it’s a secret

The 20th April is going to mark the sixth Record Store Day in the UK. This is where independent record stores join together with artists to celebrate music. Special releases on vinyl and cd have been created exclusively for the day as well as a number of performances by artists will be taking place at stores across the uk.

There is going to be so much going on but one thing I will definitely be heading to combines music and art but it is one big secret! Secret 7″ has taken seven songs from seven well know artists and pressed 100 copies of each to 7″ vinyl. They then asked creatives all over the world to interpret the tracks and create a unique sleeve for the records. Then on Record Store Day, each one will be put up for sale, however you won’t know who created the sleeve or even what song you have until you have made purchase as the secret lies within!

Last weekend we went along to Mother in Shoreditch to view the collection. There are so many amazing sleeves to choose from and with entries from artist’s such as Ai Wei Wei and Gilbert and George I am gonna have to get there super early to try and get my favourite ones! It was so nice to be able to take our baba’s along too. Raphael and his friend Rafe, loved wondering round the space, checking out the sleeves and the giant robot in the room…

So who is gonna join me in the queue?

French valentine stamps

Every valentines day La Poste, the French postal service, issue a set of heart shaped stamps designed by a French Fashion House. Started in 2000, the first set was designed by Yves Saint-Laurent and following on from them have been Chanel, Givenchy, Lavin to name but a few!

This years edition was designed Hermes. Slightly cheaper than one of their scarfs, these little souvenir sets make for pretty cool keep sakes.

Now who said that stamp collecting couldn’t be cool?

2000

2001

2003

2004

2005

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

Fafi X Undiz

I literally cannot wait for the latest collaboration of my favourite artist Fafi x Undiz!

Fafi has released a couple of sneaky pics via instagram of the collection and true to form they are full of colour and feature her famous fafinettes!

So looking forward to seeing the rest of the collection but one thing is for sure I have to get my hands on a pair of these leggings!

silhouettes

Whilst searching for fun wedding favours I came across a silhouette artist, Charles Burns, the roving artist. Unfortunately, he was booked up on the day of our wedding but I signed up for his news letter in the hope that I would be able to one day book him for another event.

Charles then sent out an email, requesting photo’s that he could use for a book he was writing and in return he would send a silhouette as a thank you. So I sent a few pictures and a silhouette of me got featured in the book!

Mastering Silhouettes is an instruction book into the art of silhouette portraiture. Its explains about all the techniques used in period and modern day silhouette portraits, advice on poses and materials and features of silhouette artist and their work.

As my silhouette was painted on glass so I went to meet Charles to collect it. I took Raphael with me and was lucky enough to see Charles in action as he did a portrait of Raphael.

It really is quite an incredible art form. The detail in the cutting is amazing, especially as it took less than a minute to do!

willy mason – carry on

Wednesday marked my 32nd birthday and to celebrate we went to see the amazing Willy Mason at Scala. The gig was the last night of his headline tour and to launch his latest album, Carry On. He played a set of old and new songs with lots of audience participation – I had a brilliant night!

On sale at the gig were not your usual gig posters. Designed & printed by Twisted Head Press were 5 individual prints to mark each night of the tour, that when put together make one complete landscape poster.

Printed by hand using an antique cast iron letterpress and limited to 31 prints per venue. I got myself the London one as it was my favourite of the set but also has my birthday printed on it too!

So my new favourite album is Carry On, especially love “Shadows In The Dark” which you can hear in my kinda tunes.