Mad March Christmas

Every year I celebrate Christmas with various groups of friends and family and last weekend it was the final Christmas of 2009 - late for a very important date indeed! I met up with two of my best friends in London for the festivities. We went to Angel (thematic, no?) and found small district of antique shops and market stalls selling vintage jewellery and goods.




Last pic by my good friend the Shoegazer We could have spent hours looking around but we had to scarper to see Alice in Wonderland! Which incidentally, we all loved despite the extortionate ticket price. The design of the Queen of Heart's castle was particularly delicious, as were the costumes, but seeing the hat's the Mad Hatter made rekindled my strange desire to be a milner...

Anyway, after the film we opened presents! I got some lovely gifts...

I'll be making the miniature zoo in a separate post so look out! The brooches on the left were a welcome addition to my Hannah Zakari collection. All in all it was a wonderful time!

Let's Decorate

In January I started to decorating my bedroom at home for the first time in about ten years. It's not quite finished but here are some of the bits that are.

The paper - I looked everywhere for deep red that I liked but none tickled my fancy so I went with this gorgeous purple and silver number. I can't for the life of me find the name of the designer. Anyway, it was a joy to put up - not like the cream colour that covers the three other walls, grr.


The photo collage. The tree silhouette is a wall sticker from Tiger, as are two of the frames . The rest of the frames are from charity shops and car boot sales. None cost over £2. The contents are photographs, postcards and prints. Below are my shelves. They look cluttered but you should've seen them before!

So that's the complete corner. As the rest is finished I'll post more photos.

Edit: Now seen on one of my favourite blogs, Home Sweet Home! 767 notes, I'm so pleased! Lots of love for Totoro too.

It's For You

I've always loved pretty wrapping paper, especially the designs from Paperchase but at £1 - £2 a pop for one sheet it was an expensive habit. That's why I was very happy to find these beauties at a local store called Tiger for 50p a roll!


Tiger also do a small selection of colourful tapes, perfect for presents and letters.


Speaking of letters, I ordered some kawaii writing paper from Japan and it arrived yesterday very prettily presented!

Wrap it Up

Good wrapping makes a gift even more special. One of my favourite things is wrapping up presents. In fact, I enjoy it so much it's like an unbirthday presents to myself! Turns out I'm not alone in this. The Flickr group Nice Package! have a wonderful selection of images of wrapped up gifts and package swaps, something I'd love to try someday.








Wouldn't you love to receive any of these? I know I would! I like the idea of experimenting with different materials to wrap such as posters, paper bags, fabric, comic books, maps, the list is endless.



This was one of favourite 'wraps' for the birthday of one of my best friends. I found a lovely vintage mini briefcase at a car boot sale and used some Paperchase paper as well as some handmade gold paper to wrap the dozen or so presents inside. To decorate I used parcel string, netting, ribbons and stamps!

Material Girl

On a recent trip to London I was taken to a magical place: the largest Paperchase store I'd ever seen. It was a delight to explore the shop's three storeys of art supplies, trinkets, wrapping paper and gobsmacking array of greetings cards. With mixed media canvases in mind, I bought a few sheets of handmade textured paper, among other things.



Recently I also found some Japanese postcards my Granddad had sent my mother during his time in the Royal Navy. They're quite beautiful. I may end up using some of these in the canvases too.