29.3.13

Mini pastel DIY bunting for spring

Hello, and happy bank holiday!

Today I thought I would pop up a very small, very easy craft post, as making crafty things is something I really enjoy but haven't yet share on here.


This is something I made when I was making my mum a birthday card over the weekend, and it looks so cute in my bedroom. It's currently on the memo board above my desk, and brightens it up when I'm in the depths of homework!

It's extremely simple to make; all you have to do is cut sheets of pretty coloured paper into triangles and stick them on some string or ribbon. You can have as many and whatever colours you feel like, and make them as big or small as you like!



I personally love this mini DIY, and plan on making more for my bedroom! My new header is also very obviously inspired by it for spring!
Bye!


Fuchsiaforest on twitter, instagram, pinterest, tumblr and *bloglovin*.

27.3.13

Pistachio shortbread

Hello! Another day, another sweet thing made and eaten by me.

This recipe is for some gorgeous pistachio-crusted shortbread biscuits I made last week. It's originally an Ottolenghi recipe, but I just felt that the biscuits are so good not sharing would be criminal. It's also a bit different to the original.

Image soft, crumbly, buttery shortbread flavoured with cardamom, crusted with pistachio pieces, sprinkled with vanilla sugar before being cooked, and you're about right. They're delicious, but beware before you start that they are quite messy, and are quite a lenghty recipe, due to the leaving in the fridge. But it's worth it, no doubt about it.





*Ingredients*

*Equipment*

*Instructions*
  • Using a pestle and mortar, crush the cardamom pods, before taking the shells off and grinding the seeds to a fine powder.
  • Using the electric mixer, mix the butter, flour, salt, ground cardamom and icing sugar until a paste is formed. You don't need to incorporate much air so stop as soon as you get a paste!
  • Turn out the dough, dust with flour and roll into a log 3-4cm in diameter, and then wrap in cling film before leaving in the fridge for at least an hour.
  • Whilst the dough is chilling, chop or ground the pistachios finely, but leaving a few chunkier pieces. Scatter onto a tray.
  • Brush the log with egg and roll in the pistachios (this is messy) and re wrap with clingfilm. Leave to set in the fridge for 30 minutes.
  • Preheat oven to 150oC.
  • Remove clingfilm and cut log into slices of 5-10mm thick. Layout on baking parchment, with spaces of approx. 2cm between.
  • Sprinkle with vanilla sugar, and put in oven.
  • Bake for approx. 20 minutes, and should remain golden. Remove from oven, and allow to cool before storing in a sealed jar.
Bye!

(P.S. These pictures were taken with my new camera, you like?!??)


Fuchsiaforest on twitter, instagram, pinterest, tumblr and *bloglovin*.

25.3.13

Blog of the week: Dearest Deer

Hello!

This week one of my favourite blogs has been Dunya's amazing one: Dearest deer.
































Dunya's blog is a fashion one, and her outfits are literally perfect. No exaggeration, I would wear all of them any day. Actually, all in the same day. She is also hot.
Lots of her posts are also taken in Brighton, which is about an hour from where I live. I only realised this today, and I'm not sure what relevance it has but yay!
There's also some lifestyle and beauty bits thrown in there, and basically I love it!

So you should all definitely check Dunya's blog out; bye!

Fuchsiaforest on twitter, instagram, pinterest, tumblr and *bloglovin*.

24.3.13

Loving and lusting #16

Hello!
This week's wants have been massively influenced by some of my favourite bloggers, 20 points to anyone who can comment who they are!



















1- fashion.
Spring in the UK is rarely warm, but I think this jumper is great for bringing colour and warmth into an outfit! It's crazily bright, but would look great with just some jeans or shorts.

2- beauty.
& Other Stories is a brand relatively new to the UK, and a child of H&M. They've been featured on a lot of blogs recently, and as their clothes are on the pricey side I headed over to the beauty section of their website. I need a new body scrub, and lemon is one of my favourite scents (this post!), and it's also pretty affordable. Brilliant.

3- other.
I think now you can all appreciate just how cool I truly am, but all I need say is...
Supercalafragalisticexpealidocious! (get me, I'm so cool!)


Fuchsiaforest on twitter, instagram, pinterest, tumblr and *bloglovin*.

22.3.13

Spending ban update #2: New camera!

Well. A bit of a change to my last spending ban update, as you may have guessed from the title of this post. You also may have worked out that the 100 days aren't up.

But. I have an excuse, surprise surprise. And as excuses go, I'd say it's pretty good. Excluding Christmas, I only bought ONE £5 t-shirt in the period of time from September to March. Which is more than 100 days, and as I managed to get enough money for what I was saving up for... I bought it.


A quick, not-the-best snap, but from now on there'll be no more bad photos on here!
























And I love it!

It comes in the form of the Nikon Coolplix L310, and whilst not the fanciest camera around, and definitely not a £600 DSLR, it's what I wanted. It's a bridge camera, so is the perfect (for me) middle between a digital and DSLR camera. I won't go into it now, but let me know if you'd like a post/some more information on it.

So I guess this will be my last spending ban update, but I will still be saving, because all my money's gone, and I want to buy clothes!

Before I *finally* finish, I didn't post on Wednesday because I wanted to wait to use my camera, so apologies on that front.

Bye!


Fuchsiaforest on twitter, instagram, pinterest, tumblr and *bloglovin*.

18.3.13

Blog of the week: Live laugh lipstick

Hello!
This week's blog of the week I only found on Wednesday (through the #bbloggers chat), yet it's already a favourite. It comes in the form of Georgina's blog: Live laugh lipstick.
What a nice bit of alliteration.


























As I said, Georgina's blog is a new find, but is just a really lovely beauty blog. From her wishlist posts, particularly her birthday one, I can tell she has a very similar style to me. Just look at the bag, and you'll see what I mean. Her reviews are also really great, and I now really want to try the Rimmel wake me up foundation after seeing it in her monthly favourites post. She's also just been to LA (the lucky thing!) and has two really nice photo diaries up. Also her header, which is shown above. Aaaah.

Bye!x


Fuchsiaforest on twitter, instagram, pinterest and tumblr.

17.3.13

Loving and lusting #15
















1- fashion.
I recently saw this dress whilst perusing the UO (get me!) website, and really fell in love with it. I actually like everything from the brand, but thought this would make a really nice smart/evening but still summery dress for later in the year. It's a bit different to my normal style, but I love the collar.

2- beauty.
I genuinely seem to have a problem with lusting after mascara, apologies. The reason for this one? I always seem to get smudges under my eyes by the end of the day, and this is no smudge-simples! Also, it was featured in Sali Hughes' top 50 beauty products, which is a bonus. It's also not ridiculously expensive, only more tempting.

3- other.
I saw the black version of this in Alix's latest what's in my bag video, and instantly fell in love, for a number of reasons. One, I've been eyeing up the 'real' version for a while, which is way outside my price range. Two, I always get brown bags, which this one is. And three, it's cheap, and would be just about big enough for school. I've never ordered something similar from eBay before, so it would be very exciting. Yup.

Fuchsiaforest on twitter, instagram, pinterest and tumblr.

15.3.13

Brown leather loafers

Inventive post title, as per usual.

I haven't posted a fashion or style related post for a while now, so thought I would gradually ease my way back in with today's post.























I picked this pair of loafers up back in September from Clark's village in Somerset, for virtually nothing, armed with discount and birthday vouchers. Whilst it's not really warm enough to not be wearing socks just yet in the UK, I dug them out of the shoe cupboard the other day and my love was reignited.






















I really love the simplicity of these shoes, in both the colour and style. Brown, or tan, is one of my
favourite colours to wear in accessories, and I like that the style is a bit more structured than a pump, but still really easy to wear. This exact pair isn't on the website, but there's a similar pair here.
I wore them on this particular occasion with my New Look jeans (completely random size selection). They're a really nice brightish blue colour, and in terms of material are a great dupe for the Topshop Leigh jeans, i.e. they can be rolled up very easily, as I have here. They're just so versatile!



























Please let me know what you all think of this kind of post!
Bye!


Fuchsiaforest on twitter, instagram, pinterest and tumblr.

13.3.13

Lemon cupcakes

My baking posts historically have extremely inventive titles, so here's another one for you...

A couple of weeks ago I made these lemon cupcakes, and thought I would share with you the pictures I took. They are very yummy, and whilst they did go a bit wrong, it was my fault! Also, seeing these pictures I took outside is so strange- the patio I took them on is now covered in a foot of snow! This recipe makes between 12 and 24 cakes, depending on how much you fill each with, and what size cases you use. They are quite unhealthy, but they're healthier than chocolate cupcakes, which is good enough an excuse for me!

































*For the cakes*
  • 110g unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 225g golden caster sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 150g self-raising flour, sifted
  • 125g plain flour, sifted
  • 90ml milk
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon lemon zest
  • 1 tablespoon single/double cream
*For the icing*
  • 200g unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 2 teaspoons lemon zest
  • 500g icing sugar, sifted
*Equipment*
  • 2 12-hole muffin trays with cases
  • 2 large mixing bowls
  • Electric hand mixer
  • Bowl
  • Jug
  • 2 spoons
  • 2 teaspoons
  • 1 knife
  • Oven
*THE RECIPE* (cakes)

  1. Preheat oven to 160oC fan/180oC/gas mark 4, and line tins with cases.
  2. Cream the butter and sugar until smooth and pale with your mixer, in a large mixing bowl.
  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing between each addition.
  4. Combine the flours in a separate bowl.
  5. Combine the milk, lemon juice and cream in a jug.
  6. Add 1/3 of the flour to the original mixture and beat well.
  7. Add 1/3 of the liquids and beat well.
  8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until all incorporated.
  9. Add the lemon zest.
  10. Spoon mixture into cases. Each one should be 2/3 full.
  11. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes, or until golden brown and slightly brown. Basically until they're cooked and won't kill you (which they won't).
  12. Leave to cool for 10 minutes before icing.
*THE RECIPE* (icing)
  1. Beat together the butter, lemon juice, lemon zest and half the icing sugar in a large mixing bowl.
  2. Gradually add the remainder of the icing sugar. Result should be smooth and creamy.
  3. Ice cupcakes, I use this piping bag, and I really like it.
  4. Ta-dah!

Fuchsiaforest on twitter, instagram, pinterest and tumblr.

11.3.13

Blog of the week: Scared Toast

I missed a week last week, but I'm back with my current blog of the week: Tabitha's blog, scared toast.


























I know I say this about every blog, but she has a very cute url/name, and generally just a very cute blog. She's one of my current lifestyle favourites, and some of her recent posts have really made me chuckle. The post you can see in the picture above is one of these; I love the strangeness of the concept! She also blogs relatively anonymously like me, which is nice. She posts some great fashion and food posts amongst the lifestyle ones, and I love her diary of a spendaholic series.

So all go and check Tabitha's blog out!

Fuchsiaforest on twitter, instagram, pinterest and tumblr.

10.3.13

Loving and lusting #14














1- clothes.
The very brief spring-like stint we had at the begginning of this week has made me crave pastel, and I see nothing better than this. It has spring colours, will keep me warm when it's a bit nippy, and it looks amazing. Also? It follows that never-ending dip-dye trend and I think I may actually faint if I don't buy this within the next month.

2- beauty.
It pains me to say it, but I'm yet to join the MAC lipstick party. I don't kno why, but I just never really wear lipstick, so I guess I do know why. Anyway, I think this may be the lipstick to change my mind. Have you seen the colour? Gorgeous!

3- other.
If these aren't cool, I don't know what are. All I need to say is pastel, spotty straws, guys.

Fuchsiaforest on twitter, instagram, pinterest and tumblr.

8.3.13

A day in London #1

Last Sunday I went up to London with my family, and thought I would share a picture or two. I love going up to London, so sharing my day with you may become a bit of a series, if you all like the idea? Anyway, this particular time my brother and dad were going up to watch Arsenal play, so my mum and I were left to roam London. I didn't really want to go shopping, so we had a somewhat cultural day...

We spent most of the day in the V&A Museum, which was really great, but unfortunately no picture territory. I did take some pictures in the cafe, but I'm still a bit short for my camera and the pictures I took weren't great. We looked at the theatre and performance and fashion sections, along with some medieval art work, and then sat down in the cafe. As I said, the pictures unfortunately went badly, but I had a very nice hot chocolate, and very lemony lemon drizzle, whilst my mum had a scone and tea. We were both impressed. We then had a wander around Covent Garden, but here's the good bit.

Leon.







.
















Because we were a bit late, we got a takeaway from Leon, and ohmygosh it was great. Leon is quite a big chain, but I've never been and it was rather scrumptious indeed.

Mainstream takeaways tend to be quite unhealthy, but as they go this one was pretty nutritious. I got
the haloumi burger, and I would definitely rate it. A spelt roll (always better than white), lots of delicious haloumi, rocket, gherkin and pepper. Obviously, my brother had the unhealthiest option, but I'm not going there. It was one of the best chain burgers I've had, although they had ran out of chips, which is not cool, sorry guys.

Please let me know if you like these kind of posts!

Fuchsiaforest on twitter, instagram, pinterest and tumblr.

6.3.13

Mother's day gift guide

For those of us in the UK, mother's day is almost upon us, and scarily close. It's so much earlier this year, and has caught us all out (in my family at least)! If you're organised and sane you will have probably bought your gifts already, but for everyone else here is my little last minute gift guide!
But before I start, I'd just like to say sorry if mother's day is no where near for you or you don't celebrate it. Just look at the pretty pictures instead! Also, (I'm almost done, promise!) some of these are generic, and some are suited to my mother in particular: you know your mother, not me!

















                                                                                                                                                     






1- Another day, another national trust mug. On said National Trust shop peruse (Sheffield Park and gardens, if you're wondering), the mother spotted this mug and all was noted. Wunderlist is genius. She's partial to a bit of bone china, tick. It was actually the blue she liked but it's sold out, so the taupe is on show for you today!

2- oh, so cliched. Yes, flowers are very typical and boring, but they brighten up the room, and even a small bunch of daffodils alongside your main present is nice. I just chose a typical mother's day bouquet from the M&S website, but I like the trough, very nice.

3- ooh, pamperous. In our house, the mother likes to keep a nice bottle of hand lotion in the kitchen where only she can use it, tsch. Obviously, £18 is quite a lot to be paying regularly, so mother's day is the perfect time to keep the stocks up. And neom is a blogger's fave, so credit where credit is due, non?

4- pretty personalised. Rather similar to the blogger-loved casetagram, this phone case is perfect for those instagram-less (how?). It's only really great for iPhone or Samsung galaxy ace (I believe) users, but luckily mama is iPhoned up. And who wouldn't want a phone case full of pictures of her lovely daughter's face!?

5- small but swee- salty. If you know this particular ma, (which hopefully you don't) you will know she has a particular taste for salted chocolate/caramels. For under £5, these delicious caramels are yours. I sound like an auctioneer, maybe this is my calling in life!?

6- more pampering. This mother isn't the hugest fan of pampering, but she does like a bit of l'occitane. She's always happy to receive their verbena body products, so why not mother's day?

7- why not!? Slightly random, but everyone loves a watering can, don't they? Spring should hopefully be on it's way, and there's planting to be done in this garden. And it's the cutest watering can (that ma will like) I've seen.

8- more chocolate, you know me. I couldn't resist, I apologise. We (I) still have Christmas chocolate left over, and more is the last thing we need. But every gift guide deserves a huge box of chocolate, and hotel chocolat is the way forward. Or should I say... Le chocolat est la voie à suivre, get me.

9- fig fig fig. Again, this ma is a fan of all things fig, and a fig candle has been gifted to her many a mother's day. Why not continue a tradition?

So I hope you all enjoyed this gift guide, and now have ideas for mama to suit a variety of budgets.

Bye!x x


Fuchsiaforest on twitter, instagram, pinterest and tumblr.





 

3.3.13

Loving and lusting #13


Good morning!



1-fashion.
I absolutely love this dress for summer, and think it's just the perfect bright floral dress. it's the kind of dress you can dress up or down, but not particularly seasonal as of now...

2- beauty.
I know I've had mascara on my wishlist recently, but this one is being added. It's supposedly the best selling mascara in the UK, and it's just been so hyped up that I feel I have to try it! Sure, Lauren sure. You 'have' to try it...

3-other.
On the many not-optional trips I take to National Trust properties I go on, I like a little peruse of the gift shop. It may not be cool, but you've gotta face it that they have some pretty nice stuff in there. In fact, I almost broke my spending ban for this, but decided seeing as I don't drink coffee or tea, and barely have hot chocolates I could resist. Maybe.
Also, click on the link and see what it's called. Just- oh my.

Have a nice week! (said forcefully)


Fuchsiaforest on twitter, instagram, pinterest and tumblr.


1.3.13

FMS photo a day: March

Hello, and happy March!

During the past month of February I participated in FMS photo a day for the second time. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's basically a daily photo challenge for social media in which Chantelle sets the prompts. It uses the hashtag #FMSphotoaday on Instagram, and I would definitely recommend it!

Here's a summary of my pictures for the month of February:













                                                                                                                                                           



























Fork/ Pattern/ Something beginning with 'e'/ Hope/ Something you smelt/ Soft/ Your name/ Orange/ Guilty pleasure/ 4 o'clock/ Entrance /Where you ate lunch/ Walking/ Love is.../ Inside your fridge/ Perfect/ In your hand/ Something you hate/ I am..../ Where you stood/ Full/ Makes you smile/ A word/ Cloud/ On your bedside table/ Calm/ Playing/ Upside down.

So I hope you all like! I'm doing it throughout March as well, so please let me know if you're doing it in the comments below. And don't forget to check my Instagram out!

Bye!x x


Fuchsiaforest on twitter, instagram, pinterest and tumblr.