October: The Click Frenzy

It's the end of the month! (Can you handle it!?) 

So here is October's edition of "The Click Frenzy"

Ten sentences to change your perspective on life.
Documentary photographs of 40 pregnant couples, sleeping - by Jana Romanova.
A good enough reason to rip up your business plans.
Interesting read on the Formula for Happiness
No. NO. No no no. just. NO.
Thoughts on taking the time to thank yourself.
If you replace "texting" with "twitter/pinterest/facebook/the-internet-in-general" then this is totally me.
Kittens. And Hearts.
Awesome retro-Alice in Wonderland inspired illustrations by South African design studio Muti
Watch this. Just trust me.
I am obsessed with the details of this Halloween party!
Another 3 things about the origins of traditions on Halloween.
19 signs you went to an all girls school. And yes, for your information - I took an advanced maths class.
Annoying Facebook behaviour. You know who you are.
Tim Burton inspired cocktails
Learning to Celebrate Small - via Lulu
17 reasons why you should be following James Blunt on Twitter
Taking some Min-Spiration from Harry Potter.
4 Great Lessons for anyone starting up a small business
Forbes list of 10 Instagrammers you should follow.
This + comments --> Discuss.
NB: You choose your own response to life.

Halloweeeeeeen night  - it's never been a huge thing in South Africa, but somehow being in London right now - I totally feel like I have missed a massive opportunity to dress up. Am pretty gutted about it.

I had my outfit sorted and everything -

it's a real pity - because I've been practicing my tongue curls all week.

Oh well, next year.

What are your plans for Halloween?

The Photo Hunt!

I have been so excited to write this post about the awesome new networking event we launched last Saturday -  The Photo Hunt! For the past month or so, Bobbi, Lulu and I have been working very hard to develop a new spin on the traditional "bloggers-networking" event. The aim of The Photo Hunt is to bring together like-minded people (read: bloggers, photographers, artists, creatives, adventure-spirits) for a morning of fun, photo-snapping and new found friendships. (I originally posted about it here).


There is surprisingly a lot of hard work that goes into creating an event such as this - including (but not limited to) building websites, setting up email accounts, social media accounts, engaging with potential sponsors, collating email addresses, inviting potential participants, creating branding, selecting appropriate venues/times/dates, building an online presence, meetings, deciding on different ideas/formats, finalising the actual running of the event, pricing, printing, numbers, head counts, assigning teams, proof-reading, returning queries, ticket sales, emails, creating task lists, sponsor vouchers, info packs, prizes, presentation, more emails, ordering, financing and post event strategy. Oh, and we also have our own businesses and blogs to run... on the side, ya know.

In spite of all the "stuff" to do and the very short time we had to do it,
I'd say that for our very first event...  we

[above: participants' team lanyards]

"Hello,

my name is _________________

I'm on the__________________ team

and we're going to win #thephotohunt/

{please excuse any outlandish behaviour in advance}"

[above: some of our prizes]

We met super early, for coffee and breakfast on the day of the event (nerves/game-plan/strategy etc). One of our tasks included finding The Photo Hunt logo other than one that appears in the info pack - so we set out plastering hidden corners of Shoreditch with Photo Hunt stickers before any contestants arrived:



We assigned teams before the actual event so that team members would have the opportunity to engage with their team mates online before they actually meet in person. Because - that's what it's all about: engaging, networking, being introduced to new blogs, having others being introduced to your blog, making friends and transferring your online connections to offline interaction. We devised a fun little game for teams to "pick" their team names from some pre-determined lists. The results were hilar and loved by all!

"Ahem - talking to YOU, Ugly Elephants!"

(soz. inside joke - guess you had to be there - 

But don't worry! You can be! 1 March, 2014!)

Seriously. Put that in your diary - you don't want to miss out.

Meet our Brave Photo Hunt Teams Below!
You will be able to read all about these guys personally and their awesome blogs/snaps on The Photo Hunt blog - (coming soon!) but for now you can just stare at their sexy faces and be jealous that you weren't one of the first ever to take part in The Photo Hunt!

   

(you can find these snaps on The Photo Hunt Instagram Feed)

After we'd handed out our task sheets and info packs to The Photo Hunters and explained some ground rules - they set through the streets of Shoreditch to capture as many of their tasks as they could. I was actually pretty bummed that we weren't doing the Photo Hunting ourselves - so, I decided to get involved anyway -



After The Hunt cut off time - we reconvened for a mini prize giving and the participants (and us) were able to have a bit of a chat and connect with other Photo Hunters over some drinks and nosh.

I am pretty sure positive that everyone had a lot of fun at The Photo Hunt - 

but by the looks of this picture - 

it seems like I'm having the most fun of all.

We had some amazing sponsors onboard for our first event! FalafeLicious (with their delicious fresh Falafels and veggie salads), Milk Tea & Pearl (yummy Bubble Tea for our contestants!), Chobani (re-fueling our Photo Hunters with their protein-powered yogurts) and Camera Couture offering discount codes to our Photo Hunters for their gorgeous camera bags!) We are so lucky to have secured such awesome sponsors for our very first event! HEY!? And we have some very awesome potential sponsors for our next event! Full steam ahead! :)

can you say YUMMEH?

  

[above: tallying up the final scores to determine our winning team]

If you must know - The Drunken Reindeers took first place.

It was such a fun day out - and we have SO many new ideas, improvements to make, more challenges, new locations, different themes and exciting new add-on activities - we are SO excited for the next The Photo Hunt - we hope to see you there!

Thank you SO much to everyone who came to join us for The Photo Hunt! You guys really made it what it was and we are so happy to welcome you to The Photo Hunt Family! We hope you had as much fun at the event as we did creating it!

We will be uploading The Photo Hunt Team Photos to our The Photo Hunt Facebook Page soon -
You can follow The Photo Hunt here:

Twitter || Instagram || Facebook || Pinterest

For updates about our next event (1 March 2014) and for the opening dates of ticket sales and our blog launch you can sign up to receive ALL OUR SPAM newsletters here.

Just kidding guys - we would never spam you.

We're cool like that.

xo

____________________________________________

You can check out Lulu's review on the day HERE
and Bobbi's review HERE!

And some participant reviews so far:
Midnight Rambler || Hmm Maybe || Helena La Petite || Food By Charlotte

 - any other participants who have blog posts about the event please tweet us @thephotohunters!

Positive Postcards

I was browsing through my draft inbox and came across this post from a little while back - I honestly thought that I had already blogged this... but clearly I hadn't! Enjoy!

Before I headed off to The Blogcademy, I knew I wanted to create some memorable business cards.

I started by creating makeshift business cards, then I attached them to my DIY business card holders. Because my aim for attending The Blogcademy workshop was to get some advice and direction on starting up my own online (stationery) business - I decided to design a few little "things" that I could attach to my business cards that would give people a better idea of the kind of stationery I will eventually be selling/my style/vibe and something fun that they could take home or pass along to others.

Since it was the first time that I would be meeting many of these people - I decided to opt for a theme that could easily apply to anyone as well as being in line with the co-operative spirit of the workshop -

"Positive Postcards"

(perhaps this was too much of a South African reference - haha)

I had these printed via Moo Cards - and the quality was really awesome. They actually arrived on the day of the workshop and I was already "in class". The husband took his lunch break to mission across London and drop them off for me and he didn't even get to see me because I was busy gettin' schooled. What a guy.

I had a lot of fun dishing these out and I think people had as much fun choosing the designs they liked. It was also good feedback for me to see which designs went first!

What do you think?

[Review] Tasty treats from Madame Macaron!

A few weeks ago (back when I was in SA), we organised a little bloggers lunch up in the Midlands with Keri, Lauren & Jane. We had a fab afternoon of bloggy-chatting, food-noshing and wine-smashing (some of us more than others, ahem) haha. Jane organised us some delicious treats from Madame Macaron - because which blogger does NOT love a Macaron? I immediately approved of the washi-taped boxes and attention to detail presentation - how cute do they look?!


Madame Macaron has perfected a kind of "macaron-cake pop" and she's got the most incredible combination of flavours! Take "milo and peanut butter" for example - YUM!



The absolute treat of the lot is the "smackaron" which is basically a little goo-pile of indulgent red velvety macaron goodness with a cream-cheesy filling and covered in a lashing of chocolate. I mean, have you ever? Madame Macaron is launching a new taster-box, which you can sign up to and receive a little box of tasty treats to sample! I'd say that's a great excuse for a tea party... and if you desperately HATE the macarons (you won't) - I have figured out some alternative uses for them - so either way - you should just order yo' self some:

Thanks for the treats Madame Macaron - they were well received! x

7 things Sunday

7 Things I'm grateful for this week:

1. A fabulous turn out and very positive response for our very first Photo Hunt event!
2. Meeting new like-minded and inspiring individuals.
3. A list of fabulous new blogs to follow, following from the photo hunt.
4. The clocks turning back today - basically I just scored an extra hour.
5. Delicious chocolatey donuts and a mug of boiling hot chocolate. Ok, I'm joking, I don't really have either of those... but I am hoping that husband (who is sleeping on the couch) will wake up, read this very soon and HOOK A SISTA UP. *nudge.
6. I'm really enjoying all the autumn-ish colours that are around these days in London.
7. Lots of exciting new projects, events and opportunities that are all just starting to take shape! 

What have you been grateful for this week?

Lessons in Karma.

I have learnt a great lesson in Karma.

Last Thursday, I posted a cartoon blog post titled "26 things I'd like to say to dentists". Which (obviously) included some "not-very-nice" things about dentists, because well. I don't like dentists. My mother described the blog post as "WICKED" (and not in the "cool" sense). I described the blog post as "HONEST" (in the "honest" sense). The very next day following my wicked honest blogpost, a new tooth of mine cracked open.

MORAL: The collective karmic power of dentists is very strong. Be careful what you say.

So, not only after my original dentist encounter - which meant I had to revisit the dentist to have TWO IMPLANTS fitted into my jaw, but I now ALSO had to have a cracked tooth/inlay repaired. This all happened yesterday - about 2 hours before I was due to fly to London.

Coming out of the dentist - when your entire mouth has literally been attacked feels like your lip is hanging all the way to the floor and even your eyeballs are a bit numb.





My dad picked me up from the dentist (basically en route to the airport):



So I left for the airport in a lot of dental pain - I won't bore you with the gory details but they had to cut my GUM open. You guys. NO. So I dosed up on painkillers and set off on my way to London. I had a stop over in Dubai which was horrendous. Again, I won't go into details - but just to let you know I was feeling so nauseas and still half asleep from a sleeping tablet that I had to buy a Coca Cola to drink in the airport (which cost me 4 dollars) and after two sips I had to "emergency remove" the cup lid in order to upchuck right back into the cup. Actually that is all the details. I'm not sure why I'm telling you that, because it is certainly "not very becoming of a lady". It must be the meds talking.

Anywhooo - arrived home to some lovely flowers and note from the husband - 

and possibly the greatest gift of all - 

That husband, he is a keeper.

(and I hope our children get his teeth)

Things are full steam ahead for The Photo Hunt on Saturday - I'm so excited for our first event! Will be lots more to follow!