New Love...

I had a little free time before work today and was on the hunt for a new eyeliner, so popped into Boots in the Shopping centre near the Studio. How was i to know i would meet my soul mate...

A beautiful shade of browny/gray/dark nude nail varnish by the wonderful Bourjois!

I love bourjois make up, especially the nail varnishes with the big thick brush. I'm a lazy, impatient nail painter so to find one with a bigger brush that dries in 1 second in a scrummy colour = DREAM!

Looks delicious on and no chipping for agggges! Ah how little amuses the simple innocent!

Button-Fest

I admit it...I have an addiction...an addiction to...BUTTONS!

I have sought no help for this condition until now when i found myself buying lots (both auction and plural) of buttons on eBay and charity shops! I love a good old traditional button, 2 -4 holes round and brightly coloured, but i also love the funny little buttons like animal shapes and funny printed ones too. Nothing beats an over-sized button to be honest. I used to work in New Poo Look back in the days when it still smelt a little like wee, and when an opportunity arose to nab a few free buttons from clothes for sale, I was there. One day I was caught in the act with a particularly massive shiny red button. This was when I met a fellow button lover, and now good friend who, still to this day, remains in my phone contact list as "Button Twin". She didn't judge, she simply asked for one too and I love her for this.

I love when you have an odd habit or fascination and you find someone of equal oddness to share it with. It's like finding a long lost relative or realising there's much more to a person than you first thought because they have a curious obsession with some oddity. Come to think of it I share at least one quirk with each of my friends, perhaps this is a good thing, it makes me more selective!

My latest horde includes a number of new favourites; a pink lace heart with tea party written inside complete with tea cup and sugar jar buttons to accompany, some glittery flowers and lipstick pouts, a few beautiful nautical numbers in shiny gold and blue, some retro roller boots in a few different colours, a few different animals ones, but i adore the Meow button with the fancy lettering and the texture is almost a matt pearl, i don't know how to describe it exactly! Almost like a really smooth, wave battered pebble you find on the beach, lovely! What could be better than combining buttons and cats?!

It's a silly addiction to have seeing as I hardly ever use them to adorn clothes for fear of losing them, which again is a bit of an irrational fear seeing as i can count with the fingers on one hand how many buttons i have lost in a lifetime! However i was at a vintage fair just before Christmas selling cupcakes and came across a wonderful jewellery and accessory maker, Peggy Button. I have searched the internet and can only find a facebook page for her, but i think she only does it as a hobby so no website as yet! She made the cutest earrings, necklaces, hair bands, hair clips and brooches from old buttons and ribbons and i pretty much spent all the money i had made that day on her offerings! I got my dad some cuff-links she'd made from old 20p pieces too which were awesome. He loves things that he can tell a story about, like the pencil he bought that was made from recycled northern bank notes from the time millions were robbed from it and they had to change all the bank notes. I have inherited this quality among many others from him and this makes me happy.

So back to buttons then. I love the look, feel and usefulness of them, now to get cracking on making something out of them...

Why call people by their given name, when you can create your own...

Amongst my friends, we have a habit of naming people after things that remind us of them. For example a cute guy we used to ogle in college who had a tendency to wear jumpers with stripes was renamed the very inventive "stripy jumper". When we lived in england there was an old man who looked a bit like the living dead so he was renamed Mr Dead, you can see the pattern!


We do the same with animals so currently in our street we have a cat who rips open peoples rubbish and eats the contents, even though whenever i see him he always seems to have found a cheeseburger, thus he has been christened McFatty, there is a very long legged cat who we call Tall Cat and last but by no means least we have a fluffy tabby who looks identical to a cat husband had called Flea, so he is called Fake Flea!


The best cat on our street is a male tabby who is very chubby and has the oddest miaow i have ever heard, but he has the most sarcastic look on his face and he will stare you down, there's no question of that. We've just discovered he is Betsey's boyfriend when we caught her this morning cooing at him through the kitchen door. I don't know what she sees in him though because to me it feels like he's always judging me...perhaps this is a result of my own paranoia, but i took a picture just to make sure, but i had to take it from the bedroom window because he's a bit of a judge and run kitty...

Garden Fever...

Ever since the sun started to rear its head a few weeks ago, we've been talking about what to do with our garden this year! We moved into our house 2 Octobers ago and were probably a little late with getting around to gardening last summer. We've never had our own garden before so this year we plan to research, plant and maintain throughout the summer months (fingers crossed we get some months that qualify for "summer").


The girl who owned our house before us had a keen interest in gardening based on the sheer amount of bulbs we pulled out of the front and back garden last year. Thinking about it now we weren't sure why we dug up all the bulbs, but at the time it made sense. I suppose it has a lot to do with wanting to put your own stamp on your new home, marking your territory in a weird way!


She had lots of basic plants like daffodils and a few rose bushes, but the one thing she left behind which she didnt intend to was our beautiful Willow tree. I remember the last time i came to see the house before we were due to move in she had said she would be taking it with her if she could, but on moving day we were greeted by it in all its pastel green goodness!


Husband isn't so keen because our garden is on a bit of an upwards slope and the tree has started to impose on the shed that was plonked at the top of the garden. This too was left behind and isnt in a great state, but its handy enough for storing our garden furniture in the Winter. I love how unusual the Willow tree is and how delicate and almost feminine it is. I love nothing more than looking our our bedroom window on a sunny morning and seeing Betsey resting in the shadow of the Willow.


This year we're going to get stuck into the garden early Spring, rectifying all the mistakes we made last year and planning what we want to plant and where. When we started looking for our house the only 2 prerequisites were that we needed 3 bedrooms (for the copious amounts of "stuff" we have, i married a fellow hoarder) and the house must have a garden. Having your own little patch of green in a very grey city makes our miserable Summers that little bit more bearable. Being able to have a spontaneous barbeque or even just a nice glass of Pimms on the decking is such a breezy way to de-stress from the work day you've just had.


Our house is a mish mash of styles, but I'm pretty clear on how i want my garden to be. We're lucky to have a little decking area for our table and chairs and somewhere to have the barbeque itself! Towards the end of the summer i bought a fire pit because although it may be sunny it is never warm enough to sit out all night without freezing to death! We didn't get to try it out last year so fingers crossed for this year! At some point i want to have all the family over for a lovely summer garden party. i love being the hostess, making cocktails, finger food and desserts. New years has now become a tradition at our house, but a summer addition to the party rota is definitely needed!


I've been looking for some inspiration on the garden style front and found some cute themes and ideas. We already have some floral plant pots and wooden furniture. i desperately wanted some vintage style white metal furniture but everywhere seemed to be so expensive we settled for a dark wood, which i reckon with some  nagging negotiating, i could convince husband to paint it white! Judging from the rest of our home i have developed a strange obsession with white furniture as my latest purchase was a beautiful white trunk for the living room.


The dream is for French style white furniture, bunting, floral plant pots, old barrels and metal basins, lavender, heather and sweet-pea, beautiful cottage pinks (they smell like sweet cinnamon, yum!), pitchers of iced tea or Pimms and lemonade, freshly baked scones with no raisins in sight, candles in little lanterns, toasting marshmallows over the fire pit and good times with friends and family...all we need now is the sun!

Retro Rooms made me cry...

We went to the Frock around the Clock retro rooms fair today in the holiday inn in Belfast. I've been to the frock around the clock fairs before but always the ones selling clothes, jewelery and bric a brac, so thought the furniture one would make a nice change.


Sunday is our little day together so we always get up early no matter how late we were up the night before and head off for an adventure! so out the door before lunch and the first thing i see at the fair i WANT! it was a beautiful china cabinet that had been refurbished and painted a beautiful baby pink with patchwork in the background. I found a picture of it pre-pinked, but it really was much prettier in pink!

Both of us are oddly nervous when asking for directions, booking tables in restaurants, asking for the bill, haggling etc etc. We;re pretty much awkward at everything in life that requires interaction with other people. Maybe its because we're both a little odd, maybe its because we were both picked on when we were younger, maybe its a mix of the two...or maybe we're just wimps, but anyway, by the time we gathered the courage to ask about buying the cabinet we spoke to the makers mum who told us all about it. We paid and went off to phone the fathership to use his massssive car to transport the precious cargo. 5 minutes later the poor woman was chasing me looking very embarrassed and told me the cabinet had already been sold by her daughter about 15 minutes before we had asked about it. Just our luck!! I know it looks like a cabinet you could make by taking 1 hour or so and just sprucing it up, but realistically i have a box of fabric and a sewing machine upstairs that are unloved because i never have time to make anything so when am i likely to find time to make a beautiful cabinet...


It's so silly to think the woman who painted and added some patterned paper to an old cabinet can charge £100 for something you could probably make for about £30, but it's just so much easier to buy it ready made right? I've been moping about all afternoon now pining for the pink cabinet of joy.


Or perhaps i should learn form this and start going into charity shops on the hunt for bargains again like me and husband used to do every free minute we had! those were some of the most fun shopping trips I've ever had finding funny old records to frame, crocheted blankets and odd little ornaments to display. Maybe fate is trying to tell me something?


Look out charity shops and craft emporiums here i come, armed with a vision of the cabinet of dreams!!