Smeared Lipstick & Cupcakes.

Mark Ryden is one of my favourite artist of all time. I am so in love with his work. I love how his pieces are so cutesy but really creepy and wonderful all at the same time. Here are a few of my favourite’s (which is nearly all of them) that I wanted to share. If you are not familiar with his art check him out at: www.markryden.com

The Butcher Bunny (2000)

Incarnation (2009) - I love, love, love this one!!

Rosie’s Tea Party (2005)

59 Allegory of the Four Elements (2006)

Sophia’s Mercurial Waters (2001)

Virgin and Child (2010)

Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers (2000)

Saint Barbie (1994)

Heaven (2008)

Hello fellow tumblee’s! Well I’ve been back for almost 4 months, and its taken me until now to get around to updating my blog, so thought it was about time I got on with it. WARNING: 151674869078 photos attached to this post.

So last post I said I was going to be spending Christmas in New York & New Years in Las Vegas.

Due to the heavy snow our holiday was postponed by a week & we ended up spending Christmas in the UK (Boo, hiss). We decided to boycott all things festive and ended up having a mexican banquet & a LOT of margarita to drown our sorrows on Christmas day.

We eventually managed to work it so that we could still spend NYE in Vegas as planned, and we managed to arrange it so that we could visit New York the following week, so it wasn’t a complete disaster.

At the airport grabbing breakfast, excited to finally be going

12 hour flight later we arrived in Vegas! 

We stayed at the Planet Hollywood hotel. Our room was HUGE & was Dustin Hoffman themed. I loved the Hook sword!

We planned to avoid all the over priced clubs & spend New Years Eve at Fremont Street down in old Vegas. Because the strip shuts down to all traffic on NYE, it was a nightmare to try and get a cab. A “helpful” valet advised us that we would be able to walk to Fremont Street in half an hour. Turns out this was a huge exaggeration, as where we needed to get to was in fact 6 miles from our hotel!! We managed to walk for 3 miles, before we managed to get a cab the rest of the way.

It was minus 6867970 degrees this night, these ladies must of been freezing!

At the end of the night, I’d drunk so many frozen cocktails, that a pinks hotdog was required at 5am.

My slot machine of choice.

Of all the hotels my favourites were Paris, The Venetian & Flamingos. The views from the Eiffel tower of the strip were spectacular.

The Venetian was by far the most beautiful hotel. How amazing is this ceiling?

We managed to get a freed ride on the gondola’s at the Venetian & were serenaded, which gave me the giggles.

That’s Amore!

Flamingo’s at Flamingo hotel.

We couldn’t visit Vegas without taking in a show. We watched Peepshow starring Holly Madison. I’m not a huge fan of stage shows. But I love burlesque, so decided this was the one for us. The performance was awesome. The lads definitely liked this one.

I also bumped into Holly Madison herself walking through the casino. Hi Holly!

M&M world. 4 floors dedicated to sweets. Still prefer smarties myself.

Inside Ceasers Palace

The Bellagio - fountain show by day……

……and night.

Inside the Bellagio. The usual botanical garden had been turned into a bit of a Christmas wonderland.

So I did get to have my picture taken at the Las Vegas sign. It was super early in the morning as we stopped off on our way to the Grand Canyon. There was a lady there, who seemed to be supervising tourists taking photos. She told me to stand on the line to have my photo taken as I couldn’t get up close to the actual sign itself. I later found out this was not correct & I could pole danced on it if I’d wanted. Ggggggrrrrr.

One of the main highlights of my trip was probably our visit to the Grand Canyon. It was quite nice to escape the craziness of Vegas for a day. It’s a 5 hour round trip from Vegas into Arizona (or 2 and a half hours if Simon’s driving). It was so beautiful & quite a surreal experience. We just don’t have anywhere that looks like this in the UK.

We also stopped off at the Hoover Dam on the way to the Canyon.

The Canyon.

Overall my week in Las Vegas was wonderful. Its a giant adventure playground for adults & not to be taken too seriously. Next post will be a round up of my week in New York. 

XOXO

So it goes like this. I had a 2 week holiday booked to travel to NYC for a week over Christmas, then I was due to fly to Las Vegas from NYC for a week to ring in the new year, before coming back to London.

Due to the Snow (damn you snow!), my flight got cancelled & I had to spend a Christmas-less Christmas - no tree, presents etc… in Blighty whilst moping over my NYC Christmas that never was. ‘Insert sad face and sympathetic noises here’

Luckily I was able to salvage something out of the trip. I’m due to fly to Vegas tomorrow for NYE as planned. Then I’ve managed to tag a week in NYC on the back of that, so its not all bad.

I have been to NY before but not Vegas, so I’m incredibly excited. All week I’ve been singing ‘New York, New York’ or ‘Viva Las Vegas’, much to the annoyance of my boyfriend and family.

These are my highlights (in no particular order):

• Road trip to the Grand Canyon

• visiting the Statue of Liberty

• seeing the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park (MASSIVE FAN!!)

• Going up the Empire State Building at night

• Walking the Brooklyn Bridge

• Sampling my first macaron’s

• Getting my photograph taken at the Las Vegas sign

• The Bellagio Fountains

I have a hundred other things on my ‘To do list’ but we’d be here all night.

One things for sure. I’ll miss these little guys….

I’ve currently become obsessed with french macaron’s. I’ve never tried one, but think they look amazing. I’ve visiting NYC in a weeks time, and plan to visit The Macaron Cafe http://macaroncafe.com/ and consume an entire rainbow’s worth!

Such pretty little cakes. They make me want to don a twinset and pearls, whilst supping ice tea from vintage china.