Ikea

Oh Ikea, how we have grown to love and hate you at the same time!! Over-priced cheap quality furniture that you have to put together yourself yet its conveniently set up in show rooms so you can see how it looks when made and is delivered to your house… which is kind of essential when you don't have a car and depend on public transport! Its a one stop shop - you can go there and in one visit order everything for a perfectly functioning house! Thanks to handy-gal Nikki I got my chest of drawers set up no problems, the only 'oops' was the base ended up upside down so you can see the speckly wood instead of the smooth surface wood but we just like to think it was made with love and love has its imperfections!! I'm pretty sure they are opening one in Auckland which at first will be exciting but I say stick to The Warehouse and Briscoes! How we miss those stores!

Origin Craft Fair

http://www.originuk.org/

I forgot to mention this incredible craft fair that I went to a few months ago with my friend from uni. We were both so inspired and left with so many ideas that we wanted to focus on / work towards in the future. My friend Emma from work was exhibiting there and her stall was just fantastic! You can check out her website / blog at http://emmabradbury.com/. The fair is located at the Old Spitalfields Market and is only on once a year. Its really close to Bricklane as well which has fantastic (and super busy) markets every Sunday - theres also great restaurants there and I still have to go for a curry there one night!

WOOP WOOP HERES TO THE ALL BLACKS!!!

In some ways it sucks to be away from home during the Rugby World Cup but in other ways I'm so proud to be in London representing my fellow Kiwi's!! So excited for the final this Sunday, Dan we miss you and the close up's of conversions and penalty kicks just aren't the same without you.... But anyway, life goes on, heres to the final this Sunday!!!

GO BOYS!

$$ The cost of living in London $$

London is a very expensive place to live. I have found that what you pay £80 for over here, you can get for $80 in New Zealand. I am struggling to find a good pair of affordable boots and a good winter coat that doesn't disagree with my bank account. Where is the Number 1 shoe warehouse? Where is Glassons for all the merino wool basics, and Jay Jays for my yearly purchase of ugg boots? If you may remember in my earlier posts when I was talking about saving, I mentioned that I sold a lot of stuff on Trade Me to make some extra money. Don't do this! Well, not your winter things anyway. I worked out that for my parents to send me over a few of my coats, wool cardigans, thermals, gloves, scarfs and jumpers it will cost £60. It will cost me £80 to get just one coat over here and even at that it will be like 40% wool and you really need at least 80% to stay warm over here. How ironic that in NZ the jackets are half this price with more wool in them? You would think the colder country would be more ideal for buying coats in the winter... apparently not. A pair of leather boots that you could pick up for a cool $90 (£45) is infact £90 here ($180). So before you get the idea in your head that London is amazing for shopping - which it is in some respects - keep in mind that its generally only the rich and famous that can afford to shop in one of the worlds most popular fashionable cities! There are definitely cheap shops around here but the quality is obviously rubbish and will not keep you warm. I'm having to order ugg boots off Ebay as they predominantly seem to have Australian uggs here which will set you back $150-300!!!!!! Madness! I'm hoping Mum will chuck in a packet of milk bottles and pineapple lumps for me when posting my things over (hint hint) :D

London update + working for Daks

http://vimeo.com/30673367

Click on the above link for an awesome video showing the behind the scenes experience of Daks at London fashion week (where I was work). London continues to just get more and more exciting (and more cold for that matter!) What an amazing experience though, who would have known when I left NZ nearly 6 months ago that I would end up in such an amazing job and be backstage at London fashion week. Fashion was never what I had in mind for myself as I have always been drawn to homewares (wallpaper, wrapping paper, patterns, mugs, linens etc) but its all easily adaptable to clothing and fabric is quickly turning into a favourite of mine. It's interesting seeing my design style evolve as I grow as well, I have always loved florals and decorative complicated pieces and now I see myself moving into a more simpler style of design and its just so exciting being able to have the opportunity to continue to grow and explore the creative world in more ways than I could have ever dreamed of. My research can consist of looking through fashion magazines, exploring London and checking out the latest shops and trends and as well as hunting through fashion websites such as Vogue and style.com. I will also be working on a new homewares collection soon enough as well. The role I have is not just focused on one area of design - I get to work on a variety of projects and am alway doing something different which suits me perfectly as I love learning and extending my skill base.

Everything is going amazing at the flat as well, my room is finally set up for the first time in 6 months I finally have a bed again! Only now its harder to get up in the mornings... living in London in general is quite draining at times especially cause we don't have a car so we have to walk and take public transport everywhere. Everything is go go go and if you stop in the street to look for something in your bag someone will knock into you - guaranteed! Its very different to Auckland thats for sure.

Homesickness eases after a while, first few months were the hardest really. Then sometimes it will just hit you out of the blue, like this morning at work, talking to my brother on Facebook chat and I just got really upset and ended up having a bit of a cry for a good 10 minutes at work!! I think thats only the second time I have cried since I have been away from home though so I guess I was due for some tears but didn't expect it to happen at work! But hey, I'm in London so I just went shopping at lunch and cheered up pretty fast :) Oh that reminds me of another entry I must get onto! Thanks for reading!

Hello Full-Time Employment - A Job Hunting Story

Where to start? Well first of all I have officially been offered a full time role in graphic and textile design at a very well known British fashion designers - and accepted! BOOM! HELLO LONDON FASHION WEEK! What a whirl wind.... job hunting in London is not that fun, especially when you decide to move into a house first like I did - there is way more pressure on you to secure a job asap but at the same time I needed a place to live so I didn't have a choice. It was incredibly daunting to say the least and looking back it was one of the most worrying periods of my life... lets start at the beginning...

My plan as most of you know was to head up to Edinburgh and live and work there. When my two Kiwi friends txt and said they needed a third flatty in London I jumped at the opportunity - there were at least 6-10 exciting design jobs advertised a day in London that I wanted to apply for and about 5 a week in other areas of the country - so no comparison. You have to be prepared when you come to London - on average it takes 2-3 months to secure a full time job (from what I have heard from others that have moved here and recruitment agencies). I didn't have that choice - I had 6 weeks to land a job in order to make my bill payments and that was the maximum amount of time (as I mentioned earlier - stress!) but I did it!

Its an incredibly isolating experience moving to one of the biggest cities in the world, populated by over 10 million people - and you only know about 5. I started applying for jobs 3 weeks before I left my Uncle and Aunties in Chester (who have now been officially dubbed 'The Foster Parents') and continued to apply for my first two weeks in London. Over here most jobs are advertised for a month so you have to allow four weeks for the closing date, one week for them to sift through all the applications - there will be 1000's in most jobs - and then IF they are interested you get a phone call, an interview will be set up for the following week, then you have another week to hear back, and thats 7 weeks gone.
The strongest advice I have is to SAVE. Consider everything - bond and agency fees for a flat can be anywhere from 1500-2000 pounds, you need money to stay in hotels / backpackers if you don't have a couch to crash on (thankfully I did) plus food, travel (about 32 pounds a week for a travel pass) and theres more along the way, so thats about $6000 to get set up (when converted), feed yourself and travel around for a few weeks - and boy does the money go fast! You might as well just stand on the street throwing cash away.

Anyway, back to the job hunting. Its very scary not hearing a peep from anyone that you apply through - you think surely they have seen my CV and want to call me - nope - all CV's get sent to a receptionist and put in a pile and at the end of the four weeks they are passed onto management. After four weeks of not hearing anything you start to self-doubt yourself big time. I spent most of my first few weeks in London sitting inside just applying for jobs and it drives you insane - but as Dr. Phil says 'If your not working full time then by golly, your looking for a job full time.' For some reason those words have always stuck with me! So after 5 weeks since first applying the phone calls started, agencies calling wanting to chat about the type of work I was after etc by the 7th week I was on board with four really good design agencies. After six weeks of applying for jobs, I received a phone call about a two week freelance job with a leading fashion design brand to design a textile print for a new handbag. Of course I jumped at the opportunity! I was then asked to stay on for another week and then was officially offered a full time position yesterday! Its a dream role and most importantly ticked all of the boxes for what I wanted in my new job. Everyone in the team is just fantastic and I get to look at fashion and home design magazines as part of my research and explore London for new up and coming trends - time to pinch myself I think???
I also had an interview for a stationery company that I have followed frequently over the last four years and when I was in New Zealand I would literally day dream of one day visiting this company and possibly working for them so to have an interview was beyond me. However I found out that the designs are actually imported and the 'designers' simply place existing designs on product. My flat mate / friend Nikki described my disappointment perfectly - like a child finding out Santa wasn't real.

Anyway, I actually landed my dream role without realising it was a dream role before I came to London. Isn't life full of exciting surprises? I would have never seen myself working for a leading fashion company and attending fashion week in London when I left New Zealand in May. We have a beautiful home in Wimbledon, I live with two fantastic Kiwi friends, now have an amazing job and we are all excited about living life here and planning our travels over the next few years.
In regards to moving into our flat we had nothing - we ate our dinner on the first night using a beach towel as a table cloth on the floor and drank wine from plastic cups - all part of the fun! We have been here a month tomorrow, we have a TV, outside furniture as our lounge furniture (the couches should be here soon) I am still on an air bed and will be until November / December and my clothes are all in piles on the floor as I have no where to put them but you know what? I couldn't have asked for a better start to London. Yes its scary, yes you feel isolated / stressed / lonely / homesick - sometimes all at the same time - but if you want it bad enough you can make it happen and I'm so proud of myself for everything I have accomplished over the past few months!

So whats next for me? Im going to start a new blog called Living Life in London (go figure), hopefully make it up to Scotland soon to see my family and meet my pen pal, re-open my Etsy shop with a new set of prints, continue exploring London and just making the most of our time here. By December I should be financially back on track and I want to save for a flash camera to keep working on my photography - as well as do night classes in cooking and web design - phewf!

Homelanz - Kiwi Day Out in London

First of all, apologies for not writing in a while - London chews up your time! We have been having a great time here and 3 weeks after I arrived in London we went to Homelanz - a Kiwi festival in London! It was so fun, we ate Kiwi food ($6-7 for a bag of Pascall lollies!!) and drank and chilled to good NZ music - Katchafire and Ladi 6. And whats best? It didn't rain - bonus!