Etsy Love - You Go Glen Coco!

Mean girls is one of those films I can just watch over and over. It has some of my favourite film quotes ever! I found some pretty awesome Mean Girls stuff on Etsy. More Etsy Love here.

What's your fav Mean Girls quote?

1. Trending Apparel / 2. Proxy Prints / 3. Dentz Design / 4. Steph X Stitch / 5. Winter is Coming / 6. Paperchat / 

7. Your Flask / 8. The Carbon Crusader / 9. HERONOID

Laura Manfre Shoe Design Collaboration

A few months ago, when I was preparing for my uni interview at LCF I started setting myself more design tasks. Other than painting my own shoes I hadn't really designed since studying Fashion years ago.

I've been a fan of Laura Manfre's work for a long time. When Laura said I could use her illustrations on some of my designs I was delighted, I think her kitsch watercolours adapt wonderfully to fashion design.

Here's the outcome of our collaboration, all watercolour illustrations are by her, and the shoe designs are by me. I'm especially happy with the brown cowboy boots. I'd love to expand on that design and do some brogue and satchel designs in that style one day. I think they look like they'd be right at home on the irregular choice website ;)

Would you like a Doe-nut my Deere?

I've been painting these shoes for a while now, and they're finally finished and on their way to sunny LA! See if you can guess who they're for (there's a hint in the post title!). I don't think I'll ever get bored of painting donuts on shoes, they're just too darn delicious.

You can find work in progress shots of these shoes here and here. You can get your own pair of customised stilettos in my Etsy Shop or email me at ponychopsshop @ gmail.com

For more pictures of the Donut Mocassins pictured above, go here.

Betty Turbo Giveaway!

Betty Turbo (aka Agnes Barton) is the creator of fun and kitschy prints, original artwork, greetings cards and lots more. If you like sweet stuff, crazy fonts and the starship enterprise as a cookie sandwich, then this shop is for you.

Agnes has very kindly offered to giveaway a print and a greetings card to the lucky winner of this giveaway! Check out these awesome works from her shop and enter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Etsy Shop Crush - Go Go Berlinette

I don't offer feature vintage shops in my Etsy Shop Crushes, It usually has to be a pretty special vintage decor shop to catch my eye.

Go Go Berlinette certainly is special. Not only do they present their finds in a clean, appealing way, but they also have a great variety of adorable and quirky vintage decor. Most of Go Go Berlinette's finds are West German mid century.

[Etsy] [Twitter] [Facebook] [Blog]

Wednesday Art Feature: Laura Manfre

I first came accross Laura's work when she did a portrait of Kailey from mermaidens. I was so impressed with the portrait that I decided to check out her other work. I was not disappointed!

Laura's work is the perfect combination of cute and kitsch. Her work is skillfully painted in watercolours which I think adds a new and unique take on the previously shiney and in your face kitsch style.

I think the kitsch pattern and the adorable unicorns are my favs!

[Portfolio] [Blog] [Flickr] [Twitter]

Cheeseburger Brogues

I don't particularly like the way I laid out my shoe posts in my earlier blogging days. So I've decided it's time to revisit my old shoe designs and present them in a better way.

This is one of the first pairs of shoes I painted. I think my linework is much better these days, but I still really love this design.

Would you like your own pair of customised shoes? Email me at ponychopsshop@gmail.com

White Chocolate and Raspberry Honey Cake

I haven't baked for a couple of weeks, so yesterday I decided to try and make a white chocolate and raspberry cake for my drunken girly DVD night.

I was really pleased with how this came out. It's really sweet so i'd recommend using a fairly sour raspberry jam to even out the sweetness. I think it would even work really well with cream cheese frosting as a filling instead of the buttercream. If you want to make this with all sugar instead of honey use 325g sugar.

This is for a large cake. Half the ingredients for a smaller one.

Ingredients for the main cake:

• 6 eggs
• 325g self raising flour
• 325g unsalted butter
• 200g cane sugar
• 100g honey
• 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
• 75g white chocolate, finely grated
• Raspberries to decorate

Ingredients for the frosting and fillings:

• Raspberry jam (preferably a sourish jam)
• 200g white chocolate
• 225g unsalted butter
• 300g icing sugar
• 100ml double cream

Method:

1. Set the oven to 180C. Grease 3 round 8 inch cake tins.
2. Sift the baking powder and self raising flour into a large mixing bowl. Add the eggs, sugar, white chocolate and honey and mix thoroughly. Heat the butter until it's soft enough to mix in with the other ingredients and mix it in.
3. Pour the mixture into 3 greased, 8inch round cake tins.
4. Bake for 20-25 mins.
5. Once cooled, trim off the top of each cake slice to make sure it's flat.
6. Sandwich a thick layer of buttercream and a generous layer of raspberry jam in between each slice and cover all over in white chocolate frosting. Decorate the top with raspberries.

For the white chocolate frosting (for the outside of the cake): Melt 200g of white chocolate with 85g butter, sift in 120g icing sugar and add 90ml double cream. Mix until even.

For the Buttercream: Thoroughly mix 140g softened butter with 10ml double cream and 280g sifted icing sugar.

Shoes Glorious Shoes

More hand painted shoes for sale on the etsy shop 

unBEARably cute.

Here are my top 9 brown bear related items on etsy:

1. Moon A3 Print from Sandra Dieckmann

2. Hand Painted Ballet Flats from Pony Chops

3. Bear Coasters from Dandyrions

4. Bear'd Tee from Accordion Apparel

5. Leather Bear Mask from Sundries and Plunder

6. Golden Teddy Ring from The Golden Plague

7. Custom Order Mini Bear from White Forest

8. Brown Bear Scarf from Bobbin 4 Apples

9. Walnut Bear Necklace from Ugly Bunny

Crazy about Poodles!!

There is so much fantastic dog inspired clothing on the high street lately!! I almost did a little wee when I saw a POODLE print jumper in Peacocks. I absolutely adore poodles so I figured i'd trawl through etsy for the best poodle inspired fashion, art, homewares and vintage. Here's my top 9 poodle picks:

1. Poodle Party Top from Kirsty Mckenzie

2. Poodle Photography Print from Coy Photo

3. Vintage Poodle Planter from Scentsiblescents

4. Vintage Girls Tee from Fresh and Swanky

5. Poodle Knife Rests from Antiquitaire

6. Poodle Mask Print from Matty8080

7. Vintage Poodle Note Holder from Zenzi B Studios

8. Vintage Poodle and Puppy Ornaments from Bex Vintage

9. French Poodle Print from Tascha

My fav dog inspired picks from the high street are:

£44.00 Topshop            £315 Asos             £18.00 Peacocks

£110 Topshop            £40 River Island