10 Things That Make Me Content

My Simple Pleasures.

01. Family dog walks on a Sunday.

02. Making coffee. Even when it's busy at work, and customers are waiting, I love the process of making a coffee.

- Extra - Drinking a coffee at optimum temperature. 

03. Keira. That dog is just the greatest. I cannot be swayed in my opinion. 

04. Having a day off to just read a book. 

05. Wondering around supermarkets with Mum. Our route: M&S, B&M, Lidl (only on a food shop day), then Tesco. It's a highly curated system.

06. Finding the perfect playlist on Spotify. Currently, that is 'Winter Acoustic'.

07. The process of creating a still life, editing a still life, and then putting the image out on social media for the world to see. (Also, creating behind the scene content for Instagram stories, I put just as much work into setting up small videos for them.) 

08. Roast Chicken. On a Sunday (duhh). 

09. Sundays. I refuse to work on Sunday's and truly believe they're meant for rest and a slower pace of life. 

10. Writing on this corner of the internet. 

11. (shh) Having a glass of bubbles and watching a film on a Sunday evening. 

What simple pleasures make you feel content and fulfilled with life?

-Kayleigh Bickle

No one is you

There is something to be said about slowing down. Whether that be for five minutes or your whole way of life. Still life photography helps me to slow down - I can spend hours creating these little displays and faffing around with seed placement, just to take a photo and move onto the next one. 

If you're following me on Instagram (click HERE, if you aren't already) then you would've seen a recent rise in still life photographs on my feed. I thought still life photography was too simple and boring for anyone to be interested, and tried so hard to think of exciting projects that other people on my course would create - but that just isn't me. I'm so happy creating a little still life and having just one photo at the end of the day, over having a billion photographs of Dartmoor. 

Mostly, this post is to remind me (and you, if you need it) to stay true to yourself, and stop trying to create (or have) what other people have in their lives.

'No one is you that is your power' 

It took me sitting down and thinking about what work I want to create after uni, for me to realise this is what I want to create. So just do you!

- Kayleigh Bickle

Buckland Abbey & Lanhydrock | National Trust

When the cold kills your camera battery - use your phone.

I'll give you three guesses as to who forgot to charge their spare camera battery and went out with only 34% charge. (And then killed their battery in the cold weather). These are my remaining photographs from my camera, the rest (which I'm yet to go through) was taken on my phone.

- Kayleigh Bickle

March 2018 | Bullet Journal

Well, February flew by.

I have slightly fallen out of love with bujo-ing. I think it's mostly laziness and falling out of love with projects - not so much physical bujo. However, I've changed things around and have cut my spreads down to just two spreads this month. 

Month on two pages

I need the monthly view, i'm a visual person and find it so much easier to balance my time when I can physically see what I'm doing each day. Instead of having Thursday squashed in the middle of the folds, i've split the week in half and have it neatly across two pages. There is some negative spaces beside Sunday, perhaps I'll leave it black (or, most likely, I'll use it for more list making). 

Weekly spread

Weekly spread is new-ish. I've attempted them before, but this time I've got rid of the day restrictions completely. This spread is actually inspired by this video on youtube. At the top, I have the days of the week - the dots underneath show that I have an event/appointment that day (I check my monthly spread daily and, also, have my phone calendar to check). The below I have two lists: university and personal. Because I'm juggling two projects, it makes sense that most of my to do list would be dedicated to university and won't mix up watering the plants with a hand in date. (You can add more boxes for dedicated areas of your life, I just felt two was the perfect amount for me). 

Then on the opposite page, I have an area to write my daily summary. And my habit tracker, I've carried on my habits from last month - out of laziness to think of something new. 

For any extra lists, that I'll need that month, I'll carry them over the spreads on post-it notes (i.e. blog ideas). 

That's it. I'm reaching the last 50 pages of this bujo, and am considering changing to an A6 bujo. Because I'm nearing the end of my uni course, I don't think I'll need my bujo to takes notes as much and an A5 might be less portable when I'm working and everything. I don't know though. Do you bullet journal? If so, what do you use?

- Kayleigh Bickle

Cotehele, Cornwall | National Trust

Kill your darlings.

Sometimes you have to get rid of the photographs/work you love for a project to work. And that's what I'm supposed to be using this blog for. Here are my recent darlings, now they're yours too.

- Kayleigh Bickle