Busy Listing

I've been feeling very proactive the past few days, so I added even more listings to my etsy shop. I always have a batch of handmade cards, but I'm always very lazy at listing them in the shop, but today I scanned and listed lots...Yey for lack of lethargy

Buttons, buttons everywhere

I always seem to be buying buttons, me thinks I have a wee addiction to them(well there could be worse). Last night I decided to sort through my collection, and discovered I have stupid amounts of spare buttons that I will never use. So I've decided to stare selling off some in my etsy store. So if you are an addict like me, then go check them out. All proceeds will go to furthering my addiction :)

Ps:I'll be adding a few more listings when I get home from work.

Do you read blogs? Do you write blogs?

An old school friend is doing some major research into Irish blogging for her postgrad. She has a fully confidential survey that she would like people to fill out, and there is even a chance of winning a 50 euro voucher as a thanks for taking the 10 mins to fill it out. I did it, and it's easy and quick. I'm quite facinated to read the results actually. So if you're interested check her out here.

I'm in LOVE

Yey I'm back to Limerick! As promised,I have photos of my wonderful bounty. I spent a whopping 235 euro in the Woolen Mills on ribbon,thread buttons and trimmings, but they are essential supplies that will keep me going(and inspired) for a good while. Here are a few snapshots of my goodies.



I also went to Shebeen Chic on Georges St, it's a bar and restaurant that has all recycled and reclaimed furniture(and everything is for sale/swap). On Saturday afternoons you can bring in bags of clothes, shoes,accessories and trade them in.I love this idea! Because I get lots of donations of clothes from people I am often left with lots of clothing, that for various reasons, I can't use. So I brought a bag of these extras to the shop. I wasn't expecting to get that much in return, but shockingly I came out with my bag full of wonderful finds. Here are a few examples but I got loads more. The black coat is even a Ben Sherman, even better is that if I had nothing to swap I could have bought it for 1 euro!! I will definitely be making more trips to Dublin to get supplies.

Material Goods

I arrived safely in the land of THE PALE, and I had a wonderful time yesterday, wandering about Dublin, looking at pretty things in shops, drinking lots of coffee, and generally just arsing about the place. The gig was a bit of a mixed bag. The support band In the Country were truely fantastic, with one of the most talented and inventive drummers I've ever seen. They were a mostly intrumental trio, with music full of tinkling sounds, inventive purcussion and emotive swells of melody. The main act Susanna (who was playing with members of In The Country) was a little disapointing. I don't really know her music but I found it a little hallow, she had all the right ingredients-great voice, good music, kinda quirky, but for me it just didn't gell together right. All in all I'm glad that I discovered a great new act, and at 20 euro it didn't hurt the purse too much.
Another part of my trip to Dublin was to buy supplies in the Woolen Mills, it's the best place in I reland to buy thread,trimmings and thread and they are very reasonably priced. So I was like a kid in candy store after a famine. I arrived at the till with an overflowing basket, and the very lovely and patient lady spent nearly a half an hlour with me measuring out all the triimings. I got tonnes of stuff and I can wait to get home and put it all to good use. I'll take some photos when I get back home to limerick so that you can drool and feel very jealous.
Another highlight from yesterday was finding the pub Grogans, officially now my new favorite place, I have no idea how i hadn't heard of the place before but it's fantastic. It's a kind of a dindgy old man bar, with loads of paintings on the walls, lots of add charaters about the place, and the finest Guinness I've tasted in THE PALE.

Hair today gone tomorrow

My friend Lette asked me to post this for her...


Lee Stafford, and Steve Turner, renowned celebrity hairdressers, are to host a masterclass in hairdressing at the Essential Hair Salon Supplies Academy at the Delta Retail Park on February 23rd

For this they are looking for 12 members of the public to participate in the class as models. The details are below.To be one of the 12 lucky people chosen by Lee and his team, email your name, address and telephone number to info@essentialsalon.ie before January 30th. You will then be supplied with an application form, which you will need to return with a current picture of yourself either by post or email.

Winners will be notified by February 13th. All models must be available to attend the workshop on February 23rd. This is voluntary and not paid work but your reward is a free haircut by two masters of the industry.

Dublin excursion

Well I'm off to belle Dublin tomorrow morning. My primary reason is to surprise a friend of mine for her birthday, knowing my luck she will decide to start reading this blog and the whole surprise will be ruined! I'm going up on the train with a bunch of friends of mine and we're heading to see Susannna and the Magic Orchestra, I don't really know her stuff but gigs are always fun. I'm also going to be delivering some clothes of mine to FashionFilosofy blog and the will be be doing a photoshoot with the above clothes( which I must say is pretty exciting). My other port of call will be Shebeen Chic, a restaurant that has a swap shop on Saturday afternoons. Anyone who saw the nationwide show I was on would have seen their feature too. I'm really looking forward to seeing their shop as it seems like my kind of thang. The only disappointing thing is that they seem to have a non-existant online presense, which is a bit behind the times for any new business of that sort.

Obama

I had an inexplicable building excitement as the days were drawing nearer to the inauguration of Obama, which is a little odd since A: I don't live in America and B: I'm hopeless when it comes to taking an interest in Irish politics. Part of me stared thinking that I was being dragged along with all the hype, and yes maybe I was a little. But more so he seems to be a real man who speaks all the things that I wanted to hear a polititan say. When I look at TDs here, I feel they are all lying and it makes no difference who is in power, to quote the ever wonderful Ani Difranco 'the republicrats and the demicrans'.I've always felt strong politcally, about social problems, monetary inequality, environmental issues, the wests monopoly in the decline of the third world. But when it came to voting in Ireland I felt, hopeless, powerless and underwhelmed by greedy charicatures of men called politicians. But along comes Obama, and from the other side of the Atlantic he stirs (to use the word again!) a hope. In his speach today he didn't pussy foot around the world of shit that we are all in at the moment, he didn't placate with easy answers, he says it will be bleak. It's good not to be lied to, not to be fed a reality that is so different from the one we live through every day. While I sat on my sofa, 15 mins late for work cos I couldn't drag myself away from his words I realised I was gripping Johns hand, in anticipation, in joy, in hope. Maybe the tides will turn, not towards some easy band aid, but to the harder choices, but the better ones.

Irish Blog Awards 2009

Well it turns out I'm on the long list, before the long list of nominations for the Irish blog awards 2009. It's still very nice though. They suggested that people take a shot at designing their own 'nominated' logo, here is my try...

Etsy Purchases

Button Contruction

WooLA

BigFish

BigFish
As much as I promised myself I would make no more purchases after my mp3 splurge I still couldn't resist the itchy finger of internet shopping. So click...click ..click and suddenly I've spent more hard earned cash on buttons and other lovely things. I have a couple of days of guilt, and then this week everything arrived, all is forgiven and I'm having a 'button love' moment. Of coarse all were bought from etsy, the home of all things beautiful and addicitve.

More Polyvore, in a green note

More from me playing with polyvore


be cool,be green by nicedaydesigns

Satisfy the inner currator with POLYVORE

I just found the site Polyvore,which I'm sure everybody discovered years ago, but I'm very excited by it. Baciscally its a great tool for doing fashion collages, with endless choices of designer stuff.So I gave it a try, and this is my first attempt. Go try it yourself, it's VERY satisfying.


Sweet Jackets by nicedaydesigns

Today FM, anyone listening?

Apparently I was mentioned on Today FM national radio this morning on the Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show. Did anyone hear it, I'd love to know what he said??

Irish blog awards

The nominations for the Irish blog awards are open, but closing very soon, Nominations close at 6pm on January 14th, but click here to give your last minute choices. I nominated a few people, but I still consider myself pretty new to this so I don't have that much knowledge of the Irish blogging community. I think I'll go to the ceremony which is being held in Cork this year. I hear it's a great place to meet and greet, and I'm sure it will be a fun night.

Green Treasury

I just made my second treasury on Etsy. This one started with the idea of everything being recycled, so obviously the colour choice was green! Enjoy....click here.

SALE SALE SALE

I've been thinking of having a SALE for a while, and what better time than January, all sale items have been reduced by at least 30%. I have also reviewed my shipping prices, all second purchases now have free shipping!

Self Gifting with Sony

I just found my new favorite blog, photoshopdisasters, with me being a photoshop nerd it is satisfying to see so many highly paid professionals fuck up their job.This is one of my favorites.

I also bought myself a new toy, a present to myself after working so hard over the Christmas. A Sony 16G mp3 player. I've wanted one for ages and today I lacked anything resembling self dicipline, or sense....so chaching I bought it.

PS; I can hear choppers flying around outside, woohoo another shooting in gangland Limerick- or maybe I'm watching too much of The Wire.

Some rest & The Wire

I've been officially ordered to rest by my doctor. I hurt my foot recently and it's being very stubbourn and won't heal. When she asked me if I had been particularly stressed or over worked and I answered that I was working 70/80 hours a week, I got a raised eyebrow and strict orders to take it easy.So no waitressing, no sewing, but I found it too hard to stay away from the computer. So I posted some stuff on Etsy. I've also been watching isane amounts of The Wire. I had heard great things about it so I bought the 5 season box set for my boyfriends Christmas presents, and it's really just a bonus that I wanted it too! I'm already into Season 3, and I don't want it to ever end, it's written so fantastically, and for once a tv show that doesn't assume I have remedial intelligence. It also helps that I'm more than a little in love with the main character McNulty, a consumate bayboy but very beautiful.

Body issues

Womens body identity is an issue close to my heart, and is something that I've been meaning to write a post about for a long time, and it was when I read this , that is spurred me to say something. I have in the past had very black and white ideas about female beauty and how we feel about ourselves and our bodies. On one hand my business is in fashion, an industry notorious for promoting the anorexic look, and ignoring anything resembling a narural female body.In college I shaved my head, didn't wear make up for years, never wore a bra, and generally wore mucky drab clothes. Somewhere in my head I thought this was a statement about female empowerment and an unwllingness to conform to an idea of what a woman should want to be. It was something I needed to do at the time, but I was denying myself a lot through my militant feminism. I wasn't willing to let anything 'girlie' in for fear that I would become trapped under a preasure to be beautiful.
Most women I know don't like their bodies, thankfully as I get older the women around me grow enough to learn to accept what they have and hopefully at some point they will love it. I've seen too much of anorexia to know that the path of self loathing only leads to destruction. I'm not sure what this post is about except that I have a great sadness inside after the things I've seen friends do to themselves, something has to change about how we live as women. Especially at this time of year when every ad on tv is trying to tell you another way to feel inadequate about yourself. I don't diet, I don't feel guilty about food, and I refuse to berate myself about how I look...maybe it's a start.

You might find this interesting on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUUAgZ8f1OU

Thanks for my 15 mins of fame

Wow I'm really bowled over by the response. Thanks everyone for all your lovely comments, and hello and welcome to all the new readers that I got today. I should try to be on telle more often! I just wanted to post a this and say I'm going to bed a happy woman tonight!...Thanks everyone!!
Also here is a link to where you can view it on the RTE website, although hopefully I'll be able to stream the video onto this blog soon.

Death Wish Computer

I think my computer has a dead wish. It wants me to kill it, to pick it up and throw it out of the second story window beside me. If I have another day like today it might just happen. After lots of swearing, screaming and pleading I got another few things posted on etsy today. It's a pitiful amount compared to what should be there but I'm blaming this suicidal machine on front of me.

A collection of animal feelings

Well last month I was busier than a bee, and new years day I was limping and sick as a dog with the flu, so next month I'm aiming for the cat that got the cream, and then progressing onto happier than a pig in shit. I might as well be optomistic.

Between sniffles and sneezes I posted some stuff on etsy.