I was recently sent this rather wonderful Flat Top Synthetic Kabuki make up brush by the lovely people at Sigma Beauty. 

"This exclusive flat top synthetic kabuki was designed to deliver a flawless makeup application. The Sigma Makeup F80 is a buffer brush that can be used to blend powder or liquid products. The short and dense bristles make it easy to buff your liquid foundation. The long handle adds comfort to your makeup application. The synthetic fibers are ideal to be used with liquid products and can be easily cleaned. Made of Synthetic Sigmax HD filament."

 

New to Wallpaper Rose x

I recently received the loveliest of parcels from one of my favourite people, Sophie of Crown and Glory. It was particularly wonderful, as I was having somewhat of a crap day and as shallow as it may seem, receiving something pretty doesn't half make a shite day seem somewhat better! She gave me these lovely Vintage Button Bobby Pins, which I am yet to wear, but I love the detailed drawings and my much loved clay ribbed jersey turban. I think I've only taken the turban off to go to work I enjoy wearing it so much. As you may have ascertained from reading my blog, I have a head of unnatural proportions, so to find something that fits and I can wear comfortably all day is a true rarity and really quite exciting. Sophie offers all her headwear in two sizes, with the third option of custom, so even those with the fattest of heads can wear her creations! The ribbed jersey is not only a lovely shade, but very soft and without sounding too much like an old lady it really does keep your ears warm... and pins them back, should you have inherited one sticky-out ear from your Great Grandpa...

I also began to think about how I might style my turban - it took all my self restraint not to ask Sophie to bring a polka dot turban in a Louise size when she last came to visit (it's high on my list of desired purchases). I thought I would also factor in the Bitching and Junk Food shorts I won (*still waiting for their arrival) as part of the Deer Brain's birthday competition. I don't ever wear shorts, not from the lack of wanting, I just don't have the legs, however I'm being somewhat preemptive having just purchased myself one of these bad boys and telling myself that I will start jogging again tomorrow.

Crown and Glory - Clay Ribbed Jersey Turban

EWM - Fisherman's Rib Jumper 

Bitching and Junkfood - Remade Levis Shorts

Wallpaper Rose - Jen Tee in Charcoal Marl

Wallpaper Rose - Perdi Key Pendant

Models Own - Nail Polish in Vintage Pink

It probably seems little strange but I've got a little obsessed with wanting to purchase a fisherman's knit sweater. There are quite a few floating around at the moment in various designs, but I quite want an oversized baggy one. I watched The Life Aquatic for the first time in a really long time last week and I'm now really fighting the desire to buy a navy one and sew on a Z.... I really do want to be part of Team Zissou. Anyway, I've found some in the sale at The Edinburgh Woollen Mill of all places (you probably think I'm 65 rather than 25 right now) and I'm debating which to purchase! Most the time I live in jeans, so I'm not sure if navy is the right move, I really like the burnt orange shade, but I prefer the longer shape of the other ones. Currently I'm leaning towards the bottle green - but then my Mum is still knitting me her own version of the UO green cardigan in the outfit above (yes it was meant to be a birthday present and yes my birthday was in January. It's just how we roll).... I don't know. Any thoughts? I've also realised that I didn't mention, when putting this outfit together that I was really inspired by Gem and her styling of the WR Jen Tee - layering the collar with a round neck jumper brings it into a whole new realm of wearability - especially while the weather is still chilly!

Trawling through the Motel website, I've also discovered the rather wonderful black pleated skirt. (Which since yesterday, seems to have disappeared from the site!) I don't know about anyone else, I've been looking for the perfect black pleated skirt for some time, but they always seem to be too short or too long, but this length looks ideal. Saying that, it's definitely the kind of item that needs to be tried on. It's also available in a rather lovely shade of wine, should you be feeling adventurous. 

I think with the Night's Sky range I would be tempted to keep a rather neutral pallet for the rest of the outfit, but inject some colour with a muted nail polish - I love these shade from Topshop. I've then teamed the outfit with WR's Remi necklace. Initially I had in mind sailors using the stars to navigate the seas, but thinking about it now, maybe the Gabriella telescope would have been more appropriate?

Have a good Tuesday (Wednesday) - I hope for your sake you didn't have to crawl around a shop window ledge painting it. I can't wait to get home and have a big bear hug from the boyface and some kind of chocolate. 

However tomorrow (today!) I get to see Sam, Sophie and bake! Could it be any better?

I thought I would also quickly show you the two new shades of Jen tee - Charcoal Marl and Deep Indigo - which have both actually sold out now. The photos are shamefully bad as the light was fading, but when I make the next batch I will put the effort in to photographing them a little more successfully. 

If you follow me on twitter, you'll know I've been having a nightmare of a time trying to source lace collars - I've thankfully managed to order a different style of collar (still peter pan, but the lace is different) from America - I just have to hope that they're nice when they arrive! xx

About two or perhaps three Friday's ago now (yes, that is how long I've been writing this post) I had the most wonderful surprise of walking into my living room to be greeted by two of my favourite people, Sophie and Sam! 

Somewhat ashamedly there was probably an amount of squealing and a few tears on my part - ever the embarrassment as I hadn't seen Sam since before Christmas and Sophie since Graduation back in September! I would like to add, both had lied to me a few days previously, when I tried to arrange to get them both to come and visit our new flat, they had hit me with a barrage of refusals because of time and money! It transpired it had been arranged as a surprise since we hadn't been able to do anything for my birthday back in January and my god what a surprise it was! 

They even had code names.

We literally had the best weekend! It mainly consisted of eating fine foods (above Wagamama's, below Belgo!) drinking copious amounts - alas I have no photographic evidence of the jager bombs and generally an all round good time! Sam had also knitted us the most amazing cushion (yes cushion!) and a bobble hat, which I promise to photograph soon and Sophie gave us the most lovely cake stand, which you can just about see in a photo further down, which I can't wait to photograph jewellery on! Though I can tell you the only thing prettier than he cake stand, is the cake stand covered in Millie's cookies. Which it was. And truth be told I think I probably ate 75% of them. 

Monday Monday - Valentine's Day Souffle

Charlie and I aren't especially 'Valentine's' people, we're both strongly of the mind set that we don't need someone to tell us when we should express our love for each other, especially with a god awful card and some cliche roses, so it's rare that we will do something of a valentine's nature. However Charlie did cook me dinner, which was utterly lovely. When we went to Paris at the end of last year we went to the most amazing Souffle restaurant (I say amazing, I hadn't ever had souffle before, so didn't have anything to compare it to, though I would say it's possibly the best meal I've ever had out!) and since then we've been vowing to learn how to cook souffles. Anyway, on the Monday after a long trek up and down Islington after work looking for ramekins, Charlie cooked us the finest of cheese souffles which we will undoubtably be cooking again!

NEW to Wallpaper Rose - everything has been a bit hectic (as per usual it seems) so I haven't had much of a chance to sit down and make some new pieces - which I'm absolutely desperate to do soon, but here are a couple of pieces I made when I managed to steal a couple of hours to myself!

Rainy Days -Last weekend it absolutely poured down all Saturday,so everything we had intended to do, failed somewhat. So instead the boy and I decided to embrace a 'home day', remaining in pajamas and baking! Below are some photos of the lovely carrot cake and savory muffins we made. Both are recipes from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook - a really good investment if you have a jonesing for carrot cake as it turned out really well.

In other news, I found out in the same wonderful weekend when my friends were down that I had won the DEERBRAINS first birthday giveaway! (They ran a separate competition for the guys) Which was absolutely insane - so a massive thank you to them! So far I've received these lovely mittens and necklace from Lazy oaf. I'm particularly excited by the Models Own nail polish and the Remade Levi Bitchy shorts, I can't wait for those to arrive in the post. I'll keep you updated as things arrive.

Lazy Oaf are actually having a sale at the moment and I am a little bit in love with this sweater but alas even with 25% off it's still well out of my price range, but do go and check them out!

And that brings me pretty much up to date! I hope everyone is having a rather lovely weekend- I think I'm about to be roped into some kind of DIY... wish me luck x