Just 3 working days to go until we head off to Venice! Really, honestly, truly, 100% cannot wait!!

Mappiness

Over the last year, a new obsession has presented itself.
Maps.
Now, I've always appreciated the beauty of maps, always loved having a good flick through an atlas, and more recently exploring the world vicariously on google maps (satellite vie - oh my goodness, technology is amazing!) and teaching myself the geographical location of countries (europe, asia, north america and africa done, south america still to go...!), but now my flat is slowly filling up with maps: handmade and bought...

It's been a while...

Its been a very long time indeed since christmastime and my last post here... so here's a quick 20 second round up:

- House moving
- New jobbing
- Neglecting the things I enjoy the most
- Eating
- Sleeping
- Generally surviving!

It's been so busy, with so much change to adjust to... it's not all been bad though, I've holiday-ed and booked more holidays, so there's always been something to look forward to!

But now things seemed to have calmed down and bedded in a bit, it feels like i might actually have time on my hands to get making, sewing, drawing etc again. Fingers crossed!

Hearty art

I came across this very worthwhile project at CatRabbit's blog and had to repost it here. Art 4 Heart is an art auction in aid of the Queensland Floods. Between the 18th and 27th January pieces donated by some pretty awesome artists and creators will be auctioned off with all proceeds going to Premiers Flood Relief Appeal. Surely you don't need a better excuse to buy a little treat for yourself than this. Go buy!

London Santacon 2010

Time for some more Christmas cheer: Namely the Christmas cheer that was spread all over London yesterday by the participants of the 10th annual London Santacon. Hundreds and hundreds of Santae gathered at Trafalgar Square having marched through London, giving out free Santa Hugs, sweets and brussel sprouts to the unsuspecting public, singing their very own 'special' Christmas carols on the way. Lucy and I managed to find ourselves in the midst of the chaos that ensued...!







Now, if that doesn't make you feel Christmassy, I should imagine there's not much hope left for you!

We also took a trip to the Super Christmas Market at Somerset House for some last minute gift buying, sadly, in comparison to previous years there was nowhere near as many gift stalls, and only a handful of interactive stands, each with rather large queues, so was a little bit of a let down. The Santa's more than made up for it though!

My Christmas shopping is now complete, so I can now move on to my age old tradition of wrapping in front of Home Alone! So very excited! I'll be inducting Lucy to my wrapping regime this week, cant wait to see the living room covered in a mass of gifts, wrapping paper, ribbons and tags!
x

20 days to go...

Little by little I'm managing to cross things off my monstrous pre-Christmas to do list. Today, I'm crossing off Christmas cards: The making of - not the writing of, sadly! That's a job for this evening!


I made a set of five cards, the concept being that Christmas is the perfect antidote to any bad mood, and that all those little christmassy bits and bobs can turn even the hardest of scrouges!


So yes, very glad to have these done and dusted. I'm feeling even more Christmassy today... I wonder if i'll reach the limit of Christmassy-ness soon, or if I'm just going to keep going and going? I think the latter is more probable. Last night was our annual Christmas Party complete with mulled cider and legendary onion soup, we even cracked open a tin of Quality Streets, which is probably the reason for my topped up Christmas levels today. Yes, I am aware that I have now said 'Christmas' 9 times in this post...! See! I told you: OBSESSED!!

x

Christmas is coming...

Christmas can never come quick enough in my book, and so with only 20-something days left to go, I'm feeling a little bit giddy! I've been super organised this year - only have 3 more gifts to buy and my wrapping to do, and it's not even December yet!

With it being Paul and my first christmas since we've moved in together, we've had the added bonus excitement of getting our first tree. It's a rather small little number, but it does the job rather well. We've been decorating the tree using only handmade decorations, it's not quite finished yet: I'll need to make a few more pompoms, and am planning on making a second reindeer, but here's what we have so far:



The reindeer was made from this lovely little pattern here, and the angel/fairy tree topper was a pattern I made up myself. If anyone would like the pattern, let me know and I'll put it up here.
I've also almost finished my annual batch of christmas stockings: a big achievement as these are normally a very last minute job! I just need to fill them now!


If only Christmas wasn't so cold! The heating in this old house is not standing up to the frost weather outside. Time for another jumper and a hot water bottle!


x

A lion & a giraffe...

A friend of mine is running a pub quiz night in London and asked me to design a poster to promote his very first night on the 9th December. If you're going to be in the area, do pop along, it's bound to be a good'un.


In other wildlife news, check out this rather lovely giraffe scarf (which rhymes in my southern accent, not so much in Paul's northern drawl...!). I picked it up this weekend at a gift fair in town whilst Christmas shopping. And speaking of Christmas shopping, I really must get on with it!

x

Old & New

I recently had another commission for Insite, (the New Civil Engineer's education supplement) published. This time the brief was Wembley Stadium - Old & New. I received my copy in the post this week. Coincidentally enough I was lucky enough to be treated to hospitality tickets to an international game at the stadium just a week after receiving the brief!

Birthdays

Just a couple of birthday cards from September - one for Paul, and the other for a Vivienne Westwood obsessed friend. Sadly, i've got printer/scanner/copier issues, so these cards ever actually made it into physical existence, and still remain as an intangible muddle of pixels and megabytes, but I'll be sure that the birthday boy & girl eventually gets their cards when I'm back up and running.

Am seriously missing scanning capabilities now! Can anyone recommend a decent all-in-one replacement printer - all suggestions will be gratefully received!

I am not a patient person...

Bank holiday weekend involved lots of shopping - car shopping! A very fun (and expensive) kind of shopping. And now the waiting begins.

As I'm not very patient, I've taken to drawing my nice new shiny car in the hopes that it might make it arrive that little bit quicker... probably not going to happen...!

I hope you all had a lovely long weekend too. 3 day weekends make such a huge difference don't they?!

مرحبا

Merhaba! I am back from super sunny Turkey having had a really very excellent time, and although it's been rather rainy and miserable back home, I'm not missing the 46 degree heat too much...! I've never experienced heat quite like it, but it was the perfect excuse to do absolutely nothing and relax, in a rather indulgent fashion every day! And also, of course, to sample many a cocktail to cool one's self down on an evening!

And now it's back to the real world - plenty to catch up on, but will be back here soon with any luck...!

We're all going on a...

Holiday time is here again! I'll be flying off to sunny Bodrum tomorrow and I really can't wait! A week of sunshine, seasides and super relaxation is exactly what I'm in the mood for! So, with only 1 more sleep, the countdown has begun!
I'll be back in a week's time!
x

Housewarming

Now, we haven't quite had time for a housewarming party, but I have just about squeezed in the time to make the invitations! As soon as the last few boxes have been unpacked, and we're on top of the washing (having had no washing machine for 2 weeks), it will be party time!

Keep on Trucking

This weekend was Truck Festival which of course meant the annual monster production line for Lucy and I. We managed to leave it all a little last minute... (we were still attaching lanyards in the car on the way there on Friday night!) but we got there in the end, and the little blighters sold out yet again within a couple of hours!

After all that hard work, we concentrated our efforts into relaxing in the campsite on friday night with a picnic and a drink or two, before having the pleasure of seeing some of the music on the Saturday - Stornoway of course being the highlight! A very nice end to a very busy week!











x.

Grazing

My first Graze order arrived on my desk this morning, and really do have to shout about it! Graze is a great little company who deliver 4 punnets of nutritionally balanced natural treats, personalised to your tastes by post, straight to your desk for you to nibble at while you're at work! Yummy! I particularly recommend the honeycomb flapjacks, and the funky gibbon (milk chocolate puffed rice, cashews and banana).

You can even have a box and a half free when you follow THIS LINK!

I've brought my box home to keep me going whilst making another pile of monsters for Truck. If you're heading down to the festival this weekend, hope you have a super time!
x.

Moving slowly...

So the reason I've been rather absent of late is a good one: I've moved house! I'm making my excuses from beneath a pile of empty flat-pack boxes and there's still a pile of things to do, we've no internet, no washing machine, and so on and so on, but we're getting there. Slowly!

x.