I get all excited about Christmas. I start making plans around August. Oh, the snowball cocktails; the consensual glitterfication. I’ve been contemplating layering. How much merino is too much merino? Do patterns clash if there’s nobody there to see them? While I wait for everyone else to get interested, I went out today and found... Continue Reading →
Cheap Thrills and the Dangerous Miss Jean Brodie
Here it is again, the arse-end of winter. What's a girl to do but stay in and eat condensed milk straight from the tin with a spoon. I've also been buying lovely things, as is my wont. (And reading The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, so I can brush up on my Morningside accent and use words... Continue Reading →
Fleamarket Finds and Good Films
The rain and wind are caterwhauling around these parts at the moment, but the city has proved itself full of brightness and exciting things (as well as rain), from beautiful foreign films to the thrill of treasure-seeking at a Sunday fleamarket. Here's a look at the gems that I found at the Glue Factory fleamarket today... I got... Continue Reading →

Rainy Sunday (again!) so I caught up with some card-making. The inspiration for vintage-style greetings cards was a big pack of old wrapping paper that I picked up in a charity shop for free (does nobody else want chintzy relics?) In the pack were some fantastically kitsch paper patterns - fluffy white kittens, wearing top hats, sitting in champagne glasses, was a particular highlight. Some gorgeous painted floral paper too. I did another round of the charity shops and picked up a few old women's magazines (from 1939, 1966 and 1977) and bought a few old Jackie annuals on Ebay. Voila: I was ready to assemble all of this cultural flotsam into something new and shiny. I absolutely love the out-dated bizarreness that is dotted around these old magazines - in 1939 a chunky knit was a 'recipe for charm'. 1970's Jackie contained casual, friendly warnings not to fall in love with 'married men', accompanied by a picture of a man with shades and a moustache looking like, frankly, an ominous prospect (was this really aimed at teenagers?) In another 1970s magazine I found an alarmingly blithe 'Are You Poisoning Your Family?' nestled amongst the cooking pages. Hours of happy reading.
