Cider and Sparkle

I have a sneaking suspicion that, if I were to admit feeling anything other than head-over-ankle-boots adoration about autumn, I'd be expelled from the blogging community faster than you can say "Instagram Photo Of A Starbucks Latte In A Hand-Knitted Cup Warmer". Thankfully, I genuinely do adore it.

To me, autumn means:

1. Getting to wear my excessive collection of novelty/strange knitwear (hello Owl Jumper!).

2. Excellent opportunities for nature-based photography.

3. Lots of stews, preferably with coriander dumplings.

4. An unquashable compulsion to make things out of wool. I've gone a bit pompom mad after spotting this gorgeous garland:

[image from tea pea]

Until I've made enough pompoms for a suitably impressive garland, I'm going to keep them in one of my new jars. Although, I think I really need a deer head to set them off properly (not a real one obviously. Eurgh.)

5. Upping my hot chocolate consumption to a practically death-defying quantities*. Except today, when I decided to switch things up and mull some cider. 

Mulled cider in a teacup. Because early-afternoon drinking goes from "problem" to "classy" the minute one involves a saucer, doncha know.

The only thing I don't like about autumn is the ever-earlier-encroaching darkness. Gloom isn't cheering for anyone (except maybe goths?), so I was thrilled when DotComGiftShop sent me one of these beautiful antique baubles to brighten up my life living room.

This bauble is more than your average decoration, because:

1. It's absolutely huge (15cm diameter - like a sparkly, festive melon).

2. It's filled with fairy lights. So, when you turn it on, it looks like a cluster of fireflies having a party inside an antique silver disco ball. There's no way that could be anything but cheering!

It's also excellent at illuminating the face of That Other Bloke From Queen
on the front of record sleeves.

I have to say, though, it looks rather lonely on its own. There's only one thing for it - I'm going to have to buy it some little friends. 

Katie xxx

*Did you know humans can die from Theobromine poisoning after eating one kilo of chocolate? Amateurs! And who says I don't live on the edge?!

50,000 page views giveaway

This giveaway is now closed.

This little blog just hit 50,000 page views (most of which are probably Tom's Mum - Hi, Julie!) and the lovely folks from Rex London (previously DotComGiftShop) have very kindly donated two fantastic prizes to make it a proper celebration :)

I want to thank each and every one of you for reading my nonsense and leaving such brilliant comments; whether you've been here since the very beginning or you've just joined the party. It's so fantastic to feel like I'm part of a proper community of crafty, talented, witty people that I can socialise with from the comfort of my sofa (and without any of you knowing my face is covered in bits of toast and jam...). I would also like to extend a particularly heartfelt welcome to whomever it was that found my blog by searching for "mouldy food"(!) Errr.... What are you trying to say, Google?!

Want to see the fantastic prizes? Thought so! Between these two, I think I've got my whole blog theme covered :)

First up - a fancy-pants Regency Roses teapot.

Gorgeous, innit?

Secondly, a build-it-yourself, wind-up DINOSAUR!! Just like the ones I was raving about earlier this year.

To have a chance of winning these goodies, you just need to follow the instructions on the widget below. The competition closes at midnight on Sunday 12 October. Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Katie xxx

dotcomgiftshop bloggers' event

Hello lovelies!

Me-rry Christ-mas!

OK, OK, it's not technically Christmas time yet (fooled you!), but despite it currently being all July and whatnot, I spent yesterday afternoon feeling more festive than a bowlful of jelly-esque belly, because I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the dotcomgiftshop bloggers' event showcasing all their new autumn/winter goodies! EEEP! And, also, EEEP!! :)

The event was held in the back of a London art gallery, in a room packed with oh-go-on-you-know-you-want-to-touch-me displays of beautiful crockery, quirky bike accessories, and WIND UP FREAKIN' DINOSAURS.

One corner of the room was basically Christmas Land, complete with a stocking-hung fireplace and teeny-tiny advent calendars. It felt rather strange getting excited about baubles at this time of year- but this is coming from a girl who displays her favourite glittery reindeer all year round; so take no notice of me as I'm clearly just one big mess of contradictions. 

I had a fabulous time at the event; chatting with lovely members of the dotcomgiftshop blogging team, meeting some incredibly talented fellow bloggers (and adding some new blogs to my ever-expanding reading list), and drinking elderflower cordial out of weeny milk bottles with a stripy straw. 

Even the water was adorable!

We might have also had a little play with some of the toys... How on earth could anyone resist this face?!

I spent over two hours admiring cute-as-a-button rucksacks, incredible teacups, and gorgeous patchwork blankets, before heading home with a huge grin, a few new friends, and a goody bag. 

The bag was present enough on its own, so I squealed with delight when I found this beauty nestled inside it. It has so many uses, as one would expect from a nicely wide-brimmed cup and saucer. It can hold craft supplies... 

Or summery snacks....

Or, y'know, whatever.... *ahem*

I guess I could even put tea in it! 

I used the bag as the background in these photos. I'm not going to show you what you can do with it because, well, it's a bag- and if you don't know what to do with those you probably shouldn't be allowed near the internet for health and safety reasons or something. 

After feasting my eyes on so much prettiness, and feasting my belly on fancy M&S wraps, I felt compelled to hop onto the dotcomgiftshop website as soon as I got home to check out their current sale (it's pretty epic!). Amongst other essentials, I bought this umbrella for £1.29 instead of £13 in two different colourways. Practically an investment!

And that's a wrap...

Katie xxx

P.S. This post wasn't sponsored by dotcomgiftshop, but they did give me the bag, teacup, and free drinks with fancy straws. All opinions about wind-up dinosaurs are, of course, my own. 

Polkadot Pockets

What's cookin', good lookin'?

Today I'm going to show evidence of me doing something we're all told not to do, under those generalising-phrases-that-don't-really-make-sense Rules of Life. Such as; "Don't judge a book by it's cover".... 

I mean, if you DON'T judge a book by it's cover, how are you going to know if it's a genre you like? I have one rule when I go book-hunting at the library: if the cover shows a skinny cartoon woman with a big hat drinking a cup of tea and/or carrying shopping bags, and is called something like "Wedding Belles" or "Mary Kate is getting married" I am checking that thing out. If it looks like this, I am not checking it out:

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that this book isn't great reading (it might be-
I don't know). It's just that reading about war makes me cry.
So I don't do it. 

Anyway, today I wanted to talk to you about: Putting Things In Pigeon-holes.  I'm all for not pigeon-holing people (like in Dom Joly's Trigger Happy TV sketches with the mild-mannered punk) because appearances certainly can't tell you what a person is really like. But I am definitely up for literally pigeon-holing things by organising them into little spaces (or pockets, in this case).

If I was going to meet a stranger at a train station and wanted them to recognise me, I would probably describe myself as "the tall, very organised girl wearing polkadots, eating a cake" because chances are I would be wearing polkadots and eating a cake, and I imagine my organisational skills to be a visible aura that oozes out of my (perfectly aligned) pores. Cleaning, I have no time for (hence our filthy windows) but tidying? That, I will MAKE time for.

So imagine my glee when the third item sent to me by the lovely DotComGiftShop was this brilliant multi-pocketed, polkadot-covered organiser. SWOON. 

Of course, I immediately began thinking about all the things I could fill it with- and which room it should go in. It could be...

1. A craft organiser
With envelopes, stamps, crochet hooks, felt-tips, animal post-its, blackboard foil, knitting needles, and Emergency M&Ms. 

2. Extra food storage
For our larder (aka, the under-stairs cupboard). To house pasta, biscuits, hot sauces (for which Tom's love knows no bounds), oil, picnic cutlery, and Emergency M&Ms. 

3. Bathroom Storage
For handy-to-grab items such as deodorant, shampoo, shower gel, face masks, medicine, moisturiser, and Emergency M&Ms.

The wall tidy is also made from 90% recycled materials- how excellent is that? I've decided to use it for envelopes and stationary for writing letters*; and it's currently hanging from my Duck and Cow hooks at the end of my craft bookcase. 

What would you use it for? 

Katie xxx

*And Emergency M&Ms. Obviously. 

Slice of life

Hello lovelies! 

Happy Friday Eve! The weekend's so close I can almost taste it (my weekends taste like pancakes. Lots and lots of pancakes).

This is the second instalment of my series looking at the beautiful things I was sent by DotComGiftShop (for those of you who missed my first review, or want another look at the World's Cutest Crocodile, you can read about him here). 

Obviously, I squealed with a great deal of clichéd girlish excitement when my DotComGiftShop parcel arrived because, well, anything free is better than nothing free (especially when I've basically been sent free things as a reward for spending hours choosing the abs-iest picture of Joe Manganiello to illustrate my point about, well, erm.... something important) and lovely free things are the nicest of all. Or so I thought (dun dun duuuuuuunnnnnnn*!)

Cup of tea.

Turns out, there IS something even nicer than lovely free things. And that is lovely, free, functional things that I actually need. I've needed (NEEDED. Not wanted) a cake slice for the length of my entire life. Which is a super long time. Because I like to pretend my life is an amalgamation of a Cath Kidston catalogue, Country Living magazine, and erm... a world where it's socially acceptable to dance at the bus stop. And serving slices of homemade cake with an old-and-slightly-melted plastic spatula doesn't fit AT ALL with the rest of my chintzy life. It's embarrassing. More embarrassing than people catching you rocking out at the bus stop. 

So, when I unwrapped this gorgeous Regency Cake Slice I did a celebratory dance worthy of any bus stop. No longer do I have to dish up my desserts hidden in the kitchen- I can serve them proudly at the table. 

This slice is the perfect slice for an acceptable "normal" wedge of cake. It's been mentioned by guests that "Tom and Katie Portion Sizes" are slightly above the norm. In our defence, they have to be; our one House Rule is no guest can leave without feeling ever-so-slightly-uncomfortably full. I know. We're monsters.

The cake slice is really pretty with Beauty-and-the-Beast-esque embossed roses along the handle, and nice and comfortable to hold (very important for a house where "No thanks, I don't want seconds" is a swearword**). You can grab one for yourself here. 

Katie xxx

*I had to put ominous music here because I couldn't think of the nice equivalent. What's the opposite of Scary Horror Film music?!

** Ok, it's a sentence- but we don't like nitpicking in this house, either- so watch it!

Lovely Animals

HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE!

Yet again, the weekend has come around; it's as if it were inevitable (although it never seems that way on Tuesday does it?! I can't be the one only having the occasional panic on Tuesday afternoons that the weekend might get cancelled). 

Just the fact that it's Friday made me cheery enough that I was practically followed home from work by cartoon bluebirds; but arriving home to this took Friday to a whole new level of amazeballs:

I mentioned recently that I was incredibly flattered to have been asked by Rex London (previously DotComGiftShop) to join their Super Secret Crime Fighting League Blogger Network. Which meant that not only do I get to use the pretty badge you can see in my sidebar to fight crime, but they are also going to be occasionally sending me a parcel of brilliant goodies that I get to have a play with and tell all of you about.

This time, they actually let me pick the things for myself (I know, right?! Luckiest Girl In The World, right here), and as soon as I saw these little guys I knew I needed them in my life. To be honest, I'm not sure I'd been properly living until I had them in my life. 

Aren't they just the cutest?!

As all stationery fans very well know, the possibilities of what you can do with post-its (or "sticky memos" as these are called) are basically limitless. Just check out all this awesome artwork. And that's just with regular sticky memos, let alone ones that look like animals from the zoo!!

Here are a few ideas I've tried out already to use these cutie-pie post its:

1. Mark up all of your favourite recipes in your prettiest recipe books. 

This will not only save you time when making your dinner, thereby increasing the time you will have for stuffing your dinner in your face, but could also be helpful if you wanted to subtly suggest to someone that they should bake you a giant cake for no reason *cough*

2. Keep your place in a book. 

This could be a really sweet way to get kids more involved in their bedtime stories- letting them pick an animal to mark wherever you've read up to that night. Obviously, if you don't have children, you can use it to remind yourself where you're up to in whatever Enid Blyton book you are definitely not reading because you aren't 9 any more.

3. Hide them as surprises

On picture frames, popping out of drawers, or stuck on the window so they're a lovely surprise when someone else draws the curtains in the morning. Plus, it makes a serious political statement about how we're, like, the real animals being observed when we go to the zoo, and stuff. 

You could also buy lots and lots of these and completely cover the entire window to mask the fact you're a slatternly hausfrau who never washes her windows. Filth. 

4. Write little notes

To go in your kid's lunch box as a little surprise (my Mum used to do this when I was little and I genuinely loved it). Or, if you don't have kids, write something sickeningly affectionate like "Love you, Schnookums" on one and stick it in your boyfriend's lunch to embarrass him in front of all his super-manly colleagues. Something I would never, ever contemplate doing. Obviously.  

If you live in a shared house, you could use them to mark anything that has a habit of wandering off... I know, I know; leaving passive aggressive notes for your housemates is, like, the lowest of the low- but if anything's going to soften the blow it's going to be this face:

You could also use them to cover up the hideously offensive information about calories on the front of delicious snacks. "Number of calories per biscuit, you ask? Oh, they're only one adorable crocodile each". Win.  

These Lovely Animal Sticky Memos are every bit as lovely as it says on the bus, and would definitely provide hours of fun for anyone who likes stationery, awesome animals, or embarrassing their boyfriend at work leaving affectionate notes. You could even use them to save your space on the sofa when you go to make a cup of tea- just stick a tiny lion on your seat. Ta-dah!

Katie xxx

P.S. I'm going to tell you about the other lovely things DotComGiftShop sent me very soon, but I need to do some prep first to show them off in their full brilliance. The prep involves eggs and a hammer (not together); so wish me luck! 

This post was very sweetly sponsored by Rex London, but all opinions and ramblings about cartoon bluebirds are 100% my own.

Three Things Tuesday

Hey m'dears

Here are three sparkly-all-over things that I've been smiling about so far this week. Seriously sparkly. Like, Ryan Gosling's eyes sparkly. That sparkly. Sparkly, sparkly, sparkly. 

1. Getting to fill up my bookcase

I spent last night sifting through the smorgasbord of craft goodies that had previously been strewn across our dining room floor due to a Critical Lack Of Storage. I rediscovered inspiring and beautiful things and arranged them in a rather slap-dash fashion onto my rainbow-bright bookcase. 

2. Movie Night Tea

I've just cracked into a new David's Tea from my swap with the lovely Jen. Cracked being the operative word, because David's Teas are fast becoming my (legal, more socially acceptable, and cheaper) equivalent of crack. I think I need to go to the tea-equivalent of AA for my addiction to Birthday Cake (it's got SPRINKLES in it, people), and I was worried the other teas Jen sent me wouldn't come close in comparison. 

Turns out my fears were completely unfounded; built on a foundation made from hundreds and thousands, which are not the sturdiest building tool. Shame, really; can you imagine if houses were built from sprinkles?!? This tea is EPIC. It's basically not even a tea. It's like someone freeze-dried an orchard and emptied it into a bucket of popcorn. I opened the bag and this is what I saw:

King of the Teas

3. Rex London Awesomeness x 1 billion

I received a completely unexpected squeal-of-joy-enducing email yesterday from a very lovely member of the Rex London team letting me know they'd featured my dining chair makeover on their blog. Eeep! And, also, yippee!!

I ruddy love Rex London (previously known as DotComGiftShop), and they've asked me to join their Blog Network. Of course, my answer was HELL YES. I'm pretty sure I spent at least half of my December on there buying Christmas presents for my crafty friends (and Thursday presents for me). They also gave me the pretty little button you can see in my sidebar :) 

See these lights? Rex London, baby. And adorable.

What's been making you smile this week, my peeps?

Katie xxx