Changing Colours and Website Updates

Colour rules our emotions and draw us in,
and the colours we choose to surround ourselves with say a lot about us…

© Lisa Shambrook

The past few weeks have been all about updating. You’ve seen my new book covers, got the release dates in your diary, and now you can check out my new colour palette online!

Things change – that’s a fact of life. I’ve not always been great at embracing change, but this time is different. My books have got a publisher and a new look, and my website needed a change.

Old Green Website and New Slate Website © Lisa Shambrook

My favourite colour has always been green right from being a little girl, then it went through a teenage purple phase and back to green. I still love green, don’t get me wrong, but alongside green right now is a new favourite. A colour that’s crept into my wardrobe, flows throughout nature, and adorns the stormy sky.

I love the stormy shade of slate that the ocean rises with, the skies embrace, and it suits me too.

You’ll find the tone in bluebells, stone, water, sky, and gems. It has richness and sophistication that cools and calms, and also precipitates storm and passion.

Old Green Palette and New Slate Palette © Lisa Shambrook

My website looked lovely in warm olive greens, but it feels like it’s grown up a little with the enchanting tone of slate blue-grey.

It carries a hint of lilac, blue, and even the warmth of olive, but stands alone in a new clean and fresh take.

It’s dusk before the indigo night and a star-spilled sky, and it’s an emerging dawn full of hope and light.

It’s a hue that conveys emotion and imagination, and fits me well – and that’s all I could ask for.

What colours have you used online, and why?

What colours talk to you?

Updated Author logo

Updated Author Logo in 2021

Visual Sensory Aid…

How do we process life? How do we learn and how do we cope?
Are you Visual, Auditory, or Kinaesthetic?

I recently discussed this with my daughters, and we found that we each work/cope/learn/love differently according to our Neuro Linguistic Programming, NLP. It is thought that 60% of us are Visual, while 20% are Auditory, and 20% Kinaesthetic.

I posted a piece How to Feel Loved – Discover your Love Strategy back in 2015 helping us to find out how we feel love. My love strategy is Kinaesthetic, but overall my outlook on life is Visual.

© Lisa Shambrook

When completing a VAK Survey, I score a full house in Visual. You can get an idea of your VAK Visual, Auditory or Kinaesthetic learning style/type here.

We were browsing stores when Bekah picked up a sensory toy and thrust it into my hands, proclaiming it should be mine. She was right. I suffer anxiety and panic, and I have Sensory Processing Disorder which means I often need ways to distract myself from the pangs of panic, the tentacles of anxiety, and the sensitivity of SPD.

© Bekah Shambrook

I’ve been trying to meditate, but I struggle to stay focused for long enough. I am such a visual person that my imagination goes into overdrive when I settle to meditate and my thoughts stray too fast for meditation to be much use. Meditation does work in the right place, and I can sometimes use my visualisation skills to take me on a journey, and follow through the exercise, but often I fall short.

I need something that will help give me a time out when I get too restless.

I have a stim that grounds me when I’m out or in company – acorn cups – smoothing them between thumb and forefinger help to keep me focused and grounded, but at home it’s nice to find something different to help.

© Lisa Shambrook

This toy does just that. It’s similar to a lava lamp, and the little toys with coloured oil slipping through water.

A coloured (oil based?) slime falls like an egg timer, and slips through a hole in the centre of a container. It runs through, creating bubbles that rise and coils of slime as it falls. The whole process in this version (£3 from Tiger) takes about six to seven minutes.

I use it as a grounding tool, a time out, a relaxation moment, a focusing tool, and just time to think. And it works!

The movement stimulates my brain, both calming it and opening it. I can shut out the world and just watch it, or I can focus on the green kinetic movement and allow my brain to clear and alleviate anxiety, or clear my thoughts and let me move forward. It works with my visual programming!

Watch for just one minute…I love how calming this is!

Are you Visual, Auditory, or Kinaesthetic?
Do you have any little tips, toys, stims, which help you remain grounded?

 

Loving Autumn…

Autumn is the season that inspires me – a season of falling autumn leaves, woollies, hats and gloves, boots, hot chocolate and autumn tone jewellery, cosy cats, apples, acorns, conkers, Halloween and pumpkins, candles, toadstools, and autumn colours of bronze, brown, red, amber, yellow, silver, and gold. 

What do you love about Autumn?

Yellow Leaves – Oak and Acorn and Acer © Lisa Shambrook

The leaves fall patiently, Nothing remembers or grieves,
the river takes to the sea, the yellow drift of leaves.
– Sara Teasdale

Woollies and Sweaters and Boots © Lisa Shambrook

Fallen leaves are autumn’s equivalent to snow – they bring out the child in you. 
– Anon

Hot Chocolate and Autumn Jewels © Lisa Shambrook

The morns are meeker than they were, the nuts are getting brown;
the berry’s cheek is plumper, the rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf, the field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned, I’ll put a trinket on.
– Emily Dickinson (Nature 27 – Autumn)

Cosy Cats © Lisa Shambrook

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it,
and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
– George Eliot

Apples – Acorns – Conkers © Lisa Shambrook

A few days ago I walked along the edge of the lake and was treated to the crunch and rustle of leaves with each step I made.  The acoustics of this season are different and all sounds, no matter how hushed, are as crisp as autumn air.
– Eric Sloan

Halloween – Candles – Autumn Colours © Lisa Shambrook

Colors burst in wild explosions, fiery, flaming shades of fall.
All in accord with my pounding heart, behold the autumn-weaver,
in bronze and yellow dying. Colors unfold into dreams,
in hordes of a thousand and one.
The bleeding, unwearing their masks to the last notes of summer.
Their flutes and horns in nightly swarming. Colors burst within.
Spare me those unending fires, bestowed upon the flaming shades of fall…
– Dark Tranquility (With the Flaming Shades of Fall)

Toadstools © Lisa Shambrook

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
– Albert Camus

What are you loving this autumn?

The Tears of Nature – Rain and Flowers

Spring flowers laced with crystal tears…
the warmth of Summer nurturing her flora…

A lovely friend posted a couple of photos on Facebook this week
of her garden flowers in the rain, and as we’ve had a fair bit of rain this May
it made me think of my own flowers decorated with diamonds…

Aquilegia, Rose – Rhapsody in Blue, Geranium © Lisa Shambrook

It rains a lot in Wales, but that’s not a bad thing.
Taking photos of flowers in the rain offers a beautiful clarity and charm.

Aquilegia, Arum Lily, Belle Etoile – Philadelphus, Aquilegia © Lisa Shambrook

Water is the essence of life, watching thirsty plants flourish shows how vital it is to all of us.

Paeony, Geranium, Oriental Poppy, Tulip © Lisa Shambrook

Dewdrops, crystal, diamond rain, reflection, life, clarity,
nature’s mantle to beautify our lives…

Ladies Mantle, Rudbekia, Daffodil, Aquilegia © Lisa Shambrook

 What flowers have you enjoyed seeing laced with nature’s tears?

© Lisa Shambrook

Colours to Inspire – Neutrals – What’s Your Favourite?

I recently blogged about my favourite jewel tones, so now is the time of neutrals…
Neutrals are natural and classy – things I hope I am!

Neutrals are classic, and classy, and suit everyone.
They range from monochromes to warm browns and moody greys.

Warm Browns © Lisa Shambrook

Brown is one of my favourite colours, and has always been one of my base colours complementing the greens I love so much.
Brown is warmth, nature, autumn, and softness…

Moody Greys © Lisa Shambrook

Grey is a colour I’ve only recently embraced,
but it swathes the moody sky and matches my stormy emotions.
Grey is elegant, emotional, temperamental and classy…

Mysterious Black © Lisa Shambrook

Black is classic, a colour that suits everyone who wears it.
Black is sultry and plays to my enigma.
Black is mystery, darkness, night, and imagination…

Pure White © Lisa Shambrook

White has never been my colour, I shy away from its exposure,
preferring the invisibility of darker tones.
White is peace, calm, purity, and wisdom…

What’s your favourite neutral colour and what does it mean to you?

Colours to Inspire – Jewel Tones – What’s Your Favourite?

Scrolling my Instagram feed I noticed my favourite colour is very prominent…
I adore jewel and neutral earthy colours – I’m a nature girl!

So, I thought I’d share my favourite jewel tones with you –
as found on Instagram – green, purple, blue and red.

Moss Green © Lisa Shambrook

Green has been my favourite colour since I was a little girl,
and has literally grown with me.
Green is nature, tranquillity, spiritual, and harmony…

Mythical Purple – © Lisa Shambrook

Purple had a stint as my favourite colour when I was in my teens,
but had to give way to green again.
Purple is royal, jewel, elegant, and magic…

Burgundy Red – © Lisa Shambrook

Red, dark red, has become a late favourite, and I’ve grown into it.
Red is passion, sensual, love, and depth…

Teal Blue – © Lisa Shambrook

Blue, teal blue, is a colour that suits me, it works with my brunette hair.
Blue is calm, serene, oceans, and life…

What’s your favourite colour and what does it mean to you?