30/03/2012

Friday favourites

After blogging about the lovely owl who arrived in the post last week, I’ve been window shopping other handmade items looking for inspiration to make my own felt owl and I ended up on Etsy. For anyone who doesn’t know Etsy is essentially a huge handmade store featuring some amazing items from sellers all over the world. I started by looking for felt creatures but I was soon distracted by the wonderful array of unique accessories. So here are a few handmade favourites!

 Amazing laser cut jewellery from Finest Imaginary, never get lost again with this compass brooch!



You can never have too many bags and this one from Rustic Counrty Crafts has bags (pardon the pun) of vintage charm.


Beautiful spring colours from The Curious Emporium and it has a floral bird print, so obviously I love it!


Another stunning brooch this time from House of Ismay, such a clever design.


And I didn’t forget about my owl inspiration completely with this pretty owl print purse from Tricky Woo Gifts!

Which is your favourite?

All images are taken from Etsy.

26/03/2012

Owl post

Apologies for the quietness on the blog this week, I’ve just finished a seven day working week and the only thing that got me through (apart from several large glasses of wine) was receiving this lovely little owl from a friend in the post! The colours match my bedroom perfectly and it’s handmade by her local, and my ex-local, village market. It would be very easy to re-create and what I really love about the little owl is her tufty ears; I’ve seen lots of these owls but never with tufty ears! She’s now sitting on my TV shelf and I’m on the lookout for some pastel coloured felt to make her a friend.

19/03/2012

Nail of the day- paint swatches

I know the whole graduated/ tonal nail varnish effect, or paint swatches as I like to think of it, has been doing the rounds for a while now but here’s my take on the trend, with a neutral twist to make it slightly more work appropriate.
I found it quite hard to find five nail polishes in my collection that would work tonally so ended up taking my collection to a friend’s house and we mixed and matched to find some good colour combinations. This is a great idea if you want to try some new looks but can’t afford a bunch of new polishes to match.




Nail varnish from left to right

Nails inc – saville row

No.7 – foxglove

Barbara Daily (Tesco) – whimsy

No.7 – highland mist

No.7 – so simple

13/03/2012

DIY elbow patches


Confession, I’ve always had a bit of a thing for elbow patches. They seem to symbolise the traditional, heritage, day in the country style that I love at the moment, so you can image my delight when I saw a post from 'one sheepish girl' about a craft idea that combined elbow patches with knitting. Obviously I had to try it out and am so pleased with the results; it has completely transformed my plain old Florence & Fred at Tesco cardigan.
I used one sheepish girl’s tutorial, which you can see here.

I found it easier to go left to right, right to left and so on across the sleeve, rather than up and down. This took me three re-starts to find out, but I’m so glad I persevered. I also found it easier to miss a ‘v’ out in between rows (as you can see in the close up images, it gives a zig-zag effect) otherwise the wool became so compacted that it wouldn’t have kept enough movement to bend with my elbow. Once I’d got the hang of it the whole process was surprisingly quick, just two evenings (one for each elbow) and it’s ready to wear, perfect for our current in-between warm and cold weather.

It’s also a really cheap way to customise your clothes, as I used a cardigan I already had so the patches cost a mere £1.79 the price of the ball of wool, of which there is plenty left over to do a few more elbows...
What do you think?



Before...

After!


08/03/2012

Accessorize spring/summer 2012 lookbook

Accessorize is usually my first stop shop when buying gifts and it always delivers just what I’m after, today it was a mother’s day present and I came away with a gorgeous bracelet, gift wrapped and all. But, what I really want to tell you about is their latest lookbook which I picked up at the till; it’s full of the most amazing spring & summer scarves, necklaces, rings and bags. Oh the bags!  
The lady behind the counter said the books go quickly, so here’s a link to the online version on the accessorize website.
With my birthday coming up I’ve already circled my favourite items and left the catalogue on the boyfriend’s side of the bed (subtle, no?) in the hope I’ll soon be unwrapping some pastel coloured accessories and a digital butterfly print scarf.
The only problem is I’m completely torn between the two bags below, which would you choose?


Images taken from accessorize website

05/03/2012

Easy peasy lemon and poppy seed cake

This morning’s sunshine and an abundance of yellow flowers in the house has left me full of the joys of spring and inspired me to bake my favourite cake- lemon and poppy seed. Not only is it delicious, but really easy too!

Ingredients for the cake:

175g butter (I usually use margarine)
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
175g self-raising flour
2 tbsp poppy seeds
Grated rind and juice of one lemon

For the icing:
25g icing sugar
Grated rind and juice of one lemon

·         Preheat oven to 180C (350F, gas make 4)
·        Cream butter and sugar together in large bowl  until pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in eggs, then sift in the flour and fold together. Gently stir in the poppy seeds, lemon rind and juice. Spoon into a greased cake tin. Bake for 40-50mins (my fan oven needs a lot less time than this) until risen, golden and firm to touch.
·        Allow to cool, remove from cake tin to cool completely.
·        To make icing gradually add lemon juice to the icing sugar until you get a good consistency then drizzle over cake and top with grated lemon rind.

Perfect with a cup of tea in the sunshine!

Happy baking! x



01/03/2012

Feathered friends

On Sunday we spent a beautiful sunny afternoon at the Wildfowl and Wetland Centre in Arundel. It was the perfect way to end a stressful week; the place was peaceful with lots of areas to explore and, of course, lots of birds to see.  It was a great for photography I really liked the close up details of their feathers and took over 100 pictures! Afterwards we walked into Arundel for an iced bun and some window shopping, all in all it was a lovely Sunday and I’ll definitely be visiting the Wildfowl and Wetland Centre again.



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