BIAD graduate show.

Last night was the private viewing at Birmingham Institute of Art and Designs graduate show. This gives all the courses a chance to show off all the final projects that have been carried out, and give students a chance to promote themselves.

We each had a booth in which to display our work, and had to create the three boards that I wrote about before. This is how it all looked.

The lecturers also did a small awards ceremony later on in the evening to praise students for the work in which they carried out. Prizes were kindly provided by Harvey Nichols Birmingham. Jenna and I were both student representatives this year and each won a certificate and bottle of wine.

My large format poster is displayed behind, which looks absolutely great. Glad to know it wasn't going to waste.

The lovely chicken coops also got an extra appearance.

old soles.

As I have worked at Office shoes for well over two years now I have gathered quite an array of shoes, many of which I don't wear any more. They aren't not worn through distaste, just that they have been worn so well they look barely like the shoe they were when I bought them. I know shoes can be recycled, or given to charity shops, however mine are well past someone wanting to buy them again.

So I have been looking for a nice way to reuse them without me having to actually throw them out...and I found one. I am not really a gardening person, but have always liked to get my hands dirty when it comes to being house proud so this idea is perfect.

Making plant pots out of them. I found an article about it here on eHow and I am all inspired to get started.

This boot looks great.

I am a true hoarder at heart so to have an excuse to keep things, especially my beloved shoes, always makes me happy.

mums wardrobe.

My sister and I had gone through Mums old clothes around five years ago, well before I would ever have thought they were cool. However this weekend was different. Not only do I now have a huge interest in vintage fashion, but also I happened to be going to a hippie themed party.

After showing Mum what I was going to wear, she quickly decided my outfit was not "hippie enough". I jumped at the offer to look at the clothes she had saved from her teenage years in the 70's and found some gems. It seemed to be all about the maxi skirts and dresses, with beautiful bright floral prints.

The dress I chose for the hippy night was ironically a Topshop number Mum bought in London around 1975.

Not a great image sadly but as Mum had the dress straight back in the suitcase the minute I took it off I couldn't get a proper photo. With buttons all the way down the front, and fitted around the chest, the gorgeous flowing skirt is flattering to any figure. It can also be worn flowing for the summer days or tied tighter by tying a bow at the back I am pretty much in love with this.

Definitely going to have to get to work on Mum to have this in my wardrobe. Sooner rather than later.

pub quiz done.

I have finished the flyer's for the Bluebell Inn's first ever pub quiz. We decided to use the lined paper to give a quiz sheet look to them, and kept them very simple with the Bluebell Logo and colour being the only key branding.

This is going to be a really great event and I am getting together a quiz team with the family.

learning from my mistakes.

So for Graduate Fashion Week and part of our last self promotion module we had to design and print business cards for people to take. The front of mine was the blog title and then a picture of my glasses. However, I realised after them being printed and being sent to Graduate Fashion Week ready to be put out on the stand that I had written the wrong blog address.

I had originally wanted this blog to be called  Rosie Tinted Glasses as a play on words from Rose Tinted Glasses. As my name is Rosie, and I wear glasses and this is all about the hazy future I thought it was quite fitting. However, Rosie Tinted Glasses had been taken already, so I decided on Rosie Tinted as the address but Rosie Tinted Glasses as the title. Anyway this all sounds very confusing, so to cut a long story short, I accidentally put the wrong address on my business cards, and only realised after they had been printed. Here is the front of the business card....as it had been printed.

The front. WRONG.

The back. Right.

Due to the printers machines breaking, I was left with no contingency, and spent the whole night I realised looking for 24 hour printers. This wasn't going anywhere, and after talking to my Mum we came up with the idea of using a Dymo Gun (a label maker in which the font I used on my card is taken from) to make labels and stick it over the error.

This wasn't ideal, and after spending my train journey down to London and the whole evening before Graduate Fashion Week typing out labels I was more that dubious about how it was going to turn out.

However, after finishing some of them off I was actually really happy. I felt it added texture to the cards, and gave them a little something extra. I also knew it hadn't turned out too badly when my pile of cards was going down faster than I had thought.

Anyway, here is how they looked after all the drama.

graduate fashion week.

Yesterday I was at Graduate Fashion Week, an exhibition of all the fashion based courses in the UK. Each university has a stand in which to display their work. Ours was based around chicken coops, playing on the growing new talent/incubator theme. I was a bit dubious when I first heard the plans but thought it looked absolutely great.

This was my work displayed as I eagerly awaited the judges for the Marketing Award. Sadly I didn't get any further in the competition but even to be nominated was such a huge achievement so I couldn't be happier.

One of the other stands that really stood out was Rochester, as they had created a workshop type environment that I hadn't seen done before.

It was also in line with my dissertation, with quite a hands on approach that I always find attractive.

designer australia.

While I was in Australia I was surprised by the amount of vintage fashion in all of the cities. From markets to shops each city had its fair share, with Melbourne being well up there with the most.

Friends who had lived there before had always said how much better Britain was, but in retrospect this is clearly due to Australia's lack of high street stores. Sydney introduced some more interesting midrange fashion brands to the mix, with a huge Zara opening in a new Westfield shopping centre causing quite a buzz amongst locals.

Most of the department stores and shopping centres however, were full to rafters with designer after designer from international brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Dior to my favourite Australian discoveries, gorgeous nightwear designer Peter Alexander and casual wear brand Bonds.

The Peter Alexander website has vibrant colours and imagery throughout and I love how the product is displayed.. Take a look here.

I of course took a few items home as souvenirs. Would be rude not to.