The Garden in the Sunshine

Today was a beautiful day of sunshine, and believe me, we haven't had many of those in the last couple months.  I took my camera out into the garden and took some photos, hope you like them:

buddleia

geraniums

fig tree

lavender

snapdragons

coriander

dahlias

african daisies

vanilla nemesia (love the way I got the washing too :) )

more snapdragons

I'm really pleased how they turned out and it was lovely to be in the sunshine amongst all that nature.  Tried a couple of times to take a closeup of some ladybirds, but they were having none of it! x

Spread the Love - day 2

Continuing with my second day of spread the love, I've made some more lavender-filled hearts for the lovely ladies in my life:

Spent over an hour with Hubby on the garden bench, just snuggled up together, doing nothing just being together :)

And helped my Mum and Dad with the start of a huge project of sorting through hundreds of boxes of their possessions that have been in storage for 3 years (as Mum was dreading it).

Back to work tomorrow, so will be trying to stay positive, and be super-duper nice to a couple of ladies who really aren't fans of mine :(

Sending happy thoughts to all of you too x

Turkey Curry Flatbreads

Hubby made turkey curry flatbreads today. They're based on a recipe by Rachael Ray and are really good.  He has his with homemade salsa, I have mine with mango chutney.  They're not the best pictures below, but believe me, they taste good!

You can get the recipe on my 'Recipe' page. x

London 2010

Back in March, for my birthday, we went for a weekend away to London.  We had a wonderful time (despite me having a very nasty cold) of museums and shopping.  We stayed near to St Paul's Cathedral and were lucky enough to be in St Paul's during evensong on Saturday which was lovely.  It was a great weekend.

Here are some photos of the trip that I hope might inspire you to visit our capital city.

St Paul's Cathedral

The British Museum

  

The V & A

Portobello Road - busy, busy on a Saturday!

Tate Modern

Yummy Cupcakes from Hummingbird Bakery

Hoping to visit again soon. x

Spread the Love

Check out the inspiring spread the love post from Melissa at oh my darling, along with cb at the city bird's nest own spread the love post. 




Following in their footsteps...

I've started making lavender-filled hearts for the lovely ladies in my life,

plan on spending more quality time with my family; see my girlfriends more often; try to be even sweeter to those who do not like me; just be more positive person; compliment people more (thanks cb, that's a good one); and one from oh my darling - support individual artists by buying more on Etsy and Folksy.

What can you do to spread the love? x

Remainder of weekend

Whilst this weekend isn't really over with it being a Bank Holiday tomorrow, I plan on doing very little.

Goddaughter's now back home, but we had a fab weekend with her.  After the pictures yesterday afternoon we had an evening of movies from our collection.  She chose: The Lovely Bones (beautiful film), Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton version - Goddaughter actually looks an awful lot like Mia Wasikowska (Alice) which was rather weird watching it with her) and Valentine's Day (enjoy films that are a collection of interwoven stories ).  We also had a really good takeaway (Chinese) which was completely polished off, yum, and finally got to bed about 1.30am (yawn).

Today we went to the local car boot sale since it wasn't raining when we got up.  Well, naturally, it rained whilst we were there, but we had fun anyway. 

Hubby found plenty of second-hand vinyl (Toyah, Propaganda, Musical Youth to name a few).  And I found a few soundtracks (St Elmo's Fire, Electric Dreams, Tommy, Living Daylights) and some Kim Wilde.  Just the vinyl there to tempt us this time.

We then spent the rest of the rainy afternoon watching more movies she chose - Labyrinth and Dance til Dawn, she'd never seen either and loved them (how could she not).

All in all a great weekend.  Looking forward to the next one with her.

Scott Pilgrim Rocks!

Goddaughter and I have just come back from watching the adorable Michael Cera in Scott Pilgrim vs The World.  What a fantasticly original film; we laughed our way through it and rocked to the killer soundtrack (which is now on order) - we love Sex Bob-Omb! Woo hoo :)

Thanks to cb at city bird's nest for the fantastic suggestion! Go see it now... x

Friday goodies

Look what came in the post today:

yay Ebay

We also went into the city today, the fountain has finally been turned back on after having a good clean...

Fountain and City Hall

... and I couldn't resist treating myself at the Bobbi Brown counter:

Palette with Petal & Bonfire eyeshadow strips

Heather Mauve shimmer wash eyeshadow

The picture above doesn't do this colour justice, it's a gorgeous mushroom-grey-mauve with just the right amount of shimmer but because it's a wash it leaves the prettiest light sheen.

We also went to Lush, so the house now smells amaaaazing

Don't you just love shopping when you come home with goodies! x

Doilies, lace and owls, oh my

My inspiration right now: 

I have a small collection of antique lace which I've had since I was a little girl and have never found the right project to use them on.

The lace and a bag full of cloth doilies and tablecloths...

...have me longing for all things doily!

Lace bobbins at Rosie's Armoire

square doily coasters from uncommon at Etsy

hero arts rubber stamp
(they have so many fab things it's hard to choose just one)

Now I just have to find some projects to upcycle all those doilies.... perhaps a shawl, or a scarf, or ... ???


I'm also loving the adorable new flannel owl fabric from cloud 9, in shell...

so cute!

or sky...

a very 70s colourway

 I think they'd make great pj bottoms for Autumn! x

A thank you, and looking forward to the weekend

Firstly, a big thank you to cb at the city birds nest for being my first follower, it means alot, so thanks cb xx


I'm looking forward already to the weekend as one of my goddaughter's is coming to stay on Saturday.  I don't see her often as she's 16 and is always so busy with school, dancing, horses, friends, etc, so I'm really looking forward to spending some quality time with her.

I'm planning on taking her to the pictures on Saturday, but can't decide what we should watch.  Knowing the kind of things we both like, choices are:

Knight and Day - "Action comedy starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. When sweet-natured, unlucky-in-love Ms Average June (Diaz) is set up on a seemingly normal blind date with Miller (Cruise), she finds her life turned upside down as it emerges that Miller is a secret agent on a foolhardy mission to protect an infinitely-powerful new piece of technology. "

Salt - Angelina Jolie plays Evelyn Salt a CIA officer who is fingered as a Russian sleeper spy.


The Sorcerer's Apprentice - with Nic Cage "An old sorcerer leaves his workshop in the hands of his apprentice, who is not fully trained in the ways of magic."

The Last Airbender - "Based on the Nickelodeon TV series, the storyline revolves around a young hero who has the ability to manipulate the elements and stop a ruthless nation from destroying the three other nations"

Any suggestions?

Sequinned flower

I decided I wanted something for my hair for last Saturday night, so I made myself a navy felt flower with sequinned stamens.  It looks very pretty when worn and catches the light beautifully, although these photos don't do it justice.

It's quite simply made, separate felt petals sewn together into the shape you want and sequins stringed together and sewn into the petals; then the flower is attached to a small clip.

Sunday food

Yesterday was busy with lots of family visting for hubby's birthday, and plenty of cooking.

I made us a chickpea curry we love, which takes very little time to cook, but a while to prepare (lots of chopping). We eat it with naan breads or poppadums, with garlic mayo and mango chutney - trust me, it may sound weird, but the garlic mayo and mango chutney change the curry from a nice one to an amazing one!  And there's enough for seconds on Monday.

Yum!

It's a Madjur Jaffrey recipe and you can try it in her "Ultimate Curry Bible".