Pretty Nostalgic

Have you heard about Pretty Nostalgic yet?

It's a lovely new independent magazine, published in the UK, with a love for all things vintage. According to their website....

"Petty Nostalgic is a bi-monthly home and lifestyle magazine that celebrates vintage, traditional and sustainable ways of living. We passionately support independent British producers and love seeking out unique, eclectic homes and meeting people who love life and live by their own rules. The magazine is packed with inspiration to help make your house a home, to fill your kitchen with homegrown and foraged food, to inspire you to reuse and upcycle and to make every day an adventure. It is a handbook for creative, curious and resourceful folk who yearn for a simple, stylish and sustainable lifestyle."

I love the motto on the cover of the first issue: Spend wisely, Waste less, Appreciate more.

I got sent a contributor copy as one of my photos is included in a lovely A-Z of haberdashery:

Those vintage threads belonged to my grandmother :)

It's lovely to see them in such a nice magazine alongside so many pretty photos and illustrations...

Pretty Nostalgic is available to buy online, or from these independent stockists.

Look what I've been working on...

... a snazzy new shop! Here's a screengrab of the "flower brooches" section:

This new shop will be replacing the shop pages which are currently part of my website. They've served me well over the past couple of years, and it will suck to lose all the links to the old pages, but it's definitely time to upgrade to something a bit fancier.

I love the layout of the new shop, & how each product will have its own product page for the first time... and hopefully it'll be a lot more user-friendly (for me, and for you!) and a lot less buggy than my website has been over the past few months!

It's still very much a work in progress, but I'm hoping to devote lots of hours to it this week to get it finished asap. I'll be sure to blog about it when it's done so you can all go take a look :)

Thirty Years

I'm turning 30 next month (eek!) so I thought it'd be fun to do a bit of looking back through old photo albums. I picked out one photo from each of the last 30 years to make a mosaic & I thought you guys might like to see the pics :)

1. Pulling chunks of hair from a very long-suffering kitty! 2. Wearing some very snazzy red dungarees. 3. All dressed up ready to go to a wedding. 4. Visiting an awesome local model village. 5. With "princess" make-up at a local fair. 6. Ready for my first day of school (very exciting).

7. On the swings in our garden. 8. First day of junior school. 9. Dressed in rainbow colours for a friend's parrot-themed party. 10. Opening presents on my birthday. 11. Trying horse riding on a family holiday. 12. Another birthday, wearing a very Blossom-style hat.

13. Pulling a serious Judo face. 14. Dressed in 90s double denim & Doc Martens. 15. Explaining an apparently quite complicated handmade birthday card to my sister. 16. Eating an apple (om nom nom). 17. At a picnic with friends in London. 18. On holiday in Devon.

19. Revising for my History A-Level. 20. Making trifle with a friend at University (I remember this being hilarious but I have no idea why). 21. Dinner in my Uni flat. 22. With short hair at Uni.  23. Last year of University (I think this photo was taken at about 5 or 6 in the morning). 24. At my graduation.

25. At a wedding. 26. I don't have many pics from this year, but I eventually found this one (I have no idea why I am pulling a face like a duck!). 27. Wearing a necklace made for my shop. 28. With a DIY haircut. 29. Having tea with a friend. 30. At another wedding, wearing what is apparently my "wedding necklace".

Ah, how time flies!

A Bit of Baking

I haven't done any baking for MONTHS... but yesterday a friend posted on Facebook that she was spending the whole Bank Holiday baking tasty treats and, well, the urge to do my own bit of baking was just too hard to resist.

Nothing fancy - just some simple chocolate biscuits...

... but oh my goodness they were tasty. And so quick and easy and enjoyable to bake that it makes me wonder, why do I not do this every week??