washi washi weekend wanderings

(images from of one, two, three)

I recently bought some really adorable washi tape from Paperchase - I passed by it in House of Fraser and I really just couldn't ignore it! This one has little woodland animals on and leaves and cute things, right up my street. It wasn't expensive like washi tape usually is - only £3.50 for 4 rolls, which I thought was a good deal.. it wasn't until I got home that I realised that I didn't have a use for it.. A quick google later and I found a wealth of ideas on Pinterest. Here are a few of my most favourite/least cheesy ones.

Washi Tape Corkboard

Ikea Decorated Frames

Washi Tape Light Favours

Coloured Keyboard

Colourful Notebooks & Pencils

Washi Tape Tumbling Blocks

Monogram Letter Art

Colourful Pillar Candles

Washi Tape iPhone Case

Another Washi Tape iPhone Case

Washi Workspace

Coloured Keyboard on Black Keys

Bright Storage Jars

winter warmer

I don't know about anyone else, but now the weather is that bit cooler, I want winter food! Like soup and pies and roasts and crumbles and all that good stuff. My mum makes the most amazing apple or blackberry pies - this was no exception. It was a bit of a cheated affair, shop bought pastry lining the dish, filled with washed, clean blackberries and sprinkled with sugar. Cover with pastry and sprinkle with sugar, bake until golden brown. So easy, so so so good! Served with a big helping of cream, custard, or vanilla ice-cream and it makes me long for Christmas, somehow? Haha.

bills bills bills

Alternate post title; jobs, jobs, jobs.. The two go both in hand, though, don't they? My point is, when did applying for jobs become so lengthy?! I'm more than happy to fill out application forms, and I get a weird satisfaction out of my CV looking just so, but some of these forms are getting ridiculous. 

This gets me thinking that I am ~out of touch~ with society, because the last time I applied for jobs this thoroughly was when I was sixteen and got my first part-time job at Waitrose (which I'm still in now, a long and painful seven years later). I distinctly remember going around my local shopping centre and my town, picking up a handful of paper forms and diligently filling out my name and address and the odd GCSE and sticking them in the post. But gone are the days of paper application forms, and everything is digital. Still, I remember the excitement of thinking I was so grown up for looking for a job.. now I feel like a child because I'm still in my Saturday job whilst everyone rushes past me on their own career ladder. 

Anyway, fingers crossed that one or two of them get back to me, eh? Cause I've applied for two different dream jobs that I'm just perfect for (arrogant!) and I'll cry myself to death if I don't get an interview (melodramatic).

Is anyone else stuck in this post-graduation, pre-life limbo? Does it ever end? Will you hold my hand and sit with me through these long, painful evening and weekend shifts?!

glowing blue

This is such a prized possession of mine, I just had to show you this old knit. I bought this particular yarn from a knitting fair my mum took me to early this year, and I was in love. The hall was full of beautiful yarn, the kind that is super hard to find around here. There wasn't a ball of pastel yellow or fluroescent green acrylic in sight, but hanging skeins of, what I called, 'glowing' wool. They are silk yarns that are dyed beautiful colours. After uhming and aahing for most of the day, I limited myself to just the one skein, and that was this beautiful sapphire blue from Fibres Exotica. It was quite expensive, so I just got the one skein.. which left me with a dilemma - what could I make from one ball?! 

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I wanted to knit a crochet lacy hat, and eventually made this beauty - which I'm absolutely in love with. It's not the warmest of hats, obviously, more designed for fashion than warmth!
The pattern was the Summer 'Combination' Hat on Ravelry, and it was my first proper foray into crochet - one that wasn't the easiest of tasks when we had to convert US crochet terms to English and vice versa.. my mum helped me a lot, haha. 

barbican dreams

These photos seem like such a long time ago now, but I can still remember how bitterly cold it was when me and my friend Tam visited the Barbican for the first time earlier this year. Would you believe we went in March and it was that cold?! I remember walking from St. Pauls with her, where we'd had lunch at Pizza Express, to the Barbican art gallery in the sleet and the bitter wind and both of us being freezing.
I found these photos whilst looking for something else and it reminded me how much I loved the place. I've got a real thing for brutalist architecture of the 60's, like the Hayward gallery on the Southbank, and I really loved the little glimpses of greenery with the concrete - it all reminds me very much of my favourite novels, where nature starts to take over the the cities... I'm sure there is something in Drowned World to do with the Barbican centre, but I can't remember. 

These little gardens out into the water are just perfect, and the palm trees with the circular windows and such are just completely my thing.. it's such a shame I'd need upwards for £500k to live there... One day though, eh?