Red sky at night....

Shepherd's delight.

The skies above London Victoria station looking amazing at dusk on my home from work the other day.

collections....

My Dad collects things.

All sorts of things.

On my last visit home I took a few snaps of a couple of the collections that were on display around the house....

Crystals... (this one is a beautiful Quartz that he found when he worked in a Tin mine in Cornwall when he was a young man - my sister and I coveted this as kids).

Books and Crystals....

Books....

More books....

and Maps.

I'm a versatile blogger!

I have been nominated for the versatile blogging award by the lovely Laura Lo Bear! This is a huge compliment and has really made my day - thank you so much Laura :)

Laura's blog is one that I have started following recently and I love her blogging style and photography, I also love that I can see the world through her eyes and enjoy her outlook on life from across the pond!

I see that there are rules for accepting "The Versatile Blogger" award:

1) Thank and link back to the lovely friend who gave you the award.

2) Share 7 things about yourself.

3) Pass it along to 7 blogs you have recently discovered and enjoy.

4) Leave your recipients a note, telling them about the award.

So - in the spirit of this award, here are 7 things about me.....

This is a picture of my old house from the 1920s !

1- I grew up in a lovely little village in Bedfordshire (just an hour outside of London) and had a pretty idyllic childhood

2- I LOVE lipstick, my favourite colours are coral red and Pillar box red.

3- I have to do something creative every day or I get fidgety, I always need to be doing and learning something, it makes me ridiculously happy :-)

4- I work for a well known British fashion label, and have done for 8 1/2 years....yikes!

5- I love to laugh, it's an addiction.

A picture of the parrots in winter this year!

6- I currently live in a little picture postcard village in Surrey, with a duck pond and a pretty park right next to my house, I love being able to work in central London and go home to my village at night, the best of both worlds in 30 minutes, and we have parrots that live wild in the village too (seriously)!

7- I am head over heels in love with my monster Maine Coon cat Murphy (in case you hadn't already noticed)!

and here are 7 of the blogs I am passing the award onto :

1. Cupcake Couture
2. Lipstick&Lumber
3. Made by Jenni
4. Queenly Things
5. Three Buttons
6. Dixie DIY
7. Miss Molly

Have a great weekend!!

Hypnotic handwriting....

Legacy of Letters from Luca Barcellona on Vimeo.

Coral wristwarmers...

This is a semi-tutorial for a pair of wrist-warmers from an old sweater / cardigan, I was given a beautiful Coral pink cardigan for my birthday a couple of years ago, and it was the victim of an ink stain last xmas whilst printing my gocco cards....

Anyway - I loved the colour of it and it is the softest angora merino mix so I didn't want it to go to waste, and as it was freezing on Friday night it spurred me into action!

So - I cut 2 pieces out of one of the sleeves :


Then I turned them inside out and then flattened them out and stitched down the vertical center of each :


Then turned them right side out so that one side fits into the other and there is a double layer as below :


Et Voila!


Roasty Toasty Wrist-warmers for no extra cost!

felt tipped fabric...

Photo by Valentina Frugiuele, via Ben Trovato.

Today I saw THIS post on the fabulous Outsapop blog, and it has inspired me to have a go at altering some of the plain t-shirts in my wardrobe, it also reminded me of the Ikat design I did on one of my t-shirts last summer, very easy to do!

Beautiful blues...

Found via : http://www.atmgallery.com/artist/workview/1224/5865

love hearts....

I love these sweets, they remind me of being little again....

Wishlist....

Unearthen Crystal necklaces in bullet casings - amazing.....

http://seeunearthen.com

and available to buy HERE

Weekend stitching - part 2, the packable shopper...

This is a little project I whipped up at the weekend, using THIS excellent tutorial from Craftster.

The beauty of it is that it folds up neatly into the little pouch that I made and fits easily into your handbag without taking up too much space, so should you come across any unexpected goodies to purchase you have the perfect bag with you for such an occasion!

I made mine out of a very strong nylon which is water-proof as well as being relatively kind to your hands, unlike the bog standard supermarket plastic version.

I would definitely recommend making one or two for yourself, I can see these being good gifts or stocking fillers....

murphy's blog....

Murphy now has his own blog!

As I have a gagillion pictures of him I thought he deserved his own space....

You can find him at : http://lululovesmurphingthings.tumblr.com

or by clicking on his picture on the right hand side of this blog!

Dainty bird feeder....

This is a lovely idea and a very clever tutorial from Cap Creations which uses a teacup and saucer to create a bird feeder for your garden, the saucer acts as the bird-seed holder and the cup as the water holder - the tutorial can be found HERE.

Weekend stitching - part 1, the iPhone case...

Last night I decided to have a go at using the leather awl tool I bought in the U.S earlier this year to make an iPhone cover (mine is shamefully bashing around uncovered in the bottom of my bag or pocket most days).

So - it was very simple to make, I measured around my iPhone, and doubled it length-wise, leaving about 3mm all the way around for seam allowance, drew the lines in pencil on the suede side and cut it out.

Then I folded it in half (end to end) and starting at the top, used the leather awl to punch holes through both thicknesses of leather at a time, about 4mm apart all the way down one side, this makes it much easier to sew through the leather as it can sometimes be very tough on your fingers and very time consuming.

Then I got some thick waxed cotton thread (top-stitching thread would do) and used a medium sized needle to start off stitching it together along the sides (I am not sure of the exact technique I used, I pretty much just made it up as I went along but the correct one to use is Saddle-stitch, which is described very well HERE).

Then I just repeated the same process on the other side, punching the holes and then stitching the sides together and thankfully it came out a perfect fit for the iPhone :)

I realised that I really love hand stitching something together like that (despite its crude artisan appearance), it took me way longer than it should but I enjoyed every minute!

cluck cluck....

Just hanging out with some chickens on a Saturday morning....

rocks

I dont know where this is from but I want one!

Tutorial : Basic T-shirt overhaul....

Recently I was asked to think on the spot about what I could do to update a plain old grey t-shirt, one that clearly had life left in it but little lasting appeal, and how to make it interesting again.

The following post is my answer, and although it is a very basic solution to a problem that many others would have come up with, it seems to work nonetheless (and i havent seen anyone else do it yet, if there are others out there then please forgive me) this is just meant to be a quick and easy fix, and I thought it would be worth posting up here to show what else I thought could also be added to it to give different looks.

So - here is the very basic tutorial :

Now you have the basic new shape you can do lots of other things to it to snazz it up a bit, like add some military buttons and epaulettes..... here's a little how-to I knocked up for that:

and here is a close up pic

So, there it is, no points for originality but it does answer the question that was put to me and I would find it more interesting to wear than the original, especially as the military theme is so current!

Etsy love - Citrine....

found via Etsy by LucyRansom

found Via Etsy : HERE

found via Etsy : HERE

dreamy....

I dreamt about Candy Apples, (or Toffee Apples as we call them here) last night, and then this morning I saw this beautiful photograph by NinotchkaB on the ever lovely Poppytalk blog, they look so delicious in this picture, even though I know they are evilly sugary and never taste as good as they look!

Also, I would definitely check out more of NinotchkaB's work on her flickr page, her photography is outstanding!

sailor jerry...

I'm having a Sailor Jerry moment today.


Sailor Jerry was a world renowned tattoo artist, whose real name was Norman Keith Collins, here is a little Wikipedia background on him...


"Collins was born on January 14, 1911 in Reno, Nevada. As a child, he hopped freight trains across the country and learned tattooing from a man named Tatts Thomas, who is credited for showing him how to use tattoo machines. Practicing on drifters, he later sailed the Pacific Ocean before settling in Hawaii. A big brute with a dirty mouth, he often wore plain white T-shirts that exposed his ink-sleeved arms. Mike Malone, who took over Sailor Jerry's shop after he died, described Jerry as "a class-A pirate."


I love his style of artwork and tattooing, the swallows are my favourites :-)