The Final Wishlist: Gorgeous things you'll want to buy/read/eat RIGHT NOW

The perfect dinosaur dress. £121 from Polka Dot Polly.

Caleigh: Of all the fashion pieces we've covered, two have caused me to immediately buy their products. This first was Sara's Lady Vintage discovery, the second was Laura B's Polka Dot Polly feature (my bespoke dress will be with me soon!) I absolutely love Hey Sailor! and several of their gorgeous pieces are on my birthday present list. When it comes to recipes, I feel like I met my food spirit animals in Hazel and Alice. Cucumber and red onion pickle got me through my pregnancy, I craved it above all other things. Alice's buttermilk fried chicken is the best thing I've eaten. I wasn't even that fond of fried chicken until I made this. Can I also have her sweetcorn and halloumi fritters, please? There are some weeks when I live on these.

The perfect seafood stew.

Laura B: Recipe-wise, Sian's steak and chorizo chilli is one I come back to time and time again, as is her Spanish seafood stew. I must also mention Sara's Sexy Bovril, though - a recipe that's much-championed by its author, and consistently overlooked (to the amusement of us all behind-the-scenes) in recipe round-ups. She doesn't actually know that it was actually the post that first brought me to DS as a reader all those years ago.

The perfect cartoon bag. £89.95 from Jump from Paper.

As for stuff, I've bought and coveted so much. I've lost count of how often a stranger has admired my Jump from Paper bag. And Sara's Love From Hetty And Dave post alerted me to the existence of Monty the monocled slug draught excluder (he'll be coming to live with me soon), as well as being filled with the sort of clever, funny writing that she and the whole team are so bloody good at. Their witticisms sometimes pop into my head while I'm walking down the street, and make me guffaw anew.

The perfect bikini. £65 from For Luna.

Kat: What I've always loved about DS is how diverse our tastes are. I've been introduced to endless shops I had no idea existed, and subsequently fallen in love with. My For Luna swimsuit is my favourite Sluttery purchase, bought way before I joined the site, and the little boxes of instant comfort made by Kim's Little Monsters are gorgeously charming. And I just bloody adored Calligraphuck's cards because, well, obviously.

The perfect greetings card. £4 from Calligraphuck.

I prefer the internet to printed cookbooks, and DS has been a source of so many happy dinners over the years. My office goes insane whenever I make Sara's malteser tiffin (OMG SO GOOD) and Hazel's hot cross cheesecake has left all my Easter lunch guests in fits of ecstasy, and Alice's incredible slaw is my go to salad for 100% guaranteed tastiness.

The perfect hot cross bun cheesecake.

It has been so hard narrowing down my favourite DS posts, but looking back through the site this week has given me so many happy reminders and made my wishlist of goodies even more of an unwieldy bloody nightmare. Thanks Sluttery girls past and present - you are tasteful, fabulous geniuses, every one.

The perfect statement necklace. £20 from Paisie.

Sara: When Laura B wrote about a unicornicopia of magical delights, I knew we were soul sisters. I'd already suspected this was the case when she told us about shoe clips - an entirely new, untapped area to accessorise. Frances brought us the delights of Paisie and their beautiful sunshine jewellery (and a glitter kitten dress, ie all my favourite things, all at once). And I couldn't go without a shout-out to the much maligned Sexy Bovril: so tragically overlooked in our food round-ups, but surely the best cocktail we've ever brought you.

The perfect gingerbread TARDIS.

Gemma: My favourite ever DS recipes are salt & pepper chicken wings and cheesecake brownies. Both so easy to do, such crowd pleasers. My best stuff is always retro-related but I also loved doing my plus size posts, and loved the conversation that started around a post I wrote about screwing the rules and wearing what you want no matter what size you are. As a bit of a Whovian, the Doctor Who week was one of my favourite moments, we'll never forget the Gingerbread TARDIS.

The perfect dress collaboration. £79 from Coco Fennell with Karen Mabon.

Frances: I must have lived in an empty flat with an empty wardrobe and eaten beans on toast every night before I discovered Domestic Sluttery (one of those is actually still true), as I owe so many purchases to the site. Of all the many, many amazing frocks we’ve featured on the site my all time favourite has to be Coco Fennell. That’s how I want to dress when I grow up, please. And as for her collaboration with Karen Mabon? The stuff of my terribly materialistic dreams.

The perfect Creme Egg cupcakes.

As I’m not a very confident cook (go on, why not check out the one and only recipe I made for the site?), I cannot overstate my admiration enough for the mistresses of the kitchen who write for Domestic Sluttery. All cakes should glow in the dark. All cakes should have hidden sweets. Or hidden cream eggs at the very least. But it’s Sian’s lemon and garlic chicken I’ve probably made the most from the site. And, as from now on, how the hell am I going to know what I want to buy RIGHT NOW without the Friday wishlist telling me so?

The perfect rolling pin. £24.43 from Valek.

Laura H: I have record store shop syndrome: my mind has gone blank as soon as I try and think of one favourite Domestic Sluttery post, so here are a few that spring to mind. Glasgow boutique La La Land kept me stocked with present ideas for MONTHS. Includes healthy dose of Ryan Gosling. I'm now officially obsessed with dinosaur embossed Valek Rolling Pins, too. 

The perfect whisky cocktail.

Since I'm vegetarian, I can't resist the lure of Sara's beautiful Laska (look at it!) while This Five Minute Ice Cream is pure alchemy genius (if you haven't tried it, WHY NOT?) You can be guaranteed to find me whiling away these long, hot Gatsby days with The Boy and his Poison's Whiskey Daisy and lusting after everything by Coco Fennell.

The perfect muesli bars.

Katie: This recipe for no bake chocolate ginger muesli bites ticks all my boxes. I also regularly go back our top ten ginger recipes especially around Christmas time when I just want ginger in everything. Make sure you try Laura B's gingerbread mug house recipe complete with handy, downloadable template. Oh, the results are amusing when you've not used any maths!

The perfect cave hotels.

I actually studied archaeology at university, which makes me want to put any of these cave hotels at the top of my holiday wish-list.

The (practically) perfect book. £11.99 from Amazon.

I also have to mention the Domestic Sluttery book. I wasn't part of the team when the book was published, but it never leaves my bedside table. It's perfect for that period before you're going to bed, when you know you're supposed to be off your laptop or iPad because of all that blue-light-stopping-you-sleep jazz, but you really want to browse through some lovely, inspirational blog posts. And this is it really, but in a book. I dip in and out of it again and again and buy it for every teenager I know because I bloody wish I'd had it when I was 18.

The perfect holiday location.. From £195 per night.

Nick: Let's keep this short and sweet. The Boathouse in The Lake District. It's probably the best holiday I've ever been on and a return trip will forever be at the top on my wishlist.

The perfect Hendrick's gin sorbet.

Sian: Picking my favourite Domestic Sluttery posts is like choosing a favourite child (obviously you pick the cutest, right?) but there are some that definitely stand out. Our Hendrick's gin sorbet, obviously. Our drunken spaghetti for being why-didn't-we-think-of-that-before genius and Kat's adventures with ginger soup, for all the wrong reasons. Our recent feature on unusual museums went all around the UK uncovering some brilliant gems and our Ginterview with the inimitable Pip McCormac is wonderful. He's scared of cats and thinks Spice World is a Christmas film.

The perfect art project. Wonderland by Yoendoo Jung.

My absolute favourite ever piece, is from all the way back in 2009. It's a design piece about Korean artist Yeondoo Jung, who turns children's drawings into photography. I loved that project so much and it was the moment when there was a noticeable turning point in the site and we became more about design than 'pretty stuff'.

The perfect cup and saucer. £100 from Richard Brendon.

And there's just time for some last minute favourites. I've made so many brilliant design discoveries since starting the site, but special mentions must go to Rachel Boston, Richard Brendon and Chloe Croft. I will remain forever in awe of their talent, which is really what Domestic Sluttery has been about.

Come on, it's your turn to take a trip down memory lane. Dive into those archives and tell us: what's your favourite ever Domestic Sluttery piece?

Sluttery Sales Spy: Everything Must Go!

GUYS. Sale it ain't so. Hilary's refusing to come out of my handbag, Derren's sobbing quietly under a taxidermy tiger, and I've already had to put myself in a jar of uncooked rice overnight to absorb my excess tears. 

THE DRESSES

Heidi wiggle dress, £22.99 (was £29.99), Lindy Bop

This is my dream dress. It's so dreamy, I don't know whether I've featured it in Sales Spy before, or if I dreamed that too. There's a lot of dreaming going on over here. It has, as you can see, many excellent qualities, and it is also perfect match day attire for glamorous Aston Villa fans - Prince William, David Cameron, Tom Hanks and Father Ted's Pauline McLynn, to name but a few. Pretty sure they all read Domestic Sluttery, so you'd better be quick if you want to beat them to the dress.

Lolly dress, £25 (was £36), Sugarhill Boutique

Do you remember the pictures we used to make as kids? (It sounds like I'm about to break into nostalgic song here, and I might have done if I could think of anything but lids to rhyme with kids.*) You know, the ones that called for layer upon layer of multicoloured wax crayon, topped with black poster paint, which we then maniacally scraped at until we had some vestige of a violently allergic dolphin or a hideously bruised trout? You probably made one just after designing a "clock" using a paper plate and a twirly paper fastener, and right before you filled that cat litter tray (the one you were told to bring in on your first day) with sand. Or maybe yours wasn't a school for wannabe cats, as mine clearly was.

ANYWAY: good. You remember the pictures. This lolly dress from Sugarhill Boutique is the fabric version of those, perhaps with a less waxy smell. I love it. HOWEVER. Those are NOT lollies. They're ice creams. Either way, I'm hungry for a frozen treat.

* I later thought of bids, grids, skids, forbids, and rids, but none of those made for a particularly inspiring or uplifting song. We have no time for dirges today.

THE SHOES

Park Lane cat shoes, £28 (was £40), ASOS

I can't work out which famous person this tiny grey cat looks like. I'm getting hints of a downcast Tobey Maguire, a dash of bored Jake Gyllenhaal, a soupçon of unimpressed Joaquin Phoenix, and undertones of one of the BBC's weather forecasters (name unknown) when there's an area of low pressure over the Atlantic heading towards Wales. Maybe it's the lovekitten of all four. Suggestions down in the comments, please.

Irregular Choice Veja Du shoes, £55.50 (was £109), Let's Buy Shoes

If you've ever wanted your feet to convey the message HAPPY LO♥VE - and I'm certain that you have - today is your lucky day, my friend. Irregular Choice's Veja Du shoes are currently hovering around the half-price mark at their outlet store, Let's Buy Shoes. And if for some peculiar reason HAPPY LO♥VE is not your shoe slogan of (irregular) choice, they come with all these options:

HELLO MOUSTACHE

LO♥VE HAPPY
DREAM I ♥ BOY

A poem by Laura Brown

THE BAGS

The Leather Satchel Co. 14-inch mint satchel, £50 (was £131), Brand Alley

My front door is this colour! Or at least it was, until a small child squirted it with Ribena. Probably the same child who posts the remnants of her lunch through my letterbox on the way home from school; a half-eaten sandwich here, a banana peel there, sometimes a segment or two of satsuma or the sticky remains of a Wham bar. Occasionally these are accompanied by a small-but-entertaining sketch, usually involving a cat. Once, when she unfortunately timed the posting of her empty yoghurt carton with my opening of the door, she simply burst into a jolly song about my shoes, the chorus of which was the lyrically perfect "Shoes! Shoes! Shoes! TWO SHOES!". It's hard to feel annoyed in the face of such brilliance. 

Moral of this story: keep your new mint green satchel firmly closed when small singing children walk by clutching their lunchboxes. 

Tunnock's teacake wrapper tote bag, £12.35 (was £16.50), Gillian Kyle

Tunnock's teacakes have always been a Sluttery favourite. I'm partial to the dark chocolate ones - in fact, I just ate a squashed one that I found in the bottom of my handbag (I tried to tempt Hilary with it, but she's more of a caramel log girl, apparently). If you visit Uddingston, near Glasgow, you can tour the Tunnock's factory (fully booked until 2016, though) and go to the Tunnock's tearoom where you can buy RARE and HARD-TO-FIND Tunnock's creations such as the Florida orange wafer (10/10, would recommend). Failing that, you could buy yourself a giant one (inedible), or - more sensibly - snap up Gillian Kyle's teacake tote bag in the sale. FACT: Tunnock's sent Gillian 500 teacakes to use as her wedding cake.

THE HOMEWARES

World map flask, £7 (was £14), Urban Outfitters

I already have a perfectly good flask or three, but I do not have one covered in THE WORLD. This is the perfect way to caffeinate your adventures. Sit on a rock, pour yourself a coffee, and plot journeys to faraway lands. It doesn't matter if the rock's just in your back garden - mighty oaks from little acorns grow.

Little bit of gardening advice for you there, since you're outside on the rock anyway.

Condiment crayons, £6 (was £12), Urban Outfitters

GIANT condimental crayons for making a GIANT bruised trout picture! Black paint, scratching implement and cat litter tray not included.

PETITE PICKS

Love & Hate elbow patch sweater, £14 (was £20) and floral Bardot dress, £33 (was £55), both ASOS Petite

Tall girls got a very special farewell present yesterday in the form of Kat's ultimate shopping guide. Petite girls: I have found you this most excellent sweater (I know it's not sweater weather, but since Christmas decorations will start going up in shops NEXT MONTH, I am forward planning on your behalf). Avid caption-readers will know already that the elbow we can't see says HATE. We have no room for hate today, so I chose the one-elbowed photo. 

Slightly more summer-appropriate is this beautiful Bardot dress, another ASOS Petite find. I love this. If only I wasn't 5'8", it would be mine. Go forth, petites, and make me jealous. No, I'll be fine. Go on.

PLUS SIZE PICKS

Safari skater dress, £19 (was £28) and vintage floral sundress, £21 (was £39), both ASOS Curve 

And you, my plus-size pals, don't go away empty-handed either. No, you get this lovely gold-plated carriage clock and a Blankety-Blank chequebook and pen safari dress. I've written about this dress before, but the Curve version is nicer, with longer sleeves and MORE ANIMALS! And I love this floral sundress - the straps are wide enough to hide a decent bra, and the pattern means you can loll about for the rest of the summer sipping an array of fabulous cocktails without fear of spilling. You can pour those drinks down your front and no-one will know. Probably not the best idea you've ever had, but whatever. 

And that, my dear Spyettes, is that. I have absolutely loved bringing you the best of the sales every Friday lunchtime - it's been a hoot, and you've been a gloriously funny, enthusiastic and encouraging audience. But this is not the end of Sales Spy, oh no. I'm not sure I want to exist in a world where my Thursday evenings don't involve scouring the internet for bargains and being sarcastic about Anthropologie product descriptions - plus I've got a certain pallet entrepreneur and illusionist to worry about. Mama B would be devastated if I abandoned my two handbag housemates. So I'm going to carve out my own little corner of the internet, and continue writing over there, wherever that may be. Follow me on Twitter @enchantedtrifle, and I promise to keep you posted.

Thank you all for reading, and for being so damn great.

Laura, Hilary & Derren 

Home Sluttery Home: Our Favourite Homewares and Interiors Designs

Domestic Sluttery has basically furnished my flat for me: from my Mini Moderns cushions and plates to my Made chair, with a fair few whimsical detours on the way. And it's like that in all of our houses: Sian has her Magnificent Dancing Horses and cupboard of gorgeous ceramics; Sara's print wall is a treat to behold including - naturally - some Tiny Confessions, amidst all sorts of adorable ridiculousness.

How can you begin to get your head around all the fabulous homewares and interiors designers we've featured over the years? Well, our directory is a great place to start with featuring reams of places where we'd be happy to spend our pretty pennies, from the big guns to perennial Sluttery favourites, such as Graham & Green, Rose & Grey, Rockett St George, Pedlars and Howkapow. But I want to pick out just a few of the designers who have brightened our homes as well as this shining corner of the internet over the last few years.

Something you may have noticed about us: we do like our animals. It doesn't matter whether they're in the form of flying pugs, crazy cats, or those ever-elusive unicorns.

And owls. God, so many owls.

Behind many of our favourite patterns are Anorak. Whether pony duvets, bunny sleeping bags or fox boxes, they've got all of your animal instincts covered.

And when it comes to pattern, I've learned about so many fantastic wallpaper designers through this site. Seriously, when you've got the chance to put Sian Zeng, Mini Moderns, Miss Print and Aimee Wilder's Robots on your walls, why would you ever go with plain old magnolia?

I'm not sure what the collective noun for cushions is but we've officially featured A LOT over the years. More animals, book cushions, Roald Dahl cushions, incredible Donna Wilson cushions. We're really very well cushioned.

Some of my favourites have to be those featuring the unique designs of Fanny Shorter. There they go looking all William Morris, then you realise you are looking at sliced up bits of the human body.

We've loved discovering clever bits of design to make your day that bit happier. Like a castle and horse egg and soldiers set. Or an egg and toast breakfast train. Or dinosaur cake stands. Actually, pretty much all of Seletti's back catalogue is a joy to explore.

It's pretty hard to resist a gorgeous piece of ceramic. We've aahhed over animal plates, swooned over Richard Brendon's designs and been lucky enough to eat our dinner off some of Snowden Flood's numbers. (Our recipe photos give good crockery.)

The last few years have also provided me with some glorious kitchenalia: novelty cookie cutters? robot rolling pins? bunny dish racks? Yes, yes and thrice yes.

And I can't forget some of those gadgets that could make life just that little bit easier each day - or sweeter in the case of the peanut butter maker - such as the iKettle (no, it doesn't actually make that cup of tea for you) and the all-conquering see-through toaster. Burnt baps begone!

I've bared scratched the surface of all the great homeware designs we've featured over the years: if you want some interiors inspiration, do have a rummage round the Home Sweet Home and Design Porn tags. There's loads of inspiring things hiding there. May all your homes be slutty ones!

An Illustrated History: Our Favourite Artists & Illustrators

Cher, on being told she might not make it onto this list

We've written about so many fantastic artists and illustrators over the past five and a bit years. Our tastes run the gamut from chic and stylised to twee and cartoony, and I've had great fun discovering new-to-me artwork to adorn my walls, eat my dinner off, and wear about my person. Let's take a look at some of our all-time favourites...

INSIDER SECRET: sometimes the Domestic Sluts let our cats write our posts for us. When we do, things like Tiny Confessions happen. Illustrator Christopher Rozzi has a whole book of his wonderful illustrations (other animals are available) if you can't choose just one. 

Laura Gee's Piss Off print perfectly illustrates the impudence of cats - and if you need to regain a modicum of control in your feline-filled house, invest in one of illustration duo Ink and Sword's public service announcements for pets. Shout out to Sara's cat, who still has 750g of that kilo to lose. We're rooting for you, Swinton. You've got this.

Unlike the real world, here at DS you'll find birds happily cohabiting with cats, and not a blood-spattered single feather in sight. The musician Edwyn Collins is also a talented illustrator, as evidenced on this gorgeous range of crockery produced by Elli Popp. Art runs in the Collins family - Edwyn's father, Peter, was one of my drawing tutors at art school, and yes, I was advised to rip it up and start again on several occasions, sometimes even with that song playing in the background.

Natasha Newton's beautiful paintings and prints are also bird-centric - although the stars and the moon also make an appearance. I love everything about her work - it is just so pretty. 

Jack Hughes is responsible for some very stylish illustrations, and we particularly love his drawings of gorgeous girls. Emma Cowlam is another illustrator focusing on the female form - much of her work is actually stitched, the loose ends of thread lending a sketchiness that out-sketches the sketchiness of an actual sketch. I could look at them all day long.

If you prefer the women in your prints to be slightly less fashion plate, and slightly more fucked up, Laura Callaghan's riotously colourful illustrations are for you. I'm still so fascinated by this artist - her visual narratives and attention to detail are simply amazing.

A love of exploring and adventuring unites the Domestic Sluts. I was excited when Frances found this Madrid print by illustrator Bianca Gomez, because I used to live there, and I can identify this street (C/Trafalgar) and have been to that grocery store. It's called Casa Zurdo and dates back to the 1930s. 

Closer to home, Thibaud Herem's beautiful black and white illustrations of famous London buildings are breathtakingly detailed - move over, photographs, you are no longer needed here.   

Our wanderlust would be nothing without a good map. We don't settle for a life of Ordnance Survey, though - go hand-drawn or go home, that's our motto (it isn't actually our motto. Don't have it inscribed on anything just yet). Lovely JoJo's illustrated maps came to us recommended by Lauren Laverne and India Knight, and - EXCITING THING ALERT - you can get involved with her next big project by suggesting somewhere or something for a people's map of the British Isles.

Jenni Sparks' London map is colourful, intricate, and useful - tourist sights are mixed with pubs, shops and secret haunts to make this one of the best maps of the capital we've seen. And I can't mention maps without extolling the virtues of Herb Lester's city guides - many a Domestic Sluttery holiday has been aided and abetted by one of these. 

Wearable illustrations are the best kind. Karen Mabon's work has captivated us since first glimpse - I love her depictions of everyday life, the repeat patterns of everything from the stock market to a sweet shop raid forming the basis of her beautiful printed silk scarves. 

Similarly, Lou Taylor's illustrations take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. Her use of colour and pattern, from the tiles on a swimming pool to the design of a vintage flask, is impeccable.

For a team that loves to eat and loves to cook, it's no surprise that we enjoy a food- and drink-related illustration. We even have our own chef-illustrator in the form of the multi-talented Alice! 

Nikki McWilliams and Gillian Kyle (that's her cushion pictured above) are two biscuit-loving illustrators here in Scotland, and I very much hope their Tunnock's-related sales have soared as much as those of the actual teacakes, following their starring role in Glasgow's Commonwealth opening ceremony.

Over in the bar, Crispin Finn's simple, graphic cocktail prints make us thirsty just looking at them. Make mine a caipirinha. 

Sometimes we just want our art to celebrate our favourite films and TV shows. Steph Baxter of The Happy Pencil has a range of prints for the Twin Peaks enthusiast, and Kate Rowland's illustrated jewellery based on that same show means you can wear your fangirl status with pride on your lapel. 

For me, however, the queen of pop culture illustration is Cindy Lesman of Oh Gosh, Cindy. Her Cher print at the top of this post has been joined by masses of other watercolours, including a crying Kim Kardashian, and she's moved to Newcastle from Holland! She's ours now. 

Have you ever bought anything by one of the artists or illustrators we've featured here on Domestic Sluttery? We'd love to hear about it in the comments. I've lost track, but my most recent purchase was No-one Wants To Play Sega With Harrison Ford, as recommended by Sara. I'm running out of wall space, guys. Send help. And more walls.