Help don’t hinder

 

Dear Fe-liners,

I am a big believer in Karma and I think that the way that we act towards others comes back to us. I know that a lot of people don’t share my belief and see any fortunate/unfortunate happenings as coincidence, but that’s not what I believe. I don’t believe in organised religion but I do think there is a greater power in the universe and therefore I do my best to help others, say thank you, be grateful and just generally make my existence on this planet a good one.

The reason I am writing this piece now is that I have had some experiences recently that have left me wanting to yell: “help don’t hinder.” Twice in the supermarket recently, I have had people tutting at me because I was taking so long at the checkout getting my bits together, one woman actually rammed her trolley into my ankles. Now, I know that people are busy BUT I have a little baby and I am new to being a mum and it does take me longer to get my bits together these days as I have to do my mental check list, baby, shopping, wallet, credit card etc.

The other thing that has made me a little sad recently is blogging, yes I know one of my true loves is making me sad. I love writing and I think that my writing is on the whole very positive, and especially about others and what they are doing. In one of my old jobs, I was called an “annoying, over-positive, cheerleader” but I took that as a compliment, we should support others endeavours. So it makes me so sad to read negative blogs, blogs that are written to put others down, just out of spite, jealousy and hate. I am of the opinion if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it at all. I know we all have the right to an opinion but the internet is there forever and I like to look to the school of Destiny’s Child for life lessons: “I’m not going to diss you on the internet because my mamma taught me better than that.”

All of this has really got into my head recently and I have been trying to follow my “help, don’t hinder” advice. So the other day when I was walking home I helped an old lady with her shopping trolley, she was getting everything out of it and looking for something for her daughter and getting herself into a right state. I could have walked past and left her to it, but I helped her to find what she was looking for. Then when I went to collect some print the other day, I brought a homeless guy a hamburger, I could have just left him to it and kept my money to myself but I think he needed that couple of quid more than me at that point. So after these couple of things I was in the supermarket again and struggling with the pushchair and a basket and instead of someone slamming into my ankles the checkout assistant saw me and bounded over and offered to take my basket off me and helped me to the till. Coincidence maybe, karma, maybe, either way I did good, I felt good and something good happened to me.

I think I am just saying be we need to be conscious of your behaviour, they (who are they anyway) keep telling us that we need more money, we need to do things quickly and that it’s OK to speak to people like Alan Sugar on the Apprentice. But how does this make us feel? Stressed, anxious? And how does it make others feel? Angry, a bit c@$p? So what if you gave someone a couple of minutes of your time, helped a parent with their baby, gave someone a compliment, used your little bit of the internet to write something nice, rescued a kitten from the rescue centre (sorry I had to add that one, it is Fe-line). You might not believe like me in karma but it will make someone else smile, it will make someone else’s day and that in turn will make you feel good, trust me! And as Nada Surf sang: “Always love, hate will get you every time.”

If I have inspired you to do something nice for someone else today, tweet @felinewomen and let us know what it is using the #helpdonthinder,

Have a nice day,

 

 

 

Design tips for non designers

 

So my lovely Fe-liners lets talk about design and making your business look visually attractive. I know that I am in a privilaged position, when I decided to start my own businesses I had worked in the world of marketing for 8 years, I went on some amazing training courses and knew how to use programs like Indesign and Photoshop.

But on the other hand I am not a designer and I have had to learn on the job, pick up tips and learn how to create imagery for my websites and brands. I know the world of design can be daunting and expensive, but I created the image above for free, other than my time. Basically what I am trying to say is there is no excuse for Clip Art ever.

So here are five free resources that I use on a regular basis to help me with designing material for Fe-line and The Wandering Kitchen, that might also help you too.

Pinterest

Sitting down with a blank page or screen and saying today I am going to do some design and be creative is a difficult thing, what if you aren’t feeling creative at that very minute? We all have busy lives and we have to block out time to do certain things so if you have an hour to design a poster, then you need to get it done in that hour. What I do when I am lacking design inspiration is go back to my Things I love board on Pinterest. This is the board I created when I first got into Pinterest with all the things I need for design, imagery I love, fonts I love, colours I love and the list goes on. So when I have time for design I don’t have to start looking for inspiration from scratch it’s there ready and waiting for my design time. Start your Things I love board on Pinterest now and start collecting for a rainy day.

Pixlr

If you don’t have Photoshop and if you can’t afford it, Pixlr is a great free alternative for creating or editing images. It is a online photo editor so you do need an internet connection to use it but created the image above using solely Pixlr and you are able to use layers, import fonts and create nice looking images to use on your website or blog. As always if you don’t know how to use something there is always a YouTube video to help you. I haven’t watched the whole of this, but this guy has created a 1hour 20 minute tutorial, which I am sure will help you get started.

Font Squirrel

A good font, makes a piece of design and says a lot about your company, brand or blog. There are loads and loads of sites out there for downloading free fonts, one of my favourites is Font Squirrel, and this is where I got the font for the image at the top from, it’s called Harting. Remember that your font says a lot about your brand, if you want people to think that you are modern, fresh and professional you must use a font that says this, not something like Comic Sans. In fact never use Comic Sans, ever.

Design Seeds

OK lets talk colours, I myself was not that good at choosing colours that matched until I found the blog Design Seeds, which basically does it for you. There are loads of palettes with colours that work well together. You can get the hex code for each colour and put that straight into Pixlr. I used the palette Swirling Glow to help me produce the image above.

Images

So where do I source the images that I use to start the whole design process? Well even those don’t have to be expensive or cheesy, if I don’t have an image that I have taken myself then I use the websites Unsplash or Death to Stock, they supply high quality, royalty free images, that are free to download or use.

So there you have it, there is now no need to use out of focus, blurry images on your websites, dodgy fonts on your posters or cheesy stock images in your brochures,

Happy designing,