Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow.....

As you can see I haven't been on for a while and that is because a lot has been happening.

Over the past couple of months I started to realise that actually, Fashion isn't what I want to do and that I wasn't enjoying the course I was on. I had originally had some doubts about the course before I started but put them down to nerves and just getting cold feet as such.....Turns out this wasn't the case and after several weekends of coming home and crying down the phone I have withdrawn from my course and am back to my wonderful home with my family!

It was sad to leave all my new friends behind and wish them all well in their future ventures but for now I have my own project to work on. I have decided that I am going to bake, decorate and create! I have had a passion for baking for some time now and want to take it a step further into trying to make a business out of it. First of all, I need to get a full time job to fund the courses I need to do and I will take it from there but I'm determined to succeed and will do anything to get there.

On a more festive note I am surrounded by snow to the point where I haven't really been venturing out of the house so I have been baking my heart out preparing all the goodies for my christmas hampers ready to be wrapped and handed out. This year they include beetroot chutney, banana and chocolate loaf, snowflake sugar cookies, chocolate fudge, coffee kisses and mulling syrup which should be your entire sugar intake for the months December through to February at least. Along with that I am going to have a bit of a revamp of my blog. Although it is not that old it seems a bit irrelevant now so instead I am going to turn it into my Cupcake Diary of how I am getting along with my quest to bake cakes! Expect to see pictures, recipes I love and lots of sprinkles and glitter.

Stacey
x

Work and Play

Well work from uni is picking up a bit and I feel like I haven't really had much time to relax or do something not related to my course.

I have frantically been writing notes from lectures and juggling bits of paper to try and work out what I have to do for next week but I'm determined not to become a slave to the amount of work I have. So this weekend I'm going to Edinburgh to see a friend and will stop off at Judy's Affordable Vintage Fair while I am there! It is at St Andrews and St Georges church on George Street and is guaranteed a must for any vintage fan with lots of sellers from around the UK attending.

For one of my courses (Contemporary and Contextual Studies) I also have to take a trip to Dean Gallery in Edinburgh on Monday to do work for my reflective journal on a Surrealist exhibition currently at the gallery called Another World. I get to spend the whole day sketching and creating some (hopefully) great pages inspired by the work I will see. Maybe trips like this will make it feel less like work and will get me away from little old Galashiels for the day!

Bye for now.

Home Sweet Home

I have now arrived in Galashiels and after a few days of unpacking and settling in I am having a great time getting to know everyone who is staying in my halls and on my course. This is the first internet connection I have found as the Wi-fi in the halls is not working so instead I will spend my time sitting in a quaint little coffee shop with a tea pot and scone.

After having a walk about I have realised that Galashiels isn't quite as small as I thought it would be and there is actually quite a lot available to us here, which is a blessing! Lots of nice architecture, small little cottages to lovely churches. Close by is a little town called Melrose which I only drove through but looks gorgeous so I can see many return journeys there. Tea rooms, antique shops (which I can't wait to trawl around) and little one way streets make it chocolate box perfect.

I got my timetable today and it seems like the course will be quite fast paced and intense but I'm looking forward to having some direction with my work again and learning new things.

My wardrobe is tiny but I will have to cope, Galashiels is 'Home Sweet Home' for the next four years.

Bye For Now

The End of Summer

Soon it will be time to pack up all my pretty Summer dresses and strappy sandals and to swap them for warmer cardi's, scarves and beautiful hats. Although this would fill most with a sense of sadness, I am rather looking forward to the new season ahead of me. In a very short time I will be moving away from home and starting University in a little place on the Scottish Borders called Galashiels. A wonderful setting to see the greens of Summer change to the richer oranges and browns that come with Autumn. The heart-fluttering excitement I am feeling can only be compared to the feeling I get when I see a gorgeous vintage dress or beaded bag that can't help but make you think of the past and all the wonderful stories it could hold. And so I get on to what this blog is about...

I will be studying 1st year Fashion at University, and prior to me starting, I was given a little project to be completed for my first day. I had to make a double page magazine spread about myself which had to be in the style of a certain magazine and we also had to create our own blog but we could put in it anything we wanted. I came up with lots of ideas for what I could write and things I was passionate about, but the one that kept coming back to me was my love for all things vintage, mainly the 1920's to the 1950's. Although I am not kitted out in vintage clothes or have a house full of antiques I do appreciate items that have a history to them and love nothing more than sitting looking at old, weathered photos of era's gone by.

I don't really know where my love of vintage came from I just started seeing polka-dots, old faded florals, records and petticoats and instantly knew I was born too late! From my cream retro record player to my bright green 50's telephone and a dash of red lipstick, there are small hints towards my fondness for it.

There is something about the lifestyle and the elegance of these decades that seems to no longer exist today, that makes me want to bake flamboyant pastel cupcakes while wearing the frilliest apron I can find or go out wearing a lovely puffy dress and an extravagant hat or dance about my bedroom singing to Etta James and other long forgotten champions of this time.

I think we all need to capture a bit of the vintage in us and try to bring things back like home baking, which is already on the rise, home crafts, along with big petticoats and pencil skirts. I like to think I get a lot of my inspiration from things like this and want to devote my time to updating these classic designs and making them something new and personal to me. I can't wait to start creating things and learning how I can make my own vintage inspired clothes, but will no doubt have other little projects along the way as there is so much I want to learn from Millinery, Crochet and Glass work to Upholstery and Screen Printing, which I hope I can cross over and incorporate with each other to come up with something unique.

I will be posting lots of pictures of things I spot that fill me with ideas and also my dress for my brothers 21st which I am very excited about!

Bye for now,

Stacey