Since Keep It Simple...

Thought I'd update you on what has happened since the Keep it Simple pdf . I launched it as the final piece of a project I'd been working on and had to create a platform to 'launch' it from hence this blog. The pdf itself seemed to go down quite well, I had a wonderful response from friends and family and they were very kind and shared it all around. One of my favourite comments was from Pam

 ''What a beautiful and useful book!! I am going to give a copy to all my friends with children and then give it to all those without children and all the teenagers I know and then go and do some of the things myself- seriously- what a fantastic resource for everybody and so well put together :)''

But I also had some great feedback from colleagues and 'likers' on faceyb too. People I didn't even know were very supportive and kind. Several people said it made them laugh, which I really liked! 

Then Liz Knowles at Muddy Faces said she'd put it in her Free Resources spot on her website, Michael Follett shared it on facebook and so did Kierna at Learning for Life. I knew I loved the pdf and I really tried to stay true to what I liked when I was writing it and putting it together. For me it was quite scary putting it out there to be kind of judged by my peers especially as there's such a lot of outside information on offer already and the ideas in the book weren't exactly new. But people  liked the writing style and the strong visual image.

So since then I've been working on a similar style photography project, I was walking along the beach between Christmas and New Year and saw loads of shells and began playing with them which gave me a few ideas. So I've generally started exploring with light, shadows and perspective....

Back garden sunset

Lincoln Cathedral

A few other opportunities have arisen too

• I have been invited to go and run training with some outdoor providers 
• I am working with two other 30 Day Challengers using the leaf photos for some hammock designs
• I have been asked to take photos throughout the year for an Early Years publication
• I have been asked to take photos in our local community for a calendar

I met up with the other 30 Day Challengers in Bristol last night and came away feeling very inspired and creative again which was marvellous. I think everyone needs to do something they love even if you can't do it all of the time. On the back of that, and with them all giving me the 'You can do it' talk and virtual shove, I am going to run a couple of outdoor workshops locally which I'm hoping will be light hearted but informative. I'll pop them on here and faceyb so subscribe to the blog or like Niki Willows - Outside if you want to be kept informed.

So fingers in a few pies which is a nice place to be. And if you like stats the blog has had over 3,000 views, the pdf has been downloaded almost 2,000 times and shared around a fair bit by email too. I didn't look to see how many likers I had on faceyb when this began but it's just topped 600. Earlier I googled Rounded & Grounded and it came up in the top four google searches which is pretty cool although I have no idea how google search actually works. I am constantly surprised that anyone is happy to read what I write so if you've got this far, thank you very much :)