Typecast

I've been knitting for, like, FOREVER!  I turned a few heads on the maternity ward when I was eighteen years old and knocked out three matinee jackets in a week whilst I was kept in 'for observation' during my first pregnancy.  Before Christmas I was sent a "knit your own snowman" kit as a thank you from John Lewis for sharing their ' Making Of... ' video.  I promised myself that I would get it finished before Christmas Day... AND I DID! Well, I finished the knitting part of it. Then I realised I didn't have any toy stuffing. Then I had a drink and Christmas happened. Then I realised I had caught the knitting bug so I subscribed to a knitting magazine on my Nook HD . Then the market re-opened after Christmas and I took a trip to buy some toy stuffing and some wool and some needles. Then I finished the snowman properly (yay!) Then I made a hat from a pattern in one of the knitting magazines back copies. Then I realised I wanted to kn...

Today is the day that the New Year Honours List is published.  Many great people being recognised for their great achievements and many great people seemingly absent from the list.  Well, we're British... we have to have something to moan about, don't we?  Anyway, in true Typecast style, I thought I'd do something similar. ¨¨°º©©º° ¨¨ First I have to champion Google Plus and the continuous work being put into creating a platform that is both user friendly from a laypersons point of view and useful from a brand/business point of view has to be recognised.  And also a gratuitous mention for Rosie - someone I've met through blogging and admire greatly - for securing what is possibly one of the best jobs in the world... working at Google HQ as an independent community manager .   When it comes to friends, I am proud to call Sian To one of my go-to people for both blogging and personal advice.  Our friendship has grown over this la...

I found this picture a few weeks ago.  Scrawled across the back of it is ' Christmas 1981 ' so I was nine years old and my sister was six.  As soon as I spotted the bike in the picture a memory came flooding back. A couple of weeks before Christmas, Mum sent me down to the garage at the bottom of the garden to call Dad in for tea.  I can remember opening the latch on the door and startling him.  He attempted to hide what he was doing but it was too late. He was respraying an old bike of mine - one that I had outgrown the year before. He knew he couldn't hide it and just said, " Don't tell your sister.  She'll think it's a new one. " It was a shock.  Up until that point in my life I still held some belief in the fact that Father Christmas had a workshop full of happy little elves, all creating the toys for all the children on the 'Nice' list that year.  But I also now felt grown-up and it was a huge deal to be a secret-keeper. ...

Last week I posted about my top three Christmas songs that aren't really about Christmas .  As we're now building up to Christmas I thought that the last Soundtrack To My Life  of the year should be my five favourite seasonal tunes.   ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ Boney M - Mary's Boy Child It was a toss up between this and Johnny Mathis' When A Child Is Born but the video and the childhood  memories of the Boney M song tip this one over the edge for me Queen - Thank God It's Christmas Pretty underrated and not over-played on the radio which makes it even more special, I think.  But Freddie and the gang hold a special place in my heart anyway. Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas Yes, predictable but I've chosen this video from Top of the Pops where people could magically be heard without microphones and Sting's miming sounds just like everyone who is missing from the original line-up (apart from Paul Weller who sounds just li...

I had been on the look-out for something different to give my daughter to capture her children at the age they are now - something different to a print-out of a recent photograph or a canvas.  Then I heard about monoprinting and got the chance to have a photograph transformed using this very unique method. Natasha Gomperts asked for a few of my favourite images of the grandchildren to see which would be the best to transform using the monoprinting technique and we agreed on this one (entitled Breadsticks ): This is what Natasha had to say about the monoprinting she did for me. I had a good couple of days in the studio printing and am very pleased with the final prints.  Each is different in character, nuance and quality.  Trace monoprints, like this, are a labour-intensive, one-off process; first each is carefully designed, scaled, often re-scaled and then drawn blind through the design sheet and through the ink onto the paper below until something s...

A short while back I got a bit pissed off with all those fake mock-up images floating around Facebook and Twitter with regards to the actual date that Doc takes Marty to in the future.  So I became a complete party pooper and made my own image - 21st October 2015 .  Coincidentally, over this weekend I've watched Back To The Future with my 13 year old but ended up attempting to explain the BTTF timeline. And then I got confused. So I resorted to good old pen and paper. Which worked! 1.1 Marty goes back to 1955 and fucks about with his parent's relationship but fixes it and 1.2 goes back to 1985 which is all happy and sweetness and 1.3 Doc goes on a discovery mission to 2015 but 1.4 has to come back to 1985 so that he can tell Marty that his kids are in trouble so 2.1 Marty, Jennifer and Doc travel to 2015 to try and fix it but 2.2 Biff steals the sports results book and takes it to himself in 1955 2.3 then returns to 2015.  Meanwhile 2.4 Marty ...

Why does this never happen when I'm on the Tube? I'm sure that most of the people on this train had no idea who the slightly tipsy woman and accompanying busker were but you if you listen carefully you can hear the whispers of " It's really Kim Wilde " ripple up the carriage.  It might be out of tune but can you imagine  a drunk Kim Wilde (along with her brother, Ricky) starting to sing Kids In America and Rocking Around The Christmas Tree whilst you were on your commute home?  I'd be taking her back with me and plying her with more booze.   Kim Wilde   PS.  She had this to say about it afterwards... no shame whatsoever... God Bless Kim Wilde! YouTube Credit: caseeames

Today on Soundtrack To My Life we have Millie, who I met through the Filofax community.  We share a love of paper products including diaries, notebooks and pens.  Her blog is an eclectic mixture of craft, writing, photography, products that she loves and anything else that she fancies writing about.  She also has a Desert Island Blogs occasional series in which I featured in July . Over to Millie for her song choices. ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ Bed of Roses - Bon Jovi Folks who know me from my blog will know that I have eclectic music tastes. I pretty much like everything except garage and house. For me, songs are maybe 70% about the lyrics, 30% about the melody (except for crappy pop music to dance to!). I love songwriters who can put their soul into a couple of verses and share with you part of what makes them human. (I promise you I'm not a pretentious person - I'm just a lyrics geek!) This song (and in particular this music video) is the song that made me obsessed with...

When you look at the list of Christmas number ones  there aren't really a lot that are actually about Christmas.  Even X-Factor has taken all the fun out of the race to that much desired number one slot.  But then I remember times when immediate digital downloads weren't available, you had to yomp to a record shop with your pocket money and then watch your favourite song actually climb up the charts over a few weeks. Here are my top three Christmas songs that aren't really about Christmas or the baby cheeses Jesus * bows head reverently *.  What are yours? Come back next week to see what my top three forgotten Christmas favourites are! 1980s The Power Of Love - Frankie Goes To Hollywood  Not one single mention of the festive season but release it at the right time and overlay it with a video that depicts the Nativity and...  BOOM! ... it's immediately a Christmas song.  Even John Lewis have attributed it to finding gloves f...

If you follow my Twitter stream you will be either highly amused or highly annoyed by my free-flowing commentary when it comes to X-Factor.  But something is troubling me.  It's time for my annual thoughts about X-Factor and this year my theme is " Disillusionment ". The finalists are where they are because of public votes and only the tiniest bit of judge's manipulation.  If you don't ring in and vote, then shut the fuck up about the unfairness of certain people still being in the show.  The more you tweet about it and the more you discuss it on Facebook, the more publicity it is getting.  For free! The constant negativity surrounding Christopher Maloney is embarrassing now.  No, he's not my cup of tea but there's a place in the entertainment business somewhere for him.  He may seem like a weird hybrid of  Daniel O'Donnell, Jane McDonald and Joe Longthorne but, you know what, those guys are still packing out theatres up and down the...

Have you seen this dolls house that I've got my hands on for the girls for Christmas?  How cute is this?  It's from a company called Dolls Houses .  This dolls house is wooden (I love traditional toys) and is really sturdy.  It also comes with all the furniture you can see and one Princess doll ( note to self: buy another Princess doll to save any arguments between grandchildren ).  If you click on the image below you can see this dolls house on the website and at the time of publishing, it was retailing at £35.00.   We've also got a tree swing for the girls but it's down at the allotment ready for the nicer weather next year.  It'll be great to take them down there in the spring and surprise them with it.  Again, if you click the image you will go straight to the sale page (£24.00 at the time of publishing).  Don't you just love traditional, wooden gifts that you know are going to last for ages?  

Can you imagine only ever seeing the world in black and white?  Or not at all?  No, me neither.  And Tara's Gallery theme of colour really got me thinking this week.  I could have chosen a picture from my slightly obsessive collection of rainbows or something representative of a single bold shade until I saw the subject for my image right there in front of me whilst cooking tea. I have no idea why cooking and baking has just fallen into place with me after so many years.  It's probably another part of theory of living life backwards falling into place.  But I've also realised that when attempting something new (as well as getting the family to try something new) it's all about the visual as well as the textural and the sensual.  And this is why this cried out to me this week. Do NOT critique the cutting technique. My chopping is shocking (there's a blog post title in there somewhere) and no matter how many times Jamie or Gor...

This morning a received a text from a really good mate:   Random question.  Thinking of getting L a wee Hello Kitty dressing table and matching play make up case because she is obsessed with make up. Want mine back. Do you think she's too young at 3? Had a very interesting chat at work yesterday about it. My first text back was almost "What's a grown woman doing with a Hello Kitty dressing table?" but sent this instead: Honest answer - your child, you do what you want. Feminist answer - do you really want to express that make-up is an important part of life for some people to a 3 year old? which seemed to get her thinking a bit deeper and her reply was: Oooh very interesting point! As a feminist this resonates with me. Yet I do love make up.  Eek, what a dilemma! But then this also got me thinking.   I've been a HUGE fan of make-up from a very early age but had to be content with those Swizzles candy lipsticks for a time.  Then I was th...

I've had another shopping spree at Zalando ( Helen... stop reading NOW!  Dangerous territory ) and this time I've treated myself to some clothes for work.  I've been after a versatile black skirt that I could wear on a smart and casual basis.   After a scout around the website I found this very simple Vera Modo pencil skirt (see picture - cotton, stretchy for comfort, perfect length - just above the knee).  And because it's so comfy, I've ordered another one in navy to go with my much-worn, much-loved, now famous, blue and white jacket.   I've also picked up a black Vera Modo jacket to match up with the skirt but again, it's comfy enough to wear casual with jeans.  I'll be wearing the jacket later this week for a meeting I'm just checking my Paypal account too as I've just spotted some Anna Field boots that are on offer and my last pair (bought for Cybher ) are still remain my favourite casual pair of boots. If you want to ...

Today I am pleased to host Ruth's Soundtrack To My Life .  Ruth and I are both members of the 'parent blogger' network that has boomed over the past couple of years and if the internet had existed in it's present availability when my children were younger, I think I might have had her tagline... " Googling my way through motherhood ". Ruth is a "Geek Mummy" in the true sense of the word with a love for all things tech, also running a YouTube channel and an audio blog with her husband alongside her regular blog.  But, for now, it's over to Ruth for her music choices which I've really enjoyed pulling together as these are all fantastic tunes and I've discovered a song that I never heard before (Ruth's #4 choice). ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ Bonnie Tyler: Total Eclipse of the Heart This was the first proper single I bought. I've just worked out that I was 12 when it was number 1 in the charts. I remember saving up my pocket money, heading ...

I'm over at  Gransnet today, talking about having five generations in our family.   You can find the article here (or click the image) and I'd love to know what you think about it.

If you haven't heard this version of  Gangnam Style  yet, you have to listen.  Tony Hawks giving it large on BBC Radio 4's " I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue ". listen to ‘Tony Hawks sings Gangnam Style on BBC Radio 4’ on Audioboo But seriously, for my younger readers, you whippersnappers, you - Radio 4 isn't all Shipping Forecasts, The Archers and Women's Hour.  Have a scroll through their schedule and tune into great shows such as The News Quiz (gotta love a bit of Sandy Toksvig), Just A Minute and The Now Show.  I'm sure you can even set up your BBC iPlayer with reminders or downloads.  Enjoy! In other news, I've just been told it's my TwBirthday.  FOUR YEARS ON TWITTER! And apparently my Godfather is Stephen Fry (hit the image to see my TwBirthday page).  Which means that I can regale this 'conversation' again... probably  ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ PS... If you're not used to reading Twitter conversatio...

It's like the Invasion of the Cuddly Toys here... and they've all crowded into a photo booth for some mash-your-heads-together-and-grin-like-mad shots!  Maybe I should have used one of these images for a "caption this" type post. They look a bit creepy in these photos but they are cute really. The hedgehog squeaks, the hare is really soft and cuddly and the horse is a glove puppet!  So cool! Ikea sent me these furry friends to shove in the grandchildren's stockings on Christmas Eve in return for telling you about their new soft toy range  which has plenty of choice, including loads at £5 and below.  For every toy bought in this range, 1 € will be donated to their soft toy campaign .   I  have decided that I now want ALL the finger puppets and may have to go and visit Ikea for the very first time to pick some up along with some of the famous Ikea meatballs.  Yes, you read that right.  I must be the only person in the UK that...

Firstly, if you've got an idea and you want to market it maybe run it by a targeted focus group first.  Not your mates and your mum who are going to pat you on the hand and tell you that you've done a good job.  OK, I'm an aged grandmother.  What the fuck do I know?  Oh yeah, I've actually raised three children and they're all still alive.  They may not have been though if I'd have used one of these: screenshot from the website Don't even expect me to link to this shit because I ain't.  The name is there and I'm sure you're brilliant at Googling.  Anyway, this contraption - a "bottle bib" - is designed to allow babies to have their bottle unaided so that you can get on with the ironing and cleaning because (and I quote) " holding a bottle for up to an hour [..] for months on end [..] is so frustrating ".  It is aimed at babies of three months and over and, in my opinion, is exactly the same as laying a baby up on t...