Star Wars Handmade Goodies

So the new Star Wars Trailer is out! (you can watch it HERE )
I thought I would feature some Star Wars goodies to put on your Christmas list!

I love this print by Leka ! Sadly you can no longer buy it from her Society 6 shop (I dont know why?!) Hopefully it will be added again soon.

Having a Star Wars themed wedding?! This is the perfect Wedding Cake Topper !

I bought this Star Wars Rebel Necklace when I went to the Secret Cinema Star Wars event, it was a lovely handmade item and so cheap!

Wooden lasercut Star Wars Coasters 

Love this hand painted Darth Vader Pin by Benjaminography.

I purchased this Star Wars Carols Jumper and I'm going to wear it every single day in December. I love it.

That's it! Here's a portrait I drew of the new character, Rey.

Podcasts Podcasts Podcasts

So I listen to podcasts every day to work, they keep me sane. Here's a list of the Top 5 podcasts worth listening to, along with a eenie weenie announcement at the end..

NUMBER FIVE

The Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's Film Reviews

I've been listening to these guys review movies for the past 8 years now. The 'Pirates of the Caribbean' rant from Kermode is still one of the best rants of all time. Not to mention the 'Sex And The City' rant.. and the 'Robin Hood' rant... ok I just tune in for Mark's entertaining rants, that's not a crime. Listen here for the best rants -

RANT RANT RANTS

NUMBER FOUR

My Dumb Friends

First of all - look at that podcast thumbnail - what a lovely illustration! I tried to find the artist but no look. 

Anyway, this is a brilliant podcast hosted by two comedians Dan St Germain & Sean Donnelley, who are visited by other comedic friends. They tried to do the whole "so.. what's the dumbest thing you've done" kind of theme early on but now they mostly discuss Dan's tragic life and his addiction to strip clubs. My most favourite topic is Barbara Todish, a female comedian(?) currently banned from China. The best episode to listen to is Episode #78 Whitmer Thomas - that guy has so many good stories to tell. Also there's a guy called Tom that gets bullied a lot, its great.

Whitmer Thomas episode

NUMBER THREE

Pilots Podcast

OK so this isn't the thumbnail of the podcast but I couldn't find it on google so I thought I would include this painting of Dwight wearing a dead bear because why not.

Anyway, this podcast is hosted by Elizabeth Sankey & Anne T Donahue who talk about a different Pilot on each episode, my favourite one is when they discuss The OC. Elizabeth's Marissa/cream cracker comparison is brilliant!

Listen here-

Pilots Podcast - Girls

NUMBER TWO

The Champs

The Champs is hosted by two comedians - Neal Brennan and Moshe Kasher. Yhe description says - "...welcome a different (black) guest every week to the podcast to discuss stupid things in a stupid way".

To be honest there's quite a few podcasts that I stopped half way through. BUT they do have a lot of great guests with some amazing life stories. For example, the Ms Pat episode is crazy. She got pregnant when she was 12, had two kids and adopted another 4 children by the time she was 16! Another great episode is Tiffany Haddish, who had an abusive Mum and a crazy 'Precious style' upbringing. Its all very interesting, if not slightly depressing.

 Listen to Ms Pat's episode here -

https://soundcloud.com/thechamps/ms-pat-1

NUMBER ONE

This American Life

Hosted by Ira Glass, I'm so addicted to this. Basically each podcast is themed, and come usually in three or four sections. Each section is either a fictional or factual life story. I loved  #443 Amusement Park (a fun boss working in the game section of his childhood amusement park) and #529 Human Spectacle (a man who finds himself a slave to a Japanese reality TV show). Its a great series to get lost in.

Amusement Park

So the announcement is.. 

*DRUM ROLL* 

Me and my friend Amelia have recently made a podcast!

Yeh we aren't really that sexy IRL

 We do what we usually do - watch a film while discussing said film or other things completely off topic, except we record it and review the film at the end. Its definitely NOT the greatest thing to sit on the world of Sound Cloud but we had fun and got slightly drunk while watching dumb films so there you go. If you want to listen to the episodes you can find them here -

Two Girls One Film

The Classic Car Boot Sale

This Saturday I decided to visit The Classic Car Boot Sale. Basically its vintage clothing & bric a brac stalls, along side some awesome 50s-70s classic cars. 

This mobile cinema was showing short films to watch for free!

Check out that cape!

My favourite out of all the retro cars had to be this lil minty Volkswagen 

I loved this guy, he looked just like Del Boy from Only Fools And Horses

This dapper guy could not stop rubbing his car, loved his outfit.

Its a great fair to be at if your really into original vintage/lindyhop clothing/ retro cars and have a lot of money to play with. All I could afford was this lil dude, I named him Fred.

Here's a lil illustration of what I wore on the day

D.I.Y Enchantment Under The Sea Wedding

So I got married one month ago, which explains the lack of activity here! I decided to do the décor myself, and so the last couple of months has been spent making endless amount of paper pom poms and gazing at Pinterest getting very carried away. Now everything has been made and the party has ended (sob) I thought I would pass on my wedding décor DIY wisdom onto another. 

Here we go!

So it's a good idea to get a general colour theme so you don't end up with a massive clash of colours and confusion. We went to Secret Cinema's Back To The Future event shortly after we got engaged, and that stuck with our theme as we had such a good time. So our theme ended up being Enchantment Under The Sea. This was handy, as we were getting married in a Victorian Swimming Pool (as you do) with an american prom looking room next door ! So with this theme, our colours were generally pastel blue/green, very similar to this colour palette I found on

 One Fab Day's blog post .

Find photography credit's here.

At the beginning of my plans I wanted it to be EXACTLY like the prom in Back To The Future. Draping silver sequinned fabrics, statues of titan, bits of coral props here and there. I even searched for a Michael J Fox cut out (does not exist, sad face). Obviously, I'm not a set designer with money on my hands so this was impossible. However I did accomplish making the exact replica of the Enchantment Under The Sea banner !

Photography credit - Sasha Lee Photography

This was hand drawn myself using photoshop and then printed on a banner (there's lots of online companies that do this for around £30-£40).

-DOWNLOAD-

 Here's a link to the artwork so you can get it printed yourself! - Artwork Link

Photographs by Sasha Lee Photography

We also purchased some american prom style streamers to hang above the banner and hang at the end of the pool. They ended up being a really nice backdrop for the formal photos! We also purchased some hanging paper fans, but these can be a tad pricey. You can purchase them here in a variety of different colours - 

Paper Fans

 Crepe Paper Streamers

Photograph credit: Sasha Lee Photography

Tissue paper garlands are relatively easy. All you need is fishing wire, a glue gun and tissue paper (all of which was purchased from amazon, very cheap!) I followed this tutorial -

Paper Tissue Garland

Photograph credit: Sasha Lee Photography

This Pom Pom vine was so easy to make, just follow this tutorial -

Hanging Pom Pom Vine

Photography credit - Sasha Lee Photography

I made so many of these buggers, every nook and cranny in the living room had a bunch of pom pom's spilling out of it. But they are very therapeutic to make, and pretty cheap! Here's a tutorial -

Paper Pom Pom Tutorial

Photographs by - Sasha Lee Photography

This was surprisingly easy and quick lil DIY project! The tutorial is here -

Sequin Monogram Letter Tutorial

You can buy the letters either from Hobbycraft or Ebay here.

Photograph by Wayne Yuan Photography

Because our venue was a listed building we wernt allowed any paper confetti that would ruin the tiles and decor. We found a solution to this, in the form of cotton pom pom confetti! My grandparents were given the task and they made hundreds! It was great fun being pelted with pom poms, I would definitely recommend it. You can buy your own lil pom pom making kit here -Pom Pom Maker

Photographs by - Sasha Lee Photography

Being an Illustrator did save us money in some places. I designed the invitations, save the dates, Order of Ceremonies and any other stationary.The Order of Ceremonies were pretty fun to make - I illustrated the venue and made sure to include portraits of the grooms and bridesmaids to make it more personal.

Photographs by Sasha Lee Photography

Photo credit - Sasha Lee Photography

I also designed some sticky labels to put on the pick n mix sweets.

-DOWNLOAD-

You can download the labels yourself here.

I also made this lil Instagram illustration to print along side our instagram wedding tag. 

-DOWNLOAD-

You can download and print this illustration yourself, get it here.

Phew, that's it! I hope this is useful to anybody. If you do use any of the designs provided let me know, I would love to see it being used again!