music // two door cinema club @ the roundhouse Posted by Helena

This is from back in March. We were right up the back but it didn't matter. I was having a BALL.

single girls guide part 7 Posted by Helena

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I love HelloGiggles. The contributors post so often I just let the posts build up in my Google Reader and then pick the ones I want to read. This struck a chord with me today. Something us girls are always reminding ourselves and our girlfriends, but it never seems to stick. Repetition must help! (Obviously these are not my words at all. Click on Erin's name to read the rest of her Single Girls Guide on HelloGiggles.)

SINGLE GIRLS GUIDE PART 7 

by Erin Foster

I feel like a lot of girls out there like to complain about all the losers they’ve dated in the past, and about what awful luck they’ve had in relationships. I’d like to address this issue directly to you ladies with the disclaimer that I used to be one myself. 

The thing you seem to always overlook is that the common denominator in these guys is YOU, the girl who put up with them! You’re the theme that runs through them. You picked them. You begged them to pose for photo booth pictures with you, and to put hearts next to your name in their iPhone. 

You saw the warning signs early on, but chose to ignore them. It’s because as women we think we have the ability to change someone. We think it’s our DUTY to change them. We make excuses for why they aren’t treating us the way we want to be treated, while simultaneously letting them know we’ll put up with anything. We don’t see these warnings for what they are, we see them as personal challenges. It’s why I’ve noticed a surge in guys playing “The No Game Game”. 

If a guy comes to you and says he’s not really looking for a relationship, and he doesn’t want to hurt you and he thinks sleeping together might complicate things, you are in shock. The idea that he’s being honest and willing to lose possible nakedness as a result doesn’t fit into everything you’ve grown to understand about men. The awareness that he’s not trying to sleep with you, kinda just makes you want to sleep with him. 

You feel compelled to prove that you can have fun and not fall in love. You also immediately assume that you can change his mind. Once he sees you in that one dress, and meets your friends, and eats your famous spaghetti bolognese, he’ll be hooked. He’ll obviously feel what you already feel. The sincerity of his intentions is almost offensive actually. You’re so accustomed to giving a guy a list of reasons why you shouldn’t sleep with him, and now he’s not even trying? 

Your dad never warned you about this tactic. So you end up submerging yourself in a bubbly bath of denial and forging ahead with the plan that at some point you’ll come up with a plan. And then when he doesn’t want to be in a relationship with you, you’re pissed and you only have yourself to blame! The guy is stoked, he got laid and has nothing to feel guilty about because he did everything right. He didn’t play you, YOU played you! This is my point; stop blaming the dude for all your problems and take a look at how you got yourself here. While you’re whining about how terrible your ex boyfriend was, we’re wondering why you chose to stay with him for two years. We don’t believe it when a guy says something we don’t want to hear. We just turn it into what we assume he’s trying to say. 

Someone once told me the simplest way to get into a good relationship is to believe what the person is saying to you. Ok fine, it was my therapist. But it’s true. He says he isn’t ready for a relationship? Believe him. He says he never wants kids? Believe him. We make things so much more complicated than they need to be. How many women do you know who have a big complaint in their relationship like that he doesn’t want to get married? And how many of those women admit that he told them he wouldn’t want to right from the beginning? Like, all of em! You don’t need to tap dance and rearrange your life to get someone to fit into it. Stick to your guns. Take responsibility for your choices. There are no victims, only volunteers. My friend Josh said that to me tonight and I thought, that’s the perfect ending to this post!

link me Posted by Helena

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it's that time again... when i've bookmarked way too many cool pages and compile them here.

• patti smith's 25 lessons for creative types
• my friend sophie's beautiful post after her grandmother's passing.
• sarah wilson gets some photos analysed by colour specialist chris brazal
• another sarah wilson blog post on toxin-free cosmetics. it freaked me out so much, i've switched my shampoo, conditioner, body wash and deodorant to natural products.
• iphone app, the good guide, to help you pick which products are natural
• cosmetics database to help avoid high toxicity products 
• booki.sh is an ebook library, stored in the clouds (i recently found out about cloud computing and love saying it. cloud. cloud. clouds...)
• lauren manning documented the food she ate for two years and turned the data into 40 beautiful graphs
• the evolution of the book cover design for design*sponge
• as an ex-bookshop-girl i can vouch for some of the crazy things customers say! here's jen campbell's list.
• martin solveig feat. thomas mars - the night out.
• bumble & earwig make beautifully intricate animal heads... on brooches!
• gotye feat. kimbra - somebody that i used to know. amazing video clip with body paint!
• joel penkman's food art makes me hungry.
• 2008 wimbledon final between roger federer and rafael nadal... in paper form.
• i love the transformers movies, but when you think about it in this light, my feminist side starts to come out and i start getting angry.
• wonderful detail to recreate a starbucks store in the woods for this gorgeous proposal.
• and bieber boomers: why older women love justin bieber.

link me Posted by Helena

[mustard by vic riches]

i've had this post of links sitting in my drafts for (embarrassingly!) months. so here we go...

• how are consumers interacting with brands in social media?
• how to move to new york city (something i've vaguely thought about doing myself)
• 50 most stylish new yorkers
• julia restoin roitfeld's skin care regime
• real life balloon lifting house like in the pixar movie UP!
• rare cats born through amazing science - so cute!
• i love grace coddington
• 20 most recognisable fonts and where to download them
• through the generations: how the web is being used. very interesting!
• karl lagerfeld likes collaborations.
• a sweet article about the young actors who play the child versions of andrew, carey and keira in never let me go.

ms cupcake // vegan baked goods Posted by Helena

Vegan cupcakes by Ms. Cupcake

Clockwise from left: Raspberry Cheesecake, Ginger Pear, Ferrero Rocher and oh, for the life of me I can't remember what it's called but it was delicious!

A while ago, I visited the Designers/Makers Market in East London especially to go to the Ms. Cupcake vegan stall since I had recently-turned-vegan friend Sarah-Jane visiting from Glasgow.

Well. If vegan cupcakes taste like these ones did... I could happily eat vegan baked goods forever!