Sunday Strolls

I spotted this beautiful little house today whilst walking along Portobello Road in Notting Hill, isn't it perfect?  I love the colour of the paintwork and the climbing flowers and could really imagine myself settling in there and making it my home! 

The plan for my Bank Holiday was to meet my girlfriends at the Electric Cinema in Notting Hill and we watch the new Sex and the City movie.  Have you seen it?  I actually prefered it to the first movie but find the fact that the characters are becoming such caricatures a little sad.  They used to have some depth but now they appear to be so self involved!  I did however really warm to Miranda in the movie and felt that she missed out in having any meaty storylines.

Have a great week - i'm off to bed to dream about living in this house.

PS - this picture is the first on the blog from my fancy shiny new Canon 500d!

High Street Dreams

Have you been watching the recent series on BBC1 called High Street Dreams.  The incredibly sucessful Jo Malone of frangrance company fame and Nick Leslau a hot shot property millionare have been helping various entrepreneurs develope their brand with the key aim being to launch their product onto the UK high street.  This week's episode was close to home, Claire English a budding jewellery designer and manufacturer wanted to take her designs to a wider audiance and who could be better to mentor Claire during her journey than my very own employer!  Stephen Webster has taken Claire under his wing and helped her to develop a stunning and exciting collection of jewellery that she was able to pitch to Selfridges.  I was lucky enough to meet Claire in office and she couldn't be nicer. I love her products and think she has really captured that whimsical creative look that is perfect for the jewellery market.  I look forward to one day owning one of her pieces!

Claire's Key Brooch in 925 Silver with 22ct YG and Black Rhodium Vermeil

Found on Claire English

Nelly the elephant.

Ever since seeing Dumbo as a child, I have been fascinated by the elephant!  What amazing creatures and they give off such a regal sense of being - the lion may be King of the Jungle, but the elephant rules in my book!  Back in 2007 I was lucky to spend some time in Kenya and spent some time on safari.  I was spellbound by the elephants as they paraded through the plains - they were just spectacular!  I adore the below photo I took, it takes me back to that feeling of being totally mesmarised by the family infront of me!

Since then anything ele captivates me and when I saw the below cuff on econsciousmarket I knew that I would have to add another piece of beautiful quirky jewellery to my ever growing list of wants and desires!  However, least with this site you have the knowledge that your purchase contributes to a charity of your choice and therefore you can offset the guilt of spending more of the cash that should be saved for rainy days on something more than deserving.

Perfect colour combos

I have an obsession to admit!  I love red shoes.  I have made my way through a number over the years and they have all been very dear to my heart.  My first pair were a pair of towering red leather wedges that were purchased at great expense whilst I was an intern in New York City, I wore them until they could be worn no more and was very sad to see them leave me for shoe heaven. 

My next pair were bought in a favourite shop of mine in NYC - Loehmanns, a store similar to TK Maxx whilst on holiday there in 2003.  This pair were from Miu Miu and and I still dream about them as if they were some urban shoe myth, once again they were worn until they were no longer presentable, probably because I pounded the streets of London come rain or shine in them. My current pair are not quite so upmarket, they are from Next and are a pair of perfect Mary-Janes and alas I think this will be their last summer.  I'm constantly on the look out for a new pair, but haven't seen anything that comes close to replacing them at the moment.

So today whilst catching up on my reader I came across this post on Easy Fashion's blog and I fell in love, not just with the most perfect red shoes, but also the purple socks.   They are just meant to be together and I love the girl's look.  I'm now keen to head out to the shops asap and find myself something in a purple and red combo!

Source Easy Fashion

Elephant Parade!

London has been taken over by elephants and very beautiful ones at that!  For the rest of the summer over 250 elephants will be scattered across the streets of London all brightly painted and customised in aid of Elephant Family.  Elephant Charity was set up in 2002 and aims to raise support for the threatened Asian Elephant! My first spot below was from the bottom of South Molton and there is some beautiful ones in Green Park!  Have you seen any yet?

To buy or not to buy!

What is it about bedding that makes me what to drool!  The below special is from Urban Outfitters and i'm seriously tempted to invest!  That is nothing better on a than climbing into freshly laundered bedding after a long hot soak in the bath!

What else to do but bake!

So i'm still meant to be dieting...but it wasn't the most stunning of bank holidays, infact it was around 2pm when I got hailed on during an afternoon walk that I decided to head back and fire up my unpredictable oven and try out my rather fancy new dualit electric hand whisk that O's parents bought for my birthday!  My £5 Argos special gave up about 2/3 weeks before my birthday, which couldn't have been better timing really!

I'm still struggling with the small issue of getting my cupcakes to rise to the top of the cases,  it's becomming something of a problem for me to be honest... I'm following the recipe to the nose and yet still after numerous attempts it is complete hit or miss as to how they turn out!  O tells me to blame the over, but I've always followed the mantra a bad workmen always blames his tools!

Anyway, this time I didn't have the volcano eruption look and they were all level... just 1cm to short!  Hey Ho... icing always makes them look better and as I've also invested in a piping set from John Lewis I was hoping for some pretty radical results.  Thankfully they appear to have turned our alright and despite making a god awful mess in the kitchen i'm super happy with how they look... I just now have to try and not eat them! 

PS: Thanks Gran for the cake stand - just hope one day my baking will be as good as yours! x