sun time stomach time

Let me start this off by saying that I love to see people being happy with their bodies. I want everyone to feel awesome about their bodies and regardless of your size I think you deserve to feel beautiful. What you’re about to read is me detailing this weird double standard I have for myself. I’m not “big” as such (curvy though yas, no thigh gaps here either) and FYI I do not consider “big” or “small” or WHATEVER to mean that you are not beautiful – not in any way, shape or form! But for some reason, even though I look around at people of all shapes and sizes and am just in awe at how beautiful they are and how great they look, my mind just doesn’t consider that my own body deserves that same love, freedom and understanding. I seem to think that the representation in marketing of “ideal” bodies and all this talk of diets and “beach bodies” and the strive for “perfection” should apply to me, but me only.

Sometime after graduating, in the midst of trying to forge a self-employed career for myself and cope with my anxiety, my body changed. Not in a dramatic way and not in a way that anyone else seemed to notice (or if they did, they have all been kind enough to not say anything). I refuse to weigh myself out of a desire to hold onto as many scraps of mental healthiness I can but I could tell that my waist wasn’t as small as before and maybe some other bits had changed a little and at this point I secretly developed this HUGE self consciousness about my stomach. I guess I just had this terrifying feeling that people were going to judge me for my body changing. This little rounded soft thing started causing me so much pain and embarrassment – leaving me feeling as though I just could not bear to expose it and have to see it with my own eyes and be reminded that people might have things to say about it. I know this sounds dramatic, that’s because it is, it is absolute madness. ANYWAY.

I’m not looking for your pity or your reassurance, guys. I can recognize the crazy that’s happening in my head once I step back from it. All it does it just seriously highlight just how deep all this media marketing shit goes – that living my life can be hindered by how much I end up thinking about one innocent part of my body because it’s not the same as the majority of the models I see and because it’s gotten a little bit bigger. So I wanted to take some photos of my stomach exposed and post them on the goddamn internet to try and reclaim some power over my body. I wanted to take and share some photos of me smiling and feeling as good in my body as I currently could in the hopes that it would make me feel strong and that it could help anyone else who’s feeling the way I do feel a little better. Because I know it makes me feel a gazillion times better to read what Jes Baker has to say, to watch Meghan Tonjes talk body confidence and hear Gala Darling talk about self love. Why not add my voice to the mix? The louder the body positive talk gets, the better.

In a weird way sometimes I feel like my body isn’t extreme enough one way or another to be considered a relevant part of the body positivity and love movement. It’s very much just average I guess. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need all this positive stuff. I think the majority of us are affected by what we see in the media and so on, regardless of what our bodies actually look like. I’m just an inbetweener, a body type that isn’t being specifically attacked as far as I’ve seen, but I’m not immune to all the passive messaging out there.

I hope this is in some way helpful!
Have a beautiful day you beautiful lil bean you.

Love love love
xxx

Scary Self-Love

Hello beautiful! Today we’re going to talk about the positively terrifying topic of body positivity and self-love.

Something I’m a big fan and supporter of is the gorgeous, amazing, body positivity/self-love campaign that is sweeping the internet. People like Gala Darling, Jes Baker and Meghan Tonjes have made me feel so sparkly, I feel like they’ve opened up my head and poured a load of glitter inside! For those of you who are unfamiliar with this movement or have some negative pre-conceptions about it, I’d like to briefly mention that there is a difference between self-love and narcissism/arrogance, but more on that later…

Now this is something I find super scary to talk about, because it’s so much easier to not openly express any joy in who I am because then I don’t expose myself to hear about my shortcomings from others. People will say what they say either way, potatoes gonna potate haters gonna hate amirite?! But when you tell people you love yourself, it can add fuel to that fire. Regardless of this though, I want to add my voice to the mix. The more people that come forward and start talking about this wonderful, positive stuff the further it spreads and the more people can start to feel awesome.

Now, I’m not at a point where I truly love myself. It’s a sad thing to accept, but I think realising it is important and starting the journey to improve your relationship with yourself is courageous, so any of y’all out there doing this shit, WELL DONE. I think it’s important to be honest about myself and my insecurities – not to gain pity or to fish for compliments – but to give an idea of where I’m starting, to let anyone else who shares these feelings know that they’re not alone and that it’s all gonna be ok!

Thanks to the wonderful ladies I mentioned above and a variety of awesome Instagram accounts all about self-love and body acceptance, I feel pretty good about how I look a lot of the time. But some not-so-happy stuff seeps in from time to time. For instance, I do not have a thigh gap and sometimes that can get to me! But then one morning a few months ago, I was sitting on the floor with some lovely cats and they were being all cuddly in my lap and I was smiling away… And I realised that these cats don’t give two shits whether my thighs have a gap or not and they’re happy using my legs as a cushion exactly as they are. My legs are useful and they give joy to little kitties who wanna snuggle! Maybe that sounds very strange, but it’s things like this I try to focus on rather than comparing myself to others. Our bodies let us do all the wonderful stuff we love doing and whether you’re slim or curvy you are beautiful exactly as you are.

Now, more on Gala Darling. I recently bought her book and I LOVE it. In this wonderful book of hers, she suggests taking yourself on self-love dates. You go out on your own and do something fun like go see a movie, go shopping, whatever you like! So last week I decided to take her advice, and gave myself £10 to go shopping with. I thought I would share with you my tiny, self-love date on a budget haul haha! I bought a gorgeous smelling bath bomb from Lush, Popcorn lip scrub from Lush and a lip brush (my lipsticks keep breaking and I am lacking in the brush department…) Call me boring if you like but hey, I had a great time. I picked stuff that’d make me feel looovely and spending time alone out and about was strangely thrilling! Sometimes it can be easy to think “oh people must think I’m strange out here all by myself” but a) I’m pretty sure they don’t care/don’t notice and b) I loved just being with my own thoughts and taking in everything around me.

So this was kind of a long post! I hope you enjoyed it, there’s more of this stuff to come as I am determined to brave talking about all of this! We all deserve to love ourselves and wouldn’t doing so just make life easier? You are the person you spend the most time with after all. Please tell me all about your self-love journeys in the comments, I’d love to hear all about it.

Love love love

xxx

My worst nightmare!

I thought it’d be fun to share with you guys some of the stupidest nightmares I’ve had. Maybe you’ve had some of them too?! Please share your ridiculous nightmare stories with me if you have. If you haven’t, I hope this makes you feel better about yourself you lucky human.

To summarize: I have indeed had nightmares about dinosaurs, dragons, zombies and… Birds. Yes, regular birds. There’s something about those winged beasts that gets all fucked up when I fall asleep (although swans are always scary, always). And – fun fact – I have been eaten alive in a lot of my dreams.

Love love love

xxx

cutie patootie cloud wall

I decided to decorate my wall with cute clouds with glorious humps and colourful raindrops to express my inner workings and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you do the same. Or whatever you like really (I just like being sensational every now and then).

I video-ed my crafty journey and took some photos as I did it so that any old person could make their wall into a colourful sky! It’s super easy, I promise.

Step one: Find pretty inspiration photies
I took myself all the way over to Pinterest to enjoy what was on offer there for my eyes.
LOOK AT THE BEAUTY!

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/549157748288034495/

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/549157748292070594/

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/549157748286987371/

Step two: Clear the area
I’m gonna be honest with you and admit this step was an excuse to kick stuff around on the video. I gotta get my violence out in a healthy way people!

Step three: Get your (crafty) shit together
All you need is some paper, scissors, a pen, Blu Tac and white thread.

Step four: Draw some clouds with humps so proud & some driplets & get snipping!
Make those clouds bootylicious and amah-zing!
For the droplets, make a little template by drawing one or two drips into the thickest bit of paper you have. You can then cut those out and use them to draw aaall the other droplets you want. Now cut it all out!

Step five: Sew the driplets!
For the littler drops I sewed them so they’d hang off of the smaller cloud. You don’t have to do this step as I did find that I still had to Blu Tac each one down a little bit but it does secure them a bit better than not sewing them at all!
To sew them I just knotted the thread and put it through the cloud then added a droplet on and looped the thread round the hole I made with the needle. Then I left a small amount of space and repeated until I had 4 drops hanging down.

Step six: Stick it to me (or preferably, the wall)
Complete your masterpiece and CELEBRATE!

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If you decide to go ahead and give this a go or have done anything similar to your walls please send me pictures! I’d love to see all that loveliness!

Love love love

xxx

5 days of Fran style

Day one!

Red dress – Hell Bunny

Tee – Primark

Stockings – tattoosocks

Creepers – Demonia

Watermelon necklace – ZombieQuiche

LOVE bracelet – Topshop

Earrings – Tatty Devine

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Day two!

Jumper – Primark

Trousers – H&M

Boots – Dr Martens

Jackalope brooch – Hungry Designs

Necklace – from my ma, not sure where from!

Earrings – Our Handmade Collective

Ring – Topshop

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Day three!

Trousers – unknown

Necklace – Culture Vulture

Bracelet – unknown

Earrings – unknown

Headband – Topshop

Lipstick – Impulse

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Day four!

Shirt – Primark

Jumper – Primark

Skirt – unknown

Tights – Scarlet Ribbons

Shoes – House of Fraser

Earrings – unknown

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Day five!

Shirt – New Look

Jumper – New Look

Brooch – unknown

Tights – Topshop

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Hope you enjoyed this, have a boooootiful day!

Love love love

xxx

Making ‘Leaving Our Bodies’ EP covers

So I know this video looks loooong but I just wanted to share with you how I made the cutie lil felt EP covers for my EP ‘Leaving Our Bodies’.

It was a long process which is why the video had the be the length it is – and that’s without ALL of the footage haha! They all took around 3-4 hours each but I loved making them and I’m really proud of the end result. The DIY look of them (and of course they are very DIY) is part of their charm I think.

If you want one of these babies you can still get them HEEERE! Every one of them is slightly different so they’re all unique and very lovingly handmade.

If you want a little explanation of how I made them keep reading…
1. I bought a loooad of felt and ironed it all (carefully, with a towel over it) and then drew out a little ghostie and a heart and cut them out of the felt.
2. I used the CD itself to measure out how big the covers should be to make sure they would fit fine! I wanted you to actually be able to get the CD OUT and be able to put it back IN again. I then cut this out, pinned it and ironed it in half so that I could see exactly how big each side of the cover was for laying out the design.
3. Then I laid out where the lil ghost was gonna go and started drawing on the writing in pencil & sewing chalk. To embroider the writing I used black embroidery thread – I used 2 strands to get a good ole thickness.
4. To embroider the writing I used backstitch. Then to sew on the bits and sew it together I used a running stitch (please do correct me if I’m wrong about this – my sewing knowledge is not amazing haha).
That’s basically it! The writing was the part that took the longest, trying to get all those swirly letters all noice!

Love love love

xxx

Solo Flashmob Fails (BECAUSE FEAR)

If you hadn’t already cottoned on (though I’m sure you have because you’re such a clever bean!) fear is a pretty hot topic in my universe. I’ve been tackling my Fran world fears for a while now and came across some footage from last summer that needs to be shared.

It all began when my dear pal Topher asked me to dance in public for his music video. Maybe that doesn’t seem scary to you. I would like to bring your awareness to the fact that I bear no resemblance to a professional dancer – I could go so far as to say that my “moves” cause some onlookers distress and/or concern as you will see in the video. (Watch the final music video HERE)

Anyhow, despite my terror I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to stretch myself, and the awkwardness of my dancing was part of the charm anyway – it wasn’t meant to be good (thank god)!

I found the filming quite challenging but really, really fun. I just had to force myself to just go for it and revel in my goofiness and y’know what? It felt pretty empowering! Fuck y’all bitches that don’t like what I’m doing, this feels good to me for whatever reason!

Something very comforting (and amusing) that I found as well was that people barely looked at me anyway. There I was in the middle of the city centre at midday, surrounded by people having their lunch in the sunshine, practically all of them either not taking any notice of me whatsoever or doing their utmost to NOT LOOK AT ME (I’m talking to you, dog outside the Corn Exchange). I was at least expecting some heckling or snickering but nothing of the sort happened.

So the lesson I take from this is: go be your magical, goofy/classy/whatever self because maybe the world isn’t as scary and mean as it can seem sometimes. Or something like that. Either way go be you because it feels good! Also side note: anyone who tries to bring you down is probably (or definitely, I feel like probably definitely) only doing it because they have their own shit they aren’t dealing with. So do your best not to waste your energy on worrying about those people. We all do it, it’s ok, just the more we can focus on love rather than fear, the better 🙂

Love love love

x

BOO! *screams* noooo… Let’s talk about fear

Hello lady-babes, sir-babes, and everyone in between.

Fear plays such a HUOOOGE part in my life (and in all of our lives!) that I just felt I had to write a little something about it.

I believe that all of our choices and feelings are either rooted in fear or love. I know that sounds very simplistic, but hear me out. Every time I feel bad about something in some way, when I analyze it it’s easy to see that the “badness” is coming from a place of fear, or a lack of love. I’ll decide not to do something that I felt motivated to do and don’t know why at first. Then I have a closer and look and realize OH HEY I just got too scared gosh darnit. For example: writing this blog. I often feel like writing but then get demotivated, and when I sit down and listen to my mind I realize it’s because I’m scared of what people will think or say. Well I’m on a mission to stop being a lil bitch and start DOING! Even if it’s just a little bit at a time.

I get scared about lots of stuff – I would go so far as to say OODLES of things. Yes, OODLES! I get scared, normal things like whether I’m making the right life choices and more unusual things like being in crowds sometimes or spending time with other people in general… Or being alone… Or you know, most things at some point or another! Oops.

What I want to say to you though, and say to myself, is that that is ok. I go out and try and face my fears; I do my best and I am finally learning that that is ENOUGH. That is more than enough. We’re all just doing the best we can and when we try and face our fears we are brave motherfuckers. Even if those fears seem unusual or small to other people. If you’re scared and you face it in some way or another, you are BRAVE! Remember that! Give yourself a good old pat on the back or a lollipop or something you glorious human being!

Bravery isn’t fearlessness. Bravery is feeling the fear and the scary thing anyway. I don’t know where I first heard that but I love that quote (my botched version of it, anyway).

So I want you to know that if you’re scared of lots of things like me, that you’re not alone. And no matter how many things you’re scared of or what they are, if you’re doing something about it – ANYTHING – you should be proud of yourself.

Have a beautiful day!

xxx

Why I can’t give up music

Sometimes I feel like giving up music. I look around at people who are goddamn incredible and just compare myself. This is not helpful. But even in these times, when I really just want to walk away and stop having to deal with the pain that rejection and insecurities bring, there is a little part of me that just cannot give it up. It can’t and it won’t.

hello

As time goes on and I play to more and more people (including people who enjoy telling me how not special I am, not that I was asking!) I am coming to realise that I just can’t base the quality of a gig on other people’s reactions. I can’t rely on their enthusiasm and praise to be happy. I cannot control other people’s feelings and not everyone is going to like what I do – which is just fine! The reason I can’t give up music is because the core of why I do it is not for other people’s attention and for their love. Thank god for that – it is a trap I have fallen into from time to time but if it were the only reason I think I would have given up a while ago.

hello

I feel like music lets me break into the best part of myself. It lets me reach inside all the gunk and pull out the best bits of myself. Somewhere underneath all the insecurity and the tired person that feels irritated and frustrated with daily life is a being that just wants people to feel good and see their own worth and beauty and be hopeful. Inside of me there is someone who is so excited by the idea of a world where people are happy and feel comfortable in their own skin and longs to help people see hope in their sadness. Even in times when I feel worthless and can’t even believe myself as likeable, I can look to the lyrics I have written and feel hopeful. Song lets me express the positivity from deep within even when I’m numb to it moment to moment. That being inside of me yearns to come out more and when I play the songs it has written I feel a creeping little sense of hope that gets ignited and has a chance to grow. It lets me capture moments of joy and belief that carry me through the hard times. It is magical.

hello

I want to keep making that magic. Writing and singing songs is so healing for me and truly makes me feel alive. This is why I keep going. If my music affects others then I am overjoyed – what a beautiful thing – but if not I have to be ok with that, because I’m doing it for me. I just need to remember that and create that magic for myself alone – other people’s reactions need to be an afterthought or no thought at all, either a bonus, something to learn from or something to let go.

hello

hello

Love love love

Fran

xxx