Things of late...

Delicious Dim Sum at The Sky Restaurant to celebrate Chinese New Year! 

Clifton Suspension Bridge

Ashton Court

1st viewing of Snow Drops at Ashton Court

Walking off the Dim Sum at Ashton Court 

1st Cherry blossom

Charleston Swing

Breakfast at Harts Bakery

Hearts 

Cranes, Princes Wharf

M-Shed, Princes Wharf

Chequered Coat (vintage), Scarf (French Connection), Jeans (Zara), Trainers (Urban Outfitters), Leather Satchel & Umbrella (vintage)

Eagerly awaiting food

Hainanese Chicken Rice & Malaysian Laksa

A little snapshot of what I've been up to recently. As you can see, a hell of a lot of eating has been involved over the last couple of weeks! Me & Mr Red Bird are real foodies & I have a real sweet tooth too. As it's Chinese New Year we made the most of last weekend and ate our body weight in Dim Sum - ha! We went to out favourite place to enjoy Dim Sum which is Sky Restaurant in Bristol. The ingredients is super fresh and worth paying a little extra for I think. As it was such a beautiful day, we were lucky enough to walk off our HUGE lunch up in Clifton & Ashton Court which is always so pretty in the sunshine. We've had so much rain over the last couple of months, it was sad seeing the grounds so waterlogged. I feel for all the people suffering with the floods right now...

A few friends mentioned of late about Swing classes, so I grabbed the first opportunity I could and went along to my first class on Wednesday with my friend Penny. It was a full class doing Charleston Swing & I had such good fun, I signed up for a run of classes which are once a week. I really can't wait to learn more now that I've got the first bit under my belt without landing on my face.

This weekend we've been fighting with the weather again but had to get out and about. Harts Bakery is always a good start to my morning. Mr Red Bird had the vegetarian sausage roll & I had a bread and butter pudding thing filled with homemade marmalade and chocolate filling - yom yom! We spent the afternoon walking about all over the city dodging the wind and rain and finished up having an amazing Chinese dinner to fill our hungry bellies and to rest our weary legs.

I hope you all had a good one too...!
x

s t a t i o n a r y ...

I have a real penchant for stationary. Ok, anything even slightly related to stationary does it for me. I admit I spend far too much time looking at the stuff be it in shops, online on blogs etc, but it is ohhh so pleasurable. I am sure there are more than a few of you out there who can relate...you know who you are!

Occasionally I may treat myself to a special piece and will find myself strangely obsessing over it like I'm Charlie and it's a Willy Wonka Chocolate Bar or something. 

So, as the end of 2013 was fast approaching, I found myself getting rather anxious about my new 2014 diary. This Grafika one below in the pink and yellow was my special find for last year. I purchased it from Howkapow when they had their pop-up shop Bristol. I loved the graphics of all of the designs, but loved the pink one the most. It's a perfect size being between A5 & A6. It fit in my handbag perfectly and had plenty of diary room as well as an address book section and a plentiful notebook section. All this without being big and clumsy. I definitely wanted to invest in another for this follwing year, however to my extreme sadness I was more than disappointed to see that the makers, 1973 hadn't produced any new diary's for 2014, only a selection of notebooks in these same snazzy designs. 

 
So, frantically trying to find a good as replacement, I was beside myself when I came across this beauty in my locally owned store Something Else owned by the very lovely Sidonie & Kyle. Their wonderous shop sells a niche and very specifically selected collection of unique paper goods including stationary, books, magazines, maps and much more.

Stationary from Something Else

I have my eye on this - from Something Else

Among their plethora of goods I came across this 'Another Project' weekly planner by Seeso Graphics and highly recommended by Sid as her personal planner. On flicking through the pages I could see why. So much detail on the weekly/yearly planning you could go wild. Plus lots of space for notes on pretty pastel lined/gridded paper. The planner comes with stickers-o-plenty to so you can be creative with those I guess. I just love the colour, simplicity and endless ways of planning that can be done! The removable plastic jacket is great to make the thing last, but also doubles up as a pocket on the inside sleeves for those special looses bits of paper one tends to collect like gig stubs and the like.

Another find I made recently on Etsy was this. I love simplicity and combined with recycling, these cute little 'Matchbook Notepads' by One Fine Dae are great. Handmade using paper recycled from security envelopes. Perforated edges allow for ease of tearing pages out if needs be. This little notepad is pocket sized, ethically aware and cool.

Matchbook Notepad from One Fine Dae

Matchbook Notepad from One Fine Dae

Matchbook Notepad from One Fine Dae

Matchbook Notepad from One Fine Dae

W e e k e n d a w a y ...

Happy belated new year to you all I hope 2014 is a wonderful and exciting one for all!

I must admit I've been having a bit of a breather since Christmas and really enjoying some serious down time. Catching up with my mum, sisters, nephews and niece over the holiday period was a joy. I must admit I was a little anxious to begin with as it was hard not thinking about work, making and orders, but I soon got into the swing of it!

This year I wanted to be more conscientious about my gifts to my nephews & nieces as children always get a ridiculous amount of presents at Christmas time and they usually get bored with them after 5 minutes!

I wanted them to be creative, and I wanted their gifts to be recyclable (being made from paper or wood) or handmade. I got them these marvellous 3-D self construct things (which were a little more than difficult even for me, but fun non-the-less) and these wooden Sumo Skittles both from Muji. The paper animals above were from a seller at the Bath Artisan Market where I regularly hold a stall. You choose an animal and a pack of coloured tissue paper and you get a bag with PVA glue & a brush. I was delighted when on opening these the kids decided to get stuck into creating straight away. A messy, but fun time for all I think.

So January in the UK has been very wet and pretty cold, but when the sun comes out it is most definitely glorious. I'm making the most of not having booked myself in for any market stalls this month and have been visiting local towns and cities every weekend.

This weekend Mr Red Bird took us away to a lovely b&b called The Swan in Wedmore. It's set in the little charming village of Wedmore in Somerset, only 40 minutes drive from Bristol. On our way we took a slight detour and paid a visit to the lovely market town of Wells. It has a magnificant Catherdral and I love walking about the moated Bishops Palace with the ducks and swans about the place. There's a farmers market in the square and this time around a book fayre. There are also many many charity shops along the main high street, so if that's your kind of thing you will be spoilt for choice (although it's not that cheap). Of course we picked up a few little bits along our way.

Bishops Palace
I am wearing Sparkle & Fade coat, black high tops, vintage
handbag (all Urban Outfitters), old scarf 
(French Connection), umbrella (vintage).

Lovely book fayre finds
I am wearing suede blue flats and skinny jeans (Zara).

Our room at The Swan

Gorgeous details in our room at The Swan

A nice brew...!

Out and about in Wedmore
I am wearing black high tops, coat & scarf (as before), leopard print cotton dress (Topshop) and tights (Primark)

So many cute cottages in Wedmore

Church of St. Mary, Wedmore

Taxidermy in the back of someones car!

Christmas is coming...

I hate to say it, but now that Halloween is over, Christmas is well and truly on the way - eeek!

Now, you can can check this one with Mr Red Bird, but I am sure that he will more than confirm that I have a bit of a soft spot-come-fetish for cushions. I don't know what exactly the appeal is, but all the fabulous designs, textures, fabrics and colours that just get me buying more than our little flat can cope with!

I bought this great one last Christmas for Mr Red Bird from Society6 - which he grew to love after I convinced him that it was a gift for him and not for 'the house'. He loves wearing his Icelandic jumper in the Winter months and foxes, so I thought this very apt!

Icelandic Foxes Cushion by Ulrika Kestere 

Now...I have just come across these two beauties. One by one of my current favourite local artist, Charlotte Farmer for Ohh Deer & another by Alice Potter seen on Wolf & Badger, a London based lass. I now see that there may be a running theme with these cushions, in that they are all animal based....hmmm, what does that say about me?

Tiger Kitty Cushion by Alice Potter 

Hip Hip Hello Cushion by Charlotte Farmer

h a l l o w e e n ...

I really can't believe that autumn is full speed ahead, and I never even got to say goodbye to summer!
With that in mind, celebrations seem to be coming thick and fast and I can barely keep up, what with the weddings, birthdays...and more birthdays around every corner.
Halloween is fast approaching, so here's a few ideas that I've been toying with to get a bit of a head start. Does this get any of your creative juices flowing? If so, I'd like to hear what plans you have up your sleeve this Halloween...


Enjoy...x

Funny Face Halloween Carton of Eggs Heads

Painted House Halloween Pumpkins - Country Living

Halloween Smiles - Disney Family

Day of the Dead Make-up by Ryan Connors Photography

Lasercut Wood Bat Pin by Red Bird Makes