It was my birthday though which I celebrated in typical nerdy badger style, lots of fun and laughs with close family and an animal day out with my fabulous OH. I was spoiled and full of love and I'm still buzzing from it all now!
I love everything and everyone I have in my life so very dearly, I wouldn't change it for the world!
I did however have a very art inspiring birthday. I haven't actually gone out for my birthday for a while now and this year I wanted to actually celebrate! I have this thing right now of celebrating everything and feeling every little emotion available. It's a weird moment I know but anyway! We went to Bristol Aquarium and saw the amazing underwater creatures they have on show.
Needless to say the animal nerd was very happy and very hyper! And it seems that I still am slightly! Top highlights had to include:-
The Stingray!
He was very cheeky and kept coming up to the glass as shown in the picture above. This was mainly because he was waiting for food but it was lots of fun to crouch in front and watch as he flashed his white underbelly at us repeatedly.
The Seahorses!
My poor OH, that's all I can say! I tend to get excited about seahorses... I'm not sure why, they're not the most fascinating sea creature out there and they are a bit on the dim side but when I see them I'm lost in fascination. At the aquarium they had a large tank with a large herd* of adults in it which was exciting as there seemed to be a lot of heavy males in there, yay for pregnant seahorses! They also had two smaller nursery tanks filled with... yep, you guessed it! dozens of tiny baby seahorses! I was practically buzzing back and forth between the tanks just watching them swim around happily or in the baby tanks case, cling on to each others tails or heads... they have a lot to learn!
*I haven't gone mad, a group of seahorses really is called a herd!
The Leopard Shark!
Okay, so I love sharks. I have a lot of respect for them and probably wouldn't swim with them but I absolutely love them.
Quick fact! The spots on a leopard shark are so varied between individuals that they are used to identify particular sharks, just like human finger prints! Cool huh!
At the aquarium the leopard shark was in a large tank that had a walk through tunnel beneath it. I'm not sure what it is but watching these amazing fish swim over you so casually is fantastic. We hung around this tank for a while and I found myself twisting and turning in to unnatural positions just so I might get to see the shark from below over and over again. At one point it did swim passed close to the tank glass so that you could see the texture of its skin, I was completely fascinated! :P
The Unicorn Fish!
I myself had never come across one of these before and got slightly out nerded by my OH! Although it was fairly amusing as I had been chatting to a friend who shares the same birthday as me and being the goof I am, I started sending her lots of unicorns calling them birthday unicorns... little did I know that later that day I would see a birthday unicorn ;) They were quite elegant as they swam around their tank eyeing us up as they went.
I find that fish in aquariums do a lot of people watching!
Other highlights I couldn't get pictures of included a ray spitting water at us like a fountain, an interesting big nosed blue fish, some very bulldog looking piranha and a badger fish! Yes there is a badger fish and I didn't know about it! It's most commonly known as the foxface rabbitfish but yeah ;) I can find badgers everywhere, even in an aqurium.
So as you can see it was a very amazing birthday and I now want to get my watercolours out and paint many fish!
I also had the joy of something else happening last week.
Vinny, my venus fly trap had its first flower open and is producing heads again! I have become so attached to this plant and have been researching them like there's no tomorrow (you'd be amazed at the clashing info you can find out there!) but I'm just so amazed that I've kept it alive this long!
My goal is to propagate this plant and create a little group of hydras... I'm not sure how that will go or if it will all end in tears but it will be an adventure either way... It's also quite exciting to grow seeds or from leaves.
But more on to work stuff, I do have lots going on right now even though tonight I hit a huge confidence low in what I'm doing. I hate it when my mind does that because I know it's just me having a low moment but I'm still left thinking what am I doing!? and Oh hell this is hopeless!
I am however designing a proper logo for my etsy shop as right now I have a badger doodle that says nothing about me... apart from badger. So the silly badger is being created.
I also have my shrink plastic out and am trying to work out sizes for some finch badges. The worst part of using shrink plastic for me other than the annoying curling is the sizing. I always tend to make them too small even when I feel like I spent forever working out the math. There's a reason I changed my mind on becoming a vet! Math is definitely not my strongest point.
My etsy shop will also be getting a bit of attention, I will be making and updating the packaging for jewellery items, adding some new items and there may also be a chance of a discount offer! So keep an eye out if you're interested.
And then there's the other thing. I recently made the ratty zines and loved every moment of it. I really enjoyed the whole process but at the same time felt that I should give zines a break as it took a fair amount of time to create.
Well. I now have more zine ideas and they've all gone to paper tonight. One, the favourite one is a spoof on pet care leaflets. In this case instead of a how to care for your hamster I am working on how to care for your velociraptor. What can I say, it's all about the theropods for me right now! It's also based lightly on something I was creating around this time last year so I'm hoping to get that project back up and running!
Like I said, there's lots going on and April has been crazy and wonderful.
Keep an eye out for updates this week!
Have a great week!
