Things I'm loving Thursday...

1) How gorgeous is this purple floral print sweater from Uniglo? An Autumn must have for sure...

2) And an autumn fleece for him from baby Uniglo. Isn't this just the cutest? So snuggly and warm.

3) Since 'mini scrapping' is how I roll these days, I have pinned all of these pages by Jen Jockisch. Love the layers, the cute prints (especially the camera print - need this!) and that middle pun.

4) Love the pretty colours of the autumn leaves and plenty of walks with the family in the brisk autumn air. I, of course, wear boots rather than bare feet.

5) Since joining in with Julie Kirk's Going Postal I have been hyper aware of using traditional office supplies in my scrapbooking. I found this tutorial on pinterest for printing onto post-it notes and love, love, love this idea! Expect to see it used around here soon.

6) In the same thread I also loved this stamp...

7) Baby and I are loving baby sensory. It is giving me ideas for ways to play with him and that it is never too young to start reading - score!

8) Lastly I am loving my friend Steve's homemade chilli - he uses dark chocolate in it and even makes the pita bread from scratch. Yummy! An action shot of him in the kitchen...

 

9) Lastly looking forward to this event tomorrow...launch of Trinity Kitchen Northern Street Foods. I love the street food and food truck trend and have always felt that Leeds was missing a treat - now Leeds will be a more complete day out in my opinion.

  What are you loving at the moment?

Come on lurkers - reveal yourselves!

Wordless Wednesday: Born to be wild!

Mini Memory Mondays: Going postal with tags

Hi and welcome to the second installment of my mini series - Mini Memory Mondays.
As well as sharing ways to use tags and journalling cards in your layouts and mini books I am also gaining inspiration from Julie Kirk's Going Postal series here.   

12 by 12 sheets with a really busy design used to confuse / scare me. Especially ones with writing or a graphic pattern. I always thought that they were too busy to use as backing paper and too big a pattern to mat a photo on. For some reason it never occurred to me to cut them apart and use them as labels and so these mini layouts are trying this layering technique out.

The layout above uses labels cut from a sheet in a 6 by 6 pad; I had fun just building up a photo mat with the small labels and then I stamped on one for the title. I printed onto the card stock, which I don't normally do, as I am taking Jill Sprott's Scrapbooking for the Soul class and saw how she prints a draft copy first to see where it will fit on her layout and so I liked this idea. I also added dimension and texture through brads, washi tape and bakers twine.
This photo breaks my heart now as I can see how much he has grown and that, at almost three months, he is not newborn anymore. This sleepsuit is too big for him now, but it was hanging off of him in this picture.

Below are two pages that I created for his mini book. I was using up leftover scraps and had these old papers by Crate Paper which seemed to be postal themed - so I thought that it was a great chance to link up with Julie Kirk's Going Postal mini series and I also have a layout using Belgian stamps to share later this week.

 

I kept the colour palette light blue, red and kraft to fit in with the idea of going postal and also used map print paper as this reminds me of airmail and matches the striped design of the card stock - like an airmail envelope. 

I am a great advocate of 'snail mail' and used to have several penfriends from all over the world. My favourite penfriend was Jason from Hong Kong as he used to write me letters on really cute stationary like Garfield and Miffy. It may have been writing letters that first caused me to fall in love with stationary and scrapbooking is surely just an extension of this, right?

  

Did you ever have penfriends from around the world? 

Foodie Friday: Date night ideas

So a friend was going for lunch with her husband yesterday and asked me for some recommendations, so I thought that I would share five places we like to grab lunch or go on a date (with or without baby in two - mostly the first option these days!) :-

1) Red's diner (full review see here). For thick shakes, skin on fries, huge plates of delicious BBQ style food than this is a great place for brunch, lunch or dinner with that special someone. 

2) Sunshine Bakery, Chapel Allterton (see full review here). If you want a menu that is freshly baked, changing daily and has really delicious flavour combinations than this is the place for you. The sandwiches below were on pumpkin bread and it was so tasty. They do the biggest selection of homemade brownies with flavours like mint aero and toblerone and their cupcakes are award winning. Have I sold it to you yet?

3) The Greedy Pig, Leeds City Centre It may look like your average greasy spoon but trust me the food is a cut above. A great place for a fry up, but the also have sandwiches and burgers and daily specials. I had a veggie burger and it came served with loads of fresh dressings and chutney and packed a flavour punch where often veggie burgers are a bit bland. They have delicious freshly baked cakes and desserts too. It is run by a couple Jo and Stu and they will really give you a great Yorkshire welcome. I was heavily pregnant when we ate her and Jo was really accomodating making sure that I sat by the fan and was served a cold drink straight away.

4) The Cheerful Chilli, Otley Chevin. Again quite rustic surroundings but delicious, fresh and healthy vegetarian food with a Mexican twist. They only serve lunch on the weekends and you have to book for the evenings as it is really popular. I love their hoppity pie, spanakopita and their enchiladas. However here it is all about the homemade cakes and homemade ice-cream - so delicious and such a huge variety that you will hover by the deli counter and umm and ahh for quite a while - guaranteed!

5) Everyman Cinema, Leeds Trinity. I have been here twice so far once for mummy cinema (£10 for you and baby and you get a hot drink and slice of cake) to see About Time and the second time on my first child free Saturday date night with The Belgian. It is a bit pricer than your usual cinema, but only by a few pounds and it is totally worth paying that extra few quid for the experience you get here is the Rolls Royce of cinema. You sit on plush, comfy sofas and have lots of cushions to make yourself extra comfortable. There is a bar and pizzeria on sight and so you can have dinner and a movie at the same time. The popcorn, drinks and snacks are probably more reasonably priced than your average multiplex. This will become our regular as when we get a baby free night we want to make it worthwhile.

 

 

So there you go - have a date this weekend with your someone special.

Where do you like to do on date night? 

Wordless Wednesday: A Forever Family...

Mini Memory Mondays: Journalling cards

Welcome to the exciting mini series on using tags and journalling cards in mini albums and mini pages (8.5 by 11) titled
 Mini Memory Mondays!

Like so many scrappers I take far too many photos.
Not necessarily a bad thing.
But an expensive and time consuming business when you're making 12 by 12 layouts.
So my baby scrapping so far is in the smaller size of 8.5 by 11.
I can also see the merits of project life style scrapping - you can cover more photos and use all those little bits of memorabilia (like napkins and business cards).
But I still like creating actual layouts.
I couldn't resist splurging on some cute journalling cards and so I thought I would do a mini series on my blog with ideas for using journalling cards and tags on 8.5 by 11 layouts and mini books.

Tutorial 1: Project Life cards for handwritten journalling

 

I love the titles on some journalling cards as they act as a prompt for your journalling. This layout is all about the moment that we discovered that our baby was a boy. We had decided to wait to find out (we were Team Yellow) and then after fourteen hours of stress and trauma my body still wasn't producing contractions on its own and so I had to have an emergency c-section. They wanted to tell me when they first opened me up but my husband said we'd wait nine months we could wait a little longer. I used a label to cover up his winky, but it is attached by a brad and so you can peek under but it is covered up to save his embarrassment when he's older!

However handwritten journalling can make a page look 'scrappy' or your journalling may be private and then you can turn a journalling card into a tag and place it in a mini envelope behind the picture. This layout for my mini book is quite small and so space for journalling is limited. I like to have the first line peeking out so that you know that it is there and the red works with the washi tape. This tag and envelope is pre-made but you could easily cut the corners off a PL card, punch a hole and put washi tape through it. I have included quite a few tags in this mini album and I like the look of them all hanging out the pages - it makes it feel very interactive. 

Join me next week for some more ideas for using tags and project life cards in your mini scrapping. 

Storytelling Sunday: The one with all the birthdays...

Since today is my birthday (happy birthday me - sadly I am in bed as I seem to have caught a bug and was sick all night! Boo!) I spent some time this week going through the archives and reminiscing over birthdays past...

In our family we love birthdays and get really spoilt. My mom would place all our beautifully wrapped presents on a chair and then the whole family would come in and wake you up by singing 'Happy Birthday' (some more enthusiastically than others *cough* Alli *cough*) then you would open the mountain of presents.
We also always had really fun birthday parties and so here are some of the highlights:-

•  For my 8th birthday we went to Covent Garden - one of our favourite parts of London. My mom allowed me to invite four friends and so I took two sets of twins. The first set's mum was very cautious and they had emergency 10ps for the pay phone, the parents contact number's written down and clear instructions for what to do if they got lost. The second set had nothing. Guess who got lost? Emma from the second set. Looking back now my poor mother must have been terrified - luckily she had latched onto a group of French tourists and appeared a few shops later! 
• I wrote about it in my journal below and I particularly love some of my spellings - 'spaggeti' (spaghetti) 'mcandics' (mechanics) and of course 'samwthes' sandwiches. My sisters will probably comment that my spelling has not improved much since then...

• Also my 8th birthday was special as I got baptised by my dad - as we do when we are eight in my church. I remember being very excited and getting my hair crimped and getting all of our family and friends to sign my baptism book - another precious which I still have and a great record of the day. 

• For my 11th birthday I took a few friends to the 'Rock Island Diner' in London (do we see a pattern emerging here?) Luckily we didn't lose anybody. I remember that we got to sit in our booth and felt very grown up and that we could select songs on the juke box and so apparently we chose an Elvis song for my mom. Although I was always more of a Buddy Holly fan.

• For my 18th birthday we hired out a kiddy soft play area. I believe that we had to be slightly economical about the truth and when I tell this story I normally say it was 16th birthday, but having checked in my scrapbook I discovered it was my 18th. Well we're all big kids right? And it was a particularly cool one with a huge (and very scary) rainbow slide, a huge spiders web, an adult sized hamsters wheel and an enormous ball pond. Everyone loved it - despite perhaps initial skepticism. We ate at the ever classy Pizza Hut afterwards. I think I must have got an instax mini camera as the page is full of those cute little sticker pictures. Wish I still had it now - although I do recall the film was very pricey.

• Last, but certainly not least, memorable birthday was my 20th. In my second year on university I got to go on an exchange to Atlanta to attend The University of Georgia (UGA) and when I first arrived I didn't have a room mate. I had gone with another guy from course - Adie - and so I just used to hang around with him and his mates (all boys). I turned 20 shortly after arriving and was feeling a bit homesick and missing the rituals with my family so they promised me a big day out to cheer me up. We went to Six Flags a huge theme park like Alton Towers. I was very excited as I am quite a thrill seeker, however only once we arrived did Adie announce that he was scared of roller coasters and Alex announced he was scared of heights. Hmmm... So we ended up eating ice-cream and hot dogs, shelling out extra money to go on the go-karts and we went on all of the water rides.

• The second part of the surprise was a meal at this restaurant that they thought I would just love. It turned out to be Hooters. If you are not familiar it is a popular establishment with the male population as they serve great ribs, beer and the waitresses are all rather shapely and scantily clad in tacky, shiny orange hot pants and tight fitting t.shirts. Now as a tee total, hetrosexual, veggie this was not really my 'cup of tea' and as the boys insisted I take plenty of photos of them and the waitress' I began to suspect this 'treat' wasn't really just for me! I had a grilled cheese and a rootbeer and declined their kind invitation for a Hooters t.shirt. 

• The funniest part of all was that when I took the picture below I got a classic shot straight afterwards of my friend of the left turning to the waitress and saying 'don't I know you from somewhere?' Turns out that they had gone to primary school together. Bet when the teacher asked what she wanted to be when she grew up Hooter's girl was not top of her list! 

• It goes without saying that the very next day I made a more concerted effort to get to know the other girls in halls and started to enjoy girls nights out instead. Being one of the boys did seem to have its limitations! But I guess turning 20 in Hooters is a story to tell!

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Linking up with the wonderful Sian over at From High in the Sky pay her a visit to read more interesting stories
Don't forget to check out my new series starting tomorrow - Mini Memory Mondays with ideas for using journalling cards and tags in 8.5 by 11 and mini albums

Foodie Friday: Oreo Rocky Road Recipe

Do you love marshmallows?
Do you love oreos?
Do you love chocolate?
Do you love a bit of crispy goodness?
 Well then, since I have your attention, perhaps you would enjoy some rocky road?
First up a photo step-by-step.

Stir and put in pan to set

Enjoy!

What I love most about the recipe is the versatility...you can add any kinds of biscuits, nuts, marshamallows and chocolate bars and can be adapted for the seasons or for your favourite flavours. Triple toasted coconut rocky road? Halloween themed orange snickers and oreo rocky road? Festive triple peppermint rocky road?

My recipe is adapted from the above ones on my sisters' blog.

Snickers & Oreo Rocky Road:

Makes 16 bars

185g crushed Oreos

100g galaxy cookie crumble or cadbury's oreo creme filled chocolate

150g marshmallows

185g Rice Krispies

450g Your preferred choice of eating chocolate (I used Dairy Milk, galaxy and some cheaper varieties I had in the baking cupboard)

2 tsp vegetable oil

For decoration:

handful of crushed oreos, marshmallows and cookie crumble

Break the Oreos and cookie crumble into cubes.  Chop up marshmallows (I used mini marshmallows so didn't have to do this step).  Measure out Rice Krispies and set everything aside. Reserve a small handful of each for decoration.

Melt the eating chocolate and oil together in a glass bowl set above a pan of boiling water.  

Once it is completely melted, set aside to cool for 10 minutes.  Turn flame down to low and heat the pan of water gently.

Add all the other ingredients into the bowl of chocolate and mix together.

Transfer into a pre greased baking pan.

Sprinkle the reserved goodies on top and press down.

Refrigerate for one hour or until firm, cut and serve and enjoy.

Above is evidence they were enjoyed by all!

What flavours would you put in your rocky road?

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Don't forget Storytelling Sunday on (yep, you guessed it) Sunday!

The first in my new 'Mini Mondays' series about using tags and PL cards in mini albums

Linking up with Food on Fridays, Mouth watering Mondays , TWC, Bru Crew Life and Tidy Mom.

Wordless Wednesday...

Life in the fast lane...

So its been very busy round here and so I thought that I'd do a roundup post to share what we've been up to, things we're loving and things to come on this blog...

1) My family came to visit for the weekend as our baby was getting blessed. We were lucky that their visit coincided with Kirstall Abbey Deli Market and that the sun was shining - more information on it here. Yummy Yank peanut butter brownies and onion bajis were my snacks of choice whilst the rest of the crew got buffalo burgers.
Here we are posing with my little sister who is 20 weeks pregnant now and barely showing - but she is convinced she has a huge bump just as I did at 12 weeks!

Mom was delighted by the allotment stall and got giant onions and marrows for like 25p. Speaking of which what does one do with a giant marrow as she left two with us!

2)  My sister came up trumps with this amazing and very tasty chocolate fudge cake. It was the centre piece of the buffet table at the blessing and got gobbled up very quickly.

3) Some more snapshots of the buffet table. I made the sugar cookies and the oreo rocky road and plan to share the recipes this Foodie Friday on my blog. The lemon and blueberry cupcakes are a family fav and I made them for my friend's wedding - the recipe can be found here on Annie Eats. The funny thing was that I asked my sister (of Cupcake Crazy Gem 'fame') to make the cupcakes and she had pinned this recipe ages ago and didn't realise that I had made them before - sisters think alike I guess!

 4) A rare family shot in our garden after the blessing. Its almost the whole family - one of my sisters is allergic to photos! Gotta love pictures like these and definitely one to be scrapped.

5) I am loving this scrapping tutorial by Elizabeth Kartchner. I love the mini album and want to make one with some of my instagram shots of the baby using song lyrics for journalling and titles. I also love the cute little photo printers she mentions at the end - the selphy and the Zinc no ink. What photo printers do you all have? I want to invest in one so I can scrap the here and now rather than always waiting to do a big order with snapfish or photoboxx.

This is a cute sunny mini book and her most recent video can be found here.

6) This video is doing the rounds on social media and Stephen Merchant is just the funniest ever! 

7) October sees a mini series on my blog - proof that I do still scrapbook! Every Monday I will be sharing a different idea for using journalling cards on an 8.5 by 11 layout. Finally some baby scrapping to show you - a sneak peak below. 

So don't forget marrow recipes, tips about good photo printers or just share what you're loving right now in the comments below.