Drawing Zombies!

This week I have mostly been drawing zombies... 

A little while ago I bought a Wacom Bamboo Tablet. I hadn't really used it properly until I found an awesome tutorial on Vectips on how to draw a zombie! Well, that sounded right up my street, so I followed step by step until I had one seriously scary zombie! I shall call him Sid!

Then I realised I could start turning people I know into zombies! Woohoo. So I started with Chris. Here is what he looked like before...

and here he is after...

What do you think? Since my studies on this kind of thing began (two days ago), I have discovered that this is called vector art, and I think this is something I could really get into! I have been enjoying looking at all of the inspiration on vectips, there really are some amazing artists out there!

I think I'll draw myself next time!

Laura xXx

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June Review

In Life

We have now actually signed the contract for our new house! It still doesn't feel real but I am so excited to move in after our holiday at the beginning of July.  I have lots of packing to do!

What We Watched

After Earth - Yup, I enjoyed this. Good work on not adding a crazy random twist M. Night Shyamalan!

Superman - I wasn't a huge fan of this to be honest. There was a bazillion plot holes and it was way too complicated. Kept me entertained for a couple of hours though.

The Thing - I've seen this before but since this is the prequel to the 80's movie we decided to watch them in the correct order! I think they did a really good job of including all the little details from the 80's film.
Hunger Games - I had been wanting to watch this for a while, and it didn't disappoint. It was pretty much what I was expecting, I'm looking forward to the next one coming out.
World War Z - The zombies in this were the craziest I've seen! I always love a good zombie film (or even a bad zombie film!), but this was mostly the first of the two.
A Few Best Men - Not the best film ever made, but it had a few laughs. It had quite a few famous people in it I wasn't expecting, including Olivia Newton John!

We also caught up with Game of Thrones. Man I love this show! Since it finished I have been filling the void by watching Comic Book Girl 19's youtube channel. She has videos which go into depth about the histories about each family, and she really knows her stuff! You can find her channel here.

I am looking forward to reading the books and I think it will probably help to have a little bit more background knowledge coz it sounds flippin' complicated!

What I Read

Born Liars: Why we can't live without Deceit - This was a fascinating read, not my usual sort of thing but really interesting none the less! I must have bought this when it was one of Amazons Daily Deals, because I can't imagine I would have paid full price for it. Basically the book talks about why people lie and how people lie, drawing on studies carried out in the world of psychology, neuroscience and philosophy. Clever stuff!
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - I was hoping this was going to be a really uplifting book, but unfortunately it was actually a little depressing. Great writing no doubt, but it's not going to be one of my favourites I have read this year.

In Blog Land

Thursday the 20th marked the day that crafters joined across the UK for the etsy craft parties. Fortunately two of my blogger friends Rachel from OhNoRachio and Harriet were hosting one in my home town of Southampton.  We had such a fab day, you can see my post about the day here.

Google reader said goodbye! Don't forget, you can follow my blog on Bloglovin' here.

My Favourite Posts

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT - DINING ROOM MAKEOVER

GRAPE EXPECTATIONS - GRAPE COVERED CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

GRADIENT NAIL ART

A NEW VENTURE

ETSY CRAFT PARTY SOUTHAMPTON

Laura xXx

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Nails, Nails and more Nails!

It's nearly been three weeks since my last nail post, I've been getting withdrawal symptoms! So I thought that today I would share with you the nail design I came up with for our Etsy Party. The photos are by Rachel who captured them on the day, you can see the rest of her post on the awesome Etsy party here. 

Supplies;

• Rimmel Lasting Finish - 704 - Sweet as sugar
• Rimmel Lycra Pro - 600 - Peppermint
• Rimmel 60 Seconds - 840 - Blue eyed girl
• Nail Stickers

I really loved this colour combo, not least because it matched my outfit on the day! Some of which you can see in the photo below. No matter how many other nail varnishes I try I always seem to end up coming back to Rimmel. I do think they are great quality varnishes for the price of them.

Speaking of our Etsy party, I had some pretty serious competition for most fabulous nails going on, check out these beauties (which I also stole from Rachel's blog)...

The red and gold triangles are Rachel's, the watermelon nails are Rosie's, and I don't know whose the sparkly gold ones belong to,  but if anyone can tell me I'll give you a biscuit!

Laura xXx

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Healthy Wheat Free Turkey Burger Recipe

Last week I came up with an idea for a healthy, wheat free, turkey burger. And it was pretty yummy! So here's the recipe...

Ingredients;

Burger

• 400g Lean Turkey Mince
• 2 Cloves Garlic
• 1 or 2 tsp Ground Cumin
• Chopped coriander

Crust

• 2 Slices Wheat Free Bread
• Pepper and Salt to taste
• 2 eggs
• Olive oil

Toppings

• Avocado
• Tomato
• Crushed Garlic (probably not a whole one! Just a little bit)
• Coriander
• Lettuce
• Small amount of finely chopped onion

Start off by getting your hands dirty. Crush your garlic cloves into your mince and add the cumin and finely chopped corriander. Mix it all together with your (clean) hands until you think it is even throughout the mixture.  Ball up the mixture then flatten to make the burgers. I made 4 regular sized burgers and 2 mini ones out of this mixture.  Then put them in the fridge to set for an hour or so.

Meanwhile you can make the crust. Get your wheat free bread, preferably a bit stale, but if not just pop them in the toaster for a bit. Then put them in the blender until it has turned into breadcrumbs. Add a little salt and pepper and put this mixture in a shallow bowl. Take another bowl and break 2 eggs in it, then mix together.

Take your burgers out of the fridge. Heat some olive oil in a pan. Dip your burgers in the egg, and then in the breadcrumbs. Now pop on your pan and turn over when nicely browned on one side.

While these are cooking you can make your topping. Take your avocado, chopped tomato, onion, garlic and coriander and mix together in a bowl.

When the burgers are cooked assemble in your bun with a lettuce leaf and your avocado mixture. I also made some sweet potato chips by covering them in oil and baking them in the oven.

This meal felt really satisfying and like I was eating something naughty, but really it is pretty super healthy!  Plus the breadcrumbs were delicious and I don't think you would have been able to tell they were wheat free at all!

This would have been great without the bun too to be honest, and that would have been even healthier!

What are your favourite wheat free meals?

Laura xXx

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Etsy Craft Party Southampton!

Yesterday was the much talked about Southampton Etsy Craft Party, or #SCP as it was dubbed on twitter.

Oh my! Where to start? Rachel from OhNoRachio and Harriet hosted the days events. We really were in for a treat, fantastic decorations, yummy food, crafty supplies to keep us entertained and gifts a plenty, we were in our element! These girls done good!

It was lovely to see a few familiar faces, as well as meeting lots of new crafty friends. Spending the day with lots of likeminded people was fantastic, and I think everyone had a brilliant time!

Above you can see pictures of the prize draw table. Due to the fact that there were so many wonderful sponsors who donated items, everyone got to go away with a prize!  I don't think anyone could have been disappointed, they were all lovely!

I won some super pretty paper straws and a jar of yummy sweeties from the The Sweet Hostess. You must check out her website, it's lovely!

The selection of cakes was amazing, and Els made us some delicious homemade strawberry ice cream, with big chunks of strawberries in! But we didn't just eat, ooh no! We spent the day crafting our little bums off. Harriet had made us all pennants to decorate and embroider with motivational sayings on them. I loved how everyones turned out so different! I went for the classic "dream big", in my blog header font of course!

And the fun didn't end there! We were each given a goodie bag filled to the brim with gifts from generous sponsors!

Look at it all! Can you imagine how excited we were when we opened these up? In the picture above you can see;

Hair bow - Crown and Glory

Hand Cream  - Lush

Badges and stickers - Alphabet Bags

Sleepy Doghnut Brooch - Polkadot Dreams

Kitten Brooch - Ladybird Likes

Cat Tattoos - Harriet Gray

Tiger Card - Ohh Deer

Cake O'clock Card - Nikki McWilliams

Sweet Stuff Print - Charlotte Valance

Audrey Hepburn Print - Katherine Moody

Pretty Peg - Zerabifish

Floral ring - Claireabellemakes

Rose earrings - OneTenZeroSeven

#HASHTAGQUEEN card - In Twos & Threes

 Other sponsors not photographerd were;

Cawston press

Daniel Wellington

Graze

Just Bake

Lactofree

Laura Manfre

Lionheart Mag

Merrimaking

Nicola Rowlands

OhNoRachio

Paper and Chain

Printed

That Northern Lass

Stay Home Club

Emma Carlisle

Rebecca Abell

All in all it was a super duper day! Huge thanks to Rachel and Harriet for organising it, I think everyone will agree that they must have spent a lot of time and effort on everything, and it really was appreciated! I'm looking forward to seeing all my new pals again in the not too distant future! 

For a list of (most of) the people that attended you can find a twitter list here

Laura xXx

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Open For Business!

I've finally opened my Etsy shop! You can visit it here. I will be adding lots more items in the near future, so keep your eyes peeled! 

Laura xXx

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Healthy Pina Colada Ice lollies

I've got a bit of an obsession with pineapple and coconut at the moment, and I have been making delicious ice lollies with the simplest recipe.

Ingredients;

1 tin sliced pineapple in juice - 425g

1 sachet of coconut milk - 200ml

Simply pop it all in a blender then pour into icelolly moulds. I have been drinking any leftovers as a yummy pina colada flavoured smoothie just by adding a little water. Simple huh!? And healthy too!

I also tried a little experiment. I wanted to see which was better, tinned pineapple and packet coconut milk, or fresh pineapple and coconut. The fresh version turned out to be a bit of a disaster. Looks harmless enough right...

Well, it was pretty inedible. For starters it was nearly impossible to get the coconut open. Once I did, I realised there wasn't a lot of water in the coconut, so I decided I would try to blend in some of the coconut flesh. Big mistake! Perhaps if you had a super duper blender this would work better, but I was left with lots of little chunks of coconut, which was not a nice texture. Especially in the drink version, not good!

Packet coconut wins hands down, although I am tempted to try packet coconut with fresh pineapple, that could be a winning combination!

Have you got your ice lolly recipes out yet?

Laura xXx

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