Yesterday I spent a grand total of 99p while walking around the Mapperley shops. I don’t own that many Agatha Christie’s, believe it or not, but the ones I do own I’ve found in charity shops and have beautiful covers. This might be the start of a new collection. The lovely bit of framed lace I came across for the grand total of 49p! You can’t really say “no” when a treasure like that pops up…

Last week I received this beauty in the post made by the talented Tracey Meek! Isn’t she cool? I’m completely smitten with Miss Meek’s work – her Russian dolls are amazing and definitely on my wish list.

It’s official and it’s right around the corner!!!

I’ve been plotting and planning this little adventure for months and months and it’s only recently sunk in that it’s happening in less than 2 weeks!!! (slight panic)

I present to you, via The Malt Cross Gallery (Nottingham), a group show featuring art work and loveliness by Gemma Correll, Lizzy Stewart, Helen Entwisle, Jen Collins, Gemma Latimer and myself.

The opening evening starts from 4pm and there will be a lovely little table of artist books and zines available for you to purchase. Everyone’s welcome! Come along and say hello! Also, spread the word!!

PS – Here’s a link to a little article I got in the local Left Lion paper. Says a little bit about what to expect from my corner of the show.

Another mini book rant (these are becoming a bit of a habit and I’m quite enjoying them). I’m reading this at the moment (The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber) – it’s really good. Some of you UK folks may have caught the recent TV series they made based on the book. Full respect for Ramola Garai, I think she plays the character Sugar incredibly well. It’s quite gritty, which is to be expected due to the subject matter. To my own embarrassment the day I picked up my copy I was quizzed by an old man on the bus ride home. It went something like this:

Old man: “Oooo you bought yourself a book?”

Me: “Yep” [nervous smile]

Old man: “What’s it about?”

Me: “Um” (it’s about Victorian London’s Ladies of the night, but I didn’t have the courage to admit this so I was as vague as vague can be and said…) “It’s about London-?”

Old man: “Oh, right. What happens then?”

Me: “Err…” (by this point I’m turning an apt shade of crimson and since I have a good 15 minute bus ride ahead of me with this chap I couldn’t help but tell a pork pie… hoping the fib might put him off asking me any more questions) “Shopping?”

Old man: “Riiiight…” (fortunately he went on to tell me all about his reading habits… and I felt far more comfortable discussing that, phew!)

Anyway,  so far I’m only a quarter of the way in but it’s a page turner (and I’m hoping it continues to be during all 894 pages… gulp) I’d love to hear what you think of it if you have read it already.

I started reading a (very) well loved copy of this book yesterday and I’m completely hooked. You know when you get recommended certain books so many times by different people and it sort of puts you off or intimidates you a little, you have that mini “what if I don’t feel the same” panic. Well if that’s the case with this one, ignore those doubts. It’s brilliant.

I have a book! It’s for sale in my shop! …and I can’t seem to stop adding exclamation marks to everything! It’s priced at £7! Yay! (It features 26 cat themed doodles and measures 13cm x 20cm)

Just a little note to all you etsy shoppers – I have finally converted my shop currency to GBP which means the prices are a little bit weird now in dollars. I hope this doesn’t frighten anyone away :)