Second Bloggerversary Giveaway!

April means my little blog has turned 2! It's become such a big part of my life and has introduced me to so many wonderful people. Last year I hosted a blog giveaway, so I decided to make it a yearly tradition! This giveaway will run for 2 weeks from today and I'll announce the winner on 15th May. Here's what you can win!

A beautiful ceramic 'Love' sign kindly donated by The Crafty Retreat of Scartho, Grimsby. Because this is ceramic you can paint it in any colour you like, or leave it as is.

A tote bag designed and donated by illustrator and generally awesome body positive artist MurderOfGoths! This jellyfish design came from MoG asking for ideas on twitter, and as I love fat merbabe designs, I suggested fat jellyfish and shark babes. And being the genius MoG is, this was the end result. It's so damn cute!

A matte pigment gloss in 'Secret' from L.A. Girl. I love their range of matte liquid lipsticks so snagged an extra red for the giveaway. You can see my review of this here.

Adorable 'Lucky 13' earrings I bought from Punky Pins. These are acrylic mounted on butterfly studs and really cute!

A copy of feminist zine 'Women Can Be : Volume One' kindly donated by Melly Em Clark, plus the fab illustration pictured above. You can read all about the zine in my blog post here.

And finally, this incredible necklace kindly donated by Celia Rose Jewellery. This is a stunning stirling silver piece and I wish I could keep it for myself to be quite honest. Celia is the genius making our wedding rings and I am so thrilled to have her involved in the giveaway.

Entries are made via the Rafflecopter box below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Due to the nature of the prizes this giveaway is UK only, sorry! It will be sent via FedEx which is a delivery that will need to be signed for.

Enjoy and good lucky!

Much love,

Kitty xxxxx

Adult Colouring Books : Floribunda by Leila Duly*

Adult colouring books are one of the new big trends, and I have been so intrigued to see one in the flesh. The idea of them is wonderful, a more complicated version of a colouring book designed with adults in mind.

When Laurence King Publishing Ltd got in touch about their newest adult colouring book, I couldn't resist. The lure of botanical illustrations was totally up my street, especially when I discovered they were inspired by the English countryside. I love our countryside and nature so much. I feel incredibly lucky to live somewhere so pretty.

'Floribunda' by Leila Duly is absolutely beautiful. It retails at £14.95 and you can grab it on Amazon here. It features 20 illustrations to colour in on very high quality card, put together in this beautiful book.

It has some examples of the plants you can find in the book in the inside cover, so if you choose to colour them in scientifically, you can use it as a reference point. I opted to just use whatever colours I wanted!

The illustrations themselves are just absolutely lush. The level of detail is incredible, and they are so pretty. They are art that could be displayed as is.

The mixtures of different flowers and botanical goodness make for a very detail-centric colouring book.

I treated myself to some colouring pencils as such a beautiful book deserved some good pencils! We have some kicking around the house for my step-kids, but they are a bit worse for wear.

I opted to start at the very beginning, a very good place to start! This circular design is so intricate. The more you look at it the more details begin to pop out at you.

The use of the black sections really helps distinguish where one plant or flower starts and the next begins and is a really great touch.

I started at the bottom with some pinks and purples. I haven't coloured in years and I sat happily colouring for a good while, while my step-kids coloured in their Adventure Time colouring books.

I'm not the best at colouring in, but I really enjoyed myself. It was so relaxing, and I lost myself in my own little world concentrating on all the little details. Knowing I have a full book of these illustrations is filling me with delight! I can see myself sat in the garden through the summer happily colouring away, enjoying the nature outside too. Hours of lovely relaxing quiet.

Have you tried any adult colouring books? What are your favourites?

Much love,

Kitty xxxx

*this book was gifted to be for review purposes. In no way does this impact upon my opinions which are entirely my own.

Women Can Be : Volume One Review

When Melly-Em Clark announced that she had collaborated with some other bad ass artists to create a zine I was so excited. And when I got the chance to review it even more so! It is called 'Woman Can Be', and it is full of inspiring art about everything a woman can be, and it also came with two beautiful full colour prints. It is the first volume in a series of feminist zines, and involves 5 artists from 3 countries.

This illustrated lady print by Beau Brannick is just lush. I love that there are different skin tones represented right away, and the blue hair is super cute.

And this adorably colour print is by the editor and cover designer Melly-Em Clark. It is so bright and pretty! Both of the prints fit with the theme of the zine, but are also gorgeous stand alone pieces.

Included in the zine is art by Melly-Em Clark, Beau Brannick, Adrianne Adelle, Stella Volkenand, Jess Fauscette and Kayt Smith. The cover is in full colour, while the inside is black and white. I LOVE that it is a bald babe on the front of the zine. Hair is so tied into femininity and being female, so seeing a bald woman on the front of this zine is fab.

I picked out 2 random pages to share with you, and the first was 'Women can be bisexual' by Beau Brannick. That this illustration involves a woman in a wheelchair and love really gives me the warm fuzzies. Sexuality and disability aren't topics that a lot of people feel comfortable discussing so to see that sort of representation is brilliant.

And the second random page involved a personal hero of mine, Lieutenant Nyota Uhura! As a trekkie this really made me happy. Uhura was one of the first women of colour to be shown as an equal, and was also involved in the first interracial kiss shown on American television. Uhura's impact on youth finally seeing a person of colour on TV that was respected was immense. When she told Dr Martin Luther King Jr that she was thinking of leaving the series he told her that she couldn't quit because what she was doing was so important. And she changed her mind and became a true icon.

You can buy the zine in 3 different colours, from 3 different places!

For the yellow cover I have, buy it from Melly

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/268951846/women-can-be-collaborative-feminist-art?ref=pr_shop

For the blue cover buy it from Beau

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/268889685/women-can-be-collaborative-feminist-art?ref=shop_home_active_1

And for the purple cover buy it from Jess

www.instagram.com/jess.fauscette/

I'm excited to see where the zine goes next. I'm hoping for more different artists from all over the world, including those of colour, and more incredible art!

Much love,

Kitty xxxxx

*this zine was gifted to me for review purposes. In no way does this impact upon my opinions, which are entirely my own.