Type and doodles

I made a voucher for my boss using fine-liner pens. It was a quiet evening, so I got a bit over enthusiastic on the doodling, but I really enjoyed drawing the text. Hand-drawn typography is definitely something I want to get more into.

Taylor

I have been the absolute worst at keeping up to date with this blog. It's been a busy summer, with a lot of things to think about. There's a lot I want to do, and a lot of illustration bits and bobs I want to revamp. But for now here's a quick scribble of Taylor Swift I did whilst watching The Returned.

Open Day Illustrations

These past couple of weeks have been so ridiculously busy. I've had a Birthday, two new people move into the flat and have been working non-stop, including a 5am start yesterday (waking up before 10am on a Sunday is wrong!). Luckily, this week I have a few days off and am looking forward to chilling with friends, seeing my family, catching up with reading, making the flat look pretty and sleeping sleeping sleeping.

Every year my work holds an Open Day. This year I was asked to do some illustrations for a children's competition. To encourage them to explore different parts of the campus (which is massive) and take part in the activities, they were asked to find the different characters. These illustrations are quite a departure from what I'm used to doing, usually I'm a stickler for detail, but they needed to be simple and friendly. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out, and we had a load of entries so I guessing the children liked them too!

 

Back to the 90's

Busy busy week! I took last week off work and it was absolutely gorgeous. I saw my friend's new flat, went up to Brighton for a few days, hung out in the sun, discovered new local places and held an early Birthday party - 90's style!! This is only a tiny selection of the ridiculous amount of photos taken, but I'm so pleased with how it turned out and the amazing effort everyone made with their costumes. I wish I could have captured them all. Thanks guys!!

Scribbles

In the last couple of weeks I've been to see Rolo Tomassi, ate freshly made sushi at a Japanese restaurant, helped my friends move house, came 6th in a pub quiz and saw The Great Gatsby.

I've also been scribbling a bit at work for some children's posters. These are some initial sketches of ideas...

And I'm a frequent visitor of the tearoom next door!

This is what I wore to Rolo Tomassi. It was at the Joiners in Southampton and such a perfect evening. A bunch of us road-tripped up, drank ciders, met old friends from my schooldays and listened to good music.

Dress - Cameo Rose
Tights - New Look
Shoes - Vans

Weekend forever

This weekend has been about friends, dinner, rum, walks at the seaside, card-games, music, wine, scrabble and films. This is how all weekends should be.

Dress - Anmol
Tights - M&S
Shoes - Charity shop
Necklace - Miss Selfridge

May

The Bank Holiday weekend was lovely. Full of sunshine, friends, cake, cider, frisbee and pie. And I managed to record none of it apart from a minuscule amount of snapshots on my phone. So here they are...

I met my dad and sister for a quick bit of tea and cake in the newly opened vintage tearoom next door to my flat. It was AMAZING. Chocolate and strawberry is the best combination.

A giant daisy-chain me and my friend made. We draped it around a bench. Magical, non?

I also managed to get my hands on a few vintage bits and bobs, including this cute little mug and two decanters.

And finally, some terrible photos of an outfit, including a new skirt I picked up on Monday. About 30 seconds after these photos were taken, I decided to empty my bin and a GIANT spider crawled out. NO, just no.

Shirt - France (no recollection of what the shop was called)
Skirt - Miss Selfridge
Vest-top - New Look
Tights - M&S
Shoes - Peacocks
Necklace - The Curiousity Center

I hope everyone else had a wonderful weekend!

Inner City Pressure

I've been spending most of this week working then going straight out in the sun for picnics, frisbee and cider.
It was my lovely friend Sophie's Birthday last week so I drew her a card of the beautifully handsome Brett and Jermaine from Flight of the Conchords.

Work

I work in the marketing department of a land-based college in Dorset. Set in the house and grounds of an old 17th century stately home, it's an absolutely beautiful place to work. 

Here's a couple of snapshots from the other day.

HOW cute are these goslings?? It's baby animals galore here at the moment.

Scrabs

Went to our local Curiousity Centre on Saturday and picked up this super retro 1954 Scrabble board for a mere £2.50. We've become a bit Scrabble obsessed here at the flat, and this was the perfect addition. 

Not staged in the slightest. We always play Scrabble with vintage cider bottles and flowers and convenient twee statements on a spotless table...

Luck would have it that a vintage shop and tearoom, ReLoved, has opened next door. Amazing for me but super bad for my bank account. Today was the first day it opened and I popped in five minutes before it closed and came out with this little beauty. I've been looking for a glass decanter ever since I started watching Mad Men, but every nice one I've seen has been horribly expensive. I managed to snap this one up for £5! There will be many an alcoholic beverage poured out of it.

And here is today's look.

Cord shirt - Vintage market
Cardigan - Beyond Retro

Dress - Love

Shoes - Vans

Three

'Aw, what sweet tights you're wearing. My daughter used to have some just like that when she was three, which she used to wear with her teeny tiny ballet tutu' was a compliment I got from one lady at work. But do you know what? Sometimes it's nice to dress like a bit of a girly girl...even if I do resemble a ballet dancing three year old.

Cardigan - Charity shop.
Dress - Topshop. Customised with rose button.
Tights - Vintage Christian Dior.
Shoes - Gift. Originally from Office.

Selfies

 Sun + cider = tired Lizzy and blurry DIY mirror shots. I kind of like how comfortable and versatile this outfit was though. Perfect for a day at work then straight onto sitting in parks with friends in the sunshine.

Jumper - Charity shop
Shirt - Stolen from my mum. Originally from a charity shop.
Skirt - River Island
Tights - H&M
Shoes - Converse
Necklace - D.I.Y
Rings - New Look
Badge - Gift. Originally from The Black Apple

Perfect Weekend

This weekend's been utterly perfect. On Friday evening a group of us went to a screen-printing exhibition private view in the seaside town of Weymouth where we looked at some awesome art and took advantage of the free wine and canapes (blog-post to come soon), followed with a trip to the cocktail bar.

On Saturday we got up bright and early and caught a bus into Bridport where we visited a record store event and the weekly vintage fair, followed by a leisurely lunch and rowdy card games in a local cafe-bar.

Today has been about recovering from the night before, more card games, leisurely walks and I'm looking forward and ever so slightly scared to see the Evil Dead remake later.

Anyway, here's a few of the treats I picked up at the vintage fair...

A 1960's cherry cider bottle which I thought would make a cute vase.

This dates from 1972. I'm a massive Happy Families fan (lame) and this is a tree version! We attempted to play it but had trouble figuring out what the 'master', 'tree', 'fruit' and 'flower' cards were. Maybe one day, when our knowledge of trees and nature has improved...

Dating from 1962, this book is a bit of a piss-take of the Victorian era and I absolutely love it! It's so dinky and pretty and always amusing finding the answers to highly important questions such as 'To which of the two persons I am thinking about ought I to give the preference?' (answer: 'To one that appears the least interested first').

My sister is the biggest Elvis fan, so I thought I'd get her a couple of vinyls for her room. Sorry for the shadows. My ever awesome photography skills.

And finally, this is what I wore on Thursday (I forgot to take any photos this weekend) against the neat and tidy backdrop of our 'study' room.

Shirt - H&M
Dress - Camden Market. Label says Dolls
Shoes - Vans