Three Things Tuesday

Hello lovelies! 

Happy Tuesday! If that's not a total oxymoron. 

I've been feeling all kinds of gloomy of late, but it's encouraged me to search even harder for the illusive silvery lining of the cartoon storm cloud permanently hovering over my head. After considerable searching, I've finally managed to find a glimmer or three...

1.  Car Boot Chic
I spent Sunday morning at Brighton Racecourse car boot sale drinking tea from a flask, getting mildly sunburnt (seriously, people - in MARCH) and punting a whole load of random tat. The wintery sunlight was accompanied by a wind more cutting than Joan Collins with PMT, and I realised with dread shortly after arriving that I'd forgotten my gloves. 

For those of you who've never met me, you may be unaware that my gloves are basically a medical necessity. The skin on my hands is so sensitive I've actually cut myself on vegetables before. Not the vegetable knife. The VEGETABLES. Cue me going into Panic Mode, or at least until I remembered that I'd actually brought some gloves with me to sell. Hallelujah!  

I'm not claiming to be the most glamorous car boot seller who ever lived, but I can't imagine there are many sellers who hawk their wares while sporting elbow-length satin opera gloves...

2. Tiny Fried Eggs
Contrary to popular opinion, the coldest part of my body isn't actually my Ice Queen Heart. It's my stomach. I don't know why, but when my core gets cold I just can't seem to shake it (the cold, that is; not my belly. That's a bowlful of jelly to rival Santa's). This means I can usually be found clutching a hot water bottle to my stomach, regardless of the ambient temperature. When I recently noticed that, post-hwb, my stomach was doing a rather fantastic impersonation of JD's Pink Belly (admittedly, not signed by Turk) I started to wonder what the heat might be doing to my insides. I finally settled on this:

Good thing I don't want kids, eh? Haha

3. Pre-dinner cheesecake
Although my on-going lack of WiFi access is making me to consider joining some kind of support group, there are some benefits to being forced to track down alternative sources of internet-flavoured goodness. Usually, when I'm using the WiFi at Bill's (tonight's provider of choice) I try to eke out one pot of tea until my laptop battery dies. But tonight I decided that (given that I was going to use the internet for hours) it would be rather rude not to order something edible too..

If exercising good manners isn't the perfect excuse for eating lemon meringue pie cheesecake before dinner, then I don't know what is... 

Nor do I care, actually. Pre-dinner cheesecake needs no excuse.

Have you discovered anything particularly smile-inducing lately? Do share!

Katie xxx

Three Things Thursday

Why, hello there! 

LOVING your jumper today. It's very You.

I've got so many things to tell you all that I don't know where to start. So I've decided to avoid the whole issue and write a frivolous post about three things currently making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like an inside-out koala. Here we go:

1. Peppermint & Liquorice Tea
Yes, I know; that combination sounds absolutely disgusting. I pulled a very similar wrinkled-up-nose face the first time I heard of it too (don't think I can't see you doing that), but I'm imploring you to ignore the voices in your head singing* "That sounds so gross!" and find some STAT. 

I'm not really a fan of liquorice, but the flavour is completely different to what I expected, and it's so sweet that it could almost count as pudding. Obviously, no tea could ever truly replace pudding- but this one's certainly a good substitute while you're waiting for the Ben and Jerry's to defrost enough to dig in with a spoon.

2. Dinosaur Pyjamas
My Mirror Twin and I both agree that these pyjama bottoms are the best thing to have happened to human legs since Kevin Bacon's dance solo in Footloose.

I was horribly sensible and DID NOT BUY THEM because I already own 18,000 pairs of pyjama bottoms. I'm now wondering whether that might be the dumbest decision I've ever made; including the time I had a mullet. 

3. Wonderful words
Having recently rediscovered the magic of The Great British Library, I've been wolfing down novels like a very hungry silverfish. Sadly, my rekindled love of literature hasn't done anything to improve my metaphors, but it has introduced me to some incredible new authors.

I'd never read any John Green before, despite the whole internet being in love with him, because I'd assumed his novels were rather morose. I was overjoyed to discover how wrong I was after picking up Let It Snow; a compilation of three interwoven teenage romances occurring on Christmas Eve. The characters are funny, sweet, and flawed, and I'm now planning to track down everything ever written by John Green and Maureen Johnson. 

I was also recently introduced to the awe-inspiring work of Edward Gorey. Despite never having heard of him before, I fell in love from the very first paragraph of Amphigorey; which is quite possibly the most captivating and fantastical collection of writing/illustration/art/ awesomeness ever created. 

Image from Amphigorey

All fifteen stories/collections were so exquisite that they made me feel happy and sad in equal measure, which is a rather odd feeling indeed. The sadness was due to realising that, no matter how hard I try, I'll never come close to producing such a masterpiece. Luckily for you lot, I've decided to soldier on with creating my rambling, semi-humorous nonsense regardless; so there'll be many more dinosaur-related posts and cake-based tributes from me yet.

So, what have you been up to recently?

Katie xxx

*The voices in your head sing too, right?!

This is how we roll

S'up homies!

How's your weekend been?

Mine's involved a metaphorical heap of fun, and several literal heaps of curry and cake.

When I was in my teens, house parties meant drinking games, dancing in the kitchen, wearing the tiniest clothes I could find, and Secret Squirrel stage-whispering about whichever boy we fancied that week. Our house party this weekend involved drinking Tom's home brew, an Indian takeaway large enough to feed a village, double helpings of pudding, and iPad pictionary.

Here's an example of our world-class (crude) Pictionary artwork:

Can you guess what this was?

With dessert options like this, how could we possibly choose between them?!

Salted chocolate caramel tart and homemade* apple crumble cake

Finally, and most importantly, not even the most rock'n'roll house party can be classed a success unless it involves plenty of these:

I've heard Mötley Crüe's rider always included a kilo of coke, six naked women, and a nice cup of tea**.

Katie xxx


* Not made in my home. Guests who bring baked goods are definitely my favourite kind of guest. 

** That's a lie. 

P.S. Have you entered my giveaway yet? It's closing at midnight!

Recent F Words

Hey m'dears

How are you?

In true Sesame Street style, today's episode my week has mostly revolved around the letter "F", including:

Flappers galore, on a 1920's-themed hen do:

We went for afternoon tea at Betty Blythe, a gorgeous vintage tearoom, accompanied by copious flutes of fizz and tasty treats garnished with flowers.

We demolished the cakes, scones, and sandwiches like a swarm of glamorous locusts.

I definitely wasn't mentally prepared for choosing between pistachio, orange and vanilla macarons.

Betty Blythe also sells beautifully packaged edible things ranging from wholesome granola to retro sweeties. I felt a bit sorry for the lonely heart. 

Post-tea party we were allowed to choose a photo of Ms Blythe as a memento of our day. The moment I saw the photo below I knew it had to be mine. The elegant stance, that glorious moustache, and Betty's expression are just perfection.

Floorboards
Our new floor has been laid (hurrah!) so we've spent the weekend reinstating our furniture very, VERY carefully. It looks so much prettier than the crusty old carpets inherited from the previous owners, and the house feels cosier too. 

New floor in our recently prettified kitchen

Frantic
Between getting myself up to speed in my new job, floorboard-laying turning our house upside down, and playing catch-up with my chores, the last two weeks have been rather intense. I'm very relieved that the house is now relatively back to normal, so I can focus on more important things like kicking arse at work and watching re-runs of 60 Minute Makeover. 

Fantastic literature

A rather tenuous F-word link, but I've been desperate to share this book with you all since the moment I started reading it. 

[image source]

I don't like to summarise the plot in my reviews because I think it ruins the surprise, but the title of "Mr Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore" really doesn't do justice to the wonder that lies within these pages. If you've ever wondered what it's like to work at Google and/or in a tiny bookshop with three-floor-high shelves filled with secrets*, then this is the book for you. I found it as magically captivating as The Night Circus, and both stories have made me wish it was possible to crawl inside the pages and take part in the adventure myself.

Followers

I'm overwhelmed with smiley-type feelings to have reached a whopping 99 followers on Bloglovin! Thank you so much to every one of you most excellent people - I'm sending each of you a virtual slice of cake as I type. Please place your orders below (I can even do gluten-free!). 

In case virtual cake isn't celebratory enough, when I hit 100 followers I will hold another giveaway :) 

Katie xxx

P.S. I'm linking up with TWTWC run by the beautiful Hannah who is also getting married this week! Eeek!  

*And, let's be honest, who hasn't?!

Celebratory Giveaway!

Hey m'dears!

How are you? 

Thank you so much to all of you who left such sweet comments on my last post and on Instagram about my presentation earlier this week. What I didn't mention at the time was that the presentation was part of a job interview... and I GOT THE JOB!!! I'm absolutely over the moon and so excited about getting stuck into a new challenge. I can't share much about it on the internet, so I propose we all pretend I'm going to be designing hats for the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum instead (I'm just as excited about my actual new job as I would be about doing that :p). 

I spent yesterday trawling every shop in Brighton for new Grown Up Clothes and gorgeous stationery (because a new job is definitely the best justification for the adult equivalent of "Back to School" stationery shopping), and decided to pick up some extra bits to share my happiness with you lovely lot by hosting a giveaway!

-----SORRY, SWEETCHEEKS - THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED-----

So, here's what you can win:

The prize includes:

• A Cuckoo kitchen timer in hot pink and orange*.
• A circus mug
• A Parasaurolophus rubber/eraser
• A box of teapigs' Popcorn teabags
• An illustrated tea towel from Paperchase.
• Possibly a bunch of other stuff, depending on whatever catches my eye when I'm wrapping it up. Probably a Twix. 

The tea towel isn't available online, but luckily I bought myself one too; so you can see the full pattern here:

Your tea towel won't be this wrinkly, I hasten to add. Believe it or not, I actually IRONED this before framing it, but somehow made it more wrinkled than it was before!! I really don't get ironing...

To be in with a chance of winning send me a compliment about my hair just follow the steps in the rafflecopter below by midnight TONIGHT**. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Katie xxx

* The timer is boxed, but I took it out for the photo so y'all could appreciate its full glory.

** Editor's note; this originally stated the giveaway closed on Sunday, because I'm incapable of counting out seven days. Thankfully my new job doesn't involve numbers. 

Maple Syrup and Unicorns

If I had my own version of the Sound of Music "Favourite Things" song, it would probably go something like this:

Huge tins of Roses and Lego in boxes
Notebooks and cupcakes and cute-as-pie foxes
Personally-labelled unusual teas
Twixes and Starbursts and Hello Kitties!

Ice-cream-shaped rubbers and novelty key-rings,
Cute pocket mirrors and delicious sweet things,
Spiced apple cider and chocolate orange
and PINK UNICORNS!!!!!

Which is rather serendipitous, given the contents of the parcel I received from Jen today :)

My initial excitement was quickly dusted with the icing sugar of curiosity when I saw the things Jen had listed for the customs declaration:

Mystery Foam Crafts?! Oh me, oh my!

The second I opened the box my senses were hit with a heady concoction of truly mouthwatering scents. It was how I imagine Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory might smell; sugary goodness with top notes of magic. 

Under the first layer of tissue paper I found five(!) different kinds of tea, including one called Pink Flamingo and one containing actual chunks of chocolate. EEEEEEEEPPPPP! I've already had two cups of the Maple Black Tea, and can confirm it tastes like maple syrup. YUM. 

Maple Black Tea, Spiced Apple Cider Rooibos, Ceylon Breakfast Tea, 
Pink Flamingo Herbal Tea, and Orange Chocolate Sweet Spice Herbal Tea. 
I think I've died and gone to Tea Heaven. 

There was also a card from Jen, two tiny cards, a notebook (with a magnet on the back- genius!), a Hello Kitty keyring, a novelty rubber, and a pretty compact mirror. 

It also revealed that the intriguing "foam crafts" alluded to on the packaging didn't even come close to describing the awesomeness within... 

EEEEEEEEPPPPPPP!!!!

Just in case a ruddy UNICORN wasn't awesome enough, I then discovered a second layer which was FULL OF SWEETS. 

This is the second parcel swap I've done with Jen and, although I wouldn't have thought it possible, it was even more magical than the first one. Thank you so much, Jen- you're totally amazeballs! 

Katie xxx

A new age bracket

Hey y'all*!

*Turns face back and forth* Can you see any extra wrinkles? 

As of Thursday, I'm now the grand ol' age of 26 - moving into a whole new age bracket on multiple-choice forms, and no longer scraping into the Young Person category for National Trust membership (which costs less than half the price of an adult one). Boo.

On the plus side, I managed to stretch my birthday celebrations out over three days; which I reckon is pretty good going. I also only worked on Tuesday and Wednesday - something I could very easily get used to! 

Birthday cards and a pretty new book

I spent Thursday morning chilling out at home with Marmite on toast and Sarah Moore's Vintage Home (a present from Tom, which I asked for after reading the lovely Anna's review), followed by an afternoon of shopping hardcore cardio/weightlifting due to buying the bits for my parcel for Lauren's Easter Gift Swap. I somehow managed to spend an hour and a half in Brighton Homesense. The evening involved a pre-theatre dinner in Wagamamas, and being treated to a White Russian and front-row seats for the hilarious David Sedaris by a girlfriend (thanks again, Holly!). 

It also involved a lot of my new favourite tea.
This stuff is SERIOUSLY delicious. Seriously.

Tom and I spent Friday exploring Groombridge Place, which was so amazing I've decided it's worthy of a post of all of its own - so you'll have to keep your eyes peeled later in the week. It involved giant swings**, drunken gardens, and raptors. You know it's going to be good.

Yesterday Tom and I hosted my birthday party, which meant a morning of cleaning the house, making salads, and lining up cakes, before an afternoon of eating too much BBQ food, copious laughter with some of my all time favourite people, and plenty of rum. 

Believe it or not, five kinds of cake is pretty restrained for one of my parties...

Oh, and presents! Amongst other treats, I'm now the proud owner of this INCREDIBLE alarm clock:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
[image source]

Today has involved tea with my parents, leftover BBQ food, and scoffing miniature scones whilst catching up on some good TV. Tomorrow will centre around counting down the minutes until Made in Chelsea Season 7 starts. Eep!

What did you get up to this week? 

Katie xxx 

P.S. I'm linking this post up with the fabulous Hannah's The Week That Was: Captured (TWTWC).

* Sorry, I've been watching too much Nashville. 

** Honestly- those swings have ruined regular-sized swings for me, forever. It was totally worth it. 

The one with the anti-party tricks

Hello lovelies!

Happy Friday Eve :)

Ever since I shared my super powers party tricks, I've been worried some of you may not be sleeping due to an all-consuming jealousy of my knife-shunning, fly-banishing, human-pigeony mad skillz. I've decided to burst that bubble, for the sake of your beauty sleep*, and tell you about a few of the ridiculously silly things I’m definitely not so good at. General life things, I mean - not crafty ones; although I have shared those before.

1. Making tea.
Despite being able to cook a number of fancy(ish) delicious things, time after time it’s the simple cuppa that stumps me. I desperately want to become The Perfect Hostess, and therefore offer all our guests tea on a half-hourly basis, but I often give them tea so wrong that it’s basically an insult.

I'm blaming my consistent failure on the fact I have my own tea so milky it matches my pasty skin. Perhaps it's just as well I'm incapable of tanning, as I'd otherwise be unable to demonstrate my tea preference. My own predilection causes me to second- and third-guess the amount of milk I put in other people’s cuppas, and it's amazing how much I can mess up what is essentially hot water, a tea bag, and milk. Sorry, guests!

Maybe I need to get some of these?

2. Spatial awareness.
I have absolutely zero spatial awareness, whether in relation to inanimate objects (like parked cars.... *ahem*) or my own body. Despite the fact I've had the same hips and elbows for nearly 26 years, I still appear to forget how far they stick out.

This e-card I spotted on Pinterest really rings true for me. On an average day I reckon I’m about 16% bruise.

[image source] 

For example, last night I managed to smash my own nose with a plastic lunch box. I'm just glad that I didn't have two black eyes today, because I don't know how I would've explained that at work!

3. Eating salad.
I've never understood the cliché of women ordering salad on a first date. Many, many moons ago, when I used to go on a date or two, I would NEVER have ordered a salad. Partly because carbs are way better than salad, and also because if I try to eat a plate of salad, I end up looking like this:

Luckily for me, since I met Tom I no longer have to make the "what to eat on a first date" decision. Three cheers for finding a boy who not only fully supports my love of carbs, but who also still thinks I'm beautiful even when I have salad dressing in my eyebrow. Hurrah!

What are you good at? And what are you oddly hopeless at? Please do share- I'd love to hear!

Katie xxx

* Not that you need it, you gorgeous things!!

Chalk and Teas

Hello lovelies!

How've you been?

Today I'm sharing another craft project involving the wonders of chalkboard foil; although this one's much simpler than my jewellery box makeover.

As you may have noticed, I'm something of a fan of a cup of tea or two. Preferably accompanied by a slice of something baked/a handful or eight of whatever's lurking in our chocolate tin. 

I love having lots of different teas in the house to cater for any beverage-related whim which may befall myself or any thirsty guests. I keep a rotating sample of whatever flavours I'm currently favouring in the cupboard with our mugs, and the rest reside in our makeshift larder. 

Said vast selection of teas means I subject our guests to a list of options which lasts a good 17 minutes. I dread to think how long it would take if I were to add coffee syrup and hot chocolate flavours into the mix! To save my poor guests' earholes, I've decided to put some in labelled jars; so they can choose for themselves straight from the cupboard. 

The Popcorn and Jasmine tea is from my Teapigs Xmas haul.
The Crème Caramel is from The Tea House in Covent Garden.

If you fancy giving this a go, you'll need some empty jars (I used Ikea clip-top jars and old jam/mustard jars), some blackboard foil, and chalk pens. I cut out random shapes of foil for each jar, then wrote on them with chalk pens. Easy.

Katie xxx

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

Smelly Drawers

After discovering the wonderful world of loose-leaf, fancy-pants tea whilst on holiday in Norfolk last year, I've been fascinated with finding different brands and flavours to tantalise my tastebuds. 

Most of the teas I've tried have been utterly delicious. I've previously mentioned my love for David's Teas, which are absolute genius and contain ingredients such as popcorn, dried apple, and SPRINKLES; not just unspecified "flavourings". However, I've found that some loose teas smell amazing but either taste like nothing or, as my friend Holly says, like dirty bath water. Mmmm..... 

Sadly, the Wild Cherry tea I bought in Norfolk suffers from exactly that problem. The smell is phenomenal, and just one whiff is like being hit in the face with a bakewell tart (I was about to add "in the best way", but I honestly can't think of any bad way to be hit by a bakewell tart...). Taste wise; nada. 

Like this, with some cherry-frangipane goodness

It seemed a waste to leave the tea sitting around un-drunk, so I decided to get my granny on and make it into an alternative version of lavender bags. If you fancy giving this a go too, all you'll need is tea, fabric and a sewing kit. Simples.

I chose some brilliant Dr Seuss fabric, one of last year's Christmas presents, because I bloomin' love Dr Seuss). I cut out some small-ish rectangles, folded in half, and stitched together on two sides before filling them with the tea.

I then folded and pinned the ends of the open side and stitched the bags closed. 

And there you have it- cute little bags that pack a punch; perfect for popping in your chest of drawers to make your undies/t-shirts/pyjamas smell like the Mr Kipling factory. Living. The. Dream. 

I wish you could send smells over the internet, but as we can't I would recommend re-reading this post whilst eating a bakewell tart. I mean, you do want the full sensory experience, don't you?

Katie xxx

Adventuring in St. Leonards

Hello lovelies

Have you had a nice day? Eaten some good cake? I'm telling you, if eating cake with friends isn't what Saturdays were invented for I'll eat my hat. With a side of cake. 

Today I travelled by locomotive to St. Leonards-on-Sea, a (funnily enough) seaside town between Bexhill and Hastings, to visit my fabulous friend Alice (the winner of my first blog giveaway and fellow Ideal Home Show fan). 

Fancy map of "1066 Country".

It turned out my hilarious crafting buddy Moll was also visiting Alice today, so I got to hang out with her too :) Hurrah! We walked up lots of hills, rummaged in charity shops, drank litres of tea, ate gooey mountains of cake, and visited an old-skool charity fête complete with a coconut shy. I managed to document most of my day using Tom's camera, or my phone - when I was too full of cake to bend down and get the camera out of my bag. 

The beautiful Alice, modelling the gooiest chocolate cake ever. Yum.
And it was being sold for charity. Therefore, no calories. Win.

This morning, I kicked off my nautical mood with a cuppa in my anchor-emblazoned mug; which was actually a birthday present from Alice. 

Everyone knows breakfast is the most important meal of the day (until second breakfast, anyway. And then elevenses. Then lunch...), especially when one is going on a cross-county adventure; so I had a huuuuuge bowl of many, many cereals to keep my hunger locked up until, well, I saw a big table of cakes. 

I felt like my feet needed a little extra seasidey something today; thank goodness for sailor socks!

Upon arriving in St. Leonards, we walked to a local charity's vintage fête, which was full of child-friendly fundraising games that we hadn't seen since our school days; including a sawdust lucky dip and a hook-the-rubber-duck contest. There was also a guy carrying round a falcon; but we reckoned that was just the way he picked up women. 

There was also an incredibly impressive array of delicious-looking cakes, for a bargainous £1 a slice, so we felt like we had to sample at least one each. It was for charity, after all. 

Alice tried her arm at the china-smashing stall, which we all agreed must have been rigged; seeing as Alice did, erm, not so well, whilst the octogenarian preceding her did more damage than a whole Greek wedding party. 

We burnt off all the cake with a good stomp round all the charity shops, checking out the second hand furniture and rummaging through the shelves of china. I spent most of the time admiring all the amazing architecture St. Leonards has to offer, and was particularly enamoured with these adverts for Edwards merchants:

All that fresh air had caused us to work up some serious appetites, so we headed to Love Café for multiple cups of tea and huge savoury crepes. The food was delicious, cheap, and delivered with a smile; and the tea was delivered in smile-inducing teapots too.

Yes, that is a mosaic of Prince Charles. No, I don't know why.

Even the sugar was pretty

Alice invited us back to her flat to meet the seagull family that lives on the roof of the building next door. We climbed out onto Alice's roof terrace to meet her feathery neighbours, and then something amazing happened. Even more amazing than meeting Flannelette Seagull. 

Clem (Alice's lovely boyfriend) informed us that the last flying Avro Vulcan – XH558 was scheduled to give a display over Hastings that afternoon. And then, we saw it. Watching the plane appear over Hastings, from on top of Alice's roof, was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. 

It was like stumbling into a real-life version of Independence Day. Only without Will Smith (booo). I've made a gif from some of my photos (below) but the plane was quite far away so it's only small. In reality, this thing has a 111 foot wingspan. Insane. 

Close-up picture from Wikipedia

Before I caught the train back home, Alice and I finished off our brilliant afternoon in a local café with a quick cup of coffee and a rather romantic game of Connect 4...

It was a truly awesome (and delicious) day, and I can't wait to go back and visit again! 

Katie xxx