must have: unicorns, get on my feeeeeeeet!

I saw these amazing unicorn slippers the other day and immediately added them to my wishlist. As awesome as they are though, I don't think I'd be able to resist wearing them out in public - and it got me wondering what other fun unicorn shoes might be out there...

1// bloomin' awesome slippers 2// whimsical whinny heel 3// amazing Ponychops shoes

4// Irregular Choice ribbon shoes 5// toddler converses (booooo, no adult sizes!)

6// Punkie Junkie Mary Janes 7// LamaLand Toms 8// pink unicorn shoes 9// toddler Vans

Do you have any unicorn shoes?

Fancy any of these lovelies?

cheering up a sad hallway

The windows in my new flat face west, which is awesome in the evenings, as we can watch the sun set from our living room, but it also means that our hallway area is always pretty dark.

It's not the kind of dark that feels gloomy or scary, it just feels a bit sad. I'd like to cheer it up a bit, and have been looking for inspiration in all my favourite places...

♥ I would utterly love to have unicorns in the hallway

♥ there is nothing bad about Iris Apfel's hallway, seen on Architectural Digest

♥ ingenious hopscotch hall from More! Than Scrap

♥ this kids art centre could be adapted to be slightly more grown up, right?

♥ if only I had the patience to construct a lomo wall like in this photo by Will Cheyney

♥ how wonderful it would be to have maps in the hallway, as seen on Jax Does Design

♥ sensible and cool purple hallway makeover, seen on MadeByGirl

♥ this is officially the most amazing wallpaper ever, trust Anthropologie

How does your hallway look?

Do you think it's an important room to focus on?

Now be honest: do you think I could get away with the unicorns??

Movember update and moustache treats

It's halfway through Movember and I've worn a moustache every day, much to the amusement of the children with whom I work. I've now got a lovely selection of glittery moustaches - made of the same fabric as my new bows - in all kinds of pretty colours.

Wearing glittery moustaches is one thing, but it's not particularly challenging and doesn't require an awful amount of effort - I think I need to do something else moustache-inspired alongside it... perhaps something nyommy - like glittery chocolate moustache lollipops!? Yeah, that'd be good!

While I was looking for a moustache mould I found a unicorn chocolate mould! Yep, a unicorn.chocolate.mould. And you know that I'm the kind of girl who cannot resist a unicorn!

I'm sure you can imagine my first thought...

CADILLAC LOLLIPOPS!

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then I trust you have not seen the most wonderful Planet Unicorn!? It's pretty much one of my favourite cartoons ever!

I'll let you know how my moustached unicorn lollipops work out - I cannot wait to see them!

Have you seen Planet Unicorn before? How do you feel about moustached unicorns?

wraparound ring awesomeness

I just discovered these fun wraparound rings by Tonia Mo:

unicorn jewellery + awesome = yes please!

fox jewellery + awesome = also yes please!

Aren't they adorable?! Go on, go and get one from greenmot's Etsy shop.

100% organic free-range unicorn tears

It is Yoyo's birthday soon, she's going to be 2 years old! Crazy! And what better way of marking the occasion than by giving her this:

Isn't this the best thing you have e.v.e.r s.e.e.n? In case you can't tell from the picture (!) here is part of the the product description for your delectation:

"a beautiful gold chain necklace...replete with magical tears of unicorns....just for...your sweetest, raddest, awesomest....CAT!!!!

Typically, an item like this would go for $25,000 or $30,000...but, right now...we are selling these for only $22!!! This is a limited time offer and will be sold for $25,000 or $30,000 soon...so, don't delay!!"

It's true that Yoyo is the sweetest, raddest and awesomest cat that I know... but before I part with my $22 I need some more information please...

"...these are Unicorn Tears...and, they are precious...and, they are magical. Because of this...never leave your curious/devious cat alone with these! The power of unicorn tears is too powerful for humans....therefore, that is true for cats...many times over!!!"

Oh, I seeeeeeeee! That explains it. I'm sold.

"But what about meeeeee?" I hear you cry... don't worry, you can buy them for humans too, phew!

How impressed does this cat look?

found via

unicorn therapy

Since my little "episode" last weekend I have been trying all sorts of things to relax my body and mind, and generally calm myself down. I have had a pretty straightforward week at work, with just the odd bit of tension, but have had to cancel a few social engagements which always makes me feel a bit guilty.

As a sure fire way to relax my little body, I decided to make an appointment to see my holistic therapist. She is I.N.C.R.E.D.I.B.L.E. I started seeing her a while ago now, when my shoulders and neck were in lots of pain and I couldn't work out a way of making them stop by myself. It was pretty much my last resort as nothing I had tried was helping, and by that point I was spending most nights in a sobbing pool of pain.

I have to be honest: initially I was sceptical, and it was the word 'holistic' which put me off. My little head had, apparently, assigned hippie-ish connotations to the word, which made me suspicious and apprehensive, and I simply didn't trust it. I'm not sure quite where this came from, and after doing a bit of reading realised that holistic just means "as a whole": physically, mentally and emotionally. I probably should have worked that out for myself. The other major concern of mine was that I hate people touching me, especially on my back or neck. This has been an issue since I was very young and, if anything, has got worse as I have got older. The weird thing is that I love hugging people, even strangers, which involves quite intimate touching on the back, but I cannot stand any other back-touching. I get goosebumps just thinking about it. Fortunately, I had known Charlotte as a friend for a few years, so although she was now entering a new role in being my holistic therapist, I already had a lot of trust in her. Plus I figured it might help me get over it after all this time.

At the start of our first session we sat cross-legged on a duvet spread out on the floor of my studio (I love that my studio is big enough to fit an entire duvet spread out, and forget how lucky I am to have that sometimes) and discussed what I wanted from the session. At first it was a bit weird trying to describe what I wanted, and I felt as though I should be more formal. I didn't know how to approach this new relationship, patient to holistic therapist, and I didn't know what to expect or what I should say, so I nervously jabbered on about my shoulders hurting but not really understanding why, even though I did kind of understand why. The main objective of the session in my mind was just for my shoulders to stop hurting, I couldn't think of anything emotional that I felt needed healing, I just wanted the pain to stop... yeah, like anything is ever that simple!

In our sessions she uses aromatherapy oils (my favourite being geranium oil - which is apparently very balancing) and starts by
asking
instructing me to imagine various things (it changes every session): imagine being somewhere calm, relaxing and safe, imagine a journey to somewhere you feel safe, and sometimes just to imagine specific colours, or the entire rainbow spectrum one colour at a time. Sometimes in my "safe places" I am in a cave by the sea, or on top of a cliff overlooking the sea, and often in my "calm and relaxing" type imaginings I am riding a unicorn and galloping through pink candy-floss clouds. I had never realised how much of a girly girl I am before this... crazy subconscious.

Unicorn and rainbow by LaurajeanLaurajean

After lots of deep breathing, and visualising/attempts at visualising, she starts massaging my aching, knotted muscles. Occasionally it kind of hurts, but it feels like a necessary, almost satisfying pain and I know that it is helping so I just try to ease into it and breathe through it. Towards the end I have to stop myself from falling asleep - her voice is so soothing and my muscles are so relaxed, I just feel like a gloopy pile of jelly.

In our most recent session I was instructed to visualise the colour red: the deepest red I could imagine, and to let it surround me, envelop me and embrace me. Oddly, I'm not very good at the colour-imagining stuff. You would think being a visual artist that colours should come easily, but the only colours I am good at visualising are orange, yellow and blue. Even greens, my favourite colour in the world, are a huge struggle.

So, red: the first thing I thought of was a dragon's eye, then the dragon's eye became a beautiful sparkling ruby. After that I imagined a sea of red Skittles (oh what a silly mind I have) and finally, a volcano. Now, I suppose a lot could be read into that if you were choosing to psychoanalyse me, especially the volcano bit, but she doesn't psychoanalyse me - she spiritually analyses me. I was curious as to why she had chosen just the one colour, rather than the rainbow that we often do, and she explained that red was the colour that represents the core chakra and that it is the base colour. If I find it hard imagining the base colour, it means I am not able to open up to the others (which all have their own attributes), or emotionally sound.

To end the session we do stretches and evaluate. With my love of lists and OCD tendencies, I greatly enjoy the evaluation part. I am sometimes given tasks, which if I fail to accomplish makes me feel as though I am letting her down, so I always try really hard to complete them. Sometimes they are physical things like drinking more water, remembering to stretch every day, remembering good posture, to stop sleeping in the middle of the day (I do love naps) and sometimes they are more mental or emotional tasks, like writing in a journal, making mini tick lists every week so I don't get bombarded by too many things, drawing something every day, breathing deeply etc.

I genuinely never anticipated that I would get so much from these sessions, but they are one of the most positive things in my life: they help me better understand myself and my limitations, they help me by giving me an outlet when I need to get stuff of my chest, they act as a mini-escape from the stresses of everyday life, they help focus and they motivate me, plus they stop my physical pain. Charlotte is warm, accepting, knowledgeable, informative and non-judgemental. She is a fantastic listener, a fantastic massage therapist and a fantastic friend.

If you would like more information about Charlotte or her massage, her website is here. I highly recommend her if you are a blocked creative-type or just need to relax. This is in no way a sponsored post, I do genuinely see her every fortnight for massage therapy and she is amazing at what she does!

birthday party success - woo!

Wow - the party that I hosted for my best friend Kaz last night was AWESOME! We had snacks and cake and cookies and fizzy pop and bunting and animal shaped balloons and, best of all, PARTY GAMES! I constructed some tiny trophies (with Dymo labels and everything) as prizes for the winners of musical bumps, musical chairs and musical statues.

Instead of playing normal musical statues, we decided to make things a bit more interesting - for every round, a song was selected and a type of dance was called out: we had the Charleston, high school slow dance, the robot, hand jive, Thriller dance, jazz hands, tango, skanking, dirty R&B, headbanging - all sorts. And then we just started yelling out styles in which the contestants should dance: as though you are an angry teenager, as though you are a dinosaur, as though you are an angry teenage dinosaur, as though you are made of jelly.... etc. It was pretty immense! I don't think a game of musical statues has ever been quite as competitive as this one between my friends, I just wished I had filmed it for your amusement! My body still hurts from laughing so much! Claire was victorious! Woo!

We also had pin the horn on the unicorn, which I had spent all afternoon creating, and she was worth it! She was beautiful and the game caused much hilarity all round.

We also played pass the parcel (the best game known to man) and chocolate scramble which was just insane as no one actually knew how to play the game apart from me! They soon got the hang of it though, and it ended up, as all games in the evening had, in fits of giggles.

I had an utterly awesome time, and it wasn't even my birthday party. It was well worth all the effort to see the Birthday Girl enjoy herself so much!