Craft Ahoy!

On Saturday me, Vicky and Vickie,s friend Laura went to Wonder hill Craft market in London Bridge! There were some many lovely things and spent too much money BUT I did spend most of it on other people so I'm just going to assume that that makes it ok.

Afterwards I went back to Vickie's and she taught me how to use Shrinkle so I can make some keyrings and badges for my etsy shop/the next craft fair -Shrinkle is basically a sheet of plastic you can draw on and cut out, it then shrinks (get it!?) and thickens in the oven- Good lord is it addictive! I promise watching your potential key ring flapping around in the oven is better than TV. Anyway here's some photos.

The process...

Finished!

So obviously these guys aren't perfect. The thing is, is that the colours get a lot darker in the oven so I still need to figure out what shades to use and harness my cutting skills and then everything will be Dandy. Also i've learnt that I prefer to use white sheets rather than clear ones, at least for animals anyway,

Vicky gave me some sheets to experiment with when I get home and this has been the best one so far:

At the fair Vicky got me this awesome badge from Oh Pair and I treated myself to a new necklace and I love it! It's from Di Does Vintage. (Her blog is here!)

Gilmore Girls - Love of my life.

link!

When I was in 6th form I got into what is now and probably always will be my favourite TV series of all time: Gilmore Girls.

Now back in Northern Ireland I very easily found a group of people who also loved the show. We frequently tried to organise Gilmore Girls nights that never actually happened but having a group of like minded people around me who either wished they had the same mother daughter relationship that Rory and Loralie have or ranked them both at the top of their wish lists of who to have a threesome with, (incest, gross!) was good enough for me.

Then I moved to London. No one, I MEAN NO ONE understands my love for Gilmore Girls here. They mock me for having a terrible taste in TV and brand Loralie as annoying. I find this genuinely upsetting probably because it makes me a little home sick for my Norn Iron friends but my love for Gilmore Girls will never die. Here's why:

Nothing properly bad ever happens

Unlike a million other programmes were characters are dyeing, plotting murders, cheating (although Rory totally has a mischievous side!) and generally putting you on a massive downer. Although the Characters have their flaws they all genuinely mean well and think they're doing what's best for those they love. The only problems they have is boyfriend stuff and homework, everything else is great.

Kirk

No description needed.

Babbette

Not only does she have the most hilarious voice when she talks, she's a really good singer and she's generally adorable

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Rory is a VIXEN

She pretty much cheated on Dean (although it was with Jess so we all understand) and then a couple of years later slept with him whilst he was married. Damn girl! 

Stars Hollow

Firstly, Who wouldn't want to have Stars Hollow as their address? Secondly the place is just great with its town meetings and all the fairs. It's also so damn QUIRKY. I mean Al's Pancake world doesn't sell pancakes?!? They have a Churchogogue (that's a church and a synagogue mashed together) They go to the cinema in a book shop and have 24 hr dance-a-thons! Who wouldn't wanna live there?!

link!

I love you to Rory, I love you too.

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Generalness

So I had this whole idea that whilst I was home I would TOTES have loads of time to do work, meet up with friends, catch up with my family and update my blog fairly regularly- even though I didn't bring my Lap top with me! I managed to do all of the above except for the blog updating, one of the main reasons being that I forgot my SD card for my camera because I wanted to put some pictures up but alas it did not happen.

I've been back in London for few days now and I'm still living in a state of shock that I actually did some studying whilst I was back home, so I'm fairly prepared for my presentation next week. Then I have to study for an exam on the 15th of may and I am DONE with 2nd year (take two). I finnish quite early so I'm hopefully gonna be able to focus a lot more on the whole card thing and learn how to make other little craft things too. This Saturday Vicky is going to teach me how to make key rings which I'm really excited about! We're going to be doing another craft fair on the 26th of May which will be cool! and I still have cards left over from the last fair so I can relax a bit more (only a bit). My plan is to order everything I need within the next few days and then be really boring and focus on my uni work but after my exam on the 15th I will be in full card/key-ring/ maybe even magnet making mode!

So basically, from now till the 15th my blog shall be more boring than usual but once that date has passed it shall receive lots of love and attention... I might even try my hand at having a couple of regular features!

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P.S Today in between classes I was standing next to a big boat whilst watching an orchestra play. London you aight.

Procrastination

I'm back home in Norn Iron (that's Northern Ireland for those who don't know the linguo) and boy is it good to be back. I arrived at the airport to my brother and sister and my puppy in the car and then came home to a MASSIVE bonfire and all the neighbours too. It was a nice night to come back to roasting marshmallows and eating hot dogs and my mums amazing brownies!

At the moment I'm sitting in the living room on my brother laptop with said puppy napping at my shoulders. The plan this week is to get some glasses, get started on my uni presentation (all about mental health, should be interesting), meet up with a few friends if I can and go up to see G-Ma and G-Pa. I've already got my glasses, They're bright blue! and I've started making notes for my presentation so, so far things are going according to plan! Tonight One of my neighbours is competing for Mr Belfast which I think is just HILARIOUS. I've known this boy for years now and because he's a friend of my brother he has obviously spent most of these years irritating the hell out of me but tonight we are all totes Team Daniel, we're all especially looking forward to the swimstuit round! Oh BABY!


Since I left my SD card in my Laptop in London I don't have any pictures but here's some stuff i'm loving on etsy...

Tangerine Shift Dress from Cristalina C

We've already had Mothers Day here in the UK but this is card is so funny! From
Wit and Whistle

Adorable Bear and Cub Print from Claire Hartigan

Shiney pretty skirt! from Princess Toadie


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Bonfire Night!

Yesterday I had my first ever stall at a craft fair! It was a lovely little one in Hither Green and after all the nerves, excitement, and card making I'm really happy with how it went!  I shared a stall with Vicky and all her pretty glittery things and I'm so glad I did because if I had done the stall by my self I probably would have been waaaaaaaaaaay more nervous than I was! 

I got some really nice feedback from people and some sales too! My favourite thing was when people had a proper little giggle at them because that's pretty much exactly the point of them!

I've learnt a few things for next time too, such as;

Bigging my self up to /generally chatting with customers. - Trust me I am a Chatty person, I probably chat too much sometimes. But in this situation I was a bit more nervous and didn't really know what to say to people, so I need to be more confident in myself and what I'm selling!

Maybe start doing things other than cards - Vicky mentioned this one, and I think its a good idea! I like the idea of little animal key rings! I've also thought about maybe doing posters...

A nicer display- I was pretty happy with the way I displayed my Cards but some of the tables at the fair were so pretty! I'm definitely gonna look up some cool ways to display my stuff!

So those are the main things, I'm sure if I think more about it, I'll think of some other stuff too!

I also got two very pretty things from the fair too! I got a lovely lilac bow from vicky and Richard got me the ring I wanted from Under A Glass Sky! 

Such a great day! 

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Post Easter Ramblings

Evening!

I do hope everybody enjoyed their easter! I got a surprising amount of easter eggs this year which was nice. I also managed to actually have some sort of restraint when my mum sent me an easter egg last week. She told me I wasn't allowed to eat it till easter sunday and I STILL haven't eaten it yet and that's a pretty big deal to me! I went up to Ascot to see my Aunt and Cousins and had such a good time! It was a nice long day of Sausage sandwhiches, prosecco, roast dinners, naps, easter eggs and chocolate cake! I was quite sad to leave but the train journey was a good excuse to get a good bit of reading done on the train!

Last night I finished all my cards! I still might make some more but I've done the minimum that I wanted to do which is good. All this excessive card making is for a little craft fair in Hither Green in South East London. I'm quite excited but was also relieved when Vicky posted on her blog about how she was freaking out about it too! I'll be doing a stall with her you see.

It is quite a scary thought, even if it is a little fair in hither green, I want have my laptop to hide behind like I usually do. That said on easter sunday I was watching this TV show all about Dame Judy Dench. They were talking about this film she did that was only released on mobile phones and the director said that when she told her about it Dench said "sounds quite scary... I guess I better do it then!" So that's the sort of attitude I'm taking to it now, I'm quite scared but I think doing something your scared of is a good thing to do, I think if you don't you're not really going to get anywhere are you? Because as vicky said even if the stall doesn't go well then I can learn from it and improve the next time.

Today I went up to North East London to see Vicky and she found me a nice little display thingy (I don't know what the proper term for it is!) So I'm feeling a bit better about how my little card display will look too!

I'll be putting some pictures up soon!
Also is there are any Londoners reading the Craft fair will be at Lochaber Hall in Hither Green, South East London!

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Slowly but surely...

The painting begins! Fair bit more to go mind you.

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Macaroons in the rain

The top two are a  Raspberry Chocolate ganache truffle from Paul A Young and a rhubarb and custard one from Fortnum and Mason.

The bottom two are a White Chocolate truffle from Prestat and a Bannoffe pie one from Paul A Young again.

            Chooooooooooooooooooooooooooclaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The day before yesterday Richard had the best idea in the world. You see I realised I had missed the chocolate fair at South Bank for the second year in a row. So as you can imagine, I was very very grumpy. I wanted to go so badly that I was considering going down to Bristol to go to the one the one they were having there!  But after deciding that it would be a bit much, Richard said that we should do a tour of chocolate shops around London and we did! Well more of a mini tour, we went to four shops and it was probably the best day of my life.

I think so far Paul A Young has to be my favourite Chocolate Shop in London now, both of the chocolates I got from there were quite literally DIVINE. Richard had a cigar leaf caramel chocolate from there too, he loved it but I don't think cigar chocolate is quite my thing, it's definitely something to try though!

We also got some macaroons from La Maison du Chocolat, I'm still quite new to the macaroon thing, I can't quite decide what to think of them! Tasty enough to eat, that much is true. I can't decide between the rhubarb and custard one and the bannoffee one for my favourite. I'd never had chocolates like these before so I won't lie I was a bit skeptical, I thought they might be too sweet or gooey or whatever but they were literally perfect! The only disappointing chocolate was a strawberry and balsamic vinegar from Prestat, it didn't really taste of anything, I thought but all in all this was a very tasty day. I also got a velvitish (i'm not quite sure!) leopard print shirt from Rockit. Good day all around. 

I would definitely recommend that anyone in London do their own chocolate tour, I only bought a couple of chocolates in each shop so it wasn't a particularly expensive day and so much fun even in the miserable weather!

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Outlines Outlines Outlines

This is pretty much all I did yesterday...

I did multiple versions of all these cards. Not all of them animal ones! I think because I was starting to get a tad bored of constantly drawing them yesterday. So I did some simple thank you cards and some freaky looking drawings of Barry Gibbs and Barbra Streisand.

Either tonight or tomorrow morning I will paint these all! But not before I visit some london chocolate shops!

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Baked Eggs

I of course have found a way to slightly mess up my new blog design, I'm not sure how exactly, but I did. There's supposed to be "Home About Facebook Shop" at the top but they've gone missing since I tried to change one of the pages... Ah well I'll figure it out soon enough!
I spent my time in Kent watching a lot of Bridezillas and drawing until my fingers got sore. I forgot to bring my paintbrushes with me so I only did the outlines (as you can see below) but I think it turned out to be a good thing, because painting is probably my favourite thing to do about the whole Card making thing so I'm going to carry on only doing the outline until I've done enough and have a big old painting session!
It's just been a generally great weekend! The weathers been lovely and I got a good bit done, like going to Deptford to get some more card supplies, FINALLY ordering a new charger for my camera, went to work, went to Kent, got a load of cards done, booked tickets home, booked tickets to go see my Aunt and cousins on easter sunday and I just got some photos developed! I love how they came out too! I also baked an egg and good god! Who knew that cumin and Chilli powder went so well with eggs?! I didn't! It's a revelation and I'm going to make another one now...

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