When I Grow Up
est. 2004
A Creative kind of Life. A blog by Helen Hobden
I still haven’t worked out what to do when I grow up! I’m mainly a writer, an artist, and a fairytale dressmaker with various crafty hobbies! Here (and on YouTube) I share bits of my life, thoughts, and what I’m learning along the way. Let’s find magic and inspiration; join me for this creative living adventure!

 

Yearly Archives

2016

5 Ideas to do in October
October 15, 2016
1. Kick some leaves. Next time you’re on your way to work, walking the kids to school, or generally going about your day, and you spy a pile of leaves at the side of the pavement; kick it! Go on! Even if there are people about to see; scatter those leaves in the air! (Just make sure there are no small children nearby you might accidentally kick in the face. And make sure the foot not in the air has secure purchase on the ground – not on a wet slippery leaf. See? I struggle with letting go.)…..
Adulting: A series of things I should’ve learned by now – Keeping receipts
October 13, 2016
I always have the best intentions of keeping receipts. In fact, I gasp in horror when people throw away a receipt before they’ve even tried on the item of clothing; or plugged in the toaster – let alone keeping them for a year at least! Like everything in my house, I struggle to throw anything anyway in case it comes in useful one day. Keeping the receipts isn’t the problem – it’s keeping them in an orderly manner that is. As you can see from the photo, I currently stuff all receipts in the same cupboard that I keep the ketchup and honey. Why I do this? That’s anyone’s guess….
3 Days in Oxford – Day 2. The story of the photographs
October 12, 2016
If you haven’t yet seen Day 1, then you might like to follow this link and come back here later. The morning of my second day in Oxford was mainly spent walking from the Four Pillars Hotel in Sandford-on-Thames along the Thames path into Oxford. I’ve already written a detailed blog with photos about the journey in this post, so I’ll begin here where I left off, entering the city by Christchurch College. I sort-of meandered my way through cobbled streets and past various ancient University buildings until I came out at a place I remembered….
Independent Fashion Focus – an alternative to Bristol Fashion Week
October 11, 2016
Every single thing I go to lately seems to have the advertised start time about three-quarters of an hour before it actually starts. It’s as if they know I’m coming and in anticipation of my lateness, give the wrong time. The problem is, I have been dead on time for a change! So; not having the courage to speak to strangers already chatting to each other, after spending as long as I politely could browsing the clothes rails at To The Moon, I walked up and down the road for while and moved my car to a less dodgy parking space until the first person was due to speak, according to the piece of paper sellotaped to the wall. I perched on a stool at the back of the room with my notebook at the ready, interested to hear what they had to say about ethical and sustainable fashion….
Weekly wardrobe – gothic circus look for a beach walk!
October 10, 2016
Rain chose a walk on the beach as her family activity for her birthday, so yesterday afternoon we drove over to Brean and parked up past all the tacky arcades to as near to the cliff as you can get. It’s a handy carpark with a National Trust shop, cafe, and (most importantly) loos. Sunny and hot one minute and cloudy with a chilly wind the next, it was difficult to know what to wear. I opted for layers with a steampunk circusy vibe; and why not? ….
Anti-reflective coating on your glasses – is it worth it?
October 9, 2016
Whenever I’m recording a You Tube video in my work-room, all I seem to do is spin round in circles trying not to have massive white rectangles on my glasses. They somehow even manage to appear with my back to the window! When Chris is taking photos for my Weekly Wardrobe posts, we’ve more-or-less given up with glasses, so I stumble about blind for the sake of not having glaring white blobs in the middle of my face. (Hashtag blogger problems.) I am so short-sighted, I cannot see a thing without them, and I hate that feeling so much. So finally, even though there was nothing particularly wrong with my glasses, I decided to splash out and buy a new pair with anti-reflective coating….
The Story Behind the Photographs – Morvah mine
October 8, 2016
Chris and I took two days off work before the bank holiday weekend, and drove the camper-van down to Cornwall. We had three nights and four days away altogether and in that time we saw Jeremy Loops play at Perranporth; met up with family; took several photos for Oshun and for the blog (such as the one at the top of this page); relaxed a bit, and even found time to take some photos just for the fun of it. The great thing about wild camping is that you can wake up right next to the most wonderful wild places, including this ruined tin mine. One of my favourite photos from the day I chose to have blown up and printed onto canvas for our living room. It was a beautiful morning and the pathway towards the sea was just magical….
Game of Thrones costume ideas
October 7, 2016
Winter is coming and that means halloween is creeping up on us, so I thought I’d start you off with ideas for costumes from the famous HBO series, Game of Thrones. I’ll be honest, I didn’t get into it straight away – I think we gave up on it after a few episodes because I thought it was too violent and gratuitous and already characters I liked got killed. Then I knew I was going to meet Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) as she was going to judge the competition where we made items of clothing from old books. So I had to watch it, just in case it came up in conversation! So we ploughed through, and it wasn’t until the third series when I actually started enjoying it. Then I really got into it! Here are some ideas from Etsy….
My Cornwall photo on canvas! Printed by Printerpix
October 6, 2016
Chris and I are very fussy about art for our walls, and we don’t always have the same taste. We compromise by never ending up getting anything! However, when the opportunity came up to have one of my photographs blown up and printed onto canvas, I was really excited by it. I have a massive 60% discount code at Printerpix for you at the end of this post. I chose a picture I took during our recent campervan trip to Cornwall. The old disused mine is easy to find on the North coast road near Morvah. It’s a popular spot for rock-climbers and hundreds passed us on the footpath towards the cliffs, lugging their gear with them. It was fairly early in the morning when we went photo-spotting, and I turned away from the sea and looked back at this ruined mine building….
Burlesque Wonderland – Alice through the Martini glass at The Fleece in Bristol
October 5, 2016
From blackberries yesterday to burlesque today! And why not? Rain didn’t really know what to do to celebrate her twenty-first birthday. She had originally planned a day of wand-making (yes really) with her two best friends, followed by films and a sleepover. Then Jude spotted this event in Bristol just a couple of days beforehand and we all decided that we’d quite like to go. So the wand-making stopped early for everyone to change into their Alice in Wonderland Costumes….
Older Posts
Newer Posts
Instagram did not return a 200.

Linking with #iwillwearwhatilike at Not Dressed As Lamb.

bloglovin

30 Plus blogs