For the Rad Dads and the Rad Moms and the Rad Sons and Daughters.

By following this blog not only do you get your daily dose of sweaty photos of yours truly but you get to stay on top of all your important holiday needs.  Here's your super-early FATHERS DAY warning.  You've got just over two weeks to get your ass in gear, and I'm even handing you a ticket to eezy Dad card-town.  I'm selling these little cards separately and as a pack of four.  I was thinking about those of you readers who have kiddies - each little person can choose a card for Dad and you have one spare for your own Pop.  Makes sense hey? And you might even have another spare for a Dad birthday later in the year.  I know, I know, you can thank me later.

Running is write

A couple weekends ago I travelled down to London for the Write This Run conference, a chance for runners and bloggers to meetup and totally geek out about running and blogging.

It was really nice to meet some of the people in real life who I've been discussing serious matters (read: brightly coloured running tights and where to buy them) with via twitter for the last couple months.

Whether you're a newbie runner or whether you've been perving over brightly coloured running tights for a while, have a look at the Write this Run website - it's setup by two real nice ladies who are passionate about not just running but how it brings people together.  They've got a bunch of cool projects going that you can get involved with - retreats and meetups, etc.  Get stuck into the online running community and I can guarantee you'll be lacing up your sneakers faster than you can say "why are you wearing those ridiculous leggings?"

Etsy does run gear

I'm a massive Etsy advocate - mainly because it's where I make my living and how I pay my bills but in all honesty I do most of my shopping on Etsy nowadays.  There is an absolute goldmine of awesome products to be found with amazing, creative people behind the products ready to answer any questions and help make your shopping experience a personal and enjoyable one.  

Because it's pretty much summer and I'm getting excited about my marathon training which starts next week I wanted to point out some of the awesome kit that can be found on etsy.   So much rad stuff, I may have to treat myself to a few new additions to my running wardrobe.  

After all, money spent on health and fitness is spent guilt-free.  Girl's gotta look good when she be sweating.  

 Be The Example Print + Neon yellow tee + Braided Headband

 Don't feel sorry for yourself print + Beast Mode Tee + Celestial Rust Leggings

Fire Tank +  Flowered leggings 

A handful of things

I did it! Got my sub-50 10k pb.  Finished in 49.26 yesterday... not fully a fan of the 10k if I'm honest but hey it's good practice to keep getting faster and it was a lovely blue day in Manchester yesterday, proud to be part of it all.

Anyways in other news I'm signing up for Juneathon next month, I participated in Janathon earlier this year and it was a good way of keeping up with the blog and I met a bunch of runners through it as well.  If you're thinking of committing a bit more to running why not sign up and join in? I can assure you it'll get you motivated and have you in good form for summer!

I forgot to introduce my Spring greetings cards range and just realised that they've been up in my etsy shop for a little while and I didn't put them on my blog.  So, here they are.

Wanna get some of these? If you use the code SPRINGTIME you can grab FREE SHIPPING in my etsy shop, valid until 1 June 2013.

And lastly I'm obsessed with this song at the moment (I don't care what you say.) (The video may or may not make me a little teary) (the wedding at the end! Love.) Ok see ya laterrrrr

Running to the hills

Tomorrow is the Bupa Great Manchester 10K!!  I'm  hoping to break the sub-50minute mark.  It's the dream! I think I can do it, it's just whether I have the balls to do it.  I'm such a plodder at heart but my coach has helped me pull my finger out and work on my speed- through hills and fartlek and generally laughing at me when I tell him my previous race times.

Did a test run on Thursday at race pace for 8k - and despite a few stops here and there for traffic lights and gates and things I really focused on keeping my speed where it should be.  Lots of food tonight and a good night's sleep and hopefully tomorrow we'll be in business.

Over the course of my winter marathon training and during the past few weeks of run club I've really started to LOVE hills.  I prefer them to speed work.  Especially when it's kind of grey and drizzly and you've really had to drag your ass out the door.  They make you feel alive and like a runner and like you're doing yo'self a favour.

Anyways, here are some tote bags I thought up on a cold drizzly night last week - cuz I don't know about you but I may or may not take a spare running kit most places, just in case there's an opportunity to get my legs out, and it's nice to have a bag to put it all in.  Don't worry, it's spacious enough to fit your sweaty sneakers, a pair of shorts, your shiny race medal with still plenty of room for your A-GAME ;)  Available now in my etsy shop, in two super jazzy colours!

Get this all up in you

My long-suffering other half rolled his eyes at me this morning when he noticed another addition to my constantly growing collection of butters, powders, oils and seeds.  He doesn't share my excitement with the JAR (last time I bought coconut oil it was in a glass bottle.  Anyone who has ever used coconut oil will understand the difficulties of this situation) of coconut oil sitting precariously atop our kitchen cupboard.

Needless to say he didn't stick around for this tasty smoothie.  His loss.

Almond milk, semi-skimmed milk, teaspoon of coconut oil, handful of macadamia nuts, handful of dates, ground flax, soya protein powder and one banana.  It's delicious I tell you.  And super super good for ya.

Now is a good a time as any.

Two new prints in my etsy shop.  Colourful reminders to never give up on what you want to do.  Beautiful high quality A3 size prints on heavyweight recycled white card.

Never Give Up

Just a reminder to never give up on anything you set your mind to; the Dedicated Coconut is here to keep you motivated this dreary Monday morning.  Cuz there's no time like the present to grab life by the NUTS and show it what you got.

Yoga In Manchester

I recently designed these tote bags for Clare who runs Yoga In Manchester.  The totes are available directly from Clare, so you'll have to go and do some headstands at one of her awesome Iyengar classes if you'd like to buy one! (or get in touch with her via her website or twitter, she may be able to sort you out!)

Thursday

Been doing quite a few pet portraits recently.  Also been eating dark chocolate-covered ginger in large quantities.  Amongst other things.

1000 manfriends are amongst us!

So yesterday I created the 1000th pocket manfriend, and thus we're into the quadruple digits.  I am selling some of the special numbered manfriends through ebay, so if you want one of these cool dudes you can bid on whatever number you'd like.  The postage is all free on the listings so you might get yourself a groovy deal.  Who knows, pocket manfriend number 999 might be worth a pretty penny in a few years :)

(PS watch out as the 1000th edition manfriend will be revealed in the next week. He's a special one!)

Wedding season

Wedding season is upon us, yes? Despite the fact facebook has figured out I'm recently engaged so is showing me featured ads of tacky bridesmaid dress companies and bridalwear, my newsfeed is positively clogged up with profile pictures of shiny diamond rings and status updates about planning hen dos.

In my own wedding-planning whirlwind I'm doing my best to sidestep anything quote unquote "too weddingy."  But as it's a pretty big deal and I'm planning on getting married just the once, it's nice to put a little thought into the little things.  So as I was recently on the lookout for a couple bridesmaid gifts, I thought I would do a blogpost of ideas for weddingy-gifts from my etsy shop and from other etsy shops. Because there's just too many illustrations of champagne glasses in the world.


1.  Stationery

If it's you that's getting married, you'll most likely need to let people know.  Let people know when the gig is.  Let them know how to get there.  Let them know they need to save the date.  Let them know where to sit, what's for dinner, let them know they need to sign your guestbook.  You'll need to let them know you think they're ace and you couldn't have made this thing happen without them.  You'll need to let them know how much you love the awesome vase that they brought for you as a gift.

Get someone nice to design all this stuff - it's important.  Also, if you know someone that's getting married who doesn't know anything about how to make shit look good, offer to sort their stationery as a gift.  I can work with you to create invites, tea towels, menus, thank you cards... nice stuff for someone's big day.

Don't buy that rubbishy stuff from those rubbishy companies, it just looks bad. Plus, Holy Guacamole you could have wedding stationery like this. 

2.  Something little to give

Sometimes you need to give something a little something to say thank you or you're ace or let's remember this forever.  I make these "I'm yours, you're mine" mini-people which are good as a wedding gift for the couple-to-be, or as a wedding gift for you and your man-to-be.  Have mini versions of each other to keep in each others pockets.

Or... why not get miniature versions of the bride and groom, and give them to your guests?

3.  An unfamiliar pendant

Jade. Jade is special.  Pink jade encourages love, wealth and protection. Like all jade, it symbolises wisdom, justice, compassion, modesty and courage.   Rhodonite is a stone of compassion, an emotional balancer that clears away emotional wounds and scars from the past, and that nurtures love.  It stimulates, clears and activates the heart.  Rhodonite grounds energy, balances yin-yang, and aids in achieving one’s highest potential.  These beautiful pendants are from etsy seller AnUnfamiliarRing  Your bridesmaids might need something special.  You also might need a pretty pendant to wear on your special day.  Make sure you've got the right stone to keep you emotionally balanced and clear-headed. I know I'll need as much of that as I can get. 

4.  You guys got engaged. YES!
Flowers are awesome.  I swear every time I get flowers it feels like the first time I've ever gotten flowers.  They don't get old.

But they do die, gosh darn it.  How's about a custom illustration of flowers? A custom illustration of the newly-engaged's home? A custom illustration of the lovely couple? You can have them printed on paper or even made up as a pillow.  Now that's a pretty awesome gift.

This house portrait I did recently for a lady in North Hollywood, she bought it as a gift for her husband's birthday.  "I gave my husband the illustration last night and he loved it!!! His birthday is today but I made him open it at midnight because I was dying to give it to him."


5.  If in doubt, vases are still awesome.

We have received a lot of invitations over the past few years that contain a very presumptuous note stating that instead of gifts, the bride and groom request money towards a honeymoon - or worse yet - money without even any explanation of where it will be spent.  Call me old fashioned but we won't be including anything of the sort in our invitations.  I cringe! 


If people want to give us gifts, that's awesome! But we're getting married to be married.  That's it, dudes.  Gifts? That's a bonus.  An awesome vase? Nice!!! We'll always remember you when we look at it. (Awesome vase above from Esther Griffith's etsy)  If it's hideous, we might keep it in the cellar when you're not around.  But we'd much rather you just came to our wedding, that's the main thing.  And if you want to buy us a dope gift, get us something you've picked out.  But we don't take cheques.  

So...

First wedding instalment over.  Hope you enjoyed it.  Currently we're trying to juggle Autumn dates and locations and registrars.  I've looked at a few dresses and admittedly laid in bed at night thinking about food and flowers and stuff.  However, with an early October marathon to train for and focus on, I think I have eradicated the sliver of hope my mother held out of me being the conventional bride she was hoping for!!!  

Wedding planning? psh. I have a PB to smash.