I am now acknowledging that my belly could be categorised as huge and is exceptionally round. I have now reached the tights-as-pants stage of my pregnancy. By that, I mean comfort completely wins out over society's fashion rules. Who am I kidding, I don't prescribe to the notion that tights can't be worn as pants even when I'm not pregnant! The shirt in these photos belonged to my mum. I'm not sure in what decade she would have been wearing it (probably the nineties), but it says seventies pretty loudly to me. Its label is written beautifully in gold font on the tag; 'Gaylord'.

I finished up work last week (such a relief!) and have had a lot of pelvic and hip pain these past few days. Sleeping is a horribly uncomfortable exercise, but the end is near! I am going to spend the next eight weeks nesting and resting and crafting I hope.

My older sister had her baby this week. She and her boyfriend didn't know the sex before the birth (I am so not patient enough for that) and out popped a little boy they named Connor, a couple of days behind schedule. I am dying to see photos.

Ps. Apologies for iPhone quality photos! I need a new camera asap!

march 2013 from mushab00m on 8tracks Radio.

Some songs I've been listening to lately. I have been pretty much listening to these eight tracks over and over again for a few weeks and am in need of some new tunes. Care to recommend anything?
+ dwld
+ image credit

My sister asked me to draw her a family portrait for she and her boyfriend's one year anniversary yesterday (my birthday!) - they recently adopted a cute little ginger kitten named Charlie and moved into a big house together. I thought I'd share a little bit about my drawing process. It's pretty basic but I've been enjoying learning new ways of doing things over the past few months. I'd like to play more with textures and varied brushes and adding additional layers. I only had a day or two to finish this drawing, so I kept it pretty simple.


I started by making a fairly basic sketch in Photoshop using the paintbrush tool in a single layer on a white background A3 sized image.


In a separate layer and in a darker colour, I refine the lines of the drawing, zooming in on each section and adding in more detail. Sometimes if I am having difficulty drawing a particular section freehand (eg. shoes) I'll use study some Google images to get a better idea.


I then hide my original grey layer and am left with the simple, black outline.



When adding colour, I use the paintbrush tool for small sections and use the selection tool and paint bucket tool for larger blocks of colour, adding them in a layer underneath the black outline. If I've added a colour that then doesn't suit, I select the colour section with the magic wand tool and select Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and see other options for the the colour of the section. This stage always takes the longest amount of time. Sometimes I add a texture layer underneath the colour layer and adjust the opacity of the colour layer, which gives the image a bit more structure.


My sister had the drawing printed and put it in a cute frame and gave it to her boyfriend yesterday. He sent me a message saying he liked it and thought it was cooler than traditional family portraits.



Do you use a graphics tablet? Care to share any details of your process?

1. home sweet play home canopy 2. candy girl door hooks 3. tell me a secret pillow 4. replica eames rocker 5. rainbow wall shelf 6. no fair bookend 7. hippo and giraffe explorer canvas art

Aka fun (and possibly impractical) things I'd buy if I had an excess of coins.