Friday 31 December 2010

Happy New Year!

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Tonight I'll be bringing in the New Year with a meal at Cafe 21 in Newcastle, followed by drinkies and a stay at Hotel Du Vin with my amazing boyfriend. Can't wait to see what 2011 brings! Have a lovely night everybody

Mistletoe and Wine.

I have had a festive filled couple of weeks and been working very hard, so haven't had any time to update my blog!

Have had 2 lovely weekends in Corbridge with my parents stocking up on Christmas goodies from The Corbridge Larder and of course RE: (where I pretty much bought all of the shop!) including beautiful wooden heart gift tags for presents, which I also used last year, and some lovely things for myself! Well it is Christmas.

Had some very good news this week as well - my boyfriend was meant to be working away for Christmas but his company let him finish early so he's now back and I have him for Christmas, New Year and my birthday in January! Ecstatic beyond belief - really wasn't looking forward to Christmas knowing he was away on a barge in the cold Baltic sea but now he can enjoy the festive season properly.

Work has been super busy - we have a big trade show next month which we're creating 4 physical trend features for so I've been sourcing props and trying to scrounge free expensive wallpaper from big companies! Not doing too badly at the minute but will still have lots of work to do on it after Christmas. It's going to be a fantastic show and I'll reveal more in January.

Hopefully, will have some more pictures up tomorrow of Christmas Eve festivities in the Barnes/Millican household :)

Merry Christmas everyone!

xxx

Christmas is a coming...

...and I have been very lazy with blogging this week! Work has been busy this week and have been completing lots of interesting projects - we seem to get busier before Christmas?!

This weekend, I'm off to RE: to buy christmas presents and decoration, and then me and 2 of my lovely friends are getting together to make lovely Christmassy food (Guinness Gingerbread!), drink mulled cider and watch the X Factor final. Perfect weekend, non?

Designer: Olympia Le-Tan

My obsession of the day is these amazing Book Bags from French designer, Olympia Le-Tan.

via Olympia Le Tan

via The Telegraph

The Lolita clutch is my absolute favourite; hope Father Christmas is reading my blog!

Inspiration: Write a Bike

How amazing are these bikes by Juri Zaech? Wonder if he'll make an Alice bike...

from krisatomic via poppytalk

Some nice things from the last week.

Beautiful Tynemouth last Saturday morning

Vintage posters at Tynemouth market

Lovely saturday night cider

My beautiful boy and his little brother Tom.

Deciding on future interiors trends at work.

Snowy Northumberland on the very long drive to work this morning

Stuck on the road.

Outside my house this evening. Winter wonderland!

Inspiration: This Girl.

This look from Drives Van Noten A/W '10 has been my clothing inspiration point for months. Simple, beautiful, feminine and wearable.

Caroline Brasch Nielsen (via style.com)

Instagram

Literally quite obsessed with my new iPhone 4 and downloaded the Instagram app today. I want to find more amazing photographic apps - loving Instagram and especially Hipstamatic.

Some things from today:

All time favourite Starbucks snowflake mug with Cranberry and Pomegranate tea.

J letter from RE

Stack of magazines I'm currently working through!

University of Oxford mug and my new tea obsession.

Dublin

Me and Joe went to Dublin for a few days this week. Couldn't take my SLR due to Ryanair's ridiculous baggage policy, so we just took Joe's compact camera nd iPhones to photograph the sights. Here are some from my iPhone and photos from Joe's camera to follow!

Obviously you can't go to Dublin without having a few drinks.....we ended up having alot. There are some fantastic Irish pubs and bars in Dublin - we especially loved Cafe en Seine, which is like an old French-style cafe bar, with amazing high ceilings and beautiful cocktails and cakes.

We went to the Guinness Storehouse (along with every other tourist in Dublin, but it really is a must!) and drank our amazing free pints of Guinness, along with making alot of Guinness purchases in the gift store - an amazing Guinness Christmas decoration, Guinness fudge and keyrings.

Thanks to Gisele Scanlon of The Goddess Guide who recommended Rustic Stone for a meal - an amazing Dylan McGrath restaurant with a clever concept - if you order a meal 'On The Stone' they bring a stone heated to 300C for you to cook your own meat, meaning service is quicker and the meat is exacting to your specification. LOVED it, and will definitely be going again....but next time we'll make the trip at a weekend, to take advantage of the food markets.

All Hallows Eve

Happy Halloween! Thoroughly enjoyed pumpkin carving at Joe's yesterday and the Halloween tea at Jackie's house last night. We had indoor fireworks too! Clocks go back tonight - i'm looking forward to November.

Inspiration: Ella Masters

Like Crafty Currant, i have also been in bed this week suffering from a cold - have the most horrendous sore throat and am losing my voice. Not great!

Been trawling through various blogs, e-magazines etc, and via Crafty Currant found this fantastic illustration blog by Ella Masters.

Ella has recently graduated in Fine Art and creates beautiful illustrations - I LOVE her handwritten logo, very representative of her work.

She has some great items for sale through her Folksy and Etsy shops, including customised notebooks covered in teacups, and handmade gift tags which I will definitely be purchasing for future christmas/birthday present wrapping.

Lather up.

Soap is making a come back. Obviously, it never went away, but it's not the shower/bath time item of choice. Personally, I have always used soap (a favourite being Wright's Coal Tar soap, which my granny always used to use), and now with the release of Chanel's No. 5 soap, soap is very much the must have item for a luxury bathing.

Top soap picks: