Girl in The Mirror - Cecelia Ahern

Ceceila Ahern is one of my favourite authors of all time. This book was short and sweet but had me captivated and just as mesmerised as any of the books which came before it. The small book came with two short stories inside, the other story which I wasn't as blown away by was called 'The Memory Maker' this story lacked slightly in substance for me -

The blurb says:

They say you never forget your first love. But what happens when those cherished memories start to fade? Some people would do anything to hold on to the past and, for one heartbroken man, that means finding a way to relive those precious moments…

The 'Memory Maker' tells the tale of a man who invents a machine that can create memories. The machine cannot erase memories but instead builds them where they are fading or where there were none to begin with. Cecelia tells the heartwarming tales of the boy who gives life to his memories to include an absent father cheering at the sidelines of his childhood football matches. Or the widow who can’t remember her husband’s face and wants to recapture how he looked first thing in the morning.

The Girl in the Mirror was a fascinating read for me. Parts of this book really freaked me out, you are kept in suspense until you've practically reached the end of the story. In some cases this may infer that the majority of the build up is tedious but this isn't the case with this book at all. You are kept constantly on the edge of your seat wondering what the mystery could possibly be.

The blurb says:

Lila knows how lucky she is to have found the man of her dreams. But when a secret from her family's past comes to light on her wedding day, her destiny changes in the most unexpected of ways...

Whatever you're thinking at this point, you are wrong. The story takes such a miraculous turn, you will not be expecting it. Lila's character loves her grandmother 'Grellie' a combination of the names Ellie and Grandmother. Lila takes a friend to visit her grandmother's house, and it's the friend that sets the dubious scene. She describes how she feels in the house - not comfortable, cold, sad, creepy. At this point there are no explanation for these feelings. All the mirrors in the house are covered up but with no explanation other than the fact that her grandmother doesn't like mirrors. Her grandmother is blind so the fact that the mirrors are covered up becomes even more of a mystery. There is of course much more to it than this but it's not until Lila's wedding day that this mystery is revealed.

Lila uses her grandmother's house as somewhere to relax in before the big moment, on the most special day of her life. With no mirrors in the house how is she going to survey her appearance before she walks down the aisle? Against her grandmothers wishes she enters an upstairs room which has always been marked as forbidden for as long as Lila can remember. She rips down the black cape which covers the mirror's face and stares at herself in the mirror as she takes in how beautiful her wedding dress looks. She notices a smudge in her make up and walks closer to the mirror to inspect the damage, before she's aware of what's happening she is on the other side of the mirror, face to face with her own reflection.

The reflection gives her three chances to make a life changing choice. She either loose her sight and return to the world she knows - blind - or abide in the mirror to live forever as a reflection, unable to communicate with anyone on the outside world again.

What choice does Lila make?

The wrong one, it seems. She refuses to loose her sight. The choice that at this stage it is clear that her grandmother did make, which is why she is blind, and why she refuses to ever look in a mirror again. Her heart breaks as she watches her beloved 'husband to me' marry her reflection, as mirrors surround the 'couple' in the church. She twirls and bows as her first dance plays out without featuring as the main attraction herself. Her grandmother tries to warn her finance of the mistaken identity, but who is going to believe this kind of story? The way Cecelia writes her narrative has me fully convinced of the truth to her story, the attention to detail that goes into her storytelling never fails to have me captivated.

There is a happy ending to the story however. There is always a chance to swap places, and when a Innocent (but lonely and unhappy) decorator agrees to help out Lila's grandmother at the house, he gets dragged into a destiny of darkness surrounded by his reflection.

How freaky does this make mirrors?!

Operation Cup of Tea

We all know the power of social media, and will be aware of the massive impact Twitter and Facebook have had as devastating scenes have played out across Britain. It was truly heart wrenching to see the city I've grown up in destroyed, shops and businesses, areas of the city you visit on a daily basis ripped to shreds, never in my lifetime have I experienced anything on such a scale that was so devastating to so many people in my own town. I was completely hooked to my Twitter stream and the array of rolling news which unfolded as the saga continued. Twitter was awash with breaking news, and un-confirmed reports of rioting, looting and fires breaking out across the city.

Although social media is getting caught up in the blame for a lot of the debauchery scenes we've seen, with reports of rioting groups masterminding their meet ups via the social sphere, sending out messages to their peer group encouraging young and unruly children to join in; the social scene has also made way for community groups to stand up and be counted, with many joining the Twitter campaign to 'Clean up Britain'. Many spin off groups for different cities have emerged designed to unite the good Samaritans of the community and organise clean up groups that met across the country to put back what had been destroyed.

Along with the individual groups which emerged my favourite anti riot group had to be 'Operation Cup of Tea' a campaign masterminded by Sam Pepper of 'Big Brother fame'. The campaigns message was simply to harness the power of the British cup of tea, the campaign urged followers to stay home and have a brew until all the chaos had subsided. The campaign asked people to take a photo of themselves with their 'anti riot brew' and post their image to Facebook as a sign of solidarity against the rioting. At the time of posting this blog there were 328,791 people attending 'Anti Riot Operation Cup of Tea', and despite the subdued scenes of the last few days as the perpetrators of these events get their comeuppance, thousands are still joining the event, to show their support. On Twitter #OperationCupofTea has been trending across the country for days. The official website hosts its own Anti Riot Tea shop, where you can order emergency rations of tea, supplied by ethical tea specialist Luke Northy Baker and a 'Stay in and Drink Tea' t-shirt with all proceeds going towards the self titled charity, which aims to help businesses get back on their feet.



Sam Pepper, face behind the campaign, said:

As with many things in life, this all began with a simple cup of tea. During the rioting, we have been urging the Great British public to harness the power of tea by staying at home and having a brew, every night until it stops. Furthermore, we want everyone to take a photo of themselves in the act and post it to Facebook as a show of solidarity. If you don’t like tea, don’t worry – you can still join in, any hot drink will do – coffee, hot chocolate or Bovril will do. We’re not fussy.
Thankfully we received such an overwhelming level of support we decided to do a bit more: we have set up our own charity to help the people affected by the riots.
All you have to do to support us is buy your tea through this website; all profits will then be donated to the charity and be used to give people the help they need.

Claireabella Designs

I'm so excited to be blogging about Claireabella Designs. This girl is a complete genius. I've been a 'bit' of an addict for months, I say 'addict', to be more accurate I am dam right addicted.

Claireabella Designs creates beautiful, intricate hand drawn and hand painted jute and cotton bags. Each item is designed, drawn, painted and decorated lovingly by Claire herself. No two bags are the same, each individually crafted to suit the owner and their expectations and specifications.

You can choose an array of details to make the design personal to you, your appearance and personality. Choose hair colour, eye colour, clothes, and accessories, and include your name or wording of choice to top the design off. Bags come in a variety of sizes, all roomy so perfect for shopping or to carry your beach essentials. Prices vary from £9.99 for a mini jute bag, to £39.99 for a large jute bag, and everything in between. When ordering be aware that delivery on orders may take up to 28 days due to the high demand, but from the rave reviews I've read so far this isn't always the case, most customers receive their order before the 28 days stated - testament to Claire working so hard.

Unfortunately I was late to jump on the bandwagon so I'm yet to get my hands on one of Claireabella's beautiful handcrafted, bespoke bags, however I have got my hands on one of her hoodie designs (see image above), which have just been released via Toxic Fox, a website dedicated to unique and personalised gifts. Claireabella designs currently features on the front page!

 

I bagsied my hoodie through a competition Claire ran in conjunction with Toxic Fox a few weeks ago. Claire regularly runs competitions via Twitter and Facebook, they tend to come round when the site reaches a new 'follower' milestone or in the case of Facebook gets a certain amount of 'likes'. Claire uses Twitter a lot so you can always be updated with the latest news and updates and get involved with the latest competitions, they are quite a regular occurrence!

Claire runs the brand from her home in Yorkshire where she lives with her husband and children. The bags are now in such high demand (understandably) that stock is limited each week to avoid a meltdown. The bags got so popular that the Claireabella site was crashing every day. I think its safe to say all the girls from TOWIE are sporting Claireabella bags, as well as Katie Piper, and model and TV personality Nicola McLean, along with others.

Follow Claireabella Designs on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with the hype, or visit the website to get more goss. The website includes an extensive photo gallery so you can get some inspiration for your own design.

Glitterati ..

I've been meaning to post about this little gem for a while now. It's been keeping my phone cosy for several weeks and it's been getting some admiring glances from passers by. This IPhone case has been lovingly hand made by Kaitlin. If you give Kaitlin's Facebook page a visit you can see all the wonderfully unique, bespoke, colourful and quirky designs she has produced for customers nationwide. I've had lots of comments on my case so this works wonders if you want to grab some attention.

If you want to grab your hands on one of these beauties simply fill in the order form from Encrusted UK, choose your colour palette, I chose pearly pink, but options include pink gems, black and white pearls or blue gems, so an array of choice to make a case that suits you. That's step one, but you then go on to pick a selection of small gems and larger gems to decorate your case, see the options here, everything from flowers, hearts, to cupcakes, ladybirds and teddy bear designs. The order form gives you the option to choose one large gem and two smaller gems, the price goes up slightly if you want any more than that. The process is as simple as that and days later this landed on my doorstep and I popped it on my phone straight away.

The designs are reasonably priced, although if you don't want to spend as much go for fewer gems, you can see all the pricing options on the order form page - Kaitlin knows what works best and will take your choices and display them to create her unique designs. New designs are popping up on the page every day so have a browse before you order for some inspiration, most phones can be catered for, but check your phone is listed before you order. You can also find Encrusted updates on Twitter.

I love mine - comments have stemmed from 'Big Fat Gypsy Weddings' to 'TOWIE'. The cases are definitely an eye catcher and a conversation starter. I've been spreading the word about Encrusted to anyone who has shown an interest. It's early days for the business but I'm sure we will see Kaitlin's empire grow, maybe we will see some Encrusted designs in the next series of TOWIE!

Coming Soon..

I'm currently hooked on this book. On first glance it looks like your 'classic' romance but there is much more hidden within the pages. Read my review on the book very soon. Let me know if you've read the book yourself or if you've seen/thinking of seeing the film adaption!

Peace Bracelets for Japan

We’ve all watched in horror over recent weeks as Mother Nature dealt its most devastating blow, leaving Japan in the grip of a mind blowing relief effort with unspeakable lives and worlds shattered. Echo’s of the disaster have been felt worldwide; with people all across the globe wanting to do all they can to help rebuild a broken Japan.

Pretty Little Poppet designs, brain child of Sophie Keegan situated here in the West Midlands has come up with a creative, innovative and multi coloured way to help raise money for the Japan relief effort.

‘After seeing the devastation that had been caused by the earthquakes in Japan I really wanted to do something, no matter how small I just wanted to do my bit to help’, says Sophie.

As part of Pretty Little Poppet designs, a youthful, creative and colourful collection, Sophie sells multi coloured elastic bracelets with peace charms.

Sophie says, ‘The idea literally just popped into my head while I was watching the news and once I’d set my heart on it I had to do something. I felt this could be the perfect thing to produce and sell to raise money to help.’

Available in 5 different colours and at £1.50 each the peace bracelets are a roaring success, with all the money raised going straight to Japan.  

‘The feedback has been amazing! Sophie explains. ‘Within minutes of putting the photo up on Facebook explaining what I was doing I had so many people contact me requesting one or two, or one of each! I’ve had lots of personal messages from people telling me how nice they think the idea is and it is so nice to see that there’s so many other people that want to do there bit to help too even if it’s just one small step’

Pretty Little Poppet was last year mastermind behind a local ‘Clothing Fair’ event created to help raise money to help towards the relief effort in Haiti after the 2010 quake.

 ‘Last year after the Haiti disaster I was watching a programme on what had happened and I literally couldn’t believe the devastation and the amount of lives lost, you just can’t imagine that ever happening here and I don’t think people realise how lucky we are’

The Clothing Fair was set up at a local hotel, together with her best friends and the generous community, women’s, men’s, children’s clothing and accessories were collected to sell.

‘Friends, family, work colleagues, old school friends who I hadn’t seen for years and even strangers helped to spread the word’

Local businesses got involved, donating lots of raffle prizes, from local theatres, cinemas, restaurants, spa’s and match tickets/signed football shirts from both big and local teams. 

‘The response from everyone was amazing and after days and days of sorting through and organising everything, we held our Clothing sale on a Sunday and so many people came it was wonderful!’

A small article featured in the local paper and the fair warranted itself a mention on a local radio station. The team had promoted the event far and wide, doing everything they could to advertise the sale and it all paid off with a fantastic raising of £1000 on the day. 

Sophie’s peace bracelets for Japan are available to order via her Facebook page www.facebook.com/Pretty.Little.Poppet or contact her via her Twitter page at http://www.twitter.com/PrettyLittlePop    

A Place Called Here...

‘A Place Called Here’ is a truly magical an enchanting tale. I can honestly say I still never really understood what was going on by the end of the book, yet I felt like I’d been on a rollercoaster journey – Sorry for using the inevitable talent show line there - backwards and forwards with the character, feeling her frustrations, excitements, her wonderfully endearing highs and her ever suppressing lows.

Half way through the book I was dying be able to come to some sort of conclusion as to where 'The Place Called Here' could possibly be. The only seemingly logical explanation I came up with was that the character – Sandy Shortt, I talk more about her later - had to have been dreaming, which would of been somewhat disappointing as we all know, if a book ends with 'It was all just a dream' you might as well of not bothered reading it, it would be an overwhelming disappointment of a climax.

This book however was different, the world she creates, that she simply names 'Here' is a parallel universe to the one we live in. It is so utterly believable by the end you just except it as truth, similarly as I did with 'Harry Potter' - I'm convinced there is a platform 9 and 3/4 and there is Hogwarts immersed within a spectacular world of wizards, witchcraft and mystery, as I understand many others across the world to be with me on this too. When an author can create a world that the reader immerses into and believes that's the evidence of a truly exceptional writer.

I've loosely referred to Harry Potter as a parallel to this book, but as well as the famous wizard, the book also makes reference to the classic tale the 'Wizard of Oz' a childhood dream of a story, there is even reference to the ruby slippers and the words 'There's no place like home'.

The essence of this book centres on the character Sandy Shortt, a woman who from an early age is desperate to find all those missing things. Just where does the stray sock from the pair go, and why is it that you never ever find it again? What happens to the teddy, that once sat so proudly on your bed and then one day vanishes never to be seen again... (You think!)

Sandy dedicates her whole life to missing things and missing people – she sets up a missing person’s agency and finds out everything about their lives and every detail of where they were when they went missing, what they were doing, why there were doing it? With many, the only thing she doesn’t find is where have they gone?

Her entire life is filled with questions, it’s only when she goes for a jog and stumbles upon the ‘Place’ that she’s been searching for her entire life – this is where she sets out to find all the answers to her never-ending list of questions, and comes face to face with old friends.

An utterly addictive story that I would recommend, again and again - No questions asked.