Last week Tom’s brother Jack came down to stay for a few days, as he was in an art show at Truman Brewery. His work included a photograph of him naked in a quarry next to two giant diggers and a series of photographs of bathroom taps – Tom’s pointing to the one’s in his bathroom back home.

I also bought 4 pairs of shoes… a black pair, a purple pair, a red pair (with matching red bag and Gay Pride sparkly red velvet cupcake)…

and a pink Vivienne Westwood pair with a matching skull & bone orb necklace.

I also made a quilted star bag. I’m going to braid some fabric through the chain when I figure out how to make piping on my sewing machine.

I love the Cath Kidston meets Chanel bags, but they’re £45 so I decided to make my own. I’ll post the Cat Kidston how-to on CO+K soon.

This week I’ve been super crafty. My first project was a couple of Union Jack pillows for the bed. “Someone” brought me a heap of Chanel ribbons to use and they worked really well.

I made a mermaid tail as my costume for Mardis Gras. It has a zipper up the back at the bottom, so I can unzip my feet and walk. My favourite movie when I was a kid was The Little Mermaid, so I’ve always wanted a tail and now I have one

The secret cafe at Westfield has closed down but we discovered a new little place called Ca’puccino which serves yummy Italian food.

There were floating shelves of books everywhere, which made me feel at home.

The mugs and napkins had a lined paper pattern and now I really want a set.

CO+K has been getting lots of press this week and has been in a bunch of magazines. This article was in Craft Business – they call me a well-known journalist, hehe.

There was also a little mention in MakeJewellery magazine. We’re also in the new issue of Sew Magazine, so if anyone has a copy, could you please send me a scan with the bit about us? I’d love to know what it says.

Finally, someone else has made a version of my kitty hood scarf, I’m going to have a little army soon.

Time to start packing, we leave for New York in less than 48 hours and I’m so excited. If anyone has any NY tips, please send them this way!

Yesterday was Fashion’s Night Out, which was like a pub crawl in the expensive fashion shops of Old Bond Street. Emma got us invites for the party at Chanel, where they had a nail bar in the basement (I’m surprised that no-one passed out with the fumes) and a photoshoot with Daisy Lowe upstairs. We stayed for a glass of champagne before heading off to see the rest of the street. It felt like a grown up’s version of Halloween, going from shop to shop, having nibbles, picking up freebies and glasses of booze. We had mini-bottles of champagne at DKNY, nibbles and OJ at Camper (where they had the most adorable kiddie shoes that I want in my size), truffles from a chocolate shop and then more champagne from Alexander McQueen.

Burberry had the best drinks, we sipped on Pimms with strawberries and gin & tonics, while I fell in love with this layered mac. At £1000, I’m trying to figure out if I could sew my own.

In the evening, we were invited to see the Plasticines play at Proud Camden, so we met up with Wendy and headed along. The Plasticines are a girl band from Paris and Tom described them as the “French Sleater-Kinney”. They stopped mid-set to tell the crowd that they were “f****** s***” and wouldn’t keep playing unless we made more of an effort, which was pretty awesome. Keep an eye out for them in a future issue of Snippets.

Proud seemed like quite a nice venue. It’s in the Stables Market, so the bar area was made up of lots of little stables  filled with arcade games, pole-dancing tables or comfy sofas. My favorite was the Dress-Up Bar, where you could try on different outfits.

Yesterday was my birthday and also the hottest day of the year, so Tom took me too the zoo to see the animals. I think they should give vegetarians and vegans a discount on the ticket price!

I really liked the giraffes, zebras, penguins, otters and lemur.

The meerkats were cute too. The zoo had aviaries and a butterfly tent, which you could walk through.

We took my SLR camera and huge paparazzi lens, which was awesome for snapping the animals.

If you’re around the Regent’s Park / Primrose Hill area, take a walk around the perimeter of the zoo, because you can see quite a few of the animals without having to pay. You can also get a river boat from Little Venice, straight to the zoo’s entrance.

After the zoo, we headed to Ladurée, where Tom bought me a box of super fancy macaroons.

It’s like a pic ‘n’ mix and all the flavors are really nice, but the black licorice ones are the best! The box is really pretty too, so I’m going to use it to keep jewelry in.

On the topic of jewelry, Tom got me a rainbow zip bracelet, I have wanted one for ages. He also got me a Play TV, so that I can record shows to watch during yoga, wireless microphones for Singstar (which make you feel like a proper rockstar), Buzz, and a voucher for MAC, where they’ll pick out make-up that suits me.

After the macaroons, we continues our sugar high, with a trip to Hummingbird Bakery in South Kensington.

We enjoyed red velvet and carrot cake, while sitting in the red velvet seats, mmmmm! Continuing our tradition of going to see cheesy girly films for my birthday, we went to see Band Slam, which was actually quite enjoyable.

In the evening we headed home and ended up playing Buzz with Emma until the early hours. The new game lets you play online, against other sofas and we won against almost every team we played, we felt so smart! Earlier in the day, Emma had left a lovely Chanel present outside the door for me to find.