101 things in 10001 days

So instead of New Years Resolutions this year I'm planning on starting the Day Zero Project.
I tried this a few years back, when I was still using myspace, but most of my goals were to big and unachievable, so this time I've been a little more realistic.
I'll be starting on January 1st, which means I'll finish on September 28th 2014.

1. Start eating around 50% raw foods.
2. Make my first sale of the year.
3. Have a wardrobe that is 75% handmade and/or vintage.
4. Take Kev to dinner.
5. Help towards affording a better house or us to live in.
6. Keep blogging
7. Cook more
8. Thank my Gods for everything I have
9. Visit a country I haven’t been to yet
10. Email myself on the first day an email I’ll get on the last day.
11. Get another tattoo
12.  Leave an inspirational note inside a book for someone to find
13. Tie a note to a balloon and let it go
14. Send a secret to PostSecret
15. Find a personally inspirational quote and work it into a piece of art or home decor
16.  Write a song
17.  Send a message in a bottle
18. Host a dinner party
19. learn another craft
20.  ride a horse
21. Get the autograph of one person I admire 
22. Order room service
23. Add to the wall of graffiti in the only toilet cubicle with a lock in THAT PLACE
24.  Shop in Japan
25. Get gel nails
26. Attend and photograph a fashion show
27. Make a list of 25 things I like about myself
28. Attend a wine tasting
29. Donate money to charity
30. Have a pen pall
31. Have a vintage cocktail party
32. Write a personal mission statement
33. Send a postcard via postcrossing.com
34. Take part in http://operationbeautiful.com/
35. fulfil my dream of having my own textile design business
36. Start lino printing again
37. Go to a German Club
38. Make my own corset
39. Knit a pair of socks
40. Go shopping in London
41. Attend a Murder Mystery
42. Go strawberry picking in the summer
43. Meet somebody from Tumblr
44. Go to the ballet
45. Go to the Opera
46. Drink a Guinness in Ireland
47. Build a gingerbread house
48. Get my picture taken with Santa
49. Create a family tree
50. Wear a bikini on the beach
51. Get professionally measured for a bra
52. Have my hands hennaed
53. Sew a quilt
54. make a batch of pickles
55. get a group of people together to create butterflies for the Butterfly Project http://www.hmh.org/ed_butterfly1.shtml
56. treat a friend, who is having a really rotten day to lunch and a pedi
57. Get my fortune told
58. Write a letter to someone who has inspired me
59. Have a conversation with a complete stranger
60. learn basic German so I don’t have as many *lost lamb face*  moments at Mera Luna
61. Write my name in the sand
62. Make bread (regular bread) from scratch
63. Buy myself something sexy
64. Send 20 Loli valentines
65. Go outside and watch the clouds.
66. Write a song.
67. Buy a camcorder.
68. Write an e-mail to my favorite author
69. Make candles
70. learn more vintage hairstyles and be good at them
71. Have my aura photographed
72. Host an 'adult toy' party
73. Make French macaroons
74. Go sailing
75. go to an auction
76. dry my own flowers
77. make wheat bread from scratch
78. Go to a sporting event
79. Try a new beer
80. Be an extra in a movie or TV show
81. Have waist length hair
82. find something marvelous at a thrift store
83. learn to pole dance
84. Bake my own crisps
85. Fill a giant photo frame with pictures
86. Figure out how to show love properly
87. Get one of those "old fashioned" photos taken
88. attend the edinburgh festival fringe
89. Have my make-up done at a make-up counter.
90. Get the autograph of one person I admire
91. Make a photo book for someone
92. apply for a reality show
93. Cut the people out of my life I don't want or need but haven't had the guts to so far
94. Write a children's book
95. Walk Hadrian's Wall
96. Write a list of songs that I want to be played at my funeral
97. Make some faery wings
98. Make shopping bags
99. Make Calzone from scratch
100. create a little mini documentary
101. get my nose peirced

Family :)

Not really doing a lot today, just sitting around with Kev and Stirfry watching Sky Sports news and eating Christmas sweeties.

My Mam uploaded this photo of my Grandma and me earlier and I thought I'd share :)

It's beginning to look a lot like fish men!

Christmas presents :)

This year my gifts  have been:

(top picture)

Two bars of dark chocolate

Part of my Elephant adoption renewal pack

Vivienne Westwood Let It Rock Perfume

(all from my parents)

True Blood (from my Kevin :) )

Marmite gift set (OMGLOOKATTHATTEAPOT!)

Dr Who Legos (mine is a set with a Stone Angel, my mam got Kev a set with Amy and Rory in it)

Saw puppet stash box (now full of little bits of jewellery :D )

More choccys and the new River Cottage veggie cookbook (NOM NOM NOM)

More elephant things and VW Campervan egg cups :)

So what did everybody else in the blogosphere get?

Stadium of Light Legends Tour

Yesterday was a lot of fun :)

I wrapped up warm to go meet my mam and grandma and head off to Sunderland to do the Legends Tour of The Stadium Of Light (amusing story, it's a stereotype that guys love football and women find it boring right? Pretty much all of the men in our family hate football, us wimminz? We love the beautiful game :) )

So the Legends Tour was a tour of our home ground with team hero Jimmy Montgomery ( Goal Keeper in the 1973 FA cup final squad, pictured above).

The tour took us right the way around the stadium, including areas not usually open to the public such as the home dressing room above.

The ever so slightly claustrophobic away team changing room.

The tunnel the teams come out through at the start of the match (we even did this with Dance of the Nights playing...No idea what the song after it was though, BACK IN MY DAY THEY USED TO PLAY DOTN INTO REPUBLICA'S READY TO GO!)

The press areas...LOOKATMEWORLDFAMOUSBLOGGERINTHEPRESSAREA! ;)

We couldn't actually get onto the pitch itself, however we could stand right next to it :)

"I never knew football fans could be so vocal and fanatical until I came to the North East" - Kevin Phillips.

Mam and Grandma in the press room :)

One of the executive bar areas.

Mam and her hero, Nial Quinn.

Bob Stokoe's hat and coat :)

***

If I don't get a chance to get online tomorrow, Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night! :)

Holiday wrapping is done!

My posts might be a little sporadic during the jolly season, just a heads up :)

New Goals!

So I completed two of my work goals last week (first sale and more money than Job Seekers) so now I am replacing my two completed goals with two more goals :) )

1. Make two sales in one day.

2. Make enough money to go out for a nice Lebanese meal (and Shisha maybe?) with Kev :)

Interesting things I have seen this week Picspam!

Heart shaped, conjoined carrots :)

Carol singing robot...

These door handles are 70s-a-licious!

What the heck is a Vergatable?

I'm fairly sure they meant "Denton"

Proof

Gingerbread House!

That big ol' building behind those cars is the converted asylum here the sailor who adopted a penguin lives :)

In which I prove I am in fact a Corporate Goth!

Yesterday I signed up a Sailor who lives in part of a converted Victorian Asylum (when he's not at sea) to adopt some Penguins :)

He was a lovely guy, let me sit down and gave me a glass of water while I filled in the form and told me some things about the building.

It's a lovely building, I took a photo of the outside that I might upload in a giant picspam of odd things I've seen over this week post at the weekend (or maybe tonight if I'm not to tired when I get in).

I hit my first target!

Yesterday I made my first sale! Woohoo! I had a lady who walks dogs for a living (she had a house full of them and they were so fun, there was an Alsation, Akita, Chihuahua and a Westie), adopt a Penguin for her little girl.

And you know the weird thing, it's great that obviously I get my bit of money for that, but I feel really happy about them adopting a Penguin more because I know that the charity will be making at least six times what I was paid and they can really help out those Penguins with that and I feel happy that the little girl gets to say at school that she has a Penguin and I know she's going to learn a lot from the letters and updates they'll get.

I know it sounds kind of corny, but getting paid feels like a secondary thing to me, I really didn't think it would , but it does and that feel awesome to me...I guess I am a nice person after all :)

My Goals

So I decided to write down some goals to keep me motivated when I'm working, obviously eventually I want enough to be able to set up Arachnee Threads, but I think that's a fair way off, so for now I have seven slightly more realistic goals:

1. Make my first sale.

2. Earn more money in a week than I would if I was on Jobseeker's Allowance (roughly three sales).

3. Earn enough to buy a decent pair of boots (I don't have any boots at the moment, this is ok for now but will be a bit of a nightmare when it starts to snow).

4. Earn enough to give back to charity myself. (While I know that doing what I do helps charities out, I feel that I'd like to be able to contribute myself)

5. Earn enough to not have to make excuses around people's birthdays.

6. Pay back my half of the Mera Luna Hotel money.

7. Buy a pair of Vivienne Westwood shoes.

First Day

Well I survived my first day of my new job, I just have to make it through the next six days (I have a six day trial to make sure I'm both right right for the job, and that I think that it's something I want to do).
Hopefully things will go swimmingly because it seems like a really fun and interesting job :)

In other news, Limecrime are having a SPONTANEOUS sale, so if you have a friend or family member who likes interesting make-up that you haven't bought a gift for yet then click the link below:

What I've been up to lately

Well as you know I was ill for three weeks with what I initially thought was a mild cold, then flu before finally it morphed into the worst throat infection I've had in a good number of years, so I've pretty much spent the last three weeks indoors except to venture out to see the Dr.

Before that though there were a couple of gigs I didn't manage to get to tell you about due to being sort of incapacitated by germs.

The first was Uberbyte supported by Kommand and Kontrol and Alter Red.

I'd never seen Kommand and Kontrol before, and I really enjoyed them, they're quite heavy on the electronic drums and if like me you like that kind of thing you'll probably enjoy Kommand and Kontrol.

Alter Red ran into some traffic problems on their way to the venue and suffered for it in my opinion, I have seen them once before though and really enjoyed them that time.

I've seen Uberbyte many, many times now, but this is only the second time I have seen them at the top of a bill (the first was in Leeds a couple of years back, which was also the first time I saw Mandr01d!), they played a fantastic set.

A few days later was Aesthetic Perfection with support from Paresis and Thir13en.

Aesthetic Perfection's set list

By this point my "cold" had started to kick in, which led to various fun moments when I was hopped up to the eyeballs on painkillers and cold remedies and then doing pre-gig work like trying to find somewhere that sold fluorescent lightbulbs and electric fans and ended up sort of tripping a bit (honestly the epic journey to find a fan was probably the most fun I've had doing pre-gig "runner" work...THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS ON THE WAY BACK WERE SO PRETTY!).

Ahem, yes...
So Thir13en were slightly more metaley than I was expecting, but pretty enjoyable, kind of like early Nine Inch Nails, in sound.

Paresis almost stole the show! Again I was a little hopped up on painkillers at this point so I can't really remember how I'd describe his music, I just remember it was really good, which obviously means I'll have to hear it again so I can judge accordingly :)

I have seen Aesthetic Perfection once before, when they supported Combichrist in Sunderland back in 2009, back then it was just Daniel Graves and a session keyboard player (who I think may have been called Gabe), they were pretty good back then, even managing to recover quite well from a broken keyboard cable that stopped the music for a few minutes with Daniel doing a dance.

This time the line up consisted of Daniel on vocals, Elliot on keys and Tim on drums.
I like what live drums brought to the performance, I love drums, they're my favourite instrument (and not just because they're the only instrument I can actually play), but so often band that don't start out with live drums will add a live drummer and they'll bring pretty much nothing to the sound, but this year I've now seen two bands successfully add live drums to their sound and it be made of win (the other being Angelspit).
They played a set mostly made up of tracks from the new album, which is great imo.

Businessy type updates

So having put together a business plan and worked out the costings for things it turns out the start up costs for Arachnee Threads are going to be pretty huge, this is admit-idly slightly off-putting as it means I can't get full funding for it and currently I don't have anything saved up as uni pretty much wiped out all of my savings.

However this is what I WANT to do, I studied for a role in the Textile Industry and so I'm not about to give up without a fight.

So I needed to get a decent job, I say needed in past tense because I decided getting full time work was a priority around a fortnight ago, and given that people have pitched tents in Newcastle centre because there are apparently no jobs I hadn't held much hope for finding one so quickly.

HOWEVER I applied for a marketing job, and after the first interview on Wednesday I was invited back for a second interview/training afternoon yesterday and afterwards was given the job!

So it'll be hard work and pretty long hours BUT I'll be able to save some money together to get started with Arachnee Threads, it'll just take me a little longer than originally anticipated to get started.

Day 3: Your hair in a Pony Tail

Day 2: Your hair waved

I was still kind of ill when I took this, feeling a lot better today though :)

Undersea magic :)

I'm feeling a little better today, I'm still not 100% though so bare with me.

I finally got around to editing together the video I took at the Sea Life Centre back at the end of October, so I hope you enjoy it :)

ill

Hi guys, I'm sorry I haven't been blogging lately, jut over a week ago I came down with what I thought was a cold, which then got worse and I thought was flu but I know suspect might actually be a throat infection.

Hopefully I will be better soon but until then I will be taking time off from blogging :(

Craft Post: Up-cycled Vintage Nightgown into a blouse

This blouse started life as a Vintage nightdress that I found in a box of things my Grandma had that had belonged to her sister.

Unfortunately it had a large chunk cut out of the bottom of it and was trimmed with some really itchy rachelle lace.

So I decided to trim it down and replace the lace with my own crocheted trims.

Day 1: Your hair in it's natural state.

Now that my hair is longer I thought I'd give the hair challenge another go

Day 1: Your hair in it's natural state.

Day 2: Your hair waved

Day 3: Your hair in a Pony Tail

Day 4: Your hair in Pigtails

Day 5: Bubzbeauty inspired updo

Day 6: Your hair back combed

Day 7: Your hair in two English Plaits

Day 8: Your hair in wartime pincurls with a headscarf

Day 9: Your hair in two Rope Braids

Day 10: Fairytale braids

Day 11: Your hair in Big Bouncy Curls

Day 12: A weird 90's hairstlye I never did find the name of.

Day 13: Plaits at the front, backcomb at the back

Day 14: A Hime Hairstyle

Day 15: rag curls

Day 16: Your favourite hair accessories

Day 17: Your favourite hairstyle

Day 18: Your hair with falls

Day 19: Your hair with Princess Leia buns

Day 20: French Plait

Day 21: Miko hair adapted for heat free curls

Day 22: The hairstyle from Bloodmyer's Harijuku Girls video

Day 23: Hizaki hair adapted for heat free curls

Day 24: Bloodmyer's take on Hime Hair, adapted for heat free curls

Day 25: Riku hair- adapted for heat free curls

Day 26: Small "Lady Gaga" bow

Day 27: Mana Moix Dix Mois look hair

Day 28: Mana Malice Mizer look hair

Day 29: The Novella adapted for bumpit

Day 30: Fluffy Pigtails

A-Z Of Me

I saw this on Eyelining Obsessions and figured it might be fun to try it myself.

A - Age – 22

B - Best holiday – Mera Luna this year, it felt more like a holiday without Kev vanishing into the photo pit every two seconds.

C - Chores you hate – Cleaning Stirfry's dish :/

D - Dogs – I grew up with two, Prudence and the Tinker.

E - Essential start to your day-  Two slices of toast and a scrape of Vegan margarine.

F - Favourite colour – Blue

G - Gold or silver – Silver, Gold usually doesn't look right on me.

H - Height – 5,10

I - Instruments you play – Guitar and Drums

J - Job title – Uh, flyer girl?

K - Kids – No thank you! 

L - Live – Currently residing in the original Washington.

M - Mother's name – Mam.

N - Nickname – Alex

O - Overnight hospital stays – A couple when I was little and needed grommets to help me hear.

P - Pet Peeves – negative people.

Q - Quote from a film – "I shall slip through the darkness like a dark slippery thing!"- Valentine from Mirrormask

R - Right or left handed – Right.

S - Siblings – One younger brother and a Step sister

T - Time you wake up – Varies depending on what I'm doing that day.

U - Underwear – Bloomers and a corset.

V - Vegetable you hate – I don't think there is one!

W - What makes you run late – Usually my boyfriend!

X - X-rays you've had – Several, I was a clumsy kid.

Y - Yummy food you make – Vegan chocolate cake.

Z - Zoo animal – Red Pandas

Day 30 – Make a list of blogs you regularly read and link to them.

Violet le Beaux

La Carmina

Shrinkle

Twinkie Chan

Kerli

Tuesday Tutorial - Curried Pumpkin Soup

Makes six servings

Ingredients

Half a large Pumpkin (or a whole smaller one)

At least one tea spoon of curry powder (more if you're feeling adventurous, although bare in mind this is supposed to be a winter warmer soup rather than an endurance test!)

One vegetable stock cube

One teaspoon of your preferred cooking oil (I used coconut oil because it has no taste)

Black pepper to taste

(optional) a tablespoon of Vegan Worcestershire Sauce.

Method

Chop the pumpkin into small cubes and then heat the oil in a large saucepan.

When the oil is heated add the pumpkin and fry off with the curry powder for a few minutes until it softens.

Cover with water and crumble in the stock cube, if using the Worcestershire sauce add this now.

Cook on a high heat until the water reaches the boil and then turn the hob down to medium and cover with a pan lid.

Simmer for 30-40 minutes and then turn the heat of completely.

If you're lucky enough to be a Blendastick owner you can blend your soup in the pan, if not then transfer your soup (liquid and all) to your blender and blend until smooth.

If you don't have six mouths to feed this soup freezes incredibly well.

Day 29 – What do you think will happen to Goth in the future?

I think it will continue to envelope many other small subcultures, who knows some day we might quit calling Steampunks "Goths in brown" because some other group will have joined in the Gothery...Perhaps Goths in purple?

Whitby and Scarborough: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday

We spent most of Tuesday with Ghost, Queenie and The Klockwork Monsta around town.

We drank tea in Marie Antoinette's Tea Room (I have wanted to stop and have tea here ever since I spotted it the first time I was in Whitby).

Marie Antoinette's Tea room is a very beautiful little tea room close to the 199 steps up to the famous St Mary's Churchyard and Whitby Abbey.

The inside of the tearoom is decorated in a very vintage style (although some rooms are a little more Victorian than Rococo) and there are portraits of the famous, final, French Queen on most of the walls.

The downstairs room is pretty small, but there are two quirky little rooms upstairs filled with little treasures.

They have a moderate selection of teas (I'm not sure if they had any fancy coffees though as I wasn't paying attention...Fail on my part I'm sorry), and what looked to be some very delicious cakes for the non Vegans.

Afterwards we wandered around the kooky and cute little shops around the area, for tea lovers a must is the little shop nearby that sells leaf tea blends ranging from normal English Breakfast to unusual blends such as Lapsang Souchong  (described by the first person who ever sold me a cup as smelling like Smoky Bacon, and he was right!) and Sweet Almond blend (which I eventually bought a bag of). 

The tea leaves are very reasonably priced, most blends being only £2 for a 100gram bag, and given that one teaspoon of Sweet Almond blend is giving me a rather beautiful pot full of tea I suspect this may last me quite some time.

Some Pumpkins above Russel's chippie

Back on the other side of the river we found some vintage jewellery shops and a small craft fair with a Gothic touch where I bought a fabulous watch broach (photo soon).

On Tuesday Kev and I headed over to Scarborough to visit The Sea Life Centre.

To get to Scarborough from Whitby you need to take a bus that takes an hour, we got on the earliest one we could so that we could spend as much of the day as we could in Scarborough.

As it was so early I ended up falling asleep on the bus (glamorous I know...) and woke up to hear one of the other passengers telling a story about the first time he encountered Goths in Whitby.

The story amused me so I thought I would share:

When he was eight years old he saw a hearse coming down the road and stopping next to one of the pubs, he assumed that the landlord had died so he stopped to pay his respects and then a bunch of drunk Goths fell out of the hearse.

When we reached Scarborough we headed straight for The Sea Life Centre, which is a little bit of a trek from the bus stop, but still it was a nice walk along the beach.

Kevin :)

The centre was undergoing some renovations when we visited so we were unable to see the Octopi, which was a shame as Kev had really wanted to see them, but we did get to see an assortment of fish, sharks, turtles, otters and seals.

My favourites were the amazing sea dragons who were cunningly camouflaged so that if you just looked at them quickly you would mistake them for a piece of seaweed.

I totally reverted back to childhood around the ray tank, they were so beautiful I could have sat and watched them for hours if it wasn't that I really wanted to touch a crab and watch the otters being fed.

The one thing I didn't like was the way the seal sanctuary was laid out so that you could see the poor injured seals recovering.

I understand that the object was to educate people on the dangers of seals getting caught in fishing nets or swallowing rubbish, but I just found it really disrespectful to the seals to let people look through glass at them while they were suffering, and I can't imagine what it must be like during peak season with kids banging on the glass.

Poor seals :(

After The Sea Life Centre we went for a stroll through Peasholm Park.

Peasholm Park is a lovely Victorian Park, modelled after traditional Japanese Gardens, all be it done in a rather amusing Victorian fusion way (brick Pagodas anyone?).

The park is also the home of an amazing miniature boat show that I saw as a child, unfortunately it was out of season so we were unable to see it on this visit.

The park is home to a flock of Canada geese and a lot of grey squirrels as well as an art trail and a miniature railway.

On Thursday we started by walking around the harbour area so I could take some photos of the boats, lobster pots and pretty buildings nearby.

In the afternoon we headed to Pannet Park.

Pannet Park seems to be Georgian given some of the design features (although I don't know for sure).
Pannet Park is also home to many squirrels, and a small museum and tea rooms (although we didn't visit those this time).

Afterwards we went for Thai food.

Friday I had breakfast at Java (note: They do the best Vegetarian breakfasts in town), and then went for a look around the stalls at the Leisure Centre and The Spa for the Official Goth weekend.
In my opinion apart from a couple of exceptions the stalls in The Leisure Centre weren't as good as the ones from the previous week, and a lot of them didn't seem very "Goth" :/
There were some nice looking things in The Spa though.
Afterwards we came home.