Vintage Elle

Breaking News: Vintage Elle THE SHOP!

2013-03-17T13:06:00.000-07:00

Psst... word on the street is that Vintage Elle is powering ahead next week and giving their lucky fans a first glimpse of their fabulous new shop stock tomorrow. Eek!

Sorry that our online shop opening is a little bit behind schedule, but I have been really busy lately styling a Jane Austen shoot as part of the BBC's Pride and Prejudice 200 year anniversay celebrations. Exciting times! (I'll be revealing lots of images of that over Easter.) However, now we are full steam ahead with our shop. We have been stocking up and have lots of gorgeous, quality vintage items to show you. I can't wait to get the pictures online. I hope you love all the pretty dresses as much as I do <3

I'll be uploading it all to our Facebook page first, so make sure you 'like' us at https://www.facebook.com/VintageElle. When we reach 150 Facebook fans I will be hosting a giveaway to get one of our items for absolutely FREE so make sure you keep an eye out for that.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

2013-03-17T10:10:00.002-07:00

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to all the lovely Vintage Elle fans <3 How will you be wearing your vintage green?

Costume Design Oscar Nominations 2013

2013-01-14T13:44:00.001-08:00

It's that time of year again- Oscar nominations!

And the nominees for Best Costume Design are-

Anna Karenina by Jacqueline Durran

Les Misérables by Paco Delgado

Lincoln by Joanna Johnston

Mirror Mirror by Eiko Ishioka

Snow White and the Huntsman by Colleen Atwood

All the designs this year are so fantastic, it's bound to be really tough choosing a winner. I feel like I want Les Misérables to win as I absolutely adored the film, but I don't think the costumes were the best from this year. I think that Anna Karenina deserves the Oscar this year as the designs were so stylish and beautiful. Jacqueline Durran was blessed however with having to design for Keira Knightly- she could be dressed in a bin liner and make it look Oscar worthy!

Who do you think designed the best costumes this year?

Inspiration - Street Art in Barcelona

2013-01-05T13:42:00.000-08:00

Good news photos are working again, so here's a long awaited post!

Last August I went on a summer holiday to Barcelona. They've been a long time coming, but finally here are the photos!

I completely fell in love with the Spanish city and ended up becoming a little bit obsessed with all the fantastic street art. Everyone in Barcelona seems to be so fantastically artistic and everywhere you go there is something fascinating to look at. The graffiti is incredible and there are brilliant street performances to watch everywhere. Place all this amongst fantastic buildings by Gaudi and you are on to a winner! I even stumbled across loads of antique markets and vintage shops. Besides London, this is the one other city that I could imagine myself living in.

I took absolutely thousands of photos, but here is a roundup of my favourite pictures of Barcelona's street art. I hope you enjoy them and feel inspired to go there yourself. I definitely recommend it.

New Year Freebie!

2013-01-05T09:18:00.005-08:00

So, the Vintage Elle Blog team are still having some technical difficulties with posting pictures. :-( We have lots of great posts planned and will hopefully be up and running again asap!

For now here is a new year present for you all. These 2 images below are my 2 favourite wallpaper tiles. They line up perfectly to create fabulous vintage backgrounds to the size you want. I use these all the time as wallpaper, for scrapbooking, scaled models, backgrounds for websites and to mount pictures on. You can even change the colours in Photoshop to give you even more versatility.

I'd love to see what fun things you use these for. Comment with a link or email to amy(at)amycartwright(dot)co(dot)uk :-)

Christmas Trip to Whitby, The Land of Dracula.

2013-01-04T06:15:00.000-08:00

I'm so sorry about my lack of posting over the past few weeks. It's been a really crazy Christmas! Tristan and I just got a new car and we have ended up pretty much driving around the whole of Britain in it to visit family.

I am having some massive problems with uploading photos, so for now here are a few pics from our trip to Whitby, Yorkshire. You wouldn't actually be able to guess how long it's taken me to put this post together!

I had so much fun in Whitby. We went for dinner at the Magpie Cafe, which is meant to have the best fish and chips in the country, and went Vampire hunting in the Whitby Abbey ruins. Unfortunately, lots of the shops were closed, but I still managed to find some Christmas presents and a new 1970s teaset for myself for £4.95. It's gorgeous and a bargain!

Dorothy's Ruby Slippers!

2012-12-14T09:22:00.003-08:00

Here at the Vintage Elle Studio we are kind of obsessed with the Ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz (and when I say obsessed I mean majorly obsessed!) They are probably the most famous shoes that have ever exsisted. That is why, when creating our latest collection of sparkly shoes they were the first thing we thought of.

As they were such a major part of the Wizard of Oz several pairs of Ruby Slippers were made. 5 pairs are known to exist but there possibly were even more. In the original book 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' by L. Frank Baum, Dorothy's shoes were originally silver. Legend has it that the film producers wanted to take full advantage of the new technicolor technology and decided to make them red... and thank goodness they did! I really don't feel that Dorothy clicking her boring silver heels saying, "there's no place like home" would have had quite the same effect.

Aren't they pretty!

It is well known that during the Hollywood Golden Age, Film studios were really careless with their props and costumes. Staff often took advantage of this and took many souveniers home to build up their own collections. In 1970 a costumer called Kent Warner was rummaging around in the MGM basement finding bits of costume to auction off. He came across the stash of Ruby Slippers, which had just been forgotten about. He auctioned them off, keeping the best pair for himself. Lady Gaga even owns a pair now...

...And Debbie Reynolds owns the pointy toed witch version.

It is now believed that Judy Garland only actually wore one of the pairs and they can be found on display at the National Museum of American History. One of the copies is currently on display at the Hollywood Costume Exhibition at the V&A in London and I can't wait to get to see them! Out of all the fabulous costumes that have ever been designed, they were chosen to go on the official book cover! (My boyfriend just gaeme this book as an early Christmas present and I definitely recommend it)

I for one absolutely love this style of shoe. They are so elegant and ladylike, without having a crippling 4 inch heel. This is why we were so inspired to add our own pair to the Vintage Elle upcycled shoe collection. If you take a visit to our Etsy store you could own your very own pair of Ruby Slippers for a lot less than the originals which last sold for $666,000. How exciting! https://www.etsy.com/listing/118121324/ruby-slippers-size-5-handmade

Vintage Elle - Now selling on Etsy!

2012-12-13T05:57:00.000-08:00

So I did have an amazing post lined up today on 1920s fashion, but I became a bit side tracked by setting up Vintage Elle's first Etsy store. It's early days yet and it will take me a while to photograph everything, but at least it is now up and running! At the moment I have listed some limited edition prints of some of my drawings and a couple of original canvas paintings. Exciting stuff! You can find my shop at www.etsy.com/shop/VintageElleStudio.

Here's a sneaky peak of what's on offer. Limited Edition prints of my costume designs for Cinderella. Signed, numbered and dated by myself.

The original artwork for these paintings (Although it will be very difficult for me to let them go!)

AND I am introducing a new illustration entitled 'Vanity'

I will be uploading many more handmade, vintage inspired wares over the next month, so keep your eye on it. New products also include my new line of upcycled vintage glitter shoes! Once I've got photos. Lets just say that taking photos yourself, of shoes that are on your own feet, is proving pretty tricky. Here's a quick preview.

Let me know if there is anything in particular that you'd like to see in my shop.

...And rest assured that the really exciting post on 1920s fashion will still happen within the next week!

Spontaneous Painting On A Day Off

2012-12-11T10:17:00.001-08:00

Today is Tuesday. I had no plans except upcycling my sofa and buying some wrapping paper. I spontaneously decided to do some painting. Both took about 1 1/2 hours each to finish. I am fairly happy with how these turned out. It's been so long since I've painted anything other than a costume design! I first is meant to be a painting Marilyn Monroe, but I think it looks more like Gwen Stefani. What do you think?

If you would like to purchase any of my paintings you can find them in my Etsy Shop at https://www.etsy.com/listing/117937418/original-painting-of-marilyn-monroe

Your own 'Red Cup' Christmas coffee

2012-12-10T05:16:00.001-08:00

I don't know about anyone else, but in December it's not actually Christmas presents that seem to bankrupt me. I love to make a lot of my presents, so while it's time consuming, it doesn't actually cost that much. The thing that puts me in December debt is the Starbucks 'Red Cup' Christmas coffee. I can't get enough of them! I look forward to it all year- they are so yummy. However, you can easily find yourself paying up to £3.50 for a single coffee. 'WTF!' I hear you say, 'That's insane!'. Well you are right.

I'm usually really good at taking my own coffee with me in the morning, but with the Christmas coffee my travel mug just can't compete. Until now!

I been racking my brain trying to come up with a quick, fun DIY coffee idea for my favourite holiday and here's what I've come up with-

VINTAGE ELLE'S RED CUP CHRISTMAS COFFEE.

It's so simple to make yourself and smells so Christmassy. Here's everything you need.

A cafetiere, ground coffee, cinnamon, nutmeg, milk, red food colouring and a kettle.

Also, please note that these instructions are for a medium sized cafetiere.

Step 1) Fill your cafetiere with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg and 3 tablespoons of ground coffee. Fill with boiling water and leave to brew for 7 minutes or to taste.

Step 2) Once your coffee is the strength you like it, pour into a mug and add milk. I used an old jam jar for mine as I wanted to make it feel different and special. Plus a glass mug is great so you can see and appreciate the colour of your coffee!

Step 3) Add the red food colouring until it reaches the desired colour. It should be about 3 drops.

Step 4) Drink and enjoy it with a homemade cookie and a good book.

(You can add a bit of sugar as well if you like)

5 favourites - Mason Jar Crafts

2012-12-09T07:52:00.002-08:00

Source

If you have a Pinterest account I am sure, like me, you are currently obsessed with Mason Jars. They seem to be everywhere at the moment and some of the things people are doing with them are, quite frankly, GENIUS! There's so many brilliant ideas out there. Here are my 5 favourite uses for Mason Jars so far.

1) Cocktail cup! They make cocktails look so yummy and a candy striped straw adds so much cuteness. These would be great to use for a rustic style BBQ.

Source

2) Cookie Mix in a jar. I absolutely love this idea. This would make a fantastic gift for anyone. Everyone loves to have a recipe mix in their cupboard for a lazy, indulgent day. You could make them for anything- cookies, cup cakes, brownies and the list goes on. Just remember to write the instructions on a gift tag so they know what to do!

Source

3) Place settings. I hate it when cutlery gets wrapped up in a napkin. (I don't know why, but I just do). I love this idea. It will definitely add imagination to any dinner table. I would recommend using vintage napkins for the full effect.

Source- Pinterest (no linked website attached, but I would love to know who this photo belongs to!)

4) Flower vase. I love small flower arrangements. The only vases I own are for big flowers and I sometimes use glasses for smaller arrangements. This looks so much more impressive than a pint glass!

Source

5) Sewing kit. This is another lovely gift idea, especially for anyone that is just beginning to learn to sew. Attach a pin cushion to the lid and fill the jar with all the basic equipment they could need (needles, pins, thread, buttons, scissors etc)

Mason jars are a bit of a fad at the moment. It's great that they are available everywhere, but not so great is that they can be a bit over priced. If you want to find some I would recommend junk shops and antique markets. I can particularly recommend The Junk Shop in Greenwich. They have a great selection of vintage jars, bottles, boxes and tins. However, if you hunt around the highstreet and price compare you can find some reasonably priced vintage style ones.

So that completes my top 5 favourite uses for Mason Jars, although there are so many more. I would love to know what you use yours for.

Easy Homemade White Chocolate and Nutella Snowball Truffles

2012-12-08T17:25:00.000-08:00

Well it is December afterall. Everyone needs to have at least 1 indulgent chocolatey treat over the Christmas period. So here is mine- Snowball truffles with hidden Nutella for extra yumminess! (Is yumminess a word? Probably not...) Mark my words; these are absolutely divine and so unbelievably easy to make.

Ingredients:

200 grams of Dark Chocolate

200 grams of White Chocolate

About 1 tablespoon of butter

60ml Double Cream

100g of Nutella

tub of Cocoa Powder

vegetable oil

Greaseproof paper

a pretty plate!

Step 1) Put all the dark chocolate, butter, cream and Nutella into a glass bowl. Melt over a pan of water on the hob until it's all blended together and there are no lumps. Put the bowl into the fridge for about an hour until it's hardened to the consistancy of Playdough. If it goes too hard just leave it out for a while until it softens.

Step 2) Once your mixture is a doughy consistancy, roll it into truffle sized balls and put them on a plate. This can be a bit sticky so I recommend using some cocoa powder on your fingers to stop everything sticking together. My mixture made about 18 truffles. Put your plate into the freezer for about 10 minutes to harden a little bit more.

Step 3) While the chocolate balls are in the freezer, it's time to start melting your white chocolate coating. You can do this over the hob again. However, my bowl was still covered in chocolatey Nutella mix. I found the best way was to break the white chocolate into small pieces and put into a microwave safe bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of oil. Heat in the microwave, making sure to stir it every 30 seconds until it's smooth and completely melted. I should also mention that I used white crunch chocolate because I love it. The crunchy bits went really well with the creaminess of the truffles.

Step 4) Get your balls out of the freezer. Dip each one in the melted white chocolate and roll around, until it is completely covered, and place it down on the greaseproof paper. Repeat this with all the balls.

Step 5) Now this step is optional. I know they were meant to be snowy truffles, but when I'm in the kitchen I can get a bit carried away with random creativity. I just saw my tub of cocoa powder and couldn't resist sprinkling some over, while the white chocolate was still wet. Then I dripped my leftover chocolate over the truffles just to be fancy.

Step 6) Now they are almost finished! Leave them over night to set, or if you are like me, and can't wait that long to eat them, pop them back in the freezer for about 30 mins until the chocolate has hardened.

Step 7) Eat them or be really good and share them with friends.

See they couldn't be easier! I hope you enjoy making these as much as I did.

WInter Trend Fur Muff

2012-12-08T10:41:00.001-08:00

When I put together an outfit I always like to draw inspiration from the past. It's something I have always done ever since I was a wee child. Every winter I used to imagine that I was a Victorian Christmas Caroller wearing a cloak, a bonnet and a muff. Basically, I imagined that I looked a little bit like this-

Now it may be 20 years later but it's safe to say that my fashion inspiration hasn't really changed. Here's the outfit I picked today to do some Christmas shopping in Greenwich. I bought this muff (faux fur of course!) in Heal's last Christmas for £15 and it really has been the best purchase ever. I am pretty much wearing it every day at the moment as it keeps my hands so warm and toasty. There's a little ribbon inside so if you need to use your hands for anything you can just put the ribbon round your wrist and your hands are completely free. Very handy. Trust me that if you try one you will NEVER go back to using boring old gloves again. Here's to hoping that muffs start trending again in 2013!

I finished my outfit off with a pair of my Glitter Shoes. I make these shoes myself. They are so sparkly and perfect for the party season. If your interested in them, I will be selling on Etsy soon. Follow this blog and I will post details as soon as I can.

And what outfit would be complete without a gorgeous handbag. Here I am wearing my Mulberry Lily in Oak.

Photography © Tristan Trend (aka my lovely boyfriend)

How To... Chalk Paint Style Kitchen Cupboards

2012-12-06T23:53:00.000-08:00

This is my dream kitchen!

I absolutely love the idea of painting your kitchen cabinets with blackboard paint. I love the way that the left over smudgey chalk can give it so much texture and feel really warm and homey, despite being black. I also love the practicality of chalkboard. I always forget something when I go food shopping because I can never be bothered to write down a list.

This is the kitchen in my studio (before I moved many, many belongings in!) The most annoying thing about renting is that you can't change anything. It's very difficult to put a bit of your own personality into your living space. If it was my choice I would just rip them out, along with the tiles. We are allowed to give them a fresh coat of paint, but would have to keep them white. They're not too bad, but I think that landlord built them himself, so they are just very boring looking, white painted plywood.

And this is my kitchen now!

I'm much happier with how it's looking. Seeing as I couldn't paint the cupboards with blackboard paint, I figured that there's nothing actually stopping me from putting blackboards up! There's still a long way to go, but already I think this area looks a bit more personal and like MY kitchen. My next step is to try and persuade my landlord to let me paint the kitchen blue. Living in a studio I think it's really important to divide the space into seperate areas and different colours of paint is a great way to do that.

If you want to do this yourself it's really easy. All you need is 1) blackboards with a wooden frame (however many you fancy) 2) jute twine or butcher's twine. 3) a small drill (I used a dremmel), 4) ruler, 5) pencil.

Step 1) Place your blackboard face down. It's best to use an old surface that you don't mind drilling into by accident. I used an old craft cutting mat. I purchased the blackboards from ebay for £1.99 each including the postage.

2) With your pencil and ruler mark the centre point along the top and bottom. This is where you will attach the twine.

3) Take your small drill or dremmel and drill a hole at the points you marked. I found it easiest to drill from the back. Then once the bit has poked through the front, turn the blackboard over and drill through the other side. I found this gave a neater hole.

4) Once you have your holes thread the end of the twine through one and tie very tightly.

5) Then take the blackboard and twine over to your cupboard. Place the blackboard in the desired position and throw the loose end of the twine over the top of the cupboard.

6) Run the loose end of the twine down the back of the cupboard door and back up the front until it reaches the bottom hole of the blackboard. Allowing enough to tie a knot cut the end of the twine to the length needed.

7) Pull the twine as tight as you can and thread through the bottom hole. Tie in place. It is so important to pull the twine as tight as possible as this is what keeps the blackboard in place. If it's too loose it will fall straight down to the bottom of the cupboard door.

This last step is definitely the trickiest and may take a bit of trial and error. Make sure you have enough twine for muck ups! I personally found the most difficult part to be threading the twine through the bottom hole in step 6. It kept fraying at the end. Overall though, this is an incredibly easy thing to do. It probably took me an hour one evening to finish it all! Also, the great thing about this is that the boards will only get better as time goes on and the more chalk smudges there are.

It's also fun to think of some ideas of where to keep your chalk. I used this old teacup. It's such a pretty cup, but has a hairline crack in it so can no longer be used for tea. It's perfect to store the chalk and it is lovely that it can be used for something again. I love repurposing items.

I hope you found this tutorial useful. I would love to see some pictures if any of you try it out yourselves.

The Government Inspector

2012-12-06T03:47:00.001-08:00

"Designer Amy Cartwright had created a multi-faceted set of exposed slatted walls with portraits of the Tsar, odd furniture and a general feeling of disarray." (NWN)

I have just finished designing The Government Inspector at The Watermill Theatre. It is such a unique venue and I always love working there. It's a tiny theatre, placed in the middle of nowhere, but they always create such fantastic productions. Previous shows have transferred to the West End, Broadway and have toured around the world!

I met with the director Seamus Allen for an interview in July and was obviously over the moon when he asked me to design it. I originally trained as a Theatre Designer, but have found myself mostly designing film in recent times. It's such a joy to get stuck into a play design again. The production was for the Theatre's Young Company, which meant that we didn't have the biggest budget in the world to play with, but I am amazed that with hardwork from everyone we managed to get everything exactly how I had envisaged it.

The design premise was that this play is set within a poor town in the middle of a great depression. The authorities were corrupt and the poor were really poor. We decided that the town had once probably been quite rich, then lost it's wealth, then gained a bit of money again, so they started to rennovate the town, then lost the money again. That's a long backstory, but I acheived this by having dusty paint pots lying around as if they had just been left there during the work. Here is the picture that served as my main inspiration fot the set and which triggered my design. I found it here.

I was so happy when I found this picture as it showed just what Seamus and I had been talking about. We were really keen for this show to be really colourful, but quite faded. Although the concept might seem quite serious, it is a comedy afterall!

Here are some of the production stills taken by Philip Tull of the final set.

The costumes were an absolute joy to put together. The wardrobe team at the Watermill were fantastic. After spending about 4 hours trawling through their costume store we amazingly managed to find most of what we needed. The idea behind the costume was that the characters wanted to make themselves look as rich and important as possible, but without the funds to buy any fancy clothes. They have pieced together their outfits the best they could manage, even though a lot of it doesn't quite match. The Governor particular fancies himself as a bit of a military general and has created himself (what he thinks is) a military looking jacket with a plain blazer with lots of medals and badges stuck over it.

All in all the play was a great success. It had a short run of 4 nights, but completely sold out! The audience seemed to love it and laughed the whole way through. I am so pleased to have been involved with this and now I can't wait to design another play again.

My First T-Shirt Design

2012-12-05T14:09:00.003-08:00

This was my first ever T-Shirt design.

I designed it and entered it into my first ever competition.

And it was a runner up!

The competition was to design a T-Shirt for the company Artecollage in association with Talenthouse. Here is a link to the competition. Although I am disappointed not to win 1st prize and the money, I am thrilled to be one of the 5 runner ups. As an artist I have always been a bit nervous about what others may think about my work. It is such a huge confidence booster to have my design picked out of 80 entrants, especially when most of them were incredible. This will give me a fantastic start to 2013, when I plan to focus on my art a lot more than I have in recent years. I feel so inspired now and can't wait to design some more graphics!

Here are all the winning designs from Artecollge's blog post on the competition-

...And here is my original drawing for the design. I first drew this picture of Mary Pickford, the iconic silent movie star, by hand with pencil on white paper. I then scanned it in and coloured it using photoshop. I then played around with the contrast and brightness until I was happy.

I first became interested in her because of Katie Melua's song 'Mary Pickford'. It's such a simple, pretty song which quickly established itself as one of my favourites. I definitely recommend listening to it.

"Mary Pickford used to eat roses

Thought that they’d make her

Beautiful and they did

One supposes"

I hope you like my design and well done to everyone else that entered!

How to Create Snow in London.

2012-12-04T14:52:00.002-08:00

It's no secret that I'd love it to be a White Christmas. However, living in London it's never really happened. It rarely snows and even when it does, with the people trampling about, any powder just turns to sludge within a few hours. Right now I am sitting in a very DRY London whilst my friends all round the UK seems to be enjoying the snow.

Now those who know me, will know that I am having a super budget Christmas this year. I was made redundant in September, so am now battling it through as a freelance artist and designer. Therefore, the first move I took, when looking for a few cheap Christmas items, was straight to Poundland. Admittedly, a lot of the items on the Poundland shelves are unbelievably tacky looking and I would never even dream of putting it up in my home. Every now and again though you can hit a jackpot- and yesterday I did! I found this pack of 24 pretty snowflake window stickers for the grand price of £1. They really are gorgeous.

There are 4 varied designs so they look great when they are all arranged together. You can't really tell that much in the photo, but each one has a 3D relief snowflake design on them. I think they definitely look more expensive than £1 and undoubtedly add a really classy Christmas touch. Absolutely gorgeous.

I am so happy now that everytime I look out of my window I see the snow. I want to keep them up all year round!

New Start and How to Stay Creative!

2012-12-03T15:56:00.001-08:00

So I am beginning to start thinking about 2013 and I have decided that it will be the year of super creativity. I am feeling so motivated and inspired these days and I really plan to make the most of it. This has just led me to have a bit of a rebrand for my blog. I hope you like the new design! Please let me know your thoughts and if you find any links that don't work etc (I am very new to the world of html).

Part of my rebrand is that I am going to begin to focus a lot more on my own work and the work of people I know, rather than that of strangers. I create so many pretty things, but never take the time to get the photos to share. I promise this is about to change! I also have so many talented friends and would love to start sharing their work with you.

Next year I am going to aim to post on here at least once a day and I can't wait to start. I find that writing my blog is really motivating and helps to give my crazy freelance lifestyle a little bit of structure.

For now I will leave you with 29 ways to stay creative! I live by most of these and they really do work!

Tee Design Competition Entry

2012-11-19T15:57:00.000-08:00

Hello lovely Bloggers!

This is my entry for the Arteecollage TShirt design competition on Talenthouse. There's 1 day left and I'd really appreciate all your votes. Here's the link

http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/a14b99f85bb21b47498de8cfbbcf1b09/771

My design is inspired by the Silent Movie actress Mary Pickford and how she used to eat roses to stay beautiful.

Thanks in advance. If I win (finger's crossed!) I will do a giveaway on my blog. Many thanks.

Amy x

Top 10 Dance Scenes of all time

2012-09-17T05:36:00.001-07:00

Ok so it's Monday and what better way to start the week than with some dance. There's so many to choose from but here are my top 10 movie dance scenes-

The Rockefella Skank from 'She's All That'

Ok this is one cheesy cheese film without much artistic merit, but I was about 11 when this film was released and I wanted to be doing this dance!

Beatnik Dance from 'Funny Face'

Audrey Hepburn as you've never seen her before... and I like it!

Singing in the Rain from 'Singing in the Rain'

To be honest every scene Gene Kelly is in is the best, but I had to pick one and this is definitely the most iconic.

Pulp Fiction

Well this is just super cool and that's all I need say...

You Make My Dreams Come True from '500 Days of Summer'

This is so sweet and hilarious.

Roxanne from 'Moulin Rouge'

This is the most dramatic scene ever and I get so involved in watching it.

Canned Heat from 'Centre Stage'

As a tween this was my favourite film EVER. I used to literally just watch this film everyday.

Beatnik Dda

America from 'West Side Story'

Growing up I so badly wanted to be a Shark (I still do!) Watching this I realise that I actually still know most of the moves...

Time After Time 'Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion'

I love this because it's weird, yet beautiful and I've never seen anything like it before.

Final Scene from 'Bootmen'

This film is seriously underated and this is a seriously amazing dance.

So there it is. My top 10 dance scenes. There were so many others to choose from but I felt these were my creme de la creme. What other dance scenes have I missed out that you like?

London Markets in the 60s

2012-06-21T02:55:00.001-07:00

Now anyone that knows me will know that I am a sucker for markets and a sucker for the 1960s, so I had to share these photos with you all. :-)

The PROPER Avengers

2012-06-09T09:57:00.000-07:00

I recently got SO excited when I heard that a new film of The Avengers was being made. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that it was to be a film based on some Marvel comics that I didn't know a thing about :-(

The Avengers is the best ever spy TV series about John Steed and Emma Peel. Diana Rigg played the absolute coolest spy woman in the world. She was intelligent, sexy, kickass, gorgeous and absolutely oozed cool 60s style. Safe to say that when I was a child (and now) she was my idol. As a kid I was so convinced that I would grow up to become a spy. Someone needs to get this show back onto our televisions! I think it would still be just as popular today.

To try and get over my ever growing disappointment that the wrong Avengers is being made into a film I have done some reminiscing. Here are some visual reminders of the best TV show ever...

Little Reminders

2012-06-08T15:15:00.001-07:00

I recently Art Directed this commercial 'Little Reminders' for Danone. I am thrilled to announce that it has just been awarded 3rd place and 2000 euro prize in Eyeka's Bonafont competition.

I am really pleased with how this turned out. Despite our very limited budget I think we've managed to make this commercial look really flashy and expensive. I ended up only spending a £50 Art Department budget and managed to beg borrow and steal nearly everything. I was thrilled that designer Emma-Kate Wood let us borrow the gorgeous blue dress which was one of her beautiful creations. It was also great to reunite with director Alex Sufit of Lexitricity productions again.

Now I am just looking forward to our pizza party to celebrate our victory. Woo!

Hidden Treasures in Liverpool

2012-03-18T12:17:00.002-07:00

This Georgian terrace house in Liverpool once belonged to photographer Edward Chambré Hardman and his wife Margaret who lived and worked there for 40 years. Little has changed in this flat since the 60s and now luckily for us The National Trust have preserved it and opened it up to visitors. I have rarely seen anywhere like this before. Being inside must genuinely feel like you are going back in time and actually looking round Chambré Hardman's photography studio and living space.

I have looked at many photographs in the past of houses from bygone eras but if I was designing a set I couldn't think of anything that would be as inspirational as this. I am now going to go and seek out a play or a film that will give me an excuse to go and visit this place for set design inspiration. Whether I manage to find that design job or not Liverpool is definitely top on my list of places that i need to visit just to go here!

Laura Marling and her Beautiful Artwork

2012-03-10T03:19:00.000-08:00

I just stumbled across these illustrations for 'The Beast' by Laura Marling, taken from the album "A Creature I Don't Know'. I had to post because they are absolutely beautiful. The art is by the very talented group of artists that call themselves Shynola.

You can see these drawings in use at http://the-bea.st/ . This is probably aesthetically the best website I have ever seen. It is a piece of artwork in it's self and could probably stand alone as an amazing music video.