ID — Text reads ‘Diversity Darlings, fashion and culture tailored for disabled woman’. The text is in a deep red with a light pink dotty underline. In the top left-hand corner, the reads ‘Holiday Edition’ in a deep red. The Conscious Being Logo, light and dark red rainbow with ‘Conscious’ underneath are next to the text. Surrounding the text are light purple hanging flowers in a watercolour style. The whole image is covered in animated snow, with a green, pink and yellow snowflake underneath the main title, brown, fluffy winter boots in the right-hand corner and green and red mittens underneath the text that reads Holiday Edition. On top of the second D in Diversity Darlings, there is a blue and green striped woolly hat perched at a crooked angle.

Hello again! We’re back with another issue of Diversity Darlings. We hope you’re all keeping well as the winter nights are drawing in, at least here in the UK.

Here is our special Holiday Edition, with some gift ideas to treat yourself to, a whole load of different style ideas for winter weather, and a selection of some of our top disabled artists floating around of the Instagram stratosphere that we would recommend supporting this holiday season.

Top Ten Gift Ideas —

Stuck for gift ideas for your loved ones? Look no further. We’ve got a whole range of gifts designed for a variety of needs. If you’re looking to support disabled artists, feel free to scroll down to our ‘Instagram Stars’ section.

Image Credit: Immy’s Soap Box. ID: A collection of five slices of soap on brown paper viewed from the top. The soap is a mix of light and bright pink, with sparkles that are gold, blue, purple and pink ranging in different quantities over the soap slices.

1. This soap is stocked by Simply The Beste on Etsy, with this particular soap being made by Hayley Beste. 50% of proceeds go to the Jigsaw Trust.

This soap has a lovely pink lemonade scent, a pink and purple gradient and some glitter for good measure.

If you like the look of these soaps, you could always make your own using the video below.

Image Credit: Yuyu Hot Water Bottle. ID: A picture of a redheaded woman upside-down sleeping peacefully. She clutches a dusty pink hot water bottle that is longer than typical hot water bottles.

2. This Yuyu Hot Water Bottle comes in a variety of colours, materials and can wrap around your body. The hot water bottle also comes in child sizes, with adorable little faces on called a ‘Warm Worm’.

For those with chronic pain, or just for that cold person in your life, this retails at £24.99 on Argos and has between 4 to 6 hours of heat.

Image Credit: Herboreal Arts. ID: A collection of stickers on a black background. The top two are black wheelchairs: the first has soft beige flowers decorating the wheelchair, whilst the second has a light blue frame to accent the black, and light pink flowers. Underneath the wheelchairs, there are four sets of stickers. On the left are two canes, the first all back with beige flowers trailing down, whilst the second has a light blue body and pink flowers. The rollators next to these follow the same pattern, with a black rollator with beige flowers coming out of the basket, and a blue framed rollator with pink flowers. Underneath these stickers is a plain black rectangle sticker with text that reads: Disability is Beautiful in a fairytale style font, and in the corners are decorative swirls.

3. These clear stickers feature a range of mobility aids with a beautiful floral design, and are homemade by Herboreal Arts, stocked by Etsy. These would be perfect to decorate your laptop whilst on a particularly uninteresting video call, or to add to cards to add that touch of personalisation. These retail from between £1.95 and £5.47 for all three.

Image Credit: LizHarry. ID: A hand clutches a pink, showing off their pastel-coloured short nails which are blue, purple, pink, green and yellow coloured. The pin itself is in a ticket shape, is black, and has gold text which reads: ‘The Emotional Rollercoaster’, ‘multiple rides’, ‘admit one’ in the main section of the ticket, and ‘no.2020’ written sideways on the right-hand ticket stub, and ‘hold tight’ on the left ticket stub. The pin is decorated by gold stars and a gold outline. The hand holding the pin has a light pink jumper and the background is a matching pink.

4. This adorable pin comes in a variety of pastel colours as well as the black shown and features a design which is particularly fitting for the chaotic world around us at the moment. This retails for £8.95.

Image Credit: The Bontanique Boutique. ID: On a dark blue background, half of the torso of a person takes up the right-hand half of this picture. The person is wearing a loose-fitting white shirt with white and blue buttons, big pockets, and an island palm tree decoration. They have a grey macrame bottle holder over their shoulder which holds an orange Chilly’s bottle.

5. Macrame is the height of fashion at the moment. Sustainable and stylish, Macrame has exploded onto the fashion market recently. This Macrame bottle holder is made from 100% recycled cotton and comes in a variety of colours such as: Black, Blush, Dusty Pink, Steel Grey, Natural and Stone. Able to be hung on the back of a wheelchair, or in an easily recognisable spot to remind you to keep hydrated, this is both a useful and pretty gift.

Image Credit: WrappedinComfortCo ID: On a white wooden background, there is an eye pillow which is a very dark blue and features wild flowers in a variety of soft colours all over the pillow. In the middle is a small rectangular white box which features text that reads: ‘wrapped in comfort’ in a swirly font, and handmade in block capitals. The eye pillow looks slightly raised off the wood due to stuffing.

6. This eye pillow is perfect for that extra pampering and can be heated or cooled for use in pain/heat management. It comes with a sweet, floral design and you can choose the different filling inside. This retails from £9.07 depending on the filling, and you can find it here.

Image Credit: CutieButtonPads ID: A collection of five Trach Pads in different patterns. The first trach pad has beige and orange-pink zig zags; the second has hot pink and white zig-zags; the third has light blue and orange-pink zig zags, the fourth has dark pink and white feathering and the fifth is a block hot pink.

7. These ‘Cutie Trach Pads’ are colourful and, just like it says on the tin, oh-so-cute. You can find them here.

Image Credit: Therapy Posters ID: The white background has a framed graphic in a black frame. The graphic has a white background with a circle which takes up the majority of the frame. The circle features three different circles, with the first circle having text that reads: ‘mad’, ‘sad’, ‘strong’, ‘scared’, ‘calm’, and ‘happy’. These words are in different colours, and the words within that coloured piece of the pie get more descriptive as the circle gets bigger. This allows you to trace your feeling from the main feeling to a more descriptive word. For example, ‘sad’, could go to ‘lonely’ and then ‘detached’, which is a more accurate description and easier to figure out how to solve.

8. This chart is both attractive and useful. Perfect for when you can’t quite pin down what exactly it is you’re feeling, it’s also a gorgeous piece of art to hang up. You can find it over here, with prices starting at £18.26.

Image Credit: GiveGiftsDesigns ID: A black stand holds two drop down earrings which hold pink discs. The pink oval discs have text which reads ‘christmas’ from the top down, and matching BSL sigh language symbols next to each letter. The ‘c’ in Christmas has a small Santa hat on top of the C.

10. Now, we know that the Holiday season doesn’t just include Christmas. But if there is that special someone looking for a Christmas gift, this is a BSL Christmas set of Earrings that look both fashionable and appropriately festive. You can find it here for here for £8.99.

Text reads: Style Match! Featuring: The Able Label, LHG Designs, Kintsugi Clothing, BetterDaysAhead. ID: Style Match! is written in a large, cursive, dark red font. The “featuring” text is in block capitals in the middle of the page in a light maroon. The light purple watercolour flowers are featured in the bottom right and top left-hand corner. Underneath Style, Match is a black, white and grey snowy landscape graphic, and the whole picture is covered in animated snow.

Image Credit: From Right to Left — Tommy Hilfiger, Paisie, Rollitex, Sam Renke, FlashingStudiosNYC, FitFlop, River Island, AspenTreeJewelry, FiveBelts, Vionic Shoes, RealHer, Tommy Hilfiger. ID: There is two graphics side by side. The graphic to the left features the word Style Match in dark red. To the right of this is a long-sleeved, turtle next, cape jumper in dark green, which has text that reads “Sevenoaks cape jumper in dark green — £76' in black above the image. Below style match is an image of the front and back of a sandy trench coat, the back has the distinctive colours of brand Tommy Hilfiger. Text underneath these images reads: ‘adaptive classic trench coat — £155’ and there is an arrow connecting the jumper to the trench coat with words that read: Pair With. To also go with this outfit there are some stretch blue jeans which feature to the bottom right of the trench coat and has black text which reads: ‘stretch jeans blue — £68’ next to them. A connecting arrow goes to the right of the jeans to show some brown over the knee boots with a gold accent on the boot tip, the boots have a tassel at the back. The text which connects these reads ‘boots to finish off the look’ and black text which is to the right of the boots reads: ‘over the knee boots — £98’. Above the boots is an arrow which connects the whole look with a big, dark red handbag with an arrow that has text reading: ‘accessorise with’. Next to the handbag is a black text which reads sideways: ‘Sam Renke Bag — £40’. Another arrow with text which reads ‘then with’ connects the bag with a pair of snowflake earrings that have text underneath that reads: ‘snowflake earrings — £14.20’. The second graphic features the same format except for the text which reads Style Match is in the bottom right-hand corner. There is a dark green jumpsuit above this text which is sleeveless and features tapered trousers. This image has text underneath which reads: ‘Tommy Hilfiger Stripe Sleeveless Jumpsuit — £90’. This jumpsuit has four arrows which to the bottom right connects it with a cream and brown belt which has a textured pattern. The belt is wrapped up and has text underneath which reads: ‘cream belt — £22.99’. Directly left to the jumpsuit is another arrow with text reading: ‘accessorise with’ and an image of drop-down silver wheelchair earrings with a dark blue bead accent. Two arrows point above the jumpsuit with text reading ‘or with’ that connects it to a dark red lipstick image and a sideways image of a dark brown boot with a zip up the side. The text underneath these images reads: ‘I am Adaptable Matte Lipstick- £11’ and ‘Shawna Boot in Wheat-£120’. To the very left of the graphic is a stripy dark red and lighter red long sleeve mini dress which has frills around the arm and waist as well as tapered arms. This dress has an arrow connecting it to the wheelchair earrings with text that reads: ‘accessorise with’. Both graphics have a collection of lavender flowers in the bottom left corner, and dotted lines at the right and left of the rectangle image.

Text Reads Instagram Stars. ID: The word Instagram is in the brand’s cursive text, whilst the word stars are in block capitals, the text is in dark pink. Underneath is a dotty line in dark red. Light purple watercolour flowers are in the bottom right and top left-hand corner, in the top right-hand corner is the outline of the Instagram logo with sparkles around it, in matching dark red. The graphic has grey snowflake patterns at the bottom and top of the rectangle to make it look like there's snow.

Usually, we scroll and double-tap our way through Instagram to find our top Instagram stars. This month, we still double tapped our way through Instagram (navigating that new update!), but we decided to focus on our favourite Disabled artists that you can support this season. With new measures around the Pandemic, finances are still a struggle for many — and disabled creatives are especially hit hard. We want to highlight successes we’ve seen whilst also reminding everyone that resting is just as productive as working hard — you are enough just as you are.

Image Credit: @qcceramics ID: On a dark red block background, there is an image of a hand holding a mug in an autumnal woodland area. The mug is a light blue and speckled brown colour with a cloud shape in light brown in the middle of the mug. Text which reads: ‘we’re all thems here’ is in a slight cursive. The handle of the mug is a very round c shape, and the mug and a slight lip at the top.

Image Credit: @anayapaints ID: On a light purple background, there is an illustration which has a light green background. The illustration has a woman sitting in a deep purple wheelchair in a long blue skirt, green checkered shirt, dark blue jacket and purple gloves. The woman is clearly a suffragette, as there is a text in the left-hand side which reads: ‘votes for women’. There are green and purple decorations around the woman and light pink roses.

Image Credit: @pixiecrafthandmade ID: On a light orange background, there is an image of a hand holding two circle embroidery stitches. The left-hand stitch in yellow features a black outline of a woman leaning slightly out of her wheelchair, she has black fishnet stocking on, high heels, and a leotard with flowers on. Her hair is curly and there are multicoloured lines coming out of the outline. The right-hand stitch is also bright yellow and has a black outline of a woman in a mini dress standing with her rainbow coloured cane. She also has rainbow coloured lines in the background. The stitches are balanced on some kind of blue and white bedspread.

Account: @qcceramics

About: Molly is a “queer/trans crip potter” who has a whole range of eclectic pieces to choose from. From mugs to bowls, Molly’s pottery always has a beautiful finish.

What we love: The energy. Molly’s pieces are often accompanied by a thoughtful process which takes into account representation and mental health. Their pottery is a great example of art allowing people to express their own feelings and thoughts, and channel who they are into everyday life.

Account: @anayapaints

About: Ananya is a “feminist illustrator and chronic illness activist” who has made so many pieces in response to chronic illness and so much more. It is well worth checking her account out to see the range of work she has done.

What we love: This particular piece is advocating for Disability History Month and was created for Parliament. It’s about Rosa May Billinghurst who created her own wheelchair so she could be a part of suffragette marches. We love the stories behind Ananya’s illustrations, as well as the colour, movement and life she puts into each piece.

Account: @pixiecrafthandmade

About: Katy is an artist who attempts to “stitch happy”, creating vibrant hand-stitched pieces that are as empowering as they are unique pieces of art. Katy also owns The Profanity Pixie where she shares unfiltered stitches that are sure to leave you in, well, stitches. (sorry)

What we love: Katy has an incredibly wide range of beautiful designs to choose from, and her feed is full of brightness, colour and positive energy.

If you enjoyed this month’s issue — let us know on social media! Tweet @esioul or @ladychloestark with your thoughts, we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to send us your favourite disabled artists you’d like us to shoutout on our Instagram @consciousbeing2. Conscious Being is funded by a Patreon, which we use to pay our writers. All of our contributors would appreciate it greatly if you could check that out.

If you would like to be featured on the next month’s issue of Diversity Darlings, and you identify as a disabled woman, contact Chloe either through www.wordsbychloe.com, twitter @ladychloestark or instagram @lemoncaketales.

From all the Diversity Darlings team we hope you take care this winter season.