New global 4am Project date plus bonus Nottingham event!

I'm calling out to photographers and those with a curiosity and like to try something a little crazy different at 4am on Sunday 25th November.

The 4am Project is back and not only is this another global event, I'm also hosting a 4am Project photo walk in Nottingham city centre!

Tickets are free and places are limited!



Grab some 4am photography inspiration from some of the 6000+ photography archive from the project from 50 countries!



Where to find the 4am Project online....

• Website
• Flickr Group
• Facebook Group
• Twitter
• View the archives

It's really easy to take part! All you need is a camera (and a willingness to get up at 4am!)

If you have any questions, just give me a shout! :)

My 2012 Birthday

Well, seeing as I recorded my birthday celebrations last year, it must now be deemed a blogging tradition! I think that's how traditions start anyway...

Last year was my 40th birthday! hehee. This year it's the year of my 2012 birthday!

I storify'd some of the few days of celebration. Thanks to my BFF for a fab day in Manchester and my awesome Mum for an adventure in Liverpool. And thanks to all my friends for joining in with the celebrations online too! :) x

Goodbye bountiful* balcony

*barren

 This year I decided I would have an Edible Balcony.

My balcony is like a sun trap. It catches rays all day long - how could anything not grow on my balcony especially if I remember to water and talk to the plants!

I'm going to turn into a farmer(ess) and start blaming the wet summer for the poor produce.

First up, my strawberries. I got lovely healthy plants that showed a lot of promise, but delivered a lot of disappointment.

What the hell is THIS?!

I planted 10 (TEN!) sunflower seeds and cared for and nurtured them. 

And out of the TEN seeds I planted, just 2 fought their way through and managed to show signs of life 

They took about 4 months to blossom, but it was worth the wait. They were beautiful and really, really cheery. I was quite selfish and instead of sharing their happy faces with my neighbours I turned them so they were looking in the window and facing me hehee.

These flipping herbs. I grew these from seeds. They took AGES. Every day I checked on them. I talked to them. And I was delighted when little shoots of hope appeared! 

Eventually they were put outside for just an hour or so a day to acclimatise to what would become their new environment. I handled these seedlings with kid gloves! If I had wanted something that needed so much attention I would have had kids! Or a cat. 

And they got stronger and more robust. I made room for them in my herb box with my chives and sage. And then they gave up and died! 

Tomatoes. Come on tomatoes, you won't let me down will you?! 

I can't really complain too much about my tomato plants. They produced a reasonable yield (hark at me with the farming lingo!), and I got around 20 baby tomatoes altogether. 

I'm not sure what I'll do next year. I might just plant 100 sunflower seeds (and maybe ten will grow) as I got to most pleasure out of them. 

How did your garden grow this year? :) 

Say hello on twitter @karenstrunks

My experiments with nail art

I've been going a little mad for nail art in the last couple of months.

This is how I usually wear my nails. Plain, glossy red. OPI's Big Apple Red if you must know. It's my favourite ever! OPI would be my first choice when it comes to polish with amazing colour plus staying power. I love it. If I was pushed for my second choice, I'd stay Nails Inc. And whilst we are on the subject, I always wear OPI base coat and a top coat which enhances the longevity of the polish. I've just noticed that OPI have an iPhone app. You can set the shade of your skin and see what their colours look like.

My first play around with bling...

Of course I had to tweet it out. My mum had to air her opinion! lol.

All jewelled up! Nail bling :) twitpic.com/ah1e5k

— karenstrunks (@karenstrunks) August 8, 2012

@karenstrunks Your nails looks like traffic lights a bit busy.Ha Ha !

— margaret (@createdineire) August 8, 2012

@createdineire ha ha! No they don't, they look beautiful!

— karenstrunks (@karenstrunks) August 8, 2012

@karenstrunks Hi you need to go to SpecksaversHa Ha!

— margaret (@createdineire) August 8, 2012

@createdineire leave me alone! Everyone will compliment them tomorrow, wait & see! x

— karenstrunks (@karenstrunks) August 8, 2012

These photos aren't in any particular order.

THIS was my first effort in leopard print nails. It went a bit wrong! I just kept adding glitter on top to make it look better. It's hard to control the black lines, you need such a steady hand. They kind of looked better in real life - when I moved my fingers quickly and they were a blur.

I took this photo the other week. This is the longest my nails have EVER been. For some reason they just grew whilst I was in hospital for a week. I loved them, BUT now only my left hand has long nails and my right hand nails are shorter. Harumph.

I got some black lacey nail stickers that I thought might look quite elegant. I planned out how I would do each nail design and cut them to the right size first.

Ta da! I just called this Black Nude Lace, but my best friends said it reminded her of 1920s Parisian Chic. That's even better!

So easy to do. Black with a little silver glitter along the cuticles. 

I got carried away with the bling a bit! Every one of these sparkles stayed on for over a week. It was the week I was in hospital. They were quite a talking point with the nurses ha.

I was inspired the day I thought of this one! Wonder Woman nails! 

The blue and stars from Wonder Woman's shorts and the red (with added glitter) from her top! 

I saw this type of design somewhere; stained glass window. I gave it a try, but it didn't work out. I think it needs brighter colours and thinner black lines.

Just red with a little bling. 

This only stayed on for a few hours. I was just playing around with nude, red and sparkles. 

Another play. My first attempt at a heart, polka dots, flowers, and a cute ladybird. 

I don't know why I haven't bothered having more fun with my nails before. Time and inclination I guess, but I find it really relaxing. 

Here's a few places I like to look for nail art inspiration. 

Coloures De Carole I just stumbled across this one the other day. You could be there all day looking at all her wonderful creations!

Nuthin' But A Nail Thing This lady seems to paint her nails with a new design every day! She's got tons of links to other nail blogs on her side bar if you fancy even more inspiration. 

Pinterest This is a mix of nails, hair and make up and seeing as I love make up even more than nails this is a great place for me to hang out. If you want to keep up with some of my favourite finds you can follow my beauty board.  

There we go! 

It's Sunday afternoon and I'm going to chill out for the rest of the day and do all my beauty things. It's GREAT being a girl! :)

Say hello on twitter @karenstrunks

Could you be the Photobox Motographer Of The Year?!

Last night I hopped on a train to London to meet up with some of the Photobox crew and some of the London Instagramers in Brick Lane for the launch of Photobox's Motographer Of The Year Awards 2012.

Motographer? Yes, you read it right! A motographer is a photographer who uses their mobile phone to take their photographs. Mobile phones account for 25% of the digital photos taken these days, and the popular mobile photograph app, Instagram, has hit the 100 million user mark!

Of course there are prizes for the winner of the Motographer Of The Year award. Here's what Photobox has on offer:

A brand new smart phone
The winner will be announced in December.
£500 in Photobox credit
Enrolement in an iPhoneography course
£50 of App store vouchers to spend on motography apps
Access to photography events
And your winning image printed on a mug

It's really easy to take part.

Simply take your winning image and upload it to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram and tag it #MOTY2012

That's it!!

All the entries will be pulled together via the tag and the judging panel will do the rest.

Head over to the Photobox site for more details about the judges and rules of the competition.

Good luck and happy motograph-ing!

Here's my competition entry - just because it was the sweetest little rescue dog with such a gentle nature. Awwwww :)

Say Hello on twitter: @karenstrunks

A little blog make-over on a Saturday

Hello! I hope you are having a happy Saturday!

Mine is going very well thank you, if a little too quickly.

I got up with the larks to restock my fridge with fruit and vegetables at the city centre market which is about 3 miles away and a really quick drive early in the morning. I've got loads of independent fruit and veg shops near me, but if I get the chance I do like going to the Bullring market. I like the hustle and bustle and the shouts of the traders. Plus there is an amazing array of colourful produce from about 60+ traders, and you can't leave there without a bargain.

Last Saturday - a happy fridge

This morning - a very sad fridge

All stocked up again! £7.60 in total. I love fresh sweetcorn right now

I'm really getting into nail art at the moment, and I'm going to post all my successes and failures in a blog post soon. I *think* I'm getting a bit better. Two things you definitely need is time and patience, so I make it a Sunday night activity. I've been saving up some of my favourite nail art inspiration (and make-up and other favourite bits) over on Pinterest if you fancy a look. 

Whilst I was out today I picked up some more polish but I only like the Barry M sparkly one. It's true what they say; buy cheap, buy twice. The other sparkly polishes look nice, but they were cheap and they are only good for the bin, or holding up to the light and admiring - I do love sparkles! I'll probably use the white polish for nail arty stuff, but on it's own it just looks like Tippex! Anyway, I'm a bit down on all nail polish brands apart of OPI which is my favourite in the whole wide world ever. It does what I want it to - stays on. My second favourite is Nails Inc. I popped into Debenhams  where Nails Inc have a little corner in the store, but I was really disappointed with the state of it. It wasn't staffed (it was about 10am), the stock was really poorly displayed, it looked like some of the shelves needed a good clean and the polishes weren't organised very well. I'm wondering if they are closing down their corner. It looked abandoned an neglected. It put me off.

I don't know what happened when I was in hospital, but I've noticed that my nails have never been stronger or longer! Maybe it's because my hands got a complete rest whilst I was ill. I didn't lift a finger for a week. And even when I got home I did very little. I can't remember when my nails were ever this long. I hope they stay this way from now on!

Anyway! I got distracted. The reason I started this blog post was to 'unveil' my new blog header! I completely didn't do the work I was meant to do to this afternoon because I found inspiration in an unusual place - a magazine. Well, maybe not that unusual a place but it is rare that an advert will catch my eye. It's probably because it had the word 'more' and my favourite colour red.

I've wanted to update this blog's header for ages now so I struck whilst the inspiration iron was hot and went from this....

Farewell old blog header!

To this!

I think it's a bit brighter and more me. And I even used other colours apart from red. That's a rare thing! Ha.

I'm going to dash now. I really fancy a cocktail tonight. I haven't had a drink since the night I was rushed to hospital (I did mention I was ill and went to hospital didn't I?! hehe) and I've temporarily had a little break from alcohol. I'm practically living the life of a saint at the moment. I must remedy that soon!

Say Hello on twitter: @karenstrunks

Facilitating at Undoc Camp at the Paul Hamlyn Foundation

Update: 20th Sept. Great article about the event in the Metro. 

In July I headed down to London for a couple of days and joined journalists, lawyers, activists, migrants, artists, app developers, designers and entrepreneurs for Undoc Camp, a Paul Hamlyn Foundation project which was fantastically delivered by On Road Media. 

The aim of Undoc Camp was to look at how we can use the web and digital technology to help get information and advice to young people who are in the UK with irregular immigration status.

The camp was spilt into themes; Arrivals, legal advice and support, self help and well being, awareness, trust, and returns (when people are deported out of the UK).

I was paired up with the Arrivals team whose mission was to find a way to help young people orientate themselves when they first arrived in the UK and to make it easier for them to find out what services are on offer to them.

The team had a day to come up with an idea on how to address this issue and then they would present it to a panel of judges. Paul Hamlym offered funding to the top 3 ideas chosen by the judges (1 x £5000 and 2 x £2500) in order for the concept to be developed and brought to life.

My role within the Arrivals team was to act as a facilitator; to keep the day on track, make sure everyone's ideas were heard, that the plan and the presentation came along and to contribute as and when.

Photo by William Walsh

The day flew by and it was soon time for the team to pitch their idea to the judges! Of course I was biased and really kept my fingers crossed that Team Arrivals had a winning idea!  

Team Arrivals. A winning team! 

And they were a winning team. Yes!!

The idea is called First Help. When people arrive in the UK, they often don't know who to trust amidst the chaos,  confusion and disorientation of arriving in a foreign country. First Help will be simple text messaging service which will send a response in the new arrivals native language. It will contain a link to a url, that has information and videos in their own language, there will be an IP address so they can see where they actually are in the UK (depending on they type of phone they have), and what services are available to them locally.

Well done Team Arrivals!

Personally I found Undoc Camp an eye opening and inspiring couple of days. There was such a mix of people from all types of backgrounds there and you could just feel their passion in wanting to help find a solution to a variety of issues that young immigrants face when they are in the UK. We met and worked with some of the young people and they were kind enough to share some of their stories and issues. It was a pleasure to be involved in the weekend, and I can't wait to see First Help in action :)

Say hello on twitter @karenstrunks