Ads I love: Travelodge's Mr Sleep and the Zzz Squad

Now, clearly I'm a sucker for furry animals, but ones with an east london mafia theme and cockney accent? I'm so there.



Travelodge have come up with this great advert for the Zzz Squad, with some great lines in there. Also I do enjoy the shredded pillow and 'Lucky Frank' (not so lucky) on the front of the dustcart. There's some definite 'ahs' in that advert (especially Jon AKA Mad Dog) which I'm sure Mr Sleep would tell you to man-up or something.

Considering most hotel adverts are cheesey or have Lenny Henry in them, this is pretty out there, for hotel-land. Still gets across that you'll have a great nights sleep (apparently) as you'll be looked after by some cute mafia-types who will scare pigeons for you. Rock.

Here's travelodge's little page for you. I'll leave you with this:

Ads I love: Wrigleys Extra 'Banish Smelly Followers'

Now. This isn't a clever viral marketing campaign, or guerilla gardening, or anything of that jazz. This is a plain, straight-up TV advert. And generally, most of them are bad. Not this one. It made me laugh and go 'aw' and feel fuzzy all at the same time. Possibly just a girly reaction, but my dad also immensely liked it too. And he complains about adverts more than I do.

Banish Smelly Follow..
Watch the ad...

Watch it. Why do I love it? Cute characters. Nothing gets me more than cute, slightly helpless characters. It's why I also love the Orange adverts.

And that it also works, at telling you what the product is (or reminding you of it) with none of that cliched icicles/arctic wind/cool fresh breath/breathing on a mirror stuff that most adverts of similar brands come up with it. It's just a visual representation of bad breath. In a cute way.

What's the song in it? If anyone knows, say so. It's nice.

I also love the bit at the end where the lil ickle onion gets stuck in the lift door. I hope he doesn't get squashted >.<

Alright, enough. I've made my point. It's fun and happy. The way ads should be!

Coveting: Floozie by Frost French

Let me just say, it is entirely silly of me to covet these. I work in a large chain of underwear shops. I get a good discount. I do not have any need for more underwear. If I did, I would buy some with said discount.

However.

Frost French is an underwear line created by Sadie Frost and Jemima French. I spotted the Floozie line in Debenhams the other day and went 'omg!' while my friend went 'Those are horrible, Rachel you are weird.' I get that a lot. But in my opinion, they are so cute and pretty and ridiculously vintage/granny looking. Which is uber cool, unless you are a granny. Then it's not. Get it?

I've seen a few styles of bra like this recently, with the extra bit at the bottom. Topshop did a few, I'm sure. Anyway, because it's different, I love it. And I bet it's really flattering. Also, you could totally wear this as outerwear, over a cream lace top. I so would.



Look! A little mini teacup! So if you are going to tea, perhaps with some form of royalty, you could totally wear this underwear. Other clothes are advisable as well, however.

A pair of knickers. In a cupcake. Genius. I bought something very similar for my friend for her birthday, only it was a pair of socks,wrapped up in a cupcake. Cute AND practical. Everyone needs socks.



This might be my favourite design. Blue and red = awesomely modern vintage. And check out the close up of the pattern:

Tiny mini teacups! So pretty.


And here as well, mini teacups in a different pattern. Ah.
Like I said, you can buy the range at Debenhams, have a look. Also, Debs are doing a 20% sale at the moment, it ends tomorrow. I may have to go in on my lunch hour. Maybe. Oh, I so don't need any more bras =/ Help.

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.