messy Miss Kate

Living to 100: Accountability, is there an App for that?

Being a huge Apple computer & device lover, I'm often checking out new apps in the App Store.  I've come across a few lovely health & wellness related ones I thought I would share this week.  

In the past I've used My Fitness Pal, Runkeeper & Livestrong to track exercise & calories in & out.  They are still all right up there in my opinion as excellent daily trackers of performance.  Because I'm trying some different things this year & trying to make positive changes rather than get fanatical about calories, I'm looking around for other tools to help make me not only more accountable but to give me the encouragement & inspiration I need to make good choices.

This weeks habit:  using an App or some other method to help make you accountable, give you inspiration &/or help you track along to achieve your goals. And of course it doesn't have to be digital. It might be engaging a personal trainer, keeping a food journal, asking a friend or partner to be your sponsor, setting a daily alarm for exercise/seeking out new recipes/working out your weekly meal plan. Wherever, whatever help you need the help most.

So, here's some cool apps I'd like to share...

 

1]  Green Kitchen

This isn't an accountability tool, its for inspiration & its FULL to the brim with beautiful green food options.

    

Organisation: New School Year Stuff

 

Somehow getting organised for my big girls to go back to school, sending the twins back to kindy for 2 terms then onto school in term 3, felt just a bit more complicated than the start of last year. Definitely more complicated than the year before.

Obviously when school hits, there's uniforms to look after, a huge amount of lunch prep, after school snacks, where to store bags & stuff, managing homework, keeping track of special dates during term etc.  But even before then there is new shoes to get, haircuts, medical checks and psyching up ready for the craziness to begin.  

I find during term time I lose myself a bit. The weeks rush past quickly but each day is so intensive & busy and I start forgetting which day is library day & when I need to make sure they are wearing their sports uniforms [which also had to be ordered... a brand new uniform this year].  A pretty organised person myself, being in charge of every detail for a bunch of little ones is like an explosion of responsibility.  Thank goodness Miss Georgia Poppy is my wingman & keeps the smaller ones in check.  And Miss Charlotte Daisy is sliding into windman role #2 and loves reading our checklist by the door each morning so we don't leave without forgetting hats or something.

Last year we sorted the daily to do list, the weekly schedule, storage of bags/shoes & we got smarter about breakfast cereal.  We are still doing all of that now.  This year, I didn't really have any grand plans but I did set about doing a few more things before school went back.  I ticked a bunch of stuff off my to do list & put a few systems in place to help ME make it through each term.

• Dentist & medical checkups

• Homework cupboard & dealing with school paperwork influx

• Haircuts

• Lunch orders

• Term Schedule

 

First up, the Dentist! 

Lists: The Best Snacks

I'm using Penultimate on iPad for this list. Awesome. If you don't use Evernote, maybe you might wanna check it out, its web & app based & all syncs beautifully. I use to contain my research notes/links, plans & ideas + it syncs perfectly with Penultimate too so my scribbles, scrawls & digi drawings can all linked in nicely together.  Coolio man.

So whats your BEST snack then?  

Gen X Memoirs: Eraser collection...

Born in 1971, I was plum perfect age in the late 70's early 80's to start nonsensical collections of colourful excess.  Here's one I STILL have!  

Occasionally I'll go through that old massive trunk in my garage that contains even my primary school books, dolls, retreat journals from highschool, blah blah....  Thats where I found my eraser collection!

All that rubber. And you know, none of them were very good at all as erasers.  Manufactured purely to suck tweenies into buying them to build collections.  So here's some of mine.

 

As I get older my mind often wanders back, way back, to how things were when I was a kid.  We had more freedom, we definitely had more street smarts but we didn't have the tech saviness of today. Yeah ok, so there wasn't much technology around. Ever spend an hour coding on a Commodore 64 'computer' to make a little pixelated creature move across the screen?  Exciting back then though wasn't it? Not quite as exciting as when my dad brought home one of the first Apple Mac's back into Australia from the USA I might add, but that's another post I can't wait to share!  We've come a lonnnnnnngggggg way.

So as much I am trying to streamline & reduce the number of categories here on my blog, ultimately its about my life as much as my family & art & health.  I always always try to keep in mind that when I'm long gone, my kids might like to read this space. It occurred to me they might like to have a giggle at my childhood stories too.  So, Gen X Memoirs is born. And as a fleeting memory collides with a few minutes of spare time, the occasional post will be shared.

 

Fellow Gen X'ers, did you have an eraser collection?  

Christmas gifts for Teachers & cards for friends...

Each year we like to give a little gift to our childrens teachers and also a card + candy cane to all of their classmates.

This year we had 8 teachers for the 4 girls at school & pre-school as well as cards to make for about 75 children!  With changes and reduction of hours at Jeffs work and an increase of school fees for us having 4 children now in private school/pre-school, everything has been that much tighter this year.  So I needed to be a little smarter with gifts.

I do love to stick with something apple related for the teachers so I decided to make them all a little print of apples with the words, 'Keep calm & teach on!'  I found a cute little free piece of clip art on the internet & then made the artwork in photoshop.  I just duplicated the apple, changing the colours as I went along, then added words at the bottom.  I had my printer print the prints [whoa almost a tongue twister!] for me & I framed them in a red Ikea frame.  I also bought each of them the gorgeous apple stamp & ink pad set from Kikki K.  So 8 prints and 8 apple sets were our gift this year along with cards from the girls.

I find the easiest way to do our Christmas cards to avoid burnout & several nights of handwriting on top of card making is to make a digital version & then print out leaving only childrens names to write.

My kids each drew a picture on iPads using 'Adobe Ideas' then emailed them to me.  In Photoshop, I created a square coloured background, plonked their drawing onto it and added the 'Merry Christmas, love from [each child's] name.'

Georgia drew an Angel this year and Charlotte drew a Christmas tree.  I combined the twins drawings; Amelia's presents at the base of Chelseas Christmas tree.  

Once they were all done, I pasted each of the cards twice onto an A4 background so I had 6 cards on the one sheet.  I then had my printer print off however many sheets we needed and I simply guillotined them when I brought them home.

It took about an hour to write names of the kids, even the twins wrote theirs this year, and to stick a candy cane on the back.

Nice fun easy exercise.

Next year I want to find an alternative to candy canes because I detest them. All that stickiness & plastic. Drives me bonkers. But coming straight off a whole pile of sickness, I just didn't have time to look for other ideas this year.

Do you have any food ideas to share for a little classmate Christmas treat?  

I also made our family Christmas card in a similar way this year.  I think its nice to send a photo of the kids at Christmas so family can see each year how much they have grown & changed.  So I took a photo of the kids with balloons down at the beach. It was cold & windy and of course with 5 littlies its always a challenging session to get them all sorta looking at the camera.  Not many great shots, but who needs perfect anyway?  I love the one we chose. Especially Buddy's little jazz hands. hehe

Again in Photoshop I plonked the photo onto a coloured background and added the text.  I then copied it down 2 more times so it made 3 DL sized cards onto a single A4 sheet.  I had my printer print them & I guillotined them at home.  We then just had to write names & address the envelopes.  Much simpler for us.  

Yes, it is probably nicer to hand write each individual card but considering many people have stopped exchanging Christmas cards altogether & life is so busy for everyone, I'm ok with my simpler version.  Something has to give doesn't it?

So here's our card for this year...

Do you still send cards or like to include family photos?  

Are you super efficient and make them all by hand & write in them too?

Yes its me! Messy Miss Kate!

Hello there,

I think I have some long overdue explaining to do....

You see, my blog has been called, 'Something for Kate' like forever, over 7 years in actual fact.  And I just went & changed it all without too much notification.  Its still at the same address of course so maybe the change even went unnoticed? 

The reasons behind it were just trying to have a more streamlined little business of mine.  On twitter I was iKateMason. On ETSY my shop was Scrapps Flea Market.  So nothing matched.  And whilst I am not really one for all matchy matchy, for business reasons, it can get a bit messy.

So then began the long search for a business name that I loved, that suited, and that was available as a domain, as a twitter handle, as an ETSY business, a business Facebook page etc etc etc.  That indeed is a very hard process.

The one I wanted, was just MessyKate.  

Why?  Well because the kinda things I make are lets face it, very homemade, a bit messy, clumsy and whimsical.  My life with 5 children is also, a bit all over the place.  

Whilst I am an organising & tidying fanatic, I am also a hoarder & my kids are quickly learning to be too.  And they make messes.  So whilst we all like to arrange our pretty beautiful useful hoarding things, 'just so', at any given time in our home, you can find little messes.  I like to think these are signs of living.  We are constantly doing, messing, arranging, tidying up, organising, messing, making, messing and so it goes on & on & on.

But MessyKate isn't available on all those digital platforms. So the search & brainstorming commenced. Often woth frantic calls to my sister, 'what do you think of this one?'  'Quick, its available.... oh wait, its gone on ETSY.'

Sigh....

I loved & tried Messy Kate Mason, Kate Mason, Hello Katie [a take on Hello Kitty] & Hello Kate which by the way led me to Hello Kate Berry, adorable blog.   Then shortly after I see the 'Whole Larder Love' book on Instagram & buy it & in the acknowledgements, theres a thanks to that same Kate Berry.  I now follow both on Instragram. Weird how the universe conjours up all these little oddities.

And next I start thinking about how I have often been referred to as Miss Kate over the years by friends.

Miss Kate..... not available on all platforms either.

But Messy Miss Kate was!!!!!

I immediately grabbed the domain.  I registered the business name, switched my facebook business page & twitter handles then set about changing my ETSY too.  Oh! And Instagram of course. Next I changed Bloglovin', Flickr & of course Pinterest then set up a dedicated email.  I'm not using that yet though.

Check. All done!

Messy Miss Kate was born.  

And so there you have my frantic little story about changing my business & starting a new brand.  If you google me, Messy Miss Kate takes up the entire front page [well on my little laptop screen anyway] with links to all my little Messy Miss Kate digi homes.

Uniform & matchy matchy. In this case, I like matchy matchy.  

And so since the changes to my business name, I've also been changing things around ever so slightly on my blog.  Maybe you noticed it looked a little different?  You can now see a list & links to MY free downloadable fonts, some of my fave recipes, a list of popular posts and a link to my button page. If you have one of my buttons on your blog, please help yourself to a new one for Messy Miss Kate blog or Art shop HERE.  I will add more sizes soon.  And if you haven't had a button on your blog, please feel free to take one!

OK, I'm off to create some mess now that my shoulder [after some horrid pain] is feeling a tad better. Kids are at school & kindy. Bud is asleep.  

So dear readers, do you like everything all matchy matchy or are you comfortable with organised clutter & pretty collections of all non matchy matchy stuff?

What are you up to right now?  You making mess or cleaning up mess?   

Geeky Stuff: Going Font crazy over here!

I happened to check in on this blog on the day there was a post about font making.  OMG.  I love handwriting and have been trying for years to make a font out of my own handwriting.  There was one method I tried where you had to print off sheets, write your alphabet in the individual squares, scan it back in to the computer and have it go through some sort of OCR process. Not exactly simple.

Well now there's an App for all that! Its so simple my kids have been making font after font over here. Its so fun, and its easy to go back & tweak if you want to.

Anyway I am sure I'm going to be making lots more in the future so I've created a little section over there in my LEFT SIDEBAR, just scroll down a bit, with links to all my fonts.  You can download any of them you like & use them however you please for personal reasons! If you want them for commercial use, please email me for permission, thank you!

And the best bit.... they are freeeeee! Enjoy!

 

This one is MessyMissKate-CUTESY

 

This one is MessyMissKate-HANDWRITING

 

This one is MessyMissKate-BLOCK

 

This one is MessyMissKate-SCRAWL

So how do you make your own?

Go to the App Store & download iFontMaker.  Start making fonts, its pretty intuitive.     Thats it.

Go forth & have fun!! 

Ssshhhh! Can you hear that?

'Hear what?'  I hear you say. 

The quiet. 

If you listen carefully, it IS there. You just have to focus on it & listen out for it.

A few weeks back when we had a little family holiday at the beach, I was mostly disconnected from internet noise.  I instagrammed my holiday & I spent all my time watching night time movies with my husband & playing & exploring with my kids during the day. Thats about it. Lots of fresh air. Who knew colelcting rocks could be so soothing?

For the first time in a long time I felt the disconnection from the media noise and quite honestly, it was grand.

I do actually love being connected. I like knowing what is going on in the world. 

I'm also surrounded by technology that connects me to people - adults who can have conversations, that I can relate to, be inspired by, who have interesting ideas & opinions. I seek out those types and the connections are invaluable to someone like me, who has very little social life & spends most of my time alone or with the kids.  

But sometimes its good to disconnect too.

There can be alot of noise.

The internet is very very noisy. I love the internet but I find myself sometimes, actually often, frustrated & annoyed & all fired up when its narky & cruel & spitting out the same meaningless stuff out over & over.  

When the news programs are filled with sadness & horror & stupidity.

When morning shows or blogs or high profile columns have endless social commentating on anything and everything.

Its exhausting. Its nervewracking. Its enough to put anyone into a mood or drive them totally batty on any given day.

But if you connect in some way, there you go..... it all hits you, twitter noise, facebook noise, blog noise, TV noise, high profile digi newspapers/blogs - all wanting to suck you in and chew up your time. 

Your precious time. And you never get it back. Thats not so bad if its time worth spending. But is it?  There is lots of good, but its a weeding out process. And that takes time.

I'm not much of a radio listener but when I found out there was a segment with one of my favourite media personalities in it, I started switching on to listen.  One or two shows later & I realise sadly, its not so great afterall. You have to listen so carefully to hear the radio announcers speaking between all the huge blocks of advertising. NOISE!!!!! So I switched off.

I get daily digests from several high profile digi sources & if I have some idle time, I will scroll through and look at the articles. They are all so clever at sucking you in with their catchy 'article' titles & making you think you really need to read this or that. Before you know it..... you are fired up or upset or feeling inadequate or or or or....

Lately I have been going on an 'unsubscribe bender'.  There's too many things that I get sucked into reading.  And honestly I'd rather make my own choices of what to read rather than being fed a selection of what someone else chose for me.

Over the last years few years I have made a point of not reading many blogs. For lack of time reasons really.  I figured if I had time I should be recording my own creative life with my children.  Recently I've had a shift in thinking.

There are some lovely little blogging gems out there that have the ability to make me feel worthwhile, valued, inspired.  So I have created a list over at Bloglovin & although I still don't read many blogs, I have sought out some simple & interesting blogs that make feel good & positive when I read them.

I love reading about families, about constructive families, about family living, home organisation. About creative art types, foodies, people interesting in simple living, decorating homes on budget & a variety of blogging friends who are all crafty peeps.

So I am re-training my brain right now to continue the 'unsubscribe' bender and when I do have those few moments, to go check my blogroll list & check in with a little family or young energetic decorator or whatever else takes my fancy for that day.

And when there are just too many things on my plate & it all gets too much, I can always totally disconnect.

And there it is.... the quiet.

The quiet so I can focus on my family, my house & my making. 

Ahhhhh the serenity.

Geeky: Diary excitement!

OK, hands up who gets excited about this time every single year over all the fresh new diaries that appear in newsagents & stationery shops everywhere, and online, and now on Instagram too?!

Meeeeeee!

 

Since my dad first bought me that little geeky [adorable] brown satchel full to the brim with stationery for my 5th birthday [or my 5th Christmas I can't recall that long ago], I've been a stationery addict.  It doesn't stop with new diaries each year of course. There's lots to love about stationery. Here's some of my fave random stationery related things....

1] Getting book lists in high school, O.M.G., - almost nothing better than gathering up a whole pile of brand new supplies & books. 

2] Those electric sharpeners in primary school classrooms that would sharpen pencils so perfectly you could use them until they were sharpened all the way to tiny little one inch stubby pencils. I am still searching for one of those for my home!

3] Perkins paste in pink tubs. Fabulous smell. I'm not an addict or anything. Actually any kind of glue or paste, clag, aquadhere - did you ever pour it onto your hand in a thin layer & once dry peel it off & show your younger siblings the fake skin? OK, so just me, lets move on...  Brand new glue sticks, any kind of sticky tape, and now washiiiiiiiii!!!

4] Covering new school books in contact. I am the self proclaimed master & love love love it.  Clearly didn't investigate schools  well enough for my children though. No book covering required by parents. Tragedy.  Ok, a tragedy of the book covering type.

5] Brand new pencils that in primary school you shave off a portion at the end to write your name in your best best writing.

6]  Tom Hanks saying to Meg Ryan in the movie, 'You've Got Mail,' "I would send you a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address." Oh!!!!!! I would have married him on the spot if that were me. Well, if I, the actress, knew him in person, not just online. And if it were real life & not just a movie. Forget flowers & chocolates, a bouquet of pencils is a winner!

6] Whole boxes of Bic fine point blue pens [yellow pen with blue lid] from Officeworks that I buy from time to time to replenish my stock.  I have pen stealers living in my home. And the other day found a lid chewed. Ewwwww. I'm not sure if that annoys me more or less than pens with their lids MISSING!!!!  Aaaghh! Terible, renders them almost completely useless. I hand them down for homework purposes.   Anyway, I love this brand of pen. Surprisingly inexpensive too.  They allow very fine writing, infinitely neater than with any other blue ballpoint pen I've come across.  Very few ink smudges with this pen.

7] Receiving my pen licence in grade 3, way back in 1979. A most proud moment early on in my stationery loving addiction.

Ok, I'm sure I could go on & on. So I will. 

For 2012, I've been using the Kikki K diary and I have loved it. I still use it every day.  Being a work at home mum, obviously I have large to do lists, a critical TODAY list but not too many appointments each day, usually just a few over the week. This lends itself to a diary with week to opening pages & a bit of space, but not heaps, for writing a few appointments here & there and todays critical list of things to do.  I keep all my longer wishlists & planning lists in a list book [because I'm a list freak] and I also keep some alarmed reminders in my phone that scream at me when I need to be somewhere.

All in all my systems work for me.  

For 2013, I came across this little gem above:  The Frankie Magazine Daily Journal.  Its hardback & beautifully bound.  The cover has a lovely texture & inside there are beautiful illustrations throughout, as well as stickers & labels and other pages to write & record things.  

 As well as the weekly openings there are also monthly planners which are great for birthdays & holiday plans etc.

So now I have to wait another 2 whole months to get into it. Oh I know I can start filling out some of the fresh new pages in my best best writing but I can't really get stuck in & start writing in appointments for the new year. Oh wait!!!!!  I can write in Chelsea's cardiology appointment for January. Yes! Ok, skipping off to get my diary!

 

Have you chosen a diary for next year yet? What makes it or breaks it for you?

Do you have a favourite stationery story to tell me?

Geeky & Organisation: Mobile Blogging & that's how it's done!

We are all busy right?

We want to blog & record our lives & special moments but we are too busy living.

Dilemma.

Technology really is our friend. And we all have an iPhone on hand all the time right?

Here's how I do it...

I take iPhone photos while I am living my crazy life. These were taken as I sat sick & miserable in bed this week. Awwww.

I use the app Camera + to do my edits on my phone later on in my spare minutes. Collage done in Diptic or Fotoframe app.

I quickly dot point/write posts using Typepad app & I add photos all on iPhone,  maybe while waiting for school pickup or Buddy napping or late into the night when an idea springs to mind.

I save Typepad posts to Draft.

Later that day or week, I view my draft posts, add bits, move photos around, check over. I do this when I have time without kids around, on my desktop Mac or laptop. Nice to see on big screen.

Then I publish or schedule.  Sometimes its a quick and easy one & I publish right there on the spot. But I don't like to rush anything so its my preference to do a check over later.

 

And that's how it's done.

 

Nb. Smartphones other than iPhones can do all of that too, same goes for blogging apps, check the app store for your provider if you don't already have it on your phone.