2016: the year to overcome negative thoughts

The internet is awash with posts and articles about New Years Resolutions at the moment. I don't smoke, don't drink much and not particularly keen on joining a gym. All in all, I'm not one for resolutions...but I do feel that the start of a new year is a time to reflect on the past and focus on the year ahead. In 2016 I will turn 40 and it feels like a big milestone to me. My 30s have been eventful. I lost my Dad, got married and became a Mum. There were lots of ups and downs, sadness and much laughter, all part of the roller coaster of life. As I enter my fourth decade, I want to try and leave behind certain behaviours and traits. I think letting go of negative thought patterns is one of the gifts of growing older. If I can learn from past experiences and make changes, then hopefully in my 40s I'll be happier in my own skin...

As we enter 2016, there are certain things I'd like to try & focus on. I wanted to write this post so that I would have something to look back on when 2016 draws to a close in twelve months time. On New Years Day I was scrolling through my Facebook stream when this quote from Anne Lamott jumped out on me. I saw it on the Story of Mum page, always a good source of inspirational posts. I haven't quite been able to get it out of mind my ever since.
I think I can relate to almost everything Anne Lamott mentions. In 2016 and beyond, I want to embrace my 'big, juicy creative life' and resolve to do less of the things that make me feel bad. Back in November I wrote a post titled "Practising gratitude can be good for your mental health. As I get older I want to try to become more resilient and look after my mental health. Here is how I aim to do this:
1) Less people-pleasing:
I don't want to change completely, I will always be the sort of person who cares about other people. I may always be the sort of person who puts others first. But what I do want to try and do is protect myself too. I am a worrier and the one thing I worry about most is upsetting other people. So I tend to become more introverted in social situations in order to 'fit in'. Before Christmas I also saw another quote that I love: “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”. In 2016 and beyond, I hope to speak up more, talk about my achievements and not let people put me down.
2) Worry less about making decisions:
Closely related to 'less people-pleasing' is attempting to make decisions that I feel happy with. I really need to work on making decisions and then making my peace with those decisions. I have spent far too many hours in the past worrying about the impact my decisions have on others. I often say 'yes' when my head and heart want me to say 'no'. I overthink almost every decision, it can be exhausting and time consuming. Sometimes you just have to trust yourself and go with your gut instincts.
3) Try and tap into my creativity and imagination:
I really don't do alot of staring off into space. In fact, I don't even sit down much. Mr. M often says I find it hard to relax. I need to try and stop every now and again, just so I can look around me. I want to get back into sewing and need to resolve to make space for that in my life. Making time for writing is important to me too. It may not be a novel or a memoir, but my blog acts as a space to gather my thoughts and express myself. I want to have more confidence in writing more meaningful posts that reach out to a wider audience. I've made a start on changing the focus of my blog in 2015 and my blog traffic has doubled. I love connecting with people through words, so "Me, You and Magoo" will continue in that vein into 2016...
4) Don't get strung out on perfectionism:
Striving to be a perfectionist is something I inherit from my Dad. It's good to be driven and to try and push yourself, but perfectionism can often trigger overly critical self-evaluations. I am my own worst enemy at times and need to stop comparing myself to others. Social media and the media in general are extremely clever at tapping into our insecurities. My husband deleted his Facebook account about a year ago and says he doesn't miss it one bit. Social media sites are the perfect place to create an idealised version of your life and broadcast it to everyone. If you get sucked into thinking everyone is living a better life, then you will always find it hard to have confidence in yourself. With this in mind, more creativity and less screen time is on the cards for me in 2016.
5) Learn to play the ukuele:
I know this doesn't sound like something directly related to negative thoughts, but bear with me. Mr. M bought me a ukulele for Christmas because I've always wanted to learn to play one. I think it's important to learn new skills and not write myself off as 'too old' to learn an instrument. So there's no time like the present. Music is good for your mental health and people who play instruments exercise their grey matter more. So, hopefully when looking back on this list in twelve months time, I'll be able to play 12-bar blues. Watch this space...
This week I'm linking up with these lovely blogs:
"The List" over on youbabymemummy.com and www.mrandmrstplusthree.com
"Happy days" over on www.whatkatysaid.com and www.quitefranklyshesaid.com
"What I'm Writing" over on writingbubble.co.uk
"Share With Me" over on www.letstalkmommy.com
"The Prompt" over on mumturnedmom.com
"Be Inspired" over on www.tots100.co.uk

1970s nostalgia inspired fortieth birthday canvas: a handmade gift

Back in May, my friend Lisa turned 40. I wanted to make her a handmade, personalised gift, so I decided to embroider a canvas for her. This canvas features a number of the most iconic events from 1975. I think the 1970s were a heady mixture of glamour, glitz and political struggles. I wanted to try & reflect this in the canvas.

The 1970s gave us David Bowie, Disco and the birth of Punk. It was also an unsettled time politically for the United Kingdom with high inflation & industrial action by coal miners. This triggered the Conservative government to try & restrict electricity consumption with the Three Day Week.

I transferred my selection of 1975 events onto a cream calico fabric using a transfer pencil. I then used back stitch in various, bright embroidery threads to create this piece. I love hand sewing and find it relaxing, so making this canvas was really enjoyable.

I was born a year later in 1976, so may have to make a similar one for myself as the big 4-0 is looming on the horizon...

Dragon Themed Birthday Party

Its taken me a little while to get round to blogging about this. My daughter celebrated her third birthday back in October, but with all the upheaval of moving house, this is the first chance I've had to share some awesome tutorials for Dragon Party ideas!
For some reason, and in most cases it's best not to try and fathom out the workings of a three year old's mind, my daughter became obsessed with Dragons last Summer. She insisted she wanted a dragon cake for her third birthday...I'm up for a challenge so I decided to create a Dragon themed party.

It wasn't until I had promised my daughter this particular theme that I found out dragons are not very popular with most party supplies shops. If you have a daughter and you want princesses, fairies, butterflies and Disney characters, then you can buy everything off the shelf. Dragons it seems aren't so popular. So I decided I would make some things by hand and started to trawl the internet for ideas, tutorials and templates.
We were about a month away from moving house, so my brain was in a whirl with all the arrangements for organising removal vans and talking to solicitors. If we hadn't been in the midst of doing all that boring conveyancing stuff, I would've made even more things for the party. There's such a wealth of ideas out there, but time was against me, so here are the projects I managed to complete for the party.

First up, the cake! There are literally 100s of images for dragon cakes on the web. I'm no professional cake maker so I decided to go with this one on the Instructables website. It's made from two sponge cakes and has very clear instructions on how to cut the cakes in order to make the head, legs, tail etc. Mine doesn't look exactly like the Instructables version, but I've only made about 3 or 4 cakes in my entire life, so I think I made a pretty good attempt at it. My daughter was delighted with it, so that's all that matters!

Next up was a game of 'find the dragon'. I made six paper dragons using this template and hid them around the house. Each child had to find one to win a prize. They were really simple to make and you could add more detail or use metallic paper if you wanted a different look. There are lots of other ideas on the ideas4kids.org website, so if you've got more time than I had, you could really go to town with decorating the house with handmade dragons.

Lastly, I made, with help from my Mum, a hooded dragon towel using this adorable tutorial. I wanted it to double up as a costume for the party and as a practical gift to use at bathtime. My daughter still absolutely loves the towel and it's great for getting them all wrapped up after a bath.



If you don't fancy making a dragon, there are tutorials for lots of other creatures such as owls, monkeys, teddy bears and there's even a Rudolph.
So there you have it, some ideas for making a Dragon themed party.

Birthday Bunting - complete!

I blogged a little while ago about the Birthday Bunting I was sewing for my baby girl's first birthday. I wanted to do a follow-up post with some photos of the finished project, so here they are! I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. It was a joint effort between me and my Mum, we both used different stitches, but I think that adds to the handmade effect.





As I mentioned in the previous post, I wanted to make something that would last for years and become something of an annual tradition. I will stop hanging the bunting out when she's about 23 and can't stand it any longer! Maybe she will love it so much, she will use it for her own children, who knows.



We had such a lovely day on her birthday, we had cakes...



balloons...



presents...



It felt like a huge milestone and I was very proud of her on the day as she soaked up the attention and took the whole day in her stride. This past year has been amazing, a real rollercoaster of emotions, highs and lows. I feel like I have packed more into the past 365 days than I have ever done. I'm looking forward to the coming years, her personality is really starting to emerge...and I think she's going to be quite a character!