August In the Pickle Jar

Hi Folks

Its time for another post and things have been super busy here in the Pickle Jar. For starters I have been painting and creating bunnies left, right and centre. I have also been retaking all my photographs for the Etsy page and just generally sprucing things up.

As well as this I have been organising new packaging for everything including fancy new stickers and fully recyclable boxes, postage bags the works. All ready for the upcoming end of year craziness.

On top of all this I've been busy with some commissions, Including this fun little kids menu and colouring page for Riverhead Coffee here in Grimsby and Cleethorpes.

 

  So as you can see I've been a busy bunny and there's still plenty more cool stuff on the horizon.

Pickle Mail

I've been a busy pickle today working on all sorts of cool stuff to progress the business. One of which is a funky new mail list so I can keep you all updated with whats going on and to offer some cool special offers to subscribers only. I've popped in a box below so you can drop your email in and get signed up but as you can see in the picture at the bottom I've added it into the side of the blog itself.  So get subscribing folks and lets see what offers we can pull out of the Pickle Jar. 

Subscribe to Pickle Mail
 

Freelance and Mental Health

It's been a while since I blogged and I can tell you now that the last year has been a bit of a roller coaster.  My life has basically been thrown in the air and totally changed in various different ways. But like the proverbial phoenix I have been trying to rise from the ashes and rebuild myself.  Through all of this I have made some discoveries and realisations about myself and in particular my mental health.  Basically I had a break down the middle of last year and effectively broke. This resulted in me reassessing every aspect of my life. I left a great but stressful job which had been a huge part of my life for three years. I ended up in counselling and on anti depressants. As far as I was concerned at the time, my life was over. I have learnt however that this is very far from the case and that it was merely a life lesson to grow from.  I discovered that I had in fact suffered from Anxiety and Depression for a number of years but as is the case with most of us, especially men, we just get on with it and bury it down deep. Stiff upper lip and all that. The problem with that is eventually it rears its ugly head and results in exactly what happened to me, which I wouldn't wish upon anyone. During this period of reassessment and reflection I realised that my priorities had been all wrong and that I need to do the things I want to do with my life. Namely The Clumsy Pickle! I have missed being my own boss and running my own life over the last 3 years and feel like I need to get back on this and get things back in order for my own sanity. I dipped my toe back into the water during the Christmas period and sold way more than I expected, which is brilliant and proves that I do actually have a viable business here if I devote myself to it properly.  Ever the nerd I've kind of adopted the Mentat Mantra from Dune as help to get through all this. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion couldn't be more appropriate really. My aim from now on is to work on my own mental health and hopefully share any knowledge I gain from this with the hope that it might help somebody else out there.

2016

Happy New Year Everyone. 

Well It's February and as yet I haven't blogged once. Shocking I know but there's loads of changes going on in the pickle jar which mean 2016 is going to be the start of very different times. Firstly don't panic I'm not packing it all in to live in the woods somewhere. I shall still be drawing and creating, hopefully in a much more productive manner. I will however be doing something very different as my career and day to day job.  But what's this I hear you say I thought this was your career?! and yes you're exactly right this is how I've been eking out a meagre income over the last few years. Now don't get me wrong it's been great but there have been some significant down sides to it as well, but that's another story.
I've been doing a bit of work with Grimsby uni of late helping teach art at the Saturday club (which I'll explain more in another post), this coupled with doing homework with our now 5 yr old daughter has made me realise I actually enjoy teaching. 
As a result I've had a long hard look at my direction and have decided to go back to university and do my PGCE to train up and become a primary school teacher.
So as you can see all change. It also means I'll be adding some different items to the blog as I change stuff around. Here's to the new year and let's see what it brings.