Now On Sale In Lalaland!

My stuff is now on Sale in the amazing Lalaland, both on the website and in the lovely boutique in Creswell Lane, Glasgow. Lalaland not only sells some of the most adorable stuff around, but it also has a lovely atmosphere. It's definitely one of my favourite shops. There is also a facebook page.

My cat necklace and pvc heart brooch up on the website (next to their new stock from Locketship!)

Some of my black cat necklaces in various places around the shop. You can get them from the Lalaland website here.

And my star-shaped cookie brooches

They now also stock my book 'Underneath Glasgow', a short horror story about the pigeons and homeless people of Glasgow. I'm currently waiting on a higher quality print sample of it which I will be putting up for sale as a new edition if the print turns out alright!

And here are some of my black pvc heart brooches which you can buy here.

So what do you think? Are you near Glasgow? Have you been to Lalaland before? Do you know of any other good boutique places near you? I'd love to hear!

Charcoal Grey Pancakes

My nephew Angus requested black pancakes for lunch the other day. Black pancakes? How could I refuse! I couldn't get an explanation out of him for this very gothic request, but he seemed happy as anything with the result anyway.

Angus mixing the black food colouring into the pancake batter. 

I didn't want to put too much into the mixture in case it started to affect the taste so the mixture ended up more grey than black, but we agreed it was still pretty cool looking.

Time for a quick bit of dragon-flying while an adult the pancakes. 

Annie, not quite grasping the idea of dipping pancakes into syrup, manages to eat a bit of pancake while dipping her finger into the syrup.

She also requested some purple nail varnish so I painted her tiny fingers and toes a lovely shade of purple!

Orange & Purple Make-up, Hair Buns & Creepers

We went to see 'Don't Look Now' at the film theatre the other night. If you're not familiar with it, it's a seventies film starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie about a couple who lose their daughter in an accident, move to Venice and end up chasing the spectre of their lost daughter around the city. It's better not to know any more about the plot before watching it so I'll not say any more.

The night we went to see it was the first time I've worn buns in my hair since I had it dyed different colours recently. I had it all black the other times, but this time, because of the way my hair happened to twist, I ended up with one black bun and one reddy/copper bun which I thought was kind of a neat effect.

I should say I got the method for the buns from this very helpful tutorial here by the lovely murderotic.

For my make-up that night, I went for an orange and purple look to compliment my hair. I seem to be addicted to orange eye-shadow lately. I have no idea why since it's usually my least favourite colour.

The steps:

♥ Natural Collection eyeshadow in 'sea shell' in the inner corner and as a brow highlight.
♥ A shimmery orange on the middle of the lid, nearer the inside. Then swipe Boots no.7 'Elecric purple' eyeshadow around the outside in a 'c'-shape, making sure you pull it across the crease and a little under your eye as well.    
♥ Blend the orange and the purple with a big soft brush.
♥ A little Mac matte eyeshadow in 'carbon' to add more definition to the crease and finish with a bit of black liquid eyeliner under the eye and on the top of the eye in a 'winged' shape. 

Sadly the colours didn't show up in this light, but you can still see the general shape (and a bonus blotchy eye)

I managed to get the colour to show up in the sunlight here though (even if I did have to take the photo on the train into town... err...)

Tim and me having coffee before going to the film theatre. I still can't believe he's going to be my husband in two months.

The only slightly odd thing about the evening was when a stranger took a photo of me on the train home. I was sitting by myself looking out the window when I see in the reflection, clear as day, a man on the other side of the aisle take his phone of of his bag, take a photo of me on it then sneak it back into his bag. He looked absolutely mortified when I started laughing out of shock and turned round to look at him. Guess he didn't figure that I'd see the whole thing in the reflection! Haha.

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt because I don't think it was a 'being creepy' thing. I had heavyish make-up on and had my hair done up in buns that looked like daft panda ears so I think it was more of a 'taking a photo of a freak on the train' thing which is slightly better I guess. Still, maybe he'll think twice about sneaking photos of people in the future. At least, when they're facing a reflective surface!

Pink, Blue & Red

Now for some recent instagram photos, handily grouped according to colour! Search for @ariioth if you want to follow me.

Pink Hearts

1. Finally found shoes for my wedding. Sparkly black peeptoes with bows. £9 in the New Look sale. 2. I made a heart brooch for my aunt. 3 & 4. I sent of one of my brooches off to the gorgeous Aoife. It's a heart shaped lollipop brooch and comes in a coffin shaped box. You can get it here

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Homecoming Blue

1. Our first sit-down meal at a table in the flat. Homemade soup and sandwiches. 2. My sister and brother-in-law got us this absolutely amazing heart-shaped venetian mirror as an engagement present. 3. The cat necklace I made for my sister's birthday. I'm making a load more now to sell. 4. I'm reading Stephen Donaldson's Gap Cycle for the second time. It's one of my favourite series of books. The only problem is my fiance's starting reading them too so he's bugging me to finish book 3 so he can read it! (I'm a ridiculously slow reader...)

Vanity Red

1. Still enjoying the novelty of having red hair. It faded to a carroty ginger really quickly, but I'm still liking it. 2. Haven't been using much colour in my eyeshadow since having my hair done. Might stick to black and white and monochromatics for a while. 3. I rediscovered this green top from River Ireland which now seems to be a dress. It makes me look like a piece of military netting, but that's ok. 4. Curls!

Star Biscuit Brooches For Sale

These are little star shaped biscuits brooches I made recently. They're now up for sale at my etsy shop. I'm making more at the moment so sell at the magnificent Lalaland store in Glasgow where I used to have my black metal dress up dolls on sale. I'll being doing more posts about that soon, but, for now, I thought I'd give folk a chance to buy these brooches before Lalaland gets them!

All three styles available. They each come in a little bag tied with ribbon. Here are the different types:

Pink with milk chocolate and coloured sprinkles (buy it here)

Blue with milk chocolate and coloured sprinkles (here)

Pink with white chocolate and gold sprinkles (here)

Baking Successes & Baking Disasters

I'm not very good at wife skills. The important things like cooking and cleaning aren't going to come to me easily when I'm married, I don't think. We'll I do do a lot of cooking, but it's usually with my fiance rather than on my own and I never think of that as cooking - it's too much fun. Anyway, one thing I can do is bake.  So I decided to do some batch-baking to make the cupboards in the flat look a little less bare.

I made chai tea cupcakes by using a recipe for earl grey tea cupcakes and substituting  the earl grey teabags with Yogi Yogi Chai tea from the amazing Tchai Ovna tea house in Glasgow. Their specialty chai tea is to die for and you can get it from their website.

Brewing the tea with the milk. To make the tea you normally need tonnes of brown sugar to make all the spices palatable, but the sweetness of the cupcake mixture means you don't need any extra sugar in the milk.

And here are the ridiculously spicy cupcakes. I was following the recipe absent mindedly and put vanilla extract in without thinking. I wish I hadn't because I think that masked the taste of the chai a bit.

Chai tea icing too. I never thought spicy icing would work but it does.

And glitter is mandatory.

Some cinnamon cookies I found a recipe for in an old cook book.

I wish I had made more now...

This batch of cookies didn't come out so well as you might be able to tell, haha. Before I put them in the oven, they were the exact colour, look and consistency of what people around here call "jobbies". Look that one up if you have to. The recipe was for a chocolate biscuit called 'Midnight Cookies'. Hmm...

Actually they didn't turn out too awful considering the dog poo like baking mixture they came from. I covered them in black and blue sparkles and ta-da! They look ok, although I definitely went wrong with the recipe because...

The unfortunate side-effect is that they turn your lips and teeth black. And not just for a few seconds until you wipe it off either. It lasts pretty much until your next meal... so that went down well with all the workmen at the flat that week, I'm sure (I'm too scared to ask!).

Well, I figure it would be a good party gag maybe, like something you'd bake for a halloween party perhaps...