Happy 2018!

Happy New Year my dear readers! It has been a long time since I last posted, I know and I am very sorry for that. 2017 was a year that seemed to stress me out more than anything but this year I have decided to not look back at the old year but rather set fresh new goals, exercise more faith and trust and overall just have a more positive outlook on life in general and not let things I can’t really control get me down.

Last night I chose my one little word for this year, TRUST. I realised as the old year was passing that last year I had feared and worried so much that I simply forgot to trust that things would go as they should and so this year I have decided to trust that the Universe has our back and all things will continue to fall into the place they are supposed to be in. If you have never heard of “one little word” then please, by all means, head over to Ali Edwards’ blog as she was the one who started this tradition of choosing a word to focus on each January. I didn’t choose a word last year and I wish I had because the previous year when I chose EXPLORE I did indeed get to do a lot of that and I think choosing a word each year helps you focus more than you know.

I have set some new goals for the year like a reading challenge, deleting Facebook and other social media apps from my phone so I don’t spend so much time on there and have more time to really enjoy life and also a hiatus from buying more craft supplies this year as I really need to use what I already have. I received some new bits from friends and family which I will use, of course, but I am not purchasing anything new other than the things that get used the most like glue, scotch tape, and the like.

Business related, I want to take a new direction and add more of my own art work into my designs and rely less on stock art/photography. So, lots of attainable goals but ones that can be built upon gradually. My hubby is also embarking on some new goals of his own and we are looking to continue to encourage each other in our endeavours as we always do. He is my rock.

Something I am truly excited about are these books I received as Christmas presents! I am so excited to learn more about each of these subjects and enrich my life and home with the presence of succulents, attract some more song birds to our garden, and lead a cozy hygge life.

I am so grateful for all my friends, family and those who read my posts on here and follow me on social media because it is inspiring to be connected to so many wonderful people on this, our small planetary home. You all are why I share my life with you! I hope I can always inspire and share discoveries with you and be inspired by you in turn! I wish you all the most wonderful New Year!

Here’s a little printable to start your new year off right, for those of you who are planners or project lifers then you won’t want to miss this freebie! These are filler cards/journal cards for January! Just right-click and save! They are for printing in 4″x 6″ size.

Happy New Year! Hope to see you all again soon!

Nadia xoxo

Meet WIBP’s new brand reps

Last week I made a general call for brand reps for Walks in Beauty Paperie and found some very eager and willing social media mavens to represent our brand for the next three months. We are so excited to have them join the Walks in Beauty team and look forward to sharing more of their adventures with you all as well. So, without further ado here they are.

Each lady has a blog and instagram or twitter account which we hope to share with you via our own social media pages as well so that you can get to know them better. Here are the blog links to each one so you can have a look at each unique style and voice.

Barb’s blog is ritewhileucan. She writes a lot about all things paper related and letter writing related and goes on some fantastic tours of places in her native home of Canada.

Bekah’s blog is Livin’ It Bekah Style, you might recognise her blog as being the one I got that fabulous ginger snap recipe from I mentioned in my last blog post. She is also my twinsie and best friend in Canada.

Susie blogs over on Facebook on her page called Snail Mail with Susie where she shares goodies she’s purchased, tips and other stuff related to our shared love of snail mail.

Please check their blogs out and keep up to date with us here and on our own social media pages!

Cheers,

Nadia xoxo

Autumn Colour Spotting in Bridport

It’s a cloudy Sunday afternoon, I’ve got a tray of ginger snaps in the oven and one ready waiting to go in as soon as the other has finished baking. The house is quite except for the low rumble of the oven, the ticking of the timer and the sound of my computer keys as I type this very instant. Alan is quietly working in the lounge on some artwork and I relish the glimpses of autumn colours I can see growing daily through the windows of our dear little home.

The weekend has been fairly mellow, rooted in tasks around the home and getting ahead with things for the Etsy shop. We took a break yesterday afternoon to have a walk around town and enjoy the already vibrant emerging colours and I took a few snaps. It was a gorgeous sunny day so we had plenty of opportunities to enjoy being outdoors. The first few photos are just snaps of areas near to our home as we headed into town with the last being almost to the town centre.

From town we walked over to Mountfield where the council offices are as behind that is the Millenium Green where we proceeded to walk about up to the fields directly behind the former house turned offices. Below are some views first from around the outside of Mountfield and the field behind.

Though there is still a lot of green about, daily more colours emerge as autumn settles in. Walking through the hollow into the Millenium Green the leaves of autumns past still cover the path as you slowly see signs of more colourful leaves to come and signs of late summer in the blackberries that still appear on the brambles. Chestnuts begin to cover the path as well and cheeky little squirrels can be seen darting from branch to branch.

These are the makings of another beautiful autumn and I hope to share more of that with you in the future. I am trying to blog more frequently and be a bit more consistent with this blog. Use it for what I always intended it for, to share the beauty and wonder of this life we lead, simple as it may be and share some of what I love with the world at large. Our walk concluded with a stop to look at the colours emerging at St. Swithun’s Churchyard. Here are a few snaps from there.

Well my lovely readers, my ginger snaps are getting on and I need to find some tins to fill with the ones that have already come out of the oven and cooled sufficiently on the rack. Thank you for joining me on this virtual walk and I hope you will find time to peruse more posts if this is your first time here.

Cheers,

Nadia xoxo

For those of you who aren’t as autumn mad as I am here is a lovely list of ways to get happy about autumn from The Old Fashioned Mama.

I’d love to try this autumn flowers heart wreath from A handmade cottage this year.

Sometimes I love looking back at the beautiful photographic posts of Kitty and Nathan from Searching for Tomorrow. This post, The deer ones, is from September 2016 and is delightful.

Autumn and Brand Rep Announcement

Autumn, meteorologic-ally speaking, is in full swing here in Bridport! The leaves are starting to turn, the days are getting shorter and cooler and with it come the flavours and smells one typically associates with the change of the season. Here at Walks in Beauty HQ (aka our little home) we are starting to enjoy it to the fullest! Autumn is my favourite time of year and on the paper side of things, many of my customers have been buying lots of autumn and Halloween papers! Making these makes my heart happy!

This revelation brings me to my next point, brand representatives/enthusiasts. For quite some time now I have been considering adding a few brand reps to our growing community of snail mail enthusiast customers. This is a first for me so I am very happy to announce that as of September 15th I will be accepting applications for brand reps of which I will choose three people to represent our brand. So, here is how it works:

I am looking for three brand reps/enthusiasts to represent us via social media and blogs for the next three months starting in October. The ideal candidates will have a blog that is kept up to date, a public Instagram account and public twitter account with a following of over 300, and a Facebook page is an added plus. Brand reps will receive a total of 3 free writing sets, 2 free writing papers, and any new sticker and journal card/ephemera sets that come out during the three month period they are representing us for. Reps will also receive a unique discount code for them to use to get up to 40% off of any product they buy within that three month period. Reps are required to purchase at least one item per month. In exchange for all of these goodies (and any extras which will no doubt be included), each brand rep is expected to write at least 1 blog post a month about Walks in Beauty Paperie‘s products and post one clear photo of our products each week during the three month duration which will start on October 1st and Conclude on December 31st. To apply for a post as a brand representative please e-mail us at walksinbeauty[at]outlook.com with the following:

• Your name and location
• Links to your blog, twitter and Instagram accounts
• a short intro explaining why you would make an excellent brand rep and what you most like about our products.

Application deadline is Friday, 22nd September 2017. You may e-mail at anytime from now until then. I will start viewing applications from the 15th until the 22nd. Successful applicants will be notified on Sunday, 24th September and posted their first press package on Monday in order to allow time for their first posts in October. I look forward to choosing three fabulous people!  Here’s a sneak peak at some of the types of things that will be coming your way:

To see more of what we make do check out our shop or IG account! Looking forward to hearing from people soon!

Cheers,
Nadia 🙂

Loving this month in pictures by A handmade cottage.
If you love vintage then you’ll love my pen pal Sarah’s blog: Homespun Stitchworks.
And these fresh fall freebies!

Hello September, Hello Autumn: New Season, New Beginnings

Hello my lovely followers and friends! Happy September! It has been an insanely long time since I last posted in here and I feel horrible about that but life was just too stressful for a while to cope with writing about it and also dealing with all the things that come along with that stress. Still, I missed writing in here and sharing with you all what has been happening and so I decided that September 1st was the perfect date to start writing again.

As many of you might know, I run an Etsy shop called Walks in Beauty Paperie and this has been consuming most of my time lately. I am loving it! Writing letters has always been a passion of mine so creating beautiful writing papers is a natural fit for me and as I am typing this post I am printing an order as well. I have a lot of exciting new things in store for my paperie and one of the things I am keen to do is get some brand representatives to join me in my love of all things paper. I will be putting up a post with the details later but just wanted to show you all a little bit more of what I do here.

If you are a regular follower of our Instagram account you will have seen the above in a post, as well as many other sets like it. I also produce ephemera sets, sticker flakes and lately have been making journal cards in 3″x 4″ & 4″ x 6″ format to fit Project Life albums for a unique touch.

I source the images I use from public domain sites, commercial clip art artists, and use my own photography and artwork as well as my husbands to create these gorgeous paper products. Our latest new product are the above gratitude quote journal cards which I thoroughly enjoyed making. They are very unique and right now in honour of Labor Day in the USA we have a 25% off sale going on across our entire shop, including our sale section which has many lovely items in it at present.

Our most popular items right now are our autumn and winter stationery which is flying out the door daily. I love these designs most of all as autumn and winter are my personal favourite seasons and in the next few weeks I hope to be adding some new designs and items to the shop for people to snap up devoted to this wonderful time of year and featuring more of my own artwork and photography.

Right now I am adding secret coupon codes in for every customer that shops from the end of last month (August orders that went out as recently as Wednesday of this week included) through to 25th September and all autumn and winter orders are receiving some lovely freebie journal cards some of which I will share a photo of below.

So, in short, this is where I am at regarding the shop at present. There will be more in the next few days, weeks and months as I look to expand our range of goodies. New products, new designs and a slightly new direction with an old twist.

Thank you for always keeping up with our blog, it means a lot, even when I have been a bit remiss in posting. I hope to now be back to blogging regularly and hoping to bring you lots more new content as well. I want to go back to also posting more of our lifestyle content and also share with you links to some of my favourite blogs around the web.

Here’s to a happy and exciting September!

Love,

Nadia xoxo

Today I am loving these, Chalkboard prints by Poppys Memory Box

Thinking of making these soon, Gingerbread Biscotti by my twinsie, Bekah.

Because I missed this yesterday, our lovely Princess Diana, a tribute by Kiki Nakita.

 

 

Slow Living Sunday: Sunshine & Serenity

It’s a beautiful and sunny Sunday evening here in Bridport today. Alan and I had a nice long lie in followed by him making us cinnamon rolls! They were so good! It was his first time making them too and they turned out fantastic! We had to run some errands earlier so after having breakfast we went into town to get a few things and enjoy the sunshine. It is lovely to be out and taking all the signs of Spring in. I had a few things I wanted to do when we got home, making a nice loaf of bread being one of them!

Back in January we moved into our own place but we still have a few things over at Alan’s parents’ place so while I got busy making my Bara Soda Carawe (that’s Welsh for Caraway Soda Bread), Alan went to go get some of our books to add to our bookcase which had been sitting in the hallway not getting much use other than as a catch-all of sorts. We cleared it out last weekend and now it is finally starting to look like a proper bookcase and soon I will have the hallway clear of all the excess clutter.

So, today has really been more about slow living, trying to just take at least a day to enjoy life without all the major distractions from the everyday. Alan made a lovely chili con carne while I baked and we had a late lunch followed by a nice nap (sunshine and a hearty meal will do that to you). Now I am up, writing to you all after having finished a few designs and test prints to upload some new stuff to the Etsy shop and Alan is making scones for supper! Couple that with a gorgeous evening of sunshine and a leisurely viewing of Vera on ITV in about 40 minutes and we are ready to end this relaxing day to start a new and vibrant week ahead. How was your Sunday?

Well, I am off to enjoy the rest of my Sunday evening with my hubby! More news to come tomorrow! Have a lovely week and stay positive!

 

Photos by: Nadia M. Perez Bugler ©2017 All Rights Reserved.

Hello again! It’s been a while…

Well, after a rather long hiatus from blogging, partially because I wasn’t feeling much like writing and partly because I had forgotten my login details, I am back with you all again. Hello from Bridport! It was a lovely start to April today, lots of sunshine despite some looming clouds so Alan and I headed off on a walk to West Bay to have a nice beach day.

Despite some brooding storm clouds towards town, the Bay stayed dry while we were there and the walk home was lovely. Alan even found a human size hamster wheel in one of the fields. *wink*

Hopefully we will be back blogging more regularly here though we can’t promise to do so daily. I for one have a lot more to share with you all but for now I bid you a good weekend and a good night!

 

Photos of West Bay by Nadia M. Perez Bugler ©2017 All Rights Reserved.

June Goals & A Homemade Salsa Recipe

Hello again my lovely readers! I missed a day of posting yesterday so I thought I would double up on both prompts. Goals for the month and my go to summer recipe. I have one main goal for this month which, if you’ve read my previous posts you’ll already know what that is, but for those who are just reading this, that is to not spend on anything frivolous this month. That is to say, no spending on any of the things I tend to buy needlessly like washi tape or more stickers when I have plenty. Alan (my hubby) and I decided to spend only on the necessary things such as food and toiletries and on things pertaining to my stationery business Walks in Beauty Paperie on Etsy, mainly materials such as ink for printing and paper.

Another goal for this June is to try and use more of my craft supplies to create both things to send to my pen pals in creative mail or things to sell. I have a few ideas combining mixed media up my sleeve. Also, we both have the goal of exploring more of the art studios in our local area during the Dorset Art Weeks which is a nice free outing and allows us to mingle with local artists and fellow creatives, see what they are doing and support them. We usually tended to go to St. Michael’s Trading Estate for the studios there but have discovered there are some other studios dotted about town or within walking distance in other nearby villages that might be worth going to check out. There is at least one open studio during the Arts Week in the North Mills area I’d like to check out (photographic art) and one in the village of Symondsbury which I am dying to go and explore again. The arts weeks end on 12th June so we should be able to check out many different studios between now and then. Today we saw some beautiful quilt art at Becca’s Fabric Larder, most of the pieces were by either Becca Balazs herself or another very talented quilter, Janet McCallum. This was a private viewing which we were invited to but many of the art studios around there were also open and we could have gone in. Supporting local artists and crafters is a big goal of mine. I want to support them more and the big chain shops less. We are fortunate enough to have quite a variety here in Bridport which is a huge plus!

Now, on to today’s prompt: My go to summer recipe…well, I think that would have to be homemade salsa! I love the stuff! I am not a fan of spicy salsa so I make mine very differently from most people but it’s such a refreshing salad and goes well on tortilla chips or even as a side with meat. We made some last night to go with our lovely nacho salad (something I used to eat at home with my parents in Florida pretty regularly and was craving) and it turned out amazing! So, I thought I would share the recipe for those who are more into a mild and refreshing salsa.

 

 

Homemade Mild Refreshing Salsa

Ingredients:

• 2 medium sized tomatoes, chopped
• half a white onion, chopped or 2 large spring onions chopped (green tops and white bits)
• half a large English cucumber, chopped
• juice of one lime
• quarter of a red bell pepper, chopped
• three sprigs lemon thyme, chopped
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro or more
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Chop all of your ingredients that need chopping and place them in a medium to large bowl as you go.
2. Once chopped, mix and squeeze the juice of one lime over the salsa mix.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste and mix together.
4. For best results make this a day in advance, mix and cover and place in refrigerator overnight so that the juices work their magic.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and if you try it out do let me know!

Cheers!

Nadia

 

Memories of a perfect holiday…

Today is a day of recalling memories for me, in some respects because it is the first anniversary of my maternal grandmother’s passing today and in part because, following Hello Neverland‘s June prompts, I am recalling my most meaningful vacation memory. A vacation is supposed to help ‘vacate’ your life to make room for the new and get rid of the old. In the UK where I live vacations are called holidays and for me the perfect holiday was when I came to the UK for the first time three years ago. I still cannot believe how life altering this vacation/holiday was but it was the stepping stone that brought me to a life in this country alongside the man I love. I came here back in 2013 with every intention of exploring and getting to know this beautiful country, thoughts of finding my lifelong partner here barely entered my mind but that is exactly what happened.

My most meaningful memory of this particular holiday is that of having the opportunity to show my hubby around one of my favourite places in England, Stratford-Upon-Avon. He’d come to visit me where I was staying in Birmingham (I was house-sitting for my friend who was away in the Channel Islands at the time) and we had decided to take a little day trip to the Bard’s birthplace. I had been there a couple of month’s prior to that so knew my way around pretty well. For me it was a chance to share the home of one of my idols, one of the reasons why I am a major Anglophile. The time we spent in Stratford truly did not disappoint. We went to Shakespeare’s birthdplace, walked all along the street nearby entering shops, had lunch at a lovely cafe, strolled by the canal and watched the swans, had dinner at a restaurant near there and just had a great time cementing our relationship.

Strangely enough, we wandered into a shop where a local man heard us talking and heard my notable American accent and assumed that it was my husband who was showing me around the place. He seemed shocked and taken aback when he found out that it was the other way around. Hehehe! He must have thought it odd that an American was showing an Englishman around Stratford! Still, we had a good chuckle about that and it is forever etched into my memories of that time spent in each other’s company in that beautiful place.

I am blessed beyond measure to have been able to create such meaningful memories with Alan back then as they really did help to pave the way for when we had to be separated by an ocean while we tried to sort my visa & immigration status out afterward. It was this and other wonderful memories we created both here in the UK and in the US that kept us holding on until I was finally granted my visa and residence permit last October.

I cannot wait to go back to Stratford-upon-Avon and create many new meaningful vacation memories with Alan again but I am also very much looking forward to exploring even more places in the UK. Right now with our no-spend month I shall be limited to where my feet can carry me in our area but there is so much to see around here that I expect that should not be a problem at all!

I would love to know what holiday/vacation memories are meaningful to you and why! I love to hear other people’s stories. I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Below are some links you might find interesting! Happy reading!

 

I am making this funfetti cake for a friend’s birthday tomorrow!

If you aren’t acquainted with the Lucky Dip Club you really ought to be, check out my blog post on my snail mail blog.

Always wanted to know more about Grace Kelly? Then check out Kiki’s post about her here.

 

No-Spend June = Creative Possibilities

Hello my lovely readers! Happy first day of June and beginning of the meteorological summer, well here in the Northern hemisphere at least. A little update about things in the Bugler-Perez household. First, we are embarking on a no-spend month which basically means we will spend on nothing extra other than the bills we have to pay and the food we must eat. No outings. no extra coffee dates here and there, no frivolous spending of any sort. Sounds daunting, I know, but I think it will help us greatly in the long run to be able to save for truly extra special events as well as enable us (me in particular) to use the things we have on hand and/or get rid of the things we will ultimately not use. Thirty days of not spending on extras may seem like a long time but in the end I think it will be well worth it.

Another little thing I wanted to share is that I am going to be blogging daily this month using prompts from Hello Neverland for the month of June. I found her blog via Pinterest after I was searching for a way to beat my ‘blogger’s block’ and found her prompts to be really encouraging and fairly easy to fit into my lifestyle blog. Today’s prompt is how do you express your creativity and I think this ties in perfectly with my no-spend month as I am aiming to be more creative in many ways–crafting, cooking, even how I entertain myself and how my husband and I entertain ourselves as a whole. I am hoping this will help us use our time a bit more wisely and allow us to create more.

Generally speaking, I express my creativity in the form of art or paper crafting. I love to create things, pretty things and functional as well. Anything that is visually pleasing is what I like to make to express myself.

 

My other main form of creative expression is photography. I just love snapping photos of people, places, things and even abstracts. When I am not shooting with my DSLR my iPhone is almost always out for me to capture a candid shot of someplace or something.

I’m not particularly interested in how others perceive all the things I make or all the things I photograph, they are mostly for my own pleasure though it is nice to hear that other people enjoy it as well. I also enjoy being creative in the kitchen, trying new flavours and not rigidly sticking to a recipe but sometimes changing it up. I think, being a creative person, I tend to express my creativity in all the things I do on a regular basis. What about you? How do you express your creativity? Is your creative side affecting your pocket too much or have you found ways to manage that well? I am very curious about what you all think and what stories you can tell! Have you tried a no-spend month before?

I am hoping to get creative with all of my paper crafting supplies this month while I am not purchasing anymore to see just how far I can push the bounds of my own creativity. I’ll hopefully be publishing a few entries with how-to’s on my snail mail blog throughout the month of June.

Have a very happy and blessed June! I’m off to bed! Chat more to you all tomorrow!

 

PHOTOS: Paper punched & hand cut shapes for use in paper crafting; far side of Coquina Beach, Florida 2 years ago.

Want to use the same blogging prompts I’m using? Here’s the June prompts from Hello Neverland.