Shit. I need a ruler. Wait! I have a ruler. We good.
Basic structure. Yep. Got it. Circle. Shit. I’m crap at circles. Thing I learned on the first day of art school. Utter crap. How the fuck is she at the jaw already??? Hang on. I gotta pause. Okay. It took me three tries but I got it. Stupid circles.
And then we jump right into adding the features. The hell? There are definitely other steps that need to happen here.
An egg?? I NEED AN EGG FOR THIS? No. (Actually, I will probably do this at some point, because it’s kind of genius.) Okay, wait – I think a big part of my problem is I’m not drawing my interior circles big enough.
Okay – once we get into the front and side view parts of the lessons, lots of details about how to properly place them and draw them. It’s a LOT of info. I’m definitely going to be coming back to this class and trying more of these drawings.
*”Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes for creative and curious people, on topics including illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more.” They’ve got classes in everything from art to baking to productivity to gardening to trumpet (I will not subject you to my efforts to relearn the trumpet). Classes range from 20m to a few hours, but even the longer ones are broken into bite-sized chunks. It’s pretty cool.
If you decide you want to sign up and you like me enough to give me a free month, too, here’s my referral link.
This project is in no way endorsed, sponsored, or paid for by Skillshare (afaik, they don’t even know about it).
I didn’t blog yesterday (obviously), because I spent my blogging time fighting with the internet and trying to get the work I get paid to do done. I was so exhausted (and still having connectivity issues) by the time I finished up that I made a conscious decision to delay blogging. That conscious decision part is pretty important to me. If I try to hold on too tightly to routine, I fall back into that perfection-for-perfection’s-sake trap, and then give up completely because it’s not “perfect”. But I also don’t want to just forget to do the thing (in this case, blog/skillshare), which is definitely also a thing that happens to me.
ANYWHO, my big plan was to get up and do a quick class this morning to make up for last night. I even chose the class – this class on morning routines – before I went to bed last night. I got up early (for me) this morning and had plenty of time to get to blogging and then I just…didn’t. Morning Lola is not the most productive Lola, tbh. So instead, here I am this evening with the class on morning routines. Maybe the Morning Lola of tomorrow will be better equipped to tackle the day.
Morning Lola
Okay, first thing – this guy talks so fast I had to slow my viewing speed down to 1.25x! 😆 He’s showing his planning pages, which is great, but I’m not finding it specific enough to be really helpful. Why are you writing that there? What does that mean to you? How does it help you as you work through your day? My problem with journaling and todo lists always comes down to making space to reference it throughout the day so that it’s meaningful and guides me all day long. Setting it up in the morning – or even the night before – is the easy part.
Okay. Made it almost three lessons into this one and I’m bouncing. It’s just not for me – too much focus on broad strokes and not enough on whys and wherefores.
This has been another loooooong work day, so I’m also bouncing off the blog for now, but I’ll be back tomorrow, hopefully to do the next Find Your Style lesson.
*”Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes for creative and curious people, on topics including illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more.” They’ve got classes in everything from art to baking to productivity to gardening to trumpet (I will not subject you to my efforts to relearn the trumpet). Classes range from 20m to a few hours, but even the longer ones are broken into bite-sized chunks. It’s pretty cool.
If you decide you want to sign up and you like me enough to give me a free month, too, here’s my referral link.
This project is in no way endorsed, sponsored, or paid for by Skillshare (afaik, they don’t even know about it).
This month, my goal is to do a Skillshare* course (or part of a course) every day, and blog about it.
SO. Yes, I did not blog yesterday. Nor did I make it out here to watch the next segment of Find Your Style. BUT. I did make a hat to go with my Christmas cowl. And I got mostly done with a hat I found in my WIP/UFO pile (pile, hahahaha, that’s a joke. There are at least 7 WIP/UFO piles in various locations in my house. Not including the ones I’m actively working on. It’s a problem. But I digress. Also a problem. See, there I go again.)
You may remember from (checks notes) Friday that I was too worn out to be in a Pinteresting/self-reflective place, so I didn’t complete the exercise from Exercise Two: Find Your Patterns. BUT, I was feeling it today, so I’ve done it and I am sure these will just shock you all to the tips of your toes:
whimsical
bright/colorful
tropical
vintage
These are the things that I’m finding repeating over and over. Even the punky stuff I like tends to have a whimsical flair to it. The other part of the exercise to to create a “main board” with this stuff on it, but honestly, I really like having the four categories. Maybe going forward I’ll put stuff I can easily categorize in the sections, but then keep other stuff just in the main area. I don’t know yet. I’m going to do it how it feels right, is what I’m going to do.
So, on to Exercise Three: You on a Plate. But also a moment to give a big ❤ ❤ ❤ to the little interlude about just jumping right in and expecting to fail. Accepting and even embracing failure has been a hugely important thing for me. Letting go of striving for perfection is hard, but good enough is, well, good enough.
You on a Plate is a super cool concept, and it’s one I want to give an appropriate amount of time and effort to, so much like the actual doing of Exercise 2, I’m going to save the doing of this until tomorrow (or possibly even later in the week). It looks like a lot of fun, though, and I’m looking forward to it. And if I don’t get to it tomorrow, I will do a different Pinterest class in the meantime to keep this blogsharing? Skillgging? Whatever I’m doing here, I’ll keep it going.
*”Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes for creative and curious people, on topics including illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more.” They’ve got classes in everything from art to baking to productivity to gardening to trumpet (I will not subject you to my efforts to relearn the trumpet). Classes range from 20m to a few hours, but even the longer ones are broken into bite-sized chunks. It’s pretty cool.
If you decide you want to sign up and you like me enough to give me a free month, too, here’s my referral link.
This project is in no way endorsed, sponsored, or paid for by Skillshare (afaik, they don’t even know about it).
I did not get out to my computer to watch my next Skillshare lesson today. Instead, I stayed in and knitted a cowl with this stash yarn I ran across the other day. Its a black base with red and green sparkle threads, so naturally it screamed Christmas at me. I didn’t feel like working up my own pattern, and Spidey’s Spiral Cowl by Abi Gregorio was exactly what I wanted, so off I went.
Cowl, as worn. I’ll try to get a pic that shows off the sparkles, but they’re pretty subtle.A better look at the stitch pattern.
It’s not often I start and finish a project the same day- this was a nice, low-pressure interlude.
Exercise two: finding my patterns. We’re gonna analyze my Pinterest boards. Yikes.
Wait – so I kind of did this already while I was making the boards. Like, this is just being thoughtful. Was I not supposed to make thoughtful choices – was it supposed to be more brainstorm-y? Confused. But let’s see where this goes.
“Style is making work that makes you feel like you’re at home.”
Oh, now I gotta make a master board. Hmmm. I’m at the end of a long work week and not sure I’m in the right headspace for Pinteresting right now. So I’m going to put in a pin in that and noodle around with it in the morning.
Put a pin in it.
Because Pinterest.
A pin.
That’s it for today. Back to tomorrow for exercise three and maybe more!
*”Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes for creative and curious people, on topics including illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more.” They’ve got classes in everything from art to baking to productivity to gardening to trumpet (I will not subject you to my efforts to relearn the trumpet). Classes range from 20m to a few hours, but even the longer ones are broken into bite-sized chunks. It’s pretty cool.
If you decide you want to sign up and you like me enough to give me a free month, too, here’s my referral link.
This project is in no way endorsed, sponsored, or paid for by Skillshare (afaik, they don’t even know about it).
Well, I made it all of two days. But at least I’m still blogging today, right? Right??
Today was just long and not terribly productive and if I’m being completely honest, I legit just forgot to watch and blog until I’d already left my workspace for the day (I’m writing this on my phone). I had thought about it- and even done the initial setup for todays post! Then I got busy and just plain forgot about it. Planning to jump right back on the horse tomorrow, though – see you then!
I’m really excited about this one. Locking down my personal style has always been hard for me, whether it’s related to my art/crafting or the way I dress. I have lots of ideas about what I would like my style to be, but I’ve had limited success making personal style happen. I often feel like the styles I like – the ones I like for me, not just “things I like” – are not super compatible (think Betsey Johnson v boxy linen slacks and a flowy silk blouse or the clean lines and symmetry of a mandala vs a surrealist tangle of shape and color creating fantastical creatures and objects).
Loving the idea of “creative DNA” consisting of identity, experience, taste, and experiments. Taste is “…not about skill, but what you can receive” – this might be a game changer for me.
Okay, made it through Exercise One: Your Creative DNA today. The exercise (SPOILER) is to create a wee mood board (6-12 images) for each of the creative DNA components. I don’t have a lot on my “experiments” board, but the rest feel like I’m off to a good start, and I feel like these boards are something I’ll keep adding to. Even just a half hour or so of fleshing them out felt pretty good.
Tomorrow, I’ll start back up again with Exercise Two: Find Your Patterns. So far, I’m really enjoying this course, and I have no idea where I’m going to end up on my creative journey, which is kind of cool.
Me in this class, just enjoying the ride and seeing what happens along the way.
(As a sidenote, all of these instructors feel really manic to me, and I finally realized that it’s because I’m watching them at 1.5x speed. I like the condensed speed, but also I’m glad I figured out that this “manic” vibe is not necessarily accurate.)
*”Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes for creative and curious people, on topics including illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more.” They’ve got classes in everything from art to baking to productivity to gardening to trumpet (I will not subject you to my efforts to relearn the trumpet). Classes range from 20m to a few hours, but even the longer ones are broken into bite-sized chunks. It’s pretty cool.
If you decide you want to sign up and you like me enough to give me a free month, too, here’s my referral link.
This project is in no way endorsed, sponsored, or paid for by Skillshare (afaik, they don’t even know about it).
Listen, I know I keep posting that I’m going to post and then not posting, so I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to post when I post. Okay? Okay.
That said, I’m going to try a thing this month. I got a great deal on a Skillshare membership, and though I’ve tried them out a few times in the past and really found the courses inspiring and useful, I’ve had trouble making time to, you know, actually do the courses. As you know, I’ve also had trouble making time to blog. SO. This month, my goal is to do a Skillshare* course (or part of a course) every day, and blog about it (live-blog style, it turns out).
(It’s probably not that high, tbh. But I’m gonna try!)
There may not be pictures (but there might be). I will let you know which courses I try, what I like about them, and whether I’d recommend them to a friend (that’s you. You’re the friend in this scenario.). If I really bounce hard off something in the first lesson, I’m going to choose something else to do and you’ll never hear about it – this isn’t about being negative or hating on courses. There are definitely some courses that I’ve found more useful than others – you’re going to hear about the useful ones. I’m likely going to be doing mostly productivity/lifehacks and art courses, just because that’s my jam right now. But I’m also planning to mix it up a bit with some gardening and baking, too.
Okay. This is basically a breakdown of the principles from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. Merten is very upfront about this. I’m not learning a ton of new stuff, but these are definitely good tips on how to actually Do The Things.
I knew this going in but it’s really being reinforced by this course (in a good way!): productivity and habit-building are like healthy eating, in that lots of different things that actually work if you are good at implementing them and stick to them, but you gotta actually do it. There’s no magic pill that will make me more productive.
Ah, the Rewards step. My favorite part. I need to find something that’s not food or shopping to reward myself with, though. Fun story: last time I was job hunting, I used to reward myself with buying a little something for my Future Office whenever I sent off a bunch of applications or had an interview. So I had this whole bag of things like a new mug, a fun tape dispenser, unicorn paperclips, cool sticky notes (yeah, I said cool! Don’t @ me!), a hedgehog planter, etc. Then I got an amazing remote position, so I get to work from my home office, which is already fully stocked with things I love.
It’s a sloth tape dispenser! With a headband for some reason!
Anywho, this was a decent class. I didn’t really learn anything new, but it did reinforce the things I already knew about habit-building, so that’s nice. Kind of a refresher. I didn’t feel like it really tied in the productivity angle effectively, but if you’re looking for some habit-building tips, this is a decent place to start.
That’s one down, y’all!
*”Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes for creative and curious people, on topics including illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more.” They’ve got classes in everything from art to baking to productivity to gardening to trumpet (I will not subject you to my efforts to relearn the trumpet). Classes range from 20m to a few hours, but even the longer ones are broken into bite-sized chunks. It’s pretty cool.
If you decide you want to sign up and you like me enough to give me a free month, too, here’s my referral link.
This project is in no way endorsed, sponsored, or paid for by Skillshare (afaik, they don’t even know about it).
Which is my way of saying that despite my best intentions, and despite making and baking like a mofo these past few weeks, I haven’t been blogging. Obviously. I’m not even sure why not? For instance, the bean soup recipe I promised has been drafted and nearly ready to post since mid-April. So, what’s the hold up?
No idea. For now, I think I’m just going to accept that it’s just not going to happen right now. BUT. I do have like 30 recipe tabs open on my phone right now, and I’d love to close them down, so look for a bunch of recipes – probably without either pics or commentary – to be added in the next couple of weeks. I’m also exploring the idea of upping my Instagram presence, so keep an eye on that. (And maybe I’ll do a weekly roundup of those posts? We’ll see.)
It would be a tremendous understatement to say that a lot has happened since the last time I posted here. The tl;dr version is: finally found a fantastic new job, worked real hard at it, company got slammed by virus fallout*, and here I am with time on my hands.
I’ve done more baking and crafting the past couple of months than I did in probably the previous two years, between hard-core job hunting and then ramping up into the new job in a new field (construction and renovation!), and I’d been starting to think about getting back to blogging. Now it’s time to stop thinking about it and start doing it.
One of the first questions Kit (that’s my amazing husband, in case I haven’t mentioned him by name before) asked me when I delivered the sad news about being on the dole was, “when does the therapeutic baking start?” The answer is tomorrow, but with a twist: I’m going to (mostly) be making things I’ve never made before.
I’d already started doing this a little the past couple of weeks – I’ve been working remote with this new job since last June, but with nowhere to go it seemed like I had a lot more time on my hands. I also started a rewatch of GBBO – so relaxing! – which may have influenced me a tad. So I’ve already made a roll cake:
Lemon cake with lingonberry jam and vanilla buttercream. Paul Hollywood-style critique: – Sponge is over baked and a little rubbery – Flavors are good together, but vanilla frosting is so sweet it almost overwhelms the lemon flavor – Frosting is a little thick, although proportions are right. Might have been better with a thinner layer inside, then frosting the outside.
a couple of challah loaves
You can’t really see the crumb on this, but it’s super dense. It was tasty, but very crumby. I suspect this is because the recipe was from my no-knead book, and also my water might not have been warm enough to get my yeast super activated. Going to try again with a traditional recipe.
and some meringue cookies (not pictured – they were the right shape and consistency, but the bake went badly and they were just…off, in a bunch of different ways. I’m going to retry them at 200° instead of 225°, and a half batch instead of crowding the oven). Oh, also zucchini bread, not pictured – it came out fine, but was underspiced. Will definitely make again.
I have a pretty lengthy list of things I still want to try, including but not limited to:
carrot cake (maybe cupcakes)
Olive Garden style breadsticks
chocolate swiss roll cake
naan
pitas
tortillas
treacle tart (blame GBBO for this one)
lemon meringue pie
GF lemon cookies
pineapple upside down cake
puff pastry
cheesy garlic monkey bread
This is by no means an comprehensive list, but it’s a start. And that’s just the baking. Tomorrow, I’m planning to bake a big pan of brownies and that cheesy garlic monkey bread from the list. I’m also going to make some 3 Bean Taco Soup – that’s not a new dish, and I’ll snap some pics and get the recipe up for y’all next week.
Next week I’ll also talk some more about my non-kitchen oriented crafting plans, and we’ll get this blog thing rolling along again. It’s good to be back — I’ve missed being here!
Lola’s back, tell a friend…
*Sweeten is the company, and it is truly a group of wonderful people providing a service that really helps people through the construction and renovation process. If you’re planning to do any serious work on your home when things ramp back up, I encourage you to go ahead and list your project at Sweeten.com to get a head start. And if you’re a general contractor, let me say first that it is so cool that you’re here reading my blog, but also, go sign up to join Sweeten’s network – it’s free to join, and there’s no fee unless you’re successfully awarded a project.
but Lola does! 