Moving Home - 1st Improv challenge

So todays' random subject is Moving House suggested by the lovely Claire who is in the midst of this stressful process herself.

So shall I tell you about my moves or make some suggestions for making it easier? Hmmm, well as an adult I've only moved twice. Once was when I left home to live with boyfriend (later to be my hubby) so I only had a bedroom to empty and the second time was when we left our little council flat to move into this house.

We decided that we would do the move ourselves as it was only 2 miles across town - you know, hire a transit van, get the boys in to help and run back and forth. Well, we had 3 strapping lads loading and unloading the van and just little ole me packing the boxes. Except we only had about 10 boxes which we used over and over. Except they were shifting them faster than I could pack them. Except there was no sensible female at the new house to tell them where to empty said boxes. Are you beginning to get the picture?

In the end, I was just using my whole arm to just sweep stuff into the box or tipping a drawer straight in. Needless to say, it did not make for a very organised move although it wasn't particularly stressful 'cos we were laughing so hard most of the day. It took me weeks to find everything again though and even now, 14 years later, I still have the odd box tucked away in the back of a cupboard or in the attic which still hasn't been sorted out!

So, what common sense suggestions would I make?

Pack the kettle and tea/coffee things last - even make up a coolbox with some sarnies, cutlery etc just in case you need it. A house is not a home until you've had that first cup of tea/coffee and besides, the removal men never say no to a cuppa!

Make up a mini toolkit and keep that separate too - a couple of screwdrivers, a sharp knife, some WD40, some lightbulbs (you wouldn't believe what some people take with them!) and some strong tape.

If you've got kids - keep a few of their toys or games handy. They'll get so bored - my parents kept some garden games out so at least we could play in the back garden while they were filling the house from the front!

Be prepared - get loads of boxes, label them up well and try to declutter as you pack. Try not to take all that crap with you 'cos you'll only have to find somewhere to put it in the new place :) (and if you can manage this one, you must be an amazing person because I don't know anyone who starts packing early enough and is this organised)

So, tomorrow's post is Art vs. Craft, suggested by LostintheForest. Could be a bit tough for me, this one - never really thought about it but I've got all day at work tomorrow to mull it over! If you have any random suggestions to add to my list, just leave a comment and I'll get there eventually.

So I'm Ecletic...

and apparently, according to one of my collegues, that's what makes me interesting! I had to think about this one and you know something? I think he may be right - about the eclectic thing anyway! How did this comment come about? Well, we were chatting in the office, as you do and someone mentioned something rather offbeat and I had a story to go with it. Later, on a completely different subject, I had another anecdote to add to the conversation and so the day goes on. Not only did he call me ecletic, he also added nerd (very hesitantly though) 'cos I seemed to know stuff about some techie bits too!

If you ask people some simple questions like favourite colour, fav animal, fav author etc. most will have one or two in each category. Me? I have loads of everything which is probably why I find it so hard to make decisions.

My favourite colour? all the purples and lots of the blue/greens especially with a touch of pink thrown in.

Favourite animal? Dolphins, lions, tigers... oh and dogs and owls and whales (you get the idea!)

Favourite author - Anne Maccaffery, David Eddings, Clive Cussler, Colin Forbes, Dean Koontz (depends on my mood)

Favourite music - I like most things from Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly through to Led Zepplin, Meatloaf via Robbie Williams, Pink and Anastacia!

My photography shows this too. I'm still experimenting and learning in the various genres but I have worked out that my best landscapes are mostly flukes whereas I can pull off a lovely flower macro fairly regularly and easily.

So is there a point to this post? Yes! I've worked out at long last what I want to do with this blog or rather what I don't want this blog to be.

I don't want it to be a continuous daily advert for Etsy and its' enticing shops. I don't want it to be all about me and my rather ordinary, mundane daily doings and I definitely don't want it to be full of short waffley posts just for the sake of posting something!

So tonight I'd like to launch my new look IMPROV BLOG :) I'm setting my visitors (that's you!) a challenge - leave me a comment with something offbeat or random to talk about and tomorrow I'll post about that - whatever it may be. The only subjects to be avoided are religion and politics - too many arguments lie in those areas and I don't want to upset or offend anyone.

So get your thinking caps on and set me a challenge :)

My First Green Thumb Sunday

JoinGardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.
It's taken me absolutely ages to get this far so just a lovely garden statue for this week and next week, I'll be properly organised :) I need to pretty up the blogroll (the list is down by my Redbubble slideshow in the sidebar) and work out how to get some other blogrolls in there too and I need to visit all those other lovely blogs. It will probably take me most of the week so see you back here next Sunday OK?

New Notecards

Wow, I've been busy this week, hence no posts! It's our financial year end at work so I've been sorting out all the last minute bits and pieces that should have been done already but just haven't had the time! But I finally got a few minutes to myself today and have managed to put up 2 new notecards in my Etsy shop so ta-daaaaa here they are :)

I've got one or two others to list this week but I'm going to keep them for another post in case I run out of inspiration! I need to add a photo of the actual cards to my listings so my task this week is to print and photograph the individual cards - unless I can work some photoshop magic, of course. I bought a pack of wonderfully glossy prescored photocard blanks but I don't really want to print them in case they don't sell. Yes, I know I can use them myself (and I often do) but I'm trying to keep my 'stock' to a minimum and just print to order.


I did think about taking some into work and taking orders but as I'm a temp it seems a bit cheeky! Might have to ask the boss if it would be OK - see what he says. I've also got to design a bit of packaging. At the moment, I just put the card and envelope in a cellophane bag but I want to add an extra bit of paper with my details on - just looks a bit more professional in my opinion.

I've been trying to find a printing company that will print small runs of individual designs. I really don't want 250 of each card - not only will it cost lots of dosh, it's the space requirements too. Moo do individual prints but they actually work out quite expensive, especially if you want to sell them yourself. If you have any suggestions, I'd really appreciate some links/info.

Competition Winner!

Congratulations to LostintheForest - comment number 4 was selected by the random integer generator! I ran out of time to cut up little bits of paper and write names on so I googled a random number generator, entered 1-15 (number of commenters) and set for 40 results. I then counted up how many of each integer appeared and hey presto!

So I'm off to write an email to LostintheForest to see which print she would like :) Oh happy day!

Etsy-versary Competition

Well, I did promise a post about my Etsy-versary coming up on 30th March so here it is! I know lots of Etsians do giveaways or discounts for their anniversary but I wanted to do things a little different. I've also just noticed that this will be my 30th post so in honour of the 30 link between the two - I'm going to run a little competition here and offer a choice of prints or notecards from my Etsy shop to a value of $30 :)

The winner will not be restricted to those images showing in my shop - a quick visit to one of my stock portfolios (I think Lucky Oliver has the largest portfolio) will give a much wider choice or if you'd like one of the watercolours that I've featured in my earlier blog posts - that will be OK too.

Just have a guess what this close-up is a photo of and leave a comment. All the correct commenters will go in a hat/bowl and I will pull a name out. I will contact you to find out what you would like and get your address and we sort everything out from there - oh happy days!

Competition closes Midnight GMT Monday 31st March - this is 5 hours ahead of Etsy time so 7pm Etsy time but I'm not sure about the rest of the world!! :)

New Poll on Photography

I just read a thread about polls over on Etsy and as I've been thinking about it anyway (I do a lot of thinking about things!), I decided to have a go. I found one on Blogflux but couldn't get it to work so came back to a basic blogger one.

I'd love to know what you think - I'm still developing as a photographer and haven't really settled in any one particular genre or style yet. I love photographing animals but opportunities are a bit limited in my area and with my work schedule. I'm also not an early morning person so the thought of getting up and being on the road before dawn is totally alien to me. If I could go on another safari in Kenya, I would be soooo happy - we had amazing luck with our last trip and I got some super shots. I've got more experience now though and better equipment so I would love the chance to do it again.Please leave a vote - it's just a click and will give me some ideas as to which direction to take my shop. As I've mentioned before, the hardest part for me, is deciding which image to list!