I want to wake up in a city that doesn't sleep

It's finally happened! We booked our flights and hotel this weekend - Mitch and I will be seeing in the new year in....
NEW YORK CITY!

'Excited' does not even come close to how I feel. 

I've never explored outside of Europe so this holiday will be one of many firsts: first visit to America, first long(ish) flight, first time Mitch and I get to stay in a hotel, first time I won't be in London for new year!

In preparation for the trip we thought it'd be fun to watch some New York City based movies, so far I've got Woody Allen's Manhattan, The Fisher King, Die Hard with a Vengeance and Home Alone 2, if you guys have any suggestions I'd love to hear them! Incidentally, any New York based fiction suggestions would also be greatly appreciated :)

Other fun things that happened over the weekend:
Grimes @ Heaven was amazing - an awesome set list, a seriously impressive pole-dancer and gigantic balloons bouncing around the crowd - really wish I could've taken a pic of it but I was just enjoying myself to damn much!

Plenty of delicious cocktails were consumed on the Friday night at the fabulous Drink, Shop & Do in aid of my sister's birthday. I highly recommend 'The Sherbet One' or their 'Quarter Life Crisis'. I spent Friday morning finishing off my dress for the big day! And here it is! I'm v.pleased with how it turned out - and it survived the whole day including two hours of dancing!

Saturday was the wedding - an absolutely beautiful day. Pictures to come.
Sunday was supremely lazy and mostly consisted of eating (my mum makes the best scones) and looking through old family photographs. So all in all, one of the best weekends ever really :D

Tuesday's Tees - these 3 tees

Three awesome tees. Simple as that.

black cat tee dress from lazy oaf

(the back of this tee is equally as pleasing as the front)

acid bath print tee from rinsed out

small arms, big heart by gemma correll for UO

goodness GRIMES

My weekend is about to take off - I know, lucky old me, I could seriously get used to these four day weeks. I am particularly stoked for this weekend as not only am I going to a wedding on Saturday, but it's also my sister's birthday tomorrow - cocktails and dancing are on the menu - and as if it couldn't get any better...I'm off to see GRIMES aka awesome Canadian artist Claire Boucher, at Heaven tonight! Cool beats and super haunting vocals are her speciality :) She's had a couple of records out previously but I didn't sit up and take notice until she released 'Visions' earlier this year. What can I say: I love her snyth-y music and undecipherable lyrics! I've not been to see any live music (shame on me) for absolutely aaaages, and I've never been to Heaven so, tonight should be amazing on many levels. This is my favourite track from the recent album. And yes in the video she is holding a mace AND a snake. Cool.

note that down

I am a total sucker for notebooks. The prettier (and preferably more geometric) the cover, the more likely I am tempted to buy it. I also have the unfortunate tendency to buy them when I don't need them and as a result I rarely (if ever) actually fill all the pages. Whilst researching for a stationary based piece at work (such torture) I came across a lot of v.nice notebooks, here they are. I, of course, want them all.

geometric A5 notebooks - RibbonSquirrel

vintage map notebooks - Urban Outfitters

all year round journal penguins - Notbook Notbuk

time wasted - Le Animale

exercise books - Donna Wilson

block press A5 notebook - Paperchase

stuck on repeat - Ohh Deer

hejsan pattern notebook - Future & Found

And just some (there are plenty more) of my most current and well used notebooks.

Tuesday's Tees - boys, boys, boys

On a recent and long overdue visit to Oxford Street's Topshop I wandered up to the Topman section (as you do) to see what was new. What I found was an extremely colourful array of shirts (with some seriously awesome prints) and, to my excitement, hundreds of v.cool tees. Okay, perhaps not hundreds but they outnumbered the tees on offer for girls in Topshop by about 10 to one! So, this Tuesday is solely devoted to my favourite Topman tees for guys. Lucky things. Mind you, a tee is a tee, right? I could get one. Or two.

ice-cream and sewing and sports oh my!

I had an excellent weekend - I hope you did too - the perfect mix of going out, being sociable and relaxing in front of the tv. The highlights included: friday night drinks in the lovely bar at the BFI, spending pretty much the entire saturday sewing, pigging-out at the ice-cream festival AND drinks with good old friends from school days including this Saturday's bride-to-be!

Just to elaborate a little - on sunday Mitch and I ventured over to Granary Square in King's Cross for the Ice-Cream Festival. There were lots of v.different ice-cream stalls (duh!) mostly from farms in the south of england. We opted for (two scoops of) Shepherds ice-cream made from sheep's milk - it was delicious! There was also an opportunity to make your own ice-cream but the tent was so crowded we decided to try our hand(s) at milking a cow (thankfully not a real one). The farmer who was over-seeing the milking said that my 'technique' meant that I was actually squeezing the milk back up into the  udder rather than out of the teat, which would of course anger the cow (basically I was rubbish). Mitch however was, to my surprise, something of a pro - he said he'd never done it before but the farmer reckoned he was a 'secret milker'. I could not stop laughing.

Other sights we saw: a big ice-cream ice sculpture, the petting zoo (including the cutest baby goat EVER), a large-ish sandpit complete with deck-chairs and a sand-sculpter, an entertaining show - possibly aimed at kids - which explained some of the history of ice-cream. The festival was free to get in and a fun couple of hours - look out for it next year! 

Apart from a quick visit to John Lewis for a few sewing supplies, I spent the whole of Saturday surrounded by fabric and pins. For my friend's wedding on Saturday (sorry, I am mentioning this a lot but you would not believe how excited I am!) I have decided to make my own dress, or I should say, I'm aiming to. So far so good apart from the fact that I bought a zip which is way too small, a replacement zip will be purchased this evening so that I can finish the dress in time. The accompaniment to a day of cutting, pinning and stitching: the Paralympic Games. It's been absolutely amazing to watch - Ellie Simmonds winning the gold in the 400m freestyle (whilst also breaking the record) was definitely my highlight :)