I’ve written down a list of things I want to accomplish in 2012, New Year’s resolutions, I suppose (except whenever I use that term I never stick to them!)

• Cook and Bake more often
  I can cook, I can bake—often I’m just too lazy too (especially with the former). I’d like to change that and I have been (I’ve also been eating healthier). :)

• Wear more skirts and dresses
  This one is my friend Ali’s influence, she’s always getting me to try on new things when we go out shopping that I wouldn’t normally look at or choose for myself. I own a bunch of skirts and dresses and hope to wear them more often—I started to last year—lets see if it continues.

• Save money!
  I used to be really good at saving money, I’ve lost that and would like to get back to it.

• Go to more conventions
  I love going to conventions, I love the atmosphere, I love the buzz and I love meeting up with the friends I’ve made. My plan is to go to more of these—they help with my confidence.

• Travel
  I’ve not been on holiday since my second trip to Sweden—which was in 2008! My plans for the year so far are Germany (to a convention) in June and to visit my Auntie Val in America in September.

I’ll add to this if/when I think of more things I want to achieve in 2012.

Kim x

Personally my family and I make tags for presents out of them, using ‘pinking scissors/shears’ (the ones with the zig-zag edges to them. They look really good and are a good way to re-use the cards.

We’ve not started doing it yet, but defiantly will be—we have been now to recycle the pretty pictures from our small wall calendar in the same way.

What do you do with yours?

Kim x

Both the above headers are for a purple theme.

Besides creating a new design, I’ve finally found a calendar script I get on with for my sidebar which will link to my signing events/convention page in time, I’m currently customising it—any thoughts? I’m also adding my gallery back.

Sale shopping has resulted in buying some more ’suitable for work tops’, a jacket and not much else—I suck at clothes shopping! In desperate need of new jeans/some other trousers and skirts—the girls/ladies reading will understand how difficult how it is to get clothes that fit right. They’re either too long or baggy for me (the jeans/trousers)—I’m short.

Have got a few family presents bought for up coming Birthdays though —my sisters started on Christmas 2013 presents (yes, 2013, she did 2012 in the Summer sales!) already lol.

Anyone got any plans to make any new years resolutions? I never make any myself.

See you all in the New Year!
Kim x

(If you have any blogs/websites you think I’d like—please share!)

If you’re the owner of one of these websites and would like me to remove the screencap of your header image—let me know.

Rock Witch is the personal website of Swedish girl Karin, she’s very artistic—love her work, is into metal—I like reading her entries on the Swedish Rock Festival and has a couple of pets—her snake has goregous colouring.

Why do I follow Rock Witch? I love the way she writes, I love her artwork, especially her pixel art, I love Sweden and like her blog entries about the country (Entries tagged Sweden) and she has a lot of stunning/unique themes—such a talent—rather jealous lol.

Lirae is the personal website of Carlee, nicknamed Lirae , she’s from the UK, has a boyfriend, loves piercings—and makes it all interesting when she blogs about it.

Why do I follow Lirae? I’ve followed Lirae since my doll making days (she still has all her doll makers—if your into that sort of thing—I admit that I may still use them on occasion!) and have always admired her website(s)—that hasn’t changed. She writes interesting entries about the everyday stuff in her life, I especially like her shopping posts!

Buffy Fest is a fansite, or rather blog, dedicated to the works of Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog etc).

Why do I follow Buffy Fest? Anyone that knows me, knows that I’m a huge Joss Whedon fan—the man is God (I’m joking… Probably), so it makes sense I’d follow a fan site… But why this one? It’s updated constantly, has info you may not find elsewhere and offer unique Whedon related shopping items for you in their posts—If your a Whedon fan, check them out.

Another fan site! This time for all things Doctor Who (mostly “New Who”).

Why do I follow WhovianNet? Mostly to keep up to date with what’s going on in the Who world—and they cover everything on their website! They also offer a lot for fans other than news—love they’re event reports and Extra Stuff sections—would keep you busy for hours if you looked through it all.

There are lots more I could mention but I’ll save that for another day perhaps, I’d like to know what interesting/unique websites you follow.

Kim x

Thanks for the belated Birthday wishes on the previous post and the good lucks about the job—still not heard anything (but I’m told they’ve had hundreds of applications and are currently going through them). Hopefully I’ll hear something soon either way.

The Dream Job
Well, maybe “dream job” was a bit inaccurate, it’s the first step to my dream job which is to have my own business but this is a very good start. The job is working for people I have a lot of respect for, they run conventions, I’m not saying I want to run conventions as a business—maybe I would but with someone who knows a lot about it—but something very much in the same field. I like working with people and I like retail—this job I’ve applied for lets me do both.

The job is very varied and would include doing some of the following:

1. Web design/web editing—the latter is more my thing these days (I’m web editor/webmistress for my current work place)
2. Web promotions development
3. Social network promotions
4. Graphic desgin
5. Driver
6. Airline booking
7. Crewing events

As well as a lot more varied tasks. To work for these people would be a big step towards by dream job and who knows maybe I’ll get be able to progress further within the company and find my dream job without starting from scratch with my own business?

It’s also a work from home position—so I can keep my current job as well while I work towards my dream job!

Kim x

Since I blogged last I’ve been doing so many different things with my life—I turned 23, spent my birthday at yet another convention (a Stargate convention in case you’re wondering ), got a bunch of new hobbies (I bake. a lot, I cosplay more often—last time was at a True Blood convention where I was Jessica Hamby), applied for my dream job (waiting on a reply still mind you, but happy I took the plunge and went for it), I could go on (would you like me to )

On-line wise I’ve been doing… Nothing… Unless you count being on facebook, twitter et al and watching TV shows—which I don’t. So I was presently surprised when I stumbled upon a website, blog, whatever you want to call it today that I found interesting and had a lot of things for me to look at. The website in question is Blossum.nu, from what I can see the “webmistress” has been around for a while (maybe you’ve heard of it?)—she makes the usual day to day life blogs interesting—which I love. If you don’t know this site—check it out. If you don’t like it, hey-ho.

What’s everyone else been up to as of late?

Kim x

Lazy day means I actually finish the events page I started! It will list my planned conventions/signing events and I’ll *try* to provide write up’s of each event afterwards, once I find a decent way of doing so I’ll also have a calender in my sidebar (suggestions are welcome).

My next convention is Chevron 7.6, the sixth 3-day event celebrating the hit television series “Stargate” by Massive Events. This event will be held from Friday 6^th—Sunday 8^th of May 2011 (the 7^th being my 23^rd Birthday!). I’m really looking forward to this one as Richard Dean Anderson who plays Jack in the series will be in attendance.

Since my previous post I have attended a fifth Eternal Twilight convention and The Spring Memorabilia show 2011, both very enjoyable (already have my ticket bought for Eternal Twilight 6 next year!).

Other sitely things I’ve being doing on my day off—Heavily updated my “autobiography”/info page, deleted a lot of pages/old content etc.

Kim x

I knew I wanted to be Kaylee for the event (I tried for Hallowhedon the year before but time became an issue) and decided that I’d cosplay her teddy bear overalls for the Halloween party (I also ended up staying in the costume all day Sunday—we’ll come to that later). I wanted the costume as accurate as possible, I think the hardest part of the costume for me was the sewing (the overalls needed altering—cutting the sleeves off, taking them in etc) and finding the exact bear patch, I knew it existed and trawled through zillions of cosplay and Firefly sites trying to find a UK seller for it, or a USA seller that wouldn’t charge me a huge amount in postage, eventually it got re-listed on ebay.com by a seller that shipped to the UK for pretty cheap! Funnily the hardest part was also the most fun except for actually getting to wear it at the convention. I also had a toy spanner/wrench. I managed to finish the costume two days before the convention in the end.

Halloween party

The Halloween party started at around 20:30 and was on the Saturday night, I knew beforehand that there would be a couple of other people in Firefly related costumes (Jayne and another Kaylee—pilot episode version). We’d planned to find each other at the party and have some pictures taken—it turned out we weren’t the only three in Firefly costumes!

First “Jayne” and I found a River and got our picture taken with her then more people asked for pictures, our picture can be found at (taken by Giles G Photography (I bought a copy but can’t scan it in :( )

Then we found Kaylee, then Mal, then Wash, then another River, another Kaylee, Inara… you get the idea, we had almost a complete set (no Zoe, Simon or Sheperd Book), we went out side for more room and took pictures of our group, we also had a crowd of people wanting to take pictures too!

Found another Kaylee, in the dress from the episode ‘Shindig‘, she was adorable!

We also found The hands of blue and had pictures with them too, not sure whose idea it was for the photos to be taken in front of a mirror though! >.< Sorry for the glare on this picture.

We tried to get a picture with Jewel Staite and Alan Tudyk who was also at the Convention (he plays Wash) but they were being hounding for photos by other attendees! So, I decided I’d get photo shoots with them Sunday morning as Kaylee.

Sunday of the convention—Halloween

Had my picture taking with both Alan then Jewel in my Kaylee costume and then proceeded to wear it all day (I wasn’t the only person in a costume—it was officially Halloween).

One comment for myself came from the lovely Alan who on as I walked up to him for my photo shoot said “Hey, it’s Kaylee and she’s in her work gear! Awesome!”, then proceed to put his arm around me, Jewel however, didn’t comment on the costume but acknowledged it with a nod and a grin.

For the rest of the day, I kept getting comments on my costume and was lucky enough to win a guest encounter with Jewel which is you and 11 other attendees in a room drinking tea, eating biccies and having a random natter. We talked about her work, Firefly, Bones, Dollhouse, ourselves etc (her husband was also in the guest encounter).

I had a fantastic weekend and can’t wait for Hallowhedon 3 this year, why does October have to be so far away?

More pictures under the cut

Mal and Wash:

Kaylee and I with Vamp Willow

All images (c) Kim. C, please don’t use them without my permission, thank you.

We’re lucky we didn’t loose our hard drive completely! Thankfully Rob was able to transfer the data on our hard drive onto our external hard drive we have—more advice: backup your hard drives often! I now have all my data stored on Jack (my new laptop) and I’m looking at buying myself a portable external hard drive, I quite like the one Aisling was blogging about in her “A Girly Post About Stuff In My Bag” entry—a 500GB Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex, but I’m not sure. Any suggestions?

Currently my dad is going to get Rob to build us a new PC either using our current case or in a new one, dad’s specifications—fast and great graphics to create decals… Not much to go on then.

I’ll post some pictures of the bad capacitors if I can before Rob builds the new PC—may be helpful to some? I’ll also post some of the new PC!

Kim x

Note:- This post will be rather long and rather image heavy

Here are some of the movies I’m looking forward to seeing (and there UK release dates):

Paul

Paul is Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s new film, I’m a big fan of their movies—Two British comic-book geeks travel across the U.S. and encounter an alien, rumour has it one of the UK conventions I attend is mentioned in the film.
Release date: 14^th February 2011

Scream 4

“Ten years have passed, and Sidney Prescott, who has put herself back together thanks in part to her writing, is visited by the Ghostface Killer”. I was 9 or 10 when the first film came out and saw it with a few of my friends, it was rated 18. At that age I really liked the film and it’s sequel (didn’t really like Scream 3 though). I want to see this film out of curiosity more than anything else.
Release date: April 15^th 2001

Thor

The next in the Marvel movie franchise—Main reason for wanting to see this is so I understand The Avengers and I’ve really enjoyed the rest of the Marvel Avengers’ story lines (Iron Man, Hulk, etc). “The powerful but arrogant warrior Thor is cast out of the fantastic realm of Asgard and sent to live amongst humans on Earth, where he soon becomes one of their finest defenders.”
Release date: 29^th April 2011

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

The next instalment in the franchise minus Keira and Orlando “Jack Sparrow and Barbossa embark on a quest to find the elusive fountain of youth, only to discover that Blackbeard and his daughter are after it too.” I’m a huge fan of these movies and love the way Johnny Depp plays Jack Sparrow, bit disappointed there’ll be no Will Turner though—the banter between the two characters is a plus in these films. Very happy to have Barbossa back again though.
Release date: 18^th May 2011

X-Men: First Class

I’ve been looking to this movie since the rumour stage, I’m interested in the two characters of Magneto and Professor X and am looking forward hearing about their back story.
Release date: 2^nd June 2011

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Mark Ryan was the first person to tell me this film was to be made when I met him in 2009, been anticipating it since then. I’m just hoping it’ll live up to my expectations of it…
Release date: 1^st July 2011

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Yay! The last Harry Potter film! That is all I really have to say, very excited to see this one! I’ll laugh, I’ll no doubt :( Hoping it’ll live up to the book.
Release date: 15^th July 2011

Cars 2

One of my favourite Pixar films is getting a sequel? *squee* I must see it! I loved the first one—oddly I was no where near the oldest person in the cinema going to see it >.< That's what I love about Disney films they appeal to all ages.
Release date: 22^nd July 2011

Captain America: The First Avenger

“After being deemed unfit for military service, Steve Rogers volunteers for a top secret research project that turns him into Captain America, a superhero dedicated to defending America’s ideals. ” Joss Whedon is co-writing this one, as well as The Avengers—that’s one reason I’ll see it. I’m a big Whedon fan. I’ll also being see it as a Marvel movies fan. Not sure what to expect from it…
Release date: 29^th July 2011

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part 1

I’m a Twilight fan, both the books and the movies. I don’t like Kristen Stewart as Bella. I’m looking forward to Breaking Dawn, I’m just hoping is does the book justice, if you’ve read you’ll know that it has a lot of content (some of it more adult) and that it is a lot longer than the other three books in the series—I’m just hoping they keep the crucial parts.
Release date: 18^th November 2011

Not too many then?

Other notable movies in 2011 I’d be interested in seeing (DVD maybe?): Winnie the Pooh, The Avengers, Abduction, Final Destination 5.

What about 2012?
There are already loads of films with release dates that are meant to be in 2012, e.g. Underworld 4: A New Dawn, The Dark Knight Rises, Men in Black III.

What films are you looking forward to?

My new laptop is a HP Pavilion dm4, with a Dual-core Intel® Core™ i5-430M (2.26 GHz), 3GB memory (RAM) and 320GB (hard-drive). It has a 14″ screen (read more specs?) and runs Windows 7 operating system (as standard). It also has finger print recognition that I can log in to applications with!

Picces?

Overall I’m happy with it, the scroll on the touchpad will take some getting used too (as will Windows 7—I just don’t really like it).

Kim x

One thing I’ve noticed though is that on my new laptop (which has a bigger/larger resolution than my PC) my navigation is to the left of the page and not to the centre as it is on my PC:

On PC:

On Laptop:

Any thoughts?

Edit: I fixed it, turns out I’d deleted one line of code from my style sheet while tweaking, which is what made it look like it in bigger resolutions (obviously without having a bigger resolution to check it in for so long I didn’t notice!).

• I’m settled in my job
• My oldest friend from Primary School got married!
• I am a fully trained first aider (as of yesterday in fact)
• Got a new haircut—needs dying
• Already added a bunch of new conventions to my 2011 calender
• Managed to keep up aerobics :)

Hope everyone’s start to the New Year has been good!

Kim x

Doug is one of my favourite “horror actors” and I have had the pleasure of meeting him in person twice so far, if you are a fan of Doug please consider joining the ‘See you in Hell’ fanlisting (the image of Doug in the header was taken by my dad the last time we met Doug, when I got a Hellraiser box signed by all four of the cenobites from Hellraiser II: Hellbound and then I messed around with it in Paint Shop Pro).

To find out more about Doug please visit his official website; Doug Bradley.com

We arrived at the event at around 8:15 in the morning and having purchased tickets in advance went and got in the already pretty big queue already forming, ready for entry at “bird entry” at 9:00—standard entry was at 11:00.

I went mostly to get a few autographs and pick up an album I had commissioned for me from Phoenix copper art—but instead ending up spending way too much money on the hundreds on stalls there selling a range of sci-fi items and collectables. I came away with some Buffy the Vampire Slayer collectables, Doug Bradley’s book (which he autographed), a few prints and a couple of canvases.

Through the day I met a bunch of people from shows/movies I’m interested in as follows (this is the order I met them):

• Shane Rimmer—Voices Scott Tracy in Thunderbirds
• Rupert Young—Sir Leon from Merlin
• Angel Coulby—Gwen from the BBC show Merlin
• John Challis—Boycie from Only Fools and Horses
• David Bradley—Argus Filch in Harry Potter (films 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 part 2)
• Simon Bamford—Butterball Cenobite in Hellraiser (1 and 2)
• Barbie Wilde—Female Cenobite in Hellbound: Hellraiser II
• Paul Blake—Greedo from Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope
• Garrick Hagon—Biggs (Red Three) from Star Wars
• Doug Bradley—Pinhead in the Hellraiser films

I got autographs from all the above as well as photos with them—Also got a photo with some Gryffindor cosplayers and Lord Voldemort.

It was a great day—my bank account now hates me after though! Luckily I get paid on the 25^th, then I’m off to The Entertainment Media Show and Collectormania London next weekend (also possibly The Vampire Ball).

This saddens me, Star Wars is for everyone! Any age, gender, whatever. I’m a young adult female and I love Star Wars! Growing up I was into most things that many would say are “for boys”—they’re not. If you like it be proud!

Katie’s mum has asked for fellow females who love Star Wars to leave a comment on the article showing Katie she’s not alone, that lots of girls love Star Wars. Different is OK, hell, sometimes different can be better!

“I would love to be able to show Katie that she is not alone, that other females appreciate Star Wars. If there are any female Star Wars fans reading this, please feel free to show your support for Katie. I will let her read your messages or comments, and I think she will be surprised by what I suspect is a vast number of female fans.”

Please leave a comment for Katie.

May the force be with you Katie <3

Edit: Just realised you need to create an account to leave a comment—if you leave one here I’ll make sure to pass it on.

I don’t think all the white on this current layout looks good on that page, maybe I’ll mess with the CSS a little and make the table orange-ish(?)

Kim x

P.S. Saw the Coca-Cola trucks on TV earlier! Yay!

I’ve been working a lot lately, new job is going OK. Not really what I see myself doing but the pay is good and the people at work our nice (except one individual who does little work and stinks due to smoking heavily).

I’ve done a few things with my neglected website today—I’ve had media shelf on my server for ages but never finished customising it so I’ve been working on that today, also since my general aim for my website is to be more about my hobbies I’ve been looking into creating an area where I list any upcoming conventions I’m going to. A thought in progress but there maybe info on guests, any cosplaying etc. Any suggestions welcome.

Speaking of conventions I have two/three coming up if the next couple of weeks—a signing event known as Memorabilia which is in Birmingham, another called The Entertainment Media Show & Collectormania London which as the name suggests will be held in London. I’m also debating going to The Vampire Ball as I’m a very big Buffy and Angel fan, I also quite like True Blood but I’ve heard the organiser has a funny way of doing things—talks at the same time as autos/photos and you can miss your auto/photo slot… Also I’m planning on buying a silver ticket for an event next May that happens to have Richard Dean Anderson in attendance! Maybe I should stop being a fan of so many things(?)

Kim x

Kaylee costume is going well, I’ve found all the patches I want to put on my overalls except one—Kaylee’s bear patch. I’ve found a lot of USA sellers of it but known in the UK and I don’t want to risk getting slapped with customs charges for $6.00, I’ll keep looking for now. I have time! Any help though would be great.

Kim x

Second—London Film and Comic con was awesome! I had a great time, got some autographs, met some famous people, dad took photos of me with famous people, bought a lot of memorabilia and got to see The Dark Knight batmobile tumbler from the movie—it was really impressive! Pictures are all on my facebook Didn’t finish my costume in time though so didn’t end up cosplaying but I’m going to a Joss Whedon event in October where I’m cosplaying Kaylee Frye from Firefly!

Been to a couple more smaller conventions since Comic Con too which were one for True Blood titled “Bitten” and one for Doctor Who titled “Dalek Invasion” both really good. I met the actor who voices K9 in Doctor Who and loved that he spoke to me like K9 for most of our conversation—geek right?

Hope everyone is good and enjoying the Summer.
Kim x