Summer in the City 2013

Oh my goodness what a weekend! Probably the most crazy one I've had in a long time, and that's after attending Vidcon.

Friday - Summer warm-up gig

Up and out of the flat on the 10:43am train (hoping Doc will be fine for 4 days). Got to London and travelled up to the hotel in Totteridge and Whetstone, check in and then headed down to Alley Pally to help with the set-up. Was completely amazed by the size of the place, beautiful building with a beautiful view. Once we had helped as much as possible we headed down to the O2 Islington for the gig, where we helped scan and tag up some early bird SitC tickets/bands and then enjoyed various acts such as Tom Milson, Dave Giles, BriBry and Weebl. (The customer info sign on the tube was a thing I had to Instagram!)

Saturday and Sunday - Summer in the City

To sum this up as much as possible, I spent 2.5hours scanning tickets Saturday morning, followed by about 5hours or so on the SitC merchandise stand. Then Sunday consisted of front desk information, taking gifts to the green room, helping with queue organisation and various other duties. Sadly I didn't get a chance to see any of the panels and most of the main stage acts, but I still really enjoyed the weekend and I think the organisers appreciated our help.

CrochetPoodle made a great video documenting the weekend, I think they got it spot on:

Monday - Boat Party!

This was a chance finally relax after the long weekend and see friends away from the YouTube world. Let's just say we had quite a few drinks, but we didn't regret anything. I say that, my arms are aching lots thanks to me thinking it would be good to show off my poor attempt of a chin-up...

Again, the best video that shows off the evening is this one by Louis:

Vidcon and San Francisco

I got sent to the US again, Los Angelas in fact, for Vidcon. This is the worlds largest YouTube gathering and this year set a record of around 13,000 people! I spent most of my time sitting in panels, learning about the ways of YouTube and other social platforms. 

This was followed by a two day trip to the Future offices in San Francisco, was my first time there and oh my it's a lovely place from what I saw :) 

I could sit here and tell you about it all but to be honest I spent a tiny weeny bit of effort making this video:

Mini Golf fun!

Lovely panorama from Jerry's phone

A few weeks ago on a VERY hot day, Jerry, Holly, Daniella and myself decided it was about time we had a round of mini golf. In Victoria park, Bath we have this fantastic 18 hole course which is only £4 each. Once we had eaten our ice creams, we got down to business!

Sorted for my travels - Part two

You may recall in my previous blog post 'Sorted for my travels' saying that I returned some previous purchases to Cath Kidson. The one thing I didn't check when I was there originally, was the returns policy for Sale items. Exchange only. So here are the items I bought with my exchange money.

Passport cover as for some reason the travel wallet is not enough for me haha!

Was £8.00 Now £5.00
Travel card wallet, mainly because I thought the trains on it was cute but also because it has 3 sections. 

Was £6.00 Now £4.00

Business card holder for all of those extra shop reward cards that don't fit in my purse.

Was £9.00 Now £7.00

Compact mirror as I don't actually have a nice one and this has both normal and magnified mirrors. 

Was £8.00 Now £6.00

Summertime is here again.

Work
Work is busy as usual, was happy to see Creative Bloq's channel doing pretty well (one of the little editing projects I took on). Along with PapercraftTV, still working on the rest of the videos but I'm happy with how the first two have turned out. Also had some FCPX training, it all makes a lot more sense now, once you get an understanding for the magnetic timeline you can do all sorts. 
Jerry is currently on an internship with the Digital Camera team, helping test lenses and review cameras/products. It's so nice to see his passion back again!

Last month I attended a Summer party at the YouTube creator space and got to take Jerry with me. Off to Vidcon in a couple of weeks and then flying over to San Francisco to visit our offices there. Am hoping to make my way into the centre of San Francisco some how, really really want to go on a tram ha!

Youtube

Believe it or not, I actually managed to pull myself together, pour out a glass of Rosé and record a video for my channel. I know, shock horror! After watching some of my older videos back, I realised I wanted to be more me, none of this acting up to the camera lark, just me talking to my audience just like I would to a friend (with wine :P).

I know I said it in the video, but I'm looking forward to Summer in the City a lot. Not there with work this year, but both Jerry and I are volunteering to help where ever needed. To be honest it's a good thing, not like we will have a lot of people queuing to meet us and most of our friends will probably be busy with that situation themselves haha! May as well be useful :)

Health

Haven't done Fitness Yoga for the last couple of weeks, mainly due to being away, tired or not having the money for both that and skating. But, I have become a lot healthier food wise, purchased a lot of salad and fruit from the stall by M&S recently.

Events and things
Finally got the BT router upgraded, cost us £35 but I think it was defiantly worth it as we haven't had any dropouts yet. If you're currently stuck on the Home Hub 2 then I recommend the 4!
Nan and I were meant to head to Bristol for a massage for us both, of which I bought as a deal on Groupon. Sadly it was cancelled that same morning, but we still went to Bristol anyway. I also introduced her to Falafel in St Nicks market, she approved :)

Our friend Holly is currently in Bath on an internship at my workplace at the moment, which means lots of opportunities for evenings and days out :) Also my friend Chris was in Bristol doing a BBC course, I popped over to catch up and have some Instagram fun!

Busy busy busy, but in a good way. Still keeping my promise to myself to go on adventures and relax as much as possible when I can. So far things are good, tad stressful here and there but good :)

Sorted for my travels.

I'm lucky enough to be heading to LA in a couple of weeks for Vidcon, that's a YouTube convention if you were wondering. Then after that I'm heading to my works offices in San Francisco, going to try my best to get on a tram somehow! Anywho, I realised I needed (wanted) a couple of items for my journey, here are my bargain finds!

Firstly I needed some new hand luggage, mainly because I need to take my laptop with me. I popped into TK Maxx one day and came across this Jansport case which happened to have a section for a 15" laptop, along with extra space for other items. Nice handle that zips away and pretty lightweight. 

RRP: £138.00, TK Maxx price: £44.99. 

The next traveling items I wanted to get were a wash bag and a smaller make-up bag. I did originally buy these items from Cath Kidston, but then returned them due to discovering these more colourful ones in Paperchase. Yes, the make-up bag is technically a pencil case, but that's okay, I've got a small make-up bag with pockets :) 

Wash bag: £9.00

Make-up bag: £5.50

The last item I wanted to find was a travel wallet, thankfully Cath Kidston had a sale on and this lovely wallet was in it. I also managed to get this purse in the sale too, I was getting a little frustrated with the purse I bought a few months ago, you had to open the card area to get to the coin section. No more!

Purse: Was £26.00, Now: £13.00 

Travel wallet: Was £18.00, Now: £12.00

Layla Amber: Rose Posy Necklace

Back in April I blogged about an amazing jewellery designer called Layla Amber. In May she posted an Instagram picture of a copy of Mollie Makes, along with a beautiful iPhone case which I'm tempted to get.

I happen to work for the publishing company that creates Mollie Makes, so I thought I would drop them an e-mail to mention Layla's work. Two months later one of Layla's pictures along with a bit of blurb appeared in their Making Memories section (Issue 29).

The moral of this story really is that Layla messaged me to say Thank You and offered to send me one of her lovely necklaces, today it arrived and it's just lovely! She sent it with a lovely little note saying ' Thank you very much Helen! I hope you love your new necklace! Layla x' Yes Layla, I do indeed :)

Thank Layla! x

Don't forget to visit her website, so many lovely items on there to spend your pennies on :) www.layla-amber.co.uk