E's Birthday Tea (with heaps of cake...)

Yesterday was the perfect excuse to have a day off the dreaded revision that A levels bring: we celebrated E's birthday!

First up, an elegant afternoon tea by the River Cam. We were brought 3 tier stands packed with goodies getting tastier and sweeter as you worked your way up & had the brilliant entertainment of watching kayakers fall in the river (this might have even been one of my favourite parts...)

The prettiest of the selection was the marzipan fruit (shame I'm not keen on marzipan) & the tastiest was definitely the bakewell slice.

After gorging on most of the treats, the staff kindly boxed up the rest for us to take home.

Afternoon tea was good, but my favourite part came later on. 

Our dinner was a selection of all the tastiest foods. We ate our favourites before settling down to a huuuge dose of Eurovision. Am I the only one who's favourite was Hungary? My winner predictions weren't quite perfected this time, but E managed to guess both who came 1st and 2nd... (I'm not jealous at all...*cough*)

To finish the whole shabang was my mother's traditional toblerone cake! I was in charge of decorations & insisted upon using the mustache sweet, hence the 'I mustache you a question' part...

Happy Birthday E!

Exams are in full flow right now, so here is a little procrastination with some tuuunes!

Needing/Getting by OK Go and The World at Large by Modest Mouse.

Coffee illustrations

When I was younger I was only aware of two types of coffee: caffeinated or decaffeinated.

Then I began waitressing in the most wonderful Michelin Starred Restaurant & promptly was introduced to a whole new world of extravagant coffee orders (and delicious petits fours too!). 

Even though I still don't drink coffee myself, I love the smells & variety you get. So I had to share this arty representation of the coffee family... 

You can buy the print at this beautiful little etsy shop. I adore her style.

Food Festival

Whilst roaming around the shopping centre before my work, I stumbled upon a bustling Food Festival. Packed with delicious savoury treats, food demonstrations & endless tasters, this was the place to be.

Being a freebie hoarder, I walked past all the edible samples, gobbling them as I went along...

The item highest up on my foodie wishlist was this veggie flatbread, just looking at it makes my mouth water... 

Sadly by this time, I had already bought my lunch, so I had to let it slip...

But I have found a similar recipe which looks a-mazing!! Here's the link, it's definitely a good 'un.

To Build a Home

So you've heard of spring cleaning, but why not go a step further & change everything...

(Well not completely everything, but I'm talking a minimum of redecorating...)

With these 'masses' of sun, as us English folks like to call it, comes an urge to redecorate my room for a more summery feel. So here I have some design inspiration (hopefully with a spring / summer feel!)...

My windowsill basically looks like this (okay so maybe I'm dreaming a little..) but I do still have my plants from my garden centre post -ALIVE! Hooray.

I am totally in love with city homes/apartments with blossom & trees around them. The best of both worlds...maybe one day?

Nature is a beauty!

Cardiff Part 2

Open days are suuuper important. Mainly to see the course & university BUT of course visiting the city is also a major factor (I think so at least)... So my afternoon in Cardiff was spent doing just that.

As you may have guessed from my previous post, I just had to visit Cardiff's Urban Outfitters. One of the most incredible shops known to man.

Even from the exterior you can see this shop has some seriously cool stuff inside. Thankfully their limit to items you can try on is pretty high, so I bundled everything into the changing room and tumbled into a state of pure joy.

After falling in love with pretty much the whole shop all over again, it was time to do some more exploring... 

To begin with, the Cardiff Market.

We had a quick look around the stalls before landing on this little Welsh gem & bought some traditional Welsh cakes (giant ones of course). They were delicious, I'm a huge fan of fruity cakes!

We then made it our mission to see the sea & on our way walked past this hunk of a castle.

Once we arrived at Cardiff bay it was pretty empty & windy, but it was really nice to see the sea and discover the area.

One thing I found interesting was the way everything was translated into Welsh, the only Welsh I know is 'Araf' which means 'slow' & seems to be on all roads... Its a really pretty language though, and I love the accents.

The day we were there also happened to coincide with the Welsh Varsity match, a huuuge event over there, so there were a lot of proud fans declaring their love for their teams...and some pretty crazy outfits.

We arrived back at the station just in time to catch our train. I spent the journey home looking through the Cardiff prospectus, listening to some seriously good songs & munching on the Welsh cakes as the sun set...

Take me back?

Cardiff Part 1

A couple of days ago was the Cardiff University Open Day.  

For me this meant waking up at the crack of dawn with 2 alarm clocks & travelling across England & Wales to get there before 9AM. (You can see it meant a lot to me!) I arrived at the station on time, just as the sun had risen, along with the many communters who were waiting for their trains.

Two trains, 3 hours & a playlist later, I arrived at Cardiff Central train station. 

Before long, I was finding my way around different talks and presentations which were really informative (I soo recommend them to any prospective students).

The course I was interested in was Architecture.

 I had a look around the workshops & its so interesting to see how creative the students are with their work and models. One of my favourite aspects of the course was their style of presenting their work. You can clearly see the thought processes and inspirations each student had - its inspiring!

Once the talks & tours were finished, I bought myself a light lunch (sushi of course!) & picnicked in one of the most beautiful parks. Flowers and blossom filled the space & it was a perfect (although slightly chilly) lunch.

I say 'chilly' but compared to previous weather, we're practically in summer, so I decided to get my favourite shoes out - say hello to my beloved Toms!

I then met with M & we made our way into the inner city for a slightly warmer addition to lunch & I picked this delicious looking thing!

On the other hand, M picked this beast of a sandwich. I was a teeny bit jealous...

We then hit the the city centre. I adore Cardiff's city centre, it looks so pretty, has the perfect shops & so many of them!

When I say 'perfect shops', I am not kidding. My all time favourite was there. And here is a sneak peak of it before part 2...

P.s. I think I am in love with these scalloped shorts & stripes...

Hair Scrunchie D.I.Y.

My 90s meets 60s scrunchie is finally done.

And if you want to know how to do it, here is my little tutorial. It is perfect if you like to add a personal touch to your style and super easy (I never sew and even I can say that!).

What you will need:

• Material of choice (approx 60cm x 20cm)
• Needle
• Thread of a similar colour to your material
• Plain Hair Band

Firstly, I chose my material and thread. Quite taken in by the whole 60s theme I searched the house for a polka dot material, and there it was, b-e-a-utiful.

I then cut it to size with my teeny tiny material scissors which made a pretty wobbly line, but this doesn't matter too much as it'll be hidden - a vague rectangle does help though...

Then I took one of the long edges of the rectangle, and scrunched all that side together (as below) before putting this scrunched area into my hair band.

Then I started doing a teeny tiny running stitch along the outside seam, with the eges folded in so you can't see the ugly sides. (Unless you're going for a grunge look...)

The rest is just sewing from there, I used running stitch all the way through as that's what's easiest, but feel free to make it fancy! My 'fancy' addition was the bunny ears which I adoreeeee!

What I love about this D.I.Y is that I will actually use it, and it does look adorable on a messy bun!

(but I have to admit, buying one from a shop is much much quicker even if it is easy to make!)