hilarious slogan of the day
‘delivering zero emission cheese to London’. Don’t know quite why that made me giggle, but it did!
Blogging in cowboy boots
On the train last night, wearing cowboy boots, blogging on my laptop while listening to my ancient mp3 player. I’m so not on-trend or cool, and I love being that way 🙂
Decisions, freedom and infinite possibility…
I am typing this on the train, sitting next to a woman with an ipad and an iphone. I feel a strange mixture of clunky (my laptop is ENORMOUS in comparison and I don’t have mobile broadband) and smug (I can type so much faster and more accurately than she can, mweeheehee).
The last few weeks have changed my life, overwhelmingly for the better. For various reasons I can’t talk about any of those reasons in detail, but one of the net results is that I have signed up for a season ticket loan for a train ticket, which means I’ll be at work for at least another year. This will give me time to get my finances straight and live my life a little without worrying so much about the future and what’s round the next corner (in the job and finances side of life, anyway).
Secondly, I have decided to put my shop plans on hold for the foreseeable future and concentrate on making things for fun and learning, rather than pressurising myself. The same with vintage homewares and clothing – I’ll buy them for me or for presents, and I’ll continue to research them and blog about my finds because I find them fascinating, but I need to remove the pressure for a while so I can focus on other things.
2012 contains, among other plans, my best friend’s wedding, my parents’ long awaited move into their new home and another rally, closely followed by a Canada trip to watch ice skating in early 2013, so now is not a good time to be starting up. Quite apart from the fact that although I know I’m capable of running a business, my finances are most definitely not, and I’m not sure I’m yet ready to sacrifice my social life in favour of it.
Thirdly, but possibly most importantly, after the weekend that’s just passed I am left with a feeling of happiness, peace, freedom and infinite possibility. My sense of self is fully restored and my inner pin up is well on her way to being part of my everyday life! Although I am never taking a train that far again – driving is SO much more fun and less hassle!
So I’m going to make the most of feeling like that, use the sense of purpose to get my flat and my life in order, and then focus on doing fun stuff… and blogging about it all, of course!
Sorry, this is somewhat of a stream-of-consciousness post, but it does feel good to write it down rather than just have it floating around in my head! A little part of me still can’t quite believe I’ve come this far and made this life for myself. When I look back to how I was four short years ago, and realise just how much I love my ‘new’ life… I wonder how the Carla I am now and the Carla I was then can possibly be the same person. I wouldn’t go back now if you paid me, I love who I’ve become and everything that I do. It’s amazing, empowering and really rather lovely. Ok, enough of the soppy crap now.
Right. Before you all throw up, I’m going to get off the train and go and make sausages and chips for dinner 🙂
Dress decisions
This weekend, my mum and I are going shopping. Partly for Christmas presents, and partly to find me a dress to wear to my office Christmas party.
Having recently decided to stay there another year (and signed up for a loan for a season ticket to guarantee I’ll stay there – it costs more than my car did, so I won’t be leaving in a hurry!), this is my first proper social do – I’m so busy being here there and everywhere at weekends that I rarely get a chance to spend time with my work colleagues outside of the office.
As such, I’m now freaking out about what to wear. Mum has very kindly said she will buy me a dress, which is wonderful. But I feel I’d very much like to wear vintage if possible, so I’m unique. The trouble with this is twofold. One, I struggle to fit into vintage because I have enormous, 21st century hips. I have neither the time nor the skill to alter or tweak (the party is on 9 December, eeep). Two, my ideal vintage dress is rather pin up (think Vivien of Holloway) and I think Mum and I may have slightly different ideas of what is appropriate for this party.
I have a good idea of my perfect outfit, which would be my spotty turquoise corset, a black skirt with a slit up the side and a wonderful froth of purple, turquoise and blue net underskirt, which would peek out from the slit. However, I lack the required skill or time to make this particular outfit.
So watch this space for the outfit that eventually comes together!
A weekend in the life of me
So, I had every intention of participating in the One Day On Earth project, until I realised that a) 11/11/11 was going to be super-busy, full of train travel and that the project wanted video and I very much work in photos not videos. So here, instead, is a selection of snapshots from my weekend…
This was actually on Tuesday, eating ice cream on the back of a Vespa at Joe Deluccios in Westfield Stratford City.
On the train. My handbag (the red and beige one) snapped on the way to the station, so I had to hastily repack, then ditch it without looking like a terrorist. Not easy when you go through London train and tube stations looking shifty!
I spend quite a lot of time doing this – sitting on the floor of a train, reading books. People think I’m mad for sitting on the floor, but I like being able to stretch my legs.
Twitter Mafia love on a Friday morning – love these ladies!
The reminder email that came round from lovely Kim just before the two minutes’ silence for Poppy Day.
Biscuits! Work has a delivery of biscuits and other groceries (tea, coffee etc) every month, and this is what the cupboard looks like just after delivery!
Impromptu trip to Moorgate to buy a new handbag. London is grey but has some striking buildings if you look up while walking.
Mid-afternoon Wispa. Is any day complete without chocolate?!
The emergency/accidental new handbag, to replace the one that snapped in the morning. I like it!
St Pancras station – took this on my way home after a fabulous weekend. It was utter carnage on the way in, and I was trying to sprint which is never a good idea!
And finally home again, with the awesome vintage suitcase we took to Romania. That case started off full of 80s porn magazines, went all the way to Romania on Rusty’s roof, and came home with Team Allegro on their roof. It has a lot more character now than it did when we bought it, but I’m in love and it improved the journey home enormously – I felt like a 40s starlet! (for the first couple of hours, anyway – six hours later I just wanted to be back home, lol). The wheelie case under it was bought for Poland and also came on the rally with us – my luggage is well travelled 🙂
Things that make me happy Thursday 10/11/11
Seeing a woman talking into one of these on the way to work on Tuesday:
Kitten album covers at thekittencovers.tumblr.com
Completely rebelling and wearing polka dots and daft jewellery to work
Seeing Hannah at the weekend, eating vast amounts and persuading her onto Twitter
Discovering (via Hannah) the wonder of Rocky and Balls (honestly, go and listen, they’re brilliant – my two favourites so far are I Heart You Online and the very appropriate Mo Song,for Movember)
Signing up for A Curious Christmas, just in time!
The return of Wispa Gold (and eating one sneakily in bed)
Wearing stripy purple tights under my boring business dress (it’s clearly a rebellious clothing kind of a week)
MAC lipstick in Lady Bug – it’s the perfect daytime red
Planning a vintage tea party with Louise
Having my hair cut, it feels amazing!
Unexpected drinks with Sophia
A MUA metallics mini-palette, I’m a little bit in love
Meeting Caitlin for floozie shopping 😛
Accidentally finding myself in Selfridges at 9pm on a Wednesday evening with Julia
It’s been a fabulous week and a half 🙂 (but I apologise for the lack of useful photos)
overdue
Just heard at the station: ‘We are sorry to announce that the 6.05 service is running approximately four hundred and nine minutes late. We apologise for the inconvenience caused.’
First time I’ve seen a platform of people all laugh at once!
Decisions, decisions, blog-related decisions…
I am currently running too many blogs. One is (obviously) this one. One is Project Pin Up, one is a new one to go with the new Etsy shop (if I ever find time to launch it) and one is London at Lunchtime. I love them all but find it increasingly hard to find time to post, and the longer I’m a blogger, the more I value good posts rather than just posting for the sake of posting.
I think, given how little I’ve managed to post since I started it (londonatlunchtime.wordpress.com) that I might just make it a category on here (which I have done here – I think it fits in ok with the general tone and utter randomness of my other posts). It’s not like my photos are startlingly good, I just find it interesting how much there is to see in London even in the same relatively small space I can get to within a lunchtime.
Thoughts?
Love, a very indecisive Carla x
London at Lunchtime – Muller madness
Things like this make me love London – random madness in the financial part of the City.
Red lips and victory rolls
I feel like I should copy this post across to Project Pin Up, it was so very vintage and pin up-esque! (edit – collage pic is over there with a link back here and to Mimi’s post!)
Last Saturday, the lovely Lou from Contrariety Rose came to stay, and after a morning of revamping her website and eating chocolate, we met Mimi for our first workshop at Make Do and Mend in Chelmsford. Mimi’s lovely husband Carl drove us there, and when we arrived some of the other ladies were already there, drinking tea and chatting.
Set up so that we were all around the same table, with an individual mirror and shared bottles of setting lotion and water spray, we started with pin curls and victory rolls. Hannah (who owns Make Do and Mend) showed us how to reserve a section of hair for the victory roll, and then to pin curl the rest. Once this was done (Mimi’s was most successful, Lou’s hair is very short at the moment and mine is incredibly long, thick and unruly) we wrapped our hair in scarves and let it dry. Hannah explained that usually this would be done before sleeping. Clearly, as it was mid-afternoon, sleeping was off the agenda, and more tea and biscuits while swapping stories and tips with the other girls was definitely on!
Here we are putting our pin curls in.
We then set to work on the victory roll section. Those with very short hair or a fringe had a helping hand from some of Hannah’s vintage roll-safety-pin contraptions (sadly you can’t buy these any more new) and the rest of us rolled and pinned and unrolled and rolled and pinned… and repeated. I eventually discovered, after several attempts, that I was trying to roll far too much hair at once. Ditching some of it (extra pin curl, anyone?) meant I finally got a roll/quiff type structure, which I promptly drenched in hairspray!
We then moved on to makeup, with Hannah showing us how to do a 1940s eyeliner flick. This is a brilliant concept which I really struggled with, was fine on my right eye but rubbish on my left – without my glasses I can’t see much at all out of my right eye so have always struggled (and with my day to day makeup, pretty much do it by feel). However, practise makes perfect and I at least now have the technique to work on!
Winged eyeliner, red lips and sweeps of blusher done, we were ready to unpin our pin curls. These had varying degrees of success, depending on the type of hair, the tightness of the curl and whether or not we’d actually let it dry properly (if you unwrap a damp pin curl, it will just go straight instead of springy and bouncy).
To no one’s surprise, the majority of my hair refused to curl, so I put it up in a fifties style ponytail which looked pretty good with my roll/quiff contraption. Mimi’s hair fell in soft waves, and Lou’s curled around her head in a surprisingly ruly fashion (her hair is so short in places we weren’t sure it would work at all!)
We met the lovely Karen of Essex Vintage Weddings, and lots of other ladies too – I hope to go back and do another workshop now I’ve had my hair cut and it’s a bit more manageable. Invested in some setting lotion at the weekend too so I could practise… quite when I’m going to fit this in to my ridiculous schedule I don’t know, but I’d love to be able to do vintagey hair more often 🙂
London at Lunchtime – Broadgate ice rink
On the first properly cold evening we’ve had, I most appropriately spotted this on my way home. Will definitely be finding time to skate on it before it’s taken down in the new year!
Happy November
Happy November, y’all!
I have no idea where 2011 has gone… but it’s been one hell of a year so far. Fingers crossed the last two months are as good as the previous 10 have been… minus the bad stuff, obviously.
In other news, StreetSafari’s 2012 season opens for registration at 10am today. They’re only running two rallies this season – Staples2Naples 10th anniversary, limited to 100 cars, and BABE rally (New York to New Orleans). http://www.streetsafari.com/ if you’re interested.
I shall be on neither of those – I’m going to do Ireland with some of the teams from R2R, I hope… Christmas project is to see just how possible it would be to take the Micra… 😀
Right, back to work – and to daydream about Christmas!
I'm Carla, a quirky thirtysomething with a penchant for unicorns and glitter. I believe in magic and make-believe, and the gorgeous rebellion of making your life absolutely your own. And I'm a proud multipod!
I am a photographer and catalyst for small business owners, and a real life mermaid. I photograph people as they truly are, help women see and step into their brightest and best selves, add a sprinkling of magic to the mundane, and am a happy ambassador for stationery and slow living.
Proud to be both girly and geeky, when I’m not writing, photographing or daydreaming, you can find me dancing burlesque, riding my bicycle Bluebell, growing herbs and collecting typewriters.