Health and Fitness Thoughts

Happy Sunday! Now this is a topic that has been the bane of my life for many months, heck even years. I thought I would write a post today on reasons why I need to find my motivation and works towards becoming fit and healthy.  I've struggled with my weight since I can remember, there's never been a time when I've felt truly happy with how I look. Which thinking about is actually quite sad. I just have a very negative opinion of my body, which I think is body dismorphia (please correct me if I'm wrong cause I'm not a hundred percent on that!)
We all have our reasons why we choose to say enough is enough so here are three of my main ones:

My Brother's Wedding

The main reason is that my brother is getting married in July and I have been asked to be a bridesmaid. We have the dresses, and mine does fit. However, I know it can look a lot better as I currently feel like crap in mine. I want to feel somewhat glamorous on my brother's big day and not hate my arms in every single picture. Operation bridesmaid is on!

How My Clothes Fit

God my outfits have become so dull recently. When I was at uni I would make a conscious effort to come up with varying outfits. But all I've stuck to lately is baggy tops and leggings so my whole body is covered up! There's so many nice things in my wardrobe that I just feel like I can;t wear right now as they show off parts of my body I've grown to hate. I would love to be able to go into shops or online and get a smaller size of clothing, i miss that feeling!

Stress

For someone like me who feels anxious everyday and worries over every little detail, exercise I think will be great to help combat that. My job has caused me so much stress recently that all i want to do is sleep and sleep... and sleep more. I went to the gym yesterday for the first time in months and afterwards I felt so good. It's a chance for me to take time to focus on myself, be on my own with headphones in and just push myself. It's going to be a really slow journey as I am so unfit, but baby steps and all that. 

So there are some of my motivational reasons I guess you could say. If you have any please let me know! 

Also I have to say how much I love my new food diary, the quote on the front is just so me. Sometimes you just have to include a swear word. I bought it on Etsy here - I am loving that website at the moment. 

Anna Frozen Costume

 

So I realised that I haven't really shared a lot of costume related posts on here and I want to include it more. I spent three years at university learning the skills to create costumes and learning how to fit them to peoples bodies. I love clothes as it's obvious on here and to be able to use them to showcase a certain character fascinates me. Yes I'm a nerd when it comes to costumes.

 

I'm currently working part time in a supermarket and trying to find freelance work as a costume maker. Oh and job searching for full time work (failing miserably). My latest project was making a costume for a lady for a kids entertainer. I made a replica of the Anna Frozen costume.

 

 

The costume consists of a bodice, blouse, skirt and cape. It was a really challenging costume to make but I felt so proud when I had finished it. Obviously there are things I'm not happy with as I'm a bit of perfectionist. The bodice was the trickiest part by far. I chose to make it out of a stretch black velvet so it had a lot of give. At first I sewed it up at the back but quickly realised this wasn't practical so the back had to have fasteners down the back. I had some velvet and poppers lying around so had to make do with those. All the motifs on the front and back were machine embroidered freehand using my sewing machine, I love doing free machine embroidery. I did the front panel twice as the first time I did the embroidery was way too small. The most painful part was the ribbon around the edges, I need to do them better but I tired my best.

The blouse was actually relatively simple to make, I've had quite a few attempts at making shirts so this process was pretty quick. Again the pattern around the collar, cuffs and at the front was machine embroidery. The fabric frayed a lot so I had to finish it with a zig-zag stitching along the seams.

The cape and skirt took the most amount of time. All of the pattern on the cape was hand painted and took me hours and hours to do. I was so proud when finished, I painted over 4 metres of fabric. And finding the fur trim for the collar was challenging but managed to get a similar lilac shade. I also painted the pattern on the skirt and the purple at the bottom.

This is hopefully just the beginning of making more costumes in the future. Please do let me know what you think, I always want feedback.