In the studio 27.03.17

Here we are! the first in the studio post, I mean't to do one last week but I managed to get a stall yesterday and manically prepared for that!! - it was really fun and I learn't a lot though it wasn't really a selling enviroment. It's motivated me to do more stalls and keep working hard.
So, I've been mostly decorating jars and making prints with watercolour and embossing powders for the shop! I'm OBSESSED with embossing. I came up with a new design for the jars and also got a rose gold colour for drawing on jars with which is gorgeous and has pretty much been used up already! 

I haven't done much stitching since finishing my pink ombre stitch and black mandala while off but I've just started one I am SUPER excited about, I picked the colours to make one for one of my best habiti's but I loved the colours so much I have to do one for the shop! - I'm even debating doing a 3rd one for me! I can't wait! The larger stitches take me around 30+ hours and since I'm back to full time work these two are going to keep me pretty busy! 

My plans for this next week is to get some new prints designed, update my shop with new products and work on promotion and lastly get some good headway with my new stitch!
Ciao x
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22 portraits

Oh god, I really need to be more organised with my blogging! Sorry guys! If I didn't have enough projects going on I've decided to tackle a new one! Recently I've been really inspired by the artist Emanuel De Souza ( @emanuelartist if you are on instagram) and his portraits. He does so many amazing ones and when they were all grouped together they had a really nice overall look and his style and personality really came through. I decided as I keep saying I wanted to practice portraits, a similar project would be perfect! Now, I previously ordered 22 canvas's to do some colour studies on, the colour study hype is over and I've decided to rework the canvas's into 22 portraits of musicians that inspire me. 
It's going to be a massive challenge and definitely NOT one that will be completed anytime soon with a trip home, mini trip to Budapest and Christmas but I may give myself a target of April. It's also going to be really hard because theres quite a few men I'd like to paint and I've never tried painting a beard before PLUS I still need to work on my style, colours and technique but I think it's going to be such an amazing challenge and I can't wait to get brainstorming for it! I already know a lot of people I want to paint like the lads from Bastille, Lapsley, Jack Garratt to name a few! I think I may use my time home to get sketching and brainstorming. I may do a timelapse video for some or even some prints of the painting or sketches if they come out decent! Of course I will be doing some posts inside my sketchbook and little updates as well!!
Are you guys working on any projects at the moment? 
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The A->Z of Laura.

Not to long ago Jemma did a post about the A-z of her and I really loved it! Admittedly I had to sing myself the alphabet to get all the letters in order - surely I can't be the only one to do this?!
A- Abu Dhabi - My childhood home, I spent 10 years here but it feels like so much longer! I miss it everyday and it's my favourite place to recharge. When we first moved there we didn't even have malls and my first school was horrendous ( it had barbed wire..to stop students escaping.) but I wouldn't change it for the world!
B- Beanie Babies!I had over 200 of these!! I was obsessed as a child. I've sold a few at carboots recently but I'm still keeping all my favourites! 
C- CATS. I don't think I need to expand too much on this but I really am Bridget Jones with cats!
D- Dalmatians - my favourite animal in the world! As much of a cat lady I am, dalmatians will always hold that no. 1 spot in my heart. 
E-  Eating clean and plant based. I am really trying to eat as healthy as I can to see if it helps my symptoms. ( she says after stuffing herself with a chicken kebab and god knows what...) I'm also making anti inflammatory shakes to see if they help as well. 
F- Festivals - I freakin LOVE them! I really want to do more different ones around the world, my dream before I'm 30 would be able to festival hop from April - Sept and just try them ALL. 
G- Golf, I used to play golf every weekend when I first moved out! My bestie in grade 4 got me into it and we had to go to Emirates Golf Course in Dubai every weekend to play as Abu Dhabi didn't have a course yet.
H- Harry, my cat! Named after Mr Potter himself as he has a little lightening bolt above his eye.( I'm not kidding!) I love this little idiot even if he hates me and never wants to cuddle unless it's night he's the best! Even my patronus was a black and white cat! I also seriously love HP anyway, Hufflepuff and proud!
I- ILL. I've been ill since the end of May, it's undiagnosed and doing my head in! :(
J- Jokes - I love jokes, especially crappy jokes. A particular childhood favourite was ' what's brown and sticky? - a stick'..... enough said there.
K- Kayla Itsines, I started her plan this year and it has made such a difference to me, body wise and mentally.You can read about my progress here. I haven't been able to repeat the plan since being ill as it was too intense and I was getting too dizzy but I am going to try and push through and restart the plan this month. 
L- Luanna - who is currently one of my girl crushes - her haaaaair. oh my gawd. it's beautiful! She is so stylish. LIFE GOAL. 
M- Mcfly, my favourite band growing up! I got to see them last month and it was AMAZING. ( yes I went to all 3 nights!) I finally got to hear sorry's not good enough for the first time!
N- Needle and thread - I am SO obsessed and inspired by this brand at the moment! I wish I had the money for like 3 of there dresses and I want a fiance just to buy one of their wedding dresses! ahahaha!
O- Originality, I'm always tough on myself when it comes to art and I always feel like I'm not original enough especially when I see so many amazing artists out there. I know I shouldn't compare but I do sometimes..a lot, I've got quite a few ideas which I hope are original and I just need to keep working, taking inspiration and using it with my own ideas.
P-Painting, I love to paint and this year I started to go back to oils, I have so much to learn and I really need to get my arse into gear and practice and get some work made but I love it! I would love to do this full time. 
Q- QUEEN. I love calling people this! Also I recently got the lipstick from Charlotte Tilbury of the same name and it is GORGEOUS.
R- Reading - one of my all time favourite pastimes, espcially on holiday. I have so many books and so many more I want to read! My trip home next month is the perfect excuse to buy some and I have my eye on at least 3!
S- Short. I am very short, so short that people frequently like to remind me how short I am. As if I hadn't known my whole life... 
T- Travelling, I LOVE to travel. Experience different foods, ways of life, cultures. I just love it, I wish I could travel more but I know I am fortunate to have travelled how much I have so far. Next year I get to tick L.A and Bali off the list!
U- Urmston - Where I was born and where I live now! 
V- Violin - I used to play one as a child, I think I got to like grade 2 but I always wanted to play guitar and never really put much effort in. I'm debating trying to learn again, I had the most beautiful Violin as a child and let's be honest I haven't grown much since.
W- Weird, I'm a weird person, I accept it.
X- Xbox, I didn't really have anything to put here aha! So I went for X-box as I used to work in GAME for like 2 years!
Y- Yoga, a pastime I love but really need to put more time aside for.
Z- Zombieland - I'm watching it right now, it's alright so far! I'm not a mahoosive fan of Jessie Eisenberg though. ( he did grow on me slightly by the end) 
Geez, this was a lot harder than I thought!! Some letters I had like 3-4 words I could have used and surprisingly struggled on E, N and O! I kept wanting to write elephant! Even though I have like no associations with them!!   Ciao x
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DIY Harry potter boxes

At the beginning of September my Auntie asked me to make some DIY boxes for her and my cousin and I couldn't wait, she had seen some in a market in London but they were quite pricey! I had been given  picture of the third year potions on one side of a box as the only guide and pretty much got to do what I want with the rest! I knew straight away I wanted to do the other box as if it came from a wizarding shop in Diagon Alley.

To make the boxes you need:
- Plain pinewood box
- Wood dye (  I bought the georgian medium oak - from B&Q)
- sandpaper
- some paint ( I mixed brown and black to get this shade)
- thin paint brushes

Depending on how you want to put the words on.... you can draw them on, but I used
- tracing paper, oil pastel covered plain paper.

Firstly, you need to sand the boxes down to help the dye stick and it'll take two coats of the dye. ( the third pic down is the difference between the two coats! and the second pic is the difference between the original box and first coat) Then cover a piece of paper with a dark oil pastel, trace  your design onto it and then trace it on and paint! I used a really thin brush and just take your time,you can add any accents on that you want!  ( if you make any serious mistakes you can wipe them off with a watered down cloth - just be verrrryy careful) 

First the first box I went for the hogwarts school and third year potions my aunt had sent me a picture of and on the side I decided to add what any 3rd year may need - a cauldron, phials and of course - ingredients! Like I said for the second box  I wanted to do a shop from Diagon Alley, so I researched and found the name and then found some apothecary stickers on pinterest and adapted them to the design I wanted which was the dragon claws.

         Pretty simple and they look amazing! I really loved doing these and I may have to do a few                                                                    more for myself, I'm already brewing ideas!

                                                                            x
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Resolutions - update!

It's CRAZY to think we are halfway through the year, like where is this year even going?! I am super excited it's summer( well....almost summer in Manchester...) and all the plans that I have!! 
I thought I would update you on my resolutions and how I've been getting on - you can read my resolutions post here. 
1) interiors - I'm even more obsessed with interiors and moving and getting new furniture now than I was at new years. This cannot be good! Apart from my hat wall I haven't done too much to my room sadly BUT I am going to be carbooting like mad this summer so hopefully I'll shift a lot of the stuff that I have lying around. I've also found the desk that I want from Made so it's just a matter of saving up and waiting for the right time! 
2) Getting back to hot yoga and salsa, I couldn't massively afford to do both with Thailand and then saving for a car and a trip home however the place I do hot yoga had a two month deal I couldn't refuse so I have around another 3 weeks there and I am going to aim to go 1-2 times a month and try to save to go more! 
3) get toned - so... if you had read my latest fitness post  you would know I've made really great headway with my weightloss! I've toned up quite a lot although there is still some fat on top of it I've managed to shrink quite a bit of fat down! I'm really pleased with how I've got on and can't wait to see what the next 6 months brings for this! 
4) Sort my money - I was doing really well with this...for like...2 weeks? ha! Then an impromptu trip to Thailand happened that I had like...3 months to save for, so that kinda destroyed all progess and made things a little worse. But with lots of hard work I will have halved all the damage by July which for 4 months work I think is pretty impressive! 
5) start some art collections and start selling, I've definitely been working a lot on my art these past months. I've been focusing on colourstudies and how colours can work together and also practising my drawings - you can see in my sketchbook here! I've got a few ideas for prints so I'm hoping to get a good quality printer in August and I'll start selling prints! Eek! 
6) Build my blogs - I'm getting there, the blog kinda got put on the sideline sadly while everything was going on but I'm trying to be better with my planning and I have at least 10 outfits planned for my style blog- so I'm estimating around 6-8 weeks worth of content! aah! I also got over 200 followers on bloglovin' which was something I felt I was never going to get to! I definitely need to get better at planning and also try to participate in chats a bit more! 
7) Lastly I'll go onto getting a car! - EEEK. I'm getting it in July, I've worked hard to get my money in a good place that I can afford the car as it's gonna be like 50 times more expensive than my bike but I'm really excited and also really nervous at driving such a large thing. I'm gonna have to get some more refresher lessons again as I'm convinced I've forgotten how to drive! 
How have you been getting on? 

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5 things... 22.05.16

Oh my god, these posts were supposed to be weekly and I've already failed! I promise to try and do better, I need to find the time to sit and think of some fresh new idea's for the blog and posts I can write, I'm really falling behind and it is massively down to poor planning on my part! I also need to work on more than just scheduling tweets for my shop! But before I go on and on about this lets talk about 5 things this week! 1. This week I completed BBG 1.0!!! I can't beleive it! 12 weeks and pretraining and I'm done! I didn't properly do LISS or my HIIT workouts really in the last few weeks but it's so lovely when the girls at work comment and say they can tell I've lost weight and I can fit into clothes I've never fit into before! I'm redoing the plan doubling the weights and adding in some running as I've signed up to do a half marathon. I'm giving myself a goal of running 5k in 25 minutes by september! I honestly couldn't rate this plan enough and if I work more on my eating as well I'm hoping to shed the rest of me and tone up! I'll be doing a post on this in the next few days so keep an eye out! 2. I've started to properly sketch again, I did a sketch of Sansa which now looks like poop and I was quite disappointed. I want to find a sketching style that suits me so I attemped another drawing of Jon Snow ( I'm so inspired by GoT at the moment with it being back!) and I'm so pleased with it! My style needs a lot of work but it's come out really well! So more sketching and hopefully I'll get some kind of style down!  I'm hoping to get a few prints made to sell in the future and start adding art prints to my shop!  3. I had my first sale last week! I've been working so hard on my shop and promoting items, it hasn't been easy working 8-6s everyday plus the gym and yoga after work, I only have a few hours at night to get anything done but I have managed to try and promote it whilst creating new works! So getting my first sale was just an amazing feeling and made me feel like all this hard work will pay off! hopefully I'll get a few more before I start doing stalls in July! 
4. I'm feeling really rundown this week, I haven't really been on top of my diet and I think that everything has just all built up, I felt a bit ill last week and during the week, it's really hard to describe usually when I'm ill it's all at once but this is like a dull ache over time. I haven't really been properly ill since going veg/mostly veg now. Hopefully I'll be alright soon! 5. I've found my wedding dress guys. I'm not even lying. I'm obsessed with needle and thread, embroidered clothes is something I really want to get going this year and I've just become OBSESSED with it all. Just need to find me a boyfriend now.. hahahahahaaaaa. oh god. I've also found a house I want which is like horrendously out of a price range I could ever afford. - Dream big right?!? aha. 
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Goal wishlist

So...life has been mental, I've kinda gone into overdrive into making and painting for my shop with working 20-30 hours overtime and gymming as well, safe to safe I AM exhausted, I'm telling myself its a good kind of exhausted but I need to get better at time management because I need to squeeze in that time for blog posts - I am getting a teeeeeeeeny bit better at posting on my fashion blog - okay I'm rambling. So last week in all the chaos of life I tried to spend some time reading blog posts and I LOVED this one by reinventing Neesha where she talked about her goals and beauty things she would reward herself if she achieved them. It made me think of all the million and one things I want and how I could push myself to work harder to earn them. - I didn't want to focus on one thing so I've made goals for all aspects of my life blog/art/ money. 
So some goal/treat ideas
1. ADIDAS cheetah stan smiths. BEAUT BEAUT BEAUT. I can purchase these once I have properly completed BBG 1.0 this means sticking to my LISS and doing ALL my resistance and HIIT when it gets introduced. These kind of shoes NEED to be earnt. 
2. Triple helix piercing, I've wanted this for a while and was going to go last month but realised that money for Thailand was much more important so I decided to make this a goal. I can get this once I have sold my first 10 jars. 
3. Foot tattoo's I saw a pic of a blogger with some simple traditional flowers on both her ankles and I've really loved the idea, I would have to work it around my current foot tattoo but decided to treat myself once I've finally gotten rid of that pesky overdraft.
4. Olivia Burton tortoiseshell watch, oh my god this is my dream watch, I want to start doing stall's so decided that I can do this once I've made £500 at a stall. ( I'm going to re-assess this once I've started stalling incase that's just a bit unobtainable...)
5. Get some black and white Nike Roshe Runs, I have a pair of these to send back because the tick is silver and maybe that sounds weird but if I am paying £70 for a pair of black and white shoes I want my tick to be WHITE. so decided to put these off  until I have completed BBG 1.0 for the second time with higher weights. 
6. Buy a Charlotte Tilbury highlighter, a girl tried this out on my when I tested for my foundation and I have never wanted a highlighter so much, oh my god. Can't get this until I've gotten 500 bloglovin followers!  -C'mon and help me out folks aha! 
7. Get Gallance Dore's book Live Life Love - I've wanted this for ages so decided this can be a treat once I have gotten up to 500 twitter followers. 
8. Get a leopard print triangl bikini, I've lusted after this for so long but agreed to myself I wouldn't get this until I had nicely toned up - it's going to take a lot of work but it'll be worth it! 
9. Get grey/pastel hair, I've wanted this for tiiiiime, but the up keep is something I just can't afford at the moment. so decided this one is happening when I pay off my credit card. ( I may also treat myself to a Charlotte Tilbury magic cream..... you can never have enough CT!) 
10.  Nars cruella lip pencil, something else I've wanted for ages, named after one of my favourite and most stylish villians. I can treat myself once I have 500 instagram followers. 
11. Olivia burton bee watch - Sell 30 paintings, I've become obsessed with colour study paintings, they will be coming to the shop this weekend once they are dry, at the moment I have 11 canvas's but I hope to order a lot more in april for when I do the stalls. 
12. Treat myself to some topshop jeans, I've honestly not worn jeans for years now because of inner thigh chaffing and just generally being uncomfortable. So I decided when I have shrunk my inner thighs a little more I'm going to treat myself to my first pair of jeans in ages. Through the BBG plan I have managed to shrink the things A LOT, I'm so happy with it, I definitely feel more confident so perhaps by the end of the plan I'll have a pair of jeans! 
That's all I've got so far, making this list has been so much fun, I may do a post in 6 months time with an update on how I got on with all my goals- or I may come back and slash them off when done. Have you written a list like this? what's on your wishlist? xx
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Learning an old(ish) skill

I'm FINALLY living my dream of painting again, except this time I am tackling oil paints. This isn't something I have done since high school and I am pretty much making it up as I go along. I decided to swap to oils because if I ever wanted to paint in colour with acrylics I was finding by the time I had mixed the paint got a stroke on it would then be dry( I maaay be exaggerating a little there) but I tend to paint with a very dry brush which didn't help. I was at a point where I felt like acrylics just weren't for me but at the same time I found the idea of oils very overwhelming and I was struggling to find the space and also the creative drive to paint for years.  Oils definitely AREN'T as scary as I thought, they have all these liquids and extras you can use but I actually prefer them without for now. It is hard reteaching myself because I haven't actually painted for years and I haven't used oils since I was like 17 but I am slowly learning the way I used to paint and adapting it to oils. I really love the challenge and seeing the picture come together.  I thought I would start by painting Ella Eyre which.. maybe wasn't a smart move to start with considering I am awful at hair but I got there and I'm happy with it -ombre and curly hair was definitely a challenge! I've found I've got a whole new drive for painting, the new space I'm in is really helping me and I feel so creative. There is a lot for me to work on with both painting and relearning to sketch and draw and develop a style I hope people will see and recognise as mine. I get so frustrated with it sometimes when it doesn't come out like I feel it should it look; so I need to learn to work past that and admit that sometimes some things are going to look absolutely awful while I am still learning. I've ordered a couple of books of oil painting paper so I'm going to keep picking out pictures and people that inspire me and hopefully test my painting skills so I can become better and then at the same time start developing idea's for collections which I can start next year and hopefully get into a gallery. It'll be a bit of a challenge with working full time but I am hoping to get out 30-50 portraits by the end of the year! I'll keep you updated on how it goes! I will be selling these on etsy and I am thinking about taking commisions as well!  Have you tried something new lately? Laura x Keep up to date with my latest posts by following me! :)
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Art Rookie

If posting a blog about my depop wasn't shameless enough I am imposing my ArtRookie page on you all!
                                                  http://artrookie.co.uk/LauzOfArabia

I've designed a few tshirts, phone cases and prints! I would love it if you could check them out and if you get something please let me see! It would be amazing to see someone wearing one of my designs!

Or let me know what you think of the designs, I am looking to start painting something similar to the distorted photographs.... but it would be nice to see what everyone makes of them all!

ArtRookie itself is incredibly easy to use if you are an artist yourself, you just upload your picture then reupload to the right specs onto each item you want to produce I found with the tshirts,bags and prints I didn't need to bother trying to adjust the settings of my picture!It doesn't cost anything to join or upload and you get 20% of everything you sell plus more if you sell any prints.

Have any of you got a Artrookie page? Let me see!!

Not very beauty related Sorry guys! I have a few beauty posts lined up! :)

ciao x