Radness

1. Recycled skateboard necklace (I know, right?) by Sevenply 2. Joy the Baker blog.  If you're not hungry, you will be. 3. State-by-Celebrity Tote Bag by Melangerie 4. Colourblock bracelet by Son of a Sailor 5. Babybird Vintage shoes (and totally amaze tattoo as well)

Everything must go... or something...

Decided to list some original drawings on etsy, and also have a SALE.

Berlin... day 2

Day two of my trip to Berlin was ace!  Early start (as if I don't usually get up early...) and went to meet Amanda for some caffeine at The Barn.  If you squeal inside at the sight/smell of a good coffee and a slightly overpriced but beautifully rustic baked item, like me, you'd also find yourself photographing the pretty coffee and scones.

I had an appointment at the Reichstag viewing area at 10.45 so two flat whites later I legged it there as I really wasn't sure what happens if you're late in Germany.  There's probably not even a word for it in German.  Oh, but I made sure I stopped to take a photo of a pink bike basket and some little toys in a window.  Priorities.

Got a special Reichstag badge. Woo. I'm a tourist.

I then visited the Holocaust Memorial which is very beautiful, much bigger than I had expected and a little overwhelming.

From there I went to the Bauhaus Archiv and was starting to feel rather weak and feeble as it was nearing 3pm and I'd not yet refueled.

Short tube journey later and I was happily chowing down on a sausage covered in curry powder covered in ketchup.  Don't knock it 'til you've tried it.

With an hour to kill before the Hello Etsy pre-registration tea party I leisurely wandered through Kreuzberg, stopping at a coffeeshop to catch a little bit of wifi on the way.  I also found this bit of doodling on a newsagents window.  I walked past a type studio nearby who did a lot of hand lettering and I can't find the name of them - I'm guessing maybe they did it but if anyone knows I'd love to find out.

The Hello Etsy registration meetup was at Hudson's English Cafe, who really made us feel at home with a heaped basket full of scones, endless amounts of clotted cream and jam and bottomless pots of earl grey, pg tips and english breakfast.

At a nice table outside I met Zena, Melissa and Anke, stuffed a couple scones in and drank so much tea I actually would later find myself wide awake all night. (I know, I'm wild!)  It was really nice to chat to some like minded people who made me laugh loads and got me excited again about what I believe Etsy's all about.

We were also given our Hello Etsy goody bags - containing a lasercut wooden name badge (uhh.. amazing!) some stuff from google and Burda magazine and a bottle of Charitea as well as a pretty special handbook on small business and sustainability full of secrets to success from the speakers at the conference.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, as if I'd not eaten enough already some turkish food was also crammed in on our way back to our apartments.  (I know, right... does this girl ever stop talking about food?)

Who the fuck is Alice

I have done an illustration which appears in this month's issue of Whitelines magazine.  Go check it out.

Berlin... day 1

I visited Berlin this month for a summit on small business and sustainability called Hello Etsy.  Well, I kind of made a rather long weekend out of a 1.5 day event... but 1.5 days is not enough time to eat many currywurst and boy do I like currywurst.  

As I'm still reeling from the amount of information, inspiration and awesomeness the weekend spewed at me I'm going to deliver my blogposts in bite sized chunks - for you to digest as I did.  So here we go.

Day 1, Thursday 

Since I was flying solo the anticipation and nerves leading up to my trip couldn't really be shared but turns out the journey from my flat in Manchester to my flat in Berlin was painless and actually rather enjoyable, and I refrained from peeing my pants in excitement.

Check out my sweet as a nut apartment.  (Can highly recommend Airbnb to find and book other sweet-as-a-nut apartments 'round the world)  

I spent the afternoon/evening of my first day with my new buddy Amanda (who is from Perth, via London. I know, right?!)  She pretends to be not good at sewing but she can sew these crazy complicated footstools and can out-beehive anyone's beehive.  

We found this totally rad button shop that was like something out of Harry Potter.  So organized.  Who'd have thought. 

And since I'm borderline neurotic I of course had mapped out all the nearest eateries which I had read about in the various districts of Berlin.  By early evening we were near enough to a burger joint I'd read about so although I'd polished off a bagel and cookie the size of my head just hours before, the thought of not visiting all the places I'd planned on visiting made me feel more sick than gobbling a big fat juicy burger.

Even on a full stomach, this burger was friggin tasty.  In fact, it was the tastiest burger, cheesiest cheesy fries and coldest beer I've ever consumed underneath a tube station in Berlin while listening to harmonious hip hop beats.  

Oh man now I need a burger. 

Craig's out and about

Craig has recently been featured in a 'retail therapy' feature of an Australian publication called Shop til you drop.  Who needs a man when you can have a manfriend? Thanks for the mention, guys!

13 miles

So to catch up with the time I've not been blogging I'll start where I left off.  On September 4th I took part in the Glasgow Great Scottish Run.  The course was rather flat and to be perfectly honest, a little boring (give me cross country hills any day! give me pain!) Crossing the bridge was awesome - as was crossing the finish line.  But maybe it's me not having run 13 miles all in one go before, maybe I just didn't have any good tunes on my ipod (anyone tried listening to audiobooks whilst running? Might try it) and although I didn't stop the whole way, I just wanted something else to do other than just run.

Don't get me wrong, it was painful... at about 9 miles my knee actually started giving me grief and it got worse and worse.  So much so that I was trying all different running styles resulting in the conclusion that the faster I ran, the less it hurt!

Anyways, I finished in 2 hours 6 minutes.  Got me a medal, a banana and unfortunately a very bad knee.  Went straight to a physio who advised me I had iliotibial band friction syndrome, which is good to know if going to run long distances in the future (although at the time I could hardly walk - let alone run - and the thought of running a marathon seemed absolutely unheard of.) (Needless to say now that the pain is a dim and distant memory I'm weighing up which marathon to sign up for.)

Aside from my knee injury I also had a killer headache all night after the run, which continued into the morning - I think it was a lack of salt/sugar, because the next day I paid a visit to Glasgow's west end, found a place called Delizique and murdered a mouthwatering veggie fry up, washed it down with an ice cold can of Irn Bru and was feeling back to normal.

Anyways, here are some shots of me running, taken by spies throughout the race course (I didn't spot any of these photographers! Even that one of me immediately after finishing, with my medal - had no idea what was going on.)

Thanks so everyone who sponsored me.  I raised £125 for the Alzheimer's Society.  If you still want to donate I'll be keeping the page up for another few weeks.  And if you've ever contemplated running a 10k or half marathon, I would 100% say GO for it.  (If you've not done a 1/2, start with a 10k)  It's a great way of setting yourself a goal, training, and mentally preparing for something you've never done before.  And the feeling you get when you cross the line is priceless.

Got me a new blog

I've been having issues with my wordpress blog, and because I've been generally a bit annoyed with my website for a while decided to give blogger a go.  So far, I'm into it! Lovely user interface, so easy to use. So far so good.  So as this is my first post, I'll link you back to my old blog, and point you in the direction of my portfolio, twitter, facebook and etsy shop.  From now on I will be using blogger for my blogging with the view to relocating my portfolio as well.  Everything's still in boxes, but let's put the kettle on and start settling in!