Happy New Year!

Happy New Year's Eve! I hope you have a great night, whatever you're doing and you're warm and safe!

Thanks for reading in 2009, you've been very welcome! See you in the '10!

N x

P-P-Pick Up A Penguin!

What a strange inbetweeny day. Not Christmas, not the New Year yet. What do you do on 28th December? Not much happened historically today... check out Wiki for some light (?) reading... and so, I decided that 28th December was my 'get out the knitting needles and make a cat toy' day.


I got some catnip the other day for the cats, and to much hilarity, my eldest (that sounds like he's my child!) went totally nuts for it. If you don't know, catnip is a plant that 'pleasantly stimulates cats' pheromonic receptors, typically resulting in temporary euphoria', and I'm not joking when I say that Charlie is on a trip when he smells it! I put some onto a knitted toy that he plays with and he was rubbing the toy all over his face with huge dilated pupils and a proper look of love for that knitted kitty! So, I'm knitting him a penguin with the catnip powder inside with the stuffing now! Lucky Charlie. He's been totally demasculated by being neutered when he was 6 months old to stop him making kitty babies with the local queens, (very responsible), so the next best thing for him is a love toy just like the one below, I think which is a Jean Greenhowe design. I love her knitted toy designs. What a lucky boy!!

Well, I guess I should get on with tidying up the bombsite that is my lounge since P came back and decided to get ALL of her Christmas presents out at once this afternoon! Oh to be 6 again!


N x

Christmas Eve

Wow, I can't believe it's Christmas Eve already! I've been getting food ready most of the day for our little family drinks and nibbles party tonight. I love having my family round altogether. My Grandad is coming too, and a couple of friends so it'll be a lovely night, before we have to usher them all out, sprinkle Rudolph's magic oats on the garden (so he knows where to stop), and get to bed for an early start in the morning!

I've actually baked 3 batches of Christmas Ginger Cookies today, taking inspiration from the blog and programme I watched yesterday! Some are to hang on my little cookie tree from the garden, and the others I boxed up with ribbon and a christmas tree label for my parents and sister as a little extra present! I love making things for people.

Here's the recipe if you want to try it:

*50g unsalted butter
*2tbsp golden syrup
*100g light brown sugar
*1 egg
*150g plain flour
*1tsp bicarbonate of soda
*1/2 tsp ground ginger
*icing sugar to decorate

1-  Preheat the oven to 180C, 350F, Gas 4. Mix the butter, syrup, sugar and egg in a large bowl.
2 - Sift the rest of the dry ingredients together and stir into the mixture. Form into a dough, adding more flour if it is too sticky.
3 - Roll out the dough on a floured surface until 6mm thick and cut out your cookie shapes.
4 - Put the cookies onto a non stick tray or one lined with greaseproof paper and use a skewer to make holes in the top if you are going to hang them.
5 - Bake for 10 minutes or until cookies are golden brown and take out of the oven and cool before threading with embroidery silk or ribbon and dusting with icing sugar.

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas, lovely people. I hope yours is healthy, happy and without hangover!! See you on the other side!

N x

Don't Assume I Cook!...

It's no secret in my family that I don't like to cook. I can cook, but I just don't enjoy it. I'd actually do most things to get out of having to rustle up something from scratch which takes me 30 minutes to chop and prepare then 45 minutes to wait for it to cook. I'm far too impatient! An added problem is that I can't stand mess... or ready meals. The amount of added salt, sugar chemicals and what not in some of those things scares me to death, plus there's the fact that they taste like plastic once you've cooked them.

I'm not a great 'foodie', in the way that food doesn't give me pleasure and I think that's at the root of my apathy for cooking. I recently found out that I'm highly intollerant to cow's milk and whole eggs, with cashew nuts featuring high on the 'eat these and you'll suffer' list of produce. It was a really interesting experiment that I did with a home testing kit from a reputable company that supplies hospitals and clinics with testing equipment and I was in the middle of having one of my frantic searches for a cure for my daily headaches which have plagued me for the last 20 years. So, I guessed that as I consume cow's milk every day in one form or another I'd give it a go and go 'cold turkey' (very seasonally apt!), and guess what... I'm on day 6 of not having a headache or taking pain killers!! I'm not counting my chickens (or turkeys) yet but if cow's milk and eggs are at the root of my headache woes, then I'm happy to substitute them for something else!

So, lately I've had to read labels on food for the first time in my life, and have realised that milk in one form or another is in most products, from tomato soup to Pringles crisps, to nearly every chocolate, so I've been making my own stuff more so that I know that I'm not consuming some sneaky lactose or egg and I've actually been secretly nearly enjoying it! (oh, plus I've dropped a few pounds from having to cut out bakery stuff! Win all round!)

Somthing that I've realised too, is that I might not actually like cooking but I sure as hell LOVE watching cooking programmes with a whistful dreamy twinkle in my eye wishing that I was Nigella Lawson. I lay on my sofa watching her Christmas Kitchen programme last night, and her velvety voice, total passion for food and gorgeous voluptuousness makes me just want to jump up and bake these chocolate cookies and give them to everyone I know with Christmas music playing in the background and twinkly lights adorning every surface of my whole house! You just can't help but fall in love with Nigella. I want to be her friend. She makes me happy and everything doesn't seem so bad once you've spent half an hour with her!


















As I was reading some random blogs last night I came across this one which made me swoon with excitement! Not So Humble Pie is the most fabulous diary of a Seattle Sweetie who takes basic ingredients and transforms them into works of art with a fun element to her cooking. The reason this tickles my taste buds, and nudges my creative gene is that she bakes cookies! Now, if there's anything I love baking it's cookies. Just the thought of baking something special that I could actually decorate makes me have a big smile on my face... although P does all the decorating in our house when we bake cookies so I never get a look in! Have a look through her older posts, she makes some amazing stuff which looks like it would last about 3.2 seconds if she put them on a table and asked everyone to help themselves! I love the layout of this blog and the way she writes, but it's the photographs that do it for me. Talk about visual merchandising! These Snowflake Cookies are to die for!!!

I guess I'l have to make 2010 the year I start to enjoy cooking, using lactose free milk and whole egg substitute of course!... and I'm starting with watching more Nigella! I'm off to buy some cookie cutters!

N x

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas!

Let it snow... (just a bit though because I'm not that keen...) We woke up to a smattering this morning, but still went out for a play. P loves throwing snow at me for some reason. Can't think why!

The Queen's grandaughter, Zara Phillips attended a wedding this weekend wearing a fabulous fascinator in steel grey which looked amazing. I love it when the royals get dressed up and wear great head wear!

I particularly loved the Duchess of Cornwall's (Prince Charles' wife, Camilla), wedding head piece. An amazing plume of feathers that suited her so well and worked perfectly for her age and for a second wedding. Classy but fabulous showing that fascinators can be worn at any age.

P and I have been on a Christmas baking spree this weekend. We've made vanilla cookies which she had so much fun decorating for everyone, and has made a special one just for Santa for Christmas eve. Bless her!

I've been making presents for my sister and my two friends who I don't see as often as I should. I made Chocolate Brownie Jars! Basically it's the dry ingredients of the recipe layered into the jar, and finished off with Christmas ribbon and instructions on how to bake! I think they look amazing and I'll definitely be doing more of these for other presents throughout the year now. I love home made presents, and you can't beat ones that you can eat!!

I've actually had time to complete all my orders too this week, making a fascinator for Hong Kong, some jewellery and a hair comb for a client in the UK and I forgot to show a fascinator that went over to the States a couple of weeks ago for a repeat client who has lots of children who are all getting married around this time so I'm sure I'll see her again!

For the States. Laura design in English rose with blue and purple feathers:

Jewellery and hair comb for the UK:

Jane design in daffodil yellow with fluffy yellow feathers:

We went to the candlelit carol service in the church tonight which was lovely and walking home in the snow made it feel really Christmassy. Roll on Friday!!

N x

More Pics

John has worked fantastically hard to get me my new product shots within a week! Thanks John! I've finished writing up 95% of the descriptions for the site now, so I'm literally waiting for some artwork to be done for my new look site, then I can put everything together and 'Hey Presto', we're in business for 2010!

Here's the rest of my new shots.

N x

What A Week!

I've had THE best week! Talk about packing it in! It started on Tuesday when I made the 3 1/2 hour drive down to Kent to finally do my photo shoot for my 2010 fascinator range with John at Waterham Studios. After a quick cup of tea when I arrived, we went off to the most gorgeous little seaside town called Whitstable. It genuinely is probably one of my favourite places. Every shop is tiny and a boutique selling flowers, craft stuff, clothing and toys and it was all lit up for Christmas. I LOVED it! John and I went on a hunt for flower props in the fab flower shops, and ended up getting some amazing gerberas and the most beautiful ornamental cabbages! The colours were perfect to compliment my new pieces.

After having a look at the sea and breathing in all that amazing fresh sea air, we went back to John's house to spend the night with his wife and kids who are like my adoptive family when I'm in Kent. They are the most amazing people and I love them to death. I feel very lucky that one of my loveliest friends is also such a wonderful photographer who enables me not only to get some brilliant shots for my products but lets me get totally pampered by a professional make up artist and pose my heart out as my own model! I totally love it! Here's me with my lashes on! These are the second lot, the first lot were so big I could hardly lift my eyes up but they look great on camera!

My make up artist was an amazing young talent called Emily-Rose. She did 2 amazing looks for me which make all the difference to the shots. One 40's style for the big fascinators and a softer look for the wedding pieces. Here's a sneak peak at some of them...

Can't wait to put them all on the site!

Then, as if that wasn't enough excitement, I've just come back from celebrating my friend's 40th birthday at a swanky hotel! We drank champagne, ate gorgeous food and chilled to the max over the weekend... there should be more weeks like this!!

N x