Jaz Design

Since I’ve been earning a wage (6 years now) I’ve always had a budget in one shape or form – I’m told starting early is ideal, and that’s what I did. Whether I’ve stuck to it or not is a whole different matter.

I’m a sucker for impulse buys – as the picture of a Shaun the Sheep bath poof will tell you, though to be honest I could be a lot worse. For the record, I’ve had the big Shaun since I was a kid It was just the bath sponge thing that grabbed my eye in Morisons.

When I finished university I dutifully figured out my money, had a heart attack, and then went about my business. I looked at my spreadsheet a couple of times over the last year or so, but things changed drastically when the Mister was able to move down and I’d never figured in that things cost half as much as before, so it was time for a new budget and I decided to refresh my knowledge of budgeting.

Useful Links

• 42 Ways to Radically Simplify Your Financial Life
• Building Your First Budget
• How to Budget Effectively and Also How to Stick to it
• 8 Ways to Make Huge Savings in your Budget
• 10 Ways to Simplify your Budget

My Top Tips

If you’ve figured out a budget, great! If you’re having trouble sticking to it however, I’ve got a few tips which I use myself to prevent “wasted” money.

Put it on a wishlist – I try and hold out for Christmas and birthdays with things that aren’t a true need. Plus putting things on a wishlist means you can go back and delete them when you realise you don’t really need them in the first place. It’s all about priorities, which sounds scary and grown up, but it’s really not that bad.

Show it to the other half/a (frugal) friend - I tend to find that when the Mister asks me “why do you want that?” and I not only have to justify it to myself, but someone else as well, if I struggle, I put it back.

Track your spending – I use an iPhone application called Balance which is free and very simple to use. A lot of people are using Mint which interacts directly with accounts and thing. The act of tracking every purchase as I make it means I’m more likely to rethink it – especially when I see what I’ve already spent that month.

I’ve only just started doing this again, but I did track my spending every day for a month a couple of years ago and the results were astonishing (HOW MUCH on chocolate?!). I cannot for the life of me find the post where I added it all up, so you’ll just have to take my word on the chocolate.

De-clutter regularly – we have a comfortably small flat, with acres of storage, but even with this, I find I’m constantly de-cluttering. This in itself makes it more likely for me to think twice about buying something and the de-cluttering means I really see how much I’ve bought. I guess the real tip here is to live somewhere comfortable but not bigger than what you truly need, people fill the space they live in, it’s just natural.

Wait a week – similar to the wishlist tip, waiting a week can be particularly useful for figuring out if you really need something. When I was trying to decide which phone to get, I waited a month to commit to my iPhone – and yes, it was an extravagance, but that level of deliberation meant it was a carefully considered extravagance that I could have backed out of should something more important/better come along.

There are plenty of other tips out there, these are just what I find works for me!

Ok, so my birthday was like a month ago, but I never did talk about it and I would like to!

My birthday this year fell on a Monday, so the weekend was filled with a party with my friends and a party with my family – lots of good food, good conversations. I had a fantastic weekend!

For the actual day it was just the Mister and I, he took me up to London for a trip on the London Eye – having never been.

You can find some of my photographs on flickr. I thought it was a great experience. Would love to go up at night as well! We were fortunate enough for it to be a mild day, with some cloud cover but lots of sun, so the views were clear, but it wasn’t too bright.

I’ve fallen in love with the pseudo tilt-shift effect and so thought I’d try it out with some of them, since I was looking from above and all

I got a ton of presents. I love presents. I can’t help it, everyone loves presents. And I loved everything everyone got me this year. Such great choices! Some things I never knew I needed until I had them (I’m thinking of the book about how to make felt animals – see below)

This is a small selection of my presents, I still have one to cash in (shopping!) and any money I got went on the Great Devon Trip to see Muse. These are the ones I hadn’t found homes for before remembering to take a photo!

In that black box is some incense. I’m halfway through the “Logo Design Workbook” now. The notebook has become my art/design notes book.

Check out the TRADITIONAL SHERBET at the top there. So much better than the plastic packaged stuff. I’m eating it sparingly, trying to make it last as long as possible. I’ll probably keep one forever. The earings were made by my friend Michelle, you can buy more of her excellent jewellery on her Etsy page.

The Cute Book is the felt animal thing. I love sewing. It’s not something I ever make time for, but for some reason I just love it. I took textiles at GCSE as a result. I didn’t know I needed this book until I had it. I’m now in the process of making my first lizard, something more than one person has asked me for. Getting the felt involved a trip to a Hobby Craft and my God was I in heaven there! SO MUCH ART STUFF. I nearly had a heart attack.

And the Mister was so kind as to replace the cheapo Claddagh ring I accidentally put through the wash, with a nicer, more expensive silver one

I’ve had a very musical week. An amazing week.

Last Sunday we headed over to Reading Festival to watch the one and only Radiohead perform. I had no idea what to expect, and was blown away. The other bands were good too, but I’d be lying if I said I’d gone to see them. I was there purely for Radiohead, and some festival fun.

I have to say, hearing that many people sing along to Karma Police, it sends chills down your spine – it really does. I’ve never quite got over that part of the gig experience, people singing along – all those people on the same page. There’s nothing like it.

It was great to just chill out to their interesting and extraordinary music. We had a wonderful time. You can catch the highlights on the BBC website here.

Then we had Muse. Muse and their homecoming gigs in Teignmouth, Devon. (163 miles away…) Somehow, somehow we ended up with tickets for both the gigs. Friday we headed down, checked into our hotel, headed back out to the first gig. Exhausted though I was from the epic driving, it was fantastic. The Den is a small venue, so no matter where you were the view was good.

Saturday, just as awesome. We spent the day exploring Teignmouth town , down on the beach, and eating cream teas… and donut men.

Probably my favourite song from the gigs was Cave. It wasn’t just Cave. It was a “jazz rendition”. The piano was spectacular.  The whole thing was spectacular. See the vid here!

My other favourite is the song which I guess has replaced Butterflies (similar in their epicness) on their live setlist, United States of Eurasia. I’d have been a bit upset if we’d only gone on the Saturday when Matt messed up the Chopin at the end and didn’t finish it

Favourite new song? Easy. Undisclosed Desires.

See my flickr for more pics!

I love inspirational images. Love. I read a lot of blogs and galleries every morning (slowly being documented here!) and figured I needed a place to put all of my favourite images that I find. If you’re interested in a bit of daily inspiration, but not an overwhelming amount, check out my tumblr! I am using a default theme, time is short right now.

I’ve also added a tumblr widget on the right here, and a flickr one (when I redevelop my site I’ll find a better one!)

ETA: I’ve actually stopped using tumblr. The servers are constantly down, and it’s a lot of effort to add things to it. I’ve started using vi.sualize.us because it offers a similar functionality to Delicious, but for saving and sharing images! View my visualized here!

As for the tumblr widget, I’m using it to display my flickr photos for now because I couldn’t find a flickr widget I liked

Something I didn’t learn whilst at university was the importance of being a part of the design community. Reading and commenting on blogs, browsing galleries, doing tutorials – unfortunately for me I missed out on this, until I graduated. I don’t remember quite how I discovered the rich world of design online, I’m just happy I did. I advise anyone and everyone to read at least one thing a day, just one thing! Stay up to date with trends (and learn when to avoid them), share and learn about new techniques, find out how things are affecting the industry – the opportunities are endless. The galleries offer inspiration and opportunities to promote your work… I don’t think it can be denied that at least having a small amount of awareness of what’s going on is important.

These are a selection of the blogs that I have stored in my Google Reader that I check in on every day. I hope you find something you like after the jump!

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On Saturday the 1st August some friends and I went along to the James May Lego House build at Denbies Wine Estate in Dorking. I mean, how could we not go? James May is attempting to build a life sized house out of Lego for his Toy Stories series. How many people have wanted to do that? I know I have.

After queueing for three and a half hours, we unfortunately did not get to play with any Lego. We were dedicated to our cause though, despite being told many times we were in the “danger zone” and felt that the organisers did their best – 2000+ people showed up for the 600 places.

You can see a selection of my photos from the day here. There’s some cute pictures of kids with Lego and James here on the Mail website.

More details about James May’s Toy Stories.

If you were one of the ones who queued, regardless of if you got in or not, there’s a Facebook group for you.

I’ll post if I hear of any more news on what build stage it’s at. We’re hoping to go back and view it in all it’s glory!

I need to create the category feeds, but I think it’s working.

ETA: It appears to be working! Hi my two subscribers! *waves*

There have been a bunch of changes here (the domain move – remember to update your bookmarks http//blog.jazdesign.co.uk), the feeds and I’ve also rejigged the categories. I’ll probably explain the reasons in the coming weeks. The author page etc still need an update and I want to go through the old posts, remove the crap and categorise what remains.

Before I got my apartment I knew I wanted a balcony. I didn’t know why, I dislike going outdoors much, there’s always a risk of spiders, or bees, or being active. I think I knew that living in a town centre was going to wear on me, despite my dislike of going outdoors often I love nature. When I was living in Portsmouth the lack of green and trees used to drive me bonkers.

The view from my balcony, with a very very long lens. You wouldn't know I was in a busy commuter town centre would you?

As it is, our apartment just overlooks the central park, so I see trees from my balcony, and the hills during winter (see photo). There’s still flats directly opposite, but the nature’s there. And, we have a balcony. I was lucky enough to be given some plants, some grown from seed and so all very young. This terrified me somewhat, but I was amazed at how much I enjoy looking after them. I’m not doing brilliantly, but I really enjoy going out to the balcony, watering the plants, checking them, not knowing what to do when I find something wrong… ahem.

If you’re living in a small apartment, don’t have a garden etc I highly recommend just getting one little plant, herbs will gladly live on your windowsil and you can use them! I find tending to my plants very grounding and enjoyable, and I know very little about it.

More pictures of my little plant family, and Fuzz Lightyear (because he’s amazing) after the jump! To note, some of the photos are also on my flickr and you can visit them by clicking on them!

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The other half is an excellent cook. He received Delia’s Complete How to Cook for his birthday and since then he’s made one meal and one desert almost every weekend. I’m going to share some pictures of the delicious things he’s made, and as for the book, I’d recommend it to anyone! The resulting food is beautiful, the recipes aren’t excessively difficult and everything’s explained very thoroughly throughout the book, complete with excellent photographs. The information about eggs, fruits, veggies etc is also very interesting to read.

In addition to the recipes after the jump, we’ve also had leak and goats cheese tart and souffléd omelette. This weekend we’re having a blue cheese gratin and lemon roulade.

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I found this theme today and thought it was much better than the default. It doesn’t look amazing in IE6, but if you’re still using IE6… … WHY? It’s a 10 year old browser with many many flaws. Move on people, move on. Vive le revolution!

Anyway, I figure this theme will do until I have time to make my own. I quite like it, it’s very customisable. The left just feels a bit cluttered to me. Still much better than the default though.

Also – Jaz Design – I’m going to be rebranding as Jaz Design