Smoothie Time with Cocorrina + Weekend Links

Corina of Cocorrina has been making smoothie time even more fun, by producing a set of fruity graphics to accompany her recipes. If you haven't checked out her blog before then you're missing out - it's full of idillic photography, freelance advice and community based content + personal posts about her business.

I'm still playing catch up after my holiday but thank you all for stopping by this week and baring with me. Have you entered our latest giveaway yet - We've teamed up with Coggles!

Weekend Bucket List

Cats just love getting cosy
Mother, Father, And Son Photograph Themselves Once A Year…For 21 Years!
Google Street View goes under water
Simple pesto recipe, will be trying this one
Google's driverless car is quite a step forward, but how does it stop for lights?!

Jefferson takes a look around BBS Clothing's Pop-Up at Covent Garden
We ate at Solita this week, what a menu!

Mat.

                                Find us on - Twitter - Facebook - Bloglovin' - Instagram - Pinterest

EMOJI IRL.LOL by Liza Nelson

Someone's had the fantastic idea of making those funny little phone pictures, or EMOJIs, into a reality. Liza Nelson has chosen some of her #1s and turned them the on-going project*, EMOJI IRL.LOL. Surely this deserves a double Thumbs Up or something!

I'm all about the Fist Bump and Aubergine, and don't my friends know it. Her creations are pretty impressive whilst at the same time highlighting just how silly they really are. In here words they, "mean everything and nothing at the same time." Here's to hoping she starts on the animals next. So Cheers to Liza Nelson, and Party Poppers to the next lot.

* I hadn't a clue what IRL meant so I looked it up, In Real Life.

For more on the project visit here.

Find us on - Twitter - Facebook -  Bloglovin' - Instagram - Pinterest

Brosmind Playing Cards For Bicycle

I'm not the only one who's slightly obsessed with playing cards, Yasumi has a soft spot for the Joker of the pack in particular. This project by Spanish illustration studio Brosmind for iconic Playing Card company Bicycle is totally badass! A deck of cards with surreal cartoon drawings on....I've got to get a pack.

For more of Brosmind's work visit here, deck available here.

Have you entered the Made In These Isles Giveaway yet? Win an exclusive leather glasses card by British brand Small Castle.

 Find us on  Twitter | Facebook |  Bloglovin' | Instagram | Pinterest

Record Collection

Between us we have quite a few records. Well, Hollie would claim they're all hers, however I prefer to say we share them. Either way they're all in our possession and ready to be busted out and played on the Crosley at the drop of a hat. Some old, some new, lots borrowed and loads of blues!

Hollie's dad is big into music, he was even a pop star back in the day. So over time he acquired many records and even had the genius idea of actually keeping hold of them! I say genius but you know what I mean, most people got rid once CDs became popular. I'm glad he did as we've ended up with several original records by David Bowie, The Beatles and some Johnny Cash stuff too. I've only been back from London for a few days but I'm already planning on visiting again (before March), for Hello, My Name Is Paul Smith at the Design Museum. There's plenty of London Music Events* going on too.

Anyone else into vinyl or do you have memories of your parents playing them when you were younger?

 Twitter / Facebook /  Bloglovin' / Instagram / Pinterest

If Anchorman Was On Sega

   

This is genius, 8-bit computer game version of Anchorman by CineFix. Best thing I've seen all weekend, enjoy.

 Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bloglovin' / Pinterest

Harry's - Give A Shave

 Shaving stuff and razors cost a bomb these days, they really do. I've always fancied one of those razors with the a bone handle but never committed to saving for one. If you want something that looks nice and is extremely affordable you don't need to look much further than Harry's. The Winston Set pictured above features their aluminum handle and costs $25.

All their products are cheap as chips plus they actually give a damn. With their "Give A Shave" incentive  every purchase made from the store Harry's will donate one blade (or the equivalent monetary value) to an organisation that supports their mission to help the greater good.

For more about Harry's and their incentive check out their lovely website here.

Enjoy your weekend guys!

 Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bloglovin' / Pinterest

Loveland Aleworks / Bank Holiday

It's Bank Holiday Weekend across the UK and that can only mean one thing, beer. Yes lovely lovely beer. It's the time where most people get an extra long weekend but everyone working in retail is still stuck behind the tills, I'm used to it now. I'll just be making the most of it when the clock hits 4:30, Sunday afternoon.

With beer in mind today feels like a good time to share Loveland Aleworks and some great branding by San Fran design agency Manual. Loveland are an independent microbrewery based in Colorado; Manual created the identity for the company through the vision its owner and the city's historical past as a railroad town. The taps above, which can be found in their "tasting room" are inspired by original 19th century railway signal levers. It's fair to say I'd like to drink some ale from a growler, all aboard!

What plans have you got for the weekend? Mine will mostly involve cycling and beer. Enjoy your long weekend guys, let's hope the weather holds out!

For more info and images from the project click here

 Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bloglovin' / Northern Goods Co.

Beans For Victory

(Image source)

I get a real buzz when I come across student projects like this one by Joao Brandao. The brief was to create a range of commemorative packaging for a commercial product. Beans for Victory was inspired by the Second World War, times of rationing and the role Heinz played in distributing food to those in need.

Really love this concept. (First blog post mentioning baked beans....)

Orlando Photo Diary Part 1

From top to bottom - We've driven past Orange World so many times, I'm yet to stop there but it's got major kitsch value / Campbell's soup display in Target / The neighboring town of Celebration at night, such a nice place. They still had their Christmas decorations up which trumped ours / Popped by J.Crew, lots of ace things including The Shirt Bar / Huge range of J.R. Watkins products in Cracker Barrel, also where I found the Crayola tin and Bone Suckin' goodness / Nice to match your outfit shots to fire hydrants / I finally had my first legal drive and it was this beast 5 litre 7 seater beast!

Hey guys, we're just back from Orlando so I thought I'd get right to it and share some photos with you. If you have been following me on Twitter you may have seen we had to cut our holiday short by a substantial amount. There was a death is Hollie's immediate family and we had no choice but to fly back to the UK straight away. Some things are more important than holidays, hopefully we can carry on where we left off later in the year. Thank you to of you who've sent your wishes via Twitter, Facebook and email, taking time out to write a 100 character message really does mean the world at this time.

So for the time being I'll share a few images from our week in Orlando, we didn't get up to too much but it's just nice to be out there. I did have my first legal drive though, nice to get things off to a bang! I've not driven a car since passing my test about a year ago, I think I could get used to driving an automatic 5 litre 7 seater! As always was on the look out for interesting and fun packaging, I'm kicking myself for not buying more J.R. Watins products, I'll leave them for next time. Plenty more where this came from, I'll post Part 2 later on this week.

Hope everyone's been keeping well, what's been going on?

Collect - Tea Tags

(image source)

I think I've found another thing to collect, Tea Tags. I don't think a week went by after I started my pursuit into collecting old American stamps before I discovered these tea tag collections on Pinterest (follow me at mat_buckets). I drink tones of the stuff so I may as well be ripping the tags off and adding them to a collection; I think they've got the potential to look really smart in a frame. Similar to my old stamp collection (something I really need to share with you all, some are over 100 years old and have war prints on them!) they're all typically varied in design, shape, colour and country of origin. I'll be turning to eBay and my own cupboards in search of some corkers.

I'll be interested to hear if any of you collect tea tags or anything else connected to tea. Do you guys collect anything in particular? 

Next week I'll be launching a sweet little giveaway, the prize will make a nice Christmas present so keep your eyes peeled for that one.

Got The Blues

Sounds spot on, but in reality I'm not so sure. Buying a bike has been quite stressful up to now. In stock, out of stock, poor customer service, misleading information, lack of funds, more important things crop up.......just give me the bike already! Hopefully within two weeks I'll be all set and cycling up a storm but this hasn't been the simplest task. Who knew it would be so hard to spend money?

I also thought it might be slightly more straight forward finding a job after uni but more than a year on I've yet to make much progress in terms of anything sustainable. I'm just going to have to start making things happen on my own. I need some cheering up guys, what's new?

(Image source)

Berlin Trip - Can You Help?

Show Us Your Type

Me and Hollie are planning a short break to Berlin in late September, very exciting stuff. Neither of us have been before and after seeking advice on Twitter last month we put some pieces in place and are now mostly sorted. Pretty much decided on a hotel and flights but we just need a bit of help with things to do and places to go.

So can you help, have you been to Berlin? We're looking for interesting and curious things to do, absolutely anything you can think of. Do you know any museums, sites, landmarks, interesting areas, food & drink, slap bang in the middle, off the beaten track, relaxed, hectic; we want to hear it. 

Anything beer related most welcome too :)

Anders Drage's Mountain Milk

 I'm a big fan of milk, I was promised that if I drank milk, ate all my greens and bread crusts I'd grow up to be big and strong. It didn't really pan out that way, still to this day I drink a load of milk and eat my greens but I'm still pretty slim, the only thing that came out of eating crusts was curly hair (though that's a fib right?).

Who would have though a project about milk could get me so excited. Anders Drage's brief for his final campaign at college was to make some packaging about something he loved. He came up with Mountain Milk, packaging design based on the idea of using the best you can get, Norweigan Milk and making it into an international product. Drage, a Norwegian native wanted to create a luxury bottled milk product which celebrated his country's rich heritage and would have a similar status of a fancy bottled water or beer.

I think it's a cracking idea and something with potential, for me he's got the branding and look spot on. I know people either love or hate milk but what's your opinion on the concept and design? Not bad for a student's work ay?

More into on this project click here and for Anders Drage's site click here

-

Over the weekend I reached 500 followers! I'd really like to thank everyone that has ever given up a bit of time to read what I'm actually writing, I've loved every minute of my blogging time and that fact that you guys sharing an interest in my interests just makes it all worth while.  I will be launching another competition later this week as a thank you, so look out for that.