29

Sep

French For Cupcake

I’d like you to meet French For Cupcake, aka Claire Magowan, a wonderful blogger of all things tasty (fashion and baking especially).

Her blog is a feast for the eyes and the tummy as she brings you regular updates of outfits, recipes and pretty photos.  Although some people find her blog by googling ‘big boobs in the street’ (a compliment to Claire but most likely not what the (probably male) searcher had in mind!), I can guarantee that it’s the enthusiasm that Claire has for her blog that draws the readers.

Although I do sometimes worry about her nail varnish addiction, she is passionate about the stuff and comes up with some excellent and well executed designs.

Her blog is not just all (fun) fluffy and girly stuff though, oh no.  Claire is passionate about promoting positive body image, no matter what your body shape or size; something that I don’t think is voiced often enough, especially when all you see in the media is unrealistic and often unhealthy ‘ideals’ for weight and appearance.

To this day I’m gutted that I didn’t get to hang out with Claire while we were at school together.  I moved to the same school as Claire for my last two years of study and although our school was massive I cannot for the life of me work out why we didn’t get round to being friends while we were both living in the same country!  Ridiculous.

In summary, French For Cupcake is a great blog written by an awesome lady who deserves the faithful and supportive readership that she has worked hard to get.

Claire, I salute you! x

242 days ago Short URL Comments

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29

Sep

A Beautiful Mess

This is my favourite ‘lifestyle’ blog that I have come across online.  I use the term ‘lifestyle’ because I think it covers pretty much everything that you could possibly want to read about to have a gorgeous, stylish life.

Elsie is the blog’s writer and with the help of her equally talented friends, she brings you a whole host of treats from clothing to cooking to crafting!  Through her friendly and chatty writing style, I almost feel like I’ve gotten to know her throughout my time with the blog.

I find myself visiting A Beautiful Mess almost daily as there are constant updates, the well thought out and nicely shot photos being a big pull.  I would also highly recommend checking out her E-Courses which as as engaging and informative as her blog.  Once I have further honed my crafting skills I will definitely be using what I’ve learned on the Dream Job course to flog my wares!  Even reading over it now gives me encouragement and motivation to keep plugging away at making ‘stuff’, even if at the moment it’s just to give my products away as presents for friends and family.

I also purchased The Style Your Space e-course as I find Elsie’s taste in interior design to be very similar to mine and I was looking for inspiration.  It’s great to see items being thrifted and recycled to make things that really make your house a home.  I’m trying to rein myself in and not buy all the courses at once…

Elsie, I salute you and the rest of the Red Velvet team! x

242 days ago Short URL Comments

Design Stuff

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20

Oct

Lighthouse Exhibition

This blog post is a long time coming, but it’s about my involvement in my degree show, held 16th-20th June 2010 at the Lighthouse in Glasgow.  It was the first time during my time at the University of Strathclyde that my department had held an external exhibition, open to the public.

Me putting up the wall graphics in the Lighthouse Continue reading →

585 days ago Short URL Comments

Design Stuff

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15

Sep

Rubbish Sleep

I’m having real trouble resting at the moment.  Although I am falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, I still wake up absolutely shattered even though I’m going to bed at 9:30/10pm!  With only 3 hours in which I have to shower, have dinner, eBay, reply to emails, look at different broadband suppliers, update my site and CV etc etc etc I find myself run ragged.  When bed time rolls around (all too soon) I find that I’m that my mind is still buzzing.  I don’t have any difficulty falling asleep but I think my thoughts are still churning away as I sleep! Continue reading →

621 days ago Short URL Comments

Life Stuff

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13

Sep

Change of Direction

I should probably be going to bed now instead of writing this blog entry, but I just want to update anyone who happens to read these musings of mine with the fact that I am now longer going to be going to Italy at the end of this month.

Continue reading →

623 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

Design Stuff/Life Stuff

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10

Sep

Rock Chic – 17th September

An amazing night is happening in a week’s time that will fulfill all your music and fashion needs in a one-er – Rock Chic!

 Hosted by the Pooch girls, Kirsten Lynn and Laura Boyd, this is a charity event to raise money for the Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre.

The bill is as follows:

DJs:  Spectrum / Glasgow PodcART

BANDS:  Miaoux Miaoux / Pooch / Attic Lights / The Soul Foundation / Figure 5

FASHION:  Deryck Walker / Mee Mee Couture / Loula Creates / Vintage Guru / Bench & Quiz 

Rock Chic promises to be a brilliant night, so please do come along if you are in Glasgow to have a great time and to raise money for such an important cause, thanks!

626 days ago Short URL Comments

Life Stuff

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10

Aug

Juggling

Well, I’m on Week 4 of Babock now, although I was off all off Week 3 due to a phantom illness that I’ve not not gotten to the bottom of…  I went to the doctor’s and my blood tests all came back clear, so we’re not really sure what’s the matter!  Apart from the odd remainly dizzy/sick spell, I’m not bad though.

After the pressures of final year of uni, things in the workplace seem to take a much slower pace…  Continue reading →

657 days ago Short URL Comments

Life Stuff

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24

Jul

Babcock: Week 1

A day after graduation, I was invited to an interview with Babcock, an international company involved in engineering support services.  I was somewhat surprised to be invited because I had sent them my design CV.  To be honest, I thought I was kind of chancing my arm, sending a design CV to a real engineering-focused company, but I thought I would stick to my guns in terms of what areas I would like to work in…. Continue reading →

674 days ago Short URL Comments

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18

Jul

My final year project

I was extremely happy when I heard that I had got the 2:1 degree that I had been hoping for, but I think the icing was well and truely put on the cake after a conversation with someone on the ‘industry’ launch night of my degree show exhibition in the Lighthouse…

During the evening, my head of department came over to me, saying that a  representitive from Harveys – a company that manufactures a variety of stationery and who also do print finishing – wanted to speak to be about my product.  I thought that someone was just showing a nice interest in my work and wanted to chat to me about it.  It turned out that that was indeed the case, but it was even better than that; he was interested in potentially manufacturing my product!

I have been in talks with the company for a short while, while there is still a lot to talk about, they are still wanting to go ahead with my product, as well as wanting me to develop a brand identity for my product and a potential range of products.  As you can imagine, I’m really excited about this!  Fingers crossed that everything still goes ahead, but even up until now it has been a great experience to work (pretty much) as a freelance designer, writing what I understood to be the brief the client was wanting me to deliver on, giving desired outcome etc.

To be honest, while I was pleased with the end product, I was slightly worried about my project in terms of it actually getting me a good grade at the end of the year!  Not only did it do that, it could also be potentially financially beneficial for a company to take on and to manufacture.  Not bad for 9 months work…

I’ll update with specifics about my product when I’m able to; still have to keep things on the down low until everything gets sorted.

680 days ago Short URL Comments

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17

Jul

The times, they are a-changing…

Wow…where to start?  I’ve been attempting to keep a blog over at my dedicated design site, but due to it being a bit of a pain to upkeep, I’ve sensibly moved over to WordPress.

I guess my biggest bit of news is that yesterday I found out that I had been awarded a scholarship for my postgrad that covers my tuition fees.  I got word at the start of May that my application for Product-Service System Design at Politecnico di Milano had been successful, but hearing that my fees are going to be covered has enabled me to be 100% sure that I am able to take my place in September.  In my initial application I had stated that I needed a schoalrship to attend and yet I was admitted without one…  Not satisfied with this, I proceeded to plead with the admissions people, arguing my case and politely pestering them to reconsider.  I had been advised by a number of people that I couldn’t really be too pushy, given how pushy Italians alledgedly are, so I didn’t feel quite so bad for being a bit of a British pain.  In any case, all has worked out for the best and I am now covered for the duration of my two years’ study!

I am a bag of nerves, excitement and a little bit of fear, but I figure that if I can get by in China for two months by myself, I’ll be able to copy ok in Italy.  My course is taught in English, which should make making friends easier, but part of the appeal of going there is learning Italian.  Studying French for five years at school wasn’t exactly inspiring, but so far I’ve found Italian to be easier and I’ll certainly have more incentive to learn if I cam going to be using it most days.

In other news, I am pleased to announce that I achieved a 2:1 BEng (Hons) in Product Design Engineering on 7th July!

I was in the top three people graduating from my course this year, which was a lovely surprise when I read the list of people graduating that day from my department.  Maybe it was the mention of this that gave the Poli funding board the nudge they needed to give me some money!

Here’s to keeping a more up-to-date blog…

681 days ago Short URL Comments

Design Stuff/Life Stuff

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