Oh, it seems to be 2010. How did that happen?

Hello there! It has been a while, almost exactly a month since my last post. This is of course because something called Christmas happened, which we all know is the best time of year, except if you work in retail, then it is the worst. So I literally stopped internetting for about 3 weeks - didn't even check my email or nuffin. The hours that I wasn't spending at work I was doing christmassy/relaxy things with family, and it actually felt great to completely unplug. It also meant that I did almost nothing creative, except wrap some presents rather beautifully, but honestly, I feel no guilt. Christmas was hard. I got 6 days off over the whole xmas/new year period, which is a lot less than most of you, I bet. This is the problem you see, if I was still a student I'd get 2 or 3 weeks off, and if I had a decent job I'd get about 2 off as well. But, as a recent graduate and bottom of the pile, I had to sell sell sell to you consumer people. Ah.

So as a result of this, here are some facts:

I have 500+ unread emails in my hotmail, all of which are newsletters of some sort. Ugh.
I have 1000+ unread items in my RSS reader. Yep. Clearly I was the only one who stopped blogging over christmas. You crazies.
I had about 35 comments waiting for approval on this blog, 34 of which were spam. Which I don't mind because a few of them were hilarious. Most are just in chinese which means nothing to me, but some seem to be written by spam bots who string several unrelated words together to form nonsensical sentences. Which, me being me, I find fascinating and am going to make a new illustration project from because they are great :D
I have 0 job offers. (unsurprisingly, lols.)
I have about 7 new twitter followers, how I don't know because I stopped tweeting for a while too.
I have a brand new shiny digital camera (its pink!!) which I got from father christmas so I can post even more amazing pictures. Ah. Did I tell you its pink?

So, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, let's get this show back on the road.

Oh, yes. My job wasn't extended past christmas temp. The most gutting thing ever. So last day was yesterday. So I'm FRIGGIN UNEMPLOYED AGAIN. However, I'm still waiting to hear back about an interview I had at none other than AMV.BBDO before christmas so mega fingers crossed for me. More on that later.

So I'm spending my new found free time so promote myself to commissioners and get some illustration jobs, hopefully. Again, more on how I'm going to do this in the next post, which is tomorrow. I'm literally going to do the 9-5 thing at my mac up here in my loft and work my ass off to become rich and famous.

2010 = Rachel gets awesome jobs, moves out, finds some sort of boy-type. Trust me.

Coveting: Everything in Paperchase

Yes, it certainly is dangerous for me to approach Paperchase. I have a major stationery fetish, especially when coupled with bright colours/and/or cute characters. Massive weakness. It's the fresh virginal pages you see, I must possess them all.

Paperchase is of course everyone's favourite stationery shop, and I don't see how it can't be - every season they come out with the most gorgeous designs and it takes a whole lot of will power for me not to buy every single one of the beautiful notebooks that I have no use for, except to sit on my desk or in my handbag, emitting tiny rays of stationery sunshine.

Except I wandered in (was dragged by tractor beam) into the MK store yesterday, thinking I could beef up my christmas list with lovelies. Well I certainly did that. Let's start with the diaries:

Slim Week To View 2010 Diary. Linen Midnight Clematis Design £6

Agenzio A6 2010 Diary. Damask Floral Design £9.50

A5 Day To View 2010 Diary. Pink Botanical Design £6
Love this one, such a pretty design, and that pink is ace. This almost went on my list but it's too fat in my opinion - as it's a day to a page, the actual diary is about 1.5" thick - not that handbag friendly really.

A5 Week To View 2010 Diary. Mirabella Design £7.50

Just a few of the various designs and shapes they currently have. And then I came across....

Week To View. Flexi Sleeve 2010 Diary. Food Friends Design £7

Uh huh. I emitted a tiny squeal and knew it was love. It's totally kitsch and childlike and unbelievably cute - but I just could not resist at all. Even the pages are so much fun, no boring 'straight lines' here, no sir. And to be honest, life can get pretty hectic at the best of times, especially in my case when trying to juggle a 'normal job' (which has it's perks) with freelance stuff, finding new creative work to get involved in and opportunities to give myself, as well as actual life like seeing my friends back in Wolverhampton, getting drunk, and obviously chilling out by watching a good film. Or X Factor. Or I'm a Celebrity. Or Neighbours.* You know. So as life gets crazy, it would be nice to open my diary and have a tiny smile at the absurdity of it.

*I don't actually pencil in diary time for Neighbours and the like. Honestly.

And you know me - food, with actual faces? You had me at smiley coffee cup.

So that's on my list, and I suspect dad has got it for me today in London judging by the 'trying to be sly while getting reminded of the design' phonecall earlier.

Before all this, I was considering getting a filofax/organiser style:

BIRD FOLK FLORAL ORGANISER 10 £20

DAMASK STRIPE ORGANISER 2010 £20

Which, ok, is probably more practical. That was my reasoning. And paperchase have some great designs. And I could be all organisational, like I love being, with a diary bit and a list bit and a phone numbers bit and whatever else. And I'd feel semi important with an organiser. Don't you think? Instant important-ness. 'Sorry, I've got a call on the other line. Oh yes, let me just get out my organiser....'

You know. In my mind.

But the 'food friends' design won me over so normal Rachel is having a normal diary....

Sticky notes! I do not need these. Nope. But I want them.

A7 notebook. The most useless size a notebook could ever be, but I have about 5 this size. So. Cute.

Ok, this is actually useful - it's a 'media case', it's £5, and I want a new digi camera for christmas. See where I'm going here?

Bag bag bag. Useful. Always useful. Always need more bags.

So yes, as we all know, Paperchase is crammed full of not just lovely notebooks but all manner of stationery and accessories you can think of. I can't keep listing stuff I love. There is however, one thing I don't love about Paperchase - their website and online shop, or rather, lack of it. The website has a few items on there, but if you want to buy, it takes you through to their Amazon Shop. Which is fine, it works, you know, job done, but as a consumer who loves to amble my precious time away gawking at everything in the shops, I would quite like to amble precious time away gawking at a beautiful website and online shop, all seamlessly moulded together. Maybe they'll sort it out. It's a minor thing but takes away from the experience, I suppose.

And so I bid you goodnight and good luck not spending anything in Paperchase this christmas.

Next I'll probably end up posting my entire christmas list. There's some good stuff on there!

Fifi Lapin - That's one stylish bunny.

I recently bought a set of this year's Topshop Charity Christmas Cards.

I usually buy them every year anyway, but this year, they're extra special. I just thought the bunny was ridiculously cute, but on reading the packaging properly, Fifi Lapin is alive and real and pretty special.

You get 2 of each design, 8 in total. Each one has a little diary entry style bit on the back, and Fifi is wearing some of Topshop's Christmas Collection in each one. So cute. And it's for charity of course, so £2.25 of your measly £4 goes to some great charities. Read what Fifi has to say herself.

I have completely fallen in love with Fifi (in a non bestiality way) and can't believe I didn't know about her before! She is illustrated wearing high fashion/designer/couture outfits and has a shop where you can buy prints, drawings, cards, all with Fifi rocking some kind of awesome attire.
This was her Halloween outfit, sporting a bit of Gareth Pugh. Noice.

Fifi when she visited Paris!

It also reminds me a lot of the 'What I wore today' Flickr group that I never properly got involved with, having only doing it once. This is because of a) busy-ness and b) my hatred of drawing myself and to a lesser extent c) my weakness at not being that great at drawing human people. Must must start doing it again though. Outfit pictures are of course a staple of fashion blogs, and while I'm not a fashion blogger, some of my outfits really do deserve to be immortalised in pencil more often. Some don't.

So toddle on over and check out Fifi's blog; it'll have you hooked.

Coveting: Simon Cook's Christmas Cheat Sheets

I saw these and thought they were brilliant. Simon Cook is a very talented illustrator, but also a genius in my books for inventing these 'christmas cheat sheets', which is his "attempt to solve the age old problem of buying clothes for your better half at Christmas time... So basically you fill out one and give it to your boyfriend/girlfriend (or whoever you're expecting a present off), or get them to fill out one for you so you don't blow a surprise by asking for a particular."

Pretty damn simple, and simply damn pretty too:

Clicky for bigger.

This is the girls version - there is also the boys version too. Here's a few close ups:

haha, ring size. Won't be needing that.

I love the retro typography and the really limited colour use, feels very 50s and vintage and I like that. It also has that screenprinted feel which makes it seem very personal and tailored.

I really want to use it myself but don't have anyone to give it to =/ Save parents. And they never buy me clothes. They know better than that.

Great idea though. Found via Drawn!

You can read and see more about Simon Cook aka Cookie over at his website and blog, which is full of tasty things like:

and

and

Beautiful.

All images are copyright to Simon Cook of course. Chuh.