Adventures In The Land Of Code Part 2- I Coded A Website! (Well, A Prototype Website)

I included a screenshot anyway for purposes of it showing up on social media. :)

Weekly Song Challenge Day #22- A Song That I Listen To When I'm Sad

Hey readers! Music Monday & the challenge returns! Although this week, it's not a particularly upbeat post, as today's challenge is to share a song I listen to when I'm sad. Now, much like with the angry one & the happy one, I don't really have a go-to song when I'm sad. In all honesty, I rarely feel sad, & usually when I do I don't really like music that reflects these feelings, I prefer to listen to something that may perk me up a bit &/or distract me. However, if I do have to pick a go-to "sad" song for this challenge, it's going to be this:

'Bury My Troubles' by Imelda May

The reason why I've chosen this song is because I feel Imelda gives good advice- bury your troubles away! The song talks about getting rid of negative feelings & not being a slave to them, which is easier said than done but is still a good notion to go by!

There we have it, tonight's post. For a more positive post this Monday, why not head over to my friend Jess's blog, 'Vanilla and Owls', & check out her album post!

Thanks for reading!

Adventures In The Land Of Code

Good evening readers! Tonight's post is an insight into some of the work I'm doing at Uni, as I'm finally learning something new- yay!

One of the things that attracted me to my Uni was the fact that I would learn how to build a website properly. This is a skill I had admired for a while & something that I have been eager to learn, & now that I'm in my second year I'm finally doing so! Today, as part of an advanced workshop, I started to build my own website prototype using HTML & a piece of software called Espresso. I found myself really getting into it & here's what I created:

Homepage- just mucking around, writing stupid text, found a cute picture of cats to go on it.

Mucking around version 2- just writing random stuff, casually popping a picture of my Sim in there.

Was in a Futurama mood, so this had to be done. Again, just messing about.

And that's my website making so far! I may try & code up my blog once I'm a bit more savvy with it. But for now, I'm making silly things & just playing with it until my group give me actual content to work with.

Thanks for reading tonight, I hope you've enjoyed this insight into my new Uni work & skills! :)

Tune Tuesday- "Killed It With My Bare Hands"

Hello readers! I bet you're thinking- "tune Tuesday, what is this?" Well, seeing as I didn't to my usual Music Monday post yesterday as I was very busy catching up with coursework, I decided that I would compensate today & give an alternative. Rather than continue the challenge today (but it shall resume next week!) I thought that today I'd share a song with you all, which is:

'Killed It With My Bare Hands' by The Hitchers

Now you all get the rather odd title. The reason I share this song is because it's been in my head the past few days. I was listening to the album 'It's All Fun & Games Til Someone Loses An Eye' by them the other day & this song hasn't left my head. Also, they're a really good band, Irish punk, I definitely recommend checking them out!

And that's all for today's post. May or may not be back Friday, but shall definitely return Monday!

Thanks for reading!

Shameless Self Promotion #2- Check Out My Redbubble!

Good afternoon readers! To celebrate the fact that I've had my first 2 sales on RedBubble, I thought I'd do another edition of 'Shameless Self Promotion' & give promotion to my outlet for t-shirt design, among other things.

Click here to go to my RedBubble page!

(There's also a link in my 'Elsewhere On The Net' page above.)

I decided to set up a RedBubble account as I'm interested in selling some of my designs as t-shirts. I've been a fan of graphic tees for ages & to have something I've designed being worn by others is a dream! I thought having this account would be good for getting a foot into this side of the industry, plus RedBubble has the option to allow different coloured tees, meaning that buyers can personalise their merchandise. So far there are two designs on my page, which are:

The King Is Dead

Black Version/White Version

As stated in my reflective art post, this piece started as a doodle, which I later found a photo of & vectorised. I liked how it turned out & thought it would look good on t-shirts. Initially, the design was on a website called StreetShirts, but I felt it was way too expensive, so moved it to RedBubble instead.

White version

Black version

Me sporting this design on a baseball tee back in January. Credit for the image goes to Georgia. :)

"There's What I Believe..." (Quote From 'In The Flesh')

Black Version/White Version

This is something I did whilst exploring hand lettering for a Uni project. This is my favourite quote from the show 'In The Flesh', & most possibly my most favourite romantic quote! I felt it would be great done in lettering due to the lovely look it has, & decided that this would be another design that's would work well on a t-shirt. This is my most successful design & the holder of the 2 sales I've made!

White version- also available as prints with extra text.

Black version

Me sporting my tee today. :)

And there we go, some lovely tees to feast your eyes on! Why not treat someone with one this Christmas? :D

Thanks for reading!

Weekly Song Challenge Day #21- A Song I Listen To When I'm Happy

Hey all! Another Monday means another edition of the weekly music challenge. This week I get to share with you a song I listen to when I'm happy. To be fair, this is a lot of songs! And when my mood's good I tend to listen to whatever- & usually I tend to go by whatever song's in my head when I decide what to listen to & not my mood. So today I'll share with you a feel-good song of mine, well, more of an upbeat favourite:

'The Reckless And The Brave' by All Time Low

First track of one of my favourite albums, always puts me in a good mood! Plus, this song is pretty awesome!

So readers, what's your song to listen to when you're happy? Comment below!

Thanks for reading! :)

Things Are Looking Up!

Hello there readers! November is upon us & Fridays return to their usual sort of post. There will be a slight change though as my schedule has become full of Uni coursework, so I'll be reducing actual posts to every 2 weeks starting the week after next. On the Fridays I don't post anything properly I'll try & at least post some pictures from my week, but I may not, depends on how busy I am or how interesting my week's been.

Speaking of Uni, I thought I'd give an update on my personal life, seeing as the last time anything was properly said about that was September. As the title (very optimistically) says- things are looking up! (I would add 'oh finally!' to reference Paramore but I think that'd be a bit over-dramatic.)

For those of you that know me IRL or have read some of my older posts, you'll know that I was rather disappointed with my first year at Uni & such feelings left me unsure of my chosen career choice. I'll admit, I wasn't particularly looking forward to going back because of this, however, I chose to remain hopeful & optimistic about the second year, & I have to say I'm a lot happier with the course this year!

For starters, the intro talk given by the course leader was really optimistic, giving insight into the things previous students have done & what we can achieve. I felt really good after that- raring to crack on & get designing!

Secondly, the tutors are so much better this year! A couple of them I encountered last year, one in particular was always one I favoured, but this year we have a new addition who happens to be my personal tutor- & she is brilliant! She's a friendly human being & very motivational- after a tutorial the other day I felt really eager to go & get creative, which led to me creating a great looking final piece:

Needs some tweaking, but am pleased with how the brush lettering came out! Based on a speech given by Bill Gates. Vectorised in Illustrator to make it editable.

Admittedly, there's a lot of work being back at Uni, as I've said, & after four months off it took my brain a while to adjust to the workload! Still, at least I'm actually enjoying myself & learning things, unlike last year.

As well as Uni going in the right direction, I've also passed my driving test- yay! After it being postponed twice, I decided to check online for a cancellation & voila! Got an earlier one! It's great to finally have this independence & to be able to drive properly, as they say, you really start learning to drive when you're properly on the road.

Another thing which I'm really pleased about is that I made a sale on RedBubble! Whilst lettering for the project above, I decided that I'd letter one of my favourite quotes from 'In The Flesh', which, after vectorising, I put up on RedBubble. A few days later, I had an email come through saying I'd made a sale- which I think is pretty awesome! Haven't earned much from it but still, knowing that someone out there has bought something I've designed is awesome!

A screenshot of the piece on RedBubble, which you can find here.

There we have it, a brief insight into my personal life over the past month. I'm glad I'm finally enjoying my course & I soon plan to improve my presence on the web. I also have an idea for a project for next year, but that will be revealed nearer the time.

As I said, Friday posts won't be as regular, or if they are, not all of them will be overly wordy.

But that's all for now, I hope life is going well for you all out there!

Thanks for reading! :D

Ice cream selfie from Sprinkles. You've not seen my face in a while so I thought I'd share. :)

Weekly Song Challenge Day #20- A Song That I Listen To When I'm Angry

Hello all! Welcome back to the Music Monday challenge! This week's challenge is to share a song I listen to when I'm angry. The thing is, I don't really get angry very often, so I don't really have a go-to song for said emotion. I know in my periods of feeling slightly miffed I kind of have a go-to album, but if I have to pick an angry song, I'll go for this:

'Blackout Time' by Blowsight

The reason why I chose this song is because I used to listen to it a lot when I was at college when I felt annoyed with the lack of organisation & ton of coursework. Little did I know that a year later I'd experience more disorganisation & even more coursework at Uni...

Ah well, enough of the negative feelings, I'll be back Friday with something more positive!

Thanks for reading! :)