Illustration

Illustrations from last month's design project.

Using soft pencil, photoshop and of course, my favourite - Brushios

So much to do so little time!

It's been a while.. Ive still got about 4 or 5 maxi dresses to put online, but I'm at uni now and things are hectic. The journey to Birmingham isnt too bad - 40min walk, 20mins on the train and a 20min walk to uni. Keeps me fit I supose, and the time on the train is some good 'thinking space' (except when I fall asleep)

Well here's one of the dresses that needs to go online, and a page of uni work.

Birmigham uni is very diffrent to Bournemouth Art's. They don't like anything contemporary in your reseach unless it is your own interpretation of something. I've made a lush little concertina book full of interesting finds... Got to do 100 designs from it by tomorrow and only 45 done so far !

J&M Photography - Matt and Sophie

Last weekend J and I photographed a wedding together for the first time. I've been at several weddings as second photographer - but this time we could do it our own way :) Exciting!

I started the day at Sophie's house (beautiful bride who used to be my housemate in Bournemouth) and got clicking some fun prep photos. I got to play about with Andy's wide angle lens - Andy is the guy who shot the Resa Smith photos in a previous blog entry. Could easily get obsessed with this lens!

Then on to the Ceremony, J and I had a list each of what we needed to capture, and made sure we were always on oposite sides of the Church to cover different angles - then quicky swapping places saying things like 'ahh quick - you need to get a shot of whoever!'

J was a great help, anything I hadn't managed to cover, he went off to do for me. He captured the amazing moments after the ceremony - photo above.

I must say, we had an amazing time, I wasn't nervous, but next time I will slow down and bring a visual list as well as a written one. It was a lushious wedding to start at and hopefully J and I will be able to photograph some more in the future.

Baby McClenaghan

Alex and Ivane's new baby - photographed at 3 days old!

J, Caelan and Alex in the V-dub that Alex has restored and is selling on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120609520629&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_628wt_1013

Ibiza 2010

Day 1

Arrived at Ibiza Airport 2am, the buses don't run until 7am so we made friends with some New Zealanders and slept under the stars on a grassy bank next the airport

At 7am we headed off to San Jordi market, held at the hippodrome. Scorching heat, sun still rising. Decided the market wasn't the right sort of place to sell my dresses, so we got the bus to the campsite where we relaxed, ate croissants and attempted to cool down

Day 2

The Beach!

Our campsite has it's own supermarket so we got a huuge bottle of water and lots of fruit. Our beach is literally 2mins away and fairly small. The brown spanish kids run around naked, whilst the poor english kids are covered head to toe in a light wetsuit, a hat, sunglasses and suncream that hasn't been rubbed in enough.

Ate Paella :)

Days 3 & 4

Went to the night market at Las Dalias. Totally gypsy and boho - crazy didgeridoo music and people from all sorts of nations selling hand made crafts and gorgeous items. Wish I brought €1000 to spend here. Having said that - the atmosphere was a bit too much. Very Buda and a bit too strange for me. Was happy to get back to the campsite :)

Took a bus ride to San Antonio - the club central - to checkout the atmosphere. Found some gorgeous little shops clustered together. Bough a lushious bangle. Yay :)

Found the most amazing bakery in Es Cana, selling cheesecakes, tarts and apple pie slices. Yom!

Days 5&6

World famous Hippy market at Es Cana. This was a daytime market absolutely heaving with people - many english families. Loads and loads of stalls set up in maze, fortunately enough shady spots to survive.

Took a boat to Ibiza Town - the capital. Wandered in and out of some funky fashion stores (highlight of my week so far!) and went for a walk up to the castle.

Enjoyed a cuppa tea at Cala Nova for the last time

Last day

Packed up and enjoyed the beach, took funky photos and got the bus to the airport for our flight home at 3am

Jools and Jen's Wedding!

Last saturday was the much anticipated wedding of Jools and Jen! J, being the best man, had a few duties to get on with, whilst I had the wonderful role of being generally helpful; being in the know; but also relaxing and enjoying the day.

Jools arrived in style just in time before his Bride arrived - at which point I got butterflies at how beautiful she looked! We celebrated the day with loud worship music and fantastic songs, followed by a performance from the singer of Basement Jaxx (Jool's God-Sister). Dave Nunn gave a message, the main point I remember is when he described being married - and said that after 3 months you will have forgotten what it was like to be single. It's true!

We then took a trip in a big old London bus to Browns, the classy reception venue. Delicious food, lovely people and funky jazz music - my highlight being when Jool's dad got up to sing with the band. Felt like I was suddenly in a film!

...And finally - sending off the new Mr&Mrs, we shared a taxi back to the hotel where Jen and I chilled out for a bit and the boys ran around organising something or other - maybe something to do with their honeymoon in Bognor (! running joke - Jen doesn't know where the honeymoon is!)

A wonderful day had by all x

... The following day it was our 1st anniversary! We'd planned to catch up with Jools and Jen, maybe share their rooftop hot tub (lols!) but in the end took a stroll by the river, entertained by some top notch classical buskers, and then discovered a bunch of dancers practicing in a tunnel. J defo wants to move to London now - uh-ohh!

And heres our views from the hotel, sweet lil farmers market, and table tennis which was mostly occupied even late into the night.

And finally.. J looking suave in his new shoes :) xx

Resa Shoot !

Our photoshoot was fantastic! I'm now posting all things 'Resa Smith' on a new blog that feeds into my website - pretty cool! The website is like a hub for social networking - it links to etsy.com, a website for selling homemade items, facebook updates, flikr for the photoshoot and tumblr for blogging

www.resasmith.co.uk

and heres a couple of favourite pics, we followed the H&M inspiration below but added more FUN more exploring. Needless to say it was TOTALLY successful! Amazing photographer Andy Teo can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/photocillin/

Maxi Dress photoshoot inspiration

Resa Smith ***maxi dress***

A few weeks ago I had time of work due to a nasty throat infection. As I work in a call centre this made me un-work-able! So I began to dream up some ideas.

The Inspiration:

Here is the inspiration, from Monsoon, followed by the outcome, a maxi dress made with fabric I bought with Selina, from an Indian fabric shop on Dudley road.

The Plan:

Well so many people, when they hear about the idea of maxi dresses go 'oOOooo I'd like one please!!' so the plan is to finalise my pattern and have 1 standard size to fit dress size 8-12 (bra 30a-34c)

Followed by two length options:

flats (5"4 and under)

heels (5"5+)

Bigger bust sizes (dress 12-18) will be made in a few weeks when I've got going :)

So I'm off fabric shopping asap (I have work this week boo!) and then I'll get sewing!!

Once 6 are done I'll be calling on Selina (beautiful model) for a photoshoot and J will be working hard to get a website online with paypal enabled

Blessings!! xX

(please comment if you have any further sizing ideas or if you feel you wouldn't be suited to the options suggested)

Blackbottom cakes

Made yesterday, half the mixture is cocoa and flour, the other half is an egg, mascarpone cheese and choc chips... Yum! Rich but went down well x

Nebula Photos

I've finished all 6 nebulas and they start going on tour with the kids club from tomorrow. More photos on picasa:

http://picasaweb.google.com/MaresaEsmee/NebulaBlog#

Technique:

I'd start off by tye dying the sheet a base colour, such as green or blue, three hours later I lay it out flat on some plastic sheeting. Onto the spray bottles: two bottles filled with colours (silk dye, bought as a liquid) and one filled with water to blend the colours. I used an image as reference per image so I had something to work from, and once the intial pattern was 'painted' I'd work more colours on top with different intensities of dilution, or using dylon powder dye in the bottles - mixed with salt and using hot water.

The silk dyes are very intense when used 100% and leave the fabric soft to touch, whereas the dylon can be used to cover larger areas and leaves the fabric more crunchy due to the salt.

Once nearly dry (the next day) I sprayed or splattered some areas with bleach, or left to dry completely before applying a second lot of dye. Onto the ironing which would take about 45 mins per sheet to ensure the silk dye is fixed, and because the sheets are huge! I'd then lay

them out to map the sequin using dressmakers tape and sew sew sew!

I got pretty into it and would love to do more!

Nebula

First few photos of my nebula project.

These are room dividers for a kids club, made from a series of flat double bed sheets. I've used a range of techniques, silk dye, dylon, bleach and salt to get a variety of effects. They've all turned out so different.

The inspiration - Organic space - not rockets or spaceships - Nebulas, supernovas and gas storms

The outcome - liquid colours that still look as though in motion, grainy explosions and crinkly black velvet tones creeping across the sky with a shimmer of sequins and crystals.

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

We had some friends over last week and to make it a bit more fancy than the usual lasagne evenings, I made some strawberry cheesecake cupcakes. I've got two recipies for these, one of the muffin variety, and the others are cupcakes. I chose cupcakes because the topping is made from butter, icing sugar and cream cheese with sprinkled digestive biscuit crumbs. Yum. The cake has strawberry chunks through it, making it more of a pudding experience than afternoon tea delight. I think the muffins would be good with ice-cream and they lack the creamy topping.

The day after, I made some black bottom cakes, rich chocolate cakes made from two seperate mixtures - one chocolate and eggless - the other flourless with cream cheese and choc chips. You collide the two mixtures side by side in a cupcake case and wallah! Delicious, rich, varient cakes. Ingredients: coco, choc chips and of course my current obsession; cream cheese. (pictured before topping was added)

Oh and J & I have discovered the best time to go shopping in Asda is 10pm, when all the kids are in bed and the new stock is being put out :)

And heres the cake I made for my birthday.

Delicious Kitchens

Our initial 6 months in Wolverhampton are nearly over and now we are looking for a new place to live, either in Wolves so J can keep his job, or in Nottingham - to let the real adventure begin! If anything is cetain, its this: I'm on a hunt for a fabulous kitchen!!

It has to be faitly modest too, afterall, in September I will be a student again, so as long as there is room to make baked beans on toast and pizza - we're fine!!

Here's some inspirations:

Breakfast bar attic style kitchen, great worktop space even thought the kitchen is small

Kitchen/Diner in a house in Nottingham (affordable!) Could imagine this for when we have kids too

Lush kitchen island/bar/worktop with storage. This would be ideal because then it can go with us wherever we move to. I like the wood colour with the white.

Davina has kitchen shelves instead of cupboards and it's so handy, you can see where everything is so things don't get lost. (Ikea of course)

Love the chalkboard idea. And I'm spotting a theme here - Kitchen Islands!

Gorgeous exposed brick wall, rustic cooking in a rustic kitchen.

Kitchen/lounge/diner, open plan which has a spiral staircase in the middle of the room, leading to a mezzanine floor for the bedroom... LUSH!

In Wolverhampton Princess lofts (but someone is renting it already)

What's your favourite kitchen styles?

Meez xX