Weekend with my sister

My sister and her boyfriend came to visit for a few days, it was lovely!

We went out, shopped, played board games, watched films and ate some yummy food!

I made my best fondue yet! I used a tip from Cook like Heston coating the cheese with cornflour when grated, it worked a charm!

We ate Gyoza at Wagamamas in Cardiff Bay <3 I love gyoza its my fave!

We played The Walking Dead board game I got Ben for christmas, it was a tricky one to get a hang of but we think we played it right haha.

I love my sister we get on so well, I can tell her anything and she is hilarious :)

missing her already!!


oh and finally a photo with my fringe! Its getting too long already, but I will definitely keep it for a while.

decicions

So my job is pretty up in the air at the moment for the second time in 12months.

I wont be getting any extra hours and becuase of my small contract I will have to get a second job or a new full time job. Im gutted, I dont want to leave my job I love it but I cannot live off a part time wage. I feel kind of let down as well because I had a second job at John Lewis and I left it so I could be flexible for my current job over christmas. I worked my arse off all through the holidays and as soon as it hits January I'm back down to 15hours a week.

I will struggle to find a second job because I know I want to be in the jewellery business and nothing else will do! Of course I know I cannot be too picky but anything else feels like a step backwards. Plus juggling 2 jobs is no fun I did it for 10months and my mind was all over the place yu can never really work your hardest when you are split in 2!

Me and the bf are considering moving from Cardiff perhaps to Birmingham in the hope of better job opportunities but we can't really make any moves until our tennancy runs out on our incredible flat :'( unfortunately we are already struggling to pay bills and things even when I am on full time hours so staying in this flat at least is not an option.

anyway thats what I'm dealing with right now just as I was enjoying 2012 and thinking what a great year it will be... BLAM! more news which basically stops me and Ben settling. We love Cradiff and don't want to leave and I love my job but we both know its a choice between dream location or dream jobs.

at least Birmingham will be closer to my family.

why do you always have to choose? :(

Heatwave

So it seems my previous post was a little premature.

We have a heat wave in the last week of September...in Britain!




Here I am down Cardiff Bay enjoying a mint choc icecream yum!

Holiday week!

I was silly enough to book my holiday week just before payday which means I am so skint this week I cant really afford to do much!

However Cradiff is fabulous for cheap entertainment.

hello!

I realise I dont post many pictures of myself on here, this is because I prefer to be behind the camera rather than in front of it!

But my Mum took a lovely picture of me and Ben when she and my Dad came to visit this weekend so I thought I would post it.


We went out on the lake in a rowing boat just after this picture was taken :) it was so much fun! A swan kept following us (I think it thought we had bread?)

Its a good workout rowing! here I am looking windswept, and Ben looks as though the sun is blinding him.



Jolly good stuff!

A video made at the Cardiff Blind Lemon Vintage fair was posted on facebook so I thought I'd put it in my blog. I didnt see me or my friend in the video but equally I didnt see a video camera filming while I was there. (too busy shopping probably!)

I love the closeups of the old french fashion magazines :)

Vintage in Cardiff

Here is a list of my favourite places to shop vintage in Cardiff.

In no particular order:


Looby Loo's Boutique

A pretty little store in the High Street Arcade. It has a good collection of both men and womens vintage as well as a range of clothes made from vinatge materials. What I most like about the store is its easy shopping, while I do like a good rummage around to find hidden treasures, there is no tat. All the clothes at Loobys are in great condition and displayed lovingly in its delightful surroundings.
Another plus are the changing rooms, spacious!
Heres the website, where there is even a shop tour!
http://www.loobyloos.co.uk/

Blind Lemon vintage fair

This lovely event travels the UK stopping in Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Gloucester and Swansea.

I went the other weekend and got myself a real fur coat and a lovely Tulchan cardigan. Good prices and lots of variety on the stalls. Its a great place to pick up costume jewellery.

you can follow the blog here:
http://www.blindlemonvintage.blogspot.com/

or visit the website:
http://www.blindlemonvintage.co.uk/


Set in the beautiful Morgans Arcade in Cardiff city centre is

A Vintage Affair

This shop is wall to wall heaven.
In every corner there are shelves and antique dessers full of crockery, handmade gifts, bags,gloves and hats from every era. Bunting and fairy lights hang from the ceiling and vintage inspired greeting cards sit behind mountains of beautiful jewellery.
This boutique fits perfectly next to the second hand bookstore in one of the most beautiful of Cardiff's Arcades. Definitley worth a visit.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p231/safereturn/Morgan_Arcade.jpg


The Victorian Pumping station Antiques and Interiors

This indoor market offers a range of antiques and collectables including one lovely vintage clothing stall.

Lots of old magazines, ornaments and tea sets as well as reclamation yard items such as garden features, door handles, tiles and fireplaces. Lots to look at here and great entertainment for an afternoon. This is where I go for a good rummage!

http://www.the-pumpingstation.co.uk/

Enjoying the Sun!

Two days worth of outings for you here.
A visit to Castle Coch and a sunny spring day at the park.

Castle Coch was a ruin until 1871 when the 3rd Marquess of Bute the Castle's owner had it rebuilt to be used as a summer house. Keen on Medieval history the Marquess had it done in the Gothic revival style. It looks like its straight from a fairytale!

This is looking up from the round courtyard.

Most of the decor was tacky and looked a bit odd because it was medieval in style. However the drawing room was marvelous! It was very over the top but I liked the gilt edges and all the animals and plants painted on the walls and round the doors.

I loved this cheeky fox (my favourite animals)

The Marquess also owned Cardiff Castle and lived there most of the year, that is also refurbished in a medieval style (I havent been in there yet, but its fairly obvious from the outside)

On Saturday I went out to enjoy the sun with my boyfriend and his cousins, we went to the park.
Roath Park in Cardiff has a beautiful lake for boating on and an awesome tropical flower conservatory! Its a proper Victorian leisure park!

The botanic gardens bit was so much fun, saw some lovely plants, one was called the Swiss cheese plant (think it was because of the holes in the leaves?)

there was also a pretty koi pond with lots of fishes and terrapins.

here is me, wearing that dress, again haha.

Newport to Cardiff. Cardiff to Penarth. and back again!

So Saturday was a busy day!
Basically me and some of my friends off my university course had been planning to visit a few places as soon as our workload had finished and because everything was fairly close we decided to just do it all in one massive day of fun and culture!

The weather was so hot and sunny you would not believe! It was perfect :)

I met Sam and Alexa at the train station in Newport where we hopped on a train to Cardiff. The journey takes about 15 minutes which is great because if you have ever visited Newport you will know it is quite lacking in the shopping and culture department.

When we arrived the first thing on our agenda was the Diane Arbus exhibition at the National Museum Cardiff. Diane Arbus was born in 1923 and commited suicide in 1971 she was an ingenius photographer but sadly a very troubled lady. The types of people Arbus photographed has led to her work being the subject for controversial debate. The main question is did Arbus take advantage of her subjects?
Arbus photographed people with disabilities, circus acts, nudists, transvestites and just generally people she found to be interesting. I do not believe she was anything but sympathetic to her subjects and I think she often had a connection to them. If you have not seen the film Fur starring Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr then I suggest you do, it isnt accurate, in fact it is a fictional story about Diane Arbus' life, but I think it tried to capture her mindset and feelings, it is also beautifully filmed with some great 1950s costumes and sets.
I think in this film Nicole looks especially beautiful, i think the dark brown hair suits her wonderfully!



Arbus' image 'Identical Twins' sold for $478,400 at auction it is in the top 10 most expensive photographs in the world. It also happens to be one of my favourite photographs by her along with 'Boy with toy hand grenade'.
I will be honest she is not on my list of favourite photographers but her work was so profound for the 1960s and 70s because many of the people she photographed were from the edges of society they would have been considered 'freaks'. You really should go see it (especially if you are studying photography like me!)

the twins are quite creepy they remind me of the Shining!
I was also suprised to see some landscapes in the collection Diane Arbus is never really associated with landscape photography so it was a nice surprise! The exhibition is on until the 31st August so if you get chance you should have a look. There are also some Monets on loan to the museum right now including Water Lilies, it was beautiful.


On the way to Jacobs Antiques (also in Cardiff) we stopped off at the Disney store, one of my favourite places haha. I really want a Sleeping Beauty towel.
There were two reasons for going to Jacobs Antiques. The first being the obvious and the second being the 2nd year Documentary Photography course at my University was displaying its work from the last semester. The work was really good but a lot of it seemed more Photographic Art than documentary (Photographic Art is the course i take).
Then to the antiques! There was a lot of memorabilia which excited my friend Sam as he loves sci fi especially Doctor Who (check the tardis outside the shop)
this is me and Sam.
There wasn't a huge amount of vintage clothing which was disappointing but they did have an amazing collection of cameras which we stood looking at and swooning over for ages.
there was large format, medium format, twin lens, mini spy cameras, all shapes sizes and colours!


There was a lot of taxidermy on all different stalls, I am fascinated by it, I wouldnt necessarily have any in my house but I think they are kinda cool all the same. (sorry vegetarians and animal rights activists)

This is me and an angry fox, this was made in like 1926 apparently. Foxes are my favourite animals but I forget they can be really vicious and rightly so! If I was being hunted and stuffed to be mounted on a wall I too would be a little angry.

Any idea what this animal was?

Another photograph of the antiques. I like the bowler hat. and there were some nice tea sets too :)


Jacobs antiques is right by Cardiff Central Station so we got on another train to continue our day of culture.

This is Alexa and me on the train.

Penarth was a popular holiday resort during the Victorian times. It has a lovely pier where we got some yummy icecreams and sat in the sun.



We had a quick look in the Ffotogallery because Sarah Pickering's work 'Holding Fire' was there. Sarah Pickering had given a lecture at our university earlier this year so it was nice to see her work in its intended form rather than on a powerpoint slideshow :P
I do like her current work about explosions but it was her black and white images of burnt out buildings which caught my attention. Pickering took these whilst on residency with the fire services.


We stood and looked at the books on sale at the gallery for a bit because i love love LOVE art books :)

Then on to Forever Vinatge!!! This store was mentioned in an article about South Wales vintage scene on http://www.queensofvintage.com/
Its right by the Penarth train station and me and Alexa could have spent all day in there!!
The amount of wonderful hats and bags you would not believe!
Clothing wise I wasn't overly impressed, there didnt seem to be anything I liked much. But they had beaded bags from the 1920s right through, and velvet hats from the 1940s up to the 1980s! There were lots of beautiful brooches ahhhhh it was heaven! Sam got a bit fed up I think because we went round the tiny shop about 10 times picking up new things! hehe
We didnt buy anything despite the cheap prices because we are currently poor students at the end of term with no loans coming in until the end of September. I'm not holding my breath for a new job over summer because of the credit crunch people are being let go from jobs not hired! :(

The sun was still scorching and there wasn't much of a breeze even by the sea so we deciced to make our way back to Newport to finish off the day with the University's Graduate show opening night. We got ourselves some cheap wine - yuck! and had a look at the work we need to be making and improving on next year.
EEP! scary stuff, to think this time next year I will be finished university and having to make my own way in the world! After todays trip I'm definitley thinking a Museum/gallery curator would be a good job for me.

anyway hope you enjoyed the post, I went to bed at 11.30 so nearly a full 12 hour day! I fell fast asleep.
I will definitley be returning to Penarth soon, I will probably drag my boyfriend along.

byeee x

p.s all the photographs taken on the day out were by Alexa Osowski