the greatest shop in the world

so as you know a few weeks ago i was in new york, and just after looking down on the busy streets from the empire state building, we were just wandering about, not really with any aim or destination in mind, and bang, i walk past heaven... M & J trimming, a shop bursting from floor to ceiling with literally everything a craftster like myself who more often than not uses trimmings in my work could need or want.. this first picture i got from their blog and it shows just how exciting this place is,their website has even better pictures.as you can see the floor to ceiling shelves were packed with every kind of trim you can imagine..and actually it was all a bit overwhelming and took me a few wanders around just to soak it all in...and the best thing was the prices really were not that expensive, not compared to some of the places here in london, which acually dont even come close to this place...for choice or quality.there was walls full of buttons, every kind of chain you might ever need, fringes for every occasion,feathers,patches,and iron on embellishments galore..and you might be surprised to know that i didn't really buy that much, limited funds are a bugger sometimes, but had i known i was going to find this place i would have robbed a bank just to fund the spending spree i could have had... but i did get some lovely ribbon, a brilliant tape measure one, and some fab little fringe, and 2 amazing bag handles that I'm sure to have fun using... along with some studs my haul came to less than 35 dollars.. bargain...
its honestly well worth a trip to new york just to visit this shop, but be warned, it might leave you breathless.. and out of money...and if you really want to have a closer look and hear some history, then watch this video.. it makes me want to go back as soon as i can... another reason to move to new york...

its just too sad

so i wont say much, because love him or hate him, he was a special unique never to be repeated phenomenon, and in my own little blog tribute i show you a video of a concert that i was at, somewhere in this crowd was Little 16 yr old me, i remember it clearly, traveling for hours on a bus to the big city of London, i remember being squashed in the crowd waiting for hours until he just appeared from what seemed like mid air.. it was magical..and I'm privileged to have been witness to him and I'm just so very sad that it ended this way for him. its just too sad.. i hope where ever he is hes dancing and singing and laughing.

a massive tiny adventure

so I'm back from new york, where we had a mad dash around fun city for literally 36 hours. from the moment we landed till the minute we departed it was none stop... the sole intention of the trip was to see the play Blithe spirit, and we wanted to see it just because Angela lansbury is in it, and she is a legend, and she has been part of my life because of murder she wrote, that i have watched forever.but along the way we of course just soaked in life in the one city in the world i really would like to live... its been close to happening twice , so 3rd time lucky one day maybe... i already live in a massive busy hectic place, but all this just drives me mental in London, but the speed and enormity of new york just excited me rather than annoyed me, maybe its the thrill of the unknown.so we went up the empire state building, like all good tourists,and i took far too many pictures of the sprawling city below us.we wandered into central park, got dazzled by times square, shopped just a little, and got very disappointed in urban outfitters, something i was so looking forward too, basically the rugs i liked were cheap and a bit nasty, and the shop itself was just a messy big dump of unorganised tat... it was sale time so ill give them the benefit of the doubt.we ate lots of yummy food, and found by accident the best trimmings shop i have ever seen, more about that in another post. and basically we just had a lovely fun time, and yeah the play was excellent and miss lansbury was brilliant, and we met her at the stage door as she signed some autographs, after all that was the reason for this massive tiny adventure.and it was an adventure i would happily repeat time and time again.. ill do a few posts about what i bought and about the trimmings shop soon...

my very talented friend

so this week i ventured to parts of London that only the brave would visit, the not so glamorous area of elephant and castle, yes its really called that, because of a shopping center there.. and my reason for going was to see my lovely friend shevone,s graduation collection from the book arts course at London college of communication,shevones work is based on a series of folding books,where each page is printed in strips of colors that each spell out a word, but only if you can decipher the code by looking at the abc example at the back will the sentance reveal itself...hope that makes sense ? the colors on these photos don't do the reality justice, they were bright and beautiful and would look amazing displayed in a room upon a shelf.. just how shevone displayed them...
another part of her collection was a limited edition run of small books that had been letter pressed with answers to the question "what is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to you"... and this one is my favorite...because it was my answer... and my answer was slightly tongue in cheek, because even though someone did once say this to me many years ago, i know the person meant it in a nice way.. even if it is slightly offensive... i liked this one too...
hopefully shevone is planning an etsy shop soon where she will be selling some things, i will force her to open one... i will... i will...check out her blog, which is very new but it has some of her other amazing work..

just a peek

so these two pictures show small glimpses at some of my current works in progress... one of them i just cant stop fiddling with and the other is a development from a previous style i have used in the past... watch this space... I'm having fun...
click picture to make bigger...

i made more stuff

so yeah more pillows... sorry, but i just love making them, and I'm totally chuffed with these two, even if the ruffles one nearly broke my sewing machine, sometimes i push it to sew through a thickness too fat... but the struggle was worth it.and the chevron pillow is something i have wanted to try for ages, and its turned out really excellent, there are 28 individual rectangles of fabric pieced together to create the chevrons, and i then appliqued contrasting ribbons on top if it. this is a technique id like to turn into a gigantic quilt, they are both now in the shop....what should i make next ?... pillows maybe ?

im shopping before i get there

so in just over a weeks time we are having a super quick flying visit to New York New York, so full of shops they named it twice... we literally will be there less than 36 hours, we are going purely to see a play, sounds glamorous eh ?..I'm not sure how fancy i will be feeling when i fall asleep during it due to exhaustion... the play is Blithe spirit, and we are going all that way just to see Angela Lansbury in it.. i have not got a clue what its about, but i know I'm mega excited to see her, as i have been a murder she wrote fan forever...

and on the one full day we have there I'm planning on going straight to urban outfitters just for a browse, as i have said on here before its a million times better than the UK versions.. there is just far more choice, and having just been on the website I'm thinking i need these pillows in my life... i doubt i will get them though as they are not that cheap, but they are brilliant... and i really love this rug, and i possibly will get this if they have it because its in the sale and its just very me, BUT, i need to see it in person first because i know its a printed image, and i want to see how it will hold up to a life of dog and cat, feet and general household wear, and if it just looks flimsy and rubbish, then of course it wont be coming home with me... I'm not sure what else we will be doing, but i know it will be fun, we are hopefully going to a restaurant called carmines,nr times square , we went there a while back and had the biggest portion of meatballs we have ever seen.. so we want it again..and when i say big.. i mean gigantic... hurrah for New york and its massive portions...

eggs anyone..

just listed this in the shop and i think its quite lovely, and i just wanted to share...

he says NO

so its my birthday soon-ish, and i know what i want...but my David says NO.. the thing is i want a duvet cover from Argos, its quite cheap and i just love the zig zag pattern and colors.. and i know it will possibly give me a bad head instead of making me sleepy, but i like it and that's a good enough reason.. i don't need another duvet cover...but i want it...david says a duvet cover is not a birthday gift ?... i secretly think he will buy me it, but if he doesn't... DIVORCE.
another thing i want is something everyone in blog land seems to own, and this makes me feel like a sheep for following the flock, but again, i like it..i want the yellow version and i know it will fit snugly into my home.. i know i can get versions of it from many places, and probably from my own country, but out of loyalty to the place i saw it first and one of my favorite blogs, i want it from sfgirlbybay
and again if he doesnt buy me this, which i actually doubt he will, then ill just bloody buy it myself. i love birthdays, i normally insist on a day trip to ikea, im easily pleased like that.

i have some new stuff

so i have got a few nice new things in my house this week, firstly i found this vase at the car boot, in a box full of grubby nasty things, i spotted the colors and the mosaic style and i knew with a bit of a wash it would scrub up nice...and it really did, and it fits beautifully in my house, the blues and soft yellows really merge together well. and i love the craft involved and how someone probably took time to cover an old bottle with the little tiles, and how they would have held it up at the end and smiled a happy smile... or maybe not ?..ill never know, but now i will love it.and the second thing i got was this amazing cushion, i certainly don't need any more cushions in my house but as soon as i saw the cross stitch alphabet on this..it was mine, and the best thing is i got it direct from a wholesaler so it was so very cheap, its a really nice linen and a good squashy size, and its mine forever and ever.. what have you bought recently ?..

more carpets

so remember this post from a few months ago when i talked about the carpets in Las Vegas, well this is part 2, after my recent adventure to Vegas a few weeks ago i took many more pictures in the places i never got to the first time...and they didn't disappoint.. look how amazing they are..i don't remember where these were from I'm afraid but i know i could have rolled around on them for a while, and i might have had they not been in the middle of gigantic hotel casinos...according to some guide books i read, the carpets are designed with such intense patterns to help hide the grime and daily wear and tear that they endure, spillages and stains all get lost amongst the swirls and shapes.one of the best hotels we went to was the Wynn, it was just so lovely and had easily my favorite carpet... that i think of all the ones i saw could most easily be used in normal everyday homes...especially my home ?maybe it was a good thing that the outside temperature was stupidly far too hot for comfort, because inside in the air conditioning is where i enjoyed the visual treats on offer the most,even if it was on the floor... wonder what ill see next time i go... ?

just listed

so i now have many hundreds of book pages that I'm slowly working through listing in stevensstuff, in fact i think ill never get through them all because every weekend i seem to find new books that i rip apart...last week at the car boot i actually sat down at a table, riped out the pages i wanted and left the rest of the book in a bin...is that wrong ?..i just couldn't carry any more...lets just say my arms were full already... and here are what i have just listed now... i love the flag one... should i keep it for myself ?...

im doodling

just a sneak at some work in progress that I'm doodling away at... just an idea I'm playing with... and if i must admit it then, I'm being a bit of a sheep and following some flocks i have seen... flocks being a style i like... and i want to have a go... so i am. watch this space...

it was just too hot

so i have been back from Vegas a few days now and I'm still cream crackered...if you know what i mean, and cant quite get back into the swing of things, and i generally just feel a bit tired, but we did have a good time. but it was soooooo bloody hot that it drained my energy, and made me want to do as little as possible, and meant that i chickened out of doing some of the things i previously said i wanted to do... the neon bone yard was given a miss as i was convinced i would faint.... as its all outdoors... and an adventure to find a Michael's craft store was traded in for an afternoon nap in the luxurious air conditioned hotel room... ill do a blog about the Caesars palace hotel room later because it was just very special...we visited many more hotels this time and whilst they do kind of merge into one after a while, the carpets still amazed me, the Wynn hotel was just incredible and very beautiful, whilst the Stratosphere hotel was just horrible and really grotty, the views from the top were good though.we ventured downtown to what we called CSI land, do you watch CSI Las Vegas ?...well we felt this area is where most people die in that programme because it just had an air of danger and felt a bit wrong... the Freemont street experience was very disappointing, but the big light show was fun...and some of the gift shops were highly amusing and as usual Vegas left me wanting more, but not the heat, i love how fake it all is and how around every corner something makes me smile, and i know we will go back many times.. we have already booked 1 night in December as part of another Californian adventure we are having... and now maybe ill get some more crafting done... but maybe ill sleep first... lots more pics here, if you want to see a sweaty me...

guess where ill be this weekend

so I'm off to Vegas, again, i was only there a few months ago but that was for just 1 night, as part of a Californian holiday we had, but this time we are going to Vegas for 4 nights and I'm very excited....and the best part is, we kinda won this holiday when we were there last time, my David bought an expensive autographed giclee of Cher,in the Cher shop. and unknown to him this meant his details were put into a hat along with anyone else who purchased this picture on that day, well the following day he got a call and was told because he was the only one who bought a picture, he had won 3 free nights in ceasers palace, and free concert tickets to see Cher, again... so that's why were going, we bought an extra night to make it 4, cashed in some air miles and off we go, and ceasers is just amazingly over the top and I'm very excited to be staying there...
and having more time means we get to explore every little outragous part. I'm excited to visit freemont street to see the gigantic light show, I'm going to the neon museum to see the old signs and letters, and I'm excited to venture out a little to find as many craft shops and outlet centers i can find... which Michael's and Joannes is the best ones to visit ?...help me... i want to go to the top of the stratosphere just to see the views, i want to eat in serendipity which has just opened and I'm going to shop in anthropologie, and last time i was there the fountain show in front of the bellagio hotel nearly made me cry, so I'm excited to see that again... ill post some of the gazillion pictures I'm sure to take next week when I'm back... i know I'm very lucky..or should i say my David is the lucky one and I'm tagging along hanging onto him... but its a fun ride..