My top ten Christmas films

Here is my list of some of my favourite films that I watch at Christmas time. These are my personal favourites that are in no particular order.

 

1. Christmas with the Kranks

 

2. Santa Clause 1,2,3

3. White Christmas

4. The Holiday

5. Elf

6. Nativity

7. Love Actually

8. Nightmare before Christmas

9. Muppets

10. Miracle on 34th street

What are your favourite Christmas films? Any that you would recommend?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Today I put up my Christmas tree in my bedroom. My room looks really Christmassy now. It won't be long until the rest of my house is completely decorated for Christmas. My family love decorating the house for Christmas. We even put little Christmas trees in the bathroom.

I love this time of year and can't wait to finish school for the Christmas holiday. Then I can really get into the Christmas spirit when I don't have so much work.

Here are some photos of how I have decorated my bedroom for Christmas. I know my Christmas tree is very pink. I'm not a fan of pink but I got this tree when I was six years old and I don't want to change it.

 

 

Festive Christmas nail art

It's that time of year where I can create festive Christmas nail art. I have looking at different designs for inspiration. Here are some of my favourites.

Which design is your favourite 1,2,3,4,5,6 or 7?

Its Christmas.... Well almost

It is nearly the end of December and that time of year when people start to really become excited about Christmas. For me Christmas is one of my favourite times of year. I like being able to listen to Christmas music and decorate the house. Every year I decorate my bedroom on 1st December.

Shops usually start bringing out their Christmas decorations and stock around Halloween time, which some people see to be too early. But now Christmas lights are going up, Christmas adverts are on the TV and people are now realising that they don't have long to finish their Christmas shopping. It won't be long until Christmas films and Christmas specials will be on the TV.

December is not far away, which means Christmas will soon be here. The lead up to Christmas has now begun.

 

 

What's your favourite part about Christmas?

 

Simple acts of kindness

An act of kindness can be anything. It be anything from complementing someone, offering to help someone or just being there to talk to them. This doesn't require a lot of effort, but to the person you have shown kindness to it can mean a lot. They may not have self confidence in how they look and by having someone complement them they feel better about themselves and that comment may have made their day.

This post was inspired by an act of kindness that someone showed towards me. Obviously A-Levels and other forms of education require a lot of work. This means that there are times when some work needs prioritising. I have to write long essays that go on for pages and pages. I put this work before my art A-Level work. Anyone who has taken art at GCSE or A-Level will tell you that if you ever fall far behind with work it is a nightmare trying to catch up. My artwork was not dangerously behind, however I was struggling to remember everything we needed to have included in our sketchbooks.
The other day I was telling someone in my art class that I couldn't remember everything and that I didn't have a lot of free time to do artwork. Without hesitation they told me that they would make me an art list. For the next hour we went through our sketchbooks and wrote down what I needed to add.  They even decorated the list saying to me, "who wants a boring list when you can add colour and pictures".
I really appreciated their help as I didn't ask for it an wasn't expecting it. Thanks to that list and a bit more free time I have almost caught up with all of my artwork.

What I'm saying is that that person didn't have to help me but they chose to. These acts of kindness mean something to the people they help and is always appreciated.

Tumblr Addiction

I have had Tumblr for almost a year and I can say that recently I have become addicted to Tumblr. I find myself constantly checking my Tumblr dashboard and reblogging endless numbers of photographs and gifs. Five minutes turns into half an hour. Half an hour becomes an hour. I think you get the idea.

I like going on Tumblr because I can see photos and gifs of things that I like. If you were to look at my Tumblr you would soon work out that I like F.R.I.E.N.D.S (TV show), Disney, 10 Things I hate about you (film), art and vintage things.

I especially like going on Tumblr at the moment because of the excitement about Christmas next month. There have been some lovely photos of decorated Christmas trees, Christmas lights and beautiful snow scenes.

I know that I'm not the only one who is a little bit addicted to Tumblr. What do you think of Tumblr?

Here are some of my recent Tumblr posts.

Lichtenstein A Retrospective

Back in April this year Mum and I went to London. While we there we visited an exhibition at the Tate Modern which had an extensive collection of work by the artist Roy Lichtenstein. I was studying Lichtenstein for my GCSE art project and wanted to see his work.

I can honestly say that it was one of my favourite places I have been to in London. It is a shame that it was only a temporary exhibition. I enjoyed walking around the exhibition, listening to the audio guide and being able to have a proper look at the artwork. Looking at the artwork in front of you is completely different to looking at a photograph of the piece.

You could clearly see every detail of the artwork, from the bright, bold colours to the sharpness of the lines and shapes.  On his famous painting, 'Look Mickey' you could see Lichtenstein's original pencil marks.

Also there was a programme on BBC Four, presented by Alistair Sooke, which looked at the exhibition. It was a fantastic programme. The programme offered an in-depth look at Lichtenstein's work where Alistair Sooke and guests talked about the appeal of Lichtenstein's work, his influence on artists today and the controversy surrounding his work.

This exhibition gave me a better understanding of Lichtenstein and his artwork. It contained work from every decade of his career. Not only did it show some of his most famous work but also showed his less well known artwork. There were pieces in the artwork that I would not have thought was Lichtenstein's style.

I wanted to share this with you because I am really interested in art and this was the best exhibition I have seen. I hadn't started a blog when I went in April so I thought I would share my thoughts now. There is so much more I could say, but I'm sure you wouldn't want to hear me rambling on for ages.

'Look Mickey' 1961

My Treehouse Dream

Growing up I loved to climb trees. I even used to climb the trees in my garden dressed in my fairy dress and Barbie jelly shoes, (why not climb a tree in style?).

I love being able to sit in trees and look at the view around me. I have always wanted a tree house. Hopefully one day I will live in one for a little while. Or even go spend a weekend holiday in one. But at the moment I can only dream.

So I thought I would share some treehouse designs that I would use as inspiration for my own treehouse.

10 reasons why I love autumn

This is a list of things I love doing in autumn or just generally love about autumn.

1. Wearing warm, cosy jumpers
2. Wearing boots
3. The leaves on the trees changing colour.
4. Wearing hats, scarfs and gloves
5. Spending my nights tucked up in bed watching rom-com films
6. Watching BBC's Strictly Come Dancing
7. Going for walks, admiring the change of scenery
8. Halloween
9. Drinking hot chocolate
10. Bonfire night and firework displays

What's your favourite thing about autumn?

Nail Art

When I have the chance I like to practice nail art designs. I like to try different patterns and shapes. Here are some designs that I want to try to recreate in the future.

Which design is your favourite? 1,2,3,4 or 5?

A Musical Week

This week I have had songs from musicals stuck in my head. In lessons this week I've been singing songs from Phantom of the Oprah and Les Mis in my head. I have always been a fan of musicals and enjoy going to the theatre. Some stage shows I have been lucky to see are Wicked, War Horse, Mamma Mia and Matilda.

Someone in my art class who is a big fan of musicals, let me borrow their DVDs of The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables and Love Never Dies. I had not seen any of these shows before.

After watching them I can now say I'm desperate to go to the theatre and see them, particularly Phantom of the Opera. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I enjoyed Phantom of the Opera. I watched the 25th Anniversary special that took place at the Royal Albert Hall. It was so much better than I could have ever imagined it would be. The whole cast was stunning. I must say Ramin Karimloo, who played the Phantom, and Sierra Boggess, who played Christine, were incredible. The music for the show is amazing and I am not ashamed to say that I bought the soundtrack of the show.

Love Never Dies is a sequel to Phantom of the Opera which is set ten years later. Once again the music is great and the show has surprising story lines that you may not expect. This is a production I would like to see at the theatre.

The film Les Miserables was better than I expected it to be. I had heard mixed reviews about the film, particularly about the casting of Russell Crowe. I have been a fan of Anne Hathaway for years and I think she gave a fantastic performance as Fantine. Overall the film was great and someday I would like to see the stage production.

Do you like Musicals and are there any you would recommend?

Hope you have a good week and I'll be back next Saturday.

My Summer List review

Back in July I wrote about what I wanted to do during the summer, which you can read here. In that post I wrote a list containing six things that I wanted to do over the summer. So I thought I would review how well I did.

I really enjoyed summer this year and did lots of different things. I will admit I did forget about the list by the end of summer as I had a lot of school work to do. Anyway lets see how well I did.

1. I spent three days decorating my bedroom all by myself and I am proud of what I have done. I painted all the walls, moved furniture, put pictures in the wall, etc. But I did need a bit of help building some of the flat pack furniture. I'm really pleased with what I have achieved.

2. In July I did get my second pair of ear piercings. I got my second set on my earlobes done. I'm really happy with them. Both of my parents don't want me to get any more piercing though. Part of me is tempted to get my ear cartilage done but I think I'm too scared to ever get it done.

3. Unfortunately I haven't finished my Wreck This Journal. I have done a lot of work on it over the summer but in the end I ran out of time. I would like to finish it before the end of this year.

I painted the front cover with nail varnish.

4. I did finish my summer knitting project. I enjoy knitting and felt that this summer I wanted to do some charity work while doing a favourite hobby. I didn't realise how many charities there are that incorporated sewing and knitting. I thought doing this knitting project would be good because I could do charity work without it interrupting my school work. I knitted 8x8" squares which I am sending to a charity to be made into blankets. The blankets are then given to orphan children in Southern Africa to help keep them warm when the weather is cold.

5. I have not started my Year 11 scrapbook. I have printed out my photos and have tickets, leaflets and postcards linked to school trips in my last year of High School. However I realised that there is so much stuff, I will need to make a scrap box instead of a scrapbook full of memories.

6. Finally I did achieve my goal of making 10 new blog posts.

If you are interested in any of the six things on my list let me know in the comments and I will answer questions or make a post explaining it more in detail.