Chevron Nails

I recently tried out some new stickers and used them to make a cute chevron design. They were a little tricky but I think they just about worked. What do you think?

Supplies:

• Barry M - Mint
• Rimmel Nail Tip Whitener (If you have normal white nail varnish use that instead!)
• Seche Clear
• Seche Vite
• Nail Stickers

Start by painting your nails white, I also always use a coat of Seche Clear to protect my nails from discolouring. Then, once completely dry, I simply stuck 2 of the nail stickers horizontally across each nail and painted the green fairly thickly across the entire nail. I removed the stickers immediately, then once dry, topped with a coat of seche vite.

Laura xXx

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Easy Canapes - Tomato, Basil and Goats Cheese

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas! I thought I would share with you another of my favourite canapes while we are still in the party season.

One of my University friends introduced me to the idea of this canape, and ever since then it has been my most used canape recipe. We were put in charge of the food at our University Degree show one year, and of course we wanted to impress, and these certainly did the trick. Although perhaps I wouldn't suggest making them for quite as many people as we did!

Ingredients:

• Cherry Tomatoes
• Basil
• Goats Cheese

The only troublesome bit about making these is scooping out the middles of the tomatoes. It is more messy than difficult, and it doesn't take much time at all if you are only feeding a small group of people.  Just make sure you are prepared with a bowl to put the middles and tops of the tomatoes in and a little spoon to scoop them out. You will probably want to use a knife to free the middle from the edges before you try scooping it out. Then its just a case of popping in a basil leaf, and on top of that a small piece of the goats cheese, yummy!

Top Tip! - Don't waste the middles and tops of your tomatoes, you can use them in a meal like pasta or chilli con carne.  Waste not want not and all that.

Laura xXx

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DIY Stamps

I am very excited to have been asked by Claire of Claireabellemakes to guest post on her blog while she is having a festive break! So please hop on over to see my full DIY Stamp Tutorial post. Keep your eyes peeled as I hear there are going to be some fantastic guest posts over the next couple of weeks.

Laura xXx

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Animal Print Nails

I have wanted to try this design for a while now. It looked quite easy to do so I thought I would give it a try.

I love the effect of this and it really wasn't hard at all. All I did was paint my first coat and let that dry, then I blobbed little dots of pink randomly over the nail. Once those had dried I used my nail art pen to outline the edges of each dot.  Easy peasy!

Supplies;

• Seche Clear
• Barry M 
• Barry M
• Models own Black Nail art Pen
• Seche Vite

Laura xXx

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Easy Canapes - Brie and Bacon with Cranberry and Red Onion Chutney

Today I thought I would start a new mini-series, perfect for the festive season... easy canapes! As you have probably learnt by now I like to impress but i'm not really a fan of long winded and complicated recipes. I think this little canape is perfect for a relaxed evening with friends.

 Ingridients:

• Brie
• Cranberry and Red Onion Chutney
• Bacon (cooked and crisp)
• Small poppy seed crackers

The recipe couldn't really be any easier! Simply chop up your brie into bitesize pieces, assemble them on your crackers. On top goes the chutney, then to top off add a piece of bacon! I prefer to use streaky bacon for this, but normal bacon will do just fine. I grill it until it is crisp then set aside to cool.

Ta daa! The quickest canape ever!

I'll be sharing a few more with you soon.

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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DIY Yourself A Free Christmas Tree

I have been feeling inspired to make some DIY Christmas decorations this year. The other day I saw a faux tree at the Hobbycraft shop. It wasn't your usual Christmas tree, it was white and had no leaves! It did look ever so pretty, but it was far too expensive for me to buy, which got me to thinking, perhaps I could make it myself! So off I went on a mission to find the perfect twig to paint white, and I think I found just the one!

I decided it would be best if I sanded it down so that the paint did not crack off. Unfortunately I had a few disasters where parts of it snapped off during this process, but I just stuck them back on after with a glue gun! After I had finished sanding I painted the whole thing with 2 coats of white paint.

You may remember me mentioning this post for a DIY painted pinecone garland. Well I decided to give it a go, but make individual decorations instead of a garland. I think they look so pretty! I also found some large pinecones so I thought I would paint them too as ornaments.

Wouldn't this be fun to do with kids!? I remember when I was younger we spent one Christmas with the family in Germay and hired out a couple of cabins. Of course we didn't have any decorations with us, so we made our own. It was the most memorable Christmas, and I loved making the decorations, even if it did mean stringing hundreds of pieces of pop corn onto string!

I really love the clean look of my cute little Christmas corner. I may just have to keep my twig and decorate it accordingly for the rest of the year!

Laura xXx

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My New Favorite Blogs

Since I am having some time of  off work at the moment I have been discovering quite a few blogs which I absolutely love! I wanted to share them with you just incase you have not come across them yet.

1.  Say Yes To Hoboken - Written by New Yorker Liz Stanley, this blog is beautifully put together. The fun that Liz has with her family really comes across and I hope that one day when I have children life looks as good as this!

I especially love her tutorial on how to turn pine cones into Christmas decorations, the Wii U event she threw for her kids, and her DIY Russian nesting dolls, all shown below, just click the picture to link to the original post.

2. Creative Soul Spectrum - Amy at Creative Soul Spectrum has some fantastic DIY's like the one below. Who wouldn't want a gold elephant to hang their keys on!? She also has a cute little etsy shop which you can find here.

3. Hank and Hunt - This blog is dedicated to party crafts, I am in love already! This DIY painted acorn garland is my favourite, I love the idea of creating decorations for free! I actually found this tutorial originally on the new Minted blog, which is also worth a visit, all the posts are just beautiful!

I hope these lovely blogs have inspired you today.  I'd love to hear about some of your favourite blogs too.

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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A New Adventure - Wrapped Up in Weddings

Hi, I just wanted to let you know that Chris and I have started a Wedding blog over at Wrapped Up in Weddings. It is all very exciting!

So if you are getting hitched too come and join me as I babble about all the wonderful ideas I find! I would love for you to share your inspiration with me, it's fun to talk about wedding planning! Also, if you are recently married I'd love to see what brilliant ideas you came up with! You can contact me on twitter and I may even share your story on the blog!

Today I have a free printable Bridesmaid party invite available on the blog, just like the one I made in this post. Hurrah!

Laura xXx

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Bridesmaids Day!

On sunday I had all 4 of my bridesmaids over for a lovely relaxed day with lots of food and lots of planning! Here are some snaps we took during the day.

We thought we'd start the day off in style with some Champagne, as you can see from the photo at the top, most of it went all over the table! Whoops!  We then did a little quiz which Kate had very cleverly prepared for us, it was very funny! We chatted about ideas and ate our cupcakes. Many topics were covered; dresses, hen parties, hair, colour schemes, music... the list goes on!

After that we made a massive order for Dominoes Pizza. Needless to say we could not eat it all, but we gave it a good go! Then it was time for Mojitos!  This was probably a foolish idea because then we decided to paint our nails, with which we had varying degrees of success! 

Hot chocolate was next on the list and I had a little surprise for the girls as I had made them all 'Team Bridesmaid' mugs with their names on! I just made myself one with a heart on because technically I can't be part of 'Team Bridesmaid', and 'Team Bride' just sounded a bit sad.  We finished our nails off whilst watching Don't Tell The Bride!

Of course, it was very important that we watched the film 'Bridesmaids' to get a good idea of what we should be prepared for! (Haha, I hope not!) So we got comfy on the sofa with a blanket each and watched it whilst waiting for our nails to dry.

It was a lovely day!

Laura xXx

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