bonjameen : lost thumbs and cookery programming.

my significant other likes to cook...despite slicing off half his thumb chopping onions friday, he still had a hankering to make "sausage and mozzerella tortellini with a chilli tomato sauce"... he even made the pasta from scratch....he kneaded pasta with a very sore thumb...now that's dedication. i sat watching telly and sewing until 10pm (!) but it was worth the wait....YUM. i just hope this doesn't spark something similar to the "let's-make-fresh-ravioli-fest" of last year.


in other news : i have learnt chain stitch and am continuing to steal patterns off online etsy shops. I also have bought tickets to bestival, sparking many dreams of dying my hair blue for the "outer space" fancy dress theme. shall i? shan't i? hmmmmmm....

junko mizuno = lush cutie pies with big big eyes.

black embroidery on blue floral cotton......yes mate.

junko mizuno is a japanese writer/illustrator who creates super-cute and naive babygurls (often nekkid or topless....loves it)...she's re-worked cinderella and hansel and gretel and the little mermaid, often featuring lots of yakitori chicken, dead princes, lost underwear and first date sex. i like her stuff more than fafi coz i think it's sweeter...plus i like how she draws hair. x

(just ordered Manga in Stitches book off amazon...i am too too excited....)

crafty klutz's klever chums kombine...

it's not all about me up in here...i have friends, who, you know, do stuff too...let me introduce you to daffyd, a gifted photographer and his final degree work (based on fabulously camp + filthy reworkings of fairytales)....have you ever gone to the woods dressed as Gretel, then covered yourself in cream and strawberry sauce? do you know how quickly that stuff melts? have you ever had a wet wipe bath in front of a chap called Garry that you previously had not seen nude? nope? I HAVE.

helium balloons and wigs and everyone we knew wearing bright clothes and pretending to be shocked by a lil naked king...i'm the big blonde at the front with the white-as-white legs.

becca was a textile student and she made this lush scarf as part of her final year work...(i've never seen someone make so many pom poms...)..this picture was taken in our front room on the morning of my results day and if i can remember rightly, i nearly fainted. corsets and anticipation do not mix well....x

bup hearts bonjameen and makes him stuff as thus:

i really quite like the guy i happen to call my boo and this materialises in arty form, generally around seasonal holidays. this valentine's day, i wrote a big long list of things i love about him and made a ickle book about it....
some were considerably ruder than others...*wink wink. he was happy, i was happy, we were happy.

after *shock horror* buying him a birthday card and getting a slightly grumpy response, i now make all his cards from the never-ending supply of tacky art stuff i collect in my arty boxes.

our first christmas together saw me drawing a picture of us and making it into a card and wondering if he might think i was a bit mental...bonjameen still thinks im mental but it has little to do with the card. sexy-mental though.
tetris-inspired-geek-love. made in an evening to suprise my lover up this past weekend. he's going to put it on his desk at work, which i think means "this is cool" in bonjameen terms. i bet his work chums get well jealous and shit.

somebody loves you baba. x

itchy fingers

i currently work in a, how do you say, "not-very-creative-job" and i was beginning to find my brain going a bit stir crazy....having sat down and attempted to draw stuff, i was getting even more wound up because it wasn't really...culminatiing in anything....you know.."oh look, i have drawn a thing......". SO...inspired by my love for the Kitty (meow) and the abundance of thread i have left over from my faffing arty times, i got myself a chart, a needle and a cramp in my hand doing that what you see above. as my co-worker aptly put it "dude, what are you going to do when you are a granny?"

also in the same vein, please refer to my "dia de los muertos" skull...hand embroided and a bit freaky. loves it. i'm thinking that i should apply my new skills to a item of jazzy clothing but then i'll probably end up washer/tumble-drying it.....(coming soon: junko mizuno hell baby embroidered on ditzy floral....YESH!)

making friends in primark: ballet on a budget.

the waltz of the flowers.....i was told "no flowers". yup.

the gay gay soldiers...in this production, there was apparently a homosexual undertone to the prince and drosselmeyer's relationship...didn't tell the mums and dads THAT bit...

the land of snow...i was told "no see thru". decided to use UV lights....light tech flooded the stage with GREEN light. yup.
the prince and drosselmeyer in the best thing about the show...the big shiny flappy jackets...mmm.
clara in her primarni cardi...work it with yo nutcracker doll.

straight after graduation, i was hired from my degree show to design the costumes for The New English Contemporary Ballet's Nutcracker in Nottongham....initially pretty chuffed to be able to tell everyone i was a fully fledged designer, what followed was 5 months of under-paid hell. given no contact with the artistic director and not given the budget cheque until 4 weeks before the show, i spent 3 months in nottingham slaving away in a cellar bar just to pay my rent. i made dancers cry by trying to put them in silver leotards, had to force posh girls to backcomb their hair, had to answer to parents asking why their child's skirt was "too short" and made many many many trips to primark for vests, jeans and chance meetings with students buying knicker sets for up-coming ski society nites out.

when the curtain came down on the last show in december, i cried. a) because it was over and b) because i was so fucking proud of myself.