Archive for March 2014
Instagram gallery: March 2014
March seems to have gone in a flash! Here are my favourite Instagram photos from this month 🙂
Read MoreTutorial: One-pot tea cosy
Happy Mother’s Day to my wonderful Mum! 🙂 Hopefully you have opened your present…I’m about to tell people how to make it! My Mum has a little one-pot tea pot, and she asked me to make a little tea cosy for it. When I visited her a few weeks ago, I measured it…
Read MoreSpinach and ricotta enchiladas
This is another recipe from ‘Mexican Food Made Simple‘ by Thomasina Miers, which has quickly become one of my favourite recipe books. You’ll need to make some roast tomato sauce for these enchiladas, which takes a little while but will be worth the effort! We altered the quantities to make this for two, but…
Read MoreMy new sewing machine!
Today was a really exciting day – my new sewing machine arrived! 🙂 My lovely old machine (that used to belong to my Mum and is many, many years old) decided last week that it didn’t want to sew through more than one layer of fabric 🙁 This is my old machine:
Read MoreTagliatelle with sausages, rosemary and porcini mushrooms
Today I made pasta (for only the second time) and remembered how much I enjoy doing it! It’s definitely something to do on a weekend, and it’s easier than you think too. My first attempt was some ravioli, and today I tried out my tagliatelle attachment 🙂 I had to get Tom to help…
Read MoreFabric covered letters
I’ve seen lots of fabric covered letters around recently and have wanted to have a go myself – this weekend I finally got around to it! It is a project that you could complete on an evening after work (if you need a weeknight craft fix, as I often do!) and would make a great…
Read MoreNancy Nicholson – teapot sew kit review
As many of you know, I love all things sewing and embroidery! I’m always keen to develop new skills and learn new stitches (I seem to get stuck with split stitch sometimes!). For Christmas I received a beautiful teapot sewing kit designed by Nancy Nicholson (thank you Helen and Keith!) and I finished it…
Read MoreLemon cupcakes with raspberry curd filling
Having made my raspberry curd I wanted to make something special with it. My friend Laura returned to work following her maternity leave this week, and this seemed like a perfect excuse! I had a little look online for some recipe ideas and was inspired by this one on the Smells Like Home food blog,…
Read MoreGrey’s Monument gallery
[vc_row][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1408390069743{margin-top: 20px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;}”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1408390088863{padding-top: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;}”]This week saw the 250th anniversary of the birth of Earl Grey, and the monument built in his honour is open every Saturday this month. This morning we braved the windy weather to climb to the top – it was definitely worth it because the…
Read MoreThe Festival of Thrift 2014
The Festival of Thrift was launched last year at Lingfield Point in Darlington, with the aim of showing just how much fun and creativity there is to be found in living thriftily and sustainably. Thrifting, the idea of creating something yourself or ‘make-do-and-mend’-ing has definitely seen a huge revival over the past few years…
Read MoreFlow – Book for Paper Lovers
I discovered Flow magazine through Instagram – I kept seeing beautiful photos of things that were in the latest issue! Then I discovered that they had issued a special book to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the magazine. How could I resist?!
Read MoreRaspberry curd
Having made my own lemon curd last year, I’ve been completely hooked on it ever since! But not so long ago I discovered raspberry curd (shop-bought) and decided that I’d definitely have a go at making it myself. This weekend I finally got around to doing it – yay! It’s really creamy and zingy…
Read MoreSpring is in the air!
I’m so excited that spring is in the air! As you can see, our lovely crocus pickwick are in full bloom and we’ve got plenty of other bulbs popping up now too. We spent a bit of time out in the garden this weekend doing a few little jobs to tidy up. But the…
Read MoreLinguine with creamy pesto, caramelised red onion and spinach
I often decided to make up a recipe when I have a particular ingredient that needs using up, and this recipe came out of one of those occasions. We had a little bit of goats cheese left and, after feeling uninspired following a quick internet search, I decided to get a few simple ingredients…
Read MoreA trip to Barter Books
Barter Books in Alnwick, Northumberland is possibly the best bookshop in the world. I have to plan a day trip whenever I go up to Alnwick to allow for lots of looking-at-books time! It is such an incredible place. I visited the shop many, many months ago when my fab friend Tiffany came to stay,…
Read MoreChilaquiles – the real Mexican nachos
Last Sunday, we went to our first Newcastle United home game – despite living here for 9 and a half years! Their opponents were Aston Villa and Tom is a Villa fan (so we won’t mention the score…). I don’t support any football team, so spent the whole game clapping everything! 🙂 We…
Read MoreFabric button badges
I love embroidery and I love badges, so this little project is perfect as it combines the two! It’s also a really good way of using up fabric scraps – I hate having random little bits of lovely fabric left over with no idea what to use them for. I’ve made these badges using…
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