KEEP YO'SELF IN CHECK

My oh my, this time next week I’ll be up north for the New Zealand Olympic Weightlifting Nationals – what a cool feeling that is!

You know, I almost lost the plot after I qualified. Achieving that goal in itself was a freaking fantastic accomplishment for what has now been six months of training. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to work out anymore, more so the fact that I know placing at Nationals probably isn’t a realistic goal this year, so I’ve had to switch my mindset a little and accept that my ass is going out on that platform to compete only against myself. It hasn’t been all bad though, I’ve been able to take a step back and learn to enjoy training again now that the pressure is off, I can enjoy summer and cruise into next year knowing that the hard grind has been done.

With this in mind, I wanted to share with you all a couple words of wisdom from my fit-girl crushes – things I often read when the going gets tough, if I’m not feeling good about myself – whenever I’m having a moment, to remind me what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. Healthy advice FOR LIFE that we should all read at least once.

You’re not always going to see the progress. You’re not always going to feel great, or even “decent” for that matter. Sometimes you’re going to feel like shit. You’re going to doubt your abilities, doubt your strength and doubt yourself. You’re going to get frustrated and upset because you don’t understand why. It could be for a day, for a week, for a month, who knows. But it will pass. And only then will you realise that it was all a part of it. Part of the learning, building and growing. And you’ll be prepared for the next time things turn to shit. You’ll know to do what you can, when you can, with what you have been handed with all your effort. And you may not see the steps forward that you’re making, but you know for a fact that doing nothing is standing still.

- Mattie Rogers @mattiecakesssss

 

We aren’t bodybuilders, figure competitors, bikini or runway models. We are normal girls who work out with weights and eat a balanced diet full of healthy and nutritious foods to stay in the best shape possible all year round. We call it a Base Body, a body you can maintain not only all year round, but for life. It’s not extreme in any way. It is not our aim to be super lean, we simply want to look and feel fit, strong and healthy. We don’t count calories, we don’t do any fad diets and we don’t do anything extreme for that matter. We love living this way everyday, it keeps us feeling happy, healthy, fit, strong, confident and energised.

- Base Body Babes @basebodybabes

 

It’s all about looking after yourself, loving yourself and listening to your body about what feels right. Sometimes more easily said than done as life throws its punches, but it’s all part of the journey – enjoy it, celebrate every little victory and always take time to reflect on how far you have come.

ART EASY ENOUGH FOR A FOOL

I'd like to think I'm creative, but I'd find it hard to keep a straight face calling myself artistic - which is what lead me to this post. I've been looking for some cool DIY projects to transform the white walls of our home recently, and I wanted to make something that resembled the below...

Can't be too hard, right? Well, over the weekend I took my second ever art class at The Drawing Room in Christchurch and had the best time!

For those of you that haven't already heard of it, Pouring Medium in its most basic form is essentially an acrylic liquid that sets dry with a slightly glossy finish. You mix it with acrylic inks to make your colours and once you throw it on your surface, it's mixed around to create somewhat of a marbling effect. There are plenty of techniques to learn, but lets start at the beginners level.

You'll need to excuse my lack of photos, I got so caught up in the moment and forgot to take them at each step.

First up, here was our blank canvas. We had a pair of gloves, eight plastic cups (two in each corner) to sit the canvas on, a bottle of Liquitex Pouring Medium between two people, another five plastic cups to mix our colours and five popsicle sticks to use as our mixing utensils.

Next, we picked our colours. Below are the ones I have since purchased from The Drawing Room, but for this piece I used a pearlescent pink, cool grey, metallic copper, blue and white inks. If you are considering using similar colours it's important to note that the metallic and pearlescent hues aren't going to show up as opaque as regular colours, so have a play around first and see how they all react together. Oh, and a tiny splash of black goes such a long way!

Once our colours were chosen, we poured the medium into our cups, one per colour. For a canvas our size (24 x 24in) we used half a bottle of medium. I put a couple of squeezes (give or take) of ink into each cup, then took my popsicle sticks and mixed the colour through evenly. Then we poured! Not knowing any techniques, we just poured randomly, popping colour wherever we kind of thought we wanted to place it. I forgot to take pictures at this step, but here is one from The Mindful Artist for you to get an idea...

Now for the fun part. We picked up our canvas' and tilted them in all directions so the medium started moving all around the place. To stop wastage in the class, we couldn't go over the edges but I totally will for my next piece! You have about 10-15 minutes to work with the medium before it starts to set, so keep that in mind, and be aware of knowing when to stop as it's so easy to get carried away - therapeutic almost! I put mine down for a couple of minutes, then started moving it again which caused a few stretch marks once it dried, you'll be able to see in the dried image further down. If you want to see how this piece of the process is done, check out @lundstrompaintings on Instagram.

Here is my wet canvas...

To allow the medium to dry, we left our work at The Drawing Room overnight to dry. See below - and see how different it is to when I left it the day before?! Part of this is due to the stretching which I wasn't too happy with but it's all a learning experience!

The last three days, I've had my canvas sitting flat on a desk, to ensure it's completely dry before hanging. Tip - if it feels damp on the underside, do not hang it until it's dry. It may feel dry on top, but wet colour underneath can still slide. It's not quite what I envisaged, but hey - I'll just commission it once I'm famous!

I just love the marble trend, and even more so, monotone colours. For my next project I'll be replicating something like this, what do you think?

Let me know if you get around to trying this, or anything similar. I'd love to know what you did, how you did it and better yet - how it turned out!