What I Wore... with Collectif London

Something a little bit different here on my blog today, and the first in a new series (whoop!) so here goes... I've had lots and lots of you asking me about the lovely dress I wore for last weeks Create & Craft shows on Saturday...

I must admit, I'm soooo happy so many of you loved it as much as I did, it had everything I loved in a dress, great attention to detail with pretty cuffs, peter pan collar and velvet bow, gorgeous colours, navy blue and forest green, swoon! a decent length skirt (at 5ft tall I REALLY shouldn't have to buy dresses in the tall section, but often I do just to keep my botty warm and decent! I feel for you taller ladies trying to find a good dress length!) and a fitted top half - being an hourglass shape, if things aren't quite fitted in to my waist I end up looking like I have a maternity smock on!

It also had that cute vintage vibe to it which I just love, I'm a big fan of vintage (as you all probably know by now! lol) and it reminded me of the dress worn by Shirley Temple in 'A Little Princess' one of my favourite films (and books!) of all time - I think it was the white collar and cuffs that did it.

So in answer to your question, you can get hold of the dress (called the Lisa Doll Blackwatch dress) here in the Collectif London store (I have a couple of Collectif dresses now, I just love them!) the even better news is that it's on sale - a bargain not to be missed!

Thank you for dropping by today!

Sarah

p.s. if you drop by tomorrow my blog is being taken over by my lovely assistant Lisa - eeek! I'm totally OK with not being in control...  honest! lol

disclaimer - Collectif are a sponsor of my blog and did send me this dress as they thought I would love it (they were right!!) however as you know, I only ever endorse things I honestly truly love (I definitely would not wear it on live TV if I didn't! lol) and I was a big fan of Collectif and owned Collectif pieces before any sponsorship. I look forward to bringing you another Collectif feature soon! :o) Sarah x

Kuretake Art & Graphic Pens

Last week I finally got my hands on a full set of the art and graphic twin pens from Kuretake - woo! so that I could make some samples for their shows tomorrow (don't miss them!) Here is a sneaky peek of one of them...

The stamps are from a Tim Holtz set and I've used the pens from the muted set to ink them up and stamp, the bird I went over with a waterbrush after to blend the pink tummy in so there wasn't such a defined line. I added stickles to the bird and eggs in the nest and finally some glossy accents to the eggs to make them stand out. The greeting is even stamped using the pen - I thought it would come out too blurry but they worked perfectly!

I'm not a great watercolourer but I love using these pens directly onto my stamps (I find they work better on rubber stamps than clear stamps), I had some pens to do this with a few years ago but they weren't nearly as good and left horrible fibres on the stamp - you don't get that with these as they have flexible rubber nibs. The muted colour set are my absolute favourite and work with a vintagey style of crafting but they are available in loads of colours.

I'm sure they have some fab demos and samples lined up for you tomorrow so have a look and get some tips (I will be! LOL)

Today I have spent the whole day researching trends, choosing colour palettes and planning my next product releases - all very exciting! planning so far ahead is bizarre, I was doing Christmas in April and now I'm planning for next spring / summer! I've even got some things pencilled in on my planner for 2013! Tomorrow the actual drawing and redrawing starts - thats the best part :o)

Sarah x

Crazy Days....

Today was totally manic, up early to run some errands (which I only just got done in the nick of time) before meeting up with my lovely friend Karen from ScrapShed who I haven't seen in FAR too long!! With one thing and another a few months (months!!!) had passed - crazy, we live 20 mins apart! Anywhooo, we met up for a spot of shopping, some junk shop rifling, love these 2 vintage books I found, one dictionary and one hymn / music book - they won't be staying whole for long!!

I can't wait to chop them up and get them all inky and painty..... The dictionary had the cutest sentiment in it...

'Make Friends with Words' how lovely... Both books have fab pages, here's a little glimpse before they ripped up and inked to make them even more vintagey looking, I feel a collage coming on....

The a quick half hour for posh coffee in a little place obssessed with grilling EVERYTHING! It seems we always find these places who insist on serving everything warm and toasted - bagels are supposed to be cold and anything with salad in it grilled is just plain WRONG! I also picked up the newest issue of Popular Crafts as they featured my blog this month (woo!)so I wanted to have a look. Then home for not so posh coffee and some catching up on emails - amazing what builds up when you go out for one morning, I'll still be catching up tomorrow *sigh* All done while dealing with excruciating joint pain - ouchie!

Now I'm off to swoon at the Crate blog for a bit, they just posted their CHA sneaks and I'm in love already - MUST have!

Sarah x

80's Revival!

As most of you probably know by now I LOVE vintage! my favourite is 40's and 50's but I can get on board with anything pre 90's! So each week I try to do little things, partly to try and kickstart my inspiration and put me in a good mood and partly just to use some of the lovely vintage goodies I've collected over the years. If you follow me on Twitter you may have noticed my tweets about headscarves, puffball skirts etc etc... Well today was once again 80's day, mostly because it meant I could wear my gorgeous woolly pom pom legwarmers! It was sooo cold, the perfect time to wear them - it seemed to set off a little trend on Twitter, hello to any of my fellow legwarmer wearing Tweeters who have come to visit :o)

I'm thinking tomorrow will be a 50's / 80's hybrid day with a headscarf and more legwarmers - they do keep you nice and toasty on cold days like today!

Today the first Christmas Journalling prompt went up over on the Christmas Blog - please come and join us and share your work, the things we've seen so far have been gorgeous - I do love some Holiday Season inspiration! I did start some crafting today but my fingers were frozen in no time! I do want to try and get my first Journal page done a bit later though. I'm also working on some projects with the Ink-A-Balls which I'll be sharing soon!

Don't forget tomorrow is a new Challenge over on the Challenge Blog so keep an eye out for it!

Sarah x