Top 5 ideas to get you in that Halloween/autumn mood

We are well inside autumn and Halloween is fast approaching. I know I hate it when I let a season pass by. Most of the times, it’s not because I didn’t have time but because I didn’t plan it out correctly. Therefore this time I am all organised and ready to go.

Here is my list of ideas I intend to do before November comes:

#1 Drink a cup of hot cocoa

When the sky is dark and gloomy, there is really nothing that screams comfort more than a cup of hot cocoa and a duvet. Read on for the simplest recipe of all:

Ingredients:

• organic black chocolate
• milk

Heat up the milk, slowly stirring in pieces of chocolate. Add sugar to taste and/or marshmallows!

 

#2 Carve a pumpkin

Halloween weekend approaches in less than 2 weeks. Now it’s a good time to pop to your nearest supermarket and get a big, nice pumpkin.

When carving, use a sharp knife and gather all the inside with a spoon while at it (plus the seeds – you’ ll see why!)

Then when you are all done, place a candle inside it. I haven’t managed to make mine not to smell after some time so I only leave the candle burning for a small period – I might try to wash it this year 🙂 It is awesome as decoration lit or not lit!

#3 Toast the seeds

All the previous years I felt bad about throwing away all the good stuff from inside.

Pumpkin makes awesome pie; I haven’t tried to make one myself yet but all the good mums in Greece will certify that!

What I did do last year is toast the seeds. It makes a tasty healthy snack (if you do not overdo it with salt).

Steps (for the full recipe follow the link to Simply Recipes below):

1. Remove seeds with a spoon and a knife
2. Make sure they are cleaned properly and rinsed with water and
3. Boil them in salty water
4. Finally place them in the oven

Here is my favourite recipe.

#4 Walk in the park and jump in muddles and puddles

It is called autumn explosion. Parks are at their best this time of the year. You can see so many variations of colours on the leaves from deep red to orange and brown. Put on your wellies and get out there and play!

PS) Don’t forget to pick up your favourite leaves – I’ll tell you why in number #5!

#5 Draw on leaves

After you get home from your walk, take your markers out and draw on some of the leaves you collected. Leaves are excellent canvas and based on their weird and different shapes, you can get very creative. See below for my last year’s attempt. This year I might try to turn them into a cute temporary bunting.

If you have enjoyed this list, I have prepared a checklist you can download (right click and Save) so that you can check off each of this items as you do them.

For more autumn ideas, check my sketchnote.

Happy autumn!

Open House London 2014

What will you choose to see this weekend? These are my choices from this year’s Open House London though there are a lot that are left out (Marx Memorial Library, Village Underground and BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir – can you believe this place is actually in London?).

Open House is one of my favourite things to do in autumn (especially as it ‘falls’ just before autumn equinox; see what I did there?).

What would I say If I were to write a guide to you? It needs good planning and an early wake-up, lots of water and snacks and a couple of friends because queues are always funnier with company!

 

See you there!

Sketchnoting 101: The basics

 

September is traditionally the month for new beginnings, academic and not. In my current project, I work as a CMS back-end designer. As I come from a consultancy environment (translate: spreadsheets!), this new project revealed to me a new, more creative world: that of user-centred design. My decision for this new school year (even if it is 3 years since I left university) is to pick up a skill that will make me a better UX designer (wishful thinking!).

I have decided to take advantage of all those aimless doodles of mine next to supermarket lists that seem to fill all my notebooks and focus on Sketchnoting .

What is Sketchnoting? 

Sketchnoting is not a very famous term but if I attempt to give you a definition, you might realise that you also sketchnote!

The Definition: The term describes the style of visual note-taking real-time. It’s all about story-telling through pictures and some times simplifying hard notions through images. It has become popular at tech conferences in the past few years. Matthew Magain has written a very interesting post on Sketchnoting basics including equipment and best practices.

Live sketching: the process of capturing  visual notes during a talk or a conference. It can be on paper or digital and it is demanding because it requires concentration, capturing the essence and quick designs.

The Tools:

When choosing your tools, keep in mind that sketchnoting goes in two directions:

• the traditional way

-Black pen

-Drawing paper

-Lots of colourful markers

• Or the digital way

-A pad (October 2014: Windows Surface Pro 3 | Wacom Cintiq Companion | Samsung Galaxy Tab)

-a stylus

-and a drawing app or software (Sacha Chua suggests Autodesk Sketchbook pro; however having done some research I think a reasonably free alternative for beginners is Bamboo Paper)

Since I am a complete beginner, I would like to know if any of you have tried any of the above and what worked for you?

So now, we all know what Sketchnoting is and what we need to get started.

Next thing up is to have some role models. You know what I mean. Some people that “have been there, have done that” and because you know they have succeeded, you are a bit more optimistic.

The People:

• Mike Rohde
• Eva-Lotta Lamm
• Sacha Chua
• Natalia Talkowska
• #todaysdoodle crew

Finally, networking and finding others similarly-minded to you is equally important, therefore the last item in this post is a list of places in London where you can sit down and do some sketchnoting.

The Places

• Sketchnoting Meetup – those guys meet every other week and practice together
• W Kollective – Digitally Savvy Women – those ladies organise awesome talks and they obviously know their stuff.

Best Practices for Live Sketchnoting

Step 1: Prep! Do you research. Who is presenting? What is the context?

Step 2: Step 1 will give you some ideas so you are able to jot down some sketches about the where/when and who even before the talk starts. This saves you time especially if you are not so familiar with the topic.

Step 3: There is one advantage of going digital and it is called correcting your mistakes. Natalia mentioned in her talk that it happens very often that a participant changes his mind mid-way through or that a bullet point is not allowed to be published because of politics or other reasons. A paper version will need major effort to be corrected whereas it is much easier to do that on a pad.

You can also read my Lessons Learnt after a week of sketchnoting here.

This is it! A complete guide for anyone wanting to take up Sketchnoting this autumn with me. I will continue to update this article with knowledge along the way so it remains relevant.

As a parting gift, here is a sketch on the 10 reasons I love autumn: