The start of the story

This summer I should be at a camp near Boston, wearing a polo shirt with shorts and allowing my hair to be natural and lion-like, whilst trying to suppress my British sarcastic humour with a tinge of the inappropriate…

When I graduated from university, I exhibited work in different places, won a Young Designer to Watch award, took commissions and a part time assistant job with the fabulous Sew Curvy. I also had a bit of a summer break. When September hit, having applied and written to more companies than I could count on all of my fingers, I decided that I just really needed to earn some real and reliable money. Not only this, but winter was coming, and as medieval as it may sound, other than Christmas (probably the biggest Christmas fan) I have a fear of winter. When the nights get dark early, I don’t find anything romantic or cosy about them; I find them really grim. I took a job managing a team of men in a Cancer Research warehouse and retail store. Some things are just really character building…

 The guys I worked with were fabulous, and I only wish them all the best in the world, but my contract was coming to an end and I had no intention to renew it. I kept telling myself that I would not be one of those people who did an ‘artsy’ degree and then never pursued it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with deciding that the degree you did now isn’t the path you want to follow, but this just wasn’t applicable to me. I have always wanted this, so I just can’t stop now. Without another job to move onto, and desperately wanting to move out and travel, a great friend of mine put me in touch with a director of a camp in America. Whilst filling out piles of paperwork and emails, and discovering my medical insurance would be £800+, which the camp would not cover, it was a pretty big decision. Everything seemed to start to be pushing me in the other decision.

Feeling a tad (maybe an understatement) undecided about everything, and having a bit of a commitment crisis (you never know when something else might come along) I went to stay with a friend, someone who is just the best with advice and challenging/encouraging the way I think. She said to me, where do you honestly see yourself this summer, America or London? I replied, ‘London’ and the next morning I had a new email in my inbox from an address I had never seen before, the email was inviting me to London...

“Dear Rosie
I hope this finds you well. Your dad sent your details through for [insert special name here] to see you work, which she loves!”

And that was the beginning…

My Lists

Lists: I love them. This is where other people normally chime in and say they love lists too, I get it, list luvin’ is a real thing. I tend to sleep with a pencil and pad of paper under my pillow; just in case.

I keep lists to help me stay on track and set goals with my work, to reassure me that the project I am undertaking is totally feasible in the time I have, and to just in general stay on track and meet deadlines. But, there is also another reason…

I have a list dedicated for goals I hope to achieve. I have been making them for as long as I can remember. These are goals that I think most people wouldn’t even entertain. It is a list of big things: awards I want to win, people I admire and want to dress, publications I want my work to be in, and other additions as well (learning to scuba dive would be the greatest!)

So this is a blog of encouragement, it is me saying go for it, make those lists and think outside the box and impractically. Allow yourself to dream.

I have just started ticking off my list…❤

Ice-cream Biro

I like to think of the story I am about to share as one of my original catalysts. It’s abstract, but bare with me, like great fairytales I hope there’s a moral to be found…

At school it was mandatory to learn D&T (Design and Technology), which meant everything from designing the packaging for a bar of chocolate you had invented to making a CD rack out of sheets of acrylic. But before all of that was the ‘Pen Project’.

The pen I designed and would have to make was incredible (so I believed) it was an ice-cream cone which meant it fitted nicely into your hand, had a textured wafer cone, a different colour for the scoop of ice-cream and of course a flake to top it off. This pen would be fabulous, kitsch and creative and something to take home and make my parents proud.

We presented our ideas in front of the class. Someone had decided they would use red acrylic in a square shape, another person had a squiqqly shape out of yellow acrylic, and then I presented my cone of glory. Everyone laughed. I mean really, even my friends told me it wouldn’t be possible to create something that shape, with different colours and textures. They told me I was aiming too high, why didn’t I just pick a shape and colour like the rest of them. In fact, these friends took me to one side to advise me on this, they didn’t want to see me humiliated when I failed and the laughing started up again.

So, what did I do? I made that ice-cream biro and it was a grand success. Those friends I had were in awe, told me they knew I could do it all along, and other than getting top marks, I had a huge sense of self pride and achievement.

The moral to this isn’t to be aware that the fickle friendships you have when you’re 11 probably wont be your friends for life; but more that if you have a goal that might seem ridiculous or absolutely out of reach to others, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t pursue it with absolutely all of your might.

I have a list of goals, and this year I have crossed two of them off…❤