There are always some posts in the 12 days that I have no clue what I'm going to write about until the day I come to write them. This has happened with Day 3 & 4, and so I decided to take inspiration from something I have apparently been obsessively collection without realising over the years... lights.
Most of them are battery operated or rechargeable, but as I've been writing this post, I keep remembering ones I've forgotten, and in my little room, turns out I have about twenty three random little lights, including a moon; a cloud; a dumpling; a narwhal, and "beauty" lights round my mirror which, when I switch on for the first time, made me never want to look in a mirror again...
... they're terrifying but bloody brilliant for eyebrow plucking.
In the end, I just love fairy lights - something that at this time of year I really enjoy - they give a really lovely warm light, which is bright enough but not too bright and I would have the Christmas lights up all year if I thought I'd get away with it.
The latest to come live in amongst my little collection however is unique because it's magnetic, so it can be used as a wall light or a torch, and that got me here, to a post about how magnets are used in three different pieces of lighting design.
First up is the Heng Balance Lamp created by designer Li Zanwen, and it was his answer to how to make a unique, aesthetically pleasing light whilst also keeping it functional.
In order to switch on the ring of LED lights which line the inner perimeter of these wooden oval lights, you bring the lower ball up to the suspended one, allowing the two tethered magnetic balls to perpetually try their hardest to touch but instead just levitate within touching distance. They're trying so hard in fact that the lower ball pulls up on internal switch, turns on the light and keeps it from turning off until the user chooses too turn it off.
It's the executive toy of lights and reminds me of those Newton's Cradle toys you knew you shouldn't play with on your grandparents (in my case) shelves, but couldn't resist.
It's a sleek, elegant and playful piece of design which uses the innate magnetic attraction of the balls to create not only a physical reaction, of a light being turned on, but a balance where the magnets never touch, but they are constantly interacting with each other.
Unfortunately like with a lot of designs, the Heng Balance Lamp has fallen foul of unscrupulous companies producing identical lights, at much lower prices. This got to the point where in 2019 Zawen wrote two open letters on Behance, explaining the pain this had caused him and the effort he's made to try and stop copycats, unfortunately to little to no avail, the letters are entitled Copy, let the designer dieand I prepare Tombstone for Heng Lamp:
"This is my final cry to the 'dark forest' (the dilemma where I am):
Heng lamp must be destroyed by myself if it has to.
If I lose, I will accept it and take it as the foundation for followers to fight for their rights.
I have prepared the tombstone.
Carved with five characters:
I am your father!"
Essential, the designers was saying, I brought you into this world, I can take you out of it.
Design two is the Smart Baton Light by Warwickshire based company Gingko Design, run by Paul and Natalie Sun.
The pair set out to create simple, design-led and functional products, and, much like the light which has just been added to my collection, the Smart Baton uses magnets give multiple usages to the light. By the application of a magnet this frosted acrylic glass and white ash (or American walnut) design goes from wall light, to table lamp and into what is essentially a torch. Though my little sister's instant reaction was "oooh, tiny lightsabre"...
This is such a lovely and simple design with multipurpose thanks to a magnet and as an added feature, it also has a light sensor, meaning no need to have a nightlight in your hall all night, so you don't fall over your cat.
Now, I don't know if you've ever lived with a black, dark furred or tuxedo cat, or just one that just likes to hang out and lounge directly outside of doors, or in the middle of the hall in the dead of night, but if you do, you know my pain. The buggers are invisible in the dark and my boy, Charlie, loves to lie around in just the wrong place in the middle of the night, which means I either have to put on and off every single light, in every single room as I work my way through the house in the dark, or I have to carry around a torch/lantern to avoid falling over or stepping on the little bugger. This is why I love designs like this, it's simple and practical and still really aesthetically pleasing.
Which is why, inevitably, it's another design that I have found duplicated online in multiple places.
It's way too easy to buy a cheap knock off and not support the original creator, which is sad because we should be supporting small makers. But a lot of people will take the cheaper option, because they don't appreciate the time and effort it takes to design and make something, and that "it cost that much 'cause it takes me fucking hours..."
Thank you TikTok for keeping that in my head all year, and for it being so fucking true.
This third and final design somewhat combines the way the two previous use magnets, by both using it as a connection both physically and electrically, but the designers have done that in their own unique manner.
Created by Italian architects Alessandro Mattei and Caterina Naglieri for their company Plato Design, the D-TWELVE Lamp is a modular lighting system which allows you to add additional lights to your base unit, creating your own geometric design.
Based on a modular system of hollow wooden or concrete dodecahedrons, each has three sides studded with neodymium magnets, which allows the individual modules to connect to each other and the current pass from one to the next, expanding the size of your lamp. You can connect up to seven modules together, but only one needs to be connected to a power supply, however because of that radial arrangement of the magnets it means you can have each of your lights on a different orientation, allowing for the lamp to become an adaptable and sculptural piece of design.
Whether it's being used as a pendant light, wall light or desk light, there's something really satisfying about versatility of these modular pieces and the way they connect to one another, giving the owner the ability to personalise their lighting to their needs.
And in the end, if the lighting doesn't work for you and your space, is it worth having?
Lighting is integral to your living space, you need light to make a room functional as well beautiful, but the right lighting is also important. The way a room is lit can effect productivity and mood, it can help you with perceived temperature through colour and help you relax, it can prevent your eyes from straining and giving you headaches, and it can even make you happy just thanks to the novelty or beauty of the light itself. Lighting changes the way your space feels, and why shouldn't your lighting also be beautiful or even ridiculous with its functionality?
Oh, and I found another light. There's a torch at my window, so I can check the cat isn't trying to bring guests back before I let him in in the dead of night. So, with that particularly unattractive but functional light added to the tally, that brings the total to twenty four supplementary lights in my room.
It's not a problem, it's mood lighting.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! Part four later...
... nine creative weirdos... ... eight things I loved... ... seven shoes to choose from... ... six party dresses...
... five gold rings!..
... four favoured films...
... three rosy bubbles...
... two iterations...
... and a tale for tugging heart strings.
While career defining creativity has eluded me for a very long time, I'd still like to believe that I'm a creative weirdo. The term was coined by Kate Albrecht from the YouTube channel Mr. Kate, is what she considers herself, her followers and anyone who expresses themselves creatively, because there is something weird and wonderful about creative people, about how they express themselves, how they solve problems and living in an era of YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and easy access to the world via the internet, it's wonderful to be able to experience weird world of creative people.
Day 9 is about some of the creative weirdos I follow online within the makeup, craft and entertainment world to be found specifically on YouTube...
Every morning, I sit on my bed, with a box of my everyday makeup beside me and as I put my face on, I watch makeup tutorials. I've done this for years now, it's part of my routine.
The BeauTubers I watch, tend to be people I either enjoy listening too and/or have a makeup style I find really attractive. They also tend to really embrace colour, and lots of it, and one of the most recent addition to my subscriptions has been Betty-Jean a.k.a Beautbean.
My favourite videos from Betty-Jean are her series of 3 Looks 1 Palette, where she takes a single eyeshadow palette and creates three unique looks from the colour story. Using as many eyeshadows as she can, if not all, she's trying to show the diversity within said palette and that you don't have to have a huge collection or dip into multiple palettes to make looks which are not only creative, but polar opposites to one another.
The other videos I particularly enjoy are from her Palette Bingo series. In these videos she takes multiple palettes, usually all from the same brand, assigns each individual eyeshadow pan within a number, then using a random number generator, picks a few shades from each to give her a colour story. Once the colours are chosen she has to use only these to create on cohesive look, and these can range from incredibly subtle to outrageously colourful and weird. It also forces Betty-Jean into being really creative when the combinations are less than complimentary.
I appreciate and find both these videos series incredible interesting because while most beautubers receive PR from many brands (though those such as Betty-Jean who have made the move to support only cruelty free makeup brands do receive less) the average viewer of their channel would never be able to buy everything that was released. Even smaller content creators such as Beautbean receive for review far more makeup than most people could amount in a lifetime, let alone a year. So showing the versatility of one individual product, noting which may have similar properties to others which have gone before and giving a recommendation with more backing than simply a first impression, is really nice.
Add in the fact that Betty-Jean's makeup is a gorgeous, colourful, grungy and creative - all the things I love about makeup - I went from watching one video from a recommendation, to binge watching dozens of her videos while putting on my makeup and to ultimately subscribing.
What can I say, I'm a sucker for colourful, draggy, grungy eye looks with huge eyelashes, faux freckles, too much blusher, lashings of highlight, and glitter. Just because my actual makeup's boring doesn't mean my preferences are.
The cry of a wild RawBeautyKristi found fighting with her camera. I love Kristi, and one of my favourite parts of her videos is her bloopers right at the end, when she's fighting with her camera, threatening the traffic in the streets and pulls faces while telling us we're not her real dad, but she may be ours.
She's a goofball and incredibly personable, which I appreciate greatly in someone who's relying on their viewer staying engaged to earn money. I like the makeup Kristi creates, she goes from incredibly wearable, everyday makeup to the avant-garde and editorial, as well as fx, and she does so with great skill, precision and beauty. But it's her personality that makes me want to sit and listen to her talk while I'm putting on my makeup, drinking a cup of coffee and wondering why when I occasionally try on the smallest set of false eyelashes known to human kind, I feel like I'm wearing full blown 301 drag lashes, and she can wear these huge beautiful fluttery eyelashes and look gorgeous!
There's also something about massive lashes that makes any crazy eye looks come together and seem really wearable. Something even the best mascara will never give my teeny tiny lashes!
Again, like Beautbean, Kristi is a cruelty free makeup artist, who I find to be one of the more relatable on the platform. Partly because unlike most others she's not full of botox or filler (she looks like a human being!) but she also acts like one. She's silly, self deprecating and open about her struggles in life with her weight, chronic cluster headaches, fertility and mental health, and that honesty makes her real.
And then you get random videos on her second channel with husband Zack (Sweet Life of Zack & Kristi), a channel they use to vlog, or show content which isn't specifically makeup related and relevant to Kristi's main channel. One where they can just film a mole wandering around their garden before harvesting hundreds of radish seeds, or them happily demolishing walls in their new house during renovations. Much as with her beauty videos, I just like the energy Kristi has, she's weird and funny cat mum who loves makeup, gardening and spending time with her husband and cats. And I love that.
Now, I'm going to make a bold statement by saying if Gelfings from The Dark Crystal(1982) were real, I think Jordi Dreher of itslikelymakeup, would almost certainly be a one.
She'd have to be some mysterious tribe of Gelfling we've never met, who were adept with a makeup brush and love bright colours, blush, highlight and huge fluttery eyelashes more than anything else. But I stand by the idea... the fact that she turned herself into Kira from the original films a couple of years ago and Deet from Age of Resistance (2019) more recently may have something to do with it.
I just think that she's stupidly pretty and talented. And it's not fair to be both. Stop it, I look like a potato wearing crap mascara on its eyes, and has no concept of how to be a potato compared to you!
Jordi's another makeup artist who's looks swing between hugely editorial and simple and subtle with a giant set of lashes, faux freckles and a tonne of highlight on the tip of her nose. In fact I'd say the majority of MUA's I subscribe to fit that bill.
Unfortunately her uploads have become more sporadic over the past year or so since being diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a relatively rare genetic connective tissue disorder which causes hypermobility to the point of injury, joint pain, dislocations, fatigue and other issues. This has meant it's harder for her to comfortable sit and film longer videos for her channel without chronic pain. However, Jordi still posts regularly on Instagram, and shorter videos without voice overs, which take her less time to film and are easier to edit as they're set to music rather than the flow of conversation.
She also launched likely makeup, her own brand at the beginning of 2019, which initially began with lashes (if Jordi was going to create anything it first, it had to be lashes) and then launched Clown Blush and Fairy Blush, two four pan blush palettes in eight gorgeously outrageous colours, including yellow, orange, magenta, deep red, neon pink, peach, aqua and lilac... I don't know how I would ever use aqua, yellow or lilac blush in any other way but as eyeshadow, but every time I see these palettes, or someone uses them in a tutorial, the makeup magpie in my head starts freaking the fuck out!
It's the same way when I go to craft shops, I always want to buy beads, sequins and glitter, even when I know I need them like a hole in the head.
Last year I tried to split my creative weirdos into beauty, crafts and entertainment, which is what I'd tried to do this year, however I also wanted to base it off of which creators I either watch most frequently, or those who when they upload, I rush to watch because while they don't upload often, they're always videos.
Glam&Gore for me covers all bases. And don't be fooled by the glamorous pin up worthy pictures from her Instagram...
... Mykie, while gorgeous, is a serious grade A creative weirdo, and her stock and trade is special effects makeup often bridging the gap between the glamorous and the gory.
If you're a Glam&Gore fan, you are a Zombae, and this is one of the few instances that the term bae doesn't make my skin crawl. Instead I think this is the perfect term of endearment for her fans and makes complete and utter sense coming from her, because it's funny. So, as a Zombae, the reason I love watching Mykie's videos is her humour. Yes, she's a talented makeup and special effects artist, but she's funny, and will be the first person to mock her dodgy mottled self tan imperfectly applied over top of her naturally ghostly pale skin, her non-existent blondest of blonde eyebrows and the five head they reside upon... her observations, not mine, but this self deprecation is part of Mykie's charm.
The added fact that more often than not she will go out of her way to hand make the majority of her prosthetic is also great, and makes her more outrageous FX characters unique to her. And up until recently seeing her dancing and singing along to Careless Whisper by George Michael in full gore garb was a joy, if only demonetisation for copyright infringement wasn't quite so strictly enforced these days. So instead we can content ourselves with more appearances from Ripley and Creature (Mykie's dogs, two Alaskan Klee Kai), her cameraman Peter playing a bigger part in the onscreen conversational humour, her Halloween series doing her makeup on location in some of the most haunted places in the US, and ghost hunting.
I wouldn't normally gravitate towards ghost hunting videos, but watching Mykie, who is a skeptic, getting freaked out and crying "a ghost!" is still funny. And to be fair she's still being haunted by large green hex glitter three years and multiple apartments after she used it...
Before I went to uni, throughout school, throughout college and even through the majority of first year, I thought that my future lay in textiles. I wanted to design and make clothes and textiles. Then I went to uni and realised that textiles where I went was more designing fabrics than the couture embroidery and garment construction that I was actually interested it. The idea of sitting hunched over pieces of paper or a computer designing repeat patterns didn't really appeal, I wanted to physically make things, so I ended up in jewellery.
Maybe I chose wrong in the long run, maybe I didn't, but it was the right decision at the time. However, my love for textiles has never really gone away. I still always wanted to make clothes and embroider, and knit, and crochet, and felt and... at home, at least, textiles was a way to keep my hands busy and create something that I didn't risk wasting expensive materials on, or burning the house down.
Watching channels such as WithWendy makes me feel encouraged to continue playing with textiles...
Wendy's shtick is DIY, sewing and craft projects and walking her viewers through them with as much instruction as she can. These tutorials are either simple thrift flips, clothing cloning, alterations or her trying to recreate the weird and wonderful items you see in magazines and worn by celebrities such as the tulle dress created by H&M x Giambattista Valli, a Cecilie Bahnsen dress worn by Ariana Grande or Billie Eilish's Gucci face mask from the 2020 Grammy's. Sometimes she even goes completely crazy and makes winter jackets out of old quilted blankets and sleeping bags...
She's really personable and I love that she shows all her exhausted, exasperated, stitch ripping moments that everyone has while their bottom bobbin runs out without them noticing, or everything comes to a halt as a huge clump of threads jams together. Showing these moments makes her content so much more attractive when it comes to looking for advice and tutorials, there's nothing stiff or patronising about what she does, and she's encouraging and fun.
It's also channels such as Wendy's, that have put the potentially foolhardy idea into my head that I can clone my favourite coat successfully, and do it without either messing it up completely or ruining my original coat. Now I just have to find the right fabric and commit and buy it.
Also, weirdly, as I was writing this, I was watching YouTube videos in the background - because finding a film or something on TV or Netflix seemed like it would be more distracting - and the last two videos have had people who don't normally make/alter clothes doing just that, and waxing lyrical about how helpful Wendy's videos are. Which was weirdly coincidental, but totally appropriate.
They are not experts at: woodworking, metalworking, home renovation, machining, casting, 3D printing, cosplay or science... but they'll give it a damn good try and if they can find a way to add in resin or LED's, they will! Evan & Katelyn are a creative and weird couple, and I look forward to every single one of their videos because I know I'll (a) want to do it and (b) end up laughing as panic inevitably ensues as they try to make something.
They're not professionals. They're hobbyists who love crafting and believe you don't have to be perfect, you just have to give things a try...
... in fact Evan and Katelyn are completely and utterly ridiculous, (safely) chaotic and they often seem more surprised when things work than anybody else. And like WithWendy, they show when things go wrong and the ugly results of experimenting with different crafts, which I appreciate, especially as the inclusions of fails helps teach the viewer how to avoid the same issues.
In their videos they make furniture; artwork; lighting; toys and even a catio for their supurrvisor (Joobie), they also recreate Pinterest favourites and viral creations, and found every plausible excuse to use resin within the majority of projects. Seriously, during nearly every project the pair manage to find a way to include resin for either aesthetic or protective reasons, and it's thanks to their obsession with the material that I learnt something really useful.
I used resin a lot for a while, and the bane of my resin usage was getting rid of bubbles completely and being left with a flawless finish. I also used a blow torch a lot during the same period of time. AT NO POINT DID ANYONE TELL ME THAT IF I GENTLY WAVED THE BLOW TORCH OVER THE SURFACE OF THE RESIN, THAT IT WOULD GET RID OF THE BUBBLES REALLY FUCKING EASILY!
It took stumbling upon this random goofy resin obsessed couple for me to learn that simple piece of information. But if I hadn't found their personalities so enjoyable to watch, I might never have learnt that fact and would still be sitting with a toothpick popping bubbles as they slowly made their way to the surface.
Evan and Katelyn are creative weirdos, and their relationship, and having someone to work with and feel encouraged and inspired by is something I'm very jealous of... they're also the reason I also want to put googly eyes on every tool and inanimate object I own.
I definitely haven't bought a big bag of different sized googly eyes and have started adding them to random things I own. No. I wouldn't do that. Never...
Ben Paik is the creator behind Woby Design, and there were a few furniture makers who I considered including who create amazing work, really interesting, concise videos and have a lot more content to watch than this particular maker. However Ben's content is unique because of the material he consistently uses throughout his work... discarded skateboards.
Collected from local skate shops where skateboarders gather and discard broken boards for new ones, Ben processes each broken boards, breaking them down into usable sheet material and saving every possible piece of the board that could be used in a future project. He does all this within his 20ft shipping container workshop, using a really entertaining editing style and a laid back attitude that's really fun to watch.
While he's been on YouTube for three years, which is when his first video uploaded, he's only really been making consistent content for about a year, his most recent offering being an electric guitar body made out of, you guessed it, recycled skateboards. Which is just freaking cool.
Sometimes creative weirdos find a particular source of inspiration that gives them ideas, sometimes it's a technique or your particular set of skills, and sometimes it's a material, and Woby Design's material is definitely unique.
A relative newcomer to YouTube and my subscription list, Caitlin Ford is a hair stylist and award winning colourist, who specialises in weird hair in glorious technicolor. And the reason I clicked on my first video was because of her amazing rainbow fringe, and with that, I subscribed.
The fact that she was teaching her audience how she achieved the effect, and others like it, rather than being secretive about the process, as a lot of people with unique and enviable skills are sometimes prone to do, is lovely. She's not going to diminish her skill by sharing it, in fact it's something a truly creative person should - in my opinion - want to do, being excited to share creative skills is a wonderful thing to do and Caitlin is definitely a creative weirdo willing to share.
In October 2018 while doing some DIY at home and using a table saw, Caitlin severed and ultimately lost her right index finger, a month later she was back to work. Four months after that, she uploaded her first video on YouTube, addressing the elephant in the room before anyone had a chance to ask the question. The second was her rainbow fringe tutorial. I hit subscribe.
Now, like Woby Design, Caitlin doesn't have a lot of content so far, but I'm really interested to see what she uploads in the future and how many different ways she can make me want to have rainbow hair.
There's something incredibly endearing about the duo and both their channels have content that I find entertaining and you can't really talk about one without the other. Jenna's videos are completely random, week to week she switches from trying crafts she's seen online, to turning herself into a chair or a mirror ball, makes herself and Julien over, and she'll do pretty much anything to enrich the lives of the couples dogs: Marbles, Kermit, Peach and Bunny.
Yes, her content is silly, but she's charming. A almost a year ago she gave her viewers a tour of all the plants in her home, enthused over propagating and revealed her true downfall when it comes to plants... internet shopping. I also completely relate to the the fact that when she hit thirty, the crazy plant lady switch went off in her head and they keep multiplying. I went from having no plants to having dozens, most of which I've tried to propagated into new plants. I, like Jenna, hit thirty and started buying plants, and I love having that greenery in my home and beautiful living things to look at... I mean Charlie's also pretty good, but the plants don't take up the whole bed, and none of them were responsibly for my lovely - brand new - terrarium being thrown on the floor and smashed because a robin landed on the windowsill outside. The other plants just aren't that violent to one another.
She's a "33 year old lady" and she's basically got to a point in her YouTube life (she's been a creator for ten years) where she just wants to have fun and entertain her audience while her dogs try to help. It's not always easy, she's a frequent rider of the struggle bus, but, she usually has Julien in tow, acting like her very own over grown toddler, creating mess, chaos and generally refusing to follow any kind of structure or instruction, but also acting as her biggest fan, giving her support, positivity and encouragement throughout.
Then there's Julien. He started out primarily as a vlogger, his relationship with Jenna encouraging him to start his channel and create content, but as of about a year ago, his passion for cooking kicked in and Aries Kitchen was born. This is when I subscribed.
Aries Kitchen is essentially Julien's cooking show, in which he recreates recipes he either used to love when he was younger, but can no longer eat or has never been able to try because he's both vegan and gluten free due to Coeliac Disease, an auto immune disorder which affects the digestive system and leads to gluten intolerance.
Though I'm neither vegan nor gluten free - no one's taking toast away from me! - each time Aries Kitchen uploads, I watch it straight away because I really enjoy Julien's personality and the weird combination of chaotic energy, curiosity and natural ability. It's the same way I feel about Bon Appetit's Test Kitchen, I'm interested in the recipes, but it's the chefs personalities that make it so I could sit and spend an entire weekend watching their content.
He just seems to love cooking and in the end making Jenna happy when she tries his food
I couldn't really include one of these creative weirdos without the other, they're both ever present in each others videos, they host a weekly podcast together and despite the played up childish silliness, they're both just rather normal. They behave the way you do with your friends and family, and I almost prefer their less ridiculous content where they're just sitting doing crafts or cooking, because it's familiar.
But they're definitely creative weirdos. And the less said about their dog Kermit the better.
Anyway, there are a bunch of creative weirdos to potentially watch and subscribe too, who post a hell of a lot more frequently than I do. Some of them may even be able to complete Vlogmas before March!
February's nearly over at this point (it's literally February 29th, Leap Day) and while I've been writing this post everybody in my house (and my gran) have been ill. So far, excluding a bit of a cold, I seem to have been the only one who's managed to avoid getting it badly, which is good in one respect, not so much in another. Then to top things off, I clipped the wing mirror of a parked van.
I've been driving for nearly sixteen years, I've had one accident prior to this, in all those years. In fact that was the first year I was driving, I was coming home from uni, there had been an accident at the other side of the bridge near home, and while traffic stopped and started, as I hit the bridge, I skidded on whatever caused the original accident and bumped into the car in front. Then I literally watched the police officer beside us roll his eyes, call it in and then tell us to go to the police station to be interviewed, breathalysed and hand over insurance details. Nothing came of it, and nothing came of the wing mirror. The lady who's van it was was really kind and understanding, and since it was easily replaced (she'd had it happen so often she said she just ordered them from Amazon), I paid for it there and then and despite being up to high doh, I finished my day's taxi duties for my Gran and thanked my lucky stars it wasn't something more serious.
I know a clipped wing mirror isn't that bad. My parents car accident in December almost left the car as a right off, and it really could have been worst since it was on the dual carriage way at night, rather than a relatively quiet village high street during the day. But as I said, I've only had one accident before this, and I consider myself a relatively good and careful driver, so I am second guessing my attention now. I heard a "thunk", I don't remember being too close, or actually hitting the van, but it has made me think more about my positioning in the road. Which I suppose is good, I've spent nearly sixteen years driving round the same town every day, you inevitably become a little complacent and I'd rather a wake up call that made me stressed, rather than injured.
Anyway, time for this creative weirdo to shut up, press publish and hurry the fuck up with the last few posts.
Happy Leap Day! Part ten when the sun doth shine and the moon doth glow...
