A rather random selection of pictures from my May archives which made me smileā¦
One of my regular visitors (if I had a familiar or a daemon, it would definitely be a blackbird)
Sparkles in the air in my room, not long after moving in
Greyhound cuddles at Junk Jamboree
The ingredients for a perfect spag bol
Gran with sleepy puppies
and a glimpse into the Make Me Joyful letter writing salon.
Following the Night Circus (and a very entertaining impromptu photoshoot in the car park, pics to follow), I fell into bed and dreamed of fire breathers and running away to the circus.
Saturday morning saw me fairly leap out of bed and head for the station (London three times in a week, it felt most odd after six months of barely seeing the inside of a train!) to meet the lovely Hannah for lunch and (squeee, squeee, SQUEEEEEā¦) Matthew Bourneās Sleeping Beauty.
Look how close to the stage we were!!
As youāll know if youāre a regular reader, I love all types of dance, but ballet has always held a special place in my heartā¦ and when I rediscovered the fact that I can in fact stand en pointe I nearly melted with excitement.
So when Hannah told me sheād managed to secure tickets, I squealed out loud! Pity whoever was in hearing distance at the time ā H was clever enough to break the news via text!
So off we went ā we had tickets in the stalls for the matinee, which started at 2.30, giving us time for a gentle amble around Wimbledon first. Only I was too excited to focus on anything (even TK Maxxā¦ lol) so we had lunch and then went in.
Here’s the trailer, to give you an idea of the gorgeousness of it all…
I donāt really have words for how magical it was ā Kate said it was āastonishingā and that she had tears of joyā¦ and I think thatās probably the best description Iāve heard. I just adored every single secondā¦ and didnāt want to step out of the theatre and back into real life.*
After tea and cake…
…we then made our way to Southbank in the rain and had dinner at Strada, before heading our separate ways home (after walking in entirely the wrong direction to Waterloo ā yippee, Iām officially a tourist again, with no sense of direction!) and lovely Hannah is coming to stay for a bit later this week. So we can wax lyrical about the ballet all over again.
It was her first ballet ā I canāt decide if Iām wildly envious that her first experience was a Bourne, or whether itāll make future ballets seem, not dull, but perhaps less colourful, by comparisonā¦
And of course, a duck came with me, as one does everywhere… he was eyeing up the teapots, and then I told him that three really was quite enough…
Oh, and just to top off my excitement, Matthew Bourne favourited one of my tweets about it!
*Disclaimer ā It must be said that I absolutely love my real life at the moment, but the weekend was host to two of the most magical events of my life so far.Ā So youāll forgive me for wanting to stay in them. Expect similar behaviour after the Fling ā it happens every time!
A weekend of pure magic is overā¦ and Iām looking back and sighing with happiness at every moment of it.
On Friday, The Night Circus arrived at Tea and Sympathy, my favourite place in Colchester. The dress code was black and white and circus-appropriate, with a red accent for the reveurs ā those who had read the book. (And if youāve read it, youāll know why!) For those that havenāt had the pleasure, the theme was around the book The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern.
My red accents were my sequined shoes, scarlet lipstick and a peek of a red braā¦ š
I donāt think Iāve ever felt more thoroughly myself, though my outfit wasnāt entirely appropriate for the multi storey car park where we put the cars when we arrivedā¦ lol. But I’ve always been fascinated by the circus – my burlesque name is a tribute to my obsession with Enid Blyton’s circus stories!
I arrived with Gabby and Chris, after the quickest house tour in the history of the world, and we wandered in a haze of happiness through the shop, up and down the tiny, twisting staircase, to hidden rooms, magic and wonder at every turnā¦
There were fire dancers, burlesque from Miss Fanny Darling, magicians, fortune tellers and some cocktails, which Iām told were lethalā¦ I declined to sample them, as I quite fancied getting home without getting arrested!
Hereās Gabby and Chris, looking like they belong with the Cirqueā¦
Miss Fanny Darling as the Ravenā¦
And the incredible fire dancing duo (I have plans for a skirt just like that oneā¦ I LOVE IT!)
Iāll leave you with the video of the fire dancers ā a little taste of the most magical evening Iāve had in a long, long time!Ā With thanks to Tea and Sympathy for making dreams reality š
Oh, itās been a whirlwind of a week. (I wonder how often I start a blog post with that?) Iāve finally moved, Iām in, the keys have been handed back to the old flatās agents and my new house feels like home already!
Here are the fabulous daffodils (I ADORE daffs) that Mum and Dad brought me to celebrate moving in. I feel I should point out that the curtains will be changed shortly, and I really should have been buying them flowers ā couldnāt have done this move without them!
And my very first visitors this weekendā¦
Here are some (probably blurry) photos from the move ā am hoping Mum took some of the chaos of boxes, as I completely forgot in the excitement!
Last morning waking up in my old flat
I can quite see why moving house is one of the top stressful things you can do in this life. Here are some photos of what Iāve been doing around the packing, admin and incompetenceā¦
Weather for ducksā¦ literally:
Puppy cuddles with the lovely Frankie. Itās a hard lifeā¦
Learning a bit more ukulele.
Glorious blue skies on the way to meet Becky for a celebratory lunch in Balham (and unexpectedly bumping into an old friend from school)
A conference in the Essex iLabs, where youāre encouraged to play with the toys and things provided. Like nothing Iāve ever done before!
And finally, wine to help me get through the strangely emotional final Friday night in my first flat
Feeling: Either overwhelmed or ridiculously excitedā¦ I donāt seem to have a middle setting, and itās rather exhausting!
Reading:
[Interview] The Paris Letters ā a project that turned into a business
[Article] Why mess can be a good thing
[Book] The Secret Supper Club, Dana Bate
[Blog post] Dance to your own beat, the Be Free Community
Eating: with other people ā itās been lovely! (And the yearās first Cadbury mini eggs. Nom nom nom).
Planning: new lines of jewellery, wholesale options and a website; things to do in the new house (decorating, cooking, creating, entertaining) and some dance routines.
Dreaming of: Not being surrounded by boxes, and being a bit bloody warmer, please ā the novelty of winter is well and truly over now. If weāre talking actual dreams, I dreamed of sunglasses the night before last so we can only hope that means spring is on its way.
Coveting: Contrariety Roseās cherry dress (yup, thatās me in the listing. I wanted to take it home!!)
Wishing: I was better at playing the ukulele and/or guitar, especially after discovering 9 year old Zoe Thomsonās guitar playing.
Working on: New fonts on the site (did you notice how much prettier they are now?) courtesy of Gemma at Jane & Philbert, and deliberately disconnecting more often, courtesy of Diane Leigh and Grace Marshall.
Celebrating: Having been 27 for a whole week today, and the launch of 15 Queen Street tonight.
Grateful for: The first shafts of sunshine, likeminded souls and my apparently innate ability to network and connect with people.
And finally tomorrow I will be: drinking hot chocolate with Rachael, finalising the packing up of the studio, making lists of the contents of the flat and working on all my websites.
On my to-do list?
– Various money-related tasks (paying bills, setting up accounts, budgeting & planning)
– House admin (let people know Iām moving, switch providers, notify of change of address, etc etc etc)
– Try and get some kind of control over my Ducking Fabulous accounts
– everything is there, but nothing is in date order and itās making me cross
– Book next burlesque course
– Learn a bit more about Google Analytics
– Getting dates in the diary with friends who Iāve been trying and failing to see for months
So quite a good one ahead ā and of course ploughing on with the web stuff at the day job. Which I love, but which occasionally makes my pea brain hurt.
The last few weeks in Instagram highlights – L-R tassels in progress, colourful table settings and ballet in the air at work; frosted spider web, delicious mango sorbet, first batch of eBay parcels from my pre-move clear out.
Happy things include 15 Queen Street and discovering the amazing creatives in my area | planning and prepping for a collaborative photoshoot with Contrariety Rose | development of Ink Drops Boxes | various happy-making side projects | fabulous Free Range Humans (the people and the book) | finding a new home | Hotel Chocolat caramel hot chocolate | bumping into Poppy’s old owner on a roundabout in a snowstorm | resurrecting the Ducks on Tour and finding original Frankie and Freddie pictures
And I have Thursday and Friday off work for the shoot š
Itās been, amazingly, a whole month since my first ever burlesque performance. Cabaret night had been excitedly planned, panicked over and squeaked about for quite some time, and then crept up on us quite suddenly!
Any of you who know me in real life or follow me on Twitter will be aware that although Iāve loved burlesque, corsets and the pin up style most of my adult life, and have danced most of my life, joining a burlesque dance course was quite a big step. A step that, once taken, I couldnāt understand why it had taken me so long ā I think was born to prance about in a corset and high heels with feathers in my hair!!
I dance with some of my closest friends, and lots of lovely friends turned up to watch us dance, among them Lou and her sister, who also ran a Contrariety Rose stall on the nightā¦ 
and some of my uni girls who schlepped all the way up from Oxford, Kent and Southendā¦ bless them! Was lovely to see them though I was far too overexcited to actually have a proper conversation!
Here are some more pics of us dancers…
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And we made it into the Essex Chronicle the following week!
It was a glorious night (I also had a Ducking Fabulous stall) and I came off the stage wanting to go and do it again, preferably immediately! Definitely have the performing bug back again after so long away from the stage ā and canāt wait to start classes again in January!
My final day in London was 26th October. I was rather tearful and overwhelmed, having been entirely unexpectedly presented with a lovely card, a vintage mannequin (they know me well) and THE BIGGEST KIT KAT IN THE WORLD (you think Iām jokingā¦ look at it!! Was very touched that my director had bid on it in a charity auction for me.)
You can see the mannequin, now named Delilah, in the background of an Ink Drops promo pic hereā¦
and the KitKat here, all three kilos of it, and better photos coming soon. My plan is to photograph it properly and then take it home for Christmas so the kids can help me eat it. With a hammer. It would be a shame not to eat it!
Caroline helped me carry all my stuff to St Paulās station, and then I hopped on a tube, hopped on a train for the final time and headed home to shower, collect Poppy and drive up to Nottingham. Rob had promised to have celebratory cocktails at the ready, though the fact that I didnāt get there till twenty to one in the morning scuppered my plans to drink lots, lol!
On Saturday we popped to town and accidentally helped break a Guiness World Record (for the most people doing a science experiment at the same time ā slime and rockets, whatās not to love?!), experimented with Shakeaway and tried not to buy the whole of Lakeland, and then went home to celebrate some more by cooking ridiculous amounts of foodā¦
Recipes and the beginnings of chicken & tarragon pieā¦
We might have cheated a tiny bit with the pastry but doing a good job of pretending to be proud, no?!
Finished pie!! It was AMAZING.
(yes, extra big pic, I was proud of the pie)
And I wanted to test my new spoons mould from Lakelandā¦ with chocolate orangeā¦
Never miss an opportunity to pose like an idiot, meā¦
And just in case youāre interested, this is what four chocolate spoons look like when Iāve accidentally eaten the one I was posing with. (Iām actually quite excited about the concept of doing these in marbled chocolate to go with dessert for dinner partiesā¦) The chocolate orange stays softer once itās been melted and mixed, so they were very dangerously moreish pleasant when set.
It was gloriously relaxing and a lovely way to mark the end of my London adventures and start my new lifeā¦ and I finished it by meeting Anna in Loughborough for dinner, and Dad unexpectedly joined us for a drink too, to break his journey.
All round lovely š
EDIT 23/11/20 – I’m getting fairly regular requests for the manual for this machine – I’m so sorry, I gave it to a friend when I moved house in 2015 so don’t have the machine or the manual any more š
Quite some time ago, I broke the little portable sewing machine my Gran gave me. The tension has gone, and when I took it in to be fixed they told me, gently but firmly, that it would be significantly cheaper to buy a new one.
So I have existed without one till now ā not critical as I plan a lot of sewing and rarely get round to actually doing it, and have been able to beg, steal or borrow machines to use when Iāve needed to make things like the parrot costume.
However, lovely Kim at work gave me one quite a while ago, and only its weight and bulk stopped me from bringing it home till now. One very long day, a sturdy suitcase and a few pulled muscles later, and here she is, installed in my studioā¦ isnāt she gorgeous?
Joining my Singer and my Jones (meep, that means I now officially have a collection of vintage sewing machines), but superior in that she has an ELECTRIC PEDALā¦ sheās very heavy, but threaded up and whizzed through the test piece very smoothly. I have bobbins that fit her, so will get some new needles tomorrow and weāre off!
Hereās to a long and happy relationship!
xx
PS Pretty sure Kimmy doesnāt read my blog ā but if you do, a million thank yous, Iām in love!
Any of you who are regular readers, or who follow me on Twitter or Facebook, will know I rarely have a day to myself without commitments, travel and madness. Yet today was exactly that. And it was heavenly.
I spent the morning researching properties for the new incarnation of Project Pin Up ā having discovered that this one, which I popped out to see and photograph briefly on Thursday evening, has been sold and had planning permission granted to turn it into houses. Clearly I donāt have the resources to buy something like this, but a lease may be possible with a proper business plan and some angel or VC investment. Itās a pipe dream, but itās making me happy.
I had an impromptu brunch with Janine to plan her upcoming 30th birthday party, followed by taking shelter in the garden centre next door when the heavens opened (convenient, no?!) As a result I came home with these, which donāt count as 100 days lapses, because Poppy is desperate for an air freshener, and you can never have too many notelets š (please excuse shocking photo ā the thing in the front is a pack of Yankee Candle car air fresheners, in Macintosh, my favourite crisp apple scent).
Came home and had a cup of Ceylon tea (I am rapidly growing very fond of it, especially taken from a teapot, with cake)
Spent the afternoon working on a couple of PDFs for PPUās soon-to-be-launched new website and download centre, and popped to town to look at the empty, derelict and up-for-sale old Odeon. Itās 1930s Art Deco, beautiful building and so sad that itās been empty and unloved for so long. It also has a Ā£1.5m price tag, and is too big and the wrong shape for what Iād like to do with it. But worth looking at from the outside anyway. I hope someone converts it soonā¦ itās going to crumble otherwise.
May have accidentally topped up my fancy dress box in Accessorizeās ridiculous sale ā each of these was Ā£1.50ā¦
And picked up the little bird earrings for me, and the ice skate for a dear friend of mine who I donāt see enough and who Iām almost certain doesnāt read my blog!
And now? Itās only half past seven, so I shall make dinner, work some more on the websites Iām currently building, and perhaps later curl up with a book and another cup of tea. Tomorrow I have the day to myself until 4pm, when Iām off to help Mum & Dad with some computer bits in the new flat and have dinner with them there š
I hope youāve all had equally gorgeous Saturdays ā Iām resolving to have more like today!
A highlight of my weekend was watching the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony ā I didnāt intend to stay awake for all of it, but it was so spellbinding I didā¦ and I was, am, so proud to be British. Much more than usual ā Danny Boyle triumphed! The description of it as a ālove letter to his homelandā struck quite a chord ā it was breathtakingly beautiful. And all the engineers I know got ridiculously excited about the cauldron.
I noticed the reflection of the TV in my āHOMEā embroidery ā and thought it was slightly more interesting than just photographing my TV screen. So here are a few shots from the ceremony.
It transpired that two people I know, an old friend and the daughter of a friend, were part of the ceremony ā while watching and tweeting I discovered people I follow were involved. It was fabulous. Letās hope we now get some medals to go with the breathtaking ceremonial pomp š
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 Iām not writing, photographing or daydreaming, you can find me dancing burlesque, riding my bicycle Bluebell, growing herbs and collecting typewriters.