A Nice Ring To It

As I've mentioned on the blog before I'm in love with the work of Amelie Gagne, her paintings are amazing and hopefully one day soon I'll be able to spoil myself and buy one to add to my growing art collection. In the meantime she has set up a new Etsy shop selling her prints, and these fantastic rings.

We did a bit of a swap and I received my ring the other day, along with this beautiful magnet. I wore my ring the other day and I got endless compliments on it, not just passing ones, but people asked me to take it off so they could try it on. It's really great to be able to wear her art and it made me smile all day long when I looked at it. I think I might have to treat myself to one of her pendants too, as her palette matches all of my wardrobe, and they are just so sunny and playful.

Amelie is originally a native of Quebec, Canada but has been living in Kilarney in Co.Kerry since 2001, she is also one of the new members of the fast growing Etsy Ireland Team.

To see more of her work here are some useful links.

Website

Facebook

Etsy

Blog

Mammy I want I want I want!

I'f I was a kid in a shop I would be tugging at my mothers sleeve wailing 'I WANT I WANT I WANT!'....but I'm not so I'll blog instead.

Karoart-6 clouds in the sky

BlockPartyPress-Caged Bird Dangle Earrings

LittleWhiteDog-A-Z Bookends

Ruby Clover-Erotica Jewellery Box

MonsterGallery-Retro Ray Gun Print

Saturday's Deadly Things

I'm having an Irish themed deadly choices today, all these pieces come from Etsy Ireland team members. Now that I don't have the pressure of having to organise things for the team it's really nice to just potter around the lovely selection of work at my leisure. At well over 180 members it's great to see the variety of work that we have now.

Arguing The Mobius

Crafts2Cherish

Huggleknits

2Boos

Deadly Things: Part 3

Most people have no clue that I'm originally from Dublin until now and then the word deadly pops out of my mouth, for anyone reading this outside of Ireland, that means great or cool, not lethal as most people would assume. So here is another list of deadly things (two in one week, I must be full of love for the world!!).

Green Saffron: I had the most amazing curry yesterday at the market, and it only cost me a fiver. I trade right across from the Green Saffron stall every Friday, and the smell of the spices is simply intoxicating. Eventually my grumbling tummy got the better of me and I indulged in a yummy curry, and I really can't believe how amazing it tasted. It was spicy but fruity at the same time, will loads of layers of taste. Someone said to me that they should video how happy I looked when eating it because it would make a perfect ad. Arun also sells his curry frozen so you can bring it home, 'dinner for 2 for a tenner, the best curry you will ever eat'. Mostly when people have a sales pitch like that they are fudging the truth a bit, in this case he is really right.

Lucky Rainbow Designs: My friend Rebecca listed this amazing card in her shop yesterday, and I literally had a squee moment when I saw it, it is so adorable. Rebecca buys lots of supplies off me, and those pins and buttons you see here were bought from my shop. It's so nice to see my supplies being made into something so super cute. Also I was with Rebecca when she bought this paper when we went to Cork for the Etsy Ireland meeting, it's really cool to see what she has done with it.

Sales: My Etsy shops have been really quiet over the past two months or so. It's because I haven't been putting much time into them because I've been working frantically trying to keep up with the new markets, Roisins shop, and the BPLO album cover. There just wasn't time left in the day to do anything with new listings or promoting. Then out of the blue this week I've gotten lots of sales, I got a sale nearly every day, and then yesterday I woke up to find I sold 5 things!! I was so delighted both for the money and also the sense of pride. At the moment I'm trying really hard to save up money to buy my button press machine so the extra sales have been a great help. I've no idea what brought the extra traffic this week, but I'm grateful to whatever it was.

Early Nights: I've always been a night owl, and I let this habit get particularly bad in college when I lived with an insomniac. We used to stay up til 5 in the morning chatting/watching the discovery channel/playing computer games. It was loads of fun, and I continued doing this kind of thing for years, but I knew it wouldn't last forever, I would eventually have to grow up. Over the past 2 years I've really tried to get to get to bed regularly by 1 or 2 am, and it's really helped being consistent about it. Recently my decision to give up caffeine was the last factor that really helped me have a more normal sleeping pattern. Last night I actually went to bed at 11pm, I think this is the earliest I've gone to bed in about 10 years, bar being sick/jet lagged. It was really lovely, and I woke up early feeling great and full of energy. I don't think I would be able to do it all the time, but I might make an extra effort to do it once a week and see how it goes.

Deadly Things :Children's Special

To celebrate my big sister currently being in labour with her first baby I thought I would show a few of my favourites from the children's section on Etsy. I want to buy them all, and I really want to buy the lego crayons and keep them, I think John would love them too.

Shirae

Zeebree

Imagination Kids

Funky Shapes

Guilty Pleasure: Twilight Eclipse

Last night I dragged John to see Twilight Eclipse, it's my first of the series that I got to see in the cinema and I was quite excited to see it. I really shouldn't have gone on opening night but I really wanted to go to the cinema, and I didn't want to wait a couple of weeks until I had a free night again. Let me first preface all this by explaining why on earth, at the age of 28, I like these films. About a year ago the curiosity got the better of me and I listened to them on audiobook, because I had bought so many books the guy threw in the Twilight series for free. I think this was around the time of the second film coming out and I had to know what all the mounting hysteria was about. I listened to them and simultaneously loved and hated them, they are written really badly with cringe worthy moments in them. But the 16 year old goth version of me loved them, and the insanely over the top unapologetic romanticism is quite enjoyable. I didn't expect to like the films, but they had that same attraction; awful but really enjoyable at the same time. At this point I must note that I thought the acting in the first film was tragically wooden, thank god it has improved somewhat.

There is much more humour in this film than in the others, which I think was needed. Particularly the 'virgin' scene with Bella's dad, and the 'tent' scene with 'hot' jacob and cold Bella. Thankfully they realised how corny it is that Jacob walks around for half the film with barely any clothes, and they took the piss out of it. I think they made a good stab of making a film from a bad book where nothing really happens. It's the worst of the series, and even in the book it felt like filler to get between the love story and the grand finale. When we got out of the cinema John was baffled at how they could spend two hours doing basically nothing. Having said that the fans will enjoy it, there is enough muscley bicep bits of Jacob, soft focus swarthy shots of Edward, and drippy moody ponderings of Bella to keep them all happy.

On the down side, I have to agree with Nuvonova about the performance of Dakota Fanning, in the second film I thought she was great and I was looking forward to how she would expand on this, but I thought her character (pardon the pun) was dead and flat. Which is really disappointing as she is such an intriguing side character in the book. As always the performance of the guy who plays Charlie was impeccable, he really is one of the best things about the film, so funny and dry.

No doubt I will watch it again on dvd and be just as excited by the next two films(yes they are splitting the last book into two movies), it's a guilty pleasure I know. But one that half of the female population of the world seems to share in. Next time I won't bring John though, I think it was too much of a cruel and unusual punishment for him.

Ps:on a side note I really want the patchwork blanket Bella mother gives to her, so cute!!

Deadly Things:Part 1

Cherry Aid-Charlotteiona

Polka Dot Disco Bag-Betty and Pearl

Design Birdie Ornamental Card House-Design by Birdie

Marino Felted Slippers-SuzanneorFord

Wool Folk Art Bird Ornament-Homespun Ireland

Guilty Pleasure Saturday

Is there anything that you do that you know is either pointless or bad for you but you still love it? Here's mine

Crime Dramas: I've gotten really addicted lately to awful crime dramas. We haven't had a tv for a year but since we got really fast internet I can watch them online. So I got totally hooked on Wire in the Blood, a drastically terrible ITV cop crime mini-series that was shot about 10 years ago. When we had tv they used to show it a 3am on RTE and I loved it, but I only ever saw about 3 of them. It's based around a female detective and a male crime psychologist played by Robson Green. It's really terrible but the faux gritty realism and comforting predictability and scooby-doo structure is brilliantly addictive. I only have 1 episode left to watch, and I'm traumatised that it's over!

Farmville: Yes I'm one of those crazy people that's addicted to that stupid facebook game!! For those of you blissfully unaware of what it is, farmville is a basic game connected to facebook that is quite like The Sims except it's on a farm, so you grow crops, raise animals, buy cottages etc. It's no way near as complicated as Sims but it's feeding upon the same addictive logic. I totally blame my friend Laura for my addiction, she came to stay one weekend and she got me totally hooked. I actually stopped playing it for months, and then recently when I had a really nasty cold and couldn't work or think I started playing it again!!

4 in 1: This will take some explaining. Back when I was growing up in Celbridge we had a Chinese takeaway that served something called a 3 in 1, which was fried rice, chips, and curry sauce all in the same container, also called 'a long tray'. It was a rare treat when we got to have it; total junk food but it takes fantastic. I didn't realise how in love with it I was until I moved to Limerick 10 years ago and I discovered that you couldn't buy a 3 in 1!!! Well you could, but it would cost you loads extra to buy all the bits separetly, and it never tasted quite as good. There were other things like good white pudding, and Brennans batch loaf that seemed impossible to buy down here too, much to my annoyance. Anyway about a year ago a local Chinese started serving a 4 in 1, wow, low and behold they managed to top my childhood love by adding some chicken into that mix too. It's perfect, all the lovely bits of a curry for a fiver, and not too big cos it all fits into one of their small containers. Obviously I don't eat it all the time, but it's good to know after 10 years of it's absence in Limerick, that if I ever get a craving that it's only down the road.

Fantasy: Reading fantasy books as a woman in her late 20s isn't as unusual as it once was, in the last few years the world has fallen in love with Harry Potter, Twilight and Lord of the Rings. But there is still a part of me that feels I should be reading something slightly more intellectual, especially when I whip out my book in a coffee shop and it's got one of those nasty illustrations on the front. I feel like I should have a badge that says 'No really I am smart, I do know this is trash, but I still love them'. I weirdly got into fantasy when I was 18 and my friend gave me lots of David Gemmell books, I then tried some Ursula Le Guin, Tad Williams, and J.R.R.Tolkien. A few years ago I started the epic Wheel of Time series, 12 books and still going. A few of the things I hate within fantasy are that they are mostly written by men for teenage boys, and have awful female characterization, there's a disproportionate mentioning of heaving bussoms and firey tempers. But I love the scope and detail of the stories, and the freedom within the narrative of making up your own rules, magic and myth are part of the everyday. At the moment I'm at a loose end book wise, so if anyone can recommend a good series let me know, I just read the last installment of the Wheel of Time, so it will have a lot to live up to.

Note: To any Wheel of Time fans I recently stumbled upon these new series of covers for ebooks. Still quite traditional fantasy work, but a huge improvement on the originals, with a couple of real stunners aswell. Click this link, scroll about half way down, and each of the links is an article of the illustration with background sketches etc. facinating stuff for any fellow nerds!

I like to Polka

How cute are these notebooks? I was in Tesco yesterday and I just had to buy them, and they were cheap as chips at only about a fiver for the two of them. The little pink polka dot one is to use at the new market, and it comes with a handy pen. And well the other one was just too adorable to leave in the shop, I knew it needed to join my ever growing collection of notebooks....but as all stationary addicts know you can never have too many notebooks!

More Things I Like

I'm gonna do another things I like Friday, since I enjoyed the last one so much. I may turn it into a regular thing I'm not sure, depends if I like that many things, ha! Kudos again to Magatha-May for the idea that I stole from her Things I like Thursday.

-Fresh sheets: It's such a little thing, but it's so nice. It's a mixture of the smell and the crispness, and I'm convinced it makes the bed a little bit warmer. It's just a shame I HATE changing the bed covers or I would have this joy more often.

-Reading. I've always been a bit reader, my mother joined us all up at the Library at the age of 4. I read a very strange mix of books. I read lots of fantasy like Robert Jordan, Tad Williams, Tolkien etc. But then I'm always drawn to the booker prize type of book. I like to break up the fantasy with something a little more weighty. I think it's because we decided not to get a tv when we moved into the new house that I've been reading so much recently. Here's a few good ones I read recently
A Spot of Bother-Mark Haddon
On Beauty- Zadie Smith
We Need to Talk About Kevin- Lionel Shriver
Cell-Stephen King

-Star Trek: At this stage I'm sure you know I'm a bit of a nerd. I own all of Star Trek Next Generation on Dvd! What this refers to is the new Star Trek Movie, which is fantastic! I saw it in the cinema, but the other day John came home and said 'close your eyes, and put out your hands'. Low and behold he had bought the new movie on dvd, yey!

-Chocolate: I've really tried to cut down the last two weeks, but I miss it to much. I think I'll wait till the rain passes and then take a stroll to the shop and get some. Mmmm some coffee too would be good.

Things I love Friday

I've decided to do a random things I like post inspired by Magatha-May's Things I love Thursday.

1. Twilight- yes of have joined the screaming hoards of teenagers and developed more than a little love for this teenage vampire story. I listened to the audiobooks this month, which of course led me to watch the film with the entertaining eye candy of Robert Pattison. I know it's a bit sad but it brings me back to my days as a teenage goth when I was obsessed with The Crow. As my friend called it today, 'cozy safe popcorn that makes you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside'.

2. Warmth- as much as I love are lovely white house with open plan living, it's bloody freezing this time of year. Lots of glass, high ceilings, and a budget on the amount we can afford on heating is leaving me walking around with lots of layers of jumpers and blue lips. A part of me is missing the coziness of our little flat. Only a small part though, as aesthetics always wins out with me.

3. Kris-kindle- this genius idea is saving me a fortune this year. Usually I buy presents for my 3 siblings, their spouses, their kids, my parents, John, his family, and about 8 other close friends. Which all adds up to about 25 people give or take a few. Which is pretty pricey! So this year all I have to get is one present for a family member, presents for the kids, John, one friend, and Johns family! Yey, it's so much easier, less stressful and I can spend time choosing presents that people really want rather than panic buying on x-mas eve.

4. My Filofax- anybody that knows me from college would laugh if they heard I owned one of these. In my head it seems like such a grown up thing, like a mortgage or having children. I'm trying to become a reformed scatter brain. I try very hard, but sometimes I fail miserably and things fall by the wayside. So after bitching and moaning to John about how I've loads to remember and sort out he went into town and bought me a beautiful red leather filofax. It's brilliant, I have all my deadlines, projects, addresses and phone numbers in the same place. Why didn't I get one years ago!!

Tv or not Tv

Due to our recent move we do not have our tv reception sorted out, and to be honest I don't even know if there is any cable wired in. It's nealy a month that we are in our lovely abode and it's been nice not to have the reliable fallback of tv. I found I was watching way too much of it, even when there was nothing on I still watched it, it was a horrible time and energy sucker. I find I'm going to bed at a more normal hour now and waking up without a big grumpy head on me (this is quite helpful as we have 4 skylights in our bedroom so sleeping late is very difficult).

But let me clarify I'm not a complete saint who sits and listens to the wireless and does needle point by candle light. We do have a dvd player and I have been watching lots of films over the past 4 weeks. I somehow see this as less wasteful than sitting down and watching back to back 'house doctor' and 'property ladder' though. I'm really proud of John for sticking with it, he was a complete tv addict, but now he seems quite content not to have it, fingers crossed it will last. I had no tv for 3 years when I was in college so I didn't find it that much of a shock to the system. Our joint compulsion to hoard dvds has come in useful though and I've been rewatching all those films I've been saving for a rainy evening.Here are a few highlights

Casino
Keep The Aspidistra Flying
Howards End
The Land Girls
Juno
The Holy Grail
Conan The Barbarian

For the love of all things Irish...Happy Paddy's Day

In Celebration of all things Irish, for Paddy's Day, I'm posting some links to lovely Irish things. Wherever you are in the world have a great day. I'll be waiting on tables in the restaurant, which will be demented with kids, but I finish at 6pm so then I'll do some more packing, and afterwards go for a few pints in the pub John works in. It's nice to have him run around and get me things like pints and taytos. Blogs

Bock the Robber

Declan Shalvey

The Sexy Pedestrian

Music

The Brad Pitt Light Orchestra

Vertigo Smyth

Mick Flannery

Etsy Shops

Bonzie

Tanya Mac

Studio Seventy Seven

Art

Rasher

Mark Halpin
Emmet Kierans