Being an adult is hard and that's without mental health problems coming into the mix... things can quickly pile up and when they pile up the mind can become chaotic which can be stressful.  Tips For Getting Back On Track: First things first is to decide are you swamped by mental health? life tasks? feeling lost? Depending where you are will determine how much you need to get back on track and which tips you should prioritise and these tips can be done in any order. If you're feeling lost a good place to start would be to do a deep clean, organise your stuff and de-clutter the stuff you never use or don't like anymore.This could take a while depending on your situation, you don't have to achieve it all in the day, task one room per day if this is easier.  Once you've finished cleaning, organising and de-cluttering your home, sort out your digital stuff this could be your phone, laptop/PC, Ipad/tablet - again this could take a while. Delete all the random stuff you

  WOW!!! Time is seriously flying by... I started this blog 21st September 2022 - A whole YEAR has gone by in the blink of an eye. I guess I've been that busy it's quickly come around.  I'd like to thank each and every one of you that reads my blog, I really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to do so. I hope you find the posts of value as the aim is to be somewhat helpful. If you've tried out any of the advice let me know in the comments how it went. The advice on this blog is as much for you as it is for me to solidify the knowledge and to refer back to in the future should I need it. I'm no expert but I've experienced a lot to do with mental health so I thought it'd be good to share what I've learnt from CBT, what's worked for me or other researched information and methods i'd be open to trying.    It might not seem like a big deal having a blog hitting it's 1st birthday but for me it means I've had real genuine hope and po

  Reverse art is a concept I've recently discovered... I bought some felt tips that bleed through the paper MEGA bad *like it'll go on to whatever is underneath the paper too... be that your leg lol so you need to put something you don't mind getting stained underneath* but the bleed through looks hella cool when you turn over the pieces. For some reason I actually prefer the bleed through side, it's a lot smoother and creates a unique vibe. The bleed through side could then be re-outlined creating an illustration. I use felt tips for creating cut out ephemera which are singular things like individual aliens, planets and souls etc coloured in and then cut out ready to be used in your journals. I find it therapeutic using felt tips for this as it saves a lot of time, anyways the reverse method I discovered is a new way to do the cut out ephemera. I did some research on Youtube to see if reverse art was already a thing and most people do reverse colouring which is where t

 "To become a butterfly you must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar"  The choice is yours to change but deciding you want to become a butterfly instead of a caterpillar means hard work. It means re-programming yourself to intentionally make better choices that are different to that of your upbringing or adulthood; not to say good choices wasn't made but there will be some things you no longer agree with.  To re-programme yourself, it could mean "re-parenting" yourself - paying attention to the things you no longer agree with for how to live your life and behaviours that stemmed from childhood that are a problem in adulthood. They say that things you experience as a child shapes you into the person you've become, and some of these experiences that formed certain behaviours in you, no longer serve you as you're not in that environment where it was once useful. As an adult it's down to you to leave behind what no lon

 I went to B&M for some glue and saw these set of 10 Aquamarkers for £6 and was super excited to buy them and try them out. They're double ended water based markers that from the name and writing on the packaging suggests that you might be able to use with water for creating a watercolour effect which is a really cool concept.  In the pack there are 8 green shades, an orange and a yellow.  With the markers you get a storage tray that you can place horizontally and in theory stack other sets they offer on top of it. Personally I won't be using the tray as I've got a pencil case full of felt tip markers that are stored horizontally...BUT I like the idea of being able to display the art supply.  Upon doing a swatch test I was really impressed with the quality how they just glided on the paper and didn't bobble up or anything. It wasn't streaky it was vibrant and fun to use. I like the brush tip more than the fine tip because the ink flows nicer.  After I did the sw

  When you have mental health problems it can be difficult to even think of saying no to someone, there's like a block on being able to do it but you can overcome this when you start to prioritise yourself and your schedule; you can't say yes to everything because then you'll end up burnt out and letting a bunch of people down further worsening your mental health...ultimately you need to schedule some time for yourself/ things you enjoy as well as your to-do's and socialising.   The secret to saying no is you 'don't have to excuse yourself by lying and you don't need to over explain or apologise'. You can have an answer prepared like I'll have a look at my calendar/schedule and get back to you asap. This buys you some time to answer so you can determine whats really important without over doing it.  "Be aware that refusal does not equal rejection" infact people respect you more when you learn to say no and you don't need to feel bad abo

  After buying some watercolour pencils that weren't quite upto par, I decided to buy some from Wilko for £2.25 which is mega cheap for watercolour pencils. I usually like the quality of Wilko's art supplies so i'm gutted they've gone into liquidation and will be closing forever. I'd never tried their watercolour pencils before so I was keen to try them out.  Below is the swatch of the 12 watercolour pencils: They're super creamy when applying you don't have to press down really hard to get a vibrant colour. I like the colour range and think it suits most people's projects.  It effortlessly became watercolour I was really impressed at how vibrant it stayed, the paper did bobble up a bit but I went over the same area a few times to test if the watercolour pencil would just disappear with more water which it didn't happen.  Have you ever tried Wilko's art products? Get your hands on them while you still can! Till next time, Stevie x

Listening to your feelings is important, you may not always understand where the feelings are coming from, mental health is complicated but you can acknowledge the way you're truly feeling. You may feel multiple emotions at the same time, know that this is okay but you could do with an outlet like using art for therapy; create pieces inspired by lyrics, quotes or even your own thoughts, to release the emotion further use colours you're initially drawn to as this represents your mood. "You cannot find your soul with your mind, you must use your heart. You must know what you're feeling."  Sometimes it's easy to figure out how you're feeling and other times not so much but what do you do if you can't identify your feelings? You could do a mind dump where you should list everything on you mind your worries, your joys, the silly and stuff that doesn't make sense and don't judge whether the thoughts are valid or not just that you're having them.