Lush birthday party

A couple of weeks ago I went to my local Lush store for their 10th birthday party. I have been a customer of Lush Solihull for over two years now and I have been to quite a few events at the shop and they have all been a lot of fun. This time we were given the chance to make a one off bath ballistic (bath bomb) to celebrate the special occasion, which we could take home afterwards. It was a lot of fun to make something that has not been made before and that you can not buy in the shops and the atmosphere in the store was great. There was a table with party food and a lovely lady handing out party blowers to the children. In fact all of the staff are very friendly and always find time to stop and say hi even if they are busy. Katie the manageress was dying a customer's hair with henna when we arrived but she still came over for a quick chat when she got a chance.

My children and I each made a ballistic with one of the compounders who was in the store for the party. We had a choice of colours of mix and glitter that we had to press into the moulds making each ballistic slightly different to the others. It was a great way to cheer up a cold grey Saturday afternoon in January!

Getting crafty

This week I have been teaching myself how to crochet. I brought a hook and already had some wool as I like knitting. I searched You Tube for an easy to follow "how to" video and found there are plenty available, here  is the one I started with.  I have now mastered the single and the double stitches which are a couple of the basics and I'm quite enjoying it!
I have also finally finished making a headband for my daughter. I had made a few fabric "pop" flowers over Christmas but wanted something to go in the center of them. I ordered some crochet flowers (before I knew how easy they were to make) and jewelled buttons on eBay and they arrived yesterday so I got to finish it. My daughter really likes it and has worn it to school today to show her friends! I am going to make another one for my youngest as I still have some of the pop flowers left and I think this one came out rather well.

Updated: This is the 2nd one, finished this evening.

Snow day!

So I had been toying with the idea of writing a new post every Friday (I like a routine) and I had a few ideas written down that I was going to chose from, but then yesterday the most wonderful thing happened..... it started to snow! It continued to fall for over 24 hours and this resulted in the area I live in coming to a standstill, schools and shops closed early and I have spent this afternoon outside playing! I'm a big kid when I see snow, I can't help but get excited. Lets face it we hardly ever get snow in the UK and its even rarer that we get enough to have fun in, so when it happens we have to make the most of it. I know it affects people's days and getting about is so much harder than usual and when it melts the ice underneath is deadly but if you can I really think you should try to get outside and enjoy it while it's here.
We pulled on our hats and scarves, gloves and boots and put on as many layers as we could fit under our coats and trudged over to the park. You have to walk down a long pathway between the houses to get there and when you reach the bottom you find yourself in a large open area that follows a river for quite a distance. Now to me there's nothing quite as beautiful as a vast expanse of freshly fallen snow, gleaming and white, the most mundane sights become transformed with a layer of it and this was the view that greeted us today.

Anyway we had a great time having snowball fights, chasing each other around, shrieking and laughing and making snow angles in all shapes and sizes. We stayed until our gloves soaked through and our noses started to hurt, sodden but happy we made our way home.
It has started to snow again this evening and our coats are only now finally dry but I think we will spend tomorrow out in it too because by next weekend there will probably be none left and who knows when we will get the chance to do it once more!

New year, new me?

Erm..... no probably not.  I have decided this year to make a list of small changes I can make to make me happier.  I have a case of the January blues, I always do this time of year.  For me the best bits of the year are nearly all packed into the last three months.  So while the rest of the year isn't exactly a chore, I do find October through to December the most fun.  The beginning of October for me is the start of the build up.  Halloween, Bonfire Night and three family birthdays (including my own!) in the run up to the big event.... Christmas!  So the start of the new year reminds me just how far away my favourite time of year is. This is my list:

• Be more organised.  I was always very organised when I was only sorting myself out, then when I got married it was still easy to keep on top of what I/we needed to do.  Now we have thrown three children into the mix I find it a little harder to keep track of everything so this year I want to tackle this.  I have brought a new A5 filofax (a pink Apex for those interested) and I'm hoping it will help improve my life. The colour makes me happy and I have brought some very cute dividers for it so at the moment it is working in one aspect as it makes me smile! I have ordered some stationary bits and bobs to personalise it further and if I like how it turns out I will take some photos and write about it at a later date.
• Wear make up more often.  At the moment I can go a couple of weeks at a time without "putting on my face".  I was thinking that if I wasn't going anywhere more special than the school gates and the supermarket  "what's the point?" but I have realised that I feel better when I'm wearing make up.  I'm not talking full on everyday but some tinted moisturizer and mascara will only take a few minutes a day and I think I will be happier by doing that.
• Take longer baths.  Last year my youngest was a very clingy toddler who didn't want me to be out of her sight.  This year she has grown out of that a little and I'm going to take full advantage of it.  
• Paint my nails.  I love colours and I believe the right colour can improve your mood.   I haven't been wearing nail polish as I felt a bit odd having perfectly painted nails but not wearing any make up so this year I'm going to do both!
• Read more.  I have lots of books I've been wanting to read for a while now.  I am going to make sure I take some time once a week to catch up on my reading.  I love a good book and I read all kinds of fiction.  I might even schedule some reading time into my diary to make sure I do it.
• Start drawing again.  I can't remember the last time I picked up a pencil to draw for pleasure.  My son quite often hands me a piece of paper, a pencil and one of his books and asks me to draw something from it (Skylanders, Pokemon, The Simpson, I've drawn them all.) and while I don't mind doing it, it's not fun for me.  I'm going to look for a pad of paper that fits into my filofax and dig out my drawing pencils so if the mood hits me I will be ready for it!

I think that is it for now. I know there's nothing earth shattering listed there but hopefully these things will help me out of my blue mood and kick start my year.  Will you be doing anything to get you through January? 

The scary first post

Hi and welcome to my first post.  I guess a good place to start would be to explain the title of my blog.  Part of it comes from being a play on words to She's electric by Oasis.  If I had to pick a sound track to my teenage years it would consist of a lot of Oasis songs.  Any time I hear one of their songs I can recall that time, the ups, the downs and the pure joy of being with friends with the music up high and singing along as if no one was listening!  Eclectic is also how I imagine this blog will be. I don't want to write just about beauty or books or music etc, I want to write about all things that interest me when the mood takes me.  I did think of calling it Confessions of a drama queen or something along those lines but although I do love a bit of drama, my life is thankfully not usually at the center of any and therefore the title would have been misleading.  

I don't know how many people will actually read this but I have been reading quite a few blogs recently and really enjoying them.  I also find myself editing my inner monologue a lot during the day so I may as well choose a nice font and type some of it up. 

Well I think that is it for now, the scary first post is out of the way and I can start thinking about what I want to write about next! Thanks for reading and I'm not sure if it is too late to say now but happy new year too!