CiN Craft Fayre

Work held a Craft Fayre on Friday to raise money for Children in Need. Despite never having sold any of my stuff, mostly because it's made from other people's templates, I decided to sign up as all proceeds went to charity. Unfortunately, because I've never sold any of my stuff I had no stock and only managed to produce a paltry 3 Easy Teddies (we nicknamed them Neopolitan), 1 and a half Day Bags and 2 lavender stuffed hearts.

Pathetic, right?

I'd been trying to keep my hopes up when everyone passed me by for the extensive jewellery selection on offer, particularly as I was very proud of my finished green bag (isn't the Ikea fabric fab?!)

It took me 3 hours to sew the 24 poppers to make the bag removable for ease of washing. 3 hours. Which is why only one bag got finished in time. Everyone thought the teddies were very cute but nobody seemed to want to buy them.

So imagine my surprise when, at the end of the day, I discovered I'd sold 2 green Day Bags, the half made Day Bag (to be finished this weekend), 4 Easy Teddies and 1 lavender heart. Not only that but I have orders for 2 vanilla strawberries, 1 lavender heart on ribbon, 1 vanilla heart on ribbon and requests for samples of my make-up bags, hobby horse, angel wings and hot water bottle cover. A win overall I think!

Thanks for stopping by,

Restylin' For A New Job

Yes, I totally failed at sewing this weekend. I decided that perhaps it might be a little more prudent to make clothes requiring fit with my tutor Mother this coming weekend as she'd already said she was free and would come help me. As I have a limited stash of fabric suitable for these projects and currently no funds to buy any more, it seemed wiser to wait until I was sure I'd get something usable from the effort rather than a bunch of wadders and no more fabric. I didn't mention this before now because ... well, because I was a little ashamed at how rubbish I've been over the sewing ;)

Instead, I thought I'd tell you about my new job. Or rather the clothes I'm wearing for my new job. I started with the NHS on Monday and decided on Sunday evening that I would start as I meant to go on, i.e. I would dress and wear the make-up that I've always wanted to wear to work, regardless of what everyone else around me is wearing, from day one so everyone expected it to continue, rather than doing my usual of wearing whatever and no make-up and hoping for the best whilst being frustrated and feeling like I couldn't suddenly start dressing up because it went against the style I'd already 'declared' to everyone (and my goodness that's a rather long run on sentence, I do apologise!).

To that end I painted my nails red, pulled out the red lippy, stuck a compact in my handbag for touch ups and pulled out the heels.

You may remember my cursed Interview Outfit that got me no jobs. Having already scored the job, this is what I wore on Day One but with blue T-Bar heels and my 'natural coloured' (read: too tan for my skin colour) seamed stockings. Lipstick in place, hair down and natural, I trotted off to work and as I got out of my car in the car park I promptly ripped my stockings with my handbag. Fortunately, no one noticed a thing all day so I kept them on. I also had a 3/4 length sleeved blue cardi over the top and I have to say, partially done up it made me look like I had a waist, I was totally loving the effect!

Day Two: A grey corduroy skirt with attached plaid cotton petticoat, grey shirt and grey boots. Throw in a cream short sleeved cardi and a brown elasticated belt and I was good to go. Unfortunately, whilst I ran out the door thinking I looked okay I ultimately decided I looked like something out of the 80's and hated the skirt with the boots. Big Mistake. Ballet pumps would have worked better ... had I actually owned any. Note to self: see if eBay have any ballet pumps for sale.

Day Three: Grey high waisted trousers and a blue and white pin stripe shirt, all from La Redoute (as was Day Two). Red braces (suspenders to all you Yanks, but to us Brits that's what holds up our stockings) from eBay, blue T-Bar heels and a short sleeved blue cardi, again from eBay. This was much more me and kinda came off 70's (the trousers are quite flared and wide legged ... just in case that isn't completely obvious from the photo). I felt comfortable and relaxed, didn't care if anyone thought anything of my clothes because I was happy. Much better day than yesterday, but then I wasn't sat in a meeting with 50 people around a big table today which may have helped.

It's been hard wearing the red lippy. It's bright, it's unmissable and it gives a very definite statement about the type of woman I am/ want to be (i.e. one that cares about her appearance). I've spent a lot of years not really caring about my appearance in terms of work due to the nature of the job, the work ethic involved (not to mention the stress, the to-ing and fro-ing between offices, departments and buildings and don't even get me started on night shoots out on location in a disused railway shed) and my very strong desire to blend in.

This new style (or this attempt at a new style) is me very much not blending in and I'm still a little uncomfortable with that. I'm not sure why but I'm more uncomfortable about the lipstick than I am about the clothes (well, apart from yesterday's outfit). I don't feel comfortable reapplying in front of people and I don't feel comfortable checking in my compact after eating/ drinking but I also then spend the time worrying I've got lipstick all over my chin or half rubbed off. A big part of me wants to stop with the lipstick to make myself feel better and that could be okay. Except I like red lipstick and I think what I'm more uncomfortable about is the shade of lipstick I've been using. Ideally I'd like to use a shade like Marianne but my skin tone is completely different, my lips are a lot smaller and I don't look anything like as fresh faced half way into my day (or even half an hour into my day!) so I'm not too sure how to proceed. I'm not even sure that if I find the shade I'll still be comfortable because it's still very eye catching. The shade of red I feel more comfortable wearing is a darker berry red, but I think this is predominantly because my natural lip shade is quite dark and when the lipstick fades it's almost unnoticeable. I've been blotting the brighter shades mostly off but even then I still feel over exposed. Any advice please girlies?

Thanks for stopping by,

Spotlight: My Work Place

I have no sewing to post about (although the stripey tee project is calling me as my fabric arrived this morning. Woo!) and I think I whinged enough in yesterday's post and didn't talk once about the joy of the finished project so, now, please consider that box ticked.

I thought I'd introduce you to my workplace by sharing with you the view from my box office where I sit like an ostracised automaton waiting for the request to change the dates on something I just changed five minutes ago and ten minutes before that ... and so on and so forth for the day whilst filling up the spare moments with pointless Twilight quizzes and random TV boyfriend picture hunting to pretty up the desktop. Oh, and discovering just how rubbish my blog looks on a PC instead of a Mac. All the colours and the layout were way off and the photos really dark. Is that just crappy BBC technology, fabulous Apple technology or something I haven't thought of? Do any of you have that problem?

BBC Wales Drama is nothing if not picturesque (well, it is if you ignore the garage). I live on the other side of that hill (mountain, not that you can tell from this pic). And as I am helping out in the Drama Department that means the halls are covered in pictures of David Tennant and the cast of Torchwood. See, there is a reason to love working for the BBC. Wanna see my office?

Titchy, huh? I kicked a Producer out for this office, heh. They've got nowhere else to put me so I am all on my own. The three people I'm PA-ing for haven't been in Cardiff for more than a couple of hours so far, I haven't even met two of them in my PA capacity (I met one of them in my previous incarnation whilst in telly but I doubt he'll remember that). It's all a bit random and weird but with Starbucks and Silent Night lyrics on big A3 pieces of card (long story ....)

Thanks for stopping by,