Wearing White

I've always loved this Australian opal I got years ago from my aunt and uncle in Australia

Wearing white

'Layrinth Constellation' by Artificial Brain

Weekend treats

Christmas 2015

Christmas went by so quickly this year, despite the fact I felt like I'd been preparing for it for ages. 

Before and after. It was nice to get my hair done in time for Christmas for once (pre-booking is a tricky habit to master) so my hair is looking nice and sharp and pink (and matching my lippie, of course).

I still love our little black tree with its pastel lights. Folk who say white lights are classier can get lost! And... er, I've decided that 'pink and turquoise' is the new 'red and green'. Way more cute as Christmas colours!

Oh yeah, and this is the handbag I made my mum for her Christmas present! I did it using this pattern. I've never made a handbag before... or probably will again... or have ever followed a pattern before, but I got matched with my mum in our family's Christmas present syndicate and wanted to make her something special. It's made of yellow wool with a silk lining and has a magnetic fastener. 

Lastly (and tastiestly) here are the two cakes a made for our family Christmas dinner. A red velvet cake and a dark chocolate and pistachio cake. I have to confess the icing on the RV one is shop bought as, after two batches of failed gloopy, liquidy cream cheese icing, I gave in and turned to Asda for some help. I must ask my mother in law how she makes hers...

Anyway, I hope you guys had a lovely Christmas this year. Did you get any cool presents?? I'm still spending my Christmas money! Although I did get an extra cool present I'll be posting about very soon.

Trying Matcha Lattes For The First Time

My husband and I are both off work this week so, the other day, in the spirit of adventure, we tried matcha tea for the first time! They was only from EAT and were in the form of lattes so they were probably a lot sweeter and milkier than the real deal, but it's a start. To be honest, I only wanted to try it in the first place because it's such a cool colour, but I think, having tried it, I might have caught the craving for the taste.

Pink Pressies

I always like to see what "little mindings" people got for Christmas so I thought I'd share mine here, including some bigger presents that came as a bit of a surprise.  

I couldn't believe the generosity of the girls in my department at work this year. Just look at the pile of pinky goodness they got me. The funniest has to be the bat notepad with pink edging that my department supervisor got me ("It was so you!")

The present I definitely was not expecting to get was my dad's old camera. He said he really wanted me to have it though. It's a bit more advanced than what I'm using right now, but luckily it comes with an instruction booklet which I'll need to pour over when I've got more time.

Here's a pile of cute stationary from my mum and dad and my sister and also a dress from the "goth section" of h&m that my sister got me. She knows me so well.

My dad also got me a neat little pink screw-driver which will come in incredibly handy and means that I won't have to keep borrowing Tim's all the time. Yay! And it's pink, of course.

"It was this or a skeleton toilet-roll holder." My sister again, being very sweet and looking all over for something will skulls on it for her weird little sister. 

I'd love to know what you guys got for Christmas, particularly if your pressies all had some strange accidental theme like all the pink things I got this year (although that's probably not so accidental since it's pretty obvious I like pink!).

Dress Up

Last Sunday, had a day out in town then went to visit my parents at night.

I wore this retro dress I got from T. K. Maxx. It's a bit big for me, but I tied a scarf round the collar and threw a cardigan on and I think I got away with it. 

Lunch at our favourite coffee bar. I had a posh-looking broccoli pastie (a poshtie?) and we shared a pistachio brownie and some billionaire shortbread. I can't even describe to you how phenomenally tasting this home baking is. 

Then, at night, when we visited my parents, we had the surprise of seeing my little niece and nephew. I spent a good while before dinner making dress-up dolls with my niece. She's so cute.

Alcest, Opeth, Beastmilk & In Solitude

There are so many good gigs on here at the moment, I'm having to choose between them. I've still got Solstafir and Bast to look forward to and, already this month, I've seen Opeth, supported by Alcest and Beastmilk supporting In Solitude another night.

My friend is a big Alcest fan which is what lead us to going to this gig in the first place. However, I especially enjoyed Opeth who I'd not heard much of prior, I hate to admit. Alcest were very good too. The tracks I liked the most were apparently from their older albums so I'll need to check those out. 

Two days later I donned my new Restyle harness (love it!) to go and see Beastmilk. I hope you folks are appreciating all these tiny, blurry pictures of bands...

Beastmilk put on a fantastic show as we'd hoped and In Solitude were great too. Good stuff!

First Saturday Off In A Year

My day job rota has changed so instead of working Fridays and Saturdays, I am now working Mondays and Fridays. I'm so happy. Every craft fair and art exhibition in my local area seems to be on a Saturday and, as terrifying as it is to think of exhibiting/selling my stuff in public again, I know it's something I really need to push myself to do. Having Saturdays off could really open up so many opportunities for me.

For my first Saturday off (other than annual leave) in a year, however, I decided not to do any work whatsoever and take the day off to celebrate! 

Top: Restyle.pl

Jacket: h&m (+ Vastum patch)

Shoes: Primark

We had lunch at one of our favourite places. It's closed on Sundays so Tim and I haven't actually been there for about a year. We're usually the only people there who aren't pensioners (pensioners have good taste in food and coffee. What can I say?), but I think there were a couple of other "young" people there on Saturday too, haha.

I finally had a chance to have a proper listen to the metal mix tape my friend made me. Really digging the Agalloch tracks and Chelsea Wolfe who I've never really listened to before. We've got so many metal gigs coming up (including two next week we've already got tickets for) we both want to go to our wallets will probably be suffering by the end of the year.

At night, Tim and I made veggie sushi based on this recipe. It's the first time I've made anything like it and the first time I've ever ventured into a Chinese supermarket either. It was definitely worthwhile though. The rolls were delicious and the sauce totally made the meal.

I'm not actually a vegan though so next on the agenda is probably to look up some recipes for sushi involving (cooked!) fish.

Picking Up Small People After School

I went to pick up my little niece and nephew from school the other day for the first time (for me, not for them!). As it turned out, my sister was there in time to pick them up anyway, but it means I now know where to go if they need picked up again. Or even if they don't. Because spending time with them is pretty great fun anyway (they're nuts).

Of course I arrived an hour early, but better early than late. It means I had some time to have a coffee at one of my favourite coffee places and do some reading. I've just started on this series by C. J. Cherryh.

The kids were picked up safe and sound. Even if my wee niece's school bag looks bigger than her.

My nephew doing his homework. He's a maths genius already because my sister is a maths teacher. Also, check out how cool my sister's kitchen is. I always think it looks like something from a magazine. Don't tell her I said that.

And I finally had a chance to give my sister the fimo ring I had made her for her birthday. It's the black, bulbous one on the right and the other two are ones she made herself.

Pink & Yellow

Why is it that life always seems to fall into patterns of colour. For instance, all my recent photos seem to be pink and yellow. Anyway, here's a wee rundown of recent fun:

Oi look, I've a beetle in my ear! ... It's a beetle earring I got from New Look last halloween. 

Hawkwind's 'Electric Tepee' has been in my CD player a lot recently.

Outfit shots in the mirror. Why do I do this when my clothes are all black and look the same? I don't know...

A new recipe I tried out. Pizza with sweet potato sauce, topped with cavolo nero cabbage, goats cheese, walnuts and parmesan. A really strange combination, but it tasted totally amazing. Check out the recipe I used here.

Tim and me, trying to take a nice photo outside to send to his grandma in Australia. You can't really see it, but he's wearing the black shirt with rainbow skulls I bought him (I love that shirt!)

3D Printed Skulls

My sister and brother-in-law already have a bit of a reputation for getting me cool/weird/unusual presents. For my birthday last week, however, they really outdid themselves.

These two skulls were made on a 3D printer and are from scans of a man with 'a serious brain injury'. My brother-in-law is a dentist and apparently these were in the office of a colleague who basically said they weren't using the skulls for anything and if my sister really liked them she could take them. Of course she was like: well, that's Ali's birthday sorted!

Even if they weren't skulls, the fact they were made on a 3D printer is awesome enough on its own. Those things fascinate me. It's like something out of the future. Now I just need to think of somewhere to put them.

May 2014 Edinburgh Holiday

It's my birthday today so this week we decided to take a trip away to Edinburgh (we never go far on holiday!). Disappointingly there was naff-all on when it came to art exhibitions and we had just missed the Royal Scottish Academy's annual exhibition by a few days. We did manage, however, to see a cool film by Camille Henrot at the City Observatory on Calton Hill which was really worthwhile. As usual there's always new things to discover and we did a lot of wandering about to find new places.

The obligatory hotel bathroom picture. I swear I'm looking more like that painting I did of myself, everyday.

Camille Henrot's art film 'Gross Fatigue'.

Miss Katie Cupcake's shop on Cockburn Street. It had some really beautiful stuff. A little bit different from the ordinary which was nice too.

Our favourite discovery this time was definitely The Coffee Mill near Grassmarket (and next to an amazing second hand bookshopwith tonnes of science fiction). The place was so good that, after having coffee and cake there, we went back the next day for brunch.

Cake at The Coffee Mill. The picture doesn't really do the place justice. The food is all made up fresh and the staff were so nice and friendly. We'll definitely be doing back there next time we're through in edinburgh.

I didn't get much time to draw, but I can't go a whole week without the odd daft sketch in my notepad.

And we treated ourselves to ice cream from Patisserie Valerie on the last night. I had pistachio ice cream in a waffle cone and Tim had the same with a scoop of double chocolate on top. It's the best ice cream I've ever had. So now I've had pistachio hot chocolate and pistachio ice cream. I think it's time I tried some actual wee pistachios (I've never had them. It's shameful, I know)!

Discovering New Places

On Sunday we went to my sister's house to celebrate my mum's birthday. We had some hours to kill after church through so we decided to make a day of it in town. 

We sheltered from the rain for a while in a cafe and had pistachio hot chocolates. Pistachio hot chocolates are one of my favourite treats at the moment.

And we discovered a new place (ie. a place that's been there for ages but we never bothered to go to until now)! The savoury food looked flippin' amazing even though we didn't get a chance to try it and the sweets were to die for.

The amazing snickers brownie we shared. Also the coffee was Dear Green coffee which is one of the nicest coffees in the world in my humble and totally plebian opinion.

And I decided to wear my new exposure shrug from Cyberdog. It's a bit of an early birthday present. I absolutely love it!