Thursday 27 February 2014

Commissions

I've recently been lucky enough to be asked to make some super fun commission pieces for a couple of lovely ladies from Glasgow Roller Derby!

Five Star Sylk requested a fairly self-explanatory "Sylk" with 5 stars at the top, in her favourite football team's colours.



She also requested a secret surprise birthday present for Phoenix Fatale. I drew this flame-based design and showed it to Sylk (who loved it, phew!). I had both designs laser cut in mirror acrylic on a black background which has really helped the designs stand out.


What do you think? You can see a few more commissions I've done in the Custom Orders section of the website. If you've got any ideas you'd like to chat about then let me know!

Sunday 23 February 2014

100 Happy Day - 16 - 20

I'm struggling to narrow my happy times into one photo a day. That can only be good, right?


16 - Here's my unsuspecting boyfriend about to be Sneak Attacked by Chi the Attack Cat.


17 - We went to an amazing wedding in a castle near Edinburgh, it was so nice! Keith liked the suit of armour in the tophat.


18 - I'm always thrilled by new comics and Hellblazer is one of my favourites. They arrived just before I started nightshift; it was good to have something to read on the bus.


19 - I bought this beautiful Tara Starlet top in the sale. I love the yellow polka dots!


20 - This was a regram from @lorimacsmif on Instagram who won my competition to win this limited edition Heart Balloon Brooch in pink glitter and these Glitter Red Heart Stud Earrings. I'm so glad she liked them!

You can check out my Instagram here for more pictures (and more competitions) - hurrah!

Tuesday 18 February 2014

100 Happy Days - 11 -15

More happy days! A couple of these are repeats of my previous post about Valentine's Day, but I've put them in anyway, because yay.


11 - We decided that what we definitely didn't do enough of was bowling. So we went bowling. I ALMOST WON! Once. That never happens, I'm usually last so I was very excited. Slightly disappointed that we had to wear our own shoes and didn't get to wear bowling shoes. Next time I am going in high heels so bowling shoes are enforced.


12 - I spent Tuesday evening getting on with some work and hanging out with my favourite people. I am sitting next to the fire and stealing all the warms, so Chi the Cat is sitting on me.


13 - How cute is this little guy?! I ordered a box of these to go to my boyfriend's work for Valentines Day, but they arrived a bit early. He seemed quite pleased with them, and they were tasty! They are from Meow Meow Cookies and you can get a huge variety of designs.


14 - My awesome boyfriend made me breakfast in bed before work on Valentines Day - it was ace! It's poached eggs and bacon in a bagel. Yum! This is my favourite plate, it's from We Love Karou - swoon (I bought mine in the sale!).


15 - We went to a very lovely wedding on Saturday - this was my dessert! Lemon tart with crème fraîche ice cream and that fancy, jaggy stuff on top. Yep. Fancy jaggy stuff.

Monday 17 February 2014

Valentine's Day

How was everyone's Valentine's Day? We don't normally make a big thing of it, but my boyfriend put so much effort in this year that I wanted to share a few photos.


Despite us both working Keith managed to get up early enough to make me breakfast in bed. Bagels with bacon and poached eggs! I can't manage a poached egg ever, never mind at 7am. Hero.


I got these super cute cat cookie lollies delivered to his work as a surprise. He was mainly confused initially I think, but he seemed to like them. They're from Meow Meow Cookies and you can get LOADS of cute designs!


Keith go me these beautiful flowers which Chi has now claimed as her own. Not for cats. He also gave me some tickets to see Ben Folds which I am SO excited about. Again, not for cats.


Keith also made dinner (hurrah!); here's him being excited for prawn cocktail, '90's starters are awesome.


Perfect steak, carrots and potatoes...


...and tasty chocolate cake for dessert.


I gave him these slightly bizarre, but kind of cute marshmallows - they've got pictures of us printed on them! We haven't actually eaten any of them yet, but they look pretty cool. I got them from Boomf who unfortunately had a printing problem so they arrived a bit late.


No Chi, flowers are still NOT FOR CATS. Sorry wee pal.

What did everyone else do for Valentine's Day? Ours was quiet, but lovely! I don't really like going out, it's always far too busy.

Thursday 13 February 2014

100 Happy Days - 4 - 10

I'm really enjoying doing 100 Happy Days, it's really fun to look at my day and pick out the best bit - sometimes it's hard to pick just one!


4 - It was my uncle Andrew's birthday last week and my gran (pictured at the back looking slightly demonic due to an unfortunate candle/specs reflection issue) had made him a trifle and put lots of candles in it, which was fine, but then she'd also put lots of little fairies on it. Andy thought it was hilarious but she never explained, she was just all "you'll get fairies and you'll like it". Best. Cake. Ever.


5 - We've started measuring, mounting and framing all our prints for our new flat. We spent a whole evening sorting them out so they looked pretty and now my favourite pictures are all glamorous and ready to go up on our lovely new painted walls. Hurrah!


6 - I started my new job on this day, which happens to be at the same hospital my boyfriend works at, so after work we went for a celebratory burger at The Grosvenor Cafe on Ashton Lane. The burgers were great and I love the fairy lights over the cobbled street.


7 - I had an evening re-living my youth with some of my friends from the pub I used to work in while I was at university. I hardly ever see them so it was great to hang out and dance to Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake. Turns out we ARE too old for circle pits. Shame.


8 - I went to training day on Friday and afterwards I dropped by Forbidden Planet on the way home to buy some new comics. I picked up the special edition of The Killing Joke which has been re-coloured and looks great, and a couple of issues of Dead Boy Detectives which is a new series featuring a couple of minor-but-cool characters from the Sandman series.


9 - On Saturday we went to Meat Bar, a fairly new place in Glasgow where they serve....meat. It was my friend's birthday and we were all feeling slightly guilty as his girlfriend is vegetarian and it only has 2 veggie things (although this is not surprising for somewhere called "Meat Bar"). These are meat cocktails, which were pretty much the worst, apart from the tasty bacon on top. The food was good though!


10 - I've been pretty proud of myself this week because I made this tasty sandwich filling on Sunday night and it has lasted almost all week. Its just tuna, cucumber, red and yellow peppers, red onion and balsamic vinegar. Tasty AND good for you. If I can keep up this lunch thing I'll be super healthy. Probably.

Wednesday 12 February 2014

Roller Derby - The Best Sport Ever

I'm pretty lucky in that I've always loved exercise; don't get me wrong, I still cringe and hide inside (with wine) if it's raining outside and being a sweaty mess isn't the best I've ever looked, but I love the feeling I get after I've been doing something active.

I spent a couple of years trying to go to the gym, but it just wasn't any fun. I know it works for a lot of people, my boyfriend included (he has a spreadsheet with all his gym targets on it and he likes to draw fancy graphs of his progress) but I was making excuses not to go more often than I was going. Trying to get to a certain number of sit ups or running on a treadmill and staring at the clock is not my idea of a good time. And don't get me started on those cross-trainer things, I am just not coordinated enough for that. I'd go with my friend Tara, who would always look athletic and glamorous and I would always look bright red, lost and occasionally fall off a cross-trainer.

The best exercise is the kind that doesn't FEEL like exercise at the time. I played a couple of team sports at school, mainly netball and hockey, and despite being dire (especially at hockey; I was one of those "whoops, I've stood on the ball and scored an own-goal again" sort of people you didn't want on your team) I loved getting up hideously early on a Saturday morning to play. Not the hideously early part. You know what I mean.

So after the doomed Trial of Gym, I had a look around to see what other people did for fun, rather than for exercise. One of my friends from university was doing this thing called "Roller Derby" and I'd seen a few photos of her on Facebook looking TOTALLY BADASS on skates and I figured maybe I could try it. I looked into it, joined Glasgow Roller Derby and now I "exercise" up to 3 times a week and every time I look forward to it, love it...and usually examine my bruises when I get home. After playing for a year, I am yet to look bad ass on skates, but have gone from "help, I can't stand up" and wobbling my way around roller discos with small children...

Photo: Rollerstop © Michael McGurk 2013

...to playing for the GRD C Team, the excellently named Cannie Gingers and my home team the Tyrannosaurus Wrecks.

Photo: Hell Hath No Fury Bout © Dave McAleavy

Progress!

After a year of playing derby in old scabby t-shirts, my only pair of black leggings and walking to training in my (awesome) ThunderCats Converse, I figured I should probably get some new gear. The lovely people at Sports Shoes sent me some new things! It's pretty important to me to look at least passable whilst playing derby: at bouts there tends to be a (paying!) audience and there's always someone taking photographs. It's less important at practice, and I'm always going to be sweaty and red because derby is exhausting, but I still don't want to have see-through leggings or sweat running down my face!


I went for these Nike Bionic Cross Training Shoes which have a really thin sole making them really flexible; they're super comfortable and I like the reflective bits on the laces!


I usually go for black leggings when it comes to derby because of how ridiculously sweaty it is. You have to wear a lot of protective equipment and it can get VERY warm. I went for these Tight Fit Poly Running Pants  as they claim to be good for keeping you dry, in the hope they would reduce the Dreaded Knee Sweat. Sadly, I don't think it's physically possible to keep my knees dry whilst they're under gaskets and knee pads but they did dry off super quickly once I took them off. Hurrah!


Look, how gross is that?? I also got this Therma-Fit Headband to try and stop my helmet getting all sweaty. It did stop the sweat running down my face (lovely) however it's extremely warm and I had to take it off after about 20 mins of derby training. The headband is supposed to be for running outside and it's meant to keep your head warm, so it turns out it's actually excellent at what it does. Probably a poor choice for under a helmet for an indoor sport! Oops. It does make me look like Axl Rose though.

What does everyone else do for exercise? Is it important to you to look good while you're doing it, or does it not matter much? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Saturday 8 February 2014

Monday 3 February 2014

Holographic

When this trend first started I wasn't sure about it at all, but now it's crept up on me that really, I just want all the shiny things. Here are my favourite holographic things!

1. These Marianne T-bar Flats by Golden Ponies are vegan, handmade, inexpensive and LOVELY. They tick every box!


2. This Ophiucus Zodiac Glitter from Lime Crime is amazing, I'm gutted that it's sold out.


3. Supernova Post Earrings by Enchanted Looking Glass on Etsy - this shop has LOADS of holographic goodies!


4. I'm also pretty devastated that these Adidas ObyO x Jeremy Scott Hologram Wing Trainers are sold out. Booo!


5. If I had those shoes, I would wear them with these Dragon Skin Holographic Leggings from Alicia Zenobia and I would be BLINDING.


6. I'd obviously need some matching nails and this Layla Hologram in Ultra Violet from Ninja Polish (photo from More Nail Polish) would be perfect. If clashing horribly. Oh well.


7. I love the Pegasus Mini Necklace from Tatty Devine. So cute (and super shiny!).


Saturday 1 February 2014

100 Happy Days - Days 1 - 3


"Can you be happy for 100 days in a row?"

This sounds like a big ask, but I'm going to give it a go. I've registered here and I'll be posting my pictures on Instagram (username: fairy_cakes_) with the hashtag #100happydays.


1 - Here's my first one! I've started cleaning out my wardrobe and getting rid of some things that I never wear and things that don't fit me. This dress is really pretty, but it's too small and I totally failed to send it back in time for a refund, so Ive put it up on E-bay, tags still on. You can check them out here.


2 - I've been on holiday this week and I've been loving having time to just hang out with these guys. My boyfriend and I went out for brunch, we've been playing fetch with Chi the cat (she's pretty much a dog in a cat's body) - I'm pretty surprised I got them both to stay still for long enough to snap this photo!


3 - I went out for lunch with my derby friends, having not seen some of them for a long time. It was so nice to see them and catch up. And eat giant quantities of food and cake. So. Full.

I'm enjoying counting my blessings, I'll see how it goes trying to get to 100! Is anyone else doing this? Let me know so I can see what you're sharing!