Paisley Abbey in Scotland was built in the 7th century, and rebuilt and added to since then. When the gargoyles where being refreshed and fixed up in the early 1990s, the stone mason cheekily added this to the abbey, which I can imagine will only confuse historians and baffle future generations. I personally, love her.
Are you a classic hot cross bun fan? While I’m not a sultana or raisin gal, I do appreciate the Easter treat nowadays thanks to the wide range of Easter food fayre at Marks and Spencer. We popped along today and picked up the full selection of hot cross buns on offer, with packs being mix and match two for £2.50. There are various shapes and sizes as well as hot cross loaves, and wheat free varieties.
I also picked up some spreads to enjoy on the buns. Let’s dive in!
The Double Chocolate is by far my favourite, just lightly toasted with a little butter or margarine. It makes a quick and easy after school snack too. The larger sized Salted Caramel and chocolate hot cross buns (a few images down) are similar, and taste amazing with the chocolate hazelnut spread on them. The absolute to die for snack however, is one of them lightly toasted with the M&S Crunchy Peanut Butter with Maple & Pecan in the image below. It’s unreal. Youll be addicted to the stuff. It’s delicious on the Kentish Bramley Apple Hot Cross Buns too though, with the apple’s tang.
The Luxury Hot Cross loaf is a great way to enjoy Easter in a packed lunch for school kids, and is included in the 2 for £2.50 deal.
Don’t forget to check out the other adventurous fruity flavours of hot cross buns in the bakery department.
This year there is even a Wheat Free variety of Hot Cross Bun.
Marksies even have a recipe on their site if you fancy making a hot cross bun yourself.
Next week, stayed tuned for Easter eggs, there are some very unique ones they have in store for kids and adults I haven’t seen anywhere else.
Artetak popped up in my Facebook feed thanks to its crazy algorithm today with this naughty adult phone line Rocko from Rocko’s Modern Life.
Kate Logan’s online store is packed with original designs of similar irreverent themes, with cute characters with devilish twists.
There are pins, patches, tees, homewares, and Kate’s artwork available to buy directly from her store.
GLAMGLOW is the really swish Hollywood skincare brand with colourful facemasks that celebrities are seen using on Instagram. Their products are pricey, with little lip balm sized pots of product costing £15 and up.
Well if you are quick I’ve spotted Boots.com have their limited edition Sonic the Hedgehog mask range, from 2017 reduced down to £7 on their site, which is crazy cheap for GLAMGLOW. It’s their classic Gravity Mud Firming Treatment in a themed blue shade, peel off mask.
The Sonic branded one is gone, but the product is the same in all three boxes that were launched anyway. I picked up the Tails one, which is available here. The other box is Knuckles, who I don’t remember from the game, I was always a Nintendo kid! You can buy it here.
Of course it’s a tiny 15g supply, which will be maybe one full face mask, or two localised area masks if you apply it to problem areas. For £7 it’s fun to buy just to try GLAMGLOW and have that Instagram celebrity experience. Don’t forget shipping it FREE if you use click and collect to your nearest Boots store and call in to pick up your package yourself.
Boots.com also have the GLAMGLOW Power Rangers masks in their colours should you fancy a bright green face mask!
Lucky Dip Club is a monthly subscription box I get delivered, which sends me quirky socks and a pin badge, with a random theme each month. My March box arrived this morning I and squealed with absolute delight when I opened it and saw RuPaul’s face staring back at me.
I’ve blogged many times about Drag Race, I’m a huge fan. I watch every series and follow all the gossip on Reddit.
If you want to get your hands on the subscription box you can sign up on the Lucky Dip website, or you can wait until later in the month, as they usually list their socks and pin badges separately in the store for sale if they have some left over, so if you just want to buy the Ru socks, you will be able to do so if you bookmark the site. They should be on sale in a week or so! But if you want to get your hands on the Ru socks for definite, I would email them and check if you subscribe for a box today will it be the Ru box, as you never know, they might end up with no left over products for the store.
Severed heads, dragons and snakes on the catwalk along with Alessandro Michele’s gloriously quirkily campy and kitsch designs for Gucci as they showcased their Autumn / Winter 2018 Ready to Wear Collection in Milan this week.
I love it as there’s a real 70s and 80s feel to a lot of the tailoring. There are designs that remind me of air hostess uniforms of yesteryears, and power suits of the 1980s’.
You can check out every single look, and there are close to a hundred, on the Vogue website.
I can never afford even the Ready to Wear Collection, but I do keep my eyes peeled for accessories that are ‘heavily inspired by’ Gucci designs like this arm band.
Bees are out, but tigers and snakes seem to still be in, as well as dragons, so those are the beasts to be looking out for when you are searching for bags, jewellery, shoes etc. if you want a Gucci look but not the price tag. Add some red and green and you’re all set!
My blog, when it started out in August 2009 was a place where I posted the charity shop finds I would return home with triumphant every weekend after scouring the Oxfams and Heart Foundation stores of whichever town we would drive to on our family day out.
I would have certain things in particular I’d look for. Art work wise I would keep an eye out for anything 1960s or 1970s, JH Lynch, or Shabner, the gypsy women, or glamorous glossy haired beauties that hung in every home in those decades, mass produced much like the more famous Tretchikoff Green Lady, which ironically I don’t own.
So I have a nice little collection of Shabner and JH Lynch ladies. I’ve also a small collection of Dallas Simpson big eyed kids.
So, anyway, years ago I shared all my Kitsch items as I bought them, but I realised recently my blog is The World of Kitsch, and I blog about things like Karen Mabon, and Magda Archer, but really my newer readers might not know me as being truly a Kitsch lover, which is why I would love to share with you my home, and invite you to my Instagram account here, where you can see that side of me, and see more of my home and life, where you can see that side of me.
So back to the art work. Two of the Shabner girls are downstairs but most of my 60s and 70s ‘faces’ are now upstairs in the third bedroom. Our house is a rental, and this spare room is a little empty. One wall is all book cases, and I use the other wall as a dressing table with makeup, so I’ve arranged the ‘faces’ as a kind of wall of them.
In the decades of their popularity there was an urban legend about the portraits of sad children and that if you had them in your homes your house would burn down. I like to think if you have two then they cancel each other out.
So what else do I collect? Well I love taxidermy. I know it’s a controversial one. It skirts the topic of fur. It’s also very rare to find it in a charity shop, and you won’t find it in somewhere like Oxfam, but maybe somewhere like an ‘unbranded’ smaller charity shop, a junk shop, or house clearance. There’s always the auctions, and where I’ve found my pieces is either eBay, or car boot sales.
Taxidermy isnt cheap, and that’s why I own very little. I have a fox head, a two headed duckling, a duck, another few birds, a stoat, another few other small pieces and a fake full size flamingoes. I would of course love more. I would love a house full. I’ve also two piranha that Smix hates with a passion. Oh! And I’ve a jackalope too! How could I forget!
Candle by Kat Kirk Addiction Tattoo Bangor
I also have three cabinets filled to the brim with Kitsch which I am refeaturing on Instagram at the moment, and a snowglobe collection. I started collecting them a few years ago cause I wanted to actively started collecting something properly tacky on purpose.
I’ve one cabinet that’s filled with awful properly mad Kitsch stuff, including a rotating glitter Last Supper clock, and another cabinet (a few photos below) which houses vintage Fisher Price toys and a Castle Grayskull.
I also love World’s Fair souvenirs because of the retro furturistic stylings of all of the stuff to do with it. I have trays, ashtrays, scarves, and of course, snow globes.
My absolute pride and joy piece of furniture, which my parents bought me for my 30th birthday is my 1960s home boat bar. It’s amazing. I don’t even drink but it’s just the best.
So come join me on my Instagram and I’ll share a photo of it this week, I need to get a good shot of it! There’s a clothes’ horse in front of it right now!
*Edit* here it is! Plus some more snaps from this week
Karen’s Spring 2018 Collection is a Beaut. Free UK shipping today so why not treat yourself? Browse the whole fresh collection here.
The Best in Show silk scarf is adorned with horses, piglets, prize tomatoes, ducks and even a massive marrow. It definitely has Balmoral Show vibes.
As a cat owner I’m also pleased to see lots of cat prints in the Spring 2018 Collection. Lucky cats in two colour ways as the Today Is Your Lucky Day scarf, both Pink and Olive.
Then also in Lilac colour Georgette.
My scarf from previous collection below
There are more cats in the pottery prints, plus squirrels, sunflowers and cycles to finish up the spring collection. It’s a sunny, gorgeous selection. Which scarf would you pick?
This photo with Mrs Meow below is one of my Karen Mabon scarves, which doesn’t have a cat sadly, but does have squirrels, like the new collection!
As heard on BBC Radio 6's Lauren Laverne Show.
Winner of Highly Commended Blog in the Cosmopolitan Magazine Blog Awards 2010
Hop on over to Cosmopolitan to read my guest blogs on all sorts of vintage bits & pieces.
