My crowning jewels

I've been struck down with a chest infection for the past couple of days so this afternoon, whilst taking it easy, I decided to sort through my jewellery. I have heaps and it all gets a little muddled at times, so I cleaned it all up and separated it into sections. Thoroughly satisfying.

I thought you might like to see my collection!

I love bangles- the above includes a Jessica Kagan Cushman 'I was ripped off by Chanel' and Accessorize 'Forget me Not ' bangles.


I love this huge turquoise and gold collar-style necklace from Primark. It was only £3 and smartens up a plain black dress or tee.

This is one of my favourite pieces, a Helpless Romantic Mirror Mirror necklace.





These are my three most treasured pieces.

1) A bangle from my Mum for my 21st birthday that was engraved with the words 'To love you much and yet to love you more' from the Christina Rossetti sonnet 'Monna Innominata'

2) My name necklace from Edward for my 23rd. My one Big/Carrie guilty pleasure.

3) The Tiffany key from Christmas just gone- I haven't gone more than a day since without wearing it!


A deliciously cute tiny little Shire-horse necklace found in a charity shop last week for £1.

Some more of the quirkier necklaces- a Topshop deer/flora & fauna necklace, a compass that I won in a Christmas cracker that I added to a key necklace, and my cuckoo clock.

The wonderful Samantha Jane, of SamanthaJanex makes the most wonderful lace collars and I was so eager to receive mine after purchasing one from her a couple of weeks ago. It didn't disappoint and I can't wait to team it with a couple of plain black tees and a pretty dress!

She has just set up her Etsy account here- Samantha Jane Etsy where you can purchase one too for a bargain price.



And finally a massive thank you to Claire from French For Cupcake, whose blog giveaway I won recently. This morning I received the most wonderful dinky package with a lovely teacup necklace and a huge aqua bow, along with some sweeties which I greedily ate before taking this photo!

Claire also added a really sweet note and the most amazing business cards I have ever seen so THANK YOU. It really made my day. If you aren't reading Claire's blog already, what are you waiting for?!


I hope everyones week is going well and less germ-infested than mine!

An Enchanted Weekend

This weekend has been so excellent! My limbs are aching from all the walking I've done but it has been worth it. The boy's parents came up to see us and we decided to organise a couple of things to do instead of just aimlessly wandering around London.

Kensington Palace has just opened a non-traditional exhibition called The Enchanted Palace- the rooms have been dressed by artists and designers to evoke the lives of the Princesses that have lived there over some 400 years.

IT WAS AMAZING. Sorry, but it was. It was like stepping into a Tim Walker photograph. Vivienne Westwood dresses stood body-less, Stephen Jones millinery swung from the ceiling and a William Tempest creation made from hundreds of origami cranes was suspended in mid air. The rooms were all named like something from a fairytale- The Room of the Dancing Princesses, The Room of Flight, The Room of Royal Secrets etc.

I was very sad to see that you weren't supposed to take photographs, but I managed to sneak a couple of photos in-

This was the skirt of a dress made by Echo Morgan-


The Vivienne Westwood dress-


This was the Room of Lost Childhood



The gardens were also beautiful-




We also went to the Tate Britain yesterday. Definitely better that the Tate Modern. Pre-Raphaelites win hands down, but there were a few amazing bits of contemporary art. I totally forgot to get the names of the artists of the below pieces- if you know, please tell me!


I know this was Hockney, huge massive murals of trees on all four walls. I felt like I was in the park!



My absolute favourite-

And here are some of my outfits from this weekend, I actually remembered to take photographs of myself whilst still wearing them!

I got this fab seventies maxi-dress from the only vintage shop in Luton for £20 a couple of weeks ago. It has lovely angel sleeves and is actually long enough for me! I always find alot of maxi-dresses swing around above my ankles which is very unflattering.



I wore this little black dress to go for dinner on Saturday night. Bought from my beloved ThriftstoreUK on Livejournal for about £10. It has the most darling sequinned peter pan collar.



I wore this today with my big, stompy army boots- vintage floral tea-dress with Primark chiffon top and thrifted brown tooled leather belt.


Gosh bit of an essay tonight, but sometimes weekends just surprise you with their awesome-ness- I hope you all had a good one too- and this week is only 4 days long. Excellent.

P.S
I'm nearly at 200 followers!! (Well, officially I'm already there if you count Bloglovin'!) I'm seriously amazed and so happy at each and every new follower. Hello! I'm currently pondering another giveaway for all you lovely people for when I reach the big 2-0-0, what do you think?

hearts
x

Ephemera

Do you have piles of things cut from magazines? And pretty postcards kept from far-away places? Pages torn from old books and pictures drawn for you by friends. Illustrated envelopes with your name on and images taken from outgrown t-shirts.





This is one of my most treasured items, an album that I assumed was blank when I bought it for 50p from a car boot sale. It's falling apart, and when assessing the pages later on, I found this...



A drawing of a lady with the words "Just to remember me by" and the date July 18th '09. I think it means 1909 and looking at the high-necked dress and hair style, this seems about right.


What do you do with them? I have drawers full and I hate keeping all these things out of sight.

I need your inspiration- a collage? A scrapbook? I wish I had more walls, so that I could just plaster these things everywhere!

Sweet Dahling

Just because I love her and she is lovely.

And she makes a mean-looking omelette.

A quiet, bright day and a recipe for you

I had a bit of a splurge in Primark today- £70 of splurge eek! I found some great bits though.

I'm going to Malta in May and have been looking for a new suitcase but everything I have seen is either hideously masculine or garishly neon pink. I wanted something cute and stylish, something I would be proud to haul from the baggage carousel and Primark came up trumps again.

You can see the suitcase underneath the cute horse belt and (another) pair of brogues I bought (I think I have an addiction!) The case was £24, a fraction of the price of some of the other highstreet cases I was looking at. It's huge, plenty big for a week away and the best thing about it? It's light. I hate suitcases that are ridiculously heavy before you have even put a single thing in them! It does not bode well when you can't carry an empty suitcase!

I got some lovely lace things too, I'll do some outfit posts later in the week to show you them!

Also, I realised I was getting old today when I squealed with delight at finding the below ironing board cover for a tiny £1! I hate our ironing board because we don't have anywhere to hide it, so anything I can do it to make it prettier is a massive bonus!


I pottered around this afternoon, tidying and sorting out bits to sell and things to bin. I played around with my make-up storage and realised a teacup & saucer is actually pretty perfect! The cup holds all of my brushes and eyeliners, and the saucer for all of my pretty things!



Before I knew it, it was 2pm and the sun was shining with all of its might, so I opened the windows as much as I could and tied back the curtains and just sat in the sunlight all afternoon until I got a bit chilly. The perfect end to the first weekend of spring!

Primrose Bakery Carrot & Orange Cupcakes with Orange Cream Cheese frosting.

Ingredients:
225g carrots peeled and trimmed.
130g raisins
2 large eggs
130g caster sugar
120ml corn oil (I used sunflower oil)
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Grated zest of 1 orange
120g plain flour
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1) Preheat the oven to 160c (fan) or 180c/gas mark 4 and line a muffin tray with cupcake cases ( This will make approx 12-15 cupcakes)

2) Finely grate the carrots and drain of any liquid. Combine the carrots and the raisins in a bowl and leave to one side

3) In a large mixing bowl beat the eggs and sugar together for several minutes and then add the oil, vanilla extract and orange zest and beat well.

4) Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon into a separate bowl, then gradually add these ingredients to the egg and sugar mixture, beating well after each addition. Pour the mixture into the bowl containing the carrots and raisins and stir with a wooden spoon until properly blended.

5) Spoon the mixture carefully into the cases, about 2/3rds full. Bake for approximately 25 minutes or until quite dark brown in colour and springy to the touch. Remove from the oven and leave to cool before icing.

Frosting
Ingredients:
175g cream cheese
450g icing sugar
125g unsalted butter at room temperature
Grated zest of 1 orange

1) Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl and beat well until thoroughly combined and the icing is smooth and pale.

2) This icing must be kept in the fridge, but keeps well.