New Projects & The Blue Balloon

I've been starting a new side project ready for university later this month. I've always been into jewellery so I've decided to try it out for myself and maybe selling a few one of pieces on the side.

Etsy, if you haven't heard of it,(where have you been?!?!)Etsy is an online "market" where you can buy and sell all things vintage and handmade. I love this website and I am on it all of the time, it gives me some great inspiration. It has some amazing stuff, there really is some very talented individuals out there! I just wanted to share with you this handmade jewellery shop I came across the other day. Here's a few of my favourite items and how cute is the name(!?)

The Blue Balloon

Tea Cup Candles

I have a few birthday's coming up and always like to get super special presents for my friends. I went to a vintage fair in Leeds last year and saw these gorgeous vintage tea cup candles and ever since I've wanted to have a go at making them! They didn't look that hard to make and I thought they would be such cute birthday presents so off I went to some charity shops to try and pick up some lovely vintage tea sets. Here's my finished product!! What do you think?

Below I want to show you a little tutorial of my tea cup candles.

I ordered some 1kg wax flakes, wax dye, wicks, and glue spots off ebay for about five pounds. 1kg of wax is enough to make about ten tea cup candles.

So I got a pan with boiling water and put an old glass jug inside the pan. To caluculate how much wax you need, wiegh the tea cup and then filling with water and weighing again. The difference between the weights is the approximate ammount of wax you need. If you are adding fragrance, add just before pouring the wax into your tea cups.

Pour the correct ammount of wax flakes you need into the glass jug. Also put in the wax dye if you are wanting to make coloured wax. I added a bubblegum pink dye into mine. This should take about ten to fiveteen minutes to melt but never leave it unattended as it can be very flamable at a certain temperature. Keep the boiling water on a low heat, it is pretty easy to melt wax.

While the wax is melting cut your wick to length allowing enough wick to protrude from the top of the tea cup. Push the wix through the sustainer (Round silver disc) and press a glue dot and stick to the bottom of the teacup. I also used a bit of all purpose glue to stick it down as it worked better than just the glue dot.

Keep stirring the wax using an old utensil or in my case I used wooden skewers that I could just throw away afterwards. Using the skewers i placed these across the top of the tea cups to keep the wick central and in place for when pouring the wax in.

Once all the wax flakes are completely melted carefully take the jug out of the pan and slowly pour the melted wax into your tea cup. Leave these to set. I thought they would take ages but mine took about half an hour to an hour!

Decoration! Now you can leave your candles as they are or you can add almost anything to them. I decided to add some sequins and glitter! Even if the wax is completed set, don't worry just get your hair dryer out and hair dryer the top of the candle until the wax is melted a bit. Then add glitter and sequins. It is better to add sequins as this stage as they won't sink to the bottom.

And the finished products! Have you tried this? Please share yours with me!

All Photographs by Me

Pet Portraits

So for my Dad's big five zero birthday I decided I wanted to get him something special rather than just ties and socks! After browsing through etsy and finding this shop I knew I wanted something like these! They are so cute and full of personality but a bit too much out of my price range.

I kept on searching for a artist that did customised oil paintings of your pets. Eventually I found John Payne's etsy shop an artist from London. I thought his paintings were amazing and so reasonably priced so decided to get a painting of our beloved Rhodesian Ridgeback, Tess.

Look how it turned out! Heres the photo that he worked from and here's the painting! How amazing, me and my Dad were both so pleased with it!!

You can check out John Payne's work at his etsy store here.

London & Yohji Yamamoto

Just before me and K went to Portugal we took a well needed visit to London. We have started making these London trips a kind of habit because since about a year or so ago I had maybe been to London twice in my life time, and now this past year we have been about 3 times!! 2 out of 3 has been for K's gigs with his band but nevertheless it is such a great excuse for a shopping trip! As we live in the North it does take about 7 hours on the megabus but I can't really complain when a return ticket costs around £20.00!

My main reason for my visit was to go to the Yohji Yamamoto exhibition at the V & A, who is one of my favourite designers. You weren't allowed to take photos but I found these here.




Also here's a few things I picked up.

Photography by Me

Urban Outfitters BDG High-Rise Ankle Cigarette Jeans - £25.00 (down from £50!) Recognise these!! The same ones that I bought online in the sale, I just wanted a second pair when the others become too worn!

Photograph by AA

American Apparel Skirt - I have wanted the longer version of this but I couldn't wait any longer and purchased this mid length one when i spotted the store London!

Photograph by Me

Cath Kidston Bag - Love this, I already have it in a different pattern but fancied a new one and it was in the sale!

Photograph by Me

Mango Dress - £9 in the sale! Bargain and thought it would be great for my holidays.

Urban Outfitters Shorts - £20 in the sale, perfect for Portugal! Gorgeous print with leaves, flowers, birds, giraffes and big cats!

Photograph by Me

This Costa Red Berry Fruit Cooler is soooooooooooooo nice, my favourite drink right now!

We also treated ourselves to a meal at the Green Door Oyster Bar & Grill. After searching all of google, reading reveiws etc trying to find a good steak house that served fillet steak (it's my favourite!!) I found the Green Door. The menu looked really tasty and quite reasonably price for London which had my fillet steak for around £20. When we got there it was the poshest place ever!! We were not expecting it at all!! It was quite funny actually because we had just finished shopping, rolled in wearing jeans and carrying our shopping bags, with the restaurant full of business men! We looked at the menu and it was completely different to the website's menu, including the prices!! My fillet steak was now £28!!!!!!!! We were contemplating whether to stay or go but we had already ordered drinks and felt stupid walking out so we stayed. I have to say my fillet was one of the best I have ever tasted and K also agreed. With only main courses and 2 drinks each our bill was £74!! I can safely say we lived on bread and butter for the next month! Oh well it was tasty!