A day in the life ...

Today has been rather eventful compared to my usual. It started off as a great post day! I received these awesome Seedboms by Kabloom sent by Eco-Market.  I understand that the point of these is to be a bit of a guerrilla gardner, and deploy the 'bom's' into neglected neighbourhoods, but I wont be able to resist using at least a couple of these in my new garden when we move in!

I've also been getting rather excited about shrinky dinks the last couple of days, so I stopped for a few minutes to admire my first attempts. I'm planning on spray painting the SMILE then making it into a necklace. I'm not sure what I am going to do with the diamonds. I might turn the small ones into earrings if I can get hold of the right equipment!

These are seriously addictive! In the next couple of days I will be sharing a Game of Thrones themed Shrinky Dink tutorial, so keep your eyes peeled if you are a GOT fan! Although you will still be able to join in, by making a few small changes, if you are not as crazy about Game of Thrones as I am! (But if you're not into Game of Thrones, I'm sorry we can't be friends. Only kidding, I will still be your friend as long as you start watching it RIGHT NOW!)

After manically doing some work, my Mum turned up to take me shopping for a wedding dress! I have to say, I'm finding it quite stressful. How do you know when you have found 'The One'? I've found a couple that I really love, and maybe when they are altered to fit me, and have a little tweak here and there, they will be perfect. But I don't feel like I will know until that point. Perhaps I am just hopeless at shopping!

Anyway, between  appointments we wandered into a lovely little tea room, having just opened its doors on Friday.

I had a delicious quiche, yum! And as always, Mum had a slice of cake. Shh, don't tell her I told you!

And that was my day! Oh, and I also spotted one of the drivers I used to work with emptying a bin while we were driving along (it's ok, I worked for Biffa, he was meant to be doing that!) We stopped to say hello and managed to cause a bit of a tail back in the process! Whoops!

I still get excited when I see a Biffa truck and try to wave to the driver, hoping that they will recognise me. Is that really sad?

Don't tell me, I know the answer is yes!

Laura xXx

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A day/few days in the life

Did you all have fun bank holiday weekends? I have been abandoned by Chris as he has gone sailing with his dad to Vasiliki. Boohoo! I have been making up for not being in a foreign country by doing 4 very exciting things.  

1. I went on a girls night out with my 3 best pals, where I had 3 cocktails! 

2. I went to a dance show featuring Chris's very talented sister. 

3. I went Bridesmaid dress shopping with my 3 best pals and Chris' sister (my new 4th best pal). 

4. Chris's mum and I went for a little outing on a hunt for the very elusive 'succulent'.  I have been trying to find one of these for ages, but I think that the new trend has caused them to sell out at every shop I have been to! On this occasion however,  I finally found one, hurrah! And I am now a very proud plant parent.

I think I shall name him Spike. He looks like a Spike don't you think? There may be more than one of him in this pot but I shall cross that bridge when I come to re-potting it. I may have to think up some more names then! Spike is of the Haworthia variety of succulents. I believe he could be a  H. margaritifera but I am not sure. Anyone know?

I shall dutifully water him in the summer months (but not too much!), and let him sit in a sunny spot (but not in direct sunlight)! I am sure we will become great friends!

I also bought some other bits and bobs on my travels. A cute little spray bottle to water him with and some air drying clay to try my hand at a new craft.

I made something with my new clay. Can you guess what it is? A fish, a worm, a stick, a bullet? No, you are wrong. It's not actually finished in this picture so I agree it would be hard for you to guess. Maybe I shall tell you some other time.

I ate an ice lolly as is obligatory on sunny days like this.

I tried out my new (and first ever pair of) prescription sunglasses!

...And decided it was really too hot to be wearing double denim. Phew!

Also, if you are a fan of Succulents, you really must check out all of OhNoRachio's succulent posts which have been making me very jealous. I am totally loving both the planters and the succulents in this post. As well as the fact that there may soon be OhNoRachio planter kits! I will definitely be getting my hands on one of those! 

Laura xXx

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Cambridge Blogger Meet

On Saturday the long awaited Cambridge Blogger Meet (or as it became known #camblogmeet) finally happened! I travelled up with Harriet and Rachel who I met for the first time not long ago at our little Southampton bloggers meet. You can see from the above photo just how excited we were!

It was jolly lucky that we all got along so well as the journey to Cambridge took us over 3 hours! But honestly, I couldn't have found 2 nicer girls to spend 6 hours traveling with.

We spent the time very wisely, taking photographs, making sure Rachel's nails were painted, and making lots of silly Vine videos! If you follow me on twitter you may have seen some of our highly entertaining productions.

Finally, we arrived at our destination, to be greeted by the one and only Claire from Claireabellemakes. Claire had pretty much organised the whole event by herself, and what a great job she did too! The most exciting sight was on walking in, not only were we greeted by a whole team of bloggers, but also waiting for us was a lovely goodie bag each! I'll be doing a seperate post on those tomorrow showing all of the goodies inside.

After we had inspected our goodie bags thoroughly there was a draw for 2 extra prizes. One was 5 free Graze boxes, and the other was a free months subscription to Crafty Creatives. I was very lucky that Harriet pulled the name out of the hat (literally Claire's hat), because she picked my name out! Hurrah! I will now be eagerly anticipating my Crafty Creatives box to come next month!

The event was held at Ta Bouche in Cambridge, who kindly put up with us and served us some wonderful drinks and food. We started off with some delicious smoothies, I then had a superfood salad whilst everyone else seemed to have a burger (I was a bit jealous), and of course we had cocktails to finish!

There were just so many of us that sadly I didn't even manage to speak to all the bloggers there! But the ones I did speak to were lovely. Here I am below, an honorary member of the illustrators corner. I stole this photo from Claire's post about the day.

From left to right, Stacie, Emma, Rachel, Emma, Harriet and me!

After the cocktails, those of us that were left went on a mini tour of Cambridge, led by the members of the party that lived in the city. We went to a pretty shop, found a craft market, delved into a sweetie store, and saw a man playing a guitar in a dustbin!

Then we did the grown up touristy bit and had a peek at Trinity College, it was so pretty! The picture below is another one I have pilfered from Claire's post. The same motley crew as the picture earlier with the addition of Michaela on the far right.

After all of that walking we felt we had deserved a rest, so we decided to go for dessert. I had that yummy chocolatey thing above, it was delicious! And look at Rachel's eaton mess, that looked yummy too!

All in all it was a fabulous day, and I discovered that bloggers really are the friendliest people! I am so glad that this little blog has led me to a new group of friends and exciting adventures! What fun!

Tomorrow I will fill you in on what was in the goodie bag, I know you are excited to find out! 

Laura xXx

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South Blogger Meetup

Saturday was a rather exciting day for me, as it was the day of our blogger meet up! Four of us gathered from around the south, and we went for a lovely lunch at the White Star in Southampton.

Pictured above, from left to right is me, Rachel from Ohnorachio, Rosie Simons and Harriet Gray. We had a jolly old time and it felt like we had known eachother for yonks. It was so nice to meet new people (I don't get out much!) especially people that I have lots in common with!

It was also quite inspiring to be around these ladies, as they all have their own etsy shops. I have always wanted to sell something on etsy but have never been able to settle on what, but after our meet up I think I will try to decide soon!

As it was a blogger meet up I felt that we had to have some sort of DIY tutorial pictured. So if you are unsure how to make a cup of tea, please see my Tea making tutorial below!

I am super duper excited for the Cambridge blogger meet up now! I am also plotting another Southampton one on a slightly larger scale so I cant wait to make plans for that either!

I demanded that we have a silly face photo, sorry guys! 

It really was a fab day and I am so glad we did it! Yay for new friends!

Laura xXx

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A day in the life...

Chris abandoned me on saturday to go on a skiing holiday with the boys in Andora. I have been incredibly jealous. Skiing is pretty much the only sport I am any good at and actually enjoy, so I have been in a bit of a grump.  Anyway, on Sunday I allowed myself a lazy day bumbling about, crafting, painting my nails and reading on my brand new kindle! I didn't venture outside the house once, but it is just as well because the weather was awful! 

So here are a few snaps of the day which will be fully revealed in later posts...

I am glad it is now Wednesday, mid way through the week, hurrah! And the prospect of having the girls over tomorrow night has cheered me up. Also I have just received my ASOS order for all my new work clothes, hurrah again!

Laura xXx

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A Day in the life ... A Very Curious Christmas

Do you remember the other day Chris and I went to Bursledon Windmill? Well we went back last friday for the 'Curious Christmas' event that I mentioned in that post. It was quite fun. They had a little Peep Show area with spooky things, stuffed animals, mummified cats and bear sculls!  Check out the mice below playing cards!

We bought a cup of Mulled Cider then watched the live band work their magic. The windmill had been wrapped in Christmas lights and there were lots of Tim Burtonesque characters wandering around.

Then we took a walk into the woods which was beautifully lit, and at the end of the path there was a strange tree with pages from a story book hung from it.

Then we sat down to a rather hilarious story about Michael the Christmas Pudding. It was pretty off the wall but my kind of humour. We were rather chilly once the story had finished as it was all outdoors, so we decided to head home where there was a beef stew waiting for us in the oven. It definitely feels like Christmas now!

Laura xXx

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A day in the life ...

On Tuesday I suggested we take up a new hobby. So I dragged Chris to the Hobbycraft shop and we purchased some watercolour paints, some nice new brushes and a book each! The challenge was then to find somewhere pretty enough to paint. In the end we went to Bursledon Windmill, the picture below does not really do it justice, it is quite pretty! Technically the windmill was closed for refurbishment, but a nice man came out and told us that he didn't mind if we wanted to sit there and paint.  He also told us about an event that is being held tonight, 'A Curious Christmas'. Apparently there will be storytellers and performers taking us on a wonderful and spine chilling adventure. It sounds great so hopefully we are going to go!

Chris wasn't very impressed with how his turned out, but I thought he did very well considering he told me he couldn't paint! Mine wasn't too bad either, but I think we need some more practice. I am looking forward to finding more pretty places to paint!

Laura xXx

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