There was a post about them on thebaglady.tv…

And today I found out that my corgi necklace has been featured in Company Magazine (via Etsy, and unfortunately without a link back to my shop). So if you’re googling “Corgi necklace featured in Company Magazine”, you’ve come to the right place! (Thanks for the idea of doing the blog post, Samantha!).

I don’t have a copy of Company Magazine yet, but I’ll be picking one up to check out my corgis in the press :)

PS. If you ever spot something of mine in the press, please shout! More often than not I don’t know they’re going to be featured.

We arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed on the Saturday morning and set about sorting out our stall area. For the first time ever we even had backing boards, I wish I’d done something more spectacular with them but I did manage to bring a piece of fabric with a hole cut out of it (yeah, even seasoned marketeers sometimes screw up) and some press print outs.

Remember the little suitcase I picked up a few weeks ago? It’s now part of my stall display, housing the great outdoors collection… along with some astro-turf and twigs (that Adam went out and hunted down on Saturday morning!). I also forgot my camera, so these are all iPhone photos.

There were over 60 makers at the fair, with work ranging from jewellery to fine art prints, and right over to wood turning & furniture making. There was an amazing variety of stuff!

We were in the main room of Victoria Hall in the centre of Saltaire village, the room had an awesome roof…

My corgis were there, too, on their own little jubilant jubilee display with the london bus necklace and my coronation tin find!

I also took a couple of manequins for my t-shirts, they saved quite a lot of space on the table. Shame they’re too bulky to take to the majority of fairs that I do, though. As always, my stall layout is a work of progress. I had a bit of a melt down a couple of fairs ago because I really HATED EVERYTHING ABOUT IT. I was pretty happy with this layout, though. I would like to add more levels, but that gets complicated when you’re going on the train with stuff.

Elsewhere on the trail there were open houses holding small exhibitions. I had chance to visit a couple on the Monday morning when my parents came over & Adam guarded the stall. We visited an exhibition of cigar box guitars that Adam had seen on the first day, and a couple more of print work and painting.

It was such a fantastic event to be part of, over 6500 people came to the fair over the weekend and I bet there were even more just wandering around the open houses. It was also nice to see so many people from The Internetz in real life, and quite a few people came to the stall who follow me on instragram/here! Thank you all for introducing yourselves! :D

The drive’s really easy coming down the M1, and we didn’t get lost once. It’s a bit annoying that there aren’t really any eating places super near by, though, we ended up googling ‘food’ and heading to a Chiquitos about a mile away. They do have their own cafe on site, but some other choices would be nice. That, though, is my only gripe about the entire thing.

Without further ado…

Yay! The place is HUGE, based in a couple of sound stages (which I’m mainly familiar with because of Universal/MGM studios..). I also took a bazillion photos so I’ve only selected a few for this post, the rest of them you can find on my flickr (which I’ve decided to resurrect).

More photos under the cut, don’t look if you’re going & want to be surprised!

The entrance is full of these huge photos of the cast, from depressing ‘I’ve just accepted my death’ Harry, right back to ‘I’m a fucking wizard?! WHUT’ Harry.

There’s also a starbucks. Caffeine fix, hi!

The tour starts with a little film about Dan, Emma & Rupert’s experiences on the set. It’s quite cute, really nostalgic. Aw. Then the screen goes up and you’re looking at the doors to Hogwarts.. wowweee!

On the other side you enter the great hall…

It’s really well done, with murals painted on the walls that you don’t really see in the films, and crests above and inside the fireplace. The hall’s dotted with costumes & props, too. This is the only part of the tour where you have a ‘guide’, I didn’t really listen to her though because I was like ‘OMFG!’ the whole time.

From here you go into the very large, open exhibition area that’s held in one of the sound stages. This is where they’ve put parts of the set, like the Gryffindor common room, Hagrid’s hut, the boy’s dormitory and so, so, so much more!

I don’t know if you see this in the film, but it’s a portrait of a young Minerva McGonagall. Neat, huh? It’s hanging in the Gryffindor common room.

There are glass cases full of props everywhere, too. It was so much fun going ‘Ooh! that the tri wizard cup!’, ‘ohhh! marvolo gaunt’s ring!’.

This case had loads of death eater masks in, really impressive and some of them were pretty freaky. Right next to this case there was a display of death eaters & Voldemort, and just next to that they had the ‘Magic is Might’ statue from the Ministry of Magic.

One of the favourite parts of the tour for Adam & I was this case full of printed material, from books, to packaging & train tickets. We were both super impressed with similar things in Florida last year (specifically the Weasley’s joke shop branding).

We didn’t bother with the broomstick ride/photo, the queue was 45minutes long (& the photos were £12 a pop.. yikes!). The final treat in this area was the Black family tapestry…

Pro-tip: If you visit, look UP all the time. There’s stuff hanging from everywhere!

We then ventured outside where there were a few outdoor sets, the knight bus & BUTTERBEER! Only two places in the world sell butterbeer, and I’ve had both. And both were equally as unsatisfying, but I have to say the Floridian slushy version was tastier. I’m not a cream soda fan, which is pretty much what it’s like.

The next stage of the tour is really interesting. You enter the prop design, makeup and artwork department. Firstly, you get shown the prosthetics and various other ‘magic’ creating things, such as scale models of the cast, animatronic mandrake roots & creepy voldemorts.

Then you can have a quick jaunt up Diagon Alley, peeping through the shop windows. It turns from night to day while you’re in there, which is pretty cool. Oh and, if you spot Hagrid wandering around in my photos it’s because there was a professional impersonator on our tour! hah!

Then you’re taken into the art working area, where you get to see loads of sketches, plans, concept art (which is really, really cool) and finally a bunch of paper maquettes of the set. I loved this part!

And then… wow… I didn’t know this was coming so it was a completely perfect end to the tour. There’s a huge 1:24 scale model of the Hogwarts castle, complete with grounds. You can read more about the castle model here, it was so impressive, though. Again, the did the light switcheroo so at some points you could see the little windows light up..!

And there’s me at ‘night’, giddy with Harry Potterness. I would seriously recommend this tour to anyone, and our 6hr round trip was WELL worth it. We spent around 3.5 hours there in total, and could’ve easily spent more. The gift shop’s great, but they’d sold out of every flavour jelly beans :( We did get a little pumpkin juice fridge magnet, though (FYI, you can buy bottles of pumpkin juice at Harry Potter in Universal).

Don’t forget, there’s loads more photos over on my flickr!

This teeny, tiny monogrammed leather case was a find last Saturday. It’s a bit beaten up, but I adore it! I’ve got grand plans for its revival (the lining it horrible right now, stripping that out asap). I’ll be using this case to display one of my collections on the stall!

Similarly, and from the same place, this tin will be used on my stall next to my jubilee items! It’s from Queen Elizabeth’s coronation so it’s quite fitting I thought. Going to polish it up a bit, but I like that it looks its age!

The final thing I found this week was this tiny little trinket pot, which matches a larger one I already have that belonged to my Nanna. This was only £1.50, and it’s so small I’m not even sure I have anything to keep in it! Looks pretty, though.

I like thrifting for things, and follow lots of people on instagram who seem to always have AMAZING finds (especially in America). There seems to be a lot less stuff around where I live, I’m not sure I’m looking in the right places or whether there just isn’t anything around.. I still find the occasional gem, though.

Busy times around Finest Imaginary towers this week, here’s what I’ve been up to lately…

Finishing up on two website design/builds that should hopefully launch within the next few days! You can also check out a bigcartel skin that I recently finished for Nikki McWilliams here!

Being struck down with a cold that rendered me useless last week, blergh! I’m almost better now & I’m taking vitamins in an effort to ward off any nasties.

It didn’t stop me going on a family ‘ale trail’ in York last Friday, though. No siree! beer’s a restorative! I was a little worn out by the end of the day, though!

Prepping a slightly new stall layout for Finest Imaginary. We’re at the Saltaire arts trail in 19 days, and I need to up the ante a bit!

On the back of that I’ve been rummaging around amazing junk shops trying to find props that I can use on my stall. I had success over the weekend, I’ll post my little finds tomorrow!

We’ve been spending a little time in the garden, mainly weeding and getting it looking a bit better. I have some little seedlings coming up but could do with spending some more time getting things in order! I know I’ll regret it come summer if I don’t!

Watching Twin Peaks! Finally! We got netflix and realised the whole thing was on there. We’ve been meaning to buy it for the past few years and never got around to it so this is perfect. We’re up to episode 8 now & suitably impressed.

We walked to a local cafe for breakfast with my Mum.

Two flat whites & some flap jacks later we decided to head home and tackle the supermarket.

We went to the local Morrisons because it’s been rennovated, I was super impressed – they were selling things like samphire, whole horseradish, oyster mushrooms, daikon radish etc. Things that are usually really hard to find (especially oop North)! I wasn’t *too* impressed with how crazy busy it was, though.

Still at the super market, distracted by ALL THE CHEESE.

Admiring some new enamel kitchenware that I got at Morrisons, so cheap too! Ever since I had a hot chocolate in an enamel camping mug at a cafe in Manchester I’ve wanted some of my own, and the little pie dish is just too cute.

Time for lunch! We’re having ham sandwiches in crusty rolls with this special mustard. Lovely!

Even though it’s a bank holiday I still had work today, but I decided to do it from my sofa-office while watching Game of Thrones. Self employment win!

Kitty play time

I think I missed a couple of hours here, but while Adam cooked tea (amazing cauliflower curry & roasted bombay style potatoes) I caught up with some screen printing for a wholesale order that’s going out next week.

After tea I read my book for a while and.. er.. maybe I fell asleep on the sofa a bit, but that’s what Easter weekend’s about, right?

Headed to bed to watch Kung fu panda

We were all knackered, even the cats (they’re not used to people coming and going all day!), so it was an early night!

All in all, not bad for a first attempt at remembering to take photos all day! I might try this more regularly, although usually it would just be me working at my desk..!

First up I have the magenta chevron coasters & faux bois coasters. I’ll be adding more of my regular designs in the coming weeks, and also doing some different colourways and mixed packs. Hopefully this is the start of a new home ware division of my little brand :)

Comment number 3, Meredith Taylor :) I’ll be in touch in the next couple of days about your prize Meredith! :)

I’ll be back tomorrow to showcase some new Finest Imaginary products, hope you’re all having a lovely week so far.. even if you are snowed in ;)

Luckily I’m quite tall so I’ve never really felt like I needed that extra couple of inches, plus I’ve never worked or existed in an environment where high heels were the norm (web developers tend to dress pretttty casually for the most part). I’m determined to live a life in flats, with unbroken ankles and no hammer toes! Who’s with me?!

1 – Topshop £25 // 2 – River Island £22 // 3 – Topshop £32  // 4 – Forever21 £13.75 (bargain!) // 5 – Modcloth $55 // 6 – Topshop £32 // 7 – Zara £20 // 8 – Kate Kanzier £25

I got finished on a client design mid afternoon, and started to head over to Manchester for the Bright Club evening where several of our friends were talking. It was another massively sunny day, so I walked through the park and listened to Mötley Crüe. Good times!

Super sunny squink facing (that’s like tebowing, but for instagram… right?)

The trains were delayed, but I got on one eventually. It got diverted, a 35 minute train journey turned into an 1hr 15mins, and I ended up at a different station to where I was supposed to be going. It was okay, though, that station was closer to where I needed to be.

Adam met me and we headed to ‘The Pub’ for some food. We got there and sat with friends, ordered 2 burgers in a relatively quiet bar at 7pm and by 7.30pm we still didn’t have our food. I wasn’t in the best of moods already, after postage prices & train fuck-ups, so I went and complained. I was fobbed off with ‘she’s plating it up now’ and ‘it’s not really fair that we get all these food orders at once’… sayyyy WHAT, you’re a pub serving food, right? Oh, and then the classic, ‘well it’s not really my problem, I just work behind the bar’… dear Lord, Britain, your apathy to customer service never ceases to amaze me.

So, pissed off and hungry, we waited for our burgers that eventually turned up at 7.45pm. I’m a notoriously sloowwww eater, like super slow, but I wolfed that thing down in record time! Yeah! Okay.. maybe Adam did help a little, but still! Wolfed it down!

We were just in time to get around the corner for the Bright Club, paid our entry, and headed to the bar (at this point I was willing to get lashed). The singular bar man was having difficulties serving 3 drinks (I know, I know.), but a few minutes later I was finally going to get my bottle of desperados, £3.05 it says on the bar! A deal I thought! ‘Barkeep,2 of your finest desperados!’. They weren’t £3.05 though, those were Saturday’s prices… prices from the PAST. The bar man said he couldn’t honor them, and that I should just accept the £3.20 price hike because he had MILLIONS (2) people waiting to be served. I accepted the prices and told him to wipe the wrong price away! He couldn’t. It was painted on.

Really crappy iPhone photos are the best, right?

Anyway, Bright Club was great, our friends did stirling jobs of making everyone laugh, a grand time! Adam and I left and headed up to the train station. On the way there we were confronted by a Canada goose sitting in the middle of the road near the university. Just sat there, on its own, in the middle of the road. We missed our train because of this goose.

When we got to the train station a guy was trying to wheel a luggage trolley (you know, like the ones you get at the airport) down the escalator. Simultaneously a rather meaty middle aged woman was coming up the other escalator wearing a bikini. That’s right, a bikini.

When we got to the platform a drunken pensioner accosted Adam and started asking for a fag, neither of us smoke, and all she kept saying was ‘How rude are YOU’. We pointed her in the direction of potential smokers, and reminisced about the goose in the road.

The end.