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My eBooks are back and available to purchase

So after seven years of not writing, I took a break and have now realised actually writing is my life. It is what I am meant to be doing. I had published ebooks from fiction adults to children’s ebooks to non-fiction. I took the ebooks down about a year or two ago. I have now re-self-published my eBooks so they are back online for people to read.  What I learnt from my break, is to never lose sight of your true passions and goals in life. I did over work myself and I burnt out but that was from all parts of life. I thought it was writing and to be honest, I have put boundaries on myself getting back into writing so I don’t burn out again.  Because trust me, burn out is an awful feeling and it takes a long time to recover.  So I am pleased to share my eBooks are back available at most online stores: just type in Melanie Toye at online stores such as Smashwords, Kobo, Apple and Barnes and Noble. I will be writing and self-publishing my eBooks down the track, so keep coming ...
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Top 10 hardest to easiest hobbies

Image by Foundry Co from Pixabay Well from my hobbies such as miniature DIY kits, diamond painting, scrapbooking, crocheting from animals to scarves to blankets, painting, reading and even gardening I order them as from the hardest to easiest in hobbies. Let’s start at number ten of the hardest hobbies:  10. Miniature DIY kits  Miniature DIY kits are right up there for one of the most hardest hobbies from my list above. You need so much patience, ability to work with miniatures using tweezers or your fingers to fold, shape and glue items together. Basically using a set of craft wood, paper, wire and fabric to make all the objects. A lot of extra cost goes into buying the resources you need to help such as a ruler, tweezers, scissors, glue and more as you go forth and work with what you will think will help. However, if you love miniatures it feels amazing and looks amazing, once complete.  9. Crocheting amigurumi When I started crocheting, I decided to crochet amigu...
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More money with Paul Clitheroe book review

I love reading money and financial books and generally with non-fiction I tend to go to the chapters that are relevant to me or when I can learn from. I was so engaged with More Money book that I read front cover to the back in two hours and I am not a huge book reader.  With any non-fiction book I really want to get at least one thoughtful piece from it. With More Money book I got more than one, I got five pieces of advice that I marked and wrote down to think about further.  But first what is More Money about. Well I did wonder myself, as I tend to buy books based on the the title alone. I don’t read the back of the book or the chapter names or even book cover design. The title is my go to, so remember the title is so important budding authors.  The More Money book covered subjects such as Every Day Savings, Cars, Mortgages and so on. The book was printed in 1995 which gave me some doubts that it would still be relevant but it was!  For me the coolest tip was find ...
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Do you have too much arts and craft?

Image by alper omer esin from Pixabay  It’s the age old question, do you have too much arts and craft? It really depends.  Do you have a craft room or space for your craft? Not just to showcase it but to store all the resources to make it?  To be honest, I am in a small space. Which is completely fine. Now it’s small, it feels cluttered and it makes me feel unsure which craft to work on because there are so many on display and it all seems a bit overwhelming.  So I have been really tough and if I am no longer interested in a certain craft, I am going to sell it, give it away or chuck it. I can’t keep it here anymore.  Plus, I don’t mind if my space is filled with craft and lots of it, it just has to be craft I like. And I believe over the years I have accumulated all these different types of arts and crafts.  For Christmas, I gifted myself all different types of earring making equipment, tools and the beads to decorate them with. I went on YouTube on how t...
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How to make a vision board

 So it’s half way through the year but when you feel you want something different and change is occurring, then it doesn’t matter what month of the year it is, you can still goal set.  So once your goals are set, then it’s best to create a vision board related to your goals so you can look at it every day. One minute or ten minutes it doesn’t matter, just look at it every day. This way you remind yourself of where you want to be in life.  So are you ready to make a vision board? Let us begin:  Start off with either cardboard or thick card paper. I chose pink for mine because it’s my favourite colour. And if I am going to look at something each day, it has to entice me. Which interestingly enough was the title of my first ebook I published.  Now, I found some white card board and decided to write key words that I wanted to focus on the vision board. You can see it below. You don’t have to use as many as I did. But I am a writer so words are my passion and words s...
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How to store washi tape

It’s been about a year where I have a draw full of washi tape but it’s all everywhere. It wasn’t until I was given a wooden cutlery draw filled with cutlery and after I took out the cutlery, I nearly chucked it and then I thought I wonder if my washi tape could fit in here and I wonder if the cutlery draw could fit in my washi tape draw. So I took a brave step and decided to give it a try.  I took all my loose washi tapes. Some came in packs in circular containers but I had emptied them previously because that was annoying to get one out from the bottom of the container each time.  Picture of the cutlery holder I was going to chuck with my loose washi tapes:  So the cutlery draw fits the only other problem I have and maybe I should buy another cutlery draw to solve this and repeat the same process and add it to the top. So I can easily see all the washi tape, if I take out one cutlery draw.  In the meantime, I put the other washi tape on top of the cutlery draw and t...
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Scrapbooking bookmarks made easy

 So I like to read and I like to leave important points that I may write down later or just come back to, so have plenty of book marks means I don’t have to destroy the book by marking it using the page itself, instead I can mark the page with a book mark.  If you missed it and prefer to crochet a bookmark, see my blog post here on how to do that:  https://melanietoyeshobbies.blogspot.com/2024/12/how-to-make-crochet-bookmarks.html This time I thought it would be fun, because you can never have enough book marks to scrapbook my own.  How to scrapbook a bookmark: It’s actually quite quick and easy to do and just remember it’s for you to see, so make it something you want to look out. Ideally you want to keep the size less than the book size. But as you will see below, I made some thicker sized ones and thin sized ones. Then choose a piece of card paper or any paper that is thicker than scrapbooking paper. This can even be coloured or styled and you can use it to showca...
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