NEW: Posts Production, Video workshop for bloggers

Good Morning! I hope you have lovely weekend plans. Over here I'm trying to shake off the flu, have a tidy up, mooch about and hopefully take some photos. I feel severely lacking in the creativity department recently. I've been working in an office helping out a friend and the office environment just doesn't suit me so much.

Anyways, I'm a big believer in having things to look forward to and top of my list at the moment is the video class I have just booked on. Michelle, my blogging friend and her fiance have started up Posts Production and their first workshop is a masterclass in planning, shooting and editing little videos for bloggers.

I love video, I always enjoy them on other blogs and I'm so excited to learn how to do it properly and hopefully make some of my own. I'm hoping I can do some fun ones over the summer to bring something new and give me a new creative outlet.


This is the intro' video on the Posts Production site:

There are still places available on this workshop on 1st June for £95 in London. Will I see you there?

Course attendees will spend the day learning how to plan a video, getting hints and tips on how to shoot and edit to make perfect little videos to serve up on their own blogs. You leave the day with a video ready to show off! Perfect.

It does say in the original info' that you need to have the latest version of Photoshop but I just have Movie Maker which is free from Windows and Michelle and Tim assure me that will be enough so don't worry if you're not a MAC person.

All the information is on the Posts Production website. 

*for the sake of transparency, I have paid for my place on this course, I got a little discount because Michelle loves me I helped come up with the company name when Michelle and Tim were brainstorming ideas. Yes. Yes, I did. Posts Production....as in blog posts...and post editing. genius. If I do say so myself.  Would love to meet you there, we can take videos of each others faces.

Journeys. Momentum.

Let me ask you a question: 

You're on a car journey and the traffic starts slowing down. Do you take the next exit, which may well be the longest way round, for the sake of momentum; to keep moving. Or, do you sit it out and wait to see if the traffic clears.

This is a literal question. You have petrol, no passengers and your bag with money in. You may or may not have snacks....

Floral Inspiration: The Orchid show at Keukenhof

This year, it's not just tulips on display at Keukenhof. The Wilhelmina building hosts the orchid show and a breathtaking number of orchids have been gathered together to form a stunning showcase.

A whole wall of orchids, wouldn't this just be perfect for a wedding altar backdrop?  This orchid chandelier was really impressive as well. This is a great technique of creating height by suspending the bottles full of water and then putting a stem in each to make a huge floral display. You could absolutely do this on a smaller scale for a wedding or dinner party.

'a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction' Virginia Woolf

I firmly believe everyone should have their own bedroom. Yep. I'm serious.

Maybe my thoughts on this stem from childhood when I had to share with my sister. We were the kind that had masking tape running across the floor, wall and ceiling to clearly mark our territories. She was the kind that pinched all my stuff. So, yes that would be an obvious reason.

Even though that was many years ago and I had the opportunity to have my own room for three years at university. Since that happy own room window, I've had to share with a boy. Urgh. (don't worry, I regularly say this to his face and he agrees with me, mostly) It's for your whole life, never having your own room ever again. Well, I think that's foolish and hope to one day have a house big enough for my own bedroom. I sleep so much better on my own as well. Doesn't everyone?

You could obviously visit each other! It would be like dating in your own house. You could have sleepovers. It would seriously be way more fun, in my opinion! What do you think? Are you married and quite fancy your own room? Or am I being a weirdo?

Would love to hear some other people's thought on this...

 via Fresh Home

all images via my Bedroom Pinterest board, annoyingly none link to the original source. Sorry!

I love this room from IKEA

It would be seriously difficult to leave this bed. Image from The White Company, from their Savoy bed linen collection.

 

 I'd like a white and grey room with maybe some cream or pale pink or even mustard yellow. Lots of lovely neutral colours and a mix of textures with big soft blankets and a rug so deliciously deep that your feet get buried in when you hop out of bed.

Roslin Retreat: Exotic Coconut Rub and Milk Ritual Wrap from Elemis

 Image from Elemis

As a treat for my birthday I booked in to the new spa at the Roslin Beach Hotel, 'Roslin Retreat' whilst they had a 50% offer on for new bookings. Hooray. 

After much deliberating over what to choose, I went for the Elemis Exotic Coconut Rub and Milk Ritual Wrap. Oh my goodness. It is so good.

If you have winter skin (who doesn't at the moment?!) then this is the perfect thing to get you all soft and ready for spring.

The treatment starts with you getting completely naked and putting on the tiniest paper underwear ever. EVER! in the history of paper underwear, this is absolutely the smallest. You do feel like a bit of an idiot but remember this lady has seen a million naked people so it's fine. FINE. Completely Fine. You lie on top of a foil sheet and underneath a nice cotton one.

Then you'll probably get a little knock on the door as they always check you're not dancing around the treatment room in your novelty paper knickers before they come in. Which you're not. Of course you're not. Who does that? *ahem*

Every Elemis treatment I've had has started with a little foot ritual where they put pressure on certain points of your feet using aromatherapy oils and you instantly start thinking you could probably just fall asleep right about now. That's always welcome. It lets your body know the next hour is all about good stuff. 

The wrap starts with you being brushed all over with a body brush particularly on drier points like elbows, backs of arms and knees. The lady I had was a total genius at the taking half the sheet up and then the other half down thing so you're not completely exposed at any time. It's like modesty origami. The brushing is followed by a scrub and then oil being massaged into the skin. I'm pretty sure at this point the coconut powder was added and massaged in too. It exfoliates away all that dry, horrible winter skin. Then a warm Skin Nourishing Milk Bath by Elemis is poured all over you and you're wrapped up in the weird foil blanket to warm you up and help it all sink in to the skin.

Whilst you lay wonderfully cocooned and warm, your face is treated to a pressure point massage with lots of lovely smelling Elemis products and you sink into a state I like to call utter bliss. Mmm. You're warm, your face is being massaged, you smell amazing and the nice lady didn't crack a paper pant joke so all is well in the world.

This is followed by a de-stress scalp treatment which means your head being massaged for a good few minutes. Again, bliss.

Then, trying to muster some grace whilst wrapped in an enormous sheet of tin foil you attempt to get up into a sitting position and then off the bed. It's time to shower off all that goodness. You exchange your paper knickers for your own and return to the bed all dried off. A lovely layer of moisturiser is applied to the skin and then you are left to get dressed in your own time.

Your skin is left softer, smoother and happier looking.

The Exotic Coconut and Milk Ritual Wrap is perfect if you're looking to treat yourself or someone else soon. My skin feels so much better!

The Roslin Beach Hotel is a really nice hotel just over the road from the sea. It would be a lovely place to come for the weekend to enjoy a spa treatment. It's also one of my favourite places for afternoon tea. The normal price for this treatment is £55. Find the full price list for the Roslin Retreat here.

*This is not a sponsored post or written in association with either Elemis or The Roslin Beach Hotel.