Swanky accessories

Do you ever have one of those days where you're just insanely busy and nobody is adoring you and everything is going wrong and you're pretty much just like AAAARGH? Of course you can't actually scream that out loud, because people might think you were unhinged or something, so maybe you just stick to thinking it or tweeting it. Or maybe you wear it around your neck to subtly remind people to give you a freaking break:

This AAAARGH necklace costs £22 from jewellery designer Swank, aka Becky Wignell. Based in Otley, Becky's designs are often made from recycled material (the chain on the above for example and her range of recycled Lego-themed necklaces are pretty squiffy geek-chic too), which means you can feel happy about what you're hanging round your hooters.

Also worthy of note are her really cool plane-related necklaces, which come in silver, gold or black-backed perspex. You know me, I love black and gold, it's so opulent and trashy:

Seriously cool, non? The F1-15 Fighter Jet necklace costs 30 smackeroonies and can be located by clicking this link here.

And then there's the Grumman Wildcat necklace, which also costs £30.

Lastly I want to show you my favourite, because it's named after a song which never fails to make me giggle and it's also AWESOME:

The Rock Lobster necklace costs £18 and comes in red, pink or gold perspex. Seriously cool. Which one should I choose, red or gold?

I originally wrote this post for About Your Dress Blog, you can still find it amongst heaps of other posts by me and two other talented ladies there if you'd like to go and have a peek.

Woof - Woof, by Meow Girl

Do you like dogs? I know people are usually dog or cat people, but, just to be my usual awkward self, I'm both. I love Geoff, my big fluffy ginger cat, but as you may remember from my previous posts, I'm a firm believer that 'one day my Fritz will come'.

As Fritz, my short-haired miniature daschund currently only exists in my mind, I do so like to see things that remind me of him, be that homewares or clothes or jewellery. So I was quite frankly elated when I was looking at Aussie shop Meow Girl's collection of painted miniature pooch necklaces and spotted dearest, darling Fritz on the end of a silver chain for a mere AUS$45 (£29.52 at current exchange rate, thanks expiate).

There's a whole host of the funniest little pups, including Ria's imaginary Pug, Pierre, for AUS $39 (about £23):

And Bill Sikes' dog Bulls Eye! Bulls Eye costs AUS$39, which is about £26. I know they are sort of ugly looking, but I quite like English Bull Terriers. Look, he's having a little sit down:

Also worth mentioning is the Chihuahua (ooh isn't that funny to write) for AUS$30, the Dalmatian, AUS$39 and the little Jack Russell AUS$39!

I originally wrote this post for About Your Dress Blog, you can still find it amongst heaps of other posts by me and two other talented ladies there if you'd like to go and have a peek.

Fan art by Liam Brazier

I'm writing this post, even though I'm a little bit frightened (and strangely excited) that any moment now, fifteen massive men wearing full SWAT gear are going to break through all the entrances to my house screaming, shine a torch in my eyes and bundle me into a van never to be seen again under the express instruction of George Lucas' copyright infringement scary badass legal collective. But you know what I'd say to them as they broke my typing fingers (yes, I'm a two finger typer. I know, it's totally messed up. But I'm still fast. I get on just fine with my two indexes, I'm just like the rest of you, I don't need no special treatment)? I'd say, in what I imagine to be a liberal accent:

"You can't suppress talent dude! The MAN George Lucas, May Peace Be Upon Him, is wrong to like, try and put financial boundaries on creativity dude! You can't OWN creativity brother! PEACE! We're spreading the message man, it's fear that stops you from sharing the magic. And we all know about fear man, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering..."

Then probably one of them would kick me in the ovaries and I'd pass out and that would be the end of my story because it's getting a bit weird now, but anyway I really like these prints!

They're totally freaking awesome. Okay so maybe not all (or any) of you are fans of Star Wars, but Liam Brazier has managed to transform C-3PO, helping him to transcend his robotic nature and providing him with an elegant sense of dignity (and C-3PO is not an elegant character, he's *just* annoying).  He's lent the humble Stormtrooper a sense of ethereal gravitas; no longer just a clone, but a complex, fragmented, 3-dimensional character worthy of his own portrait, his own place on the mantle. The gloomy depths of the Bounty Hunter's helmet stare boldly into the eyes of the Viewer, daring us to gaze for a moment into the abyss. Okay so I'm borrowing heavily from my A-Level Art essays now, but seriously, I think these are ace and if you know anyone else who likes Star Wars, they probably will too.

Good old Liam is selling giclee prints of these bad boys at his inPRNT shop in various sizes, 12 x 18 inches for $20 and 18 x 24 inches for $40. They're on 100% cotton rag archival paper, which might not mean anything to you, but let me tell you as a photographer, it's blooming expensive and it basically means it will last forever (well, about 300 years actually, if kept in the right conditions).

It's not just Star Wars though...look, Superman too!

Probably best that we all buy these before George Lucas uses the force of his legal team to have him executed, because then they'll be worth four bajillion times the price you can buy them for now!

I originally wrote this post for About Your Dress Blog, you can still find it amongst heaps of other posts by me and two other talented ladies there if you'd like to go and have a peek.

Skaagen mugs

I just want to clarify something here - are we all in agreement that we love tea? Good (okay fine, coffee is allowed too if, like my friend Imogen, you think that tea is 'The Devil's drink'). There's a lot of pleasure to be taken from the simplicity of a nice cuppa. This is made even more comforting when you're supping from an aesthetically pleasing recepticle.

Very Nice Things is a shop which, unsurprisingly, (as I'm posting status updates about every three seconds) I found on Twitter. Run by Emma, it's full of...well, very nice things. She's on my Fantasy Rounders Team and because lovely possessions are her speciality, she assures me if the fantasy ever becomes reality, she's going to bring delightful deckchairs and pretty picnic baskets.

Anyway, back to tea. On the Very Nice Things website Emma's listed these pretty £6 Skagen mugs, which I just want with every inch of my being, except I live with two boys who have successfully broken two full sets of crystal glasses and if they chipped one of these mugs I'd actually have to kill them until they were dead. And I'm rather fond of them, so I don't really want that to happen. I'm just going to have to keep them in my bottom drawer for the Nommie Dream House...

I originally wrote this post for About Your Dress Blog, you can still find it amongst heaps of other posts by me and two other talented ladies there if you'd like to go and have a peek.