MOOCing a Mess!

Do you know about MOOCs?
It stands for Massive Open Online Courses, something I only found out about a few weeks about, through my lovely friend Lilia of Horror Shock Lolipop.

She linked me to a couple of places that offer these courses for free: coursera and iversity.

I found lots of interesting courses, but have limited myself to just one for the time being. I picked Design 101 with iversity, which started last week.

Every day, those enrolled receive a video postcard and a letter, set in various parts of the world. On Monday, we are given an idea of what we will do during the week, so we have time to prepare, and there is a quiz (so far, I don't like the quizzes, but that's the only thing I don't like!)
From Tuesday to Friday there is a 'homework' task set, which we should spend no more than 1 hour on.
Saturday is a day for updating our personal notebooks and catching up on homework, whilst on Sunday we get an extra little video to watch.

So far, the homework hasn't been too taxing :)

Homework has involved origami, mask-making, cooking, portraits and paper-cutting!
I particularly had fun with the mask-making one (yes, I made both in an hour! Modelling here with Mum's friend who is awesome and refreshingly silly).

The emails, 'postcards' and letters we receive are fun and interesting. The postcards make use of a lot of cool animation and all reference different aspects of design, music, and things I wouldn't necessarily expect to find in connection to design. There are also some great quotes included along the way.

I decided to enrol for Design 101 (or #design1o1 as it's tagged on all the social media) because design and creativity is something that interests me!
I did a module on design at university, as part of my Computer Studies degree, but struggled with it, along with the majority of my class (a rant best left for another day. Needless to say we passed by the skin of our teeth).

I'm hoping that I'll get more out of this course than the module I did at uni! It's much more hands-on, introduced in bite-sized, interesting chunks, and is visually appealing. The only appealing thing I got from my uni course was the world 'weltanschauung'!

This is distracting me a little from NaNoWriMo, but it's good for my brain to work on something other than writing during November!

Are You Happier?

I read about Happier in Fabulous magazine (one of the Sunday supplements with The Sun newspaper, which my Nan brings over when she visits!)

Like with Facebook and Twitter, Happier is a place to share status updates. The difference with Happier is that you 'share happy' - your happy moments - and instead of likes, statuses gain smiles!

Happier was set up to 'inspire millions of people to be happier in their everyday lives'. Research has shown that by looking at the positive and sharing it with others, we can not only feel happier with our lives, but we'll be healthier and more productive too!

I started using the website a week ago and soon realised it was easy to find 'happy moments' in everyday life. The small stuff is just as important as the big stuff!
It's really satisfying to go to the site (or check the app) and find a number of notifications telling me that my moment made somebody smile, or that somebody is now following my happy moments!

Another thing I love is the animations when I share a happy moment.Hurrah for confetti!

Happier is a 100% positive site and has lots of extra content beside the happy moments shared by its users, such as articles related to happiness!

Are you inspired to join, to collect and share your happy moments? Head on over there right now and get happy! :D


If you want to follow my happier moments, I can be found here (using one of my 'net pseudonyms because I want to keep Happier separate from Facebook!) I always follow back--with so much happy, why wouldn't I?

Wreck This Journal Update #2

For a while, I ran out of steam on my Wreck This Journal. It languished on a shelf whilst I got on with other things. I've done most of the 'easy' things, and the things I was most inspired to do.
Some pages are works in progress, such as 'a page for positive thoughts'--I'll fill this up over time!

However, I have completed some more pages so here's a little progress report!

I'm pleased with how this page turned out. It's not perfect, but WTJ isn't meant to be. It's supposed to be destructive!
As you can see, I got bored of my neat and tidy method on the right hand page. I like to fill both pages so the left hand page ended up being a bunch of flowers and a leaf that I picked up on a walk.

'Sample various substances found in your home.' This took me longer than it should have done, as substances have always been to hand! My colour themes went out of the window pretty fast.
I actually got a little help from this one--I took my Wreck This Journal with me when I went for a catch up with a neighbour, and she provided some soup and grape juice from her fridge! (Being a creature of creativity, she also provided me with a foot and number sticker for the front cover!)

'Collect the stamps off all your mail'.

Does anyone else get disappointed when post arrives and it doesn't have a traditional stamp on it? So many letters are franked nowadays, so many parcels arrive with a printed, goldish sticker-stamp attached that has been run off the machine at the post office. So rarely do our brown paper packages come tied up with string and stuck with a rainbow of postage stamps!

But I digress. This page took time, too, as stamped post doesn't show up often. I kinda cheated on this one as well, as I turned out a bunch of old postcards and chopped all the stamps from them ;) Technically it's still off my mail, but they're old!

There are still a few dozen pages waiting to be started, finished, or even looked at. Then there's the occasional blank page that I'll fill in as I like, and pages I don't know how to fill--we don't tend to have stickers on our fruit, or a compost bin (both needed for pages...) So I guess I'll have to think around those!

Do you have a Wreck This Journal?

Are you enjoying it?

Wreck This Journal Update

Back in March I wrote about the Wreck This Journal that I received as a Christmas present.

It's about time I posted an update on how that's going, right?

Remember how nice and pretty the pages were? After two trips to the shower, inks had run, glue had washed away and pages had wrinkled! Oh, and there were pink stains on it where the colour came out of my hair. :D

This page took me ages. Having looked around the internet, a lot of people picked a word at random and did some fantastic text art. I couldn't think of a word, so I took the instruction, 'Write one word over and over' absolutely literally.
Water damage means my painstakingly-written tiny 'one word' writing got all blurry.

Oddly enough, one page didn't get affected by the water...

Cute Stuff

A while ago, my lovely friend Lilia of Horror Shock Lolipop sent me this fabulous book!

Cute Stuff by Japanese company Aranzi Aronzo is filled with easy how-tos for cute items that have a purpose!

There are patterns in the book that you can either trace or enlarge on a photocopier; helpfully the book tells you what percentage enlargement you need!

When I first looked through this book I wanted to make everything. Then I became sensible again and realised that I don't need three more cloth bags ;) 

Sweetlime Inspired Pompom Necklace

Whilst flicking through a copy of Marie Claire, I saw a gorgeous statement necklace by Sweetlime. It had everything: colour, texture, metal, textile, beads and a real ethnic, world traveller feel.

It was £365. Trust me, if I had £365 to spend on a necklace (or a couple of thousand, having looked at all the lovely things on their website) I would be making a huge order!

My version

Thanks to my stash, I was able to make my own version of Sweetlime’s ‘Pom Pom Madness’ necklace. This took me almost a day to make which proves that Sweetlime’s expertly crafted jewellery is worth the money (if I could afford it!)

Source: sweetlimeuk.com via Kei on Pinterest

And here is the original from Sweetlime (isn’t it lovely?) Sweetlime source parts of their jewellery from all over the world and a percentage of all their sales goes to the Salaam Balack Trust, a charity that runs 24 hour shelter homes in India (read more about it on their website, here). So you get karma points with your unique jewellery!

As you can see, there are several differences, especially when it comes to the beads. I was trying to stick to what I had, and ended up only spending 50p on an extra bead (the blue glass one with the red swirls) from Big Bead Boutique because that’s all I needed!

I didn’t have any nice ribbon and despite trawling the internet and high street alike, couldn’t find any embroidered ribbon at all! I ended up using embroidery thread to weave a friendship bracelet style ‘ribbon’ instead.

Okay, you’ve probably had enough of my rambling, right? Right! On to the tutorial :)

This is a great weekend project!

Wasabi Chocolate

Being the healthy person that I am, I’ve been eating random-flavoured chocolate again :)

This time around, it was Lindt’s dark chocolate with wasabi flavour.
Yes, that wasabi, known also as Japanese horseradish. I love it!

Despite the rather questionable flavour combination, it tastes nice!

I like dark chocolate even without crazy flavours added. It's harder to pig out on an entire bar of dark chocolate :)

I saw on TV that when trying good chocolate, you should smell it before tasting it. This one smells a little mustardy, but slightly sweet at the same time.

As for the taste, the dark chocolate is first apparent. As it melts, out pops the wasabi flavour! This isn’t as hot as wasabi paste (thank goodness!) but the flavour is just strong enough to give the chocolate a little kick.

If you let it melt on your tongue, the flavour comes through much more strongly, though not to the point where your eyes start to water!

Of course, I wouldn’t advise cramming in several squares in one go. I did this, and suddenly the heat multiplied!

This is a good bar for someone that likes hot, spicy/peppery food, but dislikes food being overly sweet. Yum.

This was NOT a sponsored post. As with all posts on Unfortunately Oh!, I have written my opinions out of my own will without receiving any benefits in return. I just want to share with you the awesome things I’ve happened upon!

Wreck This Journal!

One of the presents I received for Christmas 2012 was ‘Wreck This Journal’ by Keri Smith. It’s a fabulous, reader-involved book which, as the title suggests, you destroy. All in the name of creativity!

Completing it is one of my goals for 2013.

So far, it’s been inspiring. The instructions are varied and open to interpretation, even encouraging you to deface the cover (as you can see, I’ve not done that one yet!)

I’m having fun with picking pages at random to complete, and art materials that have been gathering dust in the cupboard for years are finally seeing the light of day!

One of the great things I’ve found about Wreck this Journal is that it’s helping me to lose restraint when being creative: to be careless, to rip and scribble and colour outside the lines. And I’m pretty pleased with some of the stuff I’ve churned out so far!

I would definitely recommend this book.

This was NOT a sponsored post. As with all posts on Unfortunately Oh!, I have written my opinions out of my own will without receiving any benefits in return. I just want to share with you the awesome things I’ve happened upon!

Mention in 'A Garden Life'

Recently I was contacted by Michelle Simakis, associate editor of 'A Garden Life', which is a monthly digital magazine that covers gardening, food, health, sustainability and a whole heap of other interesting topics.

(hope you don't mind me borrowing your logo!)

To cut a long story short, my map pendant tutorial has had a little mention in one of their articles!
The main article is about Martha Aleo, a wonderfully creative lady who creates jewellery pieces from found objects, and Jerin Scott, who runs a vintage jewellery business. Cool, right?

You can read the article at A Garden Life's website, here: Transforming Found Treasures into Jewelry

I full recommend going to check the site out. I went to have a nose when I was first contacted and found lots of interesting and inspiring articles. It's a free magazine, which can also be read through their app on iPhone, iPad or Kindle via iTunes and Amazon respectively.

Hot Stuff

It's time for a 100% NOT sponsored post :) 

To be honest, it's kind of lame that I feel the need to write this on posts where I want to talk about a product I enjoyed. But I want you guys to know I'm not being paid to glorify any products here!

Whilst on a shopping trip to Bluewater, Mum picked up this chocolate for me.

 Mitzi Blue ‘Hot Stuff’ by Zotter

(dark chocolate with chilli and strawberry chocolate)

Isn’t the packaging cute?

The inside of the carton states that the packaging comprises a CO2-neutral carton and 100% biodegradable organic plastic. Great, right?

As for the chocolate itself, it is delicious!

The strawberry flavour reaches your taste buds first. Then your mouth is assaulted by the heat of the chilli as you swallow! Add that the chocolate is organic and fair trade and you have a big mouthful of yum.

The chocolate bar is round and there’s a mini circular chocolate - called a ‘Mini Mitzi’, apparently - in the centre. I would have taken a picture, but my bar was smashed to pieces! Boo!

Zotter seems like a pretty awesome company.  Right now for every ‘Yummy! Meals for Schools’ chocolate bar sold, they will ensure a Burmese refugee child will receive a school meal.

Chocolate loaded with good karma? Yes please!

Looking at their web site, there are some utterly mad sounding chocolate bars. Pineapple with Celeriac? Sweet Wine and Cheese? Bacon Bits?

I’ll be keeping an eye out for more of this chocolate as we all need a little indulgent treat sometimes. If I ever get my hands on a bar of Bacon Bits chocolate, you can bet I’ll be writing about it here! (Next up, however, is Wasabi chocolate...)

This is NOT a sponsored post, just me rambling about something that made my taste buds happy!

Pink Peppercorn Chocolate

I was given this chocolate recently! Dolfin dark chocolate with pink peppercorns. It has a very unusual but nonetheless delightful taste and I fully recommend it to anyone that likes to try new things!

...it's particularly good with a cup of tea!