IRL adventures

The final day of the art trail, which was lovely (and really probably mostly covered in last week’s post so I won’t bore you with duplicate photos!).

Tuesday brought the Grow founder session for Essex Startups, which I absolutely loved – it came together really well in the end and I didn’t overrun, and it was surprisingly emotional both for me and for some of the attendees. If you’re at all interested here are the slides - I will try and expand a bit on some of this stuff here at some point as I surprised myself with how much I’ve done since I was 18!

Hopped back home to drop laptop and feed kittens then headed off in JB2 with Lu to FINALLY get my long backdrop rolls from Mum’s garage, where they have been since I moved studios in, ahem, October 2023. Oops. Obviously we did a hot chocolate stop and sat in the van and chatted, and it’s lovely to have my paper rolls back, although they are still too big so are currently sitting in the corridor behind my studio waiting for me to figure out how best to cut them down a bit.

This week was also the next London Creator Collective event, my first as a full member, and I took the lovely with me (she’s the other half of Cahoots) so we had a fabulous ambly afternoon in London, noodles in Chinatown, and then networking chats and a lot of mermaid explanation to people with various levels of bemusement!

And then an accidental addition to my 40 for 40 list - was invited to a gig on Saturday night at Colchester Arts Centre. A heavy metal gig. And not just any metal gig, the final performance of Slay Duggee, a friend’s band who do heavy metal for kids. And we were on the guest list (so technically two things for the 40 list because I’ve never been on a guest list for a gig before!).

Yes, I was as baffled as you are, it was exactly as gloriously chaotically mad as you might expect, and I will now admit to being nervous of basically everything, but I had a ball getting an appropriate outfit together.

I am more whimsigothwitch than true goth/metal but was very pleased with my final cut, although it involves three bras so may never wear this particular set ever again because even by my burlesque standards, three bras is Too Many Bras At Once. (and of course I got the obligatory selfie in the amazing mosaic loos made by my fabulous friend Anne Schwegmann-Fielding).

⬆️ My final outfit / me & Lu & Chris inside / me in the mosaic mirror!

But we had a great time, and I can’t begin to tell you how good feeling the bass beat through my entire body was. I didn’t know that was something I’d missed until we walked in and then I just grinned like a loon for some time while my body and brain, in sync for once, said YES LOUD LIVE MUSIC PLEASE. So that’s a thing I want to do more of now.

⬆️ This is Baby Shark as you’ve never seen it before 👀

(Is being in your 40s literally just going back to loads of the stuff you loved when you were younger? Admittedly this is a different genre but I went to a lot more gigs when I was younger and there seems to be a definite pattern lately of rediscovering old joys and pursuits and hobbies and passions…)

Offline pursuits

Had a Wednesday flop day, read a whole book between naps - I can’t remember the last time I did that and my reading mojo has been AWOL for SO long that I actually got quite emotional when I finished the last chapter, even though it was only a short book.

Spent a day sorting out my packing room / Ink Drops head quarters (the very grand name for what is in fact my converted garage and old office before I had my current studio), and although it’s still too full of stuff I can at least pack orders without dismantling piles of doom now!

Tidied my studio and steamed the lino from old studio again - it’s much prettier than my standard floor, but two weeks later still slightly crinkled from its time in storage. I find it so weird that the footprint is actually almost a perfect fit for this space, when the old space was so much bigger - but I can’t open cupboard doors with it down, so it will be one that gets put down for specific shoots, I think.

And had an admin day with Mum & Gran, which was made nicer by yummy food and putting the world to rights in between the admin!

Creative project progress

All the stories I heard & told for the art trail. Made lots more progress on the car camper and updating the scrapbook I’m keeping - or at least trying to keep - of the project.

Made a bunch of covers for my phone albums in Canva, which I know is technically an online not offline project, but it has made it so much easier to sort & find my photos on my overstuffed little phone so I can share them!

Booked some coaching sessions with the excellent Michelle, and discovered that line dances to AJR exist - a special interests crossover with a friend that I had absolutely not predicted!

People magic

Lovely art trail visitors included Natalie, Sharon, Tash & Luda and Catherine, all of whom it was a delight to catch up with. Got proper chats with Tash for possibly the first time ever, we are usually both dashing somewhere and it was just really nice to sit and talk properly after I closed studio doors on Monday.

Lu brought her van over to help me move my backdrop rolls, met Mum & Gran briefly, and then also got to meet her mini-me Barbie in person for the first time which was ridiculous but joyful.

I got a proper long phone call with Lou which was wonderful, and much needed, plus some outfit advice because unlike me she actually spent quite a lot of our youth at metal gigs!

Exchanged some cat photos & cattery advice with lovely Annika, whose kittens are the cutest things ever.

Nearly a whole day with Becky, who I haven’t seen IRL for months, all the new people at the Creator Collective, and then Lu & Chris on Saturday night for the gig and a sneaky new house tour on the way in.

⬆️ Becky & me, and our very excellent noodles

Plus so many hilarious reactions when I said I was going out on Saturday night in town with friends that I think maybe I need to do this more often, so it doesn’t get quite such stunned, “OUT out? You? On a SATURDAY NIGHT?” responses!

Glimmers

Again, a week just full of things which are pretty much all glimmers, but highlights definitely included everyone’s enthusiasm for the art trail, and actually watching my vending machine in use and people coming back to collect different prints.

I now proudly have my own corner of Lu’s van JB2, with a purple velvet seat 💜 (I do know he isn’t my camper but oh god I love that vehicle nearly as much as I loved Poppy). Impromptu hot choc in the back was pretty joyful too.

The Grow talk, and the responses, and emails afterwards made me cry in a good way - I spend so much time worrying about where I haven’t yet got to and what I haven’t achieved that I wanted to, that I forget how much I have done, and how very, very far I’ve come. It was wonderful to be reminded and doubly wonderful to see my weird approach to life being actively inspiring to other founders.

Dad’s yellow rose in my front garden is blooming again - it appears to thrive on neglect which is a good thing as I am terrible at gardening and it is the one plant I am emotionally attached to.

⬆️ I know it has some weird spots on the leaves but look! Buds!

I accidentally hid from people knocking on doors in the camper car - had been working on some stuff, was inside with the boot closed and was I think changing the layout around and checking it worked, and then four or five people arrived in my close and went to knock on each house’s door. I sat in Serafina, on my driveway, and watched them walk past several times and not clock that I was there but in the car not in the house, and it really mad me laugh - maybe stealth camping is easier than it looks if people are that oblivious?! Though I guess most people don’t camp a) in a car and b) on their own driveway so maybe they can be forgiven.

Dressing up for the gig and the compliments I got from lovely friends was actually also a massive joy - I LOVE self expression through clothes and I love an alter ego moment of seeing whether I can make a style that isn’t my usual style work.

Analogue acquistions

Does retrieving stuff I already owned from Mum’s garage count? If so, backdrop rolls, and then Lu also brought with her a light stand & boom and sand for my garden.

My back seat extender arrived, and I bought self inflating mats for Serafina and some over-window nets and also some hooks and clip magnets, velcro, S hooks, clear boxes for initial storage while I figure out proper storage, and my favourite, the prettiest net curtain ever to hang over the boot.

Was very sensible in London but did allow myself to buy a beautiful purple ink and a new blackwing pencil from Choosing Keeping. And then when I saw Mum & Gran, Gran gave me a black cardigan and Mum gave me a white Monty Bojangles kit-tin to add to my studio collection!

Read & watched

Still re-reading Playing Big and read the whole of The Reader on the 6.27 between naps - it was weird but I think good. Watched some more Project MC2 and started H2O again from the beginning. I last watched that properly in the immediate aftermath of losing Dad, so it’s been sort of nostalgic in a strange way but also feels quite different watching it now. But it’s about mermaids and female friendship so was always going to be right up my street, wasn’t it?!

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I think this week might be my most unexpected to date of this project - but learned that saying yes to ridiculous things is often fun, I fit in better than I expected at a metal gig, and along with my rediscovered camper van/car joy, my inner goth showgirl needs some nurturing, she has been hiding for a while. Which is perhaps why the car camper is lowkey circus/showgirl themed?!

The full body music beat is something I can’t get over - I didn’t know I’d missed it but it was like a full body reset of joy, I can’t even describe how it felt without sounding like a proper oddity. And it feels mad to me that it felt like that and yet I didn’t realise I had missed it until I felt it again. So there’s that. Maybe I will be more coherent about this with some more processing time?!

And I am ending this week so, so proud of myself and everything I have done and achieved in the last 22 years. I may still be financially chaotic, unrealistic about what can get done in a day and often juggling too many things, but I have done some extraordinary things in my time on the planet so far. It’s a nice feeling because I’m usually so fixated on what I need to do next.

If you look back instead of forward for a brief moment this week, what do you see? I’d love to hear!

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex. Find everything she does here: https://carlawatkins.com/multipod

Girl Meets Van II is the story of my camper van dreams, reignited from my old Girl Meets Van blog, after a decade in which I spent my camper savings on a house, lost my lovely Dad who was going to help me convert an actual van, and made a half hearted attempt to turn my spare room into a camper-style space. Then my brilliant friend Lu bought a van to convert into a camper & film production van, which was partly my fault, and less than a week after she brought it home I had the idea to try and turn my Toyota hatchback Serafina into a micro camper, so I could join her on little trips, use her van as a base vehicle and still have my own space.

It’s an unexpected and very joyful ongoing adventure!

We both have Insta highlights if you want to follow along in more immediate time - mine at colourfulmagicalweirdo (Girl Meets Van / car camper) and hers at jellyfielderstudios (Johnny Boy II).

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Figured it was about time I did another update on where I’ve got to with the camper car - and I’m working with Lu in the big van today (while writing, not the day of publication, don’t be silly, that would involve me starting & finishing a post on the same day) so that feels like a good place to write this from.

Here’s my current view:

Genuinely thought I’d done more updates here but I think most of them have been over on Insta, so here goes:

First up was removing the bulb in the boot, so I could leave the boot open without running down the main battery constantly. This was actually a really easy two minute job with a flat screwdriver, although while doing it in the studio car park two separate people asked if I’d broken down, so strong start 😂

Next up was clearing the car because a sort of critical part of being able to sleep in the car is it not being completely full of everything but the kitchen sink…

Found some water in the spare wheel compartment which I wasn’t thrilled about, but hoping it’s condensation rather than a leak. Dried it out in the sun and found some duck tape and mini dehumidifier things and this is my current fix:

Then was figuring out how to make the back into less car more van.

I figured out shortly after I bought Serafina in 2018 that if I put my 6 foot folding table in the back it made a pretty much flat surface, which gives me a good base to start from for camper conversion.

To test the concept I essentially just chucked in anything I could find from the house which seemed vaguely relevant:

A double duvet, my beautiful black & white cushions & blanket which I can’t use in the house because they get rapidly covered in cat hair, my sleeping bag, and a blanket Mum crocheted for me a couple of birthdays ago.

And then I took it all for a little test spin while waiting for a friend to come out of a hospital appointment!

I now know I need, in no particular order:

• Better padding / decent mattress - sleeping comfortably will be the key part of whether I enjoy this or not long term

• Some kind of shade for the back when boot is open

• A toilet / loo solution even if only for emergencies

• Somewhere to put my sodding keys because I lost them four times in twenty minutes while sitting in the back…!

I am as ever writing this a month or so behind reality so current updates are over on my camper car Instagram highlight, and I will write some more blog updates when I can in between the chaos that is real life right now. But it’s very exciting to be making my long-held camper dreams come true without having to switch base vehicle… squeee!💙

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It would appear 20 odd years later nothing has changed on that front, I am still permanently running around like a headless chicken. But the vast majority of it is stuff I choose, the pursuit of joy, and connection with people I love, so while it’s often overwhelming it’s almost never the bad kind of busy.

This week saw my sixth Wivenhoe Art Trail (and twelfth open studios across both old & current studio, which exploded my brain a bit), and my favourite so far - so without further ado here’s the week’s offline magic!

(grab a cuppa, it’s a long one - because so many photos to illustrate this week!)

IRL adventures

Mostly was at the studio setting up for the trail - you’d think by now I’d have a standard plan, but no, every one is different. This one was marginally less chaotic than usual though and for the first time ever I managed to keep my office usable rather than throwing everything in and shutting the door like it was Narnia.

⬆️ There is always a mildly chaotic scene somewhere in the setup process

But the final setup made me really happy and felt the most me any of my open studios have been so far!

⬆️ L-R and clockwise: Stardust on reception duty / mermaid examples and one new print (Offline Stories) / my sketchbook & brand boards / entrance gallery and my other new print, Hollow Heart / the mini print vending machine, a working vintage typewriter & some alter ego work.

⬆️ L-R My open sign / vending machine & Derek the recycling dragon / about my art series / my prints for sale (which always slightly blows my mind!)

Managed another inspiration shopping trip for camper car fun - I don’t think I’ve ever done so much shopping and bought so little in my life, it turns out having a ludicrously small space (she really is a micro camper in the true sense of micro) means I am a lot more specific about what I actually bring into it.

I fell down an absolute rabbithole of nostalgic photos while finalising my talk for next week, about my founder journey and what I’ve done since age 18 to get to where I am now. It has been magical and weird and astounding and beautiful to see it all laid out, and every time I searched for a photo I got sidetracked by about fifteen others. #

⬆️ Clockwise from top left: Body positive mermaid shoot with Megan Crabbe / Me at my uni / with my beloved Poppy car / my very first blog post outside of Livejournal or Myspace in November 2004 / the professional photoshoot in which my own mum didn’t recognise me, which has had a massive influence on how I shoot & edit (not like this!!)

⬆️ Clockwise from top left: a Mermaiding UK stall & business cards / me at one of the borders in Rusty McLusty, our Romania rat rod rally car / an early mermaid photo on West Wittering beach / photographing Marianne Cantwell’s book launch - a book that I’m in! / me on my own graduation day / me doing ridiculous mermaid things in Harwich

⬆️ And finally, my burlesque adventures popped up a lot during this nostalgic trip down memory lane, and I was really struck by how HAPPY I look in all of these, from various performances across 2012-14, including our Fling Festival tent and Hogswatch.

Did a fun last minute late night train station pick up - there is something about having a section titled “adventures” in my log sheets that really makes me see adventure and joy in the tiniest of things lately. I love this shift - it’s much better for my overall emotional state.

Offline pursuits

Kicked off the week with a dentist checkup but actually that wasn’t as awful as I’d anticipate. I’ve always been a bit twitchy about dentists because I had a LOT of orthodontic work and a stupid number of both baby and adult teeth taken out when I was younger, but the one I have now has made me feel a lot better about dentistry in general.

Lots of tidying of studio & office, less so of home… I know the end result is satisfying but I really hate the process! Anyone else only really tidy when you hit an unspecified level of frustration with too much stuff in piles everywhere?

Studio tidying came with a side helping of grief, which really took me by surprise, I felt a bit weird for a chunk of the day and then found myself sitting on the floor with a sheaf of prints in my hand actually sobbing and realised once again that grief is not linear and may ambush you at any time, usually the least suspected trigger will be the worst. This was twofold - triggered by and mainly about the ex-friend, but then while making my studio ready for visitors, was just deeply and profoundly sad that Dad never got to see this part of my life.

He knew I was a photographer and a mermaid, I turned professional photographer (though still with my day job) the year before he died, he knew about the miniatures in some sense because he helped me move all 200 model horses several times between home & uni, and they lived in his & mum’s garage for a few years.

I know he was proud of me and my various pursuits because he told me almost every time I saw or spoke to him. But he didn’t see my studio, he didn’t see my best work so far, he didn’t see my art or my unhinged doll setups, and he didn’t get to witness what he made possible - me building a life I thought was utterly beyond the realms of imagination. But he’s still very present, in my story and lots of conversations, and in the Route 66 clock on the back wall of my studio which is permanently set to 5pm. Because it’s always 5 o’clock somewhere!

In happier things, I edited & delivered event previews from last week’s cyber event and am actually really pleased with them - looking forward to doing the rest!

Got a sneak peek at the TEMPRD van wrap artwork and made some decisions with the rest of the team - I cannot wait to see our little chocolatey vans zooming round Essex bringing people happiness!

And finally and very sensibly, did a Sainsburys order to save spending hours grocery shopping in a mad week, and also because my favourite peas are from Sainsburys so now I have nearly 6kg of them in the freezer, which is excellent. (I have been this weird about food since I was old enough to say “no thank you” but it is much easier to be strangely specific when you are an adult and buying your own shopping!)

Creative project progress

The bulk of this week was creative project based, I think!

Ordered, packed and framed all my new art trail prints - I usually fanny around for weeks flapping that I have no new work to show, and this trail I have a whole new body of work in progress and a couple of new prints for sale, which was a great feeling.

The dolls / miniatures / Barbie versions of us / playing with scale vibe has been very strong for me over the last year or so, but at the last couple of trails people had asked if I was creating the dolls with AI.

To which the answer is an emphatic no - I even made my own “doll” of me entirely with photos, real 1:6 scale accessories and a painstaking Photoshop tutorial for the packaging, when everyone else was making them with prompts and various LLMs.

So this year I figured I’d go fully unhinged and bring some of my collection for people to see, hold, spark some nostalgia, and show them exactly what I mean when I say I work with miniatures and play with scale.

This obviously developed into building a whole doll apartment, which I thoroughly enjoyed and so did most of my visitors. Because even adults are allowed to play!

I’m used to people making hilarious surprised noises as they come up the stairs and see the open door to my studio and catch sight of Stardust:

And I’m well aware I’m a very different vibe to most of the other artists on the trail (though can I take a moment to celebrate that I think that’s the first time ever I have referred to them as “other” artists rather than “proper” artists, implying I am not a proper artist. I am a proper artist, it’s just taken me a while to be able to say it out loud!).

But I really did enjoy everyone’s reactions to my miniature worlds this year!

I also had way too much fun moving the dolls around every evening after closing and sending Lu updates on what her mini alter ego was up to overnight.

⬆️ Phone snaps of one evening where I was hoping life wouldn’t imitate art and we would actually get some sleep not be up editing all night!

⬆️ Some of the proper photos I took while my setup was up. Small worlds are very soothing.

I made my brand photo board and my sketchbook / WIP board displays and again felt very proud of those - I have come a long way since my first open studios at Ardleigh.

In other creative joy I did some experimental dancing in lots of different shoes, established tap & line are two VERY different disciplines, and painted the front of the Barbie car (no, that wasn’t essential this week but happened anyway).

Made a bit more camper car conversion progress which I will write about in more detail in a different post and which will appear in that linked section when I’ve published it :)

And then obviously it was the Wivenhoe Art Trail itself! Friday to Monday (so yes technically next week as well!), 10am to 5pm, I think the busiest one I have ever had, and a steady stream of lovely people all day, each day.

People magic

SO much people magic. I have had the best chats all weekend, complete strangers have shared stories & nostalgia & pictures & memories with me, prompted by my art and my dolls and my own stories.

Before opening on Friday, I snuck in to visit Jane Watson, a miniaturist and silver artist who lives in Wivenhoe and who I’ve not managed to get to before because once I’m in my own studio I’m kind of there for the duration!

She is MAGICAL - a proper miniaturist, she’s even made a tiny 1:12 typewriter, and her jewellery is often based around objects that would otherwise be discarded - look how cute the ring pull is! We had a lovely chat and also discovered we’re both fountain pen fanatics. Squeak! Here’s a little peek into her world:

⬆️ Clockwise from left: Jane’s miniatures on display (this pic does not do them justice) / her desk with some in progress pieces / the tiniest perfect typewriter / contact details / silver jewellery!

The absolute best part of any event for me is always the conversations, and I think this might have been my favourite open studios of the lot so far.

Mum & her friend Ginny came to visit on Saturday, which was really lovely - because of our life set up & Gran, I tend to go across to them rather than Mum coming to me, and if she does come my way generally she visits the grandkittens, so she doesn’t get to see either the studio or my work all together very often and it’s always a joy seeing her reaction and how proud & happy she is to tell other people about her weirdo daughter’s creative passions. I am very lucky 💙

Quite a few of the other artists & my fellow studio residents came to say hi, and it was great to catch up with them as I am often here at such weird hours I only bump into the bakers at silly o clock! Lovely Natalie came to hold the fort for me on Monday, but I was enjoying chatting both to her & visitors too much to actually leave my space! (I know that’s technically next week but it’s art trail weekend so all usual rules are off!)

In messages I had another lovely one from Jeng, a note from Barbara (who was my over the road neighbour from age 6 and who first introduced me to witchery and astrology and magic) to remind me about the Flower Moon, a voice note exchange with Lou over the course of a day which we don’t normally do, but was really lovely to hear her voice despite being totally impossible to align our schedules for a phone call!

And unexpected but equally happymaking connection (mostly via message and voice note - I am becoming a voice note fan to my surprise) with all the usual suspects plus Becky MissFits, , Claire, , , Caitlin, Ally, and .

Glimmers

Realising how far I have come and what I have made happen - I made a reel about it because it really struck me with force as I was finishing my setup.

Allowing myself to go full unhinged me and bring dolls & mini-us Barbies to the art trail and lean in to my art - whether other people like it or not.

Playing Barbies with my friend Tash & her children unexpectedly after closing on Sunday.

New prints! It is just so lovely seeing my work in print when it’s usually mostly digital.

The lovely reactions to my reel, my dolls and the iAlso video this week - I know they’re online but they’re from real people and they really made me smile.

The expression “silly goose” made an appearance in a chat and really tickled me for some reason, and I needed the smiles that day.

Analogue acquisitions

A completely ludicrous set of Hollywood style lights for the camper car… I forgot that at night I will have blackouts on, so unsure exactly where they’re going to live.

Guest permits for studio car park, which is good because it means I can still run workshops when the new parking rules kick in.

Not really an acquisition, more of a rehome, I moved one of my little Eufy security cameras from home to the studio for the trail, which meant I could actually occasionally leave my space for a wee and get a notification on my phone if anyone popped in and I needed to return! (affiliate link but I only ever recommend stuff I use & love!)

And a most unexpected gift, one of my visitors came back after seeing my apartment setup and brought me a Maileg ironing board, clothes airer and mop & bucket set, all perfectly sized for my 1:6 Barbie house. Thank you Carole - you made my week!

Read & watched

A bit of Project MC2 and the first chapter of Bluebear - now I know he doesn’t technically die at the end of each of his lives I am much more enthusiastic about reading it!

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Ooof - well that was a long but very joyful romp through the art trail week - I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing & finding all the photos. I often wish I’d taken more “proper” photos, but there’s something about documenting life with snapshots from my phone which fits how I’ve always blogged, and I like it even though they’re very much not reflective of my actual photography skills.

What have you been up to? Tell me all the things!

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.

Without further ado here’s this week’s roundup:

IRL adventures

Had a big event shoot this week for the excellent TechWyse, which involved being in Chelmsford for 8am. Which I used to do regularly when I worked in libraries, but turns out I wildly underestimated how long it would take to get off the bloody A12! But all was ok, and was actually a great morning with fab clients & their guests, and my lovely co-conspirators Lu & Ben doing the filming side so I could focus just on photography.

Had a tiny adventure on the way back sitting in the sunshine in Lu’s van drinking diet coke which was just ridiculously lovely - I could get used to this van life lark.

Also did some chauffering for hospital appointments, and got to hang out in my car-camper contraption while waiting, which was very lovely and has given me some more ideas for layout (and padding... I definitely need more padding!).

And finally, did a friend drop off in Harlow and then snuck off to do some shopping afterwards - also camper van coded, which was a really nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and meant some extra catch up chat too. Also... Harlow has an IKEA now so will be back to visit that soon I am certain. Previously my nearest IKEA has been Lakeside, or when I visit Lou in Reading which isn’t as often as I’d like it to be. So this is an exciting development!

Offline pursuits

Had a little mooch in Chelmsford and a sneaky HomeSense visit after the shoot, because why not! For probably the first time ever I did not buy anything stationery or doll themed, and instead just wandered round getting camper van interior ideas. This obsession is strong!

Did initial cull & preview edits for the event, which I actually enjoyed more than I thought I would (I love shooting and editing, I HATE having to cull down and choose between tiny expression changes so people aren’t overwhelmed with seven billion photos).

Started a list of everything I have ever done since age 18 towards being self employed & my businesses now, in preparation for a talk I’m giving on 5th May for student entrepreneurs over at Essex Startups. It was lovely to see so much written down but also slightly overwhelming and I have no idea how I am going to get this into any kind of coherent 45 minute talk, but we shall see...

In less exciting things my little freezer in the kitchen has an almost unusable top drawer because it ices up almost as fast as I can defrost it, and I frequently lose my temper with it. Cannot currently afford a new freezer and can’t face the faff factor so researched and eventually found a new seal (it’s quite an old freezer so it was a bit of a mission) and hoping to have a chance to change that over and see if it fixes the issue.

And my depo injection, which is not fun but is important and very much offline!

Creative project progress

Finally made it to Mum’s and collected the prettier lino from my old studio - it’s only been 2.5 years oops. And far from being too big and needing cutting down, it’s an almost perfect fit, other than a couple of cupboard doors which may need cutting or sanding down a tiny bit.

Swapped the table in the back of Serafina to make a better, flatter surface to start building on.

In my various mooches this week I finally found a Barbie who had broadly the right colour hair for a miniature Lu, and blue eyes. I have had hellish issues with getting the right hair/eye combinations for both of us, and suspect I will have to just learn to paint eyes at some point.

The only downside is that she had very straight hair, and Lu’s is curly - so armed with the last of my plastic straw stash (yes I’ve kept them for future doll hairdressing) I set about learning to curl Barbie hair.

Horror scenes ensued, this hobby is creepier than I intended sometimes! And wow, curly hair is a ride - mine is so dead straight it doesn’t hold curl even when hairdressers do it, so I was a bit foxed when I first undid the rollers and had a cloud of fluff:

But patience and quite a long time and some spray stuff and a bit of swearing (and text & voice note input from real life Lu) later, plus a swap to a curvy made to move body, she is looking perfect!

And here we both are, ready for Barbie-sized adventures this summer!

In semi-offline projects, I gathered all my lurking SD cards and personal work backups and made a spreadsheet so I actually know what I have, what still needs editing (bloody loads of it, it’s like the cobbler’s children never having any shoes), and where it is when I want to get at it. Which took forever but was a good and overdue job.

And I learned a new dance to a new song I’d stumbled across by accident, Ava Max’s Salt, and printed a whole bunch of step sheets for dances I want to try.

People magic

Dinner with my lovely Mum the evening I picked up the lino from her garage for the studio, which was unexpected but really nice.

A loooooong call with , which was also unexpected but really joyful. My best friends are magical but far-flung so proper chats are always happymaking.

Curry at my favourite place with Mum, Colin, Rob & Sonia to belatedly celebrate my 40th birthday, which was a delight and reminded me they’re my family as well as my cofounders - it was fab to chat about all sorts of things, as we tend to just talk TEMPRD when we’re together normally.

Shoot time with Lu, Ben & Ness and her team, van time with Lu, and a long catch up with Ella one evening when for the first time in ages we were both at studios at the same time meant my week has just been full of really good people (I mean, my weeks usually are, but this one was extra delightful!).

Plus coaching onboarding with Michelle, a call about the founder session, and a delightful message exchange with Caitlin - another tiny human has made his entry into the world 💙

Glimmers

This week has absolutely overflowed with glimmers and joyful happenings, too many to list but here are a few highlights:

Sam got her PhD studentship!! One of the things that makes me happiest is my friends doing things which make them happy, and this has been such a journey - and is SO well deserved.

⬆️ One of my fave shots from Sam’s Cornwall shoot - I’m so excited she’ll be nearer now!

Gorgeous Eve sent me a photo of her new office wall - with the print I named for her, A New Story, & gave her the first copy of framed and up 💙

If you’d like your own print you can find them and all my others in my online shop!

My first request to hire the studio as a meeting/workshop venue, rather than as a photography studio, in a couple of weeks’ time, came through - so that will be exciting!

New niblings & scan joy - I’m so lucky to have such epic kidlets in my life while having chosen not to be a parent myself.

Proper hugs - the one thing I sometimes dislike about my solo life is not having really good hugs on tap. But this week was full of good hugs!

And is it a glimmer or is it just hilarious… parked Serafina next to Lu’s van, JB2, for the first time when we were both shooting the event in Chelmsford. While on my drive she seems like a perfectly reasonable size for a micro camper, next to the behemoth that is JB2 I had to laugh:

Analogue acquisitions

My new skate wheels and bearings arrived! Wheels I’m still slightly nervous of but wanted to get them while I had birthday money, and will ease myself into using them. The bearings mean we can now go outdoor skating - both sets of my outdoor wheels desperately needed a new set for safety and while I’m happy to risk my own neck, I’d rather not risk my friends’ safety if they’re using any of my kit.

At the end of the shoot on Wednesday my lovely client (and now friend) Ness gave me the most beautiful mermaid-appropriate silver pendant she’d made, which made me cry but in the best way.

New freezer seal arrived but I haven’t been brave enough to try and fit it yet, and I finally got a long weighted bit of wood for the bottom of my studio backdrops.

Read & watched

Enola Holmes 1 & 2, mainly for costume inspiration, Descendants 3, read some more of Playing Big and did my usual youtube dive of campers, stop motion, doll customs (and creating fringes for Barbies) and randomly some abandoned theme park things which I find strangely fascinating.

—

I am really loving the amount of joy and ridiculousness I’m managing to fit in amidst work and life and caring and chaos, and I think I’m actually getting to do more of the stuff that makes me happy now I’ve mostly let go of the fictional concept of having endless days just to create.

It’s sometimes frustrating having to spin a project out over days or weeks or months (or years, for some of the ones in my head still), but it doesn’t change the satisfaction when they come together, and doing it this way means I get little pockets of joy every day rather than sort of saving it all for specific occasions.

What mad stuff are you squidging into the little corners of life?

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.

Which is basically where you write down what you’re doing when you’re doing it, and which I have been doing without knowing it has a name for years now, both in a planner and in a couple of chats with friends where we keep ourselves motivated.

IRL adventures

An expedition to Harlow in Lu’s van which was a delight - collecting mats for a film shoot and taking on the M25.

⬆️ I think our smiles say it all!

I guess not technically offline, but had a lovely evening with moving our podcast over here to Substack and recording an explanatory episode about the move and how we plan to re-release everything this year before a new season in 2027. Episode not ready yet, but you can follow along with us on our shiny new Substack podcast!

Visit Creative Reboot on Substack!

Had an almost-adventure late one evening when Mum accidentally leaned on the voice note recording button after saying goodnight and putting her phone down… 8 minutes of recording later (she doesn’t do voice notes ever) I had the bright idea of WhatsApp calling her to break the recording. Still no answer. When 20 mins later I still hadn’t heard back, but my messages were all going to blue ticks, and she also hadn’t answered the landline, I was just about ready to get in the car and drive to the rescue, assuming Gran had fallen or something else bad had happened.

Turns out her phone was accidentally on silent, and she’d ignored the landline because she’s been getting lots of spam calls recently and she knew I’d call her mobile first. We did have a giggle but I’d been imagining all sorts, and if I’d actually got over there after both she & Gran were in bed & asleep I think I’d have given them the fright of their lives 🙈

Starting Serafina’s camper conversion definitely feels like an adventure! I’m enjoying the planning & creating and I hope I’ll enjoy the actual camping as much.

⬆️ It’s a beginning…

And I had a couple of shopping based adventures in town and to B&Q, for car camper based bits & pieces and inspiration!

Offline pursuits

Lots of studio & studio office time, which was nice - it’s been a bit manic lately and I’ve been doing a lot of work from my laptop wherever I happen to be. (Which I guess was the dream once upon a time, but I think I envisaged having a bit more control over where I was for which tasks 😂)

⬆️ I love working at home too, but have a very stern fluffy supervisor

Edited and delivered the first half of Leah’s headshot session, and already looking forward to the outdoor half when the weather obliges.

Printed stickers for my new Clever Fox planner (changing Sunday start to Monday start on the monthly spreads, and replacing “love & relationships” with “self care & happiness” on the weekly spreads). It’s a bit of a faff but worth it for a planner that works!

⬆️ I’m sure I took a photo this year but cannot find it so have 2024’s identical labels instead

Made chocolate crispy cakes and then proceeded to eat the whole lot myself, I have zero regrets.

Creative project progress

Took the bulb out of Serafina’s boot which is the big first step towards her being camper-able without draining the battery. I emptied her and was astounded at how much stuff I had in the back seats - one neighbour asked if I was clearing out the garage!

I’m keeping track of my plotting and progress in an Instagram highlight as well as in a tag here, so if you want to follow along please do.

I gave the rescue Sindy from last week a wash and a new outfit (do we call this a glow up these days?!) and she’s looking fabulous - I’m so excited to finally have a Sindy in my collection.

I’ve had a couple of enquiries recently for more empowerment type shoots, which is what I originally designed my All Your Glory shoots to be. Not just boudoir - not even boudoir necessarily, but a shoot which reflects exactly who you really are. So I reworked my brochure for that a bit, and realised that as most of those sessions result in intensely personal images which stay private, I could do with some more portfolio shoots. So that’s gone on the very long list!

People magic

Lu, and briefly met Laura on the way which was nice. My lovely neighbours Donna & Rich, and that was pretty much it on the irl front this week!

Loads and loads of messages though, and zooms & phone calls with Rhiannon, Lou, Sarah, Sharon & Mum, so plenty of outside world contact.

Glimmers

While I was sitting inside Serafina pondering both my weirdness and the possible layouts for sleeping / storage etc, a helicopter flew right over my house & drive - so it really feels like Dad approves of my amended plans more than a decade later. He was going to help me convert a proper van before he died, so this was an unexpected joyful but bittersweet moment.

⬆️ Me just after it happened (I’ll post the video eventually) and the helicopter overhead!

A long chat with Lou and photos of her youngest daughter, my newest nibling Millie (who is in fact almost 7 months old now, but still smorl & cute)!

Spotting a new book exchange in a phone box in town. Fun but important note - these pop up installations should always be known as “book swaps” or “book exchanges” and never, ever “free libraries” - libraries are already free to access and they are so much more than just books. But this was still lovely to see.

And Jeng sent me a photo of her sixth form notebook which really made me lol - the Y2K text writing (but in gel pen) was funny, but the message I’d written for her was even funnier… why did I think ten years was such a very, VERY long time when we were 18?!

Lou and bumped into each other again at a Berkshire creative networking event, which made me smile - it must be 10+ years since the regular Free Range Human meetups where they first met via me!

Analogue acquisitions

A tiny perfect pink sofa for mini me & my dolls. A sunset coloured disco ball for Lu’s van-warming present - who doesn’t need a pink and orange disco ball in their camper van?!

⬆️ Better photo of the sofa does exist, but has a massive spoiler in it!

An equally ridiculous pink crystal pen (from the same Flying Tiger x Rupaul range as the sofa & the disco ball) to make journalling prettier.

Read & watched

Carmen Sandiego and a whole stack of YouTube videos about dolls, miniatures and camper conversions.

—

Van life dreams may have fully taken over my brain, but I think my main observation this week is that the tiniest of things can really boost your mood unexpectedly.

Glimmers have become a non-negotiable part of my day, writing mine is usually the last thing I do each day before lights out (with pretty pens, in a real notebook, although this is one practice I would say is beneficial no matter whether it’s paper or screen based), and it’s definitely had a positive impact on my overall mood & mental health.

What tiny things or practices lift your mood when things are feeling weird?

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.

Otherwise a glorious, sunshiney and very full week that really felt like spring is finally, FINALLY here.

(and yes, I’m still catching up, but refusing to feel bad about it!)

IRL adventures

Lots of peoply adventures this week!

A halfway day with Claire on Tuesday - there is a pub and a stately home with a park in Hatfield which is conveniently exactly halfway between me and two of my besties who still live down south - so whenever we can, we hop there for the day and a proper catch up.

It was glorious enough weather to walk in the park (with an Easter trail and some very cute wooden bunnies) and sit outside for lunch and all afternoon! And I always feel happier and sparklier after spending time with Claire so that was a lovely extension of the bank holiday weekend.

⬆️ I know the trail was for kids but I really enjoyed Hatfield House’s Easter bunnies!

My epic friend Ally & her equally epic daughter Phoebe brought their adventure kitten Talia to visit my Gran on Thursday morning, which was the most joyful thing ever. She’s a Bengal and very clever, and Gran loves her because she reminds her of big African cats, and we had so much fun!

Booked We Will Rock You at the Mercury in Colchester for September, which I’m really excited about - have seen it twice in London and am always obsessed with the costumes. And I’m off to the World’s Edge fantasy festival in June and booked a hair workshop for that, which will definitely be an experience as I am terrible at doing my hair - the colour functions as style, personality, everything 😂

Offline pursuits

Lots of calendar stuff with paper and print outs and highlighters and swearing… it is not my favourite job because there are so many moving parts!

Did a big house tidy during the week, and quite a bit of actual work on Sunday evening, which was unexpected but helpful.

Had a trip to town for some errands and some joy, including looking for car camper accessories and camping kit. I am trying to do this on a budget but there is a whole WORLD of shopping out there as & when I do have spare money to throw at it!

And finally, impulsively made some shimmery body lotion one night before bed. Which I was going to put under creative project progress, except I had no idea I was going to do it till about five minutes before.

I will say that I may never use normal body lotion ever again though - having sparkly skin is incredibly happymaking and feels very on brand for me, somehow!

Creative project progress

Rescued a vintage Sindy from the charity shop - she’s in need of some TLC but she was £2 and I couldn’t leave her behind. Turns out she’s a 1982-84 model so a little bit older than me. And I added her & my Barbie customs to my doll folder so that’s up to date.

Car camper conversion plotting is well under way and I made lots of progress in my sketchbook this week - hoping to put some of it into practice next week. There’s now a new tag on here for it too - Girl Meets Van II.

I took proper photos of the doll apartment setup on my desk at home - complete with the tiny typewriter Mum got me for Easter - and I am SO THRILLED with miniature me and the resulting shots.

⬆️ Also particularly excited by mini me with a mini model horse… art imitates life 💙

This exploration back into a miniature world is feeding my soul and creativity in a way I couldn’t have imagined or predicted even a year or so ago. Increasingly I am convinced that we will always find our way back to what is meant for us.

In work things I updated my mermaid shoot enquiry brochure and also my author headshot information - they’re PDFs but I do sometimes get them printed, and they count for this project because they’re creative and joyful.

Made a daily duelling sheet and a monthly expenses to add to Xero sheet for my Filofax - I really am a paper planner girl. Then I repurposed my weekly whiteboard, turned it into a monthly one, and created a whole new set of magnets to go on it to help me plan my months and shoot availability and energy levels.

People magic

It’s been a gorgeously peoply week - starting with a lovely long day with Claire:

Wednesday brought a catch up with Natalie which we’ve been trying to get in the diary for at least two years, so that was a total delight.

Got to see Ally & Phoebe and Talia-kitten with Mum & Gran which was a wonderful crossover of worlds for a little while.

Snuck out with Mum for a creme egg McFlurry and to get some household stuff, bumped into my friend Ann when I was in town running errands, and met Katie from Mudlark which has just opened in the business centre where my studio is. We knew each other from the art trail, but it’ll be lovely to have her and the others there nearby and see them more often.

As with most weeks, had some properly good chats with some properly good people - I know how lucky I am to have so many excellent friends and I am grateful for them every day. More so because they’ve been so patient with me around the end of the friendship at the end last year which shook my foundations, and haven’t taken my wobbly questions as a judgement of them. Which is good, because it absolutely isn’t, it’s just been me re-establishing trust in my own judgement and instincts, with people who love me. (And I love them - very, very much. I don’t think we tell our friends we love them enough on the whole!)

Plus a couple of unexpected but really nice conversations with new people on LinkedIn after connecting - not for sales or client collecting, literally just getting to know each other because why not. It’s how social media should be!

Glimmers

Covered all the glimmers already in different sections so will spare you the repeats, other than Luna & Clover who are always glimmers in my days.

And are absolutely still trolling me with the new round bed…

There’s no feeling quite like falling asleep with your familiars, or like waking up with paws on your shoulder and whiskers in your ear. As I type this Luna has come and snuggled up next to me and is heavily hinting I should put the laptop down and do more cuddles please.

Analogue acquisitions

In the “mundane yet weirdly exciting” category, I finally got round to replacing my garden washing line which broke in July and has been trying to take my eye out on a regular basis ever since. It cost me a whole £12.80, the new one is not rusty, and I am kicking myself for not doing this earlier. So while I was there I also bought a new rainbow parasol, as mine was very cheap, has done seven years of continuous service and is absolutely shredded from the sun. We call my home town the Wiviera for a reason 😂

In the “essential useful shit” category this week (who knew I had categories for stuff I acquire?!) was a new hairbrush and my annual Clever Fox planner. I for inexplicable reasons run my weekly planner from May to April every year, and this is my fourth year of using Clever Fox, which I think might actually be an unprecedented run of the same kind of planner. Sshhh, I don’t want to jinx it!

And in the “total joy” category was my bargain vintage Sindy, an Essex Bakery creme egg brownie, a waterproof felt tip eyeliner in navy - I cannot tell you how long I have been waiting for one - my signature teal hair dye and some shimmer gel which inspired my sparkly body lotion making.

Read & watched

Mostly Carmen Sandiego and a shit tonne of car camper conversion videos and vanlife videos. Old obsession very much reignited!

—

Every time I write up a week of offline magic from the paper log I keep in my filofax I am astounded at how much I am packing into my life, but in a really good way. I’ve spent a long time berating myself for not building my business fast enough, not progressing quickly with learning & development I’m doing, not fitting in everything I want to, not creating the things that are in my head for years on end, and never being consistent with stuff like social media & marketing.

And then I collate all the things I’m doing that aren’t on a screen here, often don’t even fit all of them into the weekly post, and realise each time that my life is full to overflowing with all the good, joyful, important things & people and I should probably give myself a bit more credit and a bit less criticism.

Yes, I need to get my business back to a more sustainable income around caring, which has had a big impact over the last few years, and yes, it’s a really crappy time for pretty much every type of business I know right now - but there is more to life than work even when you love your work with every fibre of your being.

My big learning point other than that this week is that I really need regular visitors in order to keep on top of my house. It’s usually clean but it’s almost never tidy, and yet the transformation I can achieve in under 2 hours before someone is due to visit is ASTOUNDING.

I’ve got out of the habit of having friends over other than the ones who are like my sisters so I don’t tidy up for (sorry loves - you know who you are!) and I think this may be something I need to try and reintroduce to my life so my house doesn’t get out of control.

(And because it’s fun, obviously!)

I hope your week has been equally full of good things, and as always I’d love to hear about them if you’d like to share! Thank you for reading - it means the world 💙

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.

Easter massively snuck up on me this year (it’s SO early) and I was ill over the bank holiday weekend which meant missing rollerskating, but it was still a lovely week with lots of good stuff in it, though between illness and busting my shoulder it wasn’t the most energetic I’ve ever had.

⬆️ Lurking at Mum’s with a helpfully-shaped hot water bottle

This balanced being less offline than usual thanks to some website woes that needed fixing, a calendar system hiccup and having to actually update my accounts in Xero. Blergh.

Though on that note I think I am going to start Bookkeeping Body Doubling sessions from the end of May, if you’re local to Wivenhoe and fancy joining me one evening a month at my studio to get the sodding accounts done with friends, tea & snacks!

IRL adventures

A print delivery and a pupcup was a fairly fabulous way to start the week - my friend bought a Felix the unicorn print from my shop for her niece and I used the excuse of hand delivering it to get doggy cuddles. Not that I needed an excuse, but…!

Should you want a Felix print of your own there are a handful left in the shop, and I am restocking for the Wivenhoe Art Trail at the start of May along with some new work.

Had another Markshall adventure with Mum & Em, but with two unexpectedly snoozing kidlets this time, which made for uninterrupted conversation flow.

My monthly kit day, with Juliet, which is an accountability day for our art & the business side of it, actually ended up being a day to test doll builds and layouts for the art trail, which was a lot of fun.

Offline pursuits

After 10.5 hours sleep I started Monday dazed rather than well rested - what IS it with sleep in adulthood? It shouldn’t be this complicated, I swear.

I organised some meetings and booked some tickets (for panto next January - how am I already thinking about 2027, I have barely adjusted to 2026 yet), and collected & sorted out my meds for the month. Not a glamorous job but a useful one.

And I guess being ill was a sort of offline pursuit?!

Creative project progress

Lots of Substack catching up, which I actually really enjoyed - I am loving this project a lot, and having a record of my magical little life is a joy. Also published my first Offline Life Magic links roundup, as I have been spotting lots of relevant things that I thought you guys might like too, and made the cover pic for it from a 2015 image I originally took for Ink Drops. Never say I don’t recycle 😂

Built the doll apartment on my bureau desk which was just stupidly joyous, and is actually still there nearly three weeks later, bringing me happiness on a daily basis. Proper photos in it didn’t happen this week because I got ill, but here it is for context & scale:

Finding all the bits I wanted was utter chaos:

And at one point I found myself in my garage with a small saw, adjusting the height of a pink plastic dining table. What is my life? But I love it!

⬆️ I know this saw is total overkill for the purpose but I couldn’t find my hacksaw

Finally finished & printed my annual planning monthly review checklists, which is well overdue and I have been feeling a bit adrift while it’s been lurking. As part of that I added a 40 for 40 page with all the cool stuff I’m doing this year - more record than aspiration, but it is shaping up to be a magical year already.

Made some monthly plan & habit logs, which may or may not stick - I am always refining my planning systems, but have come to the end of my third Clever Fox planner and unsure if, in May, I want another one or I want to shift again for my monthly planning. I’ll keep you posted when I make a decision!

You’ve already seen the video that I edited this week about the head swap to make my first Barbie mini me in last week’s post - this week brought my second successful head swap and similar horrifying scenes!

People magic

Lu & Daisypup, Em & the niblings, and Mum & Gran in person, all of which was glorious - everyone else was messages & zoom / phone call / long voice note exchanges.

⬆️ The unposed giggly pics are always my favourites when my niblings are involved!

I’m getting to like voice notes more - I still really struggle with processing long ones, and remembering everything that was in one so I can reply appropriately, but it is really unexpectedly nice to hear my friends’ voices while I’m pottering about my work and life.

Glimmers

Voice notes are most surprisingly going in here, I’ve had some lush ones this week and have also cried (in a good way) over them.

Support from my lovely friends and check ins while I was ill - did not enjoy being ill, but did feel very loved in the process.

Seeing a video of the little girl who got my Felix print for her 4th birthday was a proper smile moment, as were all the campervan updates from Lu when she collected it & spent her first night in it.

And my absolute favourite message all week was from Jeng, sparked by something I’d written here about friendship, and echoing how I feel about her too. I really feel like the magic of friendship is undervalued in this world when it is at least as enduring and solid as romantic love 💙

Analogue acquisitions

Aside from a quite obscene amount of chocolate (which is reasonable because it’s Easter, yes?!), my amazing Mum found me this beauty of a miniature typewriter for my dolls for Easter - here’s mini me being Very Excited about it.

For the stationery nerds amongst you it’s actually a vintage sharpener, but it is PERFECT for 1:6 scale dolls and it matches one of my own, so is going to fit into my playing with scale photos gloriously well.

A stand out joy of this year and this project has been really noticing how supportive the people I love are of my frankly ridiculous hobbies & passions. While I am often affectionately called a weirdo (and I am very happy with that!), there is no mockery, no raised eyebrows, no scorn - just happiness that I am doing things which make me happy, even if they are really quite odd choices of things to be doing.

(While writing this I remembered that my bloody epic uni housemates did something very similar. Having lived with me and my many model horses in halls & our shared house for two years, watching with fond bafflement as I took myself off to live shows and patiently photographed them all in our tiny university house garden, they decorated model horses for me as a “good luck for your placement year” gift. 20+ years on I cannot explain how much that meant to me - it still makes me well up a bit to be so very loved & accepted for exactly who I am, weird bits and all. We are all still friends all these years later, and I love them weird bits and all too!)

Read & watched

Bit of a binge watch week because I wasn’t well and was sulking about having to miss skating, plus my skin hurt all over which meant staying in bed for pretty much two straight days. So got to make my way through Toy Story 4 and a bunch of the mini related films, all eight new episodes of Unicorn Academy which is a favourite, and started and also binged Carmen Sandiego which I am unexpectedly loving.

⬆️ Luna is keener on Unicorn Academy than Hannah Montana, although my watching habits are still more 8 year old girl than 40 year old woman 😂

—

While I’m still a bit behind on my weekly posts, I can’t be sad about it when my life is so full of good things, can I?! Thank you for being here & reading - and please tell me all the things about your own offline magic!

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.

The blog isn’t as well updated as the folder, but between them there is a metric fuck tonne of info that I’d got together and plotted.

Then I bought a house, rapidly spent my camper van savings renovating said house, and then my lovely Dad died. It was going to be our joint project, and I am a terrible engineer as I tend to experiment, so I abandoned it for a while.

As during that time I also quit the day job and opened a photography studio, Gran moved in, then I moved studios, and my cats are very much not fans of travelling - the last ten or so years have really not been the right time for camping.

I thought I’d put these dreams away other than trying to turn my spare room into a campervan/narrowboat-esque space, because life hasn’t really been travel friendly for a long time now. And that was ok, because I am never short of ideas & dreams and there’s never enough time to do all of them.

Then I met Lu… well, actually I’ve known her for a few years now but she’s always talked about van life, and it turns out helping her buy & plot converting her own van in the last few weeks has reignited my own spark of camper van joy. (Follow her progress in the Johnny Boy II highlight on her Instagram!)

Except I cannot afford a separate camper, nor a van to convert, and I have no desire right now to swap my lovely Serafina, my daily driver, for a van as my sole vehicle.

Enter the world of car camping.

Em was over from the States earlier this month, and she casually mentioned her plans to use her RAV4 to do some fun overnight trips without the faff of a tent. Which ALSO ignited a spark of an idea for me…

When I bought Serafina (so named because 24 hours into owning her she saved my life - had I been driving my beloved MR2 Poppy I am fairly certain I would not have survived the snowdrift situation and been here to tell the tale) I was massively sulking at having to have a sensible car. But I did have enough foresight to find the car that was the most van-like space with a wide boot, while still being a medium sized hatchback and nippy-ish.

A few years ago I fitted roof bars so I could take my ridiculous pink kayak on adventures, and from the initial research I’ve been doing, this all means I (mostly accidentally!) have a good base vehicle already.

So my current obsessive project is figuring out how to make Serafina into a micro camper - and I actually think she’s going to work pretty well!

⬆️ Practically dressed as ever for the start of a hefty DIY project…

And while I did the very first clear out to see if she’d work, a helicopter flew right over me - so I think I can safely assume Dad approves of my modified camper plans.

I’m sure she’ll make her way into the main Offline Life Magic posts - she is the most offline project ever - but I thought maybe a Girl Meets Van II tag wouldn’t be the daftest idea in the whole world… :) There’s a highlight over on my Instagram for stories as I post them, also called Girl Meets Van (no II, it wouldn’t fit in the title 😂). And I’ll keep you posted as progress happens!

IRL adventures

Kicked off the week with my first immersive/VR experience of the year, the Seven Wonders of the World with Mum. She fell in love with VR a couple of years ago when we did the pyramids experience and we’ve tried to go to as many as we can since.

⬆️ Mum mid-VR experience - it still blows my mind that it feels so real when this is the actual reality!

I am on the whole against AI-generated images, but had to laugh at these two bits of glorious silliness that were part of our tickets!

Had a proper adventure road trip to Norfolk to view a camper van with Lu and use my rusty but reasonably solid car knowledge - squeak!

Plus an unexpected visit to Wrexham, where everywhere is Roy’s - I’d seen it on Tiktok and had no idea it was actually relatively nearby.

⬆️ Roy’s, complete with baffled (me) and local knowledge (Lu) soundtrack

Second half of the week brought an egg hunt and lunch at Markshall with lovely Em & her littles and my mum.

And then there was the football.

At the start of this year I was named in the iAlso100 list of female entrepreneurs, and their main celebration event is in March for International Women’s Day. This year they hosted us at the Emirates stadium for the Arsenal v Spurs women’s football - and it was INCREDIBLE.

It was so good to meet so many of the other iAlso women, mostly from this year but also from previous years, and hear about all the amazing things everyone is doing.

The actual football was surprisingly emotional, not least because the stadium was packed.

Back in the (very) distant misty past I was a season ticket holder at Reading - not because I especially liked footie, but because that was the only way I got any social time with my friends who did - and the women's game wasn't seen in the same way as the men's at all. Often not even getting to play in the main stadium, and definitely not attracting the same crowd numbers or enthusiasm - despite being absolutely as talented.

To see Emirates so full and so enthusiastic for this game was just glorious and I absolutely loved the day.

And as part of it I had my photo taken by Charlie Gray - it was weird being on the other side of the camera!

Offline pursuits

Turned a plastic table into “wood” top with floor tiles - unsure this is my best crafting work yet but I hated the plastic so hoping this can be a permanent change.

⬆️ If only it had been this speedy in real life…

Looked for Worlds Collide tickets but there are no UK dates (yet?) so my bank balance is relieved.

Had half a studio shoot with lovely Leah, with the outdoor half postponed to a day when it’s not drizzling - photos to follow when I’ve finished her edit.

Napped hard on Sunday evening - kids are amazing but exhausting and I have no idea how parents do this day in and day out, genuinely. I didn’t even do that much with them!

Creative project progress

All the various Vinted Barbies arrived and I did my first successful head swap to make mini me v1! Here she is:

Some frankly terrifying progress shots:

and here’s the video of the process:

I usually wash the hair of new-to-me dolls as it makes restoring their hair a lot easier if it’s been well loved & played with. But given the head swapping, there were some mild horror scenes in my bathroom in the process of this set of washing!

⬆️ I try to make sure these things are put away if I have visitors!

More studio line dancing, and filmed a set of Lu’s road trip questions on the way to view the van, and now plotting both my own road trip questions videos, and a sneaky plot to possibly turn my Serafina into an occasional micro camper.

People magic

Actually quite a mad peoply week! In real actual life I spent time with Gran & Mum on Monday, then had the road trip/plotting day with Lu and met her brother & sister in law and their kids & pets and had a proper catch up with Leah after her shoot.

My lovely friend & client Melanie (who is also an iAlso) offered to drive us to & from the football when we realised how long the rail replacement buses would take us, and we haven’t seen each other for ages so it was really nice to have a decent chunk of time to chat while driving.

Of course all the other iAlso / f:Entrepreneur / Small Business Britain people!

And then got to spend Sunday with Emily & her boys & my mum.

⬆️ For two people who have been friends this long we have surprisingly few photos of us

Glimmers

A reply from Lizz Rantze, a filmmaker I completely love on instagram, which made me very happy (she’s the creator of the Witch series)

My April event client, who Lu & her team are doing video for, asked for a photo of both of us to introduce us to their team. The most sensible one we had together was the matching squishmallow headphones selfie, which she loved, because my clients are epic.

An unexpected lovely review from one of my mentees, which was caused by my calendar system having an update and sending the request, but which was utterly lovely to read.

Sarah & I both having the same idea about this season of the podcast (to spend the year moving it to Substack rather than recording a new season).

Successfully making my first mini-me was even more joyful than I expected - it is magical having a tiny version of myself to take photos of.

I had a booking to run a founder journey session for student entrepreneurs in May, was recognised by two people I hadn’t yet met on Saturday at the football, and my lovely friend Rhiannon listened to mine & Sarah’s podcast episodes on planning, unprompted, then messaged us to tell us what she loved. There’s still no better feeling than something you created being out in the world and appreciated 💙

Analogue acquisitions

Head swap donor Barbies arrived, squeak. Ordered harder skate wheels & bearings for both sets of outdoor wheels - they’re delayed due to stock issues but am excited for outdoor skating when they do arrive!

Barbie accessory packs from the middle of Lidl… 👀

And what I think is already going to be my standout purchase of 2026 / my 40s, my beautiful Forage leather hip bag. They were amazing & sent me side by side photos when I was debating colours, I went for the indigo purple and am delighted I did, and I have worn it every single day since. Handsfree life is magic and my shoulders are much happier!

(I am yet to get a proper photo of me wearing it but will post about it when I get one.)

Read & watched

Unsurprisingly not huge amounts of read & watch time, but made it through the Hannah Montana 20th anniversary special and Toy Story 3 in sections, and finished The Little Brooklyn Bakery which was a quick but fun read.

⬆️ I love Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus. Luna… very much doesn’t. No amount of coaxing was going to get her to watch it with me properly

—

A super busy but very lovely week and full of some epic people. One of whom has had a complete social media detox, which I am feeling very inspired by (though probably won’t come off entirely, because it is useful for my businesses - but god, how lovely it would be to just not think about it at all ever!)

As ever would love to hear about your offline & analogue adventures - or ways to spend less time on screen 💙

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.

Ok, so there’s something a bit ironic about online links to offline things - but there have been some really interesting articles pop up lately, which suggest that my pull towards analogue, offline, non-screen life is not random and I’m very much not alone with it.

Here are some of my favourites:

• Wired headphone sales are exploding. What’s with the Bluetooth backlash? (BBC)

• Ivy League teacher makes students use typewriters to fight against AI-written work (AOL)

• The Works’ tagline in Google is “Screen-free fun for all the family

  

• The resurgence of film photography (BBC)

• Why Gen Z are logging off and embracing an ‘analogue year’ (Prospect Magazine)

• Analog is back, and my millennial heart couldn’t be happier (Tayo Bero, The Guardian)

My own millennial heart has been lifted reading these - have you spotted anything similar lately? I’d love to read if you have :)

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.

By a week before departure I had some amazing other things booked in so couldn’t rearrange to go after all - but did try to keep the week as writing & creative time focused as possible, while still fitting in bits of essential work. I allowed myself to cancel a networking thing to let myself recover a bit, but otherwise kept everything in the diary that was already planned.

And one of the most magical things that’s happened to me in a long time came about as a result!

IRL adventures

Kicked off the week with a studio day and camper van plotting with Lu - her van not mine, but very exciting to revisit my Girl Meets Van days and dreams and do some proper research. (I still want a van but it’s not a right now dream, though I will absolutely be sneaking into hers for some coworking days!)

Managed to get my sticky little hands on Blythecon London tickets for October, fulfilling my “have things to look forward to” goal, ticking a box on my 40 for 40 list, and just generally being a joyful thing! (It’s a whole show dedicated to Blythe dolls, which are Barbie-sized but different proportions, and have the most incredible clothes & accessories around them. Plus fellow doll weirdos, so I’m very excited!).

This week’s big unmissable adventure, though, was the Mutton March - the incredible gathering of women of all ages to march from Sloane Square, protesting against being invisible, being too much, being not enough.

Organised by the brilliant Amanda Fitzgerald, after being called “mutton dressed as lamb” by a man while having her photo taken at Sloane Square last year, it was the most glorious day of connection, rebellion and confusing the utter fuck out of quite a lot of posh men. Totally joyous! (and we made it into Metro among other places).

My most magical adventure of the week was on the tube on the way. I’d been reading and listening to music, and as we came to a stop, someone who had been sitting opposite put a little note into my hand. I looked up for a split second of connection as they stepped off the train - and then opened the note, and proceeded to be moved to tears and astounded by serendipity.

I didn’t know Charlie, but now I know who he was and that he lived, and will continue to keep his light shining - please go and follow Charlie’s Light, it’s such a beautiful thing. And the message is exactly what I needed, this week of all weeks 💙.

Offline pursuits

Bought an emergency unicorn horn on the way to the Mutton March, because I forgot mine. Booked tickets to the Radio Caroline musical at the Mercury Theatre in June, which is exciting!

Changed my sheets at 2am because my fluffiest kitten threw up and somehow managed to hit the duvet, the sheet, and the floor… cats!

Plotted for the Seven Wonders trip next week, unexpectedly tidied my room, made my favourite lemon pasta, and booked my ADHD annual review - slightly more faff than normal as I really do need to see someone who understands perimenopause & ADHD, and my old consultant has left.

Did my Ostara tarot reading with Sarah instead of solo, it was a bit eye opening but pretty accurate. And so nice to have company while doing it!

Urgh, and actually sorted out my car insurance. The joys.

Creative project progress

Dressed four dolls suitably for the Mutton March:

Took two with me and had FAR too much fun on the train:

Plotted my own outfit for the march, and had an absolute blast wearing tulle and stripes, many layers of petticoats, a unicorn horn and a tiara on the rail replacement buses and all round London on the tube. So many raised eyebrows but SO many compliments too 💙

Not strictly offline, but relevant to this project, I had an adventure in YouTube and video editing and made an intro sequence for videos for my channel - hoping this will speed up the process of sharing the endless hours of footage I’ve captured over the last few years but never get round to actually doing anything with!

Caught up a bit with Offline Life Magic posts (am still catching up, mind) and did loads of research on Barbie heads, hair colours, skin tone matching and Made To Move curvy bodies, for some upcoming mini-me and mini-friends custom plans.

Refreshed my hair dye, not at all influenced by the Barbie hair, and impulsively put my dance heels on in the kitchen while making dinner. Had a blast but have absolutely no clue how I wore heels higher than this all day every day for so long. No wonder my hips & knees are a bit grumbly sometimes!!

People magic

A long phone call with Lou who called me because she’d seen my Insta story about not being on retreat 💙 was so good to catch up!

Two unexpected lovely phone calls with Julia which lifted my spirits so much - for various reasons we haven't done a lot of phone calls for years and it's just always so lovely to hear her voice! Best friends really are magic.

Got some dates in for a catch up with Wendy in the summer after far too many years to count, which feels really lovely.

Cried at Lu quite a lot. Had a virtual retreat day with Sarah which was lush, and we both got lots done plus was lovely to chat to her properly.

Zoomed the remaining retreat girls which was actually lovely, and there’s so much progress with everyone’s writing! And had some lovely check ins through the week from them, which I appreciated.

⬆️ Virtual retreat/Ostara tarot with Sarah, and a very fuzzy screenshot of retreat zoom!

Met some fabulous people at the Mutton March, and had a gorgeous conversation with Rebecca about Eider ducks, prompted by my magpie earrings. And got to tell my friend Eimear’s little girls there about how you turn into a mermaid (which I have to say took some quick thinking as I don’t often work with children! But I think I did ok…)

Glimmers

Pretty much everything that happened this week was a glimmer, it was beautiful.

Analogue acquisitions

The emergency unicorn horn and the note from Charlie’s Light which I will treasure for always.

A book landed on my doormat midweek, and when I opened it it was The Penguin Lessons - a book Louise had told me about and had sent me to say thank you for having me!

⬆️ Read The Book of Beginnings, acquired The Penguin Lessons

An Instagram contact, Rita, got in touch and brought me some Chinese New Year decorations for the studio & shoots which was a lovely surprise.

Impulse bought a sofa jewellery box for my dolls, and ordered some Barbies from Vinted for head swaps following my research. Stay tuned for how those turn out!

Read and watched

I watched Zootropolis 2 because I missed it in the cinema. Plus fell down a random YouTube rabbit hole of abandoned theme parks which was spooky but strangely fascinating.

Made lots of time for reading even though my mojo is still not quite back, because one of the hallmarks of retreat week for me is reading whatever I fancy, whenever I fancy. So got through three whole books in a week - A Christmas Cottage, The Secret Mistletoe Promise, and The Book of Beginnings, all of which were gorgeous. The Book of Beginnings had some alarmingly accurate notes about friendship, too.

⬆️ These are such beautiful quotes from the Book of Beginnings - the top one is how I feel about friendship over romantic love, and the bottom one is how I am trying to feel about the recent loss of a friend I had previously treasured.

—

I started this week with a lot of tears and trepidation - not going on writing retreat was not a decision I made lightly, nor a decision I especially wanted to make, but felt I had to.

And yet, the week expanded and was full of so much magical goodness that I’d have otherwise missed, that I didn’t even really have FOMO other than on the Monday.

It was weird not being there, and I’m sad to have missed my annual catch up with the girls I don’t get to see outside of it (due to distance!) but I don’t regret not going now I know what this week held.

And now I’m getting a bit more caught up with these posts and might be back to an Offline Life Magic a week and some in between Carla musings :)

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.

IRL adventures

There were lots of adventures this week, but the one that was most unexpected was getting a message from the Wivenhoe Co op, popping in on my way home from the studio, and seeing the TEMPRD x Fairfields Farm chocolate & crisp eggs on the shelves of an actual co op in my home town.

Squeaked like a madwoman and then proceeded to take approximately eight thousand photos and videos. I don’t know quite why it was so exciting, we have had stockists since almost day 1 of TEMPRD’s existence, but it was just SO amazing to see them on the shelves, holding their own with all the other Easter chocolate.

Wednesday brought an early start (on the road by 6.30am meeeeep) with a road trip to Kent with Lu for a team effort creating, editing, subtitling & posting videos for a business event.

⬆️ Was actually a really busy day so this is the only BTS shot I got!

It was my first time live posting from an event on behalf of someone else, and it went mostly very smoothly, bar a couple of diva moments and trying to get four different types of brain wiring in four very different people to work in harmony for a whole day. But we did it! And the journey meant hours of chat & catching up, which was fun.

And obviously I took a Barbie with me…

⬆️ A Barbie wearing skates and a box of TEMPRD treats - definitely my desk!

Thursday’s adventure was sorting out my absolute state of a house (honestly HOW does it get so messy so fast?!) ready for my lovely friend Louise to arrive and stay over, and an in-person enquiry meeting at the studio which was unexpectedly very inspiring.

Lu & I had a mini-adventure asking my excellent next door neighbours to show us the inside of Rich’s work van, while we were doing camper van plotting. It is testament to their loveliness that they didn’t bat an eyelid and came straight out with keys when I messaged to ask!

And Sunday was Mother’s Day, which I spent with Mum & Gran putting the world to rights and eating alllll the food.

⬆️ Gran opening her little giraffe cactus from Mum 💙

Offline pursuits

Studio time on Monday & Tuesday, including refilling fountain pens with different colour inks from my desk drawer there.

Extracting foundation from old bottles after smashing my main one last week, so I could try to not scare the horses and our clients with my 7am face on Wednesday 😂

Clovie refuses to give up her old, battered and very shabby round bed which was originally part of their very first cat tree, 12+ years ago. I can’t bring myself to throw it out until I’ve found her one she will use instead. But she’s a cat, so this has not been an easy thing to do!

⬆️ She loves it SO much but she’s not a small cat and it fit her when she was a kitten…

I have tried endless different replacements and given most of them away when she refused to set even one dainty paw inside, but this week had a whisper of success with a new one… but only after I slept with it in my bed for a few nights, and then turned it inside out so the soft fluffy base was on the outside and the rougher canvas was on the inside. She is a very particular, weird little cat but I love her.

⬆️ I live in hope that she’ll actually fall in love with this one

And I fixed my upstairs kittencam with a new cable, which I am inordinately proud of, so now I have to figure out what to do with the spare camera I panic-ordered.

Creative project progress

By far the most exciting bit of creative project progress this week was Lu handing me a succession of tiny parcels… after a chance comment months ago, I gave her a curvy Barbie as a model, and she has been busy sewing the most incredible tiny clothes for my dolls! So at the grand old ages of 40 & 41, we played dolls on my living room floor and it was UTTERLY JOYFUL. And she’s made clothes that feel like us, so it’s a big step towards some mini-me and mini-her semi-custom dolls for photos and stop motion!

⬆️ Two of the completely epic outfits for my curvy Barbies Lu made - will do proper photos when I get a chance & the weather picks up a bit!

In the same vein I did a lot of Vinted browsing for possible head-donor Barbies - my plan is to use a fully articulated Made to Move curvy body for each of our mini selves, but none of the articulated dolls come with colourful hair!

This week has also had me percolating ideas for a new book about the immediate spark & chemistry that exists, not romantically, but for friendships and creative partnerships. It might be rare, but I have experienced it several times in my life, and it’s more magical than romance to me. And I don’t think it’s talked about enough, so I’m going to write about it.

Plus a bit more bounding research for more characters to incorporate into day to day dopamine dressing!

People magic

To the confusion of pretty much everyone I spoke to this week, Louise who stayed Thursday night and Lu who I spent Wednesday and Friday with are two different friends, and both are different from my sister-bestie Lou who is down in Reading. I can see how, especially in voice notes, this could be confusing!

Louise, who lived in the flat under my first flat that I shared with Julia, had come up to stay for a friend’s funeral the following day. We normally only manage to catch up in person every few years (and all credit to her for organising, I am terrible at the logistics), but we last saw each other in January this year so this was an unexpected bonus.

Because of the funeral and because it’s still so close to Dad’s anniversary, we stayed up very late and did a lot of crying, but also a lot of putting the world to rights and a lot of giggling.

Lu came to hang out at my house for the first time on Friday afternoon - we see each other a lot but usually out & about or at the studio, because my house is always chaos, so it was actually lovely to be able to say yes, come to mine. We talked and cried and plotted, went and looked at next door’s van, and played with all the amazing doll clothes & accessories she’s made. And I think it was very good for the soul for us both.

And in other lovely peoply things, I met a bunch of great humans at the event on Wednesday and got on fabulously with my enquiry on Thursday, Sarah, Rhiannon & I had a serendipitous three way chat which just made me smile a lot, I was at the studio at normal-human times which meant I actually got to chat to some people there, and I had a lovely check in message from Annika ahead of retreat next week which I am not attending.

Glimmers

I have had SO many good hugs this week from people I love!

Louise recognising that my sideboard in the living room is one she gave me and used to belong to her grandparents.

She also performed an actual miracle and scooped up Clover for a cuddle and CLOVER ACCEPTED. This is entirely unprecedented and was surreal but good.

Obviously the doll clothes!

I needed proper wired headphones for the event on Wednesday so I got to take Dad’s Sennheiser ones with me. I love that he’s still helping me with work stuff and I think he’d really like this too.

Lu taking a fancy to a skirt & a jumper I’d reluctantly put in the Vinted box because they don’t fit me any more, and they fit her perfectly so that was happymaking!

And another whole kilo of mini eggs, which I convinced myself into because it turns out if you buy them by the kg, it’s cheaper than buying chocolate chips. (ssshhh, this logic works for me!)

Analogue acquisitions

A birthday gift of Women Who Run With The Wolves, from lovely Juliet. The doll clothes I have enthused about through this entire post and which have honestly made my year.

A duster I was actually excited about, which has sent horror waves through every younger version of myself - how the hell have I got to a point where a duster is exciting?! - and most excitingly, a box of the TEMPRD x Fairfields eggs. They’re like cornflake crispies on steroids and are very, very dangerous.

Read & watched

A surprising amount of films and no books - Toy Story 2, Wreck It Ralph, The Princess & the Frog, and Ralph Breaks the Internet. Here’s my favourite scene from the last one…

—

Something that really struck me this week is that a lot of friendship is flexible - it shifts and moves and ebbs and flows with life. But true friendship has no rules or restrictions, is pretty much unconditional, and it makes no difference whether you speak every day or don’t see each other for years at a time - once set, the bond doesn’t change other than to deepen and strengthen.

Which, given recent events, has been very comforting to have confirmed so clearly by the words and actions of both old and new friends in the last few weeks.

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.

IRL adventures

Collecting the kittens and hanging out with them at home was lovely - I think they missed me. I often wish they were more portable, when I was planning my (now abandoned) camper van conversion I was figuring out how to take them with me, but more than a decade later I realise they’d hate it.

⬆️ A perfect yin and yang, but just far enough apart to avoid any paw-smacking shenanigans (they take turns starting the fight!)

Managed a day in the studio and burnt out my heated poncho, which was slightly terrifying - but the auto-cut-out feature worked, thank goodness.

Making my bed was an epic task which took well over an hour thanks to my fluffy “helper” who thought it was the best game ever… it’s a good thing she’s cute!

I feel like I spent most of this week working in Toyota - on Wednesday while Serafina was serviced, and then again on Friday because she needed her suspension fixing before she could pass an MOT.

Toyota are brilliant and always give me my own desk if they don’t have a courtesy car available - never entirely sure whether it’s just because they’re nice or if it’s because me and my mobile desk set up is… rather a lot… for their other customers to see, but it’s much appreciated and a change of scenery is always good so I got a fair bit of work done. And accidentally smashed a brand new bottle of foundation all over their white tiled showroom floor, so that was fun and mortifying!

I also spent an inordinate amount of time researching a road-legal external horn, but thankfully she passed and I didn’t need to either rig up a dubious roof mounted version, or spend upwards of £1k having hers fixed. And it’s worked perfectly ever since so I think she was just testing my patience!

Had a brief adventure to town after picking her up on Saturday morning (and nearly crying with relief at the poor guy who handed her keys back) and then Sunday was a battle with the half marathon chaos in Colchester so I could get across to Mum for Dad’s anniversary. We couldn’t get to his columbarium because of the traffic, so we had cake out and pizza at home instead 💙

And TEMPRD launched our Easter collab with Fairfield Farm Crisps - eggs made from crisps & chocolate together - and as they’re going to be in some East of England Co-ops, I went hunting. Sadly not due in for another week or two but excited to see when they arrive! (Edit to add - they sold out ridiculously quickly from our websites but there are a few still on shelves in East of England co ops!)

Offline pursuits

General offline stuff was mostly getting unpacked, loads of laundry, settling the kittens back in and figuring out a plan for the week around all the car appointments. I forget Serafina has reached that age where cars are more likely to need bigger things doing at MOT time! But still under 100k miles on the clock so have at least another 100k to go before I’m ready to part with her.

Spent a surprising amount of time hunting for spare wheels for the suitcase that broke while I was away - the case itself is still in pretty much perfect condition, but they don’t make the wheels any more. I am flatly determined not to throw it out just because of this, so am looking at other solutions - if I have to mount rollerskate wheels to it I will!

⬆️ Not my finest photography, but how can it be this hard to find replacements for these?!

Printed some Filofax habit trackers, and made a birthdays/occasions record too, which I have promptly managed to lose before actually filling in, oops.

Work was mainly editing this week, so I suppose technically on a screen, but one of the most joyful bits! And finally sorting out notes from the mentor sessions I ran before I went away. I love travelling but I am extremely out of practice and my schedule is all over the place!

Creative project progress

Kicked off with planning, lists, calendar updates because honestly being in Disney felt like being in another world, and it’s the first time in 18+ years that I’ve been away without a laptop. So needed to sort of ease myself back into the world of appointments and actually looking at the clock occasionally.

Roguely decided to do another Disney bound on Tuesday morning while getting ready to go to the studio - and managed to pull together a very passable Cinderella, complete with sparkly DM boots and pumpkin earrings.

Honestly, I know I need to get my income more steady & sustainable (and that is most people’s definition of success, financially), but being able to rustle up a complete costume / bound on a whim on a random Tuesday, to wear to my little studio of dreams, feels like my version of having made it.

I finally made my words of the year bangles - two narrow ones this year rather than one chunkier one with words inside and out. Partly because I always forget to look at the inside, and partly because now I have my permanent friendship bracelet and I think the two smaller ones look better with that.

⬆️ More about my words in a separate post at some stage, but this year I have four for the first time - Renegade / Whimsical / Joy / Me. The second bracelet says “Remember yourself”.

Had a sort out of my trinkets & curios & little things, and now need to figure out what is going on which shelf where, so will keep you posted when I make any progress on that.

And I actually did some line dancing in the studio - it is still my greatest joy and better than any therapy, and I am SO grateful HRT means I can do it without pain again now.

⬆️ Serious when still, happy when moving - these are frames from phone videos and it’s astounding it took until my ADHD diagnosis in 2021 to figure out that movement is what calms my brain most - dance has always been my highest magic!

People magic

It’s somehow been nine years this week since we lost my wonderful Dad, and if I think about it too hard it’s still just as raw as the day it happened. I’ll never stop missing him, but it was lovely to spend the day with Mum and see Gran too. I think he’d be proud of us both, and he is still woven into our everyday lives. My family has always talked about our lost loved ones just as much as the ones still living 💙 Thought it was weird as a teenager, now I’m very glad that’s the case!

Lu and I had a very soul-soothing chat on Saturday morning about her Gramps and my Dad and their mad engineering/inventing/making stuff tendencies, and we figured they’re probably causing absolute havoc with a steampunk garnish up in the big bar in the sky.

Had a great and much-needed coffee & catch up with Polly when I dropped my car off the first time, and some lovely random chats about my mobile desk setup and chocolate with various people who passed through while I was working at Toyota.

Zooms & calls were Juliet for our monthly kit day, Mum mainly to cry at her about the bloody car, and an unexpected but lovely long phone call with Rhiannon while she was walking the dog and couldn’t text. I really should phone my friends more, I like phone calls when they’re people I already love!

Glimmers

Dancing and filming it! I’ve been line dancing since I was 11 years old, and have very few photos and almost no videos of me doing it, other than one grainy VHS recording of my Worlds routines in 1999/2000.

Filming myself now, it’s an unexpected delight to see I still have the habits and quirks I’ve always had as a dancer, and also to see the genuine joy in my expressions as I move. I can feel the difference in my confidence and my knowledge of my body too, and I think that’s also visible on camera.

It’s more magical than I ever expected, and when I figure out how to post videos with the actual music without causing myself copyright issues, I will get some uploaded. My only criticism is that while I love having proper dance boots, I would like to dye this pair something other than beige when I get a minute!

⬆️I have no idea why, but my first walkthrough of a step sheet while I learn the dance is always with one hand on my head. Wildly entertained to discover this has endured through 29 years.

Dopamine dressing all week. Long chats with friends about all sorts of things, big and small. Clover FINALLY accepting a new donut shaped fluffy bed. Snuggles with kittens, I missed their fluffy faces.

Nostalgia about Rusty McLusty, the car I took on a mad rally adventure with my then-boyfriend in 2011. She had a My Little Pony on the bonnet and a Barbie on the roof… of course she did! And she came up in conversation a lot this week because we rigged her with a klaxon on the roof that played chicken and cow noises. I am reliably informed that chicken and cow noises are not, in fact, MOT-passing sounds. Damn.

⬆️ Rusty deserves a whole post of her own, one day - she was a masterpiece

And finally, a quote which I lost to being utterly lowballed by someone else was frustrating, but then I posted for a sense check in a photography community I’m part of and whose members I respect, and the response blew me away. It was very reassuring, and also reminded me I’m an established professional and not to doubt my worth based on one organisation’s budgetary constraints (and another photographer’s ridiculous undervaluing of their own work).

Analogue acquisitions

A very unexpected bargain in Flying Tiger, a bamboo trolley I’ve had my eye on for ages for the studio, which should have been £25 and was instead £5 in their everything £5 and under week. So that was a much appreciated saving on something that was already on the list!

Having the list worked in my favour twice on the same day, I have been after a bag for carrying my dance boots, dance heels, suede brush and step sheet folder around as I use them at the studio, at home and at classes, and absolutely cannot afford or justify three sets of shoes/boots. Found a ridiculous sea unicorn bag in the sale at Smiggle which honestly makes me happy every time I look at it. And was about a quarter of the price of the dance-branded ones I’d been looking at online. And it’s GLITTERY on the other side.

Read & watched

Toy Story, for the first time in a very long time, and I LOVED it - I think it’s even better as an adult who loves miniatures & toys. A fabulous book called One Good Thing, by one of my favourite authors, and a YouTube video about banishing collector shame, which made me quite emotional.

I’ve been lucky that while people often raise their eyebrows and affectionately call me odd (and I’ve very much claimed the title weirdo in recent years), I’ve never really had anyone criticise me for my collections, my super niche hobbies or the things I love.

Occasionally someone will express surprise that I like “fluffy” books and only really watch kids’ TV and films, but it’s rarely negative, more mildly curious. My first boyfriend was very much not a fan of my model horses and my horde of internet friends which came from that hobby, and the second one hated any “unnatural” colour hair, but I didn’t stop or change or hide because of their opinions, they just had to accept that loving me comes with my weird obsessions.

I suppose in the first one’s defence it was 2003 or so and the internet and meeting people from forums was relatively new. And there’s yet another reason I’m single at heart - I prefer not having to figure this stuff out and just cracking on with my life & stuff I love without interference!

Yet I know some people have had to pursue their passions in secret because what they loved wasn’t “normal” and wasn’t accepted, especially when they were younger. But seeing them being openly excited about what they love now is an utter joy to witness!

Phew - if you made it this far, extra squishy hugs coming your way!

If you enjoyed this and offline life is resonating, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.

This week was the long-awaited, sneakily plotted 40th birthday Disneyland Paris trip with one of my best friends. And it was just glorious.

Tuesday to Saturday, just us, staying in the Newport Bay Club hotel in the Disney complex, and all the time in the world to enjoy the magic, talk about everything and nothing, and escape the world for a while.

⬆️ My favourite window in the whole park - it’s like they knew I was coming!!

IRL adventures

The first one was acting nonchalant, getting the kittens into their carriers, and taking them to Hilltop for their holidays, which is always an adventure, but for the first time ever I didn’t cry leaving them and they settled in quickly.

I don’t love leaving them because I miss their silly fluffy faces so much, but they’ve been going to Hilltop for the whole 12.5 years they’ve been with me, and the staff there are so lovely - some of the only other people in the world either of my cats will allow to pick them up for cuddles! And they always come back fat & happy & purring, and I know they’re safe.

So that was Monday morning, then back to hurl all my stuff into a couple of suitcases, then lovely Lu picked me up and dropped me at the train station. Into London, stayed overnight and we set off for Disney at absolutely daft o clock on Tuesday!

The outward journey went without a hitch (the homeward one not so much, thanks to a last minute platform change we missed our connection and ended up having to rebook our Eurostar) and was a much smoother, calmer process than I remembered.

⬆️ Me at 4.45am / writing on the train / a very civilised Eurostar journey

The last time I Eurostar-ed was in 2007 to take my then-boyfriend to the Belgian Grand Prix for his 21st birthday and I had an unexpected panic attack as we drove the car onto the train, so was very pleased that going as a foot passenger did not produce the same results!

The week was indescribably joyful - neither of us love big rides, so we did all the wandering, shopping, and rides aimed at small people. The sun came out and we had 20 degree temperatures, and we ate a LOT of Mickey shaped snacks!

Obviously I have eight billion photos but here’s a very quick gallop through some highlights:

⬆️ Clockwise from bottom left: Our hotel / View from our hotel / me outside the castle / my bed / Billy Bob’s Honky Tonk (!)

⬆️ Clockwise from bottom left: obviously these are all me - accidentally in the pink hotel private gardens / first steps into the park (look at that grin!) / the unicorn ears I bravely resisted buying / in the honky tonk, my natural habitat anywhere in the world / my first Mickey snack!

⬆️ Some little details, clockwise from top left this time: I found dolls & Pascal in the window / Jessie in the parade / Lancelot’s carousel war horse / I really should always drive a convertible in a tiara / the dragon under the castle

And despite the return trip antics, we made it back to London just in time for the appointment for permanent bracelets - matching chains, different charms - to mark our 40th birthdays and 37 years of being besties!

Before we parted ways on Sunday we had a little mooch round the Columbia Road flower market, which I’d never been to before and was beautiful! And then Mum picked me up from the station and we had a late lunch before she dropped me home.

⬆️ Clockwise from bottom left: vintagey collections / the best socks I have ever seen, in a fabulous little bookshop / we indulged in a lot of these / In Habit, home of beautiful notebooks & candles / Vintage Heaven, where I very nearly bought a set of Flower Fairies books

Offline pursuits

We did a snack stop at Carrefour at Lille - there’s something I love about supermarkets in other countries, seeing all the exciting stuff you can’t buy at home. Somewhere in my archives is a photo of me at the one in Abu Dhabi hugging the biggest jar of Nutella you have ever seen (it’s bigger than my head!).

So much window shopping - I do love Disney but don’t have an awful lot of it at home other than DVDs and books, and am rapidly running out of display space, so we did a lot of looking before we bought anything.

Watched the parades, one of them twice - I’d last been to Disney properly for my 21st birthday, and I didn’t expect to cry again this time, but there’s something about the music and all the characters and being in the parks that makes me well up with emotion.

And of course lots of chatting, putting the world to rights, and a little bit of journalling and reading.

Creative project progress

Bounding!! I did three of my bounds in the park and it was an EXTREMELY joyful experience, and one that I am absolutely planning to extend into everyday life. It gives my general costumey clothes preferences a bit of structure, somehow!

I’ll do a proper post about these with studio photos at some stage but here’s some from the actual trip:

⬆️ Wednesday was Ariel / Thursday was Rapunzel / Friday was Eeyore!

Something I hadn’t expected was the new Disney Style shop in the village and the Princess shop in the big pink hotel over the entrance gates - both full of bounding-inspired outfits and dresses and accessories. I didn’t buy any but they did go up to my size, which was unexpected!

Camera kit wise, I took Mum’s little bridge camera, one of my big Sony cameras with two lightweight lenses, and my phone, and what I mainly learned from this is that optical zoom is everything, but I’d have hated wandering around with a massive camera & lens combination all day. The little Canon was perfect and let me get more close up shots while sitting with a drink & a muffin out of the way of the crowds! Plus this rather lovely dragon silhouette which was unplanned but I love.

Sunday would have been a London doll meet, but I was tired and had too much luggage to go, so instead once I got home I did a very quick group shot of my dolls who were already wearing pink, the month’s theme.

People magic

Other than the obvious people magic of being away with one of my best friends, I got to see & have hot chocolate with Lu on the way to the station, all the fab people at Hilltop who take such good care of my fluffy idiots while I’m away, and Mum on Sunday which was also really lovely.

Messages were more me broadcasting my excitement to the usual suspects and the odd video call :)

Analogue acquisitions

Top of the emotional pile are our permanent bracelets and matching Minnie rings. They’re bringing me a lot of joy every day even now I’ve been back a few weeks.

My one ridiculous but utterly happymaking purchase was a magnetic shoulder pal Pascal:

⬆️ Pascal on my shoulder and on his favourite leaf at home

My favourite princess is Rapunzel, and he is one of my favourite Disney animals (I’d have bought Maximus too if he existed in this format, to be fair!) and I just couldn’t resist him.

I did resist the unicorn ears with a veil (but only just), and my own souvenirs were a pin for home, a magnet for the studio, two keyrings - one is now a necklace, the other destined for my dolls - a keyring, Mickey coin & Disney edition M&Ms for Mum & Gran, and a set of Disney princess figurines for my miniatures collection & studio shelves. Which I think was really quite sensible in the grand scheme of things.

And I did buy a massive tin of Teisseire lemon sirop, the full sugar one you can’t get easily in the UK any more. Still making my way through it and it tastes like magic and joy, especially when used with a Sodastream!

Read & watched

I mean, mostly just all the Disney everything! We had a middle of the day break on the Thursday and watched an Imagineering episode about how they built all the different castles around the world, which I loved, and the book I took with me was A Most Magical Girl. Short, YA, one that could be picked up & put down easily. Which I liked, but which I wish had had a less ambiguous ending.

—

And that was my magical, glorious, Disney trip to celebrate my 40th in style. I can’t actually think of any better way of doing it, and am so grateful to Mum for making it possible and my lovely friend & client Bonni who did all the arrangements & booking, sent us insider information, and generally made sure it went without a hitch. Highly recommended - and of course now I want to go back again as soon as I can manage it!

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.

How the hell am I 40? I mean, I think it’s going to be a brilliant decade, and I feel more me than I ever have… but everything feels like it was about five minutes ago and is suddenly a LONG time ago. Time is definitely not as linear as it would like us to believe!

Apparently it is also, finally, as one amazing friend put it, “the sodding end of the year of the bastard snake” - we have both been doing a lot of shedding we didn’t actually ask for or especially want - and while I don’t yet feel very fire-horse-ish, I do feel like I’m entering a new phase of my life. What that phase looks like exactly, I don’t know yet!

IRL adventures

The sun came out (at long bloody last!) for a gorgeous headshot session with an old friend & colleague who’s just gone freelance, which was a joy. I want to try and have mini sessions bookable regularly rather than having 8 or 9 in a day on limited dates, now that I have an office I can work from in between at my studio. This was a fab experiment, though did schedule extra time for a cuppa & catch up afterwards!

Had a mini adventure in town finding last bits for Disney - a pink t shirt for my Eeyore bound and what feels like every toiletry & cosmetic I have ever owned because they all seemed to run out at once. And then the same day I met my lovely friend for a long chat and hugs and a cuppa (well, pepsi max) and the world feels better again.

Town again on Friday with Mum for the Mythical Creatures exhibition at Colchester Castle, which I’ve been wanting to see for ages and which finishes on Sunday 22nd. It was right up my street, they even had a mermaid Barbie on display! And I learned some things too.

Mum & I then braved the rain to wander up to Zizzi’s for lunch, and it was SO GOOD. We both fancied Italian for my birthday lunch and it was a proper delight of a lunch, which feels strangely rare these days (maybe it’s just that I don’t go out often, but food was really good and service was brilliant and it just felt like such a treat!).

Mum popping over to see the cats before my trip was a delight, but getting the living room tidy enough for her to visit while also trying to pack and herd cats was definitely an adventure this week!

Offline pursuits

Tidied the studio and steamed backdrops on Monday ready for Kate’s shoot on Tuesday, and so it would be more or less tidy while I’m away. Proceeded to then absolutely trash it later in the week looking for costume bits for Disneybound outfits, so that will be a fun tidy up when I get back!

⬆️ I am wearing the same outfit as last week’s BTS because I’m shooting the same series, and I have got to figure out hemming these sodding backdrops so I don’t have to keep clipping them up to the right height!

Also managed to break my second steamer in six months, which feels like some impressive talent… fortunately Mum had one I had already pinched for travel purposes so it wasn’t a disaster.

Kate enjoyed her shoot, the weather was kind, and she said lovely things on LinkedIn which is always very happymaking!

Accidentally sold a bag on Vinted (it counts as offline if it helps with decluttering!) and did as much house sorting & tidying as I could around the insane work list this week. Subtly shuffled all my boxes of doll stuff upstairs to my room so I could shut the door and not freak out my lovely Mum when she arrived. It’s 90% thrifted and doesn’t represent a huge amount of money spent, which she wouldn’t be weird about anyway as she also has hobbies and collections, but she is much tidier than me and would never have random boxes of anything piled up in her living room, much less bits of foam board and glue guns and half built doll-sized kitchens😂

I know, I technically have a studio for this stuff, but it needs to stay tidy for clients, plus I work wherever inspiration hits and keep a second set of things like glue and craft knives at home just in case.

Saw an amazing mural by @leroymurals at the bottom of St Mary’s car park which was unexpected and beautiful!

While I don’t travel often in recent years because of Gran, or perhaps because it’s not very frequent, the last time I got a suitcase out before dropping the kittens at Hilltop, Luna developed cystitis. This Disney trip was a gift from two people I love and who love me very much, and the travel parts were not super flexible, so I decided to “pack” by throwing stuff in two big laundry baskets on my bedroom floor, and then do the actual packing on travel day between dropping kittens and catching a train.

(Spoiler alert - nothing short of astoundingly, this worked like a dream. The only thing I forgot to take was a hot water bottle for hip pain, which honestly I’m counting as a win because before starting HRT in September I had been in constant pain for a few years, so the fact that I can forget about it enough not to bring the hot water bottle is kind of amazing.)

Had a mini shoot for the TEMPRD Minty Milk chocolate bar which was originally limited edition and is now back as a permanent addition to our range in both sizes. And of course I printed all the tickets for every part of our trip, because I do not trust technology as far as I can throw it and I was not about to let anything get in the way of Disney!

Creative project progress

Lots and lots of Disneybound joy, collecting bits from the studio, washing and steaming everything, finishing off all my outfits and testing them with various layers as I have no idea what the weather will do next week. Could be snowing, could be sunny, could drizzle all week!

I moved a bunch of photos & videos from my phone to a hard drive to make space for the inevitable millions I will take next week, and also copied some photos for Gran from Mum’s phone to her tablet so she can look at them whenever she wants to.

A tiny bit of planning while I was sorting an early money shuffle, and a last minute stamped bangle - haven’t done my words of the year one yet for 2026, but made a “believe in magic” one for Disney trip.

And the unexpected event - I booked myself into a model horse live show in August this year. It’ll be my first live show in 13 years, with some of my friends from the old days also going, so will be a joy. But I might actually need the whole of now till August to properly re-familiarise myself with my herd and figure out who is going in what class on the day. This show is called The Pony Way Is Essex which is a glorious name that has brought me a lot of joy! And it seems like the best possible way to enter the year of the Fire Horse.

(Before you ask, no, the show itself doesn’t involve galloping round a hall with our horses, but yes, we have occasionally done exactly that in the past because why the hell not?! So many people are curious about this and while I was blogging at the time, I don’t have many photos from my model horse hobby journey, so maybe there’s a post of its own there!)

People magic

I did both more than expected and less than hoped peopling this week! Have been overwhelmed in the best way by the messages, calls and cards I’ve had all week, not to mention the occasional present - I am incredibly loved, and incredibly lucky, and birthdays are always a wonderful reminder of those facts, even when things have been difficult or stressful. It also turns out I really like phone calls when they’re not sorting out insurance / internet / council tax!

Had a low key actual 40th birthday day, chilling with my kitties at home in the morning, then hopped over to Mum & Gran for the afternoon & dinner. We had grand plans to watch Wicked together but were so busy chatting & looking at photos that the evening ran away with us!

⬆️ completely unexpected 40th birthday decorations at Mum’s & gorgeous yellow roses from her💙

Other than my birthday, IRL I caught up with Ally and Kate, met the people who have just moved into the studio across from mine, and had some lovely phone calls through the week. Sadly had to cancel seeing Anna & sorting out some plans now Ink Drops is back up & running, because I had too much work to do before going away, but we’ll catch up when I’m back.

And Mum came over to mine on Sunday to see the kittens and kiss their paws before they went to Hilltop and I went to Disney!(Kissing the paws is a whole thing we have that started when they were tiny and Clovie was terrified of being picked up, but would occasionally put out a front paw to be kissed. Though woe betide any human silly enough to try to touch her toe beans…)

Analogue acquisitions

Where do I even start? I wasn’t expecting gifts at all, partly because I generally don’t do birthday or Christmas gifts, but instead if something strikes me I will get it at a totally random time and then spend four months trying to get myself organised to send it. I had actually managed to order something special for my birth bestie but did it turn up in time for her birthday? Did it fuck (and I think this might actually be due to post service not me for once in my life!).

But some parcels arrived through the week, and when I got to Mum & Gran’s there was cake, and more presents even though Mum’s present to me was the Disney trip! Completely overwhelmed but very grateful.

Some highlights:

Plus one more from my bestie since birth which isn’t getting a photo till it’s up on the wall 💙 and also (technically next week, but a birthday gift so going in here) a permanent bracelet, which is honestly making me smile every single time I look at it!

Other than presents, I acquired a second hand nifty fifty lens for travelling with my proper camera and as backup - it’s not quite as beautiful as my Sigma but it’s infinitely lighter and more practical for carting around on my adventures.

Possibly my best charity shop bargain ever - I was hunting for something rigid to carry meds in which didn’t look as boring as my big pillboxes at home. Found this for £1.50 and it’s PERFECT. I only remember the Polly Pocket compacts and rings, so curious what this one was originally for and if you remember, I’d love to know!

Read & watched

Absolutely bugger all (unless birthday cards and messages count!) because it’s been a mad, packed, crazy, wonderful week!

--

And now I am 40.

And although I did have a little wobble just before my birthday because I last saw Dad in my 30s, and it felt strange all over again to be in a different decade without him, I think he would be very proud of the weird and wonderful little life I’ve built. I know Mum is, and I am even thoug I am often a bit argh about money (which I think is just part & parcel of self employment and solo life tbh).

I’m excited to see what’s next, both what I make happen and what random things throw themselves into my life that I had no way of predicting!

Next couple of posts coming probably fairly rapidly this week and then I’ll be back to weekly posting for Offline Life Magic, and occasionally for other things!

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.

I’m feeling a bit weird because I should have been on my annual writing retreat trip with friends this week, but pulled out in December due to the friend breakup. As it happens at the last minute she also pulled out and went elsewhere, so I could have gone - but by then it was too late to rebook kittens and rearrange my other plans for this week.

However.

The sun is shining, I am giving myself permission to do whatever the hell I feel like for most of the week AND I am going to what promises to be a brilliant event on Saturday in London - and you’re invited too, if you’re a woman who has ever been told you are too much, too loud, too anything.

The Mutton March is this Saturday starting at Sloane Square and it is going to be joyful, epic, colourful and absolutely FULL of fellow excellent weirdo women.

Come and join us! (it’s free!)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mutton-march-london-start-sloane-square-tickets-1980463566841

Wasn’t feeling fabulous this week so had a variety of fun “desk” setups including this one in bed, complete with big monitor and very stern fluffy supervisor... she does make me laugh!

Also did quite a lot of both screen and paper based work from my sofa nest - I will always be aware of and grateful for the flexibility of working for myself, so I have variety and choice of where to work from on any given day. My beautiful studio office is usually my first choice, but home has lots of little comfy spots too and it’s lovely to have the ability to choose depending on how I feel.

IRL adventures

The coach trips I’ve been joining when I can, which were part of Mum’s old work, have now devolved away from the council and are run independently by our friend Sandy... so now I can go on more of them, woo yay! Booked the Sinatra musical for October to celebrate, and excited to see what else comes up this year that I can go to.

Work adventure this week was the Empower female founders workshop at the Innovation Centre, which was fab as always - I love hearing about everyone’s plans and ventures, and it never fails to amaze me how different each entrepreneur is, even now.

⬆️ We remembered to do a group photo, but only after quite a few people had left, oops

⬆️ My favourite part of teaching this stuff is when workshop participants are putting things into practice immediately and I can feel all the brain fizziness in the room :)

I did some shopping of both my own wardrobe and some charity shops for Disney bounds, and spent some time in the studio playing with scale photos, which was much needed after the mad busy couple of months that the end of 2025 and start of 2026 has been. Photography always soothes my soul, and combining it with miniature worlds is the best magic of all. More on both of those in project progress, but squeak!

Friday brought a trip to the TEMPRD chocolate unit in Maldon to meet our designers and do some filming and some chatting and some plotting for next year, plus I got a chance to try our next couple of collaboration creations which was delightful. (first one releases 4th March so keep an eye out!)

⬆️ Miracles do happen - we are all smiling in the same photo! L-R Colin, Sonia, Rob & me and photo credit to the excellent Clayer at Foundling

And finally, Saturday 14th was my 12th singleversary, and while celebrations this year were fairly low key and just involved a lot of cheesecake, it’s always a milestone of the year which makes me smile. People were so convinced it wouldn’t last, but being single is how I am happiest and live best, so I have no plans to change that ever. (and yes, I’m aware of the irony of the date, but I didn’t choose that!)

Offline pursuits

Had a total flop day because I was feeling sad about the friend situation, which mainly involved napping, cuddling kittens and reading, with the occasional episode of Once Upon A Time. I think it did me some good?

More printing this week, this time the handouts for the second workshop session, plus I started the Disney packing - omg I am going to be taking too much stuff, but I regret nothing so far - and did a late night grocery & errands run. Which actually reminded me that I used to do late night grocery shops a lot when I had a “normal” job during the week, and I loved it - shops are quieter, there are less annoying people around, and as a result I get everything done a lot quicker. Food for thought!

Creative project progress

First and most excitingly is Disney bounding! Bounding is the art of capturing the essence of a character in your outfit & accessories, without actually wearing a costume. It’s not limited to Disney characters, but the concept started as a way to show love for a character while still keeping to the parks’ rules of no costumes for over 12s.

My favourite part of cosplay is research & breaking down the costume into parts that I can replicate, and while I have many things in my wardrobe which fit the bounding category, I’ve not been to a Disney park in donkeys years so this trip seems like the perfect opportunity!

⬆️ The very beginning of the process

Started with a sketchbook and some prints and notes, and then went through my wardrobe and costume stash to see what I could find that would work... then a list of what else I needed and a charity shop hunt for the missing pieces.

Stay tuned for the final outfits - I can’t wait to wear them to Disney!

The other major bit of creative project progress this week was heading to the studio and spending an afternoon playing with scale. I’ve always been fascinated by things that are bigger or smaller than they’re supposed to be, miniature worlds, and the ways they might combine. The Borrowers was always pure magic for me for the way they used human-sized objects in ways that suited their tiny size, and my recent reading & exploration has very much been around scale and the ways I can play with that in photography.

Just having some time to create without pressure was very good for the soul, and I haven’t finished any one image yet but here is a behind the scenes sneak peek:

⬆️ Somehow I am now playing with model horses AND dolls in my very own photography studio, and it’s legitimately art, and one of the most joyful things in my whole life, ever. Though I am in fact using my studio office instead of the actual studio room because the studio is human sized and both model horses and dolls are rather small, dreams do come true, and this photo encompasses a lot of mine 💙

People magic

People magic was very much needed this week. I’ve been super sad and quite angry about the ex-friend situation, but also incredibly buoyed up by the support and solid belief of my actual friends in me, even when I am a proper mood hoover.

Caught up in real life with Emily, Lauren, Alexa & Eszter at Essex Startups, met all the brilliant students at the Empower workshop, saw the TEMPRD team and our fab designers Pete & Clayer from Foundling, and then at the weekend Mum & Gran who are always a delight even when we are battling things like new internet installation!

Messages flew around as usual, I am getting a bit better at voice notes and I LOVE hearing my friends’ voices chatting away, but I process written words much better and faster than audio, as anyone who has ever sent me a voice note and then waited for me to work out what they’ve said and respond will confirm!

And zoom chats were had with my lovely co-Cahooter Becky, we have BIG PLANS for Cahoots in 2026 which I will write about in due course, and a session with each of my lovely mentees too.

Analogue acquisitions

Lots of treats to counteract the sad moments this week, and all very lovely! First up were two pairs of custom Craft BEERings (black and white stripes to fit my brand!) from the very talented Carys - I now have six pairs from her and they are some of my absolute favourite earrings. Good for the environment, super colourful and light so easy to wear all day - and I never fail to get compliments and questions about them when I am wearing them! Pics to follow as really want to get this post up today :)

The most obvious acquisitions this week are the Disney bounding ones - a blue sea-themed skater dress, a purple version of my favourite dress for Rapunzel, a thrifted green top for Ariel which even looks like it’s made from coral or something, and the MOST PERFECT EARRINGS you could possibly imagine for Rapunzel (assuming you have seen Tangled - if you haven’t, go and watch it immediately!)…

Our magic pack from Bonni, our magical Disney travel agent / fairy godmother, and my friend & client, arrived, so we spent a lot of time squeaking about the contents! Can’t recommend Bonni enough, Disney felt overwhelming as well as exciting and her knowledge meant we could do everything we wanted to with minimal faff.

Tiny, inexpensive but delightful treats included some mini Barbies for my Barbies, a baby unicorn in squashed packaging (unicorn was unharmed), a rescued set of SquishAlongs and some proper full fat Coke (on special offer because they had Santa on the cans and it’s now February 😂) to fuel me through the month.

Read & watched

A bit of Stolen Focus (it's still giving me rage), a bit of Once Upon A Time, and not a lot else as it’s been a busy week!

I’m slightly annoyed I didn’t actually manage to post this till 3 weeks later, but I am still enthusiastically writing, so it’s all good! Week 7 & 8 will hopefully follow in quick succession 💙

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.

The first proper week of February held some firsts of the year and some new things of the year, and the official 2026 start of my 40th celebrations, which is both exciting and surreal. (Technically I started celebrating 40 with Claire at Starlight Express back in October, I love nothing more than extending an excuse to do fun things!)

The rain has been nothing short of biblical - it feels like it hasn’t stopped for weeks or possibly months, my garden gate and my garage door are swollen shut with all the moisture, and my car just feels permanently slightly damp. Driving in it has been… interesting… but Serafina has lived up to her name and kept me safe.

IRL adventures

This year already has a bunch of workshops scheduled, some business focused and some photography focused, and this was the first of two for Essex Startups, at the Innovation Centre. I’ve been doing sessions for them for a few years now and it is so inspiring to meet all the students on the different programmes, and hear about their business dreams & plans. This week’s was for the Thrive programme, aimed at freelancers, and was about creating your service, packaging your offer and a bit of niching. I wish we’d had something similar when I was at uni!

⬆️ A very happy me after the session, and Thrive in progress - I can’t explain how much joy I get from teaching this stuff

Then was my first brand shoot of the year, for the lovely TechWyse over in Bishop’s Stortford. Honestly, if I’d worked for a company like this I might never have quit to be my own boss - the whole team was a delight and I had the best afternoon. And of course there is a big M&S Food on the way home so I may or may not have snuck in some Easter themed cookies too!

And then the big adventure - Phantom Peak! Lovely Annastasia gave me tickets back in December as an early birthday present, as she knew Lou and I wanted to go and had not yet managed to organise it, and it’s closing in its current location at the end of February. So I pulled an outfit together, met Lou at Canada Water station, and we went off on a proper adventure involving murderous robots and a platypus.

⬆️ Us at the saloon, the Leg Day Duck we had to sell as part of our quest (so yes, we invoked Ducking Fabulous because OF COURSE WE DID) and with hot chocolate at the closing ceremony - look at our delighted little faces 💙

Neither of us quite knew what we’d let ourselves in for, but having been once I would absolutely go again, everyone else I know who’s been has gone back more than once, and I am THRILLED that it is moving to Westfield Stratford and reopening later this summer, because that’s even closer to me :)

Once we’d thwarted the robot we headed over to Southbank for a wander in Foyle’s, dinner in Strada and an impromptu carousel ride! One of my 40th year aims is to ride as many carousels as I can, so that was a wonderful start. And it was so lovely to see Lou - I haven’t seen her in person since before she had my littlest nibling Millie in October, so it was extra joyful to have a whole day to catch up and put the world to rights.

⬆️ On the carousel on Southbank - carousel #1 of 2026!

Offline pursuits

Amidst the adventures I had a couple of beautiful slow mornings with the kittens and my journal and my fountain pens. I started a new morning pages notebook, which is always a nice experience, and also started a new sketchbook for dolls & scale photography.

Got my jewellery tools out and switched the hooks on a pair of magpie earrings I bought at the end of last year, because while I adore them my earlobes do not work well with the hooks that close. I haven’t done anything jewellery-ish for AGES so that was actually a really nice tiny project.

⬆️ Magpie earrings

Wore makeup three days in a row which is highly unusual these days, and am now on a furious mission to figure out how to get all the foundation out of the MAC bottles when the pump says it’s empty and it quite obviously isn’t (they’re sodding glass bottles, it’s not even subtle).

And I bought the kittens a new pack of springs and proceeded to spend a very silly amount of time watching them delightedly push them off the bed, table & sofa and then look at me expectantly to pick them up. Somehow that’s not how I expected a game of fetch to work…

⬆️ Clover and her new favourite spring

Creative project progress

Imbolc, tarot & annual planning continued, I started a big revamp of the way I lay out my master plan for the year, and actually I’m feeling quite chilled about not having fully finished my plans for the year by Imbolc. Which is unusual in itself, but I think a sign of the different energy I am bringing into 2026 and my 40th year.

I had a glorious afternoon filming in my studio with Lu - we have sworn to make this a more regular occurrence this year and not tail off by April like last year. Though I haven’t had any time to edit any of the videos yet, we had a great time and I am definitely starting to relax on video I think, though I still can’t talk effectively without waving my hands around a lot.

⬆️ Lu & me, with matching Squishmallow headphones because WHIMSY 💙

I finally decided on my words for this year - Renegade, Whimsical, Joy and Me. I’ve never had four before, but I’ve never been 40 before either! I ordered a new set of ImpressArt metal stamps in a typewriter font to celebrate (I make a bracelet every year with my words on), but thanks to the new tariff fuckery in the States, they have still not arrived, so maybe they can be 2027’s bracelet font.

On the hobby front I decided what I really want to make this year is a mini-me doll, so spent a wonderful hyperfocused evening deep diving into curvy made to move Barbie bodies and which heads with which hair colour match them. I still find it funny that I have two hobbies that involve a body box… and I think I’m going to have to learn to re-root properly because very few Barbies have my colour hair, hmph.

And then on a different evening I started researching forced perspective photography, because I have so many ideas for photos playing with scale and think that is going to be my main art photography focus this year, and fell down an incredible rabbit hole which ended up with ordering a book - the best kind of rabbit hole - and starting a whole new sketchbook.

This is Elgin Park - the incredible, 1/24th scale world of Michael Paul Smith.

⬆️ These are model cars!

⬆️ And not enormous ones, either - the detail is just magical

Plus my previously mentioned outfit for Phantom Peak - whimsical fantasy outfits are going to be regular this year, and this was the first. Had a rail replacement bus into London and on boarding, I realised I have come full circle from “how to avoid weirdos sitting next to you on your commute when you are a young woman” to being the weirdo. This is not a super out of the ordinary outfit for me even on a normal day, but the looks I got when trying to find a seat were hilarious!

People magic

I’m spending less time on my phone during the day, and then several times this year I’ve looked up from spending a whole evening messaging various friends at high speed. While it’s still screen based and I’d still prefer all my friends lived within having a cuppa distance from me and each other, I have to say it is a fucking excellent improvement on doomscrolling. Occasional evenings spending four hours eating snacks, cuddling kittens and catching up with multiple people I love at once has no downsides, as far as I’m concerned!

Had a whole day with Lou at Phantom Peak, it was great catching up with the Essex Startups team, and getting to know the TechWyse team a bit better, and meeting all the students I taught. And Lu and I put the world to rights robustly while filming and getting the giggles and drinking hot chocolate, so all in all an excellently peoply week which has lifted my spirits muchly!

Analogue acquisitions

Mum gave me an actually really helpful magazine on ADHD, which I am making my way through in sections, and I got the kittens new spring toys. Pencil leads for my mechanical pencil shouldn’t be an exciting purchase, but for once in my life I researched before buying and they are so smoooooth and a joy to write and sketch and doodle with, so definitely a win. (Pentel Super 0.7mm B, if you’re as much of a stationery nerd as I am and were wondering).

And TWO books - Elgin Park, an ideal American town, and Four Thousand Weeks. Which I am slightly nervous of reading but also excited for. And a really pretty bookmark to keep my place, as I am approximately four years into trying to read Stolen Focus, so god knows how long four thousand weeks will take me…

Read & watched

A bit more Once Upon A Time, a bit of Stolen Focus, and dived into the Elgin Park book when it arrived. Reading mojo still very unpredictable and Stolen Focus still making me ragey!

Week 6 & 7 are coming shortly, and then I will be 40 and THEN there is a really exciting week 8… and I’m still finding this a wonderful antidote to the frankly insane wider world. My curious little life is manic, but good.

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.

A few years ago I decided to move my new year to Imbolc, the first two days of February, which is the pagan start of spring. Snowdrops are in bloom, the weather’s still generally relentlessly grey and soggy, but the days are getting longer and the promise of spring is almost tangible.

On a more practical note, December is absolutely batshit and I have no idea how anyone also fits in planning for the year (I did till I had businesses which get busy toward Christmas, and then that became untenable quite quickly!). And it’s an arbitrary date to start afresh, so now February is my new year, and it feels so much calmer and more positive than NYE ever did.

So, week 4 was super full but with mostly really good stuff. Work was again quite screen based, but has been very satisfying, as I’ve been pulling together the last pieces for two workshops I’m running for student entrepreneurs in February.

IRL adventures

This week’s adventures included the first studio meeting of 2026, which was with a lovely ex-colleague who’s taken the leap and gone freelance, and taking the kittens to the vet for their annual jabs, which was blessedly trouble-free although they were deeply unhappy about getting in their carriers for the journey. My vet is amazing though, and I am reassured they are a pair of healthy, fluffy little con artists!

⬆️ I caught them snoozing together and my heart exploded with love!

Biggest adventure was the Rollerworld pop up at Charter Hall, skating with Lu has been one of the greatest joys of the last year or so. This time it came with the added surprise of being pulled over by police on the way there, blue flashing lights and everything. I was petrified, as I’ve never been pulled over before even with a decade of daft sports car ownership, but it turns out I had a broken tail light. He was very lovely and just gave me a verbal warning, but that did mean ditching the following day’s adventure to London so I could get the bloody thing fixed.

But then the guy at Halfords who fitted it for me turned out to have a red MR2 just like Poppy, only a different year, so we had a really good nostalgic chat. (Well, probably not nostalgic for him - he was only about 25 and probably thought I was ancient, but I enjoyed the trip down memory lane and hearing about the mods he’d made to his!).

And skating was just an absolute joy - I definitely ached more this time than usual, but I think that’s because my usual 24/7 pain has gone away since starting HRT, so I can actually tell the difference between continuous pain, and pain which is because of doing something :) We even snuck in a Weezer request at the very end, and honestly I can’t recommend flying around on wheels with a friend enough - it has boosted my mood.

⬆️ All my phone photos from skate events are comically bad - I’ll get a video edited!

Also had a really good call with the excellent Richard Liverman about making the most of the #iAlso100 this year.

Offline pursuits

Had a decent amount of studio time and also curled-up-on-sofa-with-notebook time, wrote a LOT of journal waffle, unblocked a fountain pen so I could load it with yet more glittery ink (yes, I am fixated but it is just SO PRETTY). Did some halfway decent batch cooking for which my overscheduled self was very grateful, and made some late night cake just because. I used to bake loads, but since I mostly work on my own, it means I delightedly eat the lot, so I do it less often these days!

My car had become not so much an extension of my handbag as an extension of my garage, and was driving me mad, so I also had a big sort out and gave her a clean, and I did lots of printing this week!

Everyone thinks I am weird for having not one but two printers (plus two label printers) when most people my age have zero, but I function on paper, and wouldn’t be without them, temperamental though they can be.

Exciting printing was doll clothes patterns, for my lovely friend Lu to have a go at sewing (I was surprised but thrilled when she expressed interest - I am so used to my hobbies being super niche and my friends loving my weirdness, but not necessarily wanting to get involved!). Less creative but still fairly exciting was the first set of workbooks for the workshops, I never teach without also having something to write down what you discover in the practical bits!

Creative project progress

Most of this week’s project progress was on my annual planning, because the last few weeks have whizzed past and I’ve done bits, but not really spent time pulling it all together.

⬆️ Despite having two desks, a bureau and a dining table I often do my planning in bed

I did a tarot & oracle pull for the year from several different decks, as I always do, and was a bit wtf at the results… I’ve never had a reading like this in all the many years I’ve been doing this, so god alone knows what this year has in store!

But the very first card from the very first deck was “bitch fire” so maybe it’s going to be a dramatic one in a good way?! Made me laugh, either way, especially given my recent experiences.

Booked some good stuff in for the week I would normally have been on writing retreat in March - I can’t now go due to the ex-friend situation, which is frustrating but the right decision with how things currently are. I am going to have a virtual retreat day with Sarah, and I discovered and am going on the Mutton March - one woman’s absolutely epic response to a man’s knobbish comment to her about how she was dressed. Feel free to come & join us - I think it’s going to be magical, and will absolutely be taking my camera!

And I re-dyed my hair properly, in sections, and feel much more myself again, but am not sure my bathroom will ever recover. I somehow managed to drop purple dye on one of my skirting boards…

And if it counts under project progress, I learned that I get a bit better at skating every time I do it, so if I can figure out a way to do it more often, I will get much better much quicker. Outdoor wheels when the sun comes out, here I come!

People magic

Not as peoply a week as normal, but still very lovely. In person I saw Kate & Lu by design, and Faye & Ella briefly by happy accident. Had lots of messages from lots of lovely people including a couple of unexpected ones, and possibly my favourite enquiry from someone I know in real life ever. And spent Sunday evening at Mum’s eating homemade sausage rolls and properly putting the world to rights, which was very much needed.

Was meant to spend Sunday in London at the London Doll Meet and then seeing Julia and her daughter, but sadly Serafina needing fixing meant I missed both of those things. But I enjoyed all the photos from the meet, and Jules & I are seeing each other sooooon for 40th birthday celebrations so it’s all good.

Analogue acquisitions

Finally recorded an unboxing video for Catty Noir, who is I think maybe among my favourite dolls I’ve ever owned. I’ll post it when I’ve had a chance to edit, but I can’t get over having a doll who has a body shape more like mine, even if she does also have ears, claws, purple skin and a tail!

My other very joyful arrival was these three necklaces from Rock Cakes - the “hello” is for networking, and the two “yay” ones are for everyday magic - I wore one today to perk up a black outfit and a grey, damp, miserable day.

Glimmers & magic

A new section this week because there were just so many things that made me smile. I keep a glimmer journal, which I write at the end of every day and is a list of all the lovely things that have happened that day, from tiny to huge and everything in between. Some highlights from this week’s were:

• Compliments on my hair - it’s so normal to me I forget it’s quite unusual and it makes me smile so much when people notice and take the time to say they love it

• The news that Phantom Peak has a new home in Stratford - I’m visiting for the first time this coming Saturday (spoiler - it was amazing!! but more in next post!) and was sad it was closing, but this means it’ll be even nearer which is brilliant news.

• Good news about a bestie’s pregnancy 💙

• On a day which had been quite emotionally draining & hard, I came up to find Luna & Clover curled up touching each other, which almost never happens. They’ve both been very sweet when they can sense I’m sad recently and I’m so lucky to have them. (Photo is the one at the top of this post!)

• The concept of the Mutton March - I am so excited to join it.

• Reading a well deserved and absolutely glowing reference for a friend of mine who’s currently going through the PhD application process - she sent it to me to read and I grinned like an absolute loon all the way through!

One of the things that’s made me smile the most this week though is the lovely and overwhelmingly positive, but completely unexpected comments and messages I’ve had about this project so far. I started it because I felt the urge to write for the first time in a long time, and because I’ve always documented my life via a blog and it’s felt really weird the last few years not writing regular updates somewhere.

I never expected anyone else to be interested in my weird little life, and my niche hobbies, odd hyperfocuses, and often waffly updates about the stuff I’ve done out in the real world. But it seems that people do, and I find this magical in the extreme. Writing is something I’ll always love in its own right, but writing and knowing your words are reaching and impacting other people in a good way is one of the best feelings there is. So thank you - it means the world💙

And now it’s February. My 40th birthday month, and properly a new year now, too. I wonder what it will bring?!

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.

The third week of the offline project was my fullest so far, not that I have any idea what an empty week would look like 😂

IRL adventures

My main adventure for the week was hopping into Serafina and driving over to the other side of Essex, on the border with Herts (I’m on the Suffolk border) for a whole day of real life goodness.

First up was a site visit & planning meeting with my February brand shoot client. It was the first time we’d met in person and I’d forgotten how amazing it is when you click with someone in real life properly, so now I’m even more excited for their shoot. Not least because they have a coffee table which unfolds to reveal hidden nerf gun storage…!

Then popped over to see Emma at Stort Valley Gifting, who I do occasionally see in real life at events. She’s a fellow #iAlso from a few years back, is TEMPRD’s biggest stockist, and is an all round fabulous human but we have never had a proper chance to catch up for more than two minutes! So I spent the afternoon with her & Fig the cockapoo and a friend of hers who was also visiting, got a proper tour of their new space, and put the world to rights while getting puppy cuddles - bliss.

⬆️ I love that we both unknowingly chose bright prints!

Then the traffic was appalling so I snuck to TK Maxx and Home Sense for a mooch, had a rare KFC dinner, and stopped at M&S on the way home for my very favourite cookies. Loved being out & about in Serafina and exploring again, I found at least three Essex villages I’d never been to before!

The training day at the Field Studies Council which was scheduled for Saturday, and definitely would have been an adventure, was cancelled, which was a shame but gave me a bit of breathing space.

Offline pursuits

Started the week over at Mum’s waiting for new broadband installation, and in the process did the very satisfying job of going up the really tall ladder and replacing five bulbs, and finally put all the Christmas decorations back in the box. I think we might both have a year off decorating for Christmas next year!

I put gold ink in two of my pens and proceeded to write everything, everywhere in gold all week until the nibs clogged with the shimmer; bought cards for posting physical birthday wishes this year, and did some long overdue scanning of books from the last few months into LibraryThing.

⬆️ Book scanning joy / madness depending on your viewpoint. Yes, that is a proper barcode scanner.

If you haven’t come across LibraryThing, I might be about to change your life - it’s a site where you can log all of your books, sort them into collections, mark as to be read or on loan, and generally indulge all your library dreams. (and yes, I know, it’s technically online but it’s for BOOKS so it counts for this project!). Also, I am a weirdo and bought a proper barcode scanner but you can use your phone if you’re not quite as nerdy as me.

It’s massively helped with my tendency to duplicate, as now I can check if I own a book before I buy it. I’m also trying *gasp* to reduce my insane collection of books, so this month I created new “previously owned” category to go with my “read but not owned” which is mainly full of books I’ve borrowed from libraries or friends. And it’s free (and has apps if you’re not a desktop fan).

Creative project progress

I’m making an actual umbrella site which will show everything I do and link to it all, and I sketched all of this out on paper and wireframed it so when I build it doesn’t take me eight billion years. I think I’m probably the only person left in the world who maps out websites on paper, but I think better with a pen & paper! The worst part was figuring out overarching categories - being a multipod does come with quite specific challenges.

I FINALLY got back to the Barbie car transformation, and re-attached the windscreen and wing mirrors at a more appropriate angle. This involved gorilla glue, quite a lot of swearing, hot glue and then air dry clay. Which has cracked as it’s dried so is still not entirely as I’d planned, but this whole car is an experiment so it’s fiiiiiiiine 😂 Will do a more in depth post about it probably on the art photo site when it’s finished, but I’ve had the best time doing it even if it is absolutely not a professional finish!

⬆️ Winnie seems happy with it so far!

While in full doll mode I added flooring to some of my foamboard setups, made test run versions of a kitchen counter and a bookcase (much to my amazement they worked, though could be neater).

⬆️ No miniature project is complete without an inspection visit from Kittenzilla. It’s usually Clovie.

I’d printed some test backgrounds at the studio, so changed some outfits and took some photos too. I could have happily carried on with this for hours but alas, sleep is necessary.

⬆️ Just a test setup but I’m delighted with the floor as a rink (works for a kitchen too), both sets of skates I painted and getting them to stand unaided!

⬆️ I might be almost 40 but this is still my happy place

And finally on the project front, having done this for a few weeks now, I updated and printed some more of the log sheets I’m keeping in my Filofax so I remember everything each week.

People magic

A couple of years ago, Mum & I went to visit the Antiques Roadshow, and were asked to be part of a segment about vintage car drawings. It aired again on Sunday evening and I had a mad flurry of messages from friends & acquaintances from all over my life, who had spotted us both on TV! My favourite comment was an observation that Mum & I stand the same way (we do! 💙), and lovely Amanda managed to snap a photo of us on screen:

Had a much needed long call with Larissa, saw both my current mentees which was a joy, and also got to see the lovely Lu in person at last, Emma & Fig at Stort Valley, Ness & her team, and did some Cahoots Club plotting with Becky too.

And of course millions of messages from excellent humans, including a wonderful exchange with a true 3am friend who is just magic.

Analogue acquisitions

Did more real life shop browsing than I usually do this week, but almost none of it planned. What I’m finding is that having a list of what I actually need so I can then focus my browsing when it happens is definitely useful, if alarmingly organised.

This meant that on my Friday evening adventure I actually found some square cake tins which had been on my list for months, for stationery rather than cake storage, but round tins are such a pain in the arse to stack or put on shelves. These were particularly beautiful and I’m looking forward to being a tiny bit tidier as a result.

Resisted another Lamy pen, though if it had been broad nibbed I’d have been a goner, treated myself to my favourite cookies, found a totally perfect witch hat keyring which my dolls are very much enjoying:

⬆️ Again just quick phone shots and haven’t edited out the loop at the top, but am so happy with this little hat

And stumbled across a 12x12 paper pad for scrapbooking which is going to make the most perfect 1:6 scale wooden flooring.

Read & watched

Didn’t do a huge amount of reading despite the book scanning, my reading mojo is still a bit lost at sea and only returns intermittently, but it’s better than it was so I remain hopeful. Finished one book and watched a whole bunch of YouTube videos about making doll furniture & dioramas, a few more episodes of Once Upon A Time, and a Monster High rewatch because I was tired and it’s one of my favourites.

And most of that reading & watching was done from my bed with dual kittens - they sleep on the same bed without me quite happily but it’s very rare for them to both settle down for any length of time on the bed with me at the same time, there is some diva jealousy going on there! So that was an utter joy and very precious.

—

I am believe it or not also doing a quite epic amount of work, some of it drafted on paper, but because it’s mainly screen based I’m not including it in this project just yet. But it’s only the end of January, so not even my own new year yet (I celebrate at Imbolc, the pagan start of spring) and I already feel like I’m more present in my life, and writing more regularly than I have for years. Long may it continue (and hopefully I haven’t jinxed it by saying that!)

If you loved this, I’d really appreciate your comments, shares and restacks - every reader is magic!

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Carla Watkins is a photographer, mermaid & dreamer, photographing colourful, magical weirdos and making the world more whimsical, from her little studio by the river in Essex.