Fiona's Portrait

Meet Fiona!

My good-friend-flatmate-blogger-extraordinaire asked me to illustrate her a little portrait for her lifestyle blog Country Girl - City Life

Head over to her blog to see it in action and check out what wonderful things she's been up to! 

In other news: Loving this song at the moment!

Haim: Don't Save Me

 

A fox

When foxes are mentioned metaphorically there are often given negative attributes, I wonder why this is as they have such beautifully coloured fur. 

My Vintage Hat

A bit of a late post, as I wore this to a friends wedding a few months ago, but I need to share this amazing find!

It is slightly out there, but teamed with a black dress and minimal extra flourishes I wore it right until the end of the night. 

I was determined to wear a hat to my good friends wedding and modern hats and fascinators on the high street were not very me or seemed far too expensive. After coming across the seller Poppycock! Vintage on Etsy, I fell in love with the range available. The price was right, there was a great range or vintage hats suitable for a wedding but the seller was based in the US. It was a risk at the time as to whether it would arrive in time for the big event, and if I would love it as much on myself as I did on the website but thankfully it all worked out well!

"Oh yes, I had it imported for the occasion"

New Girl's Jess Day- Zooey Deschanel

Call it a style crush, call it a girl crush, call it whatever you want but I love New Girl's Jess Day.

The television show New Girl is a great comedy program with hilarious charters with flaws just like you and I. You can liken the show to the likes of Friends and how I met your Mother in the sense that you enjoy the characters as if they were your best friends but New Girl to me is much more honest. The quirks of each individual character are great to watch unfold.

Image from @destronar tumblr

The relationship between Nick, who's character is a very endearing, and facial expressions reveal some interesting shapes and Jess is a great thong to watch, they are definitely going to "get it on" but I am hoping that they won't just yet as I am very much enjoying watching them dance around the matter.

The fashion that Jess brings to the show reflects her fun loving personality. I have always loved Zooey Deschanel's vintage, 50s/60s image and have recently plucked up the courage to get a full fringe which the actress is famous for. It  took a lot of getting used to but I am hoping to keep it for a while (and don't get to lazy about getting it trimmed).

Festive lino printing

This year I am having a 'Homemade Christmas,' I am going to attempt to make everything from Christmas cards and gifts to the (hopefully delicious) feast with all the trimmings on the big day! As I mentioned in a previous post I was planning many crafty projects, one of which was lino printing.

I have a great love of Christmas, and to many people's annoyance, I may get a little bit excited too soon!  When making sure that I get all of my crafts done within good time I have got into the Christmas spirit already, and as you can see below I was printing away to a winter's favorite of mine, The Holiday!

 To create lino prints you must have all the kit: The lino, cutting tools, printing paint or ink, a paint roller, barren tool (for pressing the print onto the paper), a pencil and something to print onto.I scoured Ebay and Amazon for the cheapest price kit, as a visit to Hobbycraft showed that you can spend a fortune on just the basic set. I mainly looked at Youtube videos and online tutorials to get the technique right and got stuck in. 

I very quickly came to realize that this is quite a dangerous craft as  the cutting tool can slip quite easily off of the lino and slice into the hand that is holding the lino secure. So if you are considering giving this craft a go, be very careful and possibly buy a hand protector which I have seen  being sold.

 I am now waiting for some more lino to arrive so I can create some new designs.

You can see my mistletoe inspired design on some basic packaging tags and a cheeky Christmas pud in red on a card. 

A Froggy Haloween

An early Halloween party inspired a few Kermit the Frog inspired crafts.

On Saturday night a good friend of mine held an early Halloween party for her close friends, unfortunately I was working late that night so my original costume idea to be the Cheshire Cat wouldn't have worked as it would have had to use face paints which would have made me later than than I already was. So Kermit the Frog it was, adored with the words "It's not easy being green" on the back of my top (Homemade is the only way).

Above are the mint chocolate cupcakes I made for the party, the pumpkin which now acts as a table decoration. A Woodland Nymph ,The Ice Queen and Myself the Frog.

Hello Autumn!

With Autumn brings my favorite weather, the frosty chill that makes you see your breath combined with the sun peeking through the clouds and I get the chance to select a scarf from my collection of many.

I love the introduction of the seasons veg, the jewel colours that come out in fashion and the cozy nights with a hot chocolate, bed socks and a blanket.Where I work has already introduced it's festive product lines and it is surprising the amount of people who pick up a chocolate Santa with their groceries in the early days of October! The festiveness of the chill is just irresistible.

Since everything has slowed down, I have decided to make creative plans to coincide with the seasons changing. I have a Halloween costume to create (Homemade is the only way to go) and have many crafty projects to keep me going until Christmas. I've began making soup again and hope to produce some creative recipes from may many vegi books to warm me up and the watercolors have made an appearance as you can see from my image above devoted to the season.

I have also begun a brand new project! I am now learning to play the piano. This is something I have never had the chance to do before and with my Graduate's free time I have decided to go for it, I am learning from the very beginning and realize that I might find it extremely difficult but I might just be able to play 'Jingle Bells' for Christmas!
My second lesson is tomorrow, wish me luck!

I will be sure to keep my blog updated with all of the above projects!