Christmas loveliness from Betsy Hatter

I had something really exciting arrive in the post last week. At first I thought it was a DVD I'd ordered, as it came in about that size box. But no, it is something far far better.

Its a lovely poinsettia hair flower from Betsy Hatter Millinery. Wow. Thank you! I totally love it. It is so nicely made that it has a real luxe quality about it. I've even been wearing it about the house, like, when I'm in my PJs even! Well, I'm a Christmas loving kinda girl.

Sofia, who is Betsy Hatter, does all sorts of bespoke millinery, so think of her next time you need a matching hat or flowers. I am now mentally going through my head adornments and thinking of what I might be missing.

I wore my poinsettia for an amble around Covent Garden which is lovely at this time of year. 

(I had actually done my hair all nice, but shouldn't have bothered because the incessant drizzle flattened that out fast)

I personally think we should leave the lights up (and the mulled wine stand) until the end of February, since the next two months are truly grey and dull in London, but, I guess, I'm not the one paying the bill! 

Here are my highlights from that area:

Massive Baubles hang from the ceiling in the market

A lego display with many famous London landmarks in it. Here's Shakespeare's globe

 And here is Santa visiting the Queen

This is what happens when Mr Heyday finds the strong salty Dutch licorice of his youth.

Next is Eros transformed into a snow globe. Neat, but somehow not as impressive as I hoped. I think the advertising lights around the bottom made it seem a bit tacky rather than groovy, but I can't think how it could have been improved since someone has to sponsor it.

I hope your run up to Christmas is going well. Stay Cool.

Shona

T'was the season to be Jolly!

...Cept I wasn't much. Christmas had me a bit bogged down with a head cold which seemed to get progressively worse. We had a very quiet Christmas planned and I was grateful for that on the day. 

Still I did wear two different outfits

This dress seems a bit unlikely for Christmas, until one sees that it has pine cones on it!

Here's those holly leaves again

Our two trees. The little one in the foreground (table top sized) was made by my clever Mother-in-law. It lights up and looks gloriously cartoonish - a bit Dr Seuss like in fact.

Tinkerbell atop the tree. She isn't really a Christmas decoration...in fact you can see the rubber band strapping her legs to the star for some stability, poor girl. We needed a decent fairy and she's already wearing green so she got the part

lots of our other "statues" had got in on the dressing up act too

The second outfit of the day was warmer. The earrings and brooch were a gift from Mr Heyday and there's the Christmas Bauble decorations, just two of them, since I wasn't up to doing the elaborate do I had first imagined. Still, I'll pack them away and they'll come back out next year.

One did make it onto the cake though (unworn and clean, don't worry!).

I think it makes my overflowed icing look quite wonderful, and goes with the tree, don't you agree?

I hope you had a very Merry Christmas

Shona x

P.S. Do follow us on Facebook or our newsletter by joining up on my website, as we will be announcing our New Years Day sale

How to make Bauble Hair

Hello! We are on the Christmas countdown now. Not long to go! I like Christmas. I think it is fun, but only once you've got ALL THE THINGS done. Up until then the stress is a bit pants. We've had a very laid back  season so far, but I've seen all types of bad manners due to stress on the high street. I'm staying out of it now until the sales hit.

I had so many ideas for Christmas themed outfits to wear to dances and to show you but a big ole lurgy hit me Friday afternoon so I've ended up staying in. Boo. It was my own fault - it happened when I thought to myself "ohh maybe I can spare a few days and just chill out". It is always when the respite comes that the bug arrives on your doorstep to stay eh?

Nevertheless, I have remade my Christmas Bauble ears from Disneyland into something less Mickey and more...err, Shoney. I thought you might like to make your own so here's what I did...

1. Hunted down rubber bands, hair clips and sorted the baubles into piles so that I didn't have two of one colour on a clip. I thought I would do 3 on a clip but that looked a bit limp, so it was groups of 5 and 4 in the end. BTW, that is my festive table cloth this year. Cool huh? I like it so much it will have to come back out at Easter.

2. Cut the rubber bands to end up with a "string" of rubber. I found this really easy to work with as the stretch makes it easy to tie the band tight enough so the baubles bunch up. Plus, they are free in the UK since the postman uses them all the time and walks them right to your door. Thread the rubber band through the clip.

3. Thread the balls onto the band too. At this stage I decided a green bow would be a nice finishing touch, as well as to fill in the gaps between the baubles. I tucked the ribbon in so that I could tie it neatly after the whole thing was secure. Tie the rubber tight using a reef knot, tie the bow using a bow.

4. This is how it looks so far. While the green ribbon adds a touch of class (as you know, I'm ALL about class. ha ha, wink, wink), it just needs something else. Cue curling ribbon applied with unabashed abandon.

5. The end result! I plan to nestle these among a fancy curled up-do, but we'll see what happens on Christmas Day and how I feel. At worst I can roll my hair up and let these do all the talking.

Sending you warm festive cheer

Shona x

How many Cinderella shoes is enough?

I had a different kind of get together with friends recently. We get together to be tended to by a vintage hairdresser, and as it was the last weekend in November, a bit early for too much tinsel. 

The time felt right for a tiny sprinkling of Christmas magic though so I made up an easy party theme:

"Dust off your Cinderella shoes"

By definition, a Cinderella shoe is one that you must get out of by midnight, which is when you cast them off to hobble home bare footed, and while not practical for everyday use, are very useful for hooking a prince.

Of course the blokes didn't really have any Cinderella shoes, but they arrived  looking stylish

It turned out to be a better theme than I thought it would, since I made sure everyone knew that the rest of the outfit didn't matter. Casual clothes on a blustery wintery day makes sense in London

The number of "arriving" shoes I have is quite extraordinary, though I didn't think so until some of the ladies gazed at the tree and asked "are they ALL yours?" 

But of course! In truth these are just my brightest ones on the tree, I have far more. But YOU guys knew that.

Having said that, I've bought most of them at car boot fairs, charity shops etc and since my classic vintage style doesn't change, some of these on the tree I've had for 10 or 15 years (it would have been longer if I'd stayed in one country), and some I only paid £2 for. Plus I think it is the easiest way of glamming or funking up any outfit as well as lifting your spirits.

How about you? Could you fill a tree with Fantasy Shoes?

Shona x

And the winner is.....

Brittany_Va-VoomVintage!! I stole a picture of you from your blog, I hope you don't mind

Congratulations, whoo hoo!!

Please contact fiona@heydayonline.co.uk for your voucher code and we hope you enjoy spending it.

Thanks so much to everyone taking part in the competition and good luck next time.

I hope you all have a fabulous Christmas and an amazing New Year, see you all in 2012.....

2011 Christmas gift voucher give away!

We are in the countdown to Christmas now - my gosh it rolls around fast doesn't it? Still, not fast enough as I am quite capable of eating all the almond icing before it gets on the cake.  Hmmmm...

Stephanie Valentine, Winner of the 2010 WWII re-enactors magazine Pin-Up Competition, photographed by Tony Nylons

As this years Christmas treat I have decided we are going to give away a £25 discount voucher to one lucky reader. £25 because Christmas falls on the 25th of course!
A voucher (which will be in the from of a code for online shopping) seems most fair in that it is international (unlike last year's plank of wood) and also unisex (just LIKE last years plank of wood). 
We are going to finish the competition at Midnight Sat 17th December BST. The code itself will be valid for a whole 3 months, so there is no rush.

The competition rules are straight forward and offer three chances to get involved...

• For one entry, leave me a comment below. 
• For another entry, you can retweet my give away.
• For a third entry, post about the giveaway on your own blog!  Three chances! Whooopee!

Please take careful note that each time you enter you must leave a separate comment. Don't leave me one comment saying you've done all three things, as it will only be counted once! 

If you commenting to say you've retweeted or blogged, please post the link.

The competition will close THIS Saturday 17th December 2010 at Midnight BST

Happy New Year and Christmas recyling

Hello and Happy New Year!

I am so thrilled that I have made it through another festive season, how about you? For some reason this year I was bored of it all so quickly, that the decorations are down already and the place is looking surprisingly bare. I blame the shops who were playing Christmas music around Guy Fawkes. Those will be the same ones that have already got Easter Eggs out (yes, I spied them in WH Smith yesterday).  Sorry but my FAT making cells need a little break, Easter will have to wait!.. until... well, February at least.

Anyhoo, as part of my Christmas breakdown I do a little fun recycling thing with my cards that I thought you might like.  I cut them down to make parcel tags for next year! 

I know tags are not dear to buy really, but this is much more fun. I make it a game with myself to see how many good tags you can make out of a card, sometimes ending up with very little that the recycling men have to take away.

Firstly, though it might be a little morbid, but one lesson I have learnt is to save cards from loved ones who are getting a bit elderly. That way you can bring them out after they can no longer write you one, which is neat thing to do.

Once I have saved the specials, I get happy with the scissors and snip like a mad woman. Picture cards can be made into numerous tags, and often the back of a card has a small picture that is worth cutting out too. It is fun to work out where the cutting lines could be to make 2 or 3 cool cards rather than just one. 

Shapes come out interestingly and as you get on  a roll you see different possibles - like the word "Merry" on it's own. I like that!

This year I didn't stop and collected the messages on the inside too. If I had kids it would be great to get them to decorate them, but since I don't, I might have some fun with the glitter pens myself!

I hope your first week of the New Year is coming along nicely. Hip Hip Hooray!

Shona x

T'was the night before Christmas...

Merry Christmas to all of you my lovelies, all around the world.

Santa as he is often seen in NZ, complete with sheep, Kiwi and Pukeko

We have my 17yr old stepson, Wolf Jnr, here for Christmas, and so the day will include me embarrassing myself on X-box, trying to convince him that old Bond movies are the ONLY ones worth watching (a bit of young Sean goes along way), and fighting for the phone (he has a girlfriend now).

We are also hoping to pop by to see the serpentine swimmers - a keen and over-eager group who have a race in the serpentine pool in Hyde Park. They race for the "Peter Pan Cup".  Peter Pan...as in the (ahem) little boy who never grew up... you can  read something into that sly English wit that says as much about the  freezing temperature of the day as the youthful nature of the participants.

Tinsel and poinsettias festive up my false rose display

For lack of interesting, vintage-inspired photos, here are some of our decorations we have out.  I only bought one new thing this year and I can't find it. I think it is lost in the sewing/storage/dumping stuff room - in fact I know will be on the bottom of a pile of stuff along with my sewing mojo!

Instead of new purchases, this years decorations are a bit of a mash up of things we have had before, not a bad thing since the tree was new last year. So it was cheap, quick, and a bit make-do-and-mend.

Our platinum coloured tree, in likeness of the aluminium ones that were popular mid-century (and were too dear for us!)

Easier to see the colour of the tree the without the light behind - I love it!

Mash up of odd bits that made our wreath

I hope you all have a nice day planned, and can avoid some of the stresses that come with it.

May you drink enough that you don't remember what Granny caught you doing, but not so much that you can't hit the post Christmas sales. Get yourself stationed next to the mistletoe and enjoy!

Shona x