Good Times

So, I was shivering and starving in my stall in Carnivale yesterday, where I had a stall at their monthly Tik Tac Toe event, when who should come by but Etsy UK blogger AmityUK. Who then proceeded to purchase one of my little Keeper necklaces! Arghhhh! She bought this little baby, right here!

And of course, since I was being geeky and generally stupid, I got all red and blushy, and then ended up giving her the wrong change! Which meant I had to run after her, tap her on the shoulder, and squeak ''I'm so sorry, I gave you the wrong change!'' and then dump another £3 in her hands. Before running away again. Yup, way to make an impression on Etsy staff.

But in case you're wondering, AmityUK is really as nice as she appears in her articles, and I also discovered that she has a lovely little shop on Etsy too, selling really pretty jewellery made from recycled silver. 

Oh, and in another bit of good news on the Etsy front, one of my aprons got featured on the Front Page yesterday too, although I didn't realise it till this morning. Here's a screenshot!

It's that little blue apron, second from the left, on the bottom row. I didn't sell that particular apron, but I did end up selling another one that last night. So, rather a good weekend where Etsy's concerned. Yay!

Shop Update

It's long overdue but I've finally added a whole bunch of new goodness to the shop. And I'm still in the process of adding more stuff! There's lots of new aprons, and some glamourous flapper-style headgear being added as we speak! Exciting, what?

So get thee typing fingers on over there now and see pick yourself up something frilly and pretty. No, it's not gonna bring about world peace, but boy, will it make you feel good!

As usual, everything is one of a kind, so once it's gone, it's gone, baby.

RoundLondon Gives You Spots

Most of last week was spent hunched over piles of fabric, needle in hand, sewing up new aprons and headpieces in preparation for RoundLondon Gives You Spots at the Queen of Hoxton. And was getting pricked by needles hundreds of times worth it in the end? Well, not really.

While it did encourage me to get off my arse and make tons of new stuff, I really only ended up selling four cards and a couple of brooches during the day itself. And half of that was bought by my dear friend Haryo. The pub was otherwise deathly quiet (well, it wasn't actually quiet as there was a DJ there pounding out music the whole time) - at times, it seemed like there were more people manning the stalls then there were customers.

I'm not blaming the organisers at all, I think they actually did a great job organising and promoting everything. However, being in the Queen of Hoxton for more than seven hours reminded me of why I dislike hanging out in Hoxton in the first place. It's constantly frequented by painfully 'cool', cliquey hipsters who think they're perfectly original and ironic and too beautiful to smile. It's like being back at school all over again, and I hated school the first time.
You guessed it - I was a library geek back in the day. And I loved it.

Anyway, there's nothing original or ironic about dying your hair like Cindy Lauper or wearing a clashing, oversized jumper and skinny jeans. It's all been done before, and much better, by others. Oh, and by the way, 'ironic' doesn't mean what Alanis Morrisette thinks it means. Whew, look who's a ranty-tanty pants today! Sorry about that kids, it's just I always feel so annoyed when I hang around hipsters for any amount of time that I end up wanting to kick things.

Well, let's just look at the pictures, shall we?

I ended up spending most of my takings on these shoes from Rag and Bow.

New headpieces that will be going into the Etsy shop.

The stairwells at the Queen of Hoxton are filled with awesome drawings. This is one of my favourites. It's by Gemma...something. Sorry, I forgot.

End of a long, tiring, hungry day

Ego Boost

Alright, I'm supposed to be doing some research for my other blog right now. You know, that one that actually helps to pay some of my bills? But of course, I'm procrastinating as usual. It's not all that exciting to be reading about carry-on luggage restrictions.

So I took a little break and googled myself. Well, not really myself - I've done that before and it appears that I'm also a millionare founder of a greeting cards company. Instead, I googled my Etsy shop...and lo and behold! Turns out one of my aprons was actually on the Front Page waaaayyyyyy back in March! And here I was, feeling sorry for myself that I've never had anything on the Front Page before.

Here it is!

It's that stripy green and white apron in the second row. See it? Yay!

OK, ego boosted, now back to work!

Ladies Courtyard Picnic

What do a bunch of unemployed girls do on a hot summer's day?

Well, they get together, dress like ladies, and sit around a courtyard eating dessert all day!

To celebrate our liberation from the shackles of working for 'Tha Man', Jojo, Googy and I hit upon the idea of organising a Ladies Courtyard Picnic (for unemployed ladies and gents only!). The plan was for us to eat lots of sweet things, drink some G&Ts (mumma's little helper...) and bake more sweet things.

Instead of baking Satan cakes like we usually do, Googy and I decided to try something new. Now that we're unemployed, we can bake anything we feel like baking...even things we've never actually tasted before! That's how you live life on the edge. Not being from North America and having never celebrated Thanksgiving before, neither of us had ever had a pumpkin pie. I mean, pumpkin is meant to be a savoury food, isn't it?

So we googled some recipes and pictures, and it turned out to be fairly easy to make. The first picture we found also made it look really, really disgustingly tasty. Like, so tasty but so sweet that your tongue would shrivel up and fall out. That sealed the deal for me - we would be making pumpkin pie. And, just to add a little more excitement to our lives, we decided to mix things up a bit by substituting half the pumpkin goo with sweet potato goo.

On the day of the picnic, Googy and I decided to ride to Jojo's. But on the way there, we stopped off to see the Tree Man.
There he is, in the background, sitting beside me. It's a shit photo, I'll try and get a better one the next time I go past him.

By the time Googy and I got to Jojo's, we were both sticky and sweaty and stinky from riding. Not very ladylike at all, I'm afraid. But at least I rode wearing a nice dress and headscarf. That always makes up for sweaty, sticky, stinkiness. Plus, I also had a nice little apron that I'd made the day before. All very ladylike (except for the charging-madly-around-town-on-a-BMX bit).
We were greeted by Jojo and Phoebe, and presented with a MOUNTAIN of baked goods - chocolate chip cookies, raspberry and white chocolate muffins, and shortbread. And also some smoked salmon sandwiches and very tasty curried egg sandwiches (yum...curried egg fart...).
After munching through a sizeable portion of the baked goods mountain, we thought it might be a good time to start flexing our muscles. Isn't that what all good ladies do after lunch? Then it was time to for pumpkin and sweet potato pie goodness. And sweetbabyjesus...was it good!

Here are some photos of the goodness, freshly unleashed from the oven. Also some photos of us in the kitchen looking happy and successful and greedy. Mainly greedy.
See that mountain of pumpkin pie? It's still sitting in my fridge. We made way too much. If anyone wants some, get in touch and I'll pass the tastiness on to you. Or you can just make it yourself. It's so easy I won't even post instructions or a recipe.