Curious Yellow 2018

I'm kind of late sharing these photos and review of Curious Yellow this year - for a number of reasons. Firstly, I have been beavering away developing my own business! I'll share more over the next few months as I work to promote it and start taking on clients but you can check out the website and a lot of free info by clicking here and visiting Strange Marketing.

But, anyway I am here to talk about Curious and the fun and weirdness that we had in the beautiful Gibberd Garden. I've made a promise to myself that I'm not going to gush about the gardens this year, I'm pretty sure the majority of my blogs about this event are just me raving about the location so I'm going to try to avoid that as much today.

Every year I go to Curious Yellow, it is life-changing in some way, redefining how I see myself or my relationships. This year was no different and everything changed for me in the few days that we spent hidden in gardens.

The excitement in the lead up this year was SO REAL I almost couldn't stand it. I actually gave myself several anxiety attacks in the preparation because I couldn't believe it was finally here, after counting down for exactly 365 days.

When we finally arrived, the spot our friends who got there first had picked was perfect, and this year we came down the lane instead of dragging our camping supplies through the gardens which meant we had no idea what installations, tents or stages were in the main arenas until we were fully settled. 

We heard some amazing music from Bare Jams and The Turner Brothers but my favourite set of all was Sweetcornbread in the Once In A Blue Moon cafe. Despite three days of pretty heavy drinking and misbehaviour (especially on the part of my bass-playing boyfriend below on the left) they absolutely smashed the fence out of their Sunday afternoon set and had the whole audience dancing to their fun music. It was about twenty thousand degrees in Once In A Blue Moon tent (check out this post for more about their beautiful festival set-up) so I didn't get too many good photo, which makes me sad because they looks so freaking awesome and I'm not even just saying that because I date one of them. 

In a weekend full of wonderfulness, there were a couple of other things that stood out that I really have to mention. The incredible LCD screens in the smaller dance arena were controlled by a fabulous device call the Naztek which anyone could stick their hands in to create crazy digital patterns surrounding the DJ booth. I absolutely LOVE things like this, being able to interact with the set-up is really fun and brings a whole new dimension to the dance arena, especially at a smaller festival where everyone gets to have a turn - check out a video by clicking here.

I also had a great time at the little open mic event held by some people local to us here in Hemel. Set in the folly, a little stone tower that I've always felt was a bit under-used, a variety of performers got up to sing. There was good, amazing  and one or two who perhaps could do with a tiny bit more practise but where nonetheless, awe-inspiring for getting up and braving the small but raucous crowd. My friend Rachael singing Ballroom Blitz and our friends Dave and Ian deserved their applause for sure!

Song discovery of the weekend for me was this track by Asif Avidan which I heard covered in a pretty jaunty and joyful way by Bare Jams and then looked up afterwards and found the original for, it's a real corker, this guys voice is insane.

The rest of the weekend passed in a blur of whiskey, music and happiness, hiding in the undergrowth with some new found friends (thank you Grace and Georgia for concealing me when I needed some quiet time as well as the disposable camera photos!!) and wishing that time would pass as slowly as possible so we didn't have to go home!

In comparison to other years I would say the set up was better, more professional, the stage looked great and so did the bars. There were none of last years issues with the generator and there was something going on all the time. The main attraction for me is always getting to roam and explore the Gibberd Gardens on my own and with people new to the location and it didn't disappoint - if I ever have a reason to have a big outdoor party there isn't anywhere else I would consider, I really love this place so much.

I look forward to next year, as usual, but I'm not able to share a ticket link currently. I know that there have been some issues with getting things booked for next years party and the team behind Curious are currently trying to raise funds to be able to continue putting on the event - here is a link to their Just Giving page.

Thank you to Greg, Daniel, Charlotte, Liz and everyone involved ♥

New Years Eve at the Ceridwen Centre with Sweetcornbread

I was dreading NYE this time round. The last few years had been underwhelming, my bank account was empty after Christmas and to be brutally honest, our plan to spend the weekend halfway up a mountain in Wales did not fill me with excitement. How stupid I was!

The idea was for Sweetcornbread to play a five hour set at the Ceridwen Centre's Alternative New Year's party, which was being held on their farm in Carmarthenshire. They had played there before as the band have friends that live and work at the venue. For once, I didn't have the usual pre-gig strops from my bassist boyfriend, this should have been my first clear indicator that it was going to be a little special.

The five hour drive was killer, I'm not going to lie. Most of it was in the dark and being squashed up in the back with the instruments and our supplies for the weekend didn't do much for comfort. At one point we stopped at a Welsh service station and I feel like I could be forgiven for thinking we had landed on Mars - who knew Mcdonalds chips could get any thinner? Why do they have a completely different version of the cheese bites? We arrived at the Pen-Y-Blanc farm in the pitch darkness - all I knew was there was a lot of steep hills to traverse and we were going to be staying in The Old Dairy.

We were welcomed warmly and shown to our space. I've shared with the whole band and their girlfriends before and it was tight and noisy with a very intimate feel to the toilet so I was expecting the worst. I needn't have worried! The Old Dairy had lots of room for us, the farm owners bought double mattresses and there was water, snacks, tea and coffee on tap as well as under floor heating and some beautifully equipped, far-away-from-the-living-area washing and toilet facilities. I wish I had taken a picture of the ENORMOUS stack of giant floor cushions in the room because they were literally the cosiest thing ever!

I started to notice other little things. The signs in the toilet, the biodegradable toiletries, the recycling bag - the farm operates on an extremely green basis and they have a green septic tank - I fell a little in love. I had a brief chat with the owners son-in-law and he said  the farm has solar panels and various recycling and green facilities and continue to work to improve their sustainability.

We spent the first evening in a local pub, the John Y Gwas. I have to say our hosts were a dream and the pub itself was exactly as you may expect from a village that seemed to cling on to the side of a mountain. The toilets were something out of Stephen King's It and the locks were on the outside of the doors - only in Wales! We made plans to visit the beach the following day and retired to our cosy Dairy.

I took quite a few photos at Poppit but my favourite part of the beach trip was the 20 minute drive through tight, winding Welsh villages. At the time we went my phone was out of action but I must make a note to try harder to get candid snaps of things I want to blog about - a goal for 2018!

Back at the farm and we got ourselves ready for the night, with the band resting and some of them downing double Lemsips to counteract the bastard flu everyone seems to have now we are back (I've avoided it so far, but I tend to be the last to the party anyway) At the Dairy, wafts of the most fragrant lamb tagine were starting to drift over from the kitchens and I set upon a large bottle of gin - it's a blur from then onwards...

Dodgy panorama of the band trying to sort out their set list, mostly I've included this because Jim's head looks hilarious.

One of these individuals was determined not to have a nice picture with the band *eyeroll*

The party went down beautifully and the band were a smash - despite a slightly awkward countdown for midnight itself which started way too early! The band played a set of covers and original tracks and got the tipi rocking!

We loved the photobooth - I got pretty attached to this red wig at one point.

 I've popped some photos of some of the farm and accomodations below but their website is definitely worth a look  if you are looking for a green (or just beautiful) venue for your wedding - click here. They have all the facilities you could possibly want for your big day - including a stunningly private mountainside wooden hot tub, fired by logs and with incredible views over the valley. I really wanted to give it a go but we didn't start the fire off early enough and we had to leave - I would have been more than happy to spend another few days soaking in the cooked breakfasts, fresh air and genuine warmth of Simone and Roger and everyone at Ceridwen. Thank you so much for showing me that New Years Eve doesn't have to be rubbish when you step out of your comfort zone.

 The hot tub of dreams

Gypsy caravan under winter storage - I believe this is used for the bridal suite for weddings - so romantic.

My favourite - a lovingly restored bus with all mod cons, position overlooking the beautiful valley.

Thank you all at the Ceridwen Centre for an amazing weekend!

Katy x

Beauty Boulevard & Burt's Bee's Festival Survival Kit

I will never get over the misery of having to pack up and leave a festival and evacuating Curious Yellow was actually too much to bear for a week or so - I've drunk a lot of wine, let's put it that way.

I'm hoping to do a full 'review' of the magical weekend The Turner Brothers and groupies had at the Gibberd Gardens in the next few weeks when I have collected photos and I don't get a pang of sadness when I realise it's another 339 days to wait until the next one. In the meantime, the thought of going to Boomtown and then Magic At Landed the week after is getting me through the misery.

Enough complaining! I'm here to share details of the fun festival survival kit I received in the post this week - I was gifted these items but not paid for my review.

So, confession. This isn't my first festival survival kit, previous kits had a focus on heat protection, allergy protection and safety. This kit has a focus on the real important stuff, glitter.

Pictured is a selection from the kit but the full content were:

Glitter Lips by Beauty Boulevard in Vintage Pretty and Breathless
iZ Nail Lacquer in Glastonberry and Dancing In The Rain
Burts Bees Facewipes and Ultra Conditioning Balm
Colorsmash Hairspray in Indigo
Beauty Boulevard Premium Glitter in Space Cadet and Pegasus
Glitz iT in Wild Violet

What more could I possibly need for a festival? I mean, other than a tent, a sleeping bag, a large bottle of gin...

When I saw the above glitter I thought, I probably won't use that weird orange one, but in fact it turned out to one of my favourite glitters ever, huge chunky hex pieces and a duochrome bright yellow orange sparkly. It was SO hard to capture in photographs but here is a shot of it on my and my friend Kelly along with some errant Turner Brothers...

I created a half face glitter look on the second day using the Wild Violet glitter, which is a mix of chunky hexagons and holographic teeny bits, the glitter from the Breathless Glitter Lips kit and the chunky glitter from the Pegasus pack of Stardust...

The glitters all come with a special gel or a glue, which is also infused with glitter, and a brush suitable for application on your face, lips, body or hair, I can't wait to take my growing glitter collection to Boomtown and hopefully wear some much more make-up heavy and fun looks. These pics are from Once Upon A Time In The West, which I had about five minutes to pack for and thought was going to be tiny and wet, so I didn't take the majority of my festival supplies with me - regrettable as it was actually a wonderful little event and the Turner Brothers performance was one of the best I have seen all year, love those guys!!

Have a great end to your week, and do give the links above a little click to check out the huge range of glitter, sprays and over awesome festival must-haves from these brands!

Last Minute DIY Cosmic Festival Fancy Dress Ideas

This piece refers to Hogsozzle 2017 - long gone but the Cosmic DIY's are still awesome! If you are looking for Hogsozzle 2018, check out this link.

The countdown is on and it's only 4 sleeps until Hogsozzle. I've realised that I am no where near as far along with my costume as I was this time last year, so I thought it would be fun to put together a whole bunch of last minute,  or super simple DIY costume ideas for everyone else that hasn't finalised their Cosmic Disco outfits yet!

If you haven't grabbed a ticket yet and this post inspires you to get your intergalactic garbs out, pop over to their ticket site by click here and snap one up, I don't think there is many left!

Let me know if you plan to give any of these a try, would love to see them on Instagram if you do - just tag my account so I can see - @katyclouds

Click here for this cute sparkly shorts DIY

Click here for an easy holographic tee DIY

Click here for this cosmic printed shirt DIY - you can use the same technique in any shape, so effective! 

Click here for the easiet Galaxy mani you ever did try 

Click for a super easy DIY that will turn your boobs into discoballs

Click here for a (slightly more time-consuming) discoball helmet by the same gal (she's a wiz!)

Click here for the original link - it's a closed etsy store though. 

I feel like this would be an easy-medium project if you had a few spare hours and a bunch of pompoms! I'm kind of tempted to recreate this myself actually in a last minute crafting frenzy!

Can't find the original source of this but looks super easy, yellow dye, green dye and some iron-on fabric. Make it more festival appropriate by using glow in the dark or sparkly eyes! 

(From Pinterest)

Click here for my cosmic crown DIY for last years Hogsozzle

Click here if you have a bunch of these in your Christmas decs that could be upcycled

Click here for this beautiful star crown DIY

Click here for this simple skirt DIY - this fabric is SO cheap and sold at most fabric shops

A super easy guys costume - green morph suit from your nearest party shop and a DIY alien headband!

I hope you have found a little inspiration here, if not, here's a link to Cosmic costume on Pinterest that will keep you set for festivals from here until next century. 

The next post you read here will be the rundown of the festival and how much amazing fun we had – check out my previous posts here for more information on the festival and here for my plans for the weekend – keep an eye on the Instagram feed of @theturnerbrothers and me, @katyclouds for all the action over the weekend, see you at the Sozzle! 

Dream Weekend at Hogsozzle 2017!!

(This post was written in 2017, even though we are now looking forward to 2018, it should make interesting reading if you are playing to hit up the Hog and I now have a special referral link for ticket buying - please do consider using it if you want to purchase a ticket - click here)

Hiii!! If you haven’t snapped up a ticket to my favourite indie festival yet, I’m going to attempt to convince you to in this post, by telling you exactly what I plan to be doing over the weekend…I can’t tell you how excitedly I am counting down the days until we pitch our tents for the first time this year, unpack our ever-growing festival supplies and start our weekend of ridiculousness with the rest of the Hogsozzlers (check their site by clicking here)…here’s my plan for the weekend;

Friday Evening...

We’ll arrive, almost at the same time, sort out passes and tickets and carry our stuff over to the best spot in the campsite – last year we managed to snag such a good place by showing up early,  even though we needed enough room for 10 tents we managed to keep a special corner all to ourselves and I want to pitch there again this year! I’ve been busy briefing everyone who says they are going to get there first exactly where this prime spot is…

We’ll pitch our tents and unroll our sleeping bags (but we definitely won’t unpack or sort out our stuff!) and then we’ll gather up our drinks tokens and head straight to the beautiful wooden bar on the top of the hill to grab some gin & juice and find out who is playing when. The line-up is filled with better-than-you’d expect music and acts for the price and there are a couple I really cannot wait to see, including Electric Swing Circus, Mirrored Theory, Little Brother Eli and obviously, The Turner Brothers.

Late Friday Night…

I’ll be rolling around on the hill, surrounded by LED costumes (although we’ll be saving the big guns for the Saturday!) drinks and fun art installations, I think the bath full of ballpit balls was super last year and the rocket ship boat has to be making another appearance given the theme, right?

Very, Very late Friday Night…

We’ll make our way back to camp and dig out our camping-friendly supplies, plastic bottles and disposable cups and make friends with our neighbours. This is essential as if we do manage to land the camping spot of dreams, we are pretty far from the main walkway so we won’t get the usual through traffic, we’ll need to ally with our neighbours for when supplies are running low later in the weekend – crashing other people’s tents and finding out what festival hacks they remembered to bring with them is always fun. This year I’m all about the bulldog clips for hanging things up in your tent, I really don’t want to ruin another camera/phone/charging device, last year cost me a fortune in replacement devices and I still haven’t got a decent camera for this year’s adventures.

Early Saturday Morning,

Our make-up will be running, the tents will be full of glitter and mud and chances are, we will have misplaced either a band member, an instrument or something else of value. We’ll climb onto the pile of bags in our tents (because we obviously didn’t bother sorting anything out in the daylight) and drift into a troubled sleep, half an ear waiting for the announcement that the food places are opening up…

Saturday Morning,

We’ll start the day munching on whatever breakfast foods we can get our hands on, hopefully sitting inside a big old rusty helicopter, because, where else could I possibly want to eat my breakfast? The first year we went to Hogsozzle the breakfast offering was…disappointing, to say the least. Last year they scored an absolute double whammy with the Cauldron and The Wingmen – I haven’t worked out if they are coming again this year – I believe they have now set up a bricks and mortar store in Sleaford but I can’t find them online – what’s happened to those guys? 

Saturday Daytime

We’ll pop to the nearby Tesco and pick up supplies, including lots of water because I can totally make it 27 degrees in my dream weekend right? We’ll eat ice cream and if there’s any surviving remains of our carefully packed picnic, we’ll probably eat that too, rolling around in the sun and slowly getting our costume bits together for the big costume night.  We’ll head over to the Hog Roast as many times as we think we can get away with and I’ll try to avoid looking in it’s big burnt eye as I chow down on the best pig of the year…

I seriously cannot wait to see the costumes this year, did you see that these guys won the costume competition last year? I mean really, who else could it have possibly been? So weird.

 People really go all out for this one and I’ve spent the last few weeks in a dedicated Facebook chat group with the fellow Turner Brother friends and girlfriends trying to come up with ideas for our costumes along the Best Theme Ever – COSMIC DISCO!! I’m pulling together loads of DIY ideas to share soon so we’ll be spending Saturday afternoon glittering up, slipping into our homemade costumes and basically coating every part of our bodies in as much cosmic silver body paint as possible as well as eyeing up the competition from our fellow campers…

Saturday Evening,

One by one, we will emerge from  our cramped tents like cosmic butterflies, all light-up bras, sparkly crop tops and giant moonboots (I hope!)

 We’ll dance the night away under a perfectly clear sky, knocking back jagerbombs, rushing from the main area to the hot, sweaty dance enclosure to the Pig Pen to the brand new Yurt, taking in as many costumes, acts and experiences as possible – I definitely plan to reach peak excitement and festival fun tonight!

Late Saturday Night…

I’ll lose all my friends and become completely disorientated, eventually finding my way back to our campsite (which is basically home by this point, even though I’m still sleeping on top of a pile of bags and other peoples groundsheets and all the water has run out and there’s someone’s mud-filled shoe in place of my pillow…) The other girls are telling me they will be having a sane one tonight but I’ll still be going until sunrise.

Sunday Morning…

Sunday is the day I’m looking forward to most! There’s a huge paint fight to get involved in (I’ll be hunting down a cheap white unitard on Amazon for this!) and it’s the day of The Turner Brothers performance on the main stage – the boys have been regulars at Hogsozzle for the last few years and I can’t wait to see them back on stage after a break over the winter, it’s been months since I heard them live and I know for a fact they have some fab new material – I’ll be taking over their Instagram and hopefully live streaming the whole thing, if I haven’t damaged all my charging devices by this point!

Sunday Night…

We’ll dance long into the night but since I’ll have finally unrolled my sleeping bag properly by this point I’ll almost certainly be in need of more than 40 winks so I’m picturing dozing, half out of my tent, partly listening what the true hardcore festival revellers get up to on their last night…

Sunday morning…

We’ll realise we’ve spent all our money and lost all our stuff but I’m definitely going to use this morning to cajole everyone into our second annual group photo for the records, as well as packing up all our stuff and beginning the countdown to the next festival on our schedule this summer, The Curious Yellow…

Phewwww, I kind of feel like I’ve relived the last two years there and it’s definitely got me so pumped for this year – if this sounds like a great weekend to you, pop over to the Hogsozzle website and grab one of the last few tickets before it’s too late – don’t forget to say hi, we’ll be the ones with the best camping spot and the flashing LED bras :)

Buy tickets here: Hogsozzle 2017

I’m working on a blog post about using biodegradable glitter this year, so you have any ideas for brands and shops that sell glitter that won’t harm birds or the environment, please do drop me a comment below!