Introducing...'Blog ~ About with B & B' on Friday Nights

Welcome to our first 'BLOG ~ About' on a Friday night. The impetus for this planned weekly event is to link together some of the wonderful people I am meeting through Bubble & Bear's facebook page. To learn a little bit more about you all, what excites you, what you feel passionate about, what YOU are interested in and would like to hear about and just generally blog about this stuff. Why friday night's? Because, I am a self imposed recluse who has no life and am ALWAYS home on friday nights. I am always imagining what exciting things people must be getting up to out there on their friday nights, however, I thought to myself "surely there must be some other people out there with no life"? I want to commune with you if that is you also. If for some miraculous change of circumstances I do venture out on a friday night in the not-to-remotely-likely future, there will be a NEWSFLASH and I will let you know. Now, the game plan for a Friday night 'Blog ~ About' is for any of you to post on Bubble & Bear's facebook page through the week with a topic, thought, area of interest to be blogged about for that Friday. Anything and everything is blog worthy for us Friday night stay-at-homers. I will do a little research about the suggested topic, taking in other peoples' thoughts and comments and then we can all discuss it in the comments section under the blog post. Feel free to post links relevant to the topic in the comments section also. We already have a topic for next friday evening...'Shabby Chic' as (kind of) suggested (with a little help from me) by the lovely Wendy P. As it is a bit too late tonight for a well thought out or researched blog~about post, I will just share a little about what makes me tick, what I like, what I am interested in learning about and anything else that comes to mind really!

So,I like chocolate, I am interested in raw and whole food eating however am not really living by it as I am easily swayed by the festivities and social interaction around rich food at Christmas which takes me through with bad eating habits until Easter. I love kids, I care about my community. I used to like and enjoy doing exercise however since having more children I am struggling to find the balance and self discipline to prioritize exercise. It is something that I keep aspiring to 'start doing' in the very near future :) I started Bubble & Bear after my mother-in-law reignited my creative urge last year after teaching me how to make ragged quilts. I have always been 'crafty' and studied Art in high school, however I never knew how to incorporate 'Art' into everyday life. It hadn't really occurred to me that you could make functional, beautiful and useful products that allowed you to follow a creative process and experience. It always felt self indulgent to immerse myself in Art...until recently! Combining the social media of Facebook with a stay-at-home-mums passion for making has been an extremely rewarding experience. By rewarding I do not mean monetarily, but by how my life feels enriched by the interactions I am having with my customers, followers and fellow business page owners. If I was 'out' at work, I would be experiencing fulfilling interactions with people in person. The next best thing is being able to stay at home and still have this interaction, albeit of a virtual nature and quietly read out in my mind! Except when some of my customers opt to come and pick up their creations or I meet them somewhere close by to drop their orders to them. It has been really lovely to meet them in person and really lifts my day to then say hello again on facebook a few days later. I told you I would ramble! So getting back to the Blog ~ Abouts on Friday nights...I am hoping that there might be a few topic suggestions from people, however here are a few of mine, based on interests and questions I have rattling around in my mind at the moment. In no particular order but numbered because this post needs a bit of direction and I haven't worked out how to make my paragraphs stay set out as paragraphs once I have hit 'publish'. Any pointers on this from someone in the know? 1. How to get my new overlocker to do narrower stitches than what my instruction booklet and machine setting seems to allow (without it being set on rolled hem mode)? 2. What is the favorite look this winter for kids? 3. Who is an up and coming fabric designer to look out for? 4. How do mums with more than 2 children manage to keep their day in balance so that they get enough exercise/sleep, eat well, pay bills, shop, clean, stop said kids from strangling each other and return all emails & phone calls and remember everyone's birthdays? 5. What crafty activities can I do indoors this winter with the kids to stop them getting cabin fever? 6. How do I keep sane whilst raising my teenager? 7. How do I stay 'connected' with hubby when all the other stuff has me feeling depleted most days? I have a lot more I could add but will hold it there. So at this stage, next Friday is looking a bit Shabby. Hope you will come get shabby with us! x Tanya