Smarties Cake and Friends...

Good evening,

I've spent the last two evenings baking my arse off in the name of charity.  To raise money for my companies charities we often hold bake sales.  These rather inoffensive events can easily turn into a competitive 'Great British Bake Off' if you're not careful.  Ask anyone who knows me, they'll tell you I'm not famed for being careful.  So, I baked a cake I've seen over on the Pinterest.  I present...

The Chocolate Smarties KitKat cake (Hell Yes).

In all fairness, it was a pretty easy cake to make, although I never want to unwrap another KitKat, ever again.  It's basically a chocolate sponge, covered in buttercream, with KitKats stuck to the outside and Smarties poured on top.  Simple, but effective.  This cake is going to be raffled at the bake sale, so it had to be robust enough to stand a journey both IN and OUT of work again.

I also baked a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, a regular chocolate cake, some vanilla cupcakes, a ginger cake aaaaaaaand a lemon drizzle cake.  What can I say?  I like to bake.

More epic Smarties cake... Actually, I think I'll dedicate this to my Blog Stalker.  You know who you are ;-)

And on that rather delicious note, I shall leave you!  I'll try and get some pictures of the cake trolley tomorrow laden with goodies, including homemade flapjacks, made by someone else, but from my secret recipe! (FYI, the secret is cornflakes.  Shhhhh!)

The Things Young People Do.

Good afternoon The Internet.

So...in order that we can save up a 10% deposit, procure a mortgage, purchase a house and have a baby to put in it, we have decided to move in with my husband's parents for the next year.  The amount we'll save on rent, council tax and utility bills should set us up with a decent deposit and arm us for house hunting.

There are downsides, of course.  We will be giving up our own home, and living in a bedroom and a conservatory type space, which we have been kindly 'lent' by my in laws.  The bedroom isn't too bad, as before we moved in together, we re-did that space.  The real challenge comes in the shape of the extension/conservatory space.  Currently it houses a set of cane furniture, half a kitchen and a hell of a lot of clutter (read: Junk).  There's also patio doors into the main dining room, and a door into the kitchen, as well as downpipes and plumbing which used to be on the outside of the house, but weren't moved when the extension was built.

The plan is to clear the space, sort out the kitchen-y end, move in our furniture, paint, clean and come to terms with quite literally living in someones conservatory.  This is going to be a real tough one, but in a year we will be finding a place of our very own, so it will be worth it.

Sweet Zombie Baby Jesus.

Good evening all,

I found a photography challenge on Pinterest quite a while ago and have been waiting to start it for ages.  Waiting and waiting and waiting.  Well, I shall wait no more!  I'm just going to jump on in and get started.

Wish me luck!

My own personal Forest

Not much going on around here lately, so here's some allotment updates... We're off to paint the shed and do some digging tomorrow.  My peppers and tomatoes are coming along finely and have been repotted.  Aren't they doing well!?

In other news, I've mislaid my memory card for my camera, so until I find it we're back to iPhone pics.  (Or I could pinch one off the Mr...)

Some of My Inspiration

Good Morning The Internet.

So, you know I've shared some of my inspiration before, in the shape of Daniel over at manhattan-nest, well, the guy's up for an Apartment Therapy Homie Award!  Huzzahs all round!  Please vote for him, he's so funny and true it makes my little heart leap.  OK, I'll share the pics of his that inspired me, and you go vote, K?  Simples.

And of course, the bed.  Without this post, my bed would STILL be awful.

Go! Vote! Now!

Ta and thanks and such.

Planning a new bathroom

Good afternoon all,

I'm in the midst of planning a bit of a bathroom update.  I recently re-did the main bathroom, but I'm after something a bit edgier.  It's currently powder pink, with white and pale pink towels, an ornate white mirror and a frosted glass medicine cabinet.  As a renter, this is pretty much the only thing I can change.  It's a pretty small room, but I want to go DARK in there.  My thoughts are near black walls and ceiling, and hot pink pops.  Think 'goth flamingo' and you're there.

Over half the bathroom is tiled in plain white square tile, so that should balance it out, and the floor is a 'lovely' black faux marble texture lino affair.

So, here is my current thought process...

I LOVE the octopus figure.  Mr E hates it.  Something tells me I'll win this one.
I'd show you a before picture, but currently the bath is absolutely filled with balloons from my birthday festivities a few days ago.  What?  That's normal, right?

EDIT:  Here are the before pictures.  Who cares that the bath is full of balloons?  I'm not normal so I shan't pretend to be.  So this is pretty much the view from the door (Why are bathrooms impossible to photograph?)

Notice the ledge above the toilet and sink.

 This wall is entirely white tile, so nothing can be changed there, although I guess a medicine cabinet could probably be screwed into the grout.  Probably.

The wall on the left there, and the reflected wall opposite show that it's a pretty, sweet pink at the mo.

I've never liked the light, but I hadn't (until now) had a better idea.  There was a horrid wire cage thing over an incandescent bulb when we moved in.  At least this was an improvement.

And here's the last wall.  That medicine cabinet is WAAAY too small, even though we don't use this as the main bathroom.  You can see the grey floor here too.

So there you have it, watch this space!

Chocolate Ruffle Cake

What day is today? It's Mickey's Birthday! What a day for a birthday, let's all have some cake!

I made a lovely ruffle cake, thanks to Pinterest (Did someone say 'addiction'?)  It's Hummingbird Bakery Brooklyn Blackout chocolate cake-my go to chocolate cake.  There's three layers of that with chocolate ganache both inside and out.  This is a chocoholics dream.

My house is in full on birthday mode today, with balloons strewn across the floor...

 And my homemade birthday chandelier.  It's just balloons, ribbons, pom poms and a homemade crepe paper fan hanging from wire.  It makes me happy.

 And of course the epic cake.  This also makes me happy.

Well, the tea party is on Saturday, and I'll be making cake pops, rice krispie treats, cupcakes, macarons for the first time, and some savoury bits and bobs.  Expect more pics! :-)

Seedlings are a-growing...

Hi Everyone,

After three weeks on a sunny windowsill above a radiator, my seedlings have started to flourish.  I've got two types of tomatoes and a couple of pepper types.  Soon it will be time to pot these babies on...

See you soon!

Cooking for a New Mum...

Good Morning All.

My sister has just given birth to a beautiful baby girl (cue 'ahhhhs')...

I know absolutely nothing about kiddos, and when I held her in the hospital I was straight up petrified.  I know it's nice to offer to help out at home when someone has a new baby, y'know, so that mum can nap and get clean and rest, but I have NO CLUE.

I figured the most helpful thing I could do would be to batch cook a few meals for them.  (There's mum, dad, and two boys already...)  Oh, I also made cupcakes with pink satin flags.

Welcome to the world, little'un!

Allotted time!

Good Morning!

After sitting on a waiting list for three years, I have finally become the proud owner of an allotment.  It's a half size plot, and in pretty good shape, but there's still plenty of work to be done.  I'll keep you all updated as things grow, and will probably end up posting recipes for my produce too!

Watch this space!