Originally published at hiphopsideproject. Please leave any comments there.

Friday, friday, FRIDAY! How was your week, kittens? Lets top it off with some fabulous things, shall we?

• Yesterday I decided that I needed something new to listen to on the walk to work, I started looking at audio books (wow, pricey), but coincidently Miss Gala Darling was doing a special day long sale on her new audio series ‘Love & Sequins‘. I thought what the hell, and bought a year subscription last night. So it came to about £37, but for 12 episodes each at over an hour, filled with super girl fun stuff, and the ability to support an independent blog queen, I think it’s money well spent. I listened to the first 35 minutes of episode 1 this morning and it’s a really good listen, I must say. Do you guys listen to any interesting pod casts?

• This shirt by Luella.
• My watch of calculatory dreams arrived yesterday, it’s so fly!
• I booked our tickets for Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince! I’m so so so excited, really can’t wait. How geeky! I even made sure to book for the showing with the big screen, too. Speaking of Harry Potter…

• Far from flashing her panties on the red carpet, Emma Watson’s photo shoot for this months UK Elle really shows how she’s grown up! Cute!
• I’m super excited for the new finestimaginary necklaces coming in a few days, there’s 7 new designs on the way! Yep, 7!
• I’ve found myself sketching a story about a girl who fell in love with a sea monster, it’s kinda creepy cute. She travels across the sea in a hot air balloon trying and find her lost love. Who knows where this’ll go!

• Very jealous that I didn’t go to the Luella sample sale, Susie Bubble went, though, and picked up some cute things. The bag pictured above is most definitely my favourite thing! Oo two luella things in one post!

• Gotta get me one of these! I think I’ll have to find some place for a cardboard safari head in the house, definitely.
• Also, NSFW, but HILARIOUS.
• In other news we now have kitchen counters & a working HOB! I made soup on it, epic.

Originally published at hiphopsideproject. Please leave any comments there.

Last night we saw The Cat Empire in Manchester. They’re not very well known in the UK, but pretty big in Australia which is how we came to know about the band. Influenced by ska, jazz, Eastern European music & just about everything else, their eclectic collection of songs made for a super fun and dancey evening. They were also supported by a Balkan band, Paprika Balkinikus who plaid some amazing tunes and had the whole crowd jumping aorund, they even had an encore applause, what unknown support ever gets that? So, Cat Empire’s lead, Felix Riebl, came on stage beaming a 100 watt smile which seemed to cheer up the whole room, then the trumpets started, and the killer drums… the rest of the night was danced away!

I was kinda gutted that we missed the Michael Jackson memorial concert (hopefully get it on iPlayer or something?), but during the encore The Cat Empire made a cute little tribute of their own (’xcuse the wonky camera work!).

I’ll also urge you to listen to some of their tunes on your favourite music streaming services, I know for sure there’s some on Napster, probably spotify too.

Originally published at hiphopsideproject. Please leave any comments there.

I came across the modern vintage illustrations by Tom Whalen today, and have pretty much fallen in love. He recreates classic film posters, super hero characters and cult characters in his block colour style with strong lines and a bright vintage look. I’m totally going to email this guy and see if I can get some prints. Amazing.

Originally published at hiphopsideproject. Please leave any comments there.

Hey guys, hope this makes up for last week’s cold induced absence. This week’s been a good one, if a little too warm.

• If I were a paper princess, I’d like to live in this paper castle.
• I bought the calculator watch of dreams! It’s currently winging it’s way to me :D Wahoo!

• To say I really fucking want this would be an understatement. It would match our kitchen amazingly. omg.
• Doe Deere wrote an interesting article/interview about running your own business.

• Take a look at the diana multi pinhole camera, this looks amazing! Find it on the lomo website.
• This week on twitter, I’ve been mostly enjoying #moonfruit.

• I want those nikes this much. I’ve been playing with outfit ideas on polyvore. Note the watch of dreams, too.

• My flickr favourites seem to have a ridiculous amount of norwegian forest kittens.Tiem to start looking at other things again!
• Happy 4th of July weekend to all my American friends, we’re headed out for steaks tomorrow night in celebration!
• The FinestImaginary giveaway winner was announced on the lovely little deer blog, they went for the pink teapot necklace! For those of you who didn’t win, I’ll be posting a competition on the FinestImaginary website this weekend. You can subscribe to the blog over there to be the first to know! Also, use code ‘madeyoulook’ for a sweet saving at checkout :D

Originally published at hiphopsideproject. Please leave any comments there.

Hot damn, you guys get all the best stuff! Yeah-yeah, I know we get all the h&m collaborations, but you got Alexander McQueen and now you’re getting Anna Sui, too? JEALOUS. The fact that it’s inspired by Gossip Girl makes me a little more envious to boot. I’ll just have to drool over the Blair Waldorf inspired dresses (which are basically Anna Sui runway designs tweaked to the style of Blair) and invest in some killer bows from etsy. The collection hit’s target stores in the USA on September 13th. Anyone wanna get me the blue dress?! You can see them all here.

Originally published at hiphopsideproject. Please leave any comments there.

Recently I’ve been lusting after a calculator watch. I have no idea why. I’m ridiculously tempted by this pretty casio number…

It’s amazing, and I need it in my life. Thing is, I don’t wear watches. If I got this watch, though, I would become a watch wearer. Without a doubt. Other things that have been on my mind lately include a flip HD (which is penciled in for the 1st of August! hah!), some new luscious green nikes (which will be bought as a reward in a few weeks time), and various summer dresses (again, I don’t wear dresses… whut?! I should start).

What things have you been lusting after lately?

Originally published at hiphopsideproject. Please leave any comments there.

So, remember a few weeks ago when I went to Disneyland Hong Kong and said it was super tiny? Well, this week plans have been unveiled that will see the park undergo a $468million expansion. Epic!

They’re going to increase the size by 23% adding 4 new lands and around 30 new attractions (there’s currently only around 15-20!). Apparently some of the attractions will be brand new, ones that aren’t in any other disney parks. They’re also aiming for mainland China custom, too, and because a lot of Disney stuff isn’t hugely popular over there, they’re going to stick around a few of the more famous stories.

At the moment the park isn’t doing aswell as it should be, and visitor numbers are constantly dropping. I really hope that this cash injection manages to put some life back in the place, because it’s a super cute park with an amazing transport system (hello, where else has special trains to get there??) and so much potential!

• 12:05 New blog post: Stupid Summer Colds bit.ly/j08Fc #
• 14:45 jesus it's so warm! #
• 17:08 pretty freaked by 'OK' magazine's MJ tribute issue, was it really fitting to put 'his last photo' on the front? oxygen mask? ambulance? sick #

Originally published at hiphopsideproject. Please leave any comments there.

Getting a cold in summer is the most ridiculous sickness ever. It started last week with what I believed to be hayfever (LIES!) and by Thursday I was sneezing around the office and drowning in tissues. I went home to my sickbed (full of two kittens who would NOT let me sleep), and drowned in even more tissues. On Friday, Adam came down with the same illness, apart from he didn’t get double teamed with a asthma-related cough. Thus, no weekly good stuff was published (apologies, I’ll do a good one this week). I’ve recovered now, though, and am fully functioning.

You’ll be glad to know that the kitchen worktops are resting in place (zomg, kitchen!), and soon enough we will no longer be washing up in the bath! The new studio has underlay down, too, ready for it’s carpet scraps (don’t ask, we’re broke and being frugal). Also, we brought the wii and the xbox home this weekend ♥

I’m still ridiculously shocked about Michael Jackson’s death, he was a pioneer! I’ve been singing thriller more than ever :( Me and my driving instructor spent my whole lesson on Saturday talking about it, sad times, sad times. I honestly would not have been as shocked if Britney had croaked! This video upset me more than it should have, too…

Poor convicts, all they had was MJ :(

• 22:19 Watching the seinfeld pilot, so warm tonight!!!! #
• 22:22 Kittens have a new found love for toilet roll tubes, playing with them for hours! Beats them chewing my printer paper. #
• 10:01 10am on sunday, have already potted about 10 plants and we've put up a washing line. Early!!! #
• 16:03 twitpic.com/8ob2v - Pimms time! #

• 16:49 twitpic.com/8ko18 - Life's slowly getting back to normal #

• 22:28 Holy shit, hope mj isn't dead!!! #
• 06:59 As if. RIP Michael :( #
• 07:08 Adam wouldn't let me stay up last night to watch it all unfold. Stupid sickness. Gah, as if he died though, that's totally sucky. #

• 09:03 am full of summer-cold, just washed down sudafed/paracetamol/ibuprofen with vitamin water. So gross. Thought it was hayfever, but no #
• 09:47 New blog post: G1 app love! bit.ly/oHpTT #
• 11:42 Blargh, going home, stupid cold #
• 13:18 New blog post: Fairytale Plates bit.ly/89iFx #
• 18:18 RIP Farrah x #

Originally published at hiphopsideproject. Please leave any comments there.

When I was small I used to have these plates on my bedroom wall, when I moved into a different bedroom they stayed in my old room and at some point got taken down. I randomly remembered them the other day and thought they’d be great for somewhere in the new house. Luckily, my Mum hadn’t thrown them out, they were stored in one of her cupboards. I’ve brought them to the new house, ready to be put on the wall in one of the rooms. They’re made by Poole pottery and the designs are by Barbara Furstenhofer, I don’t have the complete set (there’s a snow white one, too, with about a half dozen scary looking men) but I’ve been looking at the others on ebay (there’s a few on there for quite cheap).

Originally published at hiphopsideproject. Please leave any comments there.

My phone contract was up for renewal on Tuesday so I got myself a shiny black G1 :D I’ve only had it a couple of days, but there’s a few apps that I’m really loving right now.

Twidroid

It goes without saying that I needed a decent twitter app, and it’s well known to android users that twidroid is probably the best one out there at the moment. It’s a simple interface and it works really well, you can set notifications to your own preferences, too.

beebPlayer

iPlayer on the go? I think so! To be fair the quality over 3G is pretty crappy, but what else do you expect? It’s better on wifi, though. But woo, bargain hunt over lunch! :D:D

Power Manager

A really simple app that you can get either a free or paid version of. I have to say, if you’re using apps quite a lot during that day, the battery life of the G1 isn’t very desirable. This app will automatically turn off certain settings (such as wifi) when your battery level gets to a certain percentage.

Battery Status

Another simple app that tells you your battery level in %, hand to have!

Cardio Trainer

This is a pretty neat app, by GPS it tracks how far you’ve run/walked and calculates the speed, steps and calories burned giving you a handy map at the end with your actual route on! I think you can graph these results, too. You can also race against previous results and see your progess. Handy!

Chomp SMS

A prettier way to display your SMS’s, customisable and easy to use. If you get charged loads for your texts by your operator you can also choose to use their own delivery service.

Flashlight

Does exactly what it says on the tin. Ups your screen brightness to max and turns your phone into an emergency flash light. Kills your battery, though.

Astrid

Your task manager, syncs up with remember the milk too, which is a service I already use. If you haven’t heard of remember the milk, and you love lists, check it out! I haven’t really started to use this app yet, but it has great reviews in the android market!

Locale

Another GPS based app, changes your settings (such as sounds/screen/power) depending on where you are. For instance, I’ve set up a profile for work (selected on google maps with GPS), so as soon as I’m within about 10m it turns my phone volume down and turns vibrate on. Handy! Also can be set via time.

Metal Detector

Ooh-HO! This is fun. Bit hit and miss, but does work!

Pkt Auctions eBay

True story, I was sat in the middle of a BB King concert last night bidding on nikes. This app works wonderfully, and is so intuitive. Don’t bother with ebays own app, go for this one!

Shazam

That old chestnut. Songs you don’t know? Shazzzzzam! it.

ShopSavvy

I haven’t tried this yet, but this clever bastard scans barcode, goes on the internet and finds a cheaper retailer. It also GPS’s you so you get local results :O

I can’t wait to discover more wonderful and useless apps (I already have star trek and mario sounds, they now makeup my ring tones!), this phone is pretty epic.

• 07:53 did the guy on the bbc really just call mobile phones 'radioactive'? #
• 09:12 Ohhh I'm going to see BB King today! #
• 12:01 New blog post: The oven is in! bit.ly/vezzo #

Originally published at hiphopsideproject. Please leave any comments there.

A couple of weeks back we *finally* put our new oven in the kitchen. It’s not perfect yet, it needs moving up a little, but at least we can use it :) Other progress is coming along in the kitchen, too. I’ll put together a bigger photo post of the kitchen after this weekend where you’ll see the sink and the fully orange walls.

• 21:24 kittens are going crazyballs, running at their reflections in the hearth. Means we'll get a good nights sleep I suppose!!! #
• 09:31 stupid whitespace screwing up my life, damn you #
• 11:16 oh my, it's phone upgrade day! #
• 14:43 G1! #
• 15:26 alas, sidekicks, you've served me well these past 3 years, but it's time to move on. & You're a bastard to get sim cards out of. #
• 16:37 fuck, my phone sounds like a tricoder. #
• 16:38 my inner geek is going the happiest dance in the world! #
• 16:39 *doing
  overexcited typo #
• 17:46 Oh hi g1 #