blog inspiration

i'm constantly inspired by all of you, i really really am, so as a beginning to the new year, i'm gonna share with you all some of my new found favorites (including a lot of vintage bloggers)!

1. strawberry koi 2. sleepy fawn 3. liebemarlene 4. vixen vintage 5. leproust 6. sally jane vintage
7. the velvet bird 8. the little deer 9. the vintage society 10. lay me in some tall grass 11. pearls in your hair 12. left hand endeavour 13. lulu letty 14. sacaton june 15. smile because it happened
16. the snail and the cyclops

here's one i made earlier

i made these two dresses yesterday, i suppose my last creative burst in 2009, and i’ve definitely wanted to make these two for ages now. the first is a old long-line tshirt cut short and a skirt added with pockets too, and the second is an old dress, which i only ever wore as a skirt (i wore it when i went to stourhead), turned into a dress by making a strapless tank top from some black tshirting.

i think i like the second one better, but i’ll blatantly wear both loads all year round. i’m looking forward to making lots more stuff this year, given that my first 2010 resolution is to make more of my own clothes. if you’ve got any secret sewing tips or hand stitching ideas, let me know. i’ve got a couple more items to repurpose in a similar way, including a 90’s floral dress, and a pretty green top, which will both end up as dresses i’m sure. perhaps tomorrow!?!

i’ll be sharing some of my fantastic blog inspiration shortly with you all…look out for it!

ps. i’ve been wearing my leather boots from the first picture loads lately, and when i went to the cinema to see 3D Avatar (which is AMAZING by the way) on Wednesday the two girls in front of me were also wearing similar ones! anyways, i still ♥♥♥ them.

happy new year!

hello to all of my wonderful readers! i hope you’re as excited about this new year as i am…2010 is blatantly going to be amazing right?

i love the amazing hope that lies on this day. it’s so wonderfully filled with possibilities, and things you could do. i definitely feel like this decade is going to require me to be a bit braver and step out of my comfort zone (difficult but possible) so that i can achieve all that’s out there for me to do.

so, i thought i’d share my new year’s resolutions/goals with you, so you can all hold me to them, and i feel accountable to someone. i make loads of business related goals too, though i won’t share these with you (it’s the wonder of being self-employed)

• make more of my own clothes
• pay off credit card
• read 6 classic books
• make at least 1 YouTube video every week
• have flowers in the house at all times
• learn to paint
• get a puppy

well, i think these are all fairly do-able (i achieved all of my goals last year!!). i’ve already started on some of these things, like my own YouTube channel and i’m in the middle of Pride and Prejudice too, and yesterday i made not one, but TWO dresses out of old fabric and old clothes. i’ll show you them soon. mum bought a new camera  in the sales as well, so i can definitely keep up with creating more outfit posts, hopefully, and of a better quality.

anyway, i spent last night with some friends watching Jools Holland’s Hootenanny, which had Dizzee, Florence, Paloma and Tom Jones on it. fantastic. it’s really funny too.

like i say, i really hope that you all fell pretty happy and excited for this next year, and the next decade – the teenies! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

anthropologie loves

by now, most of you probably know i have a small addiction for anthropologie, and it's beautiful quirky designs. so i thought i'd share some of my favorites with you just in case you haven't yet realised the full extent of the anthropologie greatness.

i do hope some of this is in the sale!

vintage vogue

this christmas i've bought my sister in law the most awesome present, even if i do say so myself. this is actually one of the few people that isn't receiving a homemade gift. given she's been doing an amazing dressmaking course, i thought that a sewing pattern would be a great and very useful gift. but it's no ordinary pattern, it's vintage vogue!

i bought the pattern at the weekend in a craft store, when my mum and i went to chichester again, this time we saw The Snow Queen at the Festival Theatre, which was awesome! there was loads of fake snow, and the costumes were so so so amazing! Amy Jackson, the costume designer for the show created almost 140 individual costumes...all tailor made for each actor.

it made me want to:

• buy a vintage dress coat pattern and make it up with cream wool fabric, and a bright coloured lining
• find some incredibly sparkly flat oxfords
• invest in a pair of incredibly quirky glasses
• experiment with backcombing my hair
• buy white tights
• wear red leather lace up boots
• paint my face blue
• buy tulle underskirts.....

if you live in the south of the UK, it's definitely worth booking in to see the youth theatre christmas productions, it's such a fun day out! and you can get totally carried away in the craft shop too...

making homemade christmas gifts

so here's a little update on the gifts i'm making this holiday season, and just how far they've come...

i've made a whole 3 batches of crabapple jelly, which is pretty delicious, and all but 3 jars are gone (one even over to morocco with my brother!). it was extremely easy to make, even though there are a million steps...and it was totally worth it, as it is really really good!

homemade granola - this is still to be made, but i'm going to use this recipe from the Kitchen Sink Recipes blog, which looks yummy.

instead of the promised pancake mix, i decided to do some homemade biscotti, which i've made today, and which taste absolutely amazing, thanks to King Arthur. i made the first batch plain vanilla biscotti, and the second i added cocoa powder, chocolate chips and chopped pecans too, mmm.

the chocolate truffles will be in full motion on sunday, when i will be making and rolling a good load of chocolate. how terrified am i of attempting to temper the chocolate on my own? aah! i'm sure they'll be totally fine though, as long as i remain vaguely calm.

i've made all the cushions now, bar two tiny ones which hopefully i'll get onto tomorrow.

i've even embroidered names and initials on them to make them more personal (and the fabric is from ikea by the way), these really don't take long to make, apart from the embroidery which is fairly time consuming.

i made an apron for one of my best friends too, who will hopefully ♥ love it (for some reason the photo rotated on upload...):

and get how cute this is, it's reversible and it has her name embroidered into the corner! again, not too difficult a project as it's all straight lines!

and yes, i did make all my own christmas cards, which unfortunately left in the post before i actually photographed them. silly i know, but i could tell you that there was a lot of cutting and pasting involved in the process, and lots of wrapping paper and corrugated card, and you'll have more of an idea!

please let me know if you're pledging handmade, or making any of your own gifts this year, i'd love to hear about your ideas!

snow in england!

i don't know what you're thoughts on snow are but i love it! that's probably because we never have enough in England to get annoyed with it and wish it away. and when we do have snow, it's a fantastic excuse not to work!

well it did snow here today for about 5 minutes, which was awesome. it was actually pretty magical, because I was listening to Cliff Richard singing Let It Snow on my Christmas tunes... more of that in a minute...and I looked up from my computer and it was snowing!

there's no way it'll settle today, as the ground is too wet, but there's snow expected in the south of the uk tomorrow!

mum was talking the other day about how much she'd like to go on a sledding holiday, where she can just sled for a couple of hours a day on real proper thick snow, and then have to drink at least 10 hot chocolates in a day also, of course! i thought new england or somewhere like that would be perfect?

anyway, here are my current favorite christmas tunes to cheer you up on a cold wintry night (unless you live in the southern hemisphere, where then I'd hope these tunes will cool you down):

• maybe this christmas - the o.c. mix 3
• orchard house - little women album
• have yourself a merry little christmas - judy garland
• sleigh ride - ella fitzgerald
• it's beginning to look a lot like christmas - dean martin
• soul cake - sting
• i believe in father christmas - greg lake
• mistletoe and wine - cliff richard
• auld land syne - mairi campbell & dave francis
• merry christmas mr lawrence - ryuichi sakamoto
• rockin around the christmas tree - brenda lee
• walking in the air - peter auty

these christmas tunes are especially good served with hot healthy mince pies snuggled up by the fire chatting with your favorite people.