Baking Boden Biscuits

Baking Boden Biscuits - I used to love when we had to write stories using alliteration at school, and this title is incredibly satisfying to say!

So as usual, I've been off making some things for Boden photoshoots - only this time I have been baking instead of my usual sorts of crafting. On a random 3am trip to Tesco one night whilst at university, I picked up these fun alphabet biscuit cutters for the grand price of 10p!! How could I not!!

This resulted in some delightful messages being baked for me and my housemates, but then they've pretty much been in a drawer since then!

Then, as part of an Autumn Mini Girls shoot, there was talk of baking 'Boden' as biscuits for a shoot, so I dug out my cutters and got busy creating. It's very exciting to now see them in quite a few pages in the catalogue, and here they are:

Painting!

Sometimes there's nothing like a spot of painting in the garden. When myself and a friend returned from our first gap year in 2005, we spent the few weeks after we were back painting paper in the garden to make very elaborate scrap books as memories of our trip!

Luckily, I get to paint quite often for work. Normally it's just painting old furniture we've bought from ebay, or plain wooden ikea furniture, but sometimes I get to paint signs, or more recently and even more excitingly....mushrooms!

Summer shoot - Cape Town 2012

(Most of the boys had never heard of 'Welly Wanging' so called it something much ruder....)

Summer - LA 2013

Henna painted feet - gorgeous in the soft sand

Baby Winter - London 2013

Painting beautiful wooden mushrooms, bought from Ben May at Forest Crafts

New Phone: Many Photos

I've always been a one for basic phones, as I figured I only need something that phones - why do I need anything else. And so until recently I was the very happy owner of a Nokia, supposedly with internet, although it never worked, but it phoned and texted and had the battery life of a week so it was all I needed.

So when it died a few months ago I was very sad. Especially when I went to look for a new one and was told, at best I'd get a new one with the battery life of a day. Not helpful.

Thankfully, I got a lovely Samsung phone, and as I don't really ever use the internet, except WiFi, the battery lasts a good 3 days, so I can cope with that. The bonus of getting a new phone, is that I've got one with a decent camera, which is amazing as I love taking random pictures.

So here are a few from my recent adventures with my new phone:

A plate in Jamie's in Covent Garden

Making bunting

This sign made me laugh

Beautiful beach huts in stormy weather in Southwold

Making party hats

That lovely moment when you get home in Summer and really fancy a cup of tea and a cider...and so have both!

Foraging For Dinner & Other Outdoor Adventures

How has it been a month since my last post!! Wow time flies when it's sunny. Apologies, I have been holidaying in exciting places and generally hanging around outside in the sun and away from my laptop. So here goes with a few short posts which have been drafts for ages to make up for it.

I've been reading a lot of articles lately (and most recently in the current Stylist magazine) about eating local, eating in season, and also about foraging for food. When we went skiing over new year, the friends we went with brought a few delicious bottles of sloe gin and plum vodka with them, and I was really impressed to find out that they had gathered all of the sloes and plums from Battersea Common and the surrounding area. They both, by the way, did a fabulous job of warming us up and giving me a little Dutch courage on the slopes and

I've always dreamed of having a vegetable patch in the garden, and just being able to go out and rummage around for something to add to your dinner, however my parents have a very big slug problem in their garden, and so everything I tried to grow growing up got severely munched, even before it was 5cm tall! Very disheartening!

Just over a month ago, a group of us went to stay in a friends gorgeous beach house in Wrabness (Essex). It was right on the beach, with only solar panels for lights at night, and water if we filled the tank up, it was peaceful and so relaxing. On our walk along the beach on the Saturday morning, the friend mentioned that there was a shipwreck which at low tide was completely exposed,and covered in mussels!! So we decided to go for a forage!

When we got there, we were a bit late and so the tide was more like knee deep and on its was in, but we had a lot of fun rummaging around and got a fantastic number of mussels to cook for dinner, along with a few whelks and one lonely oyster. 

It was fantastic, adding in some cream, garlic and onions, we made a very professional looking dinner, and there was no way we could have had it any fresher. 

There's something about eating food outside that makes it taste better, barbecues, camping, all food tastes better when you're outdoors, but when it's only been a few hours from sea to plate, it is unbeatable.