Dorothy's Ruby Slippers!

Here at the Vintage Elle Studio we are kind of obsessed with the Ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz (and when I say obsessed I mean majorly obsessed!) They are probably the most famous shoes that have ever exsisted. That is why, when creating our latest collection of sparkly shoes they were the first thing we thought of.

 

As they were such a major part of the Wizard of Oz several pairs of Ruby Slippers were made. 5 pairs are known to exist but there possibly were even more. In the original book 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' by L. Frank Baum, Dorothy's shoes were originally silver. Legend has it that the film producers wanted to take full advantage of the new technicolor technology and decided to make them red... and thank goodness they did! I really don't feel that Dorothy clicking her boring silver heels saying, "there's no place like home" would have had quite the same effect.

 

Aren't they pretty!

It is well known that during the Hollywood Golden Age, Film studios were really careless with their props and costumes. Staff often took advantage of this and took many souveniers home to build up their own collections. In 1970 a costumer called Kent Warner was rummaging around in the MGM basement finding bits of costume to auction off. He came across the stash of Ruby Slippers, which had just been forgotten about. He auctioned them off, keeping the best pair for himself. Lady Gaga even owns a pair now...

...And Debbie Reynolds owns the pointy toed witch version.

It is now believed that Judy Garland only actually wore one of the pairs and they can be found on display at the National Museum of American History. One of the copies is currently on display at the Hollywood Costume Exhibition at the V&A in London and I can't wait to get to see them! Out of all the fabulous costumes that have ever been designed, they were chosen to go on the official book cover! (My boyfriend just gaeme this book as an early Christmas present and I definitely recommend it)

I for one absolutely love this style of shoe. They are so elegant and ladylike, without having a crippling 4 inch heel. This is why we were so inspired to add our own pair to the Vintage Elle upcycled shoe collection. If you take a visit to our Etsy store you could own your very own pair of Ruby Slippers for a lot less than the originals which last sold for $666,000. How exciting! https://www.etsy.com/listing/118121324/ruby-slippers-size-5-handmade

Vintage Elle - Now selling on Etsy!

So I did have an amazing post lined up today on 1920s fashion, but I became a bit side tracked by setting up Vintage Elle's first Etsy store. It's early days yet and it will take me a while to photograph everything, but at least it is now up and running! At the moment I have listed some limited edition prints of some of my drawings and a couple of original canvas paintings. Exciting stuff! You can find my shop at www.etsy.com/shop/VintageElleStudio.

Here's a sneaky peak of what's on offer. Limited Edition prints of my costume designs for Cinderella. Signed, numbered and dated by myself.

The original artwork for these paintings (Although it will be very difficult for me to let them go!)

 AND I am introducing a new illustration entitled 'Vanity'

I will be uploading many more handmade, vintage inspired wares over the next month, so keep your eye on it. New products also include my new line of upcycled vintage glitter shoes! Once I've got photos. Lets just say that taking photos yourself, of shoes that are on your own feet, is proving pretty tricky. Here's a quick preview.

 

Let me know if there is anything in particular that you'd like to see in my shop.

 

...And rest assured that the really exciting post on 1920s fashion will still happen within the next week!

Spontaneous Painting On A Day Off

Today is Tuesday. I had no plans except upcycling my sofa and buying some wrapping paper. I spontaneously decided to do some painting. Both took about 1 1/2 hours each to finish. I am fairly happy with how these turned out. It's been so long since I've painted anything other than a costume design! I first is meant to be a painting Marilyn Monroe, but I think it looks more like Gwen Stefani. What do you think?

If you would like to purchase any of my paintings you can find them in my Etsy Shop at https://www.etsy.com/listing/117937418/original-painting-of-marilyn-monroe

Your own 'Red Cup' Christmas coffee

I don't know about anyone else, but in December it's not actually Christmas presents that seem to bankrupt me. I love to make a lot of my presents, so while it's time consuming, it doesn't actually cost that much. The thing that puts me in December debt is the Starbucks 'Red Cup' Christmas coffee. I can't get enough of them! I look forward to it all year- they are so yummy. However, you can easily find yourself paying up to £3.50 for a single coffee. 'WTF!' I hear you say, 'That's insane!'. Well you are right.

I'm usually really good at taking my own coffee with me in the morning, but with the Christmas coffee my travel mug just can't compete. Until now!

I been racking my brain trying to come up with a quick, fun DIY coffee idea for my favourite holiday and here's what I've come up with-

VINTAGE ELLE'S RED CUP CHRISTMAS COFFEE.

It's so simple to make yourself and smells so Christmassy. Here's everything you need.

A cafetiere, ground coffee, cinnamon, nutmeg, milk, red food colouring and a kettle.

Also, please note that these instructions are for a medium sized cafetiere.

Step 1) Fill your cafetiere with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg and 3 tablespoons of ground coffee. Fill with boiling water and leave to brew for 7 minutes or to taste.

Step 2) Once your coffee is the strength you like it, pour into a mug and add milk. I used an old jam jar for mine as I wanted to make it feel different and special. Plus a glass mug is great so you can see and appreciate the colour of your coffee!

Step 3) Add the red food colouring until it reaches the desired colour. It should be about 3 drops.

Step 4) Drink and enjoy it with a homemade cookie and a good book.

(You can add a bit of sugar as well if you like)

5 favourites - Mason Jar Crafts

Source

 If you have a Pinterest account I am sure, like me, you are currently obsessed with Mason Jars. They seem to be everywhere at the moment and some of the things people are doing with them are, quite frankly, GENIUS! There's so many brilliant ideas out there. Here are my 5 favourite uses for Mason Jars so far.

1) Cocktail cup! They make cocktails look so yummy and a candy striped straw adds so much cuteness. These would be great to use for a rustic style BBQ.

Source

2) Cookie Mix in a jar. I absolutely love this idea. This would make a fantastic gift for anyone. Everyone loves to have a recipe mix in their cupboard for a lazy, indulgent day. You could make them for anything- cookies, cup cakes, brownies and the list goes on. Just remember to write the instructions on a gift tag so they know what to do!

Source

3) Place settings. I hate it when cutlery gets wrapped up in a napkin. (I don't know why, but I just do). I love this idea. It will definitely add imagination to any dinner table. I would recommend using vintage napkins for the full effect.

Source- Pinterest (no linked website attached, but I would love to know who this photo belongs to!)

4) Flower vase. I love small flower arrangements. The only vases I own are for big flowers and I sometimes use glasses for smaller arrangements. This looks so much more impressive than a pint glass!

Source

5) Sewing kit. This is another lovely gift idea, especially for anyone that is just beginning to learn to sew. Attach a pin cushion to the lid and fill the jar with all the basic equipment they could need (needles, pins, thread, buttons, scissors etc)

 

Mason jars are a bit of a fad at the moment. It's great that they are available everywhere, but not so great is that they can be a bit over priced. If you want to find some I would recommend junk shops and antique markets. I can particularly recommend The Junk Shop in Greenwich. They have a great selection of vintage jars, bottles, boxes and tins. However, if you hunt around the highstreet and price compare you can find some reasonably priced vintage style ones.

 

So that completes my top 5 favourite uses for Mason Jars, although there are so many more. I would love to know what you use yours for.

Easy Homemade White Chocolate and Nutella Snowball Truffles

 Well it is December afterall. Everyone needs to have at least 1 indulgent chocolatey treat over the Christmas period. So here is mine- Snowball truffles with hidden Nutella for extra yumminess! (Is yumminess a word? Probably not...) Mark my words; these are absolutely divine and so unbelievably  easy to make.

Ingredients:

200 grams of Dark Chocolate

200 grams of White Chocolate

About 1 tablespoon of butter

60ml Double Cream

100g of Nutella

tub of Cocoa Powder

vegetable oil

Greaseproof paper

a pretty plate!

 

Step 1) Put all the dark chocolate, butter, cream and Nutella into a glass bowl. Melt over a pan of water on the hob until it's all blended together and there are no lumps. Put the bowl into the fridge for about an hour until it's hardened to the consistancy of Playdough. If it goes too hard just leave it out for a while until it softens.

 

Step 2) Once your mixture is a doughy consistancy, roll it into truffle sized balls and put them on a plate. This can be a bit sticky so I recommend using some cocoa powder on your fingers to stop everything sticking together. My mixture made about 18 truffles. Put your plate into the freezer for about 10 minutes to harden a little bit more.

 

Step 3) While the chocolate balls are in the freezer, it's time to start melting your white chocolate coating. You can do this over the hob again. However, my bowl was still covered in chocolatey Nutella mix. I found the best way was to break the white chocolate into small pieces and put into a microwave safe bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of oil. Heat in the microwave, making sure to stir it every 30 seconds until it's smooth and completely melted. I should also mention that I used white crunch chocolate because I love it. The crunchy bits went really well with the creaminess of the truffles.

 

Step 4) Get your balls out of the freezer. Dip each one in the melted white chocolate and roll around, until it is completely covered, and place it down on the greaseproof paper. Repeat this with all the balls.

 

Step 5) Now this step is optional. I know they were meant to be snowy truffles, but when I'm in the kitchen I can get a bit carried away with random creativity. I just saw my tub of cocoa powder and couldn't resist sprinkling some over, while the white chocolate was still wet. Then I dripped my leftover chocolate over the truffles just to be fancy.

 

Step 6) Now they are almost finished! Leave them over night to set, or if you are like me, and can't wait that long to eat them, pop them back in the freezer for about 30 mins until the chocolate has hardened.

 

Step 7) Eat them or be really good and share them with friends.

 

See they couldn't be easier! I hope you enjoy making these as much as I did.

 



 

WInter Trend Fur Muff

When I put together an outfit I always like to draw inspiration from the past. It's something I have always done ever since I was a wee child. Every winter I used to imagine that I was a Victorian Christmas Caroller wearing a cloak, a bonnet and a muff. Basically, I imagined that I looked a little bit like this-

Now it may be 20 years later but it's safe to say that my fashion inspiration hasn't really changed. Here's the outfit I picked today to do some Christmas shopping in Greenwich. I bought this muff (faux fur of course!) in Heal's last Christmas for £15 and it really has been the best purchase ever. I am pretty much wearing it every day at the moment as it keeps my hands so warm and toasty. There's a little ribbon inside so if you need to use your hands for anything you can just put the ribbon round your wrist and your hands are completely free. Very handy. Trust me that if you try one you will NEVER go back to using boring old gloves again. Here's to hoping that muffs start trending again in 2013!

I finished my outfit off with a pair of my Glitter Shoes. I make these shoes myself. They are so sparkly and perfect for the party season. If your interested in them, I will be selling on Etsy soon. Follow this blog and I will post details as soon as I can.

And what outfit would be complete without a gorgeous handbag. Here I am wearing my Mulberry Lily in Oak.

Photography © Tristan Trend (aka my lovely boyfriend)

How To... Chalk Paint Style Kitchen Cupboards

This is my dream kitchen!

I absolutely love the idea of painting your kitchen cabinets with blackboard paint. I love the way that the left over smudgey chalk can give it so much texture and feel really warm and homey, despite being black. I also love the practicality of chalkboard. I always forget something when I go food shopping because I can never be bothered to write down a list.

This is the kitchen in my studio (before I moved many, many belongings in!) The most annoying thing about renting is that you can't change anything. It's very difficult to put a bit of your own personality into your living space. If it was my choice I would just rip them out, along with the tiles. We are allowed to give them a fresh coat of paint, but would have to keep them white. They're not too bad, but I think that landlord built them himself, so they are just very boring looking, white painted plywood.

 And this is my kitchen now!

I'm much happier with how it's looking. Seeing as I couldn't paint the cupboards with blackboard paint, I figured that there's nothing actually stopping me from putting blackboards up! There's still a long way to go, but already I think this area looks a bit more personal and like MY kitchen. My next step is to try and persuade my landlord to let me paint the kitchen blue. Living in a studio I think it's really important to divide the space into seperate areas and different colours of paint is a great way to do that.

If you want to do this yourself it's really easy. All you need is 1) blackboards with a wooden frame (however many you fancy) 2) jute twine or butcher's twine. 3) a small drill (I used a dremmel), 4) ruler, 5) pencil.

Step 1) Place your blackboard face down. It's best to use an old surface that you don't mind drilling into by accident. I used an old craft cutting mat. I purchased the blackboards from ebay for £1.99 each including the postage.

2) With your pencil and ruler mark the centre point along the top and bottom. This is where you will attach the twine.

3) Take your small drill or dremmel and drill a hole at the points you marked. I found it easiest to drill from the back. Then once the bit has poked through the front, turn the blackboard over and drill through the other side. I found this gave a neater hole.

4) Once you have your holes thread the end of the twine through one and tie very tightly.

5) Then take the blackboard and twine over to your cupboard. Place the blackboard in the desired position and throw the loose end of the twine over the top of the cupboard.

6) Run the loose end of the twine down the back of the cupboard door and back up the front until it reaches the bottom hole of the blackboard. Allowing enough to tie a knot cut the end of the twine to the length needed.

7) Pull the twine as tight as you can and thread through the bottom hole. Tie in place. It is so important to pull the twine as tight as possible as this is what keeps the blackboard in place. If it's too loose it will fall straight down to the bottom of the cupboard door.

This last step is definitely the trickiest and may take a bit of trial and error. Make sure you have enough twine for muck ups! I personally found the most difficult part to be threading the twine through the bottom hole in step 6. It kept fraying at the end. Overall though, this is an incredibly easy thing to do. It probably took me an hour one evening to finish it all! Also, the great thing about this is that the boards will only get better as time goes on and the more chalk smudges there are.

 

It's also fun to think of some ideas of where to keep your chalk. I used this old teacup. It's such a pretty cup, but has a hairline crack in it so can no longer be used for tea. It's perfect to store the chalk and it is lovely that it can be used for something again. I love repurposing items.

 

I hope you found this tutorial useful. I would love to see some pictures if any of you try it out yourselves.

 

The Government Inspector

"Designer Amy Cartwright had created a multi-faceted set of exposed slatted walls with portraits of the Tsar, odd furniture and a general feeling of disarray." (NWN)

 

 

I have just finished designing The Government Inspector at The Watermill Theatre. It is such a unique venue and I always love working there. It's a tiny theatre, placed in the middle of nowhere, but they always create such fantastic productions. Previous shows have transferred to the West End, Broadway and have toured around the world!

 

I met with the director Seamus Allen for an interview in July and was obviously over the moon when he asked me to design it. I originally trained as a Theatre Designer, but have found myself mostly designing film in recent times. It's such a joy to get stuck into a play design again. The production was for the Theatre's Young Company, which meant that we didn't have the biggest budget in the world to play with, but I am amazed that with hardwork from everyone we managed to get everything exactly how I had envisaged it.

 

The design premise was that this play is set within a poor town in the middle of a great depression. The authorities were corrupt and the poor were really poor. We decided that the town had once probably been quite rich, then lost it's wealth, then gained a bit of money again, so they started to rennovate the town, then lost the money again. That's a long backstory, but I acheived this by having dusty paint pots lying around as if they had just been left there during the work. Here is the picture that served as my main inspiration fot the set and which triggered my design. I found it here.

 

I was so happy when I found this picture as it showed just what Seamus and I had been talking about. We were really keen for this show to be really colourful, but quite faded. Although the concept might seem quite serious, it is a comedy afterall!

 

Here are some of the production stills taken by Philip Tull of the final set.

 

The costumes were an absolute joy to put together. The wardrobe team at the Watermill were fantastic. After spending about 4 hours trawling through their costume store we amazingly managed to find most of what we needed. The idea behind the costume was that the characters wanted to make themselves look as rich and important as possible, but without the funds to buy any fancy clothes. They have pieced together their outfits the best they could manage, even though a lot of it doesn't quite match. The Governor particular fancies himself as a bit of a military general and has created himself (what he thinks is) a military looking jacket with a plain blazer with lots of medals and badges stuck over it.

All in all the play was a great success. It had a short run of 4 nights, but completely sold out! The audience seemed to love it and laughed the whole way through. I am so pleased to have been involved with this and now I can't wait to design another play again.

My First T-Shirt Design

This was my first ever T-Shirt design.

I designed it and entered it into my first ever competition.

And it was a runner up!

The competition was to design a T-Shirt for the company Artecollage in association with Talenthouse. Here is a link to the competition. Although I am disappointed not to win 1st prize and the money, I am thrilled to be one of the 5 runner ups. As an artist I have always been a bit nervous about what others may think about my work. It is such a huge confidence booster to have my design picked out of 80 entrants, especially when most of them were incredible. This will give me a fantastic start to 2013, when I plan to focus on my art a lot more than I have in recent years. I feel so inspired now and can't wait to design some more graphics!

Here are all the winning designs from Artecollge's blog post on the competition-

...And here is my original drawing for the design. I first drew this picture of Mary Pickford, the iconic silent movie star, by hand with pencil on white paper. I then scanned it in and coloured it using photoshop. I then played around with the contrast and brightness until I was happy. 

I first became interested in her because of Katie Melua's song 'Mary Pickford'. It's such a simple, pretty song which quickly established itself as one of my favourites. I definitely recommend listening to it.

"Mary Pickford used to eat roses

Thought that they’d make her

Beautiful and they did

One supposes"

I hope you like my design and well done to everyone else that entered!