For Christmas my Mum bought me a lovely purple rug. It takes up quite a lot of space in my room, but it adds a splash of colour to the cream carpet and cream walls XD It does however seem to develop a lot of loose fluff every time I hoover it. I'm not sure if this is an indication that I'm not hoovering it enough, or hoovering it too much.

Considering how useless I am at housework I'm leaning more towards not hoovering enough.

Wool Felt Stones Rug by lovehoneysuckle

I love the cute little feet in this rug! Even if they do only have 4 toes each XD Still, the stones look very real, but they're actually filled with synthetic filler, so nice and soft on your feet!

Have a nice evening everyone!

DVD Review - Pixar Short Films

My Youngest Little Sister celebrated her birthday back in January. She has decided that she would like to work for Pixar one day, so I bought her two DVDs of Pixar's "short films", the little specials that they show before their main films and some of the extras they've done over the years. She's already watched them, obviously since her birthday was months ago, but since I was home this weekend and hadn't seen them yet we decided to watch them together.

Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 1 from Amazon

The first volume starts with their older work, computer animation from 1984! I must admit, this was a year before I was born, and I'm stunned at the quality of it. Computer animation has come on a lot over the years, especially over the past decade where it seems to have raced forward in terms of quality, so I genuinely thought the first film was actually from the early 1990's. That was, however, until we got up to "Tin Toy", while animating toys and backgrounds was fine it appears that animating babies was incredibly difficult. YLS did warn me about the "freaky baby" in it but even I wasn't prepared for how terrifyingly bad it was. I think that's where the difference has been over the years, animation of people is now far, far better than it used to be.

Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 2 from Amazon

The second volume contains more recent work, including "Presto" (which was originally shown with Wall-E) and "Day and Night" (which was shown with Toy Story 3). There's also "Cars Toons", several short films involving the characters from the Cars franchise, and Toy Story Toons which have the characters from Toy Story. I must admit that I found volume two to be a little more tedious, I'm not a big fan of the "Cars" series, although the Toy Story ones were quite funny, but I would have preferred more of the proper original works. On the other hand the final one, La Luna, was absolutely gorgeous.

If you know someone who is a fan of Pixar's work then I would recommend these DVDs for them. The first volume effectively showcases the work that led to Toy Story, which was a ground-breaking movie in it's time (which makes me feel SO old XD), while the second shows some simply beautiful artwork and animation, as well as the usual lovely storylines that Pixar are so well known for. I am amazed that they can get so much across on screen with little or no dialogue.

Have a nice day everyone!

Cambridge shop

I'm back in Hertfordshire for the weekend.

My parents live very close to the Hertforshire-Cambridgeshire border. Unfortunately you can't search for "Hertfordshire" as a location on Etsy, but you can search for shops in the city of Cambridge itself!

Bluebell Blossom Earrings by lazygiraffe

This shop is based in Cambridge and has lots of pretty, delicate pieces of jewellery. There's some lovely stacking rings with necklaces and earrings.

I would write more but I'm tired.

Have a nice evening all!

French Vintage

When I was a little girl my parents always used to take me on summer holidays to France. At one point they owned a cottage in Brittany, which we visited every summer, and during our trips out there we'd often visit the Brocante (vintage/antique) Fairs that were dotted all over the place.

While probably goes some way to explaining why I love nosing around french vintage shops on Etsy.

Vintage French Kitchen Canisters by petitsdetails

These cannisters are adorable! There's lots of french vintage housewares in this lovely shop based in Paris, yet another thing on Etsy that I'd love to buy if I had the money, and a house to display them in!

Have a nice evening everyone!

Switzerland

Today's blog post was inspired by my Dad, who has had to spend most of his Bank Holiday weekend travelling as he flew out to Switzerland yesterday morning and will have to fly back tonight, it's a very quick jaunt.

While it's proving to be a decently sunny weekend here it appears Switzerland is not enjoying the same weather, the photo he sent me of Lucerne showed some very unhappy grey clouds surrounding the mountains. I'm sure the place is lovely to look at when the sun is out, but when it's like that everything looks a bit miserable.

This of course means that today's shop is from...Switzerland!

Swiss Army Toiletry Bag by Ecolution

This shop is actually pretty amazing, if you read the profile of the owner, Sylvie Thiel, she explains that she needed a business that could be run while she and her partner travel. Thankfully it appears that felt doesn't take up too much space! There's bigger bags and passport holders as well, worth having a look especially if you need to get something for a bloke!

Have a nice day everyone!

Sunshine

Today is Cinco de Mayo, the Day of the Dead. But today I've spent most of my afternoon strolling around Richmond Park, looking at deer and seeing the bright green grass.

So I'm in a cheerful mood and thinking about death on a day like today seems a bit miserable. I'm going to give you some bright yellow instead!

Bright Yellow Mothers Day Card by Lori411

Have a nice evening everyone!

Etsy Interview - RockyTheZombie

Happy Thursday everyone! I hope you're all having a good week :)

Today I decided to have a change from my usual shop feature and actually interview someone! Obviously normal interviews involve sitting down and talking to people, but that involves far too much human interaction for me, so I settled for emailing some questions instead.

My guinea pig for the first Etsy Interview is Rhi of RockyTheZombie. Currently running the shop from the spare room of her home in the lovely English town of Southsea, Rhi screenprints the designs herself with water based inks on to t-shirts from the eco-friendly company Earth Positive. Her designs involve cute zombies, puffy vampire clouds and cupcakes.

Baby Zombie Pirate T-shirt

How did the idea for your shop come about?
I began selling t-shirts that I had handpainted myself a few years ago on ebay. There used to be a huge DIY clothing community over there, and my MySpace page started gaining fans like crazy. I'd heard about Etsy and thought it would be a much better place for my shop to be. So I went for it, and although it was slow at first, eventually it picked up speed and is capable of bringing in a very good wage as long as I dedicate my full attention to it.

If you were given £1000, with specific instructions to invest it in your business, what would you spend it on?

I had to think about this for a while, as there are so many things I would like to buy. I would probably buy a whole heap of paints, brushes, and blank canvases. Although my shop is primarily clothing; it's painting and illustration where my true love is. But maybe that would be more for my enjoyment than strictly business? Most things I buy are to do with the business anyway, but I actually do need  to invest in some better photography equipment for my product pictures. Oh.. and the newest version of Photoshop & Illustrator, in fact those two alone would eat over half of that amount.

Red Rose Swirl Acrylic on Canvas

 

What one thing would you buy from your shop, as an outsider?

The paintings and prints. I love buying art, and could easily fill every wall in my house up with pictures.

Circumstances recently pushed you into turning Rocky The Zombie into your full time job, if you had had more time to prepare for such a transition what would have done differently?

Not really, in fact it was my full-time job in the beginning. I only went and got a job alongside it because I thought that was a good idea (it wasn't). It was always in the back of my mind to eventually come back to this, and it just happened a lot sooner than I thought it would.

Zombie DJ & Skull Balloons Set of Two Kids T-Shirts

 

Describe your "Yay I got a sale!" dance (everyone has one).

Remember Beavis and Butthead?... I am cornholio!

 

And finally, give us one tip for all the other Etsy sellers out there.

Work your frickin butt off! The rewards are incredible, and I'm still sometimes a little amazed at how far I've come. I've no business education or qualifications, and I learn from trial and error, blog tutorials, and youtube! I probably have some odd ways of doing things, but it works perfectly for me. So don't let anyone ever tell you that 'you're doing it wrong', because you're probably doing it better than they would be. I've always held the belief that you really can achieve anything you set your mind to, if you'll only take the steps towards doing it. You'll find your way as you go, as every circumstance can open up a new opportunity.

Black Zombie Canvas Tote Bag

Thank you very much to Rhi for an awesome interview! If you're looking for a gift for someone who has an affinity for both cute and horror, you definitely need to visit RockyTheZombie.

Have a nice day everyone!

Tulips

It's Tuesday! Carrying on the "T" theme with both the day, and yesterday's theme of "Treasury" today I've decided to go with a tulip.

I haven't seen any wild ones around, it's all daffodils and crocuses here in Kew, but they're still very beautiful, and also seem appropriate as they're a flower associated with Holland and they crowed their new King today (although they didn't crown him with tulips).

Quilled Tulip Card by PaperDaisyCardDesign

It's amazing what some people can do with bits of paper. I can barely fold a sheet of paper evenly, let alone cut it in a straight line. This shop is full of cards made with quilled flowers and animals and is freaking awesome!

Have a nice evening everyone!

Japan Treasury

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you've all had a nice day, including those of you who went back to work after the weekend.

One of my latin quote postcards was featured in a Treasury, which of course then made me go and see what other Treasuries are around at the moment. There's some very beautiful ones with lots of spring themes, but my eye was caught by Big In Japan, a Treasury all about Japanese things.

Furoshiki Japanese Fabric by pannkoneninngyou

Ceramic Sake Cups by sewZinski

If these two images strike a chord with you then definitely go and look at the rest of the Treasury! You'll love it.

Have a nice evening everyone!

Kew Gardens - Spring

After what felt like an unusually long winter, spring has finally come to England. The daffodils and crocuses were out a few weeks ago but it seems like the leaves have only now returned to the trees. It's even been warm in recent weeks!

Last Sunday I went for a walk around Kew Gardens and managed to get some photos, although it was then difficult to find some that I actually liked XD

This one was taken near the lake in the middle of the garden, as far as I know you can follow the path around the edge of the lake, but it's too short a walk for me so I haven't gone round again.

This little seat tends to get photographed a lot by me, I just like how tucked away it looks, like a little space of peace (not as peaceful as you'd expect though due to the Heathrow flight path).

Hopefully I'll have some nice pictures for a summer in Kew Gardens post!

Have a nice evening!