by Carla Louise | Nov 15, 2011 | Collecting, Thrifting |
I am typing this on the train, sitting next to a woman with an ipad and an iphone. I feel a strange mixture of clunky (my laptop is ENORMOUS in comparison and I don’t have mobile broadband) and smug (I can type so much faster and more accurately than she can, mweeheehee).
The last few weeks have changed my life, overwhelmingly for the better. For various reasons I can’t talk about any of those reasons in detail, but one of the net results is that I have signed up for a season ticket loan for a train ticket, which means I’ll be at work for at least another year. This will give me time to get my finances straight and live my life a little without worrying so much about the future and what’s round the next corner (in the job and finances side of life, anyway).
Secondly, I have decided to put my shop plans on hold for the foreseeable future and concentrate on making things for fun and learning, rather than pressurising myself. The same with vintage homewares and clothing – I’ll buy them for me or for presents, and I’ll continue to research them and blog about my finds because I find them fascinating, but I need to remove the pressure for a while so I can focus on other things.
2012 contains, among other plans, my best friend’s wedding, my parents’ long awaited move into their new home and another rally, closely followed by a Canada trip to watch ice skating in early 2013, so now is not a good time to be starting up. Quite apart from the fact that although I know I’m capable of running a business, my finances are most definitely not, and I’m not sure I’m yet ready to sacrifice my social life in favour of it.
Thirdly, but possibly most importantly, after the weekend that’s just passed I am left with a feeling of happiness, peace, freedom and infinite possibility. My sense of self is fully restored and my inner pin up is well on her way to being part of my everyday life! Although I am never taking a train that far again – driving is SO much more fun and less hassle!
So I’m going to make the most of feeling like that, use the sense of purpose to get my flat and my life in order, and then focus on doing fun stuff… and blogging about it all, of course!
Sorry, this is somewhat of a stream-of-consciousness post, but it does feel good to write it down rather than just have it floating around in my head! A little part of me still can’t quite believe I’ve come this far and made this life for myself. When I look back to how I was four short years ago, and realise just how much I love my ‘new’ life… I wonder how the Carla I am now and the Carla I was then can possibly be the same person. I wouldn’t go back now if you paid me, I love who I’ve become and everything that I do. It’s amazing, empowering and really rather lovely. Ok, enough of the soppy crap now.
Right. Before you all throw up, I’m going to get off the train and go and make sausages and chips for dinner 🙂
by Carla Louise | Oct 27, 2011 | Adventures, Thrifting |
A double dose today, as I don’t think I was organised enough to do a post last week…
Last week:
Unexpectedly meeting Val for lunch at Nandos
Corsets – hehe, see my posts on Project Pin Up
Tentatively enquiring whether our drunken ‘yeah, let’s do a rally round Ireland’ could become reality and getting a very enthusiastic response from the other teams. Hey, plans made at 3am in an obscure part of Europe under the influence of alcohol are clearly the best ones!
Spending an entire evening talking boys and horses with Lizzy
Type-writing a letter to Dan (another one – I’m improving!!)
Treasure hunting with Mum
Awesome numberplate on a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream van
Deciding we should drink the last bottle of Romanian rum and toast Rusty sometime
Starting my Vivien of Holloway dress fund.
This week:
Lunch with some of the girls from work last Friday, which was fab, as I got to speak to some of the ones I never see during work time
Going through the R2R photos again and reliving the whole thing
Mum coming round and making me soup after a truly hideous migraine on Tuesday
The sense of achievement that comes from having almost built a whole website for a dear friend
Vintage hair and makeup workshop (I really need to blog about this separately too) at Make Do and Mend in Chelmsford with the lovely Mimi and Lou, led by the equally lovely Hannah
Spotting a hedgehog under a tree on the way home from work one evening
An unexpected, glorious, sunshine-filled, warm roof-down blast round the Suffolk countryside on Sunday afternoon
Extended phone and text conversations – I have wonderful people in my life
Finally booking a haircut – I don’t want to lose any of the length but it’s long overdue, it’s lost its swish!
Lights near Bishopsgate in the evening
The general soaring happy feeling I’ve had most of this week 🙂
Fully aware I should have photos in this post but I’m absolutely shattered so may have to add them tomorrow. But really can’t go two Thursdays in a row without posting or next week’s will be utterly ridiculous!
by Carla Louise | Oct 27, 2011 | Uncategorized |
How I feel, and how the blog’s going to look! I have been shockingly absent from here recently (and from Project Pinup too, bad squishy), with various life events and working on another website which will shortly be unveiled.
However, I am working on overhaul number 2 of duckingfabulous.co.uk (It feels like overhaul number four hundred and seventy two, but these are minor details). With the imminent launch of Teasets to Typewriters, I’d rather my blog had its own domain, and that the content that sits on the current site made its way back over here where it belongs 🙂
So keep your eyes peeled (actually, don’t worry too much, I’ll blatantly make a massive song and dance about it once it’s finished!)
C xx
by Carla Louise | Oct 10, 2011 | Uncategorized |
I don’t think I’ve ever actually posted about The List before. A working copy of it is here, which I will update and add to as things occur to me. There are more than 300 entries, so please don’t feel obliged to read it! (also, none of them are crossed off on this version – Google Docs is thwarting me)
This is a list I started, partly inspired by Mike Gayle’s book The To Do List, and partly motivated by a knowledge that there are an infinite number of things I would like to do and achieve in my life, plus I’d like to be organised like a proper adult (hence some of the smaller things on it) and I wanted to have some of those things in written form. Plus, I’m the original list addict and it would be odd if I didn’t have things written down (honestly, I cart half a ream of paper around with me each day, all covered in lists).
So. Today I reviewed it for the first time in a while. And you know what? I ticked off 49 things I’ve done this year, not including the things that were already ticked off. For someone who has spent the last six months panicking that she’s not done anything to be proud of… well, it’s changed my mind somewhat!
Admittedly, some of those things are as small as ‘put screwdrivers back in the hall drawer’ (it’s concerning how long it’s taken me to do that) but some are lifechanging. Doing a rally was on there, way back before Rob asked me to go… living on my own was on there, and so was (weirdly) buy a typewriter. And I’ve done all of those things in 2011.
So I must be doing something right… I’ll review it again (and one of the things I meant to do with my blog was post when I’d achieved something on the list, so perhaps that’ll become a regular occurrence?!) at the end of the year, along with my new year’s resolutions and such like.
Maybe I’m a bit too introspective, but I do like being able to look back at what I’d hoped and dreamed and see that despite everyday appearances, I’m moving in the right direction towards the life I want to live 🙂
by Carla Louise | Oct 6, 2011 | Uncategorized |
A list I found in my notebook just now – it’s the sixth and I’m not doing too badly! (Clearly, there are a whole host of things to add to this now, lol… but it’ s ok, at least some are crossed off!)
by Carla Louise | Oct 6, 2011 | Personal Development, Photography |
I’ve been massively inspired by journals lately, and especially art journals. I’ve always loved the idea of recording your life, and probably my only regret in life so far is burning my teen diaries and deleting my typed uni diaries, which I did for reasons I won’t go into here.
There’s something magical about keeping snippets of your life between pages, to be kept and remembered and looked back on in days, weeks, months and years to come, and it also leaves a record for future generations.
I once came across a box full of tiny notebooks in an antique shop, and, intrigued, asked the owner what they were. She said she had another two boxes in storage and they were the handwritten diaries of a young lady who had started, in the twenties, aged 9, to keep a diary each day, and had written faithfully every single day until she died in her 90s. At the time I was still a student, and this collection was on sale for £250 – well out of my price range (although the lovely owner did say I could pay a bit at a time and she’d keep them aside for me, it was still more than I could justify spending on non-necessities at the time. But I sat in that shop for a good couple of hours, reading the living history of this lady who had lived through a war and through unimaginable changes in her world, and had recorded it all, huge world events and things that were important to her (first kiss, meeting a friend for lunch, all sorts) for us to look at.
On my 25th birthday, inspired by that find, I started a five year diary. I’d like to think I’ll keep it up till I’m 30, although I’ve already missed the odd day – I love that it’s laid out so that each year you can see what you wrote the year before, and it’s a small enough book to carry around. My own little piece of magical history.
Recently I’ve also started to see lots of art journals – Ashley at The Creative Place did a fabulous post recently about her completed travel journal, which made me think I could (and should!) do something similar for the rally. I have been meaning to create a scrapbook/journal of my life since just before my 18th birthday – bought the albums but never quite got round to putting things in them. (Actually, with hindsight that’s a good thing, if I’d completed it age 18 it would have been mostly full of my first love… while he is obviously an enormous part of my past, he is entirely unconnected with my recent past, my present and my future, and I feel a journal I make now will reflect that).
I also love the idea of keeping a journal of my creative inspirations – at the moment my laptop and Pinterest serve for those ‘squee’ moments where I can keep snippets, and this blog records my wafflings and thoughts and other things, but I’d love to have more physical things to look at when I need inspiring. And of course, a diary-journal (as opposed to a scrapbook or a journal for a specific event or trip) would show you how your crafting has grown and shaped and developed over the time you take to complete it.
So this weekend I shall be buying (or repurposing) some box files – they shall live in my studio and into them shall go anything relevant – photos, notes, fabric scraps, labels, broken but significant jewellery… anything that might help shape my journals, and perhaps in 2012 I’ll be able to put them together and make something wonderful to look at.
by Carla Louise | Sep 30, 2011 | Thrifting |
I haven’t even looked at my bank account, because although today is pay day, I know that the total is going to be massively depressing (once I’ve extracted my monthly rent & bills, my £400 train ticket and my credit card bill). There is a transfer to be made from savings to cover the credit card (because it’s the flights from the rally), but otherwise it is what it is. Obviously I’ll be using the overdraft as I do most months but the intention is to bring this usage down slowly over the next few months. (with Christmas and my car insurance due… hah, who am I kidding?! But worth a try, certainly).
So… Buy Nothing Unnecessary, aka phase 2 of Project Thrifty Chic. I have an enormous amount of stuff in my flat, most of which I don’t even know that I still own. Quite a lot of which is makeup – cue some more beauty blog posts!
I have some lovely things planned this month for which I’ve already budgeted, but outside of those I am going to try, very hard, for just one month, to not buy any more stuff. (I also have a freezer full of food, which I’m going to use up before buying any more. Apart from vegetables, which I’m nearly out of.)
Now just to test this theory, I am going into town tomorrow (1st of the month… whoops) and there are some things I need while I’m there… I have a small separate budget for the beginnings of Teasets to Typewriters, but aside from stock/packaging for that (and the packaging I really should buy in relative bulk, online), I’m going to be good. Well, I’m going to try!
(and in the evenings, I intend to skate, blog, work on the secret projects ready for launch… lots of things! Hopefully none of which will involve too much money… also intend copious use of the slow cooker for both convenience and thrift 😀 )
PS I would apologise for the continued thrifty posts… but I keep getting good reactions so I won’t 🙂
by Carla Louise | Sep 19, 2011 | Thrifting |
Whoops… have just checked my bank accounts on the way to work. One is overdrawn, one is down to its last £10, and I still have £206 I have to spend on train tickets this month, quite aside from anything else.
There has obviously been the rally, which is why the savings account is down to its last £10 – I shall be transferring some more to cover the flights which are due to be paid off my credit card on 9 October, and then I really shall be knuckling down to not spending so much and getting my finances back on track.
This month has been a bit daft – aside from the trip, I’ve bought a couple of ponies and a few bits for the house, and done my usual ridiculous spending on magazines, plus stocked up on cosmetics and toiletries, and my Asda shop replenished loads of storecupboard staples I’d run out of like sauces, marinades, oils, spices etc. October will be better 🙂
So parts of Project Thrifty Chic, which I touched on briefly a few weeks ago shall begin in earnest! I have already embarked on meal planning, sat down on my return from the rally and decided that as well as helping my budget, planning food would also help my health and enable me to experiment with new recipes – I love to cook but the constraints of my job and the lack of time I have in the evenings mean I often fall back on making the same old food time after time.
My fridge and freezer are full, my slow cooker is bubbling away at home as I speak (ragu sauce for lasagne tonight) and the dinner I was meant to go out for this evening has been put back to next month as we’re all busy and broke. So, you know, at least I’m in good company! Work lunches are what usually do my budget in, but I have cheese and butter in the fridge, so am going to buy myself some bread and crisps and make my sandwiches. From a health point of view I’m bringing cereal to work in the mornings, and I aim to stop buying so much chocolate too – they’re all small costs but they really add up. I’m also not going shopping again till the end of the month – I have plenty to keep me occupied in the evenings and at the weekends.
There’s only one more weekend left between me and payday and it shouldn’t be too costly as I’m going down to see my godmother with my parents, the MR2 is due an oil change on Sunday, but Dad usually pays for the oil & filter. Worst case scenario I’ll put it on my credit card and sort it out in December. The intention is to have a really good October and a well planned November, then I’ll be out of overdraft and able to pay for my car insurance without too many issues in December. Christmas this year is going to be less about the gifts and cards and more about spending time with my family and making a donation to Woking Hospice and Macmillan Cancer Care in memory of Nick, who they helped so much before he died.
I love the independence of adult life and living alone, but the financial side can be the teensiest bit stressful! But life is too short to get down about it – I’ll just tighten my belt a bit and sort it. I always think that good money management is not never going over your means, but knowing when you’ve exceeded them and taking measures to bring yourself back into the black.
by Carla Louise | Aug 30, 2011 | Adventures, Personal Development |
** Warning – waffly post, no photos and may not even appear because has been scheduled. My fingers are crossed.
I am having a feel-the-fear-and-do-it-anyway phase in my life at the moment… with a whole plethora of things in both my work and my personal life. Taking the plunge and just doing something, and leaving my comfort zone way behind, seem to be the order of the day.
This is not a bad thing, but it’s not particularly restful either… my naturally fretful side (which is usually eclipsed by the laid back, anything-goes side of my personality, but which does rise to the surface during times of stress) is having an absolute field day worrying and analysing and generally freaking out.
However, I am doing these things regardless and I have to say, afterwards, it’s a fabulous feeling! We’re talking a relatively long list of things ranging from wearing red (proper red) lipstick and a vintage dress to work on dress-down Friday, to starting skating again, to organising the company’s Staff Day (which is a massive undertaking I would have sworn I wasn’t able to do, but have actually managed ok so far, touch wood) to my biggest piece of madness to date, agreeing to go on this utterly mad rally.
It’s going to be exhilarating and freeing and liberating, and it will be a massive sense of achievement when I’ve done it, knowing I can drive abroad and sleep in cars and cope with not knowing the language and be in a different country every day and make new friends and let’s not forget talk to blokes on an even footing (as opposed to melting into a terrified puddle every time one approaches). There are all these positives and I am still terrified.
But sometimes, life really is too short not to do things that scare you. And that kind of mood comes around so infrequently (to me, at least) that I’m embracing it and doing things I definitely wouldn’t normally.
On the list of things I would like to do while this mood continues are things like attend a vintage themed event, set up another collective, this time with a theme (that’s an ongoing project anyway, but is going to take courage and luck to actually launch), finally get my shops back up and running, make a start on the book, read my old diaries, have a jumping lesson (on horseback), drive through London, etc. They’re all quite small individually but looking at the things I’ve done, I do and I want to do, and comparing the girl I am now to the girl I was just a few short years ago makes me realise how far I’ve come and how much I am, now, the girl I want to be.
Here’s to adventure and happiness… and a healthy dose of recklessness! (Hell, I’m in my 20s – it’s practically compulsory!)
What do you do that’s unusual, that scares you or that you know might not be entirely sensible?
by Carla Louise | Aug 23, 2011 | Uncategorized |
Ducking Fabulous has sort of become my online identity rather than the jewellery brand it started out as. I don’t think this is a bad thing, and I wouldn’t change my lifestyle and beauty blogging and general waffle about life back to solely craft and/or jewellery. However, I do miss making and selling things, and now I have the studio in my flat, there really is no excuse for me not to kick myself into gear. It’s probably only ever going to be a hobby, but there’s only so much jewellery one girl can wear!
I’m also wanting to experiment when my new sewing machine comes from the lovely colleague at work who no longer wants hers; and I have several pairs of shoes to customise; and there’s the vintage bits and pieces I’ve been collecting for a year or so, I think it’s about time that the pieces not on display went on sale so they can have a better home.
So I’m thinking of opening two Etsy shops – one as Ducking Fabulous, for handmade things by me, and one for vintage things. I have a name, which I won’t disclose until I’ve checked if it’s available and if the banner idea I have in mind works! I’ve been playing with category ideas and collections – it’s a great way to pass the commuting time!
However in order to do this, I need to seriously overhaul my life – I’m far too busy at the moment to be efficient with sales, and I’d want to have proper packaging and everything sorted out if I did do it. It’s still a bit of a pipe dream, but maybe in 2012… I’d need time set aside to photograph and list everything, as well as making new stuff and packing and posting anything I sold.
We shall see – I’d love your comments and opinions and thoughts if any of you have done similar things, and if there’s anything I’m overlooking in my thoughts (although I do use this blog as much as a notebook for my own thoughts as I do for writing articles to be read… feel free to ignore this random waffling!)
Relatedly, but sort of separately, I have two bigger projects in mind – the first is Project Pinup, which is an overhaul of me and an attempt to be more elegant, more ladylike and more pin-up-like. Not necessarily in shape or size, but in the way I am and the way I present myself to the world. I am thoroughly fed up of doing my makeup on the train and brushing my hair out from wet and then just leaving it, but equally I don’t want to get up at 4am to try and make myself pretty before I leave for work. I also want to differentiate between my work look (which must be sober and subtle) and my look on my own time (which will vary over a range of styles, not just pin-up, but is, like the real me, much louder and more dramatic, without being in-your-face. I hope, anyway.
The second is Project Thrifty Chic, which I know is unimaginatively named, but is more essential. As I’ve taken over the flat, I have a LOT less spending money each month than I used to. I have raided my savings down to almost nothing to fund the rally (which I don’t at all regret, it’s going to be the trip of a lifetime and I’d far rather do that than go backpacking, but it does mean I don’t have much in the way of backup money anymore) and I go into my overdraft most months. This is not a situation I’m happy with, but I refuse to give up the car and I can’t give up the flat for at least another five months (and I’m so happy here, I don’t want to relinquish that either). So the solution is to stop with the random spending and try to economise, but as Mimi says, being thrifty rather than frugal – it’s amazing how different the words can make you feel. My intention is to still have a fabulous look and a fabulous life, but spend less doing it – and I think this is perfectly possible, especially now I have the flat to myself as entertaining space, I can actually persuade people to my house instead of out for dinner on occasion! I love thrifting for clothes and homewares anyway, so it will be an extension of that. I don’t intend to ban myself from buying new things, but I will try to re-use and recycle or buy secondhand whenever I can, as it’s greener as well as being cheaper. And with the car I drive, I really should make every effort in every other area of my life to be kinder to the environment. It’s all about balance.
Watch this space – and congratulations if you got to the end of this post, it ended up being somewhat of a stream of consciousness!
