might be featured on the blog! purple linen scarf - Forever 21 pink & red silk scarf - DVF, via a clothing swap blush ombre silk scarf - J ...
NYX ROUND LIPSTICK (Tea Rose) NYX ROUND LIPSTICK (Sky Pink) NYX ROUND LIPSTICK (Summer Love) Giorgio Armani Lipstick (Armani Silk) Make Up Forever ...
take it easy again, sort ourselves out and maybeeee check out the silk market (I now have an addiction to scarves...), then we have the exciting ...
This beautiful collection includes fine artisan examples of contemporary textiles and fiber art including quilts, linens, garments, wall hangings, and wearable art. A wide variety of techniques are featured, including hand and machine embroidery, decorative stitching, batik, dyeing, fabric painting, appliquè, felt, and all types of surface decoration. Full-color photography features both full views as well as close ups that will allow readers to appreciate the finer details of many works.
The Ecologist guide to greening Christmas
With just two months to go, growing your own isn’t an option so shop local and organic. By the end of December, the British Brussels sprout season will be in full swing while beetroots, parsnips, leeks, swedes and turnips are also on the menu. In the hedgerows, you’ll find a free feast of chestnuts (no need for imported Brazil nuts), walnuts and mushrooms, and there’s also plenty of game – including rabbit and wood pigeon – around. Local fruit is a bit thin on the ground, with only stored apples and pears available, so try organic if you really can’t bear to miss out on a festive satsuma. There’s also plenty of seasonal fish to be had in place of salmon – most of which has been doctored with a chemical food colouring called astaxanthin. Without this artificial pigmentation farmed salmon would look drab grey since farmed salmon’s diet doesn’t include the crustaceans that gives them that natural pink colour in the wild. If you must eat salmon, choose line caught, wild Scottish salmon – it’s more expensive but it’s better for both you and the planet. Better still, choose line caught mackerel, turbot, pollack or crab; all of which are in season and not endangered by over fishing. Finally, choose locally made English sauces to accompany your festive feast. According to a Manchester University study, the average Christmas dinner for eight generates around 20kg of CO2 – well over half of which comes from imported cranberry sauce. Since the average Christmas fairy light display produces enough CO2 to fill two double decker buses and can cost up to £100 to run depending on how long you leave them on, cutting down on the sparkle is good for both the planet and your bank balance. Instead, try putting vegetable wax tea lights in brightly painted old jars around your front door and on your windowsill for a festively green glow. If all 26 million UK homes swapped one string of standard fairy lights for the LED version during the 12 days of Christmas alone, collectively they would save enough carbon dioxide to fill 188,000 double-decker buses (over 26,000 tonnes of CO2). Financially, it would save nearly £9.7m – that’s enough to pay the weekly energy bills for 400,000 homes. Try Eco Creations solar powered fairy lights , £41.99 for 100, either outside or on your tree. Speaking of trees, choose a real one and turn it into compost when festivities are over. According to the Carbon Trust , the average six foot fake fir creates a whopping 40kg of CO2 during its lifetime from production to landfill. A real tree on the other hand, creates a relatively small 3.5kg if it’s chipped and composted properly. Two months isn’t long enough to start organising a totally home grown Christmas but the 14 months between now and Christmas 2012 is plenty of time. Start with your tree, which you can buy ready potted for this year. Once the festive season ends, find a suitable spot in your garden and bed it in with plenty of organic compost and water. You can leave it in the pot when you plant it for easy access next year but you’ll need to keep an eye on growth to avoid ending up with an eight footer in 12 months time. If growing space is going to be a real issue, choose a dwarf variety such as a Balsam Fir, which has a maximum height of one metre and smells wonderful to boot. Use any leftover space to create raised beds on which to grow your own Christmas vegetables. You’ll need to plan ahead as most winter veg needs to be planted in June and July, although some species can be planted as late as October. Make September and October your main foraging months, and take advantage of the berry glut by bottling some for a Christmas treat and freezing the rest for berry-based deserts. Also worth picking are sloes, which you can use to make homemade gin that should be ready by late December if you make it by the end of August. Topped up with organic British champagne, it’s the perfect Christmas morning tipple.
I Am a Tree: Spring Cleaning
A lot of things ended up in the bag for the vets that had suffered long neglectful relationships with me, but none longer than a yellow silk scarf that I had only worn a few times.
A French girl named Catherine (pronounced Cat-trine) spent a summer with us as an exchange student when I was eight years old, and we all fell in love with her. Months and months later she might come across something that would remind her of the promise, but by then she would think the little girl had already forgotten and she might let it go, the way any nineteen year old girl lets things go.
But she didn’t and about six weeks after the end of the summer, a flat package arrived in Brooklyn from Catherine. Under the brown paper with my name carefully written out in her swirling French handwriting was a square, flat, thin cardboard envelope with a fancy design on the outside. It was cream colored with a long fine line running diagonally across the front of it, and a single French word in chocolate brown lettering underneath it.