Like it's not just someone that's written their name on a t-shirt
and they're selling it to their subscribers. Like there's something behind
this and I just love the look of it. So I'll leave links as well below to
everything I can. But yeah first thing is that t-shirt. Let's see, I also got this
thing. I'm gonna do a proper video on this this is a prynt pocket I think, so
you put your phone in it... you put your phone in it like this and then you can
go on their app and actually print out your photos. I've haven't charged it so I
can't show you it but like this is an example of one of the photos I've done.
And then the really cool thing is if you go on their app you can actually scan
the photo and it'll play a video of it.
Which is really cool! So I'm hoping to do maybe one of my travel
journal spreads to show a nice quick easy way to print pictures. But this was
sent to me by that company so thank you Prynt for that. I also got this book. This
was a gift from my friend Linden, like a late birthday present.
it's called 'mindfulness and the art of drawing; a creative path to awareness' so
it ticks all the boxes for me. I'm currently reading Art and Fear which
I've mentioned a couple of times but because I haven't had a chance to read
recently, I was planning on starting that book from scratch just to refresh my
memory. So before I start on that I'm gonna read
this one first so I'll let you guys know what I think of it. Another book I've got
and this was sent to me by I think Pan Macmillan publishers, this is the 365
bullet guide; it's essentially like a guide for bullet journallers. So they have
you know different ideas for all sorts of spreads that you can do, different
ways to write lists, different ways to decorate your pages.
It's quite a hefty book, really nicely designed and there are some really cool
ideas in here so if you are sort of looking into getting start with bullet
journaling this might be quite a nice thing to look at. Also earlier on in the
month, received a lovely gift from one of my viewers Teri, who sent me this
really cool palette that she uses for her goauche paintings where you have like
the little pots on the side. She said you can make your paints last like months in
here. So so thoughtful thank you so much Teri and she also sent a note with it
and I was reading the note, she's just got really nice handwriting, and I looked on
the back and realized she actually painted this which i think is just so
incredible. I'm gonna put it with my other forest painting that I did, I think
it would just go really nicely with it. But yeah thank you Teri, so amazing.
Also a really old PO box gift I got a while ago from Christine who won my
giveaway and this was before like I had my PO Box address out there, but when I
sent her the prizes from the giveaway obviously that was my return address on
there and she really kindly sent some stuff back for me. And there were quite a
few things but my favorite thing is this pencil extender just because I don't
know- you know those gifts that are so thoughtful and so like catered for you
because basically some of you might remember my sad little pencil, she'd seen
that in quite a few of my videos and thought that I would benefit from a
pencil extender, which I didn't even know is a thing. So thank you for that
Christine and for all the other little bits and bobs that you sent me. Also
yesterday got a lovely letter from Whitney and this really cool bit of art
that she made. Just really thoughtful and nicely done letter, just so nice of you
to take the time to do this. So thank you so much for that. And obviously no one
has to send me anything. My PO Box address is in the description below and
I do love receiving stuff from you, it's just such a lovely treat, it's such a nice
bonus but you do not need to feel inclined to ever send me anything. And
these last bits and bobs... just because obviously I finally got my money out of
PayPal. The first thing I did- well the first thing I did was pay my mum back-
but the second thing I did was have a little Amazon haul for a few new art
supplies. I wanted to just do some art for fun, do something more expressive
and less like thought through. So bought some new suppl- well first- the first
thing I thought was- don't judge me- these trainers which light up in lots
of different colors. These are actually a birthday present for my sister... whens
this video going out .... she is turning- look at that- she's turning 27 this weekend
and this is what she wanted. So yeah I've got these for her and then for some
fun art experiments I got 10 of these canvas boards, just square canvas boards,
I got some gesso to prime them; this is the Windsor in Newton in Galleria gesso
primer, and then I've got a few different colors of acrylic paint; so I
got a white, I got a black, I got matte rosewood which is a nice
pink . I wanted to make some art for my room so I wanted to get some colors I
felt would go quite nicely in here. And I also got this hookers green
because I thought that that would go quite nicely if it was lightened up it
could go quite nicely in here as well and I got some
I'm gonna say phtalocyanine emerald. I'm not even sure why I got this
one but basically just like a nice blue green. So a few acrylic paints, not that
many, they're all pebeo brand just cos they're quite cheap and it is all a bit
experimental. I also got some fluid medium to go with the acrylic paints and
then- this is where things get a bit interesting- and my patrons will know
what this is for. I feel like a few people watching will
probably be able to figure it out. Let me know in the comments if you know what
kind of paint things I'm going to be doing. So I've got some cups in different
sizes, that might give it away. Also got some funnels because I saw
someone using some funnels for this kind of painting, and then I have got some
carbusonic treadmill oil and a syringe. So I hopefully I'll do some of that
either later today or tomorrow. I'll probably make a video on it just so you
can see what I'm doing with it all and let me know in the comments below if you
have figured out what type of painting it'll be. And yeah thanks for watching
guys. I hope you've had a great November and I will see you soon for the next
video! bye!
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