1211th
Jun

Hello internets, long time no see! I do actually have a large backlog of entries about gigs, jewellery and general goings on, but the backlog got even more backed up as time went on and I couldn’t be bothered to sort through it all. I’ll attempt to get up to speed over the next few weeks.

So, what’s new? The website design for one. I gave it a newer, more streamlined feel and also merged in my flickr feed as I felt it was stupid to upload my photo portfolio into two separate places. I also now have a real live home page, with flashy banners, scrolling photo tickers, social widgets and a little box that shows my weekly most played album from last.fm (which I hand coded myself, are you proud mum?). I still haven’t got a proper online shop back up yet, due to me battling to get Magento installed on my server and then trying to figure out how it works. But Folksy and Etsy are doing ok for the moment, and I have all my stock listed on them so nothing is missing.

Jewellery wise, there have been lots of new bits over the past few months, including a Supernatural themed Impala necklace which manages to sell out as soon as I receive a new batch. I also redesigned the TARDIS necklaces to match the canvas bags, and I’ve been pressing on with screen printing things.


(Woo, face and TARDIS)

Gigs; there have been plenty, and photography has temporarily ground to a halt as I’m not happy with how GigJunkie are operating these days. The only gigs I’ve managed to pro-shoot have been small ones or for friends. Fingers crossed I can get back into that soon.

So sit back, enjoy, and please keep checking in as the entries below should start to appear.

This weekend was the London Film and Comic Con, and we had an absolute blast selling our jewellery there. Massive thanks to anyone who bought something from us, or just stopped by for a chat, you are all awesome! We sold loads of jewellery and made even more than at the MCM Expo, plus I got to meet some awesome celebrity guests.

On the Friday morning Mark Sheppard (Crowley from Supernatural) was wandering around and came over to look at the stall and say hi. I gave him a lollipop and squeed internally! Then on Saturday morning Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation) was walking round and stopped to ask if the grenade necklaces were real and inquired if I made everything myself. On Sunday we got a very special guest in the form of the Doctor, who was kind enough to take some photos with our products!

Unfortunately I didn’t take any more photos because I’m lazy, but I do also have my photoshoots with Karen Gillan and Christopher Lloyd. I’ll scan them sometime this week so you can see my hilariously excited face.

This Sunday I’ll be selling at Kiki’s market at the Rag Factory just off Brick Lane. Come along if you are around!

I’ve been a blog writing machine over the past week! I have been quite bored at work, I’ll admit.

I have big exciting news; my Ai ball jointed doll has been shipped. Luckily his clothes, wig and eyes arrived earlier last week, and I bought some pastels and sealing spray at the weekend for his faceup. Since buying him in January I’ve slowly been purchasing various items of clothing, accessories and art materials and now I have pretty much everything I need. I estimate he will arrive sometime during the week (depends on how long customs keep him) so I can get a good start on him at the weekend.

Another tidbit of exciting news, the creators of Tatty Devine have signed a deal with Virgin for a book on how to make your own jewellery. It’s not out until October but it sounds like the perfect thing for crafty jewellery-DIYers.

I watched Girl Walks Into A Bar on Friday, and was pleasantly surprised by it. It was very funny in places and slightly reminiscent of a Tarantino film with the mysterious, punchy dialogue. I enjoyed how the plot linked the main characters together, but I do feel that some of their individual stories were not resolved very well, simply ending with a tacked on line from another character. All in all it was a pretty good film and definitely worth watching as it is free!

Youtube Channel

On Sunday I finished Supernatural Season 2 and I think I enjoyed it more than the first season. The arc was more interesting and it had some brilliant individual episodes (like Heart which had me bawling, and Tall Tales which had me crying with laughter). I’ll move onto the third season this week, which is slightly shorter due to the writers strike so it shouldn’t take me that long to finish.

Afterwards I watched Howl, the experimental biopic of Allen Ginsberg starring James Franco. It is made up of scenes from the obscenity trial on ‘Howl and Other Poems’, faux-interview footage with Ginsberg (Franco) during the trial and animation to accompany the poem. Despite the hodgepodge of formats it was still quite interesting, and I think the animation was particularly effective. My problem with the film was that it was too short and didn’t touch on each subject enough. They could have gone into more detail about the trial or Ginsburg’s life, but they didn’t. It left me wondering what the point of the film was.

Next Monday is one of the most exciting days on my music calendar; the lineup of Reading Festival is revealed. Rumours are certain that Muse will headline the Friday, The Strokes on Saturday and My Chemical Romance on Sunday, but any news on other bands or stages has been scarce. I’m hoping for some Death From Above 1979, Blood Red Shoes and The Kills. Luckily I’ve only got one ticket to buy in the general sale as everyone else bought theirs in the presale last year. It’s always a stressful hour trying to connect to the rubbish Seetickets servers.

The new blue acrylic pieces are now for sale in the shop! Featuring the Star Trek medical and science insignias, and an awesome TARDIS (which I really want to keep for myself, but alas there are only two at the moment). I have also restocked the Triforce necklaces.

I’ve created a Twitter and updated the Facebook page if anyone would like to follow them.

This week I started my new job so most evenings I’ve been too tired to do anything productive. I’ve started watching Supernatural after many many people recommended it to me, and my god is it ever addictive. I’ve gotten through half of Season 1 already with Season 2 ready to watch afterwards. It’s a nice combination of “monster of the week” episodes with an overall arc for each season, and it’s very funny and interesting. Pretty much like Buffy but with two brothers hunting demons instead of slaying vampires. There are currently 6 seasons so it will keep me occupied for a couple of months at least.

This week my gig outing was quite special as we went to the NME Awards Ceremony at Brixton Academy on Wednesday. We went last year and had a great time in the pit so we decided to go and queue early in the hopes of getting pit passes again. It was worth spending a few hours in the cold as we managed to get our hands on the precious yellow passes. We watched the celebrities arriving while we were waiting upstairs, and after an amusing incident with Nikki from Big Brother we got led downstairs and into the standing pit at the front. There was free beer available so we snagged some and found a place in the middle. The standing pit at the awards show is always tiny; we were stood at the back of it and there were only about 4-5 rows of people in front of us. They also take away the barrier so you are literally right up against the stage. It’s a great place to see some really big acts perform.

Angelos Epithemieu was the host and mumbled his way through the awards, most of his dry in-character observations going over everyone’s heads. There weren’t a lot of surprise wins and the most amusing thing was watching the bands get more and more drunk as they stumbled up to collect their awards. The bands performing included My Chemical Romance, Hurts, PJ Harvey and Crystal Castles who were a nice surprise, and the atmosphere in the pit varied depending on whose fans you were stood nearest to. The big moment was Dave Grohl receiving the Godlike Genius award, and after a rambling acceptance speech The Foo Fighters took to the stage for their set. Usually the winners play a set of about 4-5 songs, but Dave announced that they would be playing a 2 hour set. Most of us just laughed it off, but as the songs kept going and going, we realised he was true to his word! They played their new album in its entirety and then followed it up with a selection of their hits. We actually had to leave before the end in order to make our last tube home.

It was a pretty epic night anyway, and being a few metres away from Dave Grohl was definitely an experience.