We're on the hunt for a new Domestic Slut!

*No more applications, folks! We're making a decision now!*

There's too much pretty stuff to write about, and far too many tasty recipes to try out! So instead of keeping all the goodness for ourselves (tempting as that sounds), we're opening up the team and we're hiring!

What are we looking for? Well this time we're looking for an all-rounder. Someone who loves their pretty homewares and crafts, but someone who loves too cook as well. We need you to fit into all parts of the site rather than having one specialist area, and if you can make us a decent cocktail then we can definitely be friends. If you've applied to be part of the team before, you can apply again of course. If you haven't, we do ask that you've got your own personal blog or do blogging elsewhere (we won't be budged on that). We'd ideally be looking for sometime to commit to two posts a week.

What's in it for you? You'll make some money (although it's not nearly as much as we'd like to give you yet - you won't be buying diamond tiaras anytime soon) and we make sure your time is worthwhile. Whether that's with cups of tea, reviewing fancy places or getting a surprise bottle of gin on your doorstep. In fact, sometimes all of those things happen in the same day. We don't have a Sluttery office yet, so we work from home. That means it doesn't matter where you are (in fact, we'd thoroughly welcome a few more girls outside of London), but we'd like you to be in the country please!

Fancy being a Domestic Slut? Just drop us an email telling us a bit more about you, and what your very first blog post would be about. No closing date at the moment, although we'd ideally like someone to start this month. We need more people to share our cakes with.

This is the first of many exciting things that are happening this month so keep your eyes peeled for more announcements!

Save the date! Sluttery Picnic, June 19th

It's very very nearly almost Summer! Yay! So we're going to throw a bit of a party (yes, another one!) and you're all invited! We've decided that it's high time we met more of you, and we'd like to do it whilst getting sunburnt shoulders* and eating ice creams in the park.

So we're throwing Sluttery picnic! Yay! It'll be in Regent's Park on Saturday June 19th and we're asking you all to come and join us! There will be more details nearer the time, but we're hoping you guys will be able to come and play. We'll make sure we're near a pub just in case it rains.

Obviously, we can't provide all of the food and drinks, so all we're asking is if you want to come and play, you bring some food, or some drinks that you're happy to share with others. We like sharing. If you're a baker, bake some cakes, or bring some bubbles if you fancy getting us tipsy. Whatever you feel like on the day. Picnics are much more fun when people share, so make sure you get involved.

And if you happen to have a frisbee, then you're definitely invited. We'll give you more details over on our Facebook page, so go and become a fan to get all the info. You can RSVP here so we know how many paper cups to bring. So excited!

*We don't actually want sunburnt shoulders. We promise to wear sunscreen.

Flickr image from Mykl Roventine's photostream.

The winner of the chocolate hamper!

Wow, you've all been very busy nosing about in our shoe boxes, trying to guess how many pairs of shoes we have. Last week we launched a birthday competition so you could win this fabulous birthday hamper from The Chocolate Cafe in Ramsbottom.

So how many shoes do the Domestic Sluts collectively own? A whopping 367! Wow! That's not including flip-flops and trainers and that battered old pair we should have throw away years ago. We might have a problem.

So who won?! Well one of you guessed the right answer (have you been nosing about in Sluttery HQ? Have you?!) which is very impressive. *Drum roll please!*

Hurrah! Mrs B! You won! Woot! You guessed bang on the money! We've sent you an email, so wait patiently for that and then email us to tell us where to send your awesome prize. Congratulations!

We had heaps of other people get involved with our birthday, so a huge thank you to everyone who donated prizes and presents for our party. Krispy Kreme gave us doughnuts, Bake-a-boo in Hampstead gave us cupcakes, ACHICA gave us discount cards and Jamie Oliver Flavour Shakers, Bittersweet Partnership gave us a crate of champagne beer, Bourjois donated lovely make-up and Red or Dead gave us lady goodies, the folks over at Chocablog raided their chocolate cupboard for us, and Jelly Belly donated a rather exciting gumball machine. We also had extra cupcakes from Bittersweet Bakers and even some vegan treats from Little Hands at The Gallery Cafe in Bethnal Green. Phew! That's a lot of prizes and presents! Thanks everyone!

Happy birthday to us!

One year ago today, a group of food and prettiness-loving ladies launched a blog. That blog was Domestic Sluttery.

Yes indeed, crack open the bubbly, put your party hats on and celebrate with us. It's our birthday! Yay! We've had the best year, and we're so pleased you've all joined us in having so much fun. We've had an awesome shopping event (expect another one very soon), some fabulous competitions (and one more later on too) and we've had some great trips away as well. And then there was the Habitat promotion and our recent Mother's day posts where we let our mums take over the site. All so much fun. And we've got much more planned too.

I asked some of the girls about their favourite posts over this last 12 months:

• Gemma is still loving the cheesecake brownies. Which means I don't have to make them myself. Fab.
• Jane is definitely a fan of the loo library.
• Alex S had been looking for Tim Walker's prints for aaaaaages, so was super happy when we covered those. First piece of sluttery she ever bought too.
• Alex E got excited about tea jewellery.
• Gail had a great time interviewing the Honorary Slut Gisele Scanlon.
  
• Frances loves all the Shops in the Spotlight, especially the fabulous retro stationery from Present and Correct.
• Miss Cay swooned over the Darth Vader Winestopper
  
• And me? My favourite post has to be the Yeondoo Jung post. Oh, and the glow in the dark jelly.

Your favourite posts? Apparently this little lot:

• You all liked the world's first see-through toaster.
• And you want to get that sexy boudoir feel on a budget.
• Whilst eating banoffee pie.
• None of you know what to do with green tomatoes.
• So instead you're all looking for cupcake carriers to keep your baked goods safe.
  

We've been feature in Ideal Home, Company Magazine, London Lite, London Paper (RIP) and The Metro. And so many websites have supported us but special mention really should go to the boys at Hecklerspray, who know they visit us way more often than they'll admit. We've had a blast this year, but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun without all our readers and supporters. You're all wonderful. Thank you all for reading.

Now what what exciting things shall we do to make our next year even better? We'll have a bit of a think while we get ourselves a glass of something bubbly.

Flickr image from Mykl Roventine's photostream.

The Face of Habitat round up

As some of you might have noticed, we've had the Habitat team over for tea and cake a fair bit over the past month (they always steal the good biscuits, too). As you've got until Sunday to enter their Face of Habitat campaign, we thought we'd do a quick round-up of our houses to inspire you into snapping your own pics and entering their competition.


Siany was first up with her bedroom/office. If you don't want to enter the competition you can vote for her picture to win, or just have a look at what Habitat used to style her room.


How lucky is Gail to have her own craft studio? Vote for her picture here, and be inspired over here. Makes you almost want to break the ol' sewing machine out.


Of course is made sense for Habitat to snap Gemma in her dressing room. Lucky lady. Wish Domestic Sluttery HQ had a dressing room. Vote for Gemma to win here, and nose about her room here.


After seeing this photo, Jane will be known as 'the sexy Slut'. She looks fab, and so does her living room. Vote for her room here, and check out the new accessories that Habitat styled her room with - some of them not even in the shops yet.

Let us know if you enter! We'd love to see your photos!

Nominate us in the Bloggies!

OK readers, we don't ask much from you, but we'd really really like it if you nominated us for a weblog award. The Bloggies have been running for the last ten years, and well, we'd jolly well like to win one. There's no fame or fortune, but if you like what we've been doing over the last 10 months, it would be great if you wanted to nominate and help spread the word.

It's not just about us though, there's heaps of categories, and to enter us, you'll also have to nominate two other fabulous blogs in other categories as well. So if you've got a whole host of blogs in your bookmarks that you want to share with the world, now is your chance!

Just pop over to the Bloggies website, enter us in as many categories as you like (we're especially fond of "best kept web secret" and "best European blog") and then we'll cross our fingers and hope that we win something. You've got until tomorrow to get your entries in.

Thanks everyone!

Be the face of Habitat! (And snoop around Domestic Sluttery HQ!)

Just before Christmas, the Domestic Sluts scrabbled around their houses, tidying away all of their magazines and messiness, and invited Habitat over for tea and cakes. To promote their very exciting Face of Habitat campaign, they popped over to take some lovely photos of our homes for you all to see!

Kicking off the photos is my bedroom/office. Yep, that's Domestic Sluttery HQ where I spend my day eating cupcakes and scouring the world for pretty things to show you.


Want to make your room look like Domestic Sluttery HQ? Here's details of some of the stuff that Habitat styled my room with (sorry, the My Little Pony was there before they arrived):


This cushion is only £25.

There's loads of simple white vases in Habitat. They're especially perfect with bright yellow flowers. I've got a thing about yellow tulips at the moment. This vase is £9.


I love these liquer glasses. Better still they're in the sale and now they're only £17.60 for four. There's a matching jug too.

Much fun to be had (and Habitat very kindly let me keep all of the pretty things too!) and now it's your turn. Habitat kicked off their This is My Habitat campaign late last year with that pretty Helena Christensen getting in on the action. And now they're after your photos as well! To enter, you just need to upload a photo of you in your home, with your favourite thing from Habitat. Simple. People can vote for you in the gallery and if you win, you'll be whisked away to London to style your very own photoshoot. Fab. Let us know if you've entered the competition, we'd love to see your pics!

And you'll get to peek into Gail's house later this week. It's all very Through The Keyhole, isn't it?

Merry Christmas from everyone at Domestic Sluttery!

This is it, our last post before we switch off our laptops, hop on trains and crack open the mince pies. It's officially Christmas time in Domestic Sluttery HQ. Horray!

No "best of 2009" posts from us - it's only three months until our 1st birthday so we'll save the nostalgia for then. But, we do want to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of our readers. You're all wonderful. We've had an awesome year and can't wait to show you what we've got planned for 2010.

Normal service in Domestic Sluttery HQ will be resumed on January 4th. But for now, go take a look out of your window and check if it's snowing. And of course, make sure you tell us what you got for Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Donate! Domestic Sluttery Charity Raffle

So, despite one final call out yesterday, only one of the prizes was snapped up, which means we've still got two more prizes to share with you guys. As we told you yesterday, this time the draw is for charity. We've set up a Just Giving page and for every £2 you donate to Shelter you'll get an entry into the draw.

So what can you win? Either the lovely Fever Dress from Aspire Style. Or, this wonderful Cocomale Teapot!

Hurrah! Awesome prizes for an awesome cause. We're hoping to raise lots of money so dig deep into your purses and help Shelter. You've got until Midday on January 7th to buy your tickets (you might see some donations from the Domestic Sluts, but that's just because we're helping raise more money, not because we're entering the competition). Don't forget you might be able GiftAid your donations as well.

Good luck, and thanks for helping Shelter!

Behind the scenes at Domestic Sluttery

We've been very busy recently! All sorts of changes going on behind the scenes! But, after sitting and keeping secrets for a very long time, we can now share some of that good news with you! Hurrah!

Firstly, our lovely Jane has had a bit of a promotion. Now she's joined the dark side of freelance writing, she's going to be Deputy Editor of Domestic Sluttery. Yay! This means lots of little tweaks and changes over the next few months. And many more exciting plans that we'll keep under our berets for now. So congratulate Jane in her new role, it's very well deserved!

We've also made another sneaky addition to the team. We've taken on the very lovely Frances Ambler. She applied for a sluttery role when we were last hiring, and despite us taking on too many girls, she was just too fabulous to pass up. You may well have read her posts over on Retro To Go. Say hello!

Anything else? Well, you might have heard that we're doing a project with Habitat soon. Next week, they're doing a photoshoot at Domestic Sluttery HQ, Miss Cay Mansions and a few of the other slut's houses to promote their Face of Habitat campaign. We're so excited! And we really need to tidy up.

And finally, as part of our plans for world domination, we're launching Domestic Sluttery in Australia very very soon. Our lovely slut down under, Jess, is bringing sluttery to the southern hemisphere and we're looking for writers! So if you're based in Aus, email her, send her a link to your blog, a sample blog post and tell her a bit about yourself! The rest of you will just have to wait until Spring to check out the new site.

Phew! We told you we were busy!

Domestic Sluttery wants your furnture!

When I wrote about that stunning chest of drawers yesterday, a few of you pointed out that you could quite easily find an old chest of drawers and paint it yourself. And you could be right. So I had an idea. Why don't you send your battered old furniture to Domestic Sluttery HQ and see if the team can do any better?

Now here's the thing, we're not furniture restorers. We're not interior designers and we might mess it up. But I'm curious to see how easy it is. After all, it's so easy to say "you could throw a lick of paint on an old table", but is it really that simple? Well, I want to find out.

So here's a furniture call. Send us photos of stuff you don't mind us playing with! Not gigantic stuff - Domestic Sluttery HQ is a shared house and our non-slutty housemates don't want it to look like an episode of Cash in The Attic. We only want to do a couple of pieces, and no, we can't reupholster that giant sofa with expensive vintage fabric. But if you've got a rubbish chair like that one in the photo, email us and we'll see what we can do.

Remember, we've never done this before. We could be rubbish! So don't send us something you really really care about. You're not allowed to be mad if we mess it up! But, if you've got something you don't think you'll use again otherwise, send us a picture and make sure you can deliver it to one of us if we think we can make it shiny (on a budget too! We're thrifty girls!)

We promise to blog doing it up, and hopefully you'll be happy with the results and send us flowers. Or, it'll be a complete disaster like in 60 Minute Makeover and we'll never speak of it again. Let's find out!

Our New Domestic Sluts

Wow, we got such a good response to the ad looking for a new Domestic Slut, we had to hire two! Things are going to be getting very busy around here! Time to meet the new sluts!

First up is Gail Haslam, who in her own words is a freelance writer and editor who loves antlers, cake eye-liner, typography and corsetry. If not writing, then she’s probably ‘making stuff’ out of fabric, beads or yarn. Favourite drinks ideally involve caffeine and funny shaped containers – ideally tiny cups of coffee or espresso martinis.

You can expect a few more crafty posts popping up on the site as well as finding out where on earth she got that gigantic cocktail from.

And you can follow her on twitter - she's @1mgoldstars.

Our other Domestic Slut is Natalie Wall. By day she's busy blogging and doing for social media things for ASOS. She's a big fan of faded patriotic bunting, ritzy glitzy chandeliers, scones with jam and lashings of clotted cream, old VW Beetles and Polaroid pictures.

If you suddenly spot cute little vintage things all over the place, you'll know how to thank. We're also going to get her to teach us how to do funky eyeliner like in that photo to the right.

Want to follow Natalie on Twitter? She's @ASOS_nat.

Say hello to the new sluts everyone!

We're hiring! Are you our next Domestic Slut?

We're on the look out for another domestic slut!

We're looking for another blogger to join the team. Someone who knows their interiors and has some blogging experience behind them. Hopefully you'll have a love for all things pretty and you'll maybe have a few recipes up your sleeve as well. And of course, if you can wow us with stuff that we really want to buy ourselves, then we'll get very excited indeed. In return, you'll get some pennies in your bank account (sometimes even pounds), lots of cocktails and more free cake than you'll ever need.

So what do you need to do? Email us a Domestic Sluttery blog post! That's the easiest way for us to see how you'll fit in with the rest of the team. We want to see great stuff that really fits in with the rest of the site. Not necessarily the most crazy thing you can find, just something unique and fabulous. Something you know we'll love, whether that's a recipe, or a shop we haven't discovered. (In case you're wondering, we won't publish your blog post unless we take you on.) And yes, we do really mean it about having blogging experience so send us a link to your blog as well. It doesn't matter where in the UK you're based (UK only at the moment, sorry), but if you can get to London occasionally for events and cocktails, that would make us very happy. And you should be able to commit to writing on a regular basis, not just once every three months or so. The site has got some really exciting projects coming up and we're looking for someone who wants to really be involved in everything we're doing. It really is as much fun as it sounds.

Have any questions? Just email us and ask!

Help us win The Good Web Guide Award!

Yep, Domestic Sluttery is up for an award with The Good Web Guide. Hooray! There's only one - Website of the Year - but we really think we deserve it. Because who else will bring you glow in the dark jelly recipes? Or give you cupcakes every day for a week? And of course we go to extra lengths to bring you lovely shopping events and shiny discounts. All while looking fabulous and drinking cocktails!

You can nominate us here, and then if we win we'll get a whole load of goodies to make the site even better. Lots of pretty things that we'd really really like. It'll take two minutes to nominate us. Just click on the "tell us why here" and then say nice things about us!

The closing date is tomorrow, so if you want to nominate us, make sure you do it sharpish! Then The Good Web Guide will draw up a shortlist and we'll sit and cross our fingers for the next month while they decide the winner (which will no doubt make typing very difficult). They're judging on design, originality, content, interactivity and ease of use so if you think we deserve it, please go and do some clicking action. We'll be very grateful.

Might event let you hold our hands.

Our Sluttery Newsletter is ready!

Hurrah! We've been beavering away like little busy bees and now our newsletter 'Sluttery in your Inbox' is ready to go out to you guys. We can't wait. We've got a very exciting interview for our first issue and we'd love to share it with all of you.

But we can't! Unless you sign up for the newsletter, you'll never get to read it! So we're giving you one last opportunity to sign up before we email it out to everyone this afternoon. How do you do that? See that little box over on the right? Pop your email address in there and then you're away.

We'll pop into your inbox every couple of weeks bringing you totally exclusive content and news. Well worth signing up for.

And besides, it's really really pretty.

The winner of our 'I love cake' earrings competition!

Drum roll please....

The winner is Heidi! For this little story...

"A couple of years ago I was having some friends round to supper and I'd planned a very impressive rolled pork loin with apricot and herb stuffing all tied together with bacon, home grown vegetables - I was out to impress. I'd gone to the local farmers' market and bought the pork loin, then left it in the kitchen under a gauze umbrella thing ready for me to begin my creation once I'd got the veg. I went out to the garden (in my floral dress, of course) collecting mange tout, carrots and fresh herbs - impressive...but I was married to a farmer - none of it was my doing - I spent my days reading books and drinking wine!
So, there I was, Lady Bountiful, returning to the kitchen with my veggie haul, only to discover the large black farm cat had dragged the pork loin onto the floor and eaten half of it! It was still raw!

I cut off the chewed bit, rinsed it under a tap and carried on with the recipe, adding some more bacon and pretended it hadn't happened.
Later that evening once my guests had drank half their body weight in wine I told them - they don't talk to me anymore."

Oh dear. I'm not sure if we should let Heidi cook for us, but we will send her some snazzy earrings if she emails us and tells us where to send them. And the rest of you? We promise to create excellent recipes from whatever it was you were trying to make. So you hopefully won't have any more disasters.

Win! 'I love cake' earrings from Love Hearts and Crosses

Our friends at Love Hearts and Crosses are being very kind today. You see those lovely 'I love cake' earrings in that photo? Well they've let us have a pair to give to one of you! Hurrah! After much insistence that I'm not allowed to keep them, I promised to make you all answer a silly question, and then we'll put all of the answers into a hat and pull out a name.

Just tell us what your biggest baking/cooking disaster has been.

I've almost burned down the food tech building in my old school while trying to make chocolate mousse, and Miss Cay had food tech disasters as well (before she became like Nigella Lawson with a Northern accent). All of us have had a rubbish cooking moment at some point or another. And most of the time, as long as no one gets third degree burns, they're pretty damn funny.

You can answer in two ways. Either leave a comment here for everyone to read and giggle at or drop us an email. Whichever way you decide to enter, we can't accept anonymous entries to this comp (how will we know who to send the swag to?!) and you're agreeing to sign up to our forthcoming newsletter which will be brilliant. You'd be quite right to sign up for that anyway while you're here. No Twitter entries for this competition though.

Of course, if you don't win, you can always pop over to Love Hearts and Crosses and buy the earrings yourself...

UPDATE! Whoops! I meant to tell you when to get your entries to us by! By 6pm today please! Sorry, I clearly got over excited by sharing presents and forgot that bit. Santa never has to worry about blog posts, does he?

We're looking for another Domestic Slut!

*Edit* We've had a huge response already so applications are now closed! Thanks to everyone who has replied! We'll keep you posted about who the new Domestic Slut is by the end of the week!

Yes, you read that right. There's space for just one more Domestic Slut on the team! We're looking for someone who wants to gain experience in managing online communities. You'll be responsible for our Twitter, Facebook and all sorts of other social media things that we're keeping under our hats at the moment. Basically everything it takes to make our community grow. Of course, if you want to do some blogging as well, that would be lovely, but that's not the main point of this role.

So if you want some (initially unpaid) experience on the best new interiors and lifestyle website on the interwebs, just email us and tell us why we should hire you. We're not looking for someone who just wants to blog, so you'll have to be really passionate about online communities and building a lively and personal feel to our site. We'll hold the position open until we find the perfect person. We're fussy like that.

You can be anywhere in the UK as long as you've got access to a computer! It's not a full-time position, but will require a little more time and attention than just work at the weekends so bear that in mind before you apply. Got any other questions? Just email us and ask!

Get Sluttery in your inbox!

Yep, you read that right. Domestic Sluttery are in the process of creating their very own newsletter. Daily updates on the site just aren't enough for you guys, so we've decided to pop straight into your inbox every week too. The newsletter will have totally exclusive content from the website so it's well worth signing up for.

So how do you sign up? Well we've added a little box to the sidebar of the website. Just pop your details into that and then soon you'll have lovely sluttish things right in your inbox. You can always email us directly as well if you like. We're not sure exactly when the first one will happen, but we're working towards the end of the month. Just as long as shopping and sitting on a beach don't get in the way... it is summer after all.

Win a goodie bag!

*Update* We have a winner! Pamela Guyatt from Tavistock got her answer in right at the last minute! She guessed 247... and it was pretty close. Us lovely
Domestic Sluts have a staggering 255 dresses between us. A goodie bag is winging its way to her. Huge congrats to Laura Sedgwick who won the raffle at Something last night, bagging herself a £100 voucher to spend in the shop.

Thanks to everyone who entered!

Now, you'll have to be very nice to us today and treat carefully around Domestic Sluttery HQ. We're very hungover and feeling sorry for ourselves after too many cocktails last night. Did everyone have fun? We promise to post pictures soon!

If you couldn't make it, you can still shop online at Something and buy all of the things you wanted to buy anyway. And you can win a goodie bag! Look at all the lovely stuff in that bag! Heaps of nice things!

What are you getting? A lovely pocket mirror from Hunkydory Home, a yummy granola bar from Sweet Things, a cupcake candle from Aspire, a Kate Wilson birdy print, tasty treats from Kennards, a lovely hand printed card from Lea Lloyd, healthy treats from Conscious Food, a teensy bit of cake (if I don't eat it later this afternoon) and a lovely flower hair clip from Pip 'n' Stuff. And, of course, a Domestic Sluttery badge.

Just tell us how many dresses the Domestic Sluts own collectively.

There's nine of us altogether (Count us!), so have a think and then email us your answer. The winner will be the closest to the right answer (even if they guess higher) and in the unlikely event that more than one person guesses the same winning number will pull names out of a hat. A purple trilby in fact. You've got until 5:30 today to get your answers in, and then we'll reveal the winner and the exact number of dresses we own.