Exploring Tower Hamlets (& Hackney)

A couple of months ago I moved houses to a slightly more central borough of London (Tower Hamlets). I already love the area, it's so much different from my last house and has cut my daily commute down by over an hour! There are so many parks near by, including the gigantic Victoria Park, and lots of canals to walk around that lead to Hackney and Stratford, I can't wait

Here's a few of my pictures I took a couple of weeks ago on a sunny day exploring:

1 & 2. Enjoying the sunshine in Victoria Park and pedaloing on their big pond.

3. A really cool pastel abandoned pub in Hackney.

4. An upside down artwork that reflected on the canal.

5. Me and my housemates found a canal boat cafe! We got to sit outside and drink while the boat rocked (and spilled our drinks, oops!)

6. I love this bright graffiti painted on some wooden doors, I found it somewhere on the canal in between Victoria Park and Mile End.

A London Catch Up

I've been living in London over two months now. I'm lucky enough to have found a group of fun, crazy and totally lovable people to live with and I'm loving it here. My first term at uni has been both one of the most challenging and one of the most fun times of my life, I feel like I'm already learning and progressing so much.
London has always been one of my favorite places on earth, it still feels really surreal to be living here and I'm so grateful I get to study in this beautiful, energetic city.

I realize I still haven't shared much of my life in London with you, so here are a few photos from the past few weeks of my exploration of London and a few bits of my uni work (if you follow me on instagram you'll probably have seen these already).

Remake & Remodel - finally a catch up!

Hey guys, long time no speak! I'm sorry last week was a little empty on the blog. This term at uni is whizzing past and I feel like I haven't even shared any of it with you yet! I'm hoping to organize my time a little better this next couple of weeks so I can share some more work and London life with you.

This term I have two big projects, one named "Remake - Remodel". I'm not going to go into any crazy detail with it yet as I've been sat at a computer for 12 hours today! So here's some dodecahedron patterns that I made for the project. Hopefully I'll get to explain the project to you some more in some future posts, but for now I'm off home to sunny Preston! I can't wait to finally get some fat cat and crazy doggy cuddles! Can you believe I've been away from them almost 2 months now?

Piccadilly Boots - A design for Yull Footwear

A few months ago I entered a competition with Yull Footwear to design some British themed shoes. This was the first pair I designed, named Piccadilly, so I thought it was pretty apt to share these with you since I've only just moved to London. I wanted to capture the hustle and bustle of Piccadilly with the red buses. I also wanted to keep my bright and fun signature style, but to incorporate Yull's elegant, practical and classical style into the design too.

You can see more of my shoe designs here.

Etsy Love - London

Today is the day I move in to my new flat in London. I'm so excited and nervous! I've never lived this far from home so it's going to be tough being so far from my amazing friends, animals and family, but I know there are lots of new and exciting opportunities in London.

I decided it's probably apt to schedule a London themed Etsy treasury today. So here are my top London themed Etsy goodies:

1. Freulein Stephi / 2. My Tiny Tot Creative / 3. ihomegift / 4. Amordress / 5. Paper Tango / 6. youlovedesign / 7. plastique / 8. Jezebel Charms / 9. Seahorse Bend Press

Blogwatch - 08/09/13

I can't believe we're over a week into September already. Time is flying by! Here's some of my fav blog posts from my blogging buddies in September/August. As usual, if you have any blog posts you'd like to share with me, send me a link in the comments section :)

I'm not the only one moving to London soon, my fellow purple haired blogger Sarah from The Laughing Medusa is moving there too! She has a ton of great London & travel themed guest posts on her blog at the moment, including this fabulous Big Ben party hat tutorial by Juni from Hey Juni.

Since starting my Revolt program (I blogged about it here) I've been cutting out sugar. I'm missing it terribly and craving these delicious but healthy oatmeal pancakes by Chocolate Covered Katie.

Amy from ART of the HEART celebrates her 100th post with a beautiful pastel outfit post. Oh gosh, I'm having to use so mcuch self restraint not to buy the unicorn t-shirt.

My girl Wensdi from What Is Wensdi shares another of her beautiful illustrations. While you're there, check out Wensdi's new blog layout, I think it looks so rad.

Sarah from Bring More Yarn is getting me in the back-to-school spirit with her first day of school outfit. Sarah is so awesome at putting outfits together, somehow I don't think my back to school outfit will be this co-ordinated.

Rosa from Pink Milk and Cookies painted some adorable hand painted brooches. I love the pastel shades she's used.

Adrian from Adrian Loves Owls shares her fav vegan restaurants from where she lives. I was so surprised to see Loving Hut in the list, I had no idea they had restaurants worldwide. I'm looking forward to trying out the Loving hut in Camden when I move to London!

Back to School bags with Case Luggage

It's only 2 weeks until I move to London now, and 3 weeks until I start my uni course. For an art or design uni course like mine, where I will be carrying lots of material, stationary and a laptop around, a good bag is a very important purchase.

I've been searching the Case Luggage website for some practical and fun bags to take to uni with me, here are some of my favs.

Now of course, before I show you my practical finds, I have to show you my absolutely favorite find. I think it's very apt for this post, as it is London themed:

This childrens London Bus case is by Cuties comes with stickers so you can personalise it yourself. As you can probably tell, I've never really grown out of personalising things, so I think this is perfect.

My actual practical finds look just as awesome and fun! They're by Kipling. I chose the Dallin Wheeled School Bag (right) and the Poona School bag (right). I first noticed these bags for their awesome prints, but it turns out they're really well designed too. The Dallin comes in 3 different prints, has wheels and built in laptop protection. It can also be carried on your back, so it's multi functional and very practical. The Poona is a little smaller and comes in a fun monkey print.

 I also really liked this Umbrella with a matching zip pouch by Knirps and this Converse Backpack.

What are your "back to school" essentials?

Skirt Suits Love!!!

At the moment I just LOVE the look of skirt suits, that well groomed Chanel style look. And good news, they seem to be appearing on the catwalks for this Autumn/Winter/Spring.

Chanel: Spring Rtw   Alice+Olivia: Fall Rtw   Oscar De La Renta: Fall Rtw

Check out some of our lovely Pony Chops Vintage skirt suits we have on offer!

Parisian Pink Skirt Suit: £19     Leopard Print Collared Skirt Suit: £25 

And in even better news, it looks like we will see an abundance of teddy/creature inspired fluffy winter hats again!! Check out this gorgeous outfit from the Anna Sui Fall 2011 Catwalk Show:

I'm ever so tempted to get this faux fur fox hat from River Island: