Sleep Over Stories and who ate all the cakes!!

Well my lovelies - I was a fairly rubbish guest yesterday - did you notice I had crawled behind the couch and fallen asleep whilst you were all partying!! After an exhausting day of teaching on very little sleep it all just got a wee bit too much for me. (There was also a little trail of donut crumbs courtesy of Aimee which would have led you to my partied out presence!)
Okay so it is 11am here in the UK and I am up and about with a wedding dress to finish and I am going to sneak out for a bit with my sweetheart for Sunday Lunch! But before that I have to show you what I have brought to the party today!


Well what do we have here? Mmmm homemade coconut and almond squares - all 2 of them, me thinks some one has been gatecrashing the party and has got to them first! Martini, red wine on a sunday morning! Scandalous! No actually these were taken last night.

Okay I have 3 tales of slumber parties of old and I would love to hear of yours!!

#1 When I lived in London aged 9 or so I used to stay at my best friends Suzanne where we would watch and laugh our socks off at Dolly Parton in 9 - 5 - we were so 80's! Dancing to cheesy music and munching on chocolate ice cream!

#2 Aged 13 and in Scotland now - staying at Dawn's and a terrible experience with a ouija board and a 'ghost' named emily who said she had come to scotland in the 16th century and died in a huge fire - and she could tell us things about us that we did not know about each other - cold draughts and 2 terrified girls!! Was it all for real - I still wonder even today!

#3 This is my favourite! Now aged 15 and I used to stay at my friend Jane's house at least every 2nd weekend - In one adventure ridden weekend with many a catastrophe!

- She had an old horse called Fred Flinstone and we both rode him a few miles down the old railway line to a picnic site where we unpacked our picnic delights. Fred was a tame and slow old soul who never usually needed to be tied up - alas on this occassion he decided he had some spirit still left in him and decided to bolt through the woods and out onto the main road and gallop off into the distance!!! With us in hot pursuit! A car stopped and asked if we needed a lift to go after him - a polite young man - but we had left the saddle and bridle and food at the picnic table - so Jane told me to stay to look after it all and she would come back for me. It was only when she had gone that I started to panic - thinking she was going to be murdered or something - she had just gone off with a man in a car for goodness sake! I sat sobbing while a group of children cam along and asked if they could eat my food! I sat there crying for about 20 minutes with children eating my oranges and yoghurt not knowing what to do, till Jane returned with her mum to tell me Fred had been found right at the back door of her house looking very sorry for himself.

- The VERY SAME weekend - we decided to have a game of seeing how far up the stairs we could jump off onto a pile of blankets and pillows at the bottom of the stairs and who would chicken out first (because that is what you do when you are 15 isn't it). We thought we were keeping ourselves out of trouble after the 'Fred incident'. It was only later that night when we were in our beds that we heard her mother cry 'Why is there a huge dent in the floorboards at the bottom of the stairs!!! She would probably have never known about our antics if I hadn't of let out a shreek of despair under the duvet and discoverd Jane in absolute hysterics under hers!! Needless to say Jane's dad had to pull them up and completely replace the 3 broken floor boards the next weekend - gosh we were popular.

And what do we have here - pie-jimminies and mickey mouse socks! and yep one is inside out!
Okay truth or dare time!! I want to know who your oldest and most embarassing celebrity crush is - and I don't mean the length of time you have had the crush! I mean OLDEST!!

Okay mine are 1) Harrison Ford 2) Jack Nicholson 3) Billy Idol 4) And I think Willie Nelson is just so cute!!!

So you have to write about yours either in the comments or in your blog - and come up with a truth or dare for everyone else too!

Oh Mr Wonk (my dad's old teddy bear since he was born) looks most annoyed that we are about to make face masks out of his honey - oh I am sure he will get over it - honey is not just for eating Mr Wonk!! It will make us even more beautiful too!

Okay peeps - My sunday lunch is calling me now and Mr Cox is impatiently waiting for me to interrupt the party to get dressed so we can go out.

Don't forget I want to hear your slumber party stories and you secret 'oldy' celebrity crushes. I shall be back to visit you all later!!

Dancing to David Bowie and The things I do to avoid putting in a zip.

Oh my gosh - how did this happen!! Over a week since my last blog post - I haven't wished any of you a happy valentines - and well things just have been running away from me!!

I really have to ap0logise, I have been religiously reading all your blogs as usual this week (I could never miss out on them now, they are part of my daily routine, I look forward to them so much) but I am not sure if it is laptop trouble or just me trouble but I am having real difficulty commenting on blogs - blogger is just a long tortuous process and typepad (the very blog device I use!! - having completely neglected my blogger account) well the damn thing will not allow me to leave a comment! It takes FOREVER and then seems to time out with no comment left. I tried to resort to saving my comments so I could try again - but after time and time again it just wouldn't work. If anyone can help me on why this would be it would be much appreciated! But please know that even if I do not leave a wee message I am still popping in to see how you all are.

Anyway onto more delightful things. Did you have a wonderful valentines? I hope you all did my sweets no matter whether you were with a lover, friends, family or spoiling your own self rotten with long soaks in the bath and chocolates by candlelight.

As for me, well I had to have a self imposed banishment from the computer for the day as after waking up before Mark as I usually do, I went through to the living room to peruse blogs, etsy and all my usual other daily things when he came through with such a look of mock disgust on his face that I would 'choose' etsy over a lie in with him that inbetween laughing at his utter dismay and trying to appease him with cups of tea, I thought I should actually spoil him with my undivided attention!! Seriously, he was devastated! But I have to tell you, he spoiled me rotten. He bought me the much coveted Ray La Montagne album, Trouble - I have wanted this album for so long! We went for a glorious breakfast at our favourite deli for the gourmet breakfast (sooooo delicious). And then he had to go work, which was a bit sad. He works 4 late shifts on weekdays which means most of my evenings are spent alone, I guess I get to watch what I want on the TV though!

The rest of this week has gone by in a bit of a haze due in part to ridiculous levels of back and neck pain and migraines - and in all of that have I made sure I have enough of my prescription pain relief? - no I haven't. And I can't get anymore till next week as I can't get a doctors appointment. Damn and blast.

So what else have I been doing? Oh yes dancing at sporadic moments inbetween working to David Bowie's Greatest Hits - yep even with back pain I can still dance to David Bowie. I love him. And it is great when I need a break from working. Speaking of which - I have to finish a wedding dress for Monday (this was part of a semi-distastrous workshop I tried to teach a few months ago - I won't bore you with the details but suffice to say I have to get this thing finished for Monday and it has become the bane of my life. Invisible zips - who designed them anyway!!! Buttons and loops - Can I sew them in half an hour? Of course I can't - it will take at least 6 hours which I seriously don't have.

So what is the photo we have here? Is it the wedding dress? No. Is it the leather Pirates hat I need to have finished by Tuesday? No. Is it the hand bags and lesson plan and instruction leaflet I have to have done for teaching the accessories workshop with the ladies group TOMORROW!!? No my dears it is not. Is it the many other distractions I have been playing with to prevent me thinking about all of the above? The stamping on the back of ACEO's cards to work on. The 2 box canvases I am painting. The 2 flat canvas cards I am thinking about what to illustrate with. The cuff I am knitting, the headband I am finishing. The trinket box I have started. Yep it is all of these things. Is there a zip in sight? No, that has been banished to the other room so I do not have to look at it.

Oh goodness - so many other things to write about!! Should I? Or should I get back to work. Oh why not use it as a delightful distraction! I received the most wonderful parcel from the incredible and beautiful Stiletto Heights - 2 more of her Art Cards and the 3rd instalment of her comic - wonderful!! I did not think it was possible to show such emotion and heartbreak in a comic, but it absolutely is!

And I have to tell you however briefly about our forthcoming collaboration! I can't believe I haven't mentioned it yet - but I am seriously excited about it. The exhibiton is in Nottingham and is called Ooh La La Burlesque Inspired Art March 2007. I am currently designing work, or should I say WILL be designing work in the way of a costume, corsets and artwork to display here. I have previously made printed leather corsets and costume parts and am incredibly honoured that Jenn from Stiletto Heights is going to be making a piece of her stunning artwork for me to use on a corset. More details as it happens!!

And the final thing.... (I have been interrupted by so many phone calls whilst writing this that now I really have to get back to work) but I am going to a slumber party tonight!! It may even be my first one since childhood or at least since I was a teenager (not including the sausage casserole, eybrow tinting, gin, although I would always forget to drink it, and any Joaquin Phoenix film filled sleep overs from when my best buddy Kate would come over to stay when I still lived in Edinburgh) and YOU could come too! It is a virtual party (which means I am not really sure how it will work - but I don't care, all I know is it will be a hoot and it is all weekend long!!). There are many glorious and fantastic people who will be popping in over to the weekend long party. More details will be on Jenn's blog where there is also a guest list. I have to think of what to bring..... of course cakes, a face mask, my pyjama's..... oh and maybe an unfinished wedding dress and damn blighty invisible zip? And lots of dancing music....anyone for David Bowie?

Bye for now my sweets and hopefully see you at the party!!