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Where did the summer go?
I feel like I blinked and somehow the summer holidays disappeared!
It's been a busy, creative and slightly chaotic few weeks, filled with community events, family time, face painting, books and lots of creativity so I thought it was time for a little catch-up.
Community, Creativity & Lots of Children!
One of my summer highlights was our Play and Create session at the Ermine Exchange with Rooted Arts. Around 18 children joined us for play dough, cars, Mega Bloks, jewellery and badge making. A huge thank you to Hannah from Rooted Arts and my friend for helping make it such a lovely session.
We also held our Teddy Bear Picnic at Ermine Library, with a cake sale, story time, crafts and face painting and an incredible 98 people attended! I also spent a couple of hours face painting at the St Giles Summer Extravaganza, adding even more colour to an already busy summer.
Apart from all that fun and excitement there has been a lot of meetings surrounding planning upcoming things and important partnership goings on.
Books, Books & More Books!
A huge personal milestone was receiving the first printed copies of my poetry collection Love, Loss and Life. Seeing something I'd written become a real book was an amazing feeling – even if I did discover a typo after ordering the first 50 copies! I've decided they're simply the extra-special limited first edition. With so much of myself contained within those pages, that's actually been a surprisingly emotional part of the process.
Meanwhile, I've found the courage to keep pushing forward with my children's book, What's in Gran's Garden. I've spent countless hours developing the characters, working on their expressions and personalities, experimenting with colours and creating the different scenes. There have been plenty of moments of self-doubt, but watching the characters slowly come to life has made me even more determined to finish it.
Taking the Wins With the Disappointments
Not everything has gone to plan. I was disappointed not to get a place at the Naughty Night Market, especially after putting myself forward and hoping it would be another opportunity to showcase my work. But that's part of running a creative business. Not every opportunity works out, and sometimes you have to take the disappointment, learn from it and ke
ep looking for the next one.
Summer Holidays as Mum
And amongst all of that, I've also been enjoying the summer holidays as a parent! There have been days out, swimming, family time, treats, movie nights, late nights and plenty of those ordinary little moments that end up becoming some of the best memories. Balancing work, creativity, community commitments and parenting isn't always easy, and I definitely haven't ticked everything off my to-do list. But sometimes making memories is more important than being productive. As September begins, I'm looking forward to getting back into a routine, continuing What's in Gran's Garden, developing my creative business and getting ready for the busy gifting season ahead. It's been a full-on summer but a pretty special one too!
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