Zines – Kittenesque

Tag: Zines

02
Feb
2016

Tiny things Tuesday #42

I went to Weirdo Zine fest in London at the weekend. I even managed to make a tiny zine to take with me dedicated to my love of stationery.

The zine fest was a lot of fun and I’m glad I went although it did wipe me out energy wise pretty much all of yesterday. I’m so glad that I booked the day off of work to sleep and recuperate. It was really good to be able to visit DIY Spare for London too. Such a good idea and I would love to see something like this happen in the West Midlands.

Here’s this weeks things;

1. I haven’t really had chance to read all of the lovely looking zines that I picked up yet but I just wanted to highlight this beautiful patch that I got alongside the SAD care zine from Kim Searle – there were a few designs to choose from in the patches but I loved the look of this one most of all. The other designs came on stickers in the pack though so I didn’t feel like I missed out on them.

2. Someone added me to a crochet group on facebook and I keep meaning to leave because it’s pretty high traffic but every time I do, I see loads of lovely projects and yarn so maybe I’ll keep on there for a while. A lot of people on the group have been making C2C blankets (corner to corner) and I really liked how they look especially with variegated yarns so I decided to start my own at the weekend as a more portable project that the other blanket I am working on (which uses 14 colours of yarn so isn’t that portable) I used this post and video tutorial to learn how to make this blanket.

3. As today is the start of my working week, it was good to have the added motivation of going out for a curry and catch up with some friends tonight to get me through the day. I’ve had such a craving for curry lately (possibly as I have been drooling over Jack Monroe’s Instagram feed. Everything that they make looks so delicious)

4. I got my fringe cut back in on Friday so today I have been revelling in all of the “ooh nice hair” compliments. I’m unsure if I am going to keep dyeing it purple and green shares for much longer so I combined my left over bits of dye to give myself a mixed shade new look! I feel much more “me” with a fringe again. It’s hard to explain but it just feel really right.

Wanna know what David Bowie was doing when he was your age. This website makes it easy (to realise you are wasting your life!)

Till next time…

20
Aug
2015

Zines!

Categories: Uncategorised

I’ve finally updated the zine page on here with all of my current issues. Check it out if you are interested in buying any issues and get in touch with me if you’d like to trade.

I like perzines, stuff about mental health, recovery from addiction, some music based zines, stuff about veganism, sustainable living, queer culture and other similar bits.

01
Jul
2015

IZM 2015

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It’s July which means it’s International Zine Month! This celebration of all things self published and zine-like was dreamed up by Alex Wrekk (who writes the long running zine – Brainscan, plays in the zine themed band the Copy Scams and writes zinester bible Stolen Sharpie Revolution – she’s basically THE zine queen)

So what are my zine themed plans for this month? I’m going to be taking some inspiration from the list below (but due to energy and boring stuff like work, I can’t commit to doing ALL of the things)

I hope to get a new zine finished by the end of the month, write lots of mail to my zinester friends, get all my for sale/trade stock up on this site and make a flyer with info about my perzine – ellipsis, and my comp zine – Rebel Rebel. I also want to write some posts on here about favourite zines, distros, my own history with zines and just generally give a lot of zine love.

02
Jun
2015

Tiny things Tuesday #19

Categories: Uncategorised

There was no post last week for reasons I will explain in my next post (the short version – I’ve been really busy) I missed writing in here though. I have lots of ideas for things to write about and changes I would like to make to this website but I lack the time to properly sit down and do them.

Here’s this weeks list;

1. Ready Player One – this book was recommended to me by stall mate at NWZF – Emily (who writes D&D virgin) I’m absolutely loving this so far. It’s been a while since I felt so engrossed in a book and I’m reading on the bus and at lunchtimes to squeeze in any extra time I can.

2. Brooches – In the last year especially I seem to have a growing collection of brooches that I wear on my coats/cardigans/jackets. I’ve been enjoying how much these brighten up my mostly plain clothes and add a focus point to some outfits. My favorite one is this little guinea pig dude who was made by Inki Designs. Also pictured is the glittery lips brooch from February’s Lucky dip club.

3. My Stay Home Club top just arrive and I’m already wearing it. I love the design and it fits ok (despite it being my most hated “one size fits all” style) This is pretty much my motto at the moment. I’m living my days at work just looking forward to getting home.

4. I just got an order of zines from Fight Boredom distro in Canada*. With these, my haul from NWZF and all the books I got for my birthday, I am going to be set for a while. I’m feeling so fired up about zines at the moment so having loads to read, is really giving me energy, inspiration and strength.

& now, back to my book.

Till next time…

* the website is actually offline at the moment, hence no link.

19
May
2015

Tiny things Tuesday #18

Categories: Uncategorised

I’m so tired. I worked 6 days last week and averaged about 15,000 steps each day (7.5 miles) I just feel like I could spent a week sleeping. I’m glad we have a long weekend coming up even though I have a far few things planned for the weekend.

This weeks list…

1. I’ve been really into making my own pesto lately. Vegan pesto tends to come only in one type – plain basil. I made some roasted red pepper pesto the other night by blending the peppers with pine nuts, basil, olive oil, salt and pepper. It went a lot further than I expected and wasn’t too expensive to make aside from the pine nuts but I probably went slightly OTT with them. I blended all the ingredients with a stick blender until it was smooth and enjoyed it over pasta with some vegan Parmesan cheese.

2. With my ever growing love of GPS based games – I needed a portable power supply that lasted a decent amount of time. Last week I went to my first Ingress meet up and found out about the wonder of Anker batteries. I got myself am Anker 2nd Gen Astro E6 and it’s very impressive. It takes a few hours to charge but then gives me more than enough power to charge my phone (iphone 4s) a few times over before running out. It’s much more powerful than other portable batteries I have had which only really gave given enough juice to half charge my phone and are good for an emergency but not really for gaming or being out for the whole day.

My Anker was reasonably priced (around £30) and came with it’s own storage pouch and a charging lead (but not USB socket). I love how it has 3 USB ports on it, so I can share it with other when I am out. I think its going to be a “must carry” piece of kit for me.

3. I spent this evening watching The Office (US) on Netflix and folding and cutting copies of my past zines to take along to North West Zine Fest at the end of the month. Who else is going? It should be a really good day with tons of my favorite people.

I’m hoping to have issues 2, 3 and 4 of ellipsis on my stall as well as my new zine about small acts of rebellion (which I really hope I can finish, copy and debut) and some felt brooches. I just need a few more hours in each day to do all of this.

On that note, sleep time for me.

Till next time…

12
May
2015

Tiny things Tuesday #17

Categories: Uncategorised

It’s exam season where I work, which means my days are becoming very hectic. I have been staying close to home and conserving my energy as best as I can. Being busy has actually been a blessing at work as it has made the day fly by. I have a balance of enough to do but not so much that it’s piling on top of me.

I’m still going to my mindfulness class on a Tuesday night so I am finding that I want to write these posts and then fall head first into bed. So without further delay, here’s this weeks list;

1. Eating these type of instant noodles in their own cardboard bowl reminds me of reading Microserfs by Douglas Coupland (and writing this reminds me that I’m probably due a re-read) I got rained on at lunchtime today and was in need of something warm, comforting and cheap for my lunch. The convenience store on campus has lots of international products and I love how many of the noodles, rice crackers etc. are accidentally vegan. They also get bonus points for having added dried veggies and other exciting things that make them a cut above a bog standard pot noodle!

2. This was my somewhat immature way of cheering myself after the awful election result the other day. I’m not going to get on my political soapbox here but the result saddened and depressed me and made me worry for the future of a lot of my friends. I’m trying to counteract it with humour, good music (ONSIND, the Lovely Eggs & Against me) and thinking what I can do to help make world a little better in a local sense.

3. Because I have been so busy with exams and walking around campus, it means I am easily hitting (and exceeding) my 10,000 step goals each day. I’ve been using my fitbit flex for a while and although it does have a few issues (like the bands snapping far quicker than I would like) it is really motivational having it on me and using it to track my sleep and movement (and sometimes water intake although I didn’t enter any today)

4. Last pay day I ordered some zines from Stranger Danger Distro in America and they arrived this week. I can’t afford to over from overseas distros very oftern because of how much it ends up costing in postage so I try and make my orders count and spent ages reading the descriptions and deciding what to buy. I think I made some good choices because everything I have read so far has been great and Heather who runs the distro included a little note to say I had picked some of her favorite titles. I’m going to eek out my reading so they last me a while. I also love the extra bits that were included like postcards and stickers.

Till next time…

23
Apr
2015

Becoming a writer

Categories: Uncategorised

I’ve been walking a lot at work lately. It’s exam season, which in my job requires me to spend time walking between building collecting and dropping off items and ensuring that things run according to plan.This gives me a fair amount of time to think while I’m walking.

Yesterday I started wondering if I am a writer. Is that a label that fits me? Is there something specific that would qualify me to use that title.

I call my partner a writer as he writes fiction (and has been published). I on the other hand, write a journal, a perzine and this blog as well having a number of penpals. Are those writer-ly activities? or do they count as something else. Is writing a umbrella term for a lot more specific activities? If I check off more than , does that earn me that title?

I’m working on a non-perzine based project for the first time ever at the moment and it’s necessitating some research on my part both in terms of reading things, trying things out and speaking to other people about their experiences. Does engaging in these type of activities make me more of a writer than when I’m sitting at home churning out my thoughts and feelings for ellipsis?

I think at this point in my life I am more of a writer than I have ever been yet I still don’t feel able to use that term. What do other people think about this?

(the other bonus to walking around campus a lot is seeing all the lovely flowers and blossom out at the moment)

26
Mar
2015

Tiny things Tuesday Thursday #10

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I’ve been away from home this week from Monday morning till last night. While I was away, I had internet access on my phone but I tried not to check it too much and to instead focus on enjoying my surroundings and spending time with a lot of friends that I don’t get to see very often.

I’ll write a longer post soon about my trip away hopefully over the coming weekend (Sleater-Kinney gigs in Manchester and London) but I missed writing my TTT this week so here it is.

1. A wave of excitement went round Twitter and Instagram last week when UK vegans started spotting these cones in their local shops. To my surprise my local Tesco metro stocks them so I just had to get some to try too. The verdict? Pretty damn good! Not too overpriced at £2 for 4. The ice cream is creamy. I would say that the sauce is more like a fruit sorbet than say the sauce on a Cornetto.

2. There is a cute new iphone game out featuring Moomins called Jam Run. I’ve been playing it this afternoon and it’s free (although does have adverts at the bottom) You can find the info about it as well as other Moomin related stuff at the website.

3. When we came into work this morning, we all found 1 mini chocolate egg on our keyboard (aside from me who found this dairy free bunny) Turns out my colleague from the team who sits next time mine had done each of us a mini egg hunt and hidden another 6 eggs around our desks. I found them hidden in my monitor stand, in a tissue box and behind my phone. There are actually still 2 I haven’t found yet! It was such a sweet and thoughtful thing for her to have done and I was really touched she had made such an effort to include me by buying some vegan friendly chocolate (I swapped my eggs for vegan chocolate after I found them)

4. I’m bursting with ideas and inspiration at the moment. I brought this book secondhand in Manchester yesterday and its giving me a lot to think about. The author also has a blog which is here although I have yet to read that. I was a little trepidatious when I first saw how many people seem to give it 1* reviews on goodreads (including 2 friends of mine) but it’s given me a lot to think about and although I’m only about half way through, I feel as if I’ve already got a lot from it. The notepad in the picture was a gift from a friend and I’ve been carrying it around with me for a few weeks. It’s filling up with lists, ideas of things to look at further, notes to myself, doodles and pieces of writing that will hopefully make their way into zines and blogposts.

In related news – info about issue 4 of my zine is up on the zines page above now or just click here

Till next time…

16
Mar
2015

Sheffield Zine Fest

Categories: Uncategorised

I had the best time on Saturday at Sheffield Zine Fest. I got my train at 8.50am so I was pretty sleepy but slowly woke up over the course of the journey. I rolled into Sheffield around 11 and as I was getting my bearings outside the station I heard my friend Lou call my name. I wasn’t 100% sure she was coming so it was great to see her.

The Electric Works where the event was held was right opposite the station so was ideally situated for me (knowing little of Sheffield geography) However it did mean I saw nothing else of the city. I’d like to go back another time and have a proper explore.

The main thing I want to say about the Electric Works is that THERE IS A HELTER SKELTER IN RECEPTION!! I can’t express how much glee this fills me with. More buildings should have built in slides or swings.

The actual event had stalls spread over two rooms. My newest issue was for sale on the shared table at the entrance. It was also the first official outing of the split zine I made about Indietracks with my camp mates – Ingrid and Sarah.

I spent most of the day hanging out with lots of people I know and love as well as chatting to a load of other cool people that I’d love to stay in touch with (for anyone I excitedly rambled at – hi!).

And of course, I went down the slide. Ingrid snapped this super blurry shot of me. It was great fun, although the resulting dizziness meant I only went down once.

I covered the Vampire Sushi Distro table for a while as Tukru was running a workshop. I wish I had gone to some of the workshops too as they had some great sounding ones but on the other hand, it was fun chatting to people who came to the stall.

I came back with so many zines to read, these two pics cover most of my gains for the day. It was nice to go to an event that seemed to skew more towards perzines and political zines rather than art zines and comics (I do like the latter as well, it’s just not something I relate to as closely)

I started to read some of them on the train coming back but 1 or two of the zines that I started were SO good that I felt like they deserved a better setting for a first read than a messy train full of people swearing at each other.

Instead I looked out the window, scribbled in my notebook, ate a vegan white chocolate Santa that Ingrid gave me and watched the sky change colour.

At Tamworth, there was a moment where pink rays of lights from the setting sun burst through a patch of cloud and made me wish my phone battery hadn’t died. I can still remember it though and I can remember feeling really really contented and peaceful. On days like this I feel so happy to be me, living my life.

I’m excited for the Northwest Zine fest in May now. I’m feeling full of inspiration at the moment so I may even have another zine out by then.

03
Mar
2015

Tiny things Tuesday #7

Categories: Uncategorised

Well, I have been in an almighty grump this week. I spent most of yesterday stomping around, feeling sorry for myself and this carried on right through till I fell asleep. Today has been better. I got my printer working again so I can start printing and laying out ellipsis 4 this week.

Here’s this weeks list

1. I brought this cute new pj set from Primark on Friday. I probably have too many sets of pjs but they get a lot of wear. It’s not unusual for me to change into them as soon as I get home from work or spend at least one day in my weekend in them (or get up, shower or bath and then put on another clean set) Anyway – these are super cute and were only £8 for the set. I love the slightly faded looked pattern on the top as well as the bright shorts. It may be cold outside but I am pretty warm blooded and seem to be warm all the time at the moment so these work well for me not overheating!

2. My first lucky dip club box arrived today and it’s LOVELY! this is one of my allowed treats per month so I was anxiously waiting for this to arrive. This month’s theme was lovehearts and lipstick. I loved the glittery brooch and the envelope necklace (and I am even breaking my no gold jewelry rule to wear it) Looking forward to finding out what next month has in store.

3. Munzees – I won’t say too much about this as I’m already planning on writing either a longer blog article about this or maybe a zine about this and Geocaching. I’ve been having a lot of fun getting out and about to find Munzees in Coventry (as well as occasionally slightly further afield) It’s given me a new way of looking at my city.

4. I went on a day trip to Bletchley Park on Saturday. I’d wanted to visit for a while and we went on the train which meant that we could get 2 for 1 tickets by showing our train tickets. Although it’s not cheap to get in £16.75 per person unless you use the deal we did) your ticket is then valid for a year so you can go back as many times as you like. This may well be something I take up because we didn’t get to see everything in one visit.

This photo was taken inside the main house in the library which was pretty crowded as there was an exhibition also in the house about the recent film (The Imitation Game) which I didn’t pay too much attention to as I haven’t seen the film yet. Along with your entry ticket, you get an interactive guide and headphones to take round with you. I think it’s essentially a touch screen ipod which you can play videos on at different locations but it was pretty interesting. None of the videos were longer than a few minutes, making it a good way of finding out more and hearing from people who were based at the park in the war.

I can’t stop listening to The Dispossessed by Spoonboy this week. It gives me the shivers (as does the video) in the best way.

Lastly – Marching Stars distro is closing. Lizzy who runs it is such a wonderfully supportive person. Please go check it out and place one last order before she finally closes.

Till next time…