Travelling Girl: Oslo, Norway

View from the top of the Opera House during a very lovely visit with Maria and Tobias in November 2010. 

Thinking Girl: My love affair with...

Alexander Skarsgård

It's mid summer in Sweden in 1976, August 25th to be exact and suddenly the heavens open up and down falls....Alexander Johan Hjalmar Skarsgård. I and probably half of the entire population of females on the planet thank Stellan Skarsgård and his first wife every day. 

How many of you reading this haven't gazed for an entire hour at the screen following a now seemingly pointless storyline about vampires, werewolves or ghosts just to be able to stare at his face for one hour a week? I know I'm guilty. 

And how many of us haven't wanted to ever offer Alex an orange mocha frappucino? I know I'm guilty. 

My love affair with this prime example of the perfect man started on the very first series of True Blood. "Hey, that guy has a hot accent, shame about the hair" I thought to myself. Turns out he was Swedish and would later remove his long hair wig - I was in love. 

I'm still in love to this day. I'd probably see any movie (excluding Battleship, because I can't bare the thought of Rihanna as an actress) with Alex in it, no matter how awful it might be. And I will continue to die a little inside every time I hear him speak Swedish, or get naked in a crocodile infested swamp in Louisiana. 

And I will most definitely continue to annoy my boyfriend constantly by being obsessed and continuing my ongoing love affair with the beautiful Alexander Johan Hjalmar Skarsgård. 

Do you have any love affairs with certain actors or actresses? 

Which accents are you more attracted to?

New soaps

Here they are everyone, my new creations! I'm currently selling them for £2/€2,50/US$3  a bar and this is including postage - a bargain! If you'd like to order some please contact me via the 'contact me' button on the blog. Thank you!

'Yellow Submarine' - a banana scented soap with a waved texture.

'An apple a day' - a mint and apple scented marble soap, perfect for guys!

'Seville' - an orange scented fiesta soap that smells just like a Seville orange! 

Travelling Girl: Barcelona

Barcelona, Spain - September 2010

View from the top of Montjuïc hill. J and I took the cable car up to enjoy this fantastic view over a city we both very quickly and very easily fell in love with. 

As with my 'Thinking Girl' feature I've decided to introduce 'Travelling Girl' as well. Every Tuesday I'm going to post one picture that means the most to me from a previous trip I've taken. I hope you'll all enjoy this brief little insight and it will make you dream of lovely places on a boring midweek day :) 

Thinking Girl: Why I blog

I've decided to try out making it a feature to write a short article based on 50 blog article ideas from The Ultimate Blog Challenge. I thought that this would not only provide a nice break from the usual content found on this blog, but that it would also help to make more personal connections with my audience. Do let me know how you think this feature is going and whether you'd like to see it stay or go! 


Why I Blog....

It's no secret that I've tried and failed at several blogs in my life - and these mostly failed because I ran out of patience or enthusiasm to keep them running, something of which I'm trying really hard not to do with this blog. 

As a teenager I made my first website with one of those awful free template website which I ran with two friends. It was a complete mishmash of random pages filled with glittery blinking icons, colourful rainbow text and 'About me' pages. Needless to say the birth of this blog was very shortly followed by it's death, at around 15 years old when I grew up and realised it really didn't look that great to wear plaid pants that only made me itchy anyway and dye my hair a tomato red colour that did nothing for my complexion.

Since then I made one or two more blogs. The most recent before this one was a music based blog where I did an album review every week. Unfortunately my enthusiasm for this blog waned as I never received the audience I would have liked, even though I did receive a few nice words from the artists whose albums I did review.

I vowed after that never to make a blog again as it was 'pointless and time consuming'.

Friends and family who have friended me on Facebook will no doubt vouch for me when I say that I'm an avid crafter, maker and baker. I live for creativity and if I had a past life I definitely believe I would have been a barefoot daisy chain wearing, jewellery making, painting hippie who drove a lilac VW. Whenever I make something I usually document it (with a lot of photographs) on my personal Facebook page and this lead to a lot of my family and friends requesting (or rather ordering!) me to make a new blog.

So, here we are today at my new home and outlet for all the things I do in my life. It amazes me still that people actually find my life so interesting! And that's why I blog...because it makes me happy to share my love and passion for the things I do with all of you and know that you all take such a great interest in it as well and that I might perhaps be inspiring people to try new things!

What do you think about this new article feature? 
Would you like to see more posts about the travels I've been on?

Born in the wrong decade

I went shopping yesterday and decided for the millionth time that I really was born in the wrong year. Here's a picture of my favourite buy of yesterday:

Polka dot peter pan collar dress!

It's not as garish and 'sack looking' as it might appear in this picture. When I have it on, it's an entirely different story. It fits like a glove and makes me long to wear this dress on a hot summer day with really curly hair, pink lipstick and a pair of white or nude heels! 

How would you 'dress up' this dress?

What kind of style do you all follow?

Craftathon

I've been very busy lately with all of my crafting projects. I think of this as a blessing as it manages to distract me from the more negative things that have been going on lately. You'd be surprised at how calming it can be to simply sit down and write all of your ideas for future projects out for an hour or two!

The most recent thing I've been up to is baking - something that I'm particularly close to because I just have a natural given talent for it. I think that everybody is born with a talent whether they like it or not and sometimes it just takes people a bit longer to figure out what theirs is.

I used my new stand mixer over the weekend to bake up two cakes for a birthday get together. The first was a chocolate chip cookie dough cake (I used the recipe from one of my favourite baking bloggers and it was a roaring success! How could a 3 layer devils food cake, vanilla cheesecake and cookie dough cake NOT be a success! The second cake was a much more simple two layered pineapple upside down cake.

Besides the baking I've been busy making notes and plans for new soap creations. I've decided on an apple and mint creation and a citrus themed one. I'm definitely curious to try out some marbling techniques this time around! I also purchased the most adorable baby soap mould which I'm planning on using for a in the future babyshower that is still to be planned. I think the idea of receiving a newborn babyshaped, baby scented soap would be lovely.

I've put a lot of knitting projects on hold because I simply haven't had the time to really sit down and get to it properly. I currently have about 3 different projects on the go: a cabled sweater, a baby kimono jacket and a super cute pink baby dress. Let's not even mention the fact that I had a grand idea to knit hats for a charity project in Africa! I fear I'll never get around to finding the time to do that.

I have a lot of fabric printing to do too! Mostly baby related, but I'm also planning a surprise thank you gift for a friend which I think they'll really like. 

Stay tuned to find out more :)

What kind of natural given talents do you all have? And who do you think you inherited them from?

Koninginnedag (the early addition!)

My attempt at a Queens Day outfit :P 

This was my outfit selection for celebrating Queens Day in London today. Queens day is not officially until the 30th April in The Netherlands, but for some reason they do a celebration in London a bit earlier. 

Every year around the same date in April a small festival is put together in Trafalgar Square complete with a few Dutch themed stalls (mostly food related) and a big stage for live bands to play throughout the day. I checked the list of bands this year and couldn't find anyone that I particularly wanted to see besides Rigby, but they were unfortunately going to be on too late for me to see. 

The festival is free to go to and there aren't generally any rules besides that you should try to wear something (or many things!) that are orange, because orange is the national colour of The Netherlands. My outfit selection was originally an orange dress, but the weather wasn't great for that. 

Among the stalls this year were a couple of cheese stalls, poffertjes stall, tulip stall, a herring stall and also various other fast food type stalls. Of course I cannot forget the stroopwafel stall! 

Poffertjes stall

Kaas!

The event is sponsored by the airline EasyJet and this year they were not only giving out discount flight voucher and cute orange windmills, but they also had a group of volunteers out taking polaroid pictures of yourself and your friends for free which I thought was a fantastic idea! That polaroid film actually costs a heck of a lot of money, so I can imagine the loss they made with this. I hope it was worth it! 

It was very fun to get to hear a lot of people speaking Dutch and to get to see a lot of crazy orange outfits. I only hope that the organisers will make sure they advertise a little bit more next year in order to draw in a bigger crowd, and that they will perhaps add a few more different stalls to expand the festival a bit. Maybe ideas like a best dressed competition could also be interesting. 

I'll be sure to be checking it out again next year. I had a great time! 

P.S. Make sure you keep a look out next week for when I'll do my first ever guest post on another blog. I'll tell you more very soon.

New crafts...a certain way to make me happy!

I made soap! I had been curious to try it for a while...so I got some melt and pour soap, some colourants and some scents and away I went. It was slightly expensive because obviously these kind of things are heavy and therefore more costly to ship...and for some reason the VAT on them was killer as well. I think I'll stick to good old eBay for my melt and pour bars next time. 

This is strawberry cheesecake soap - and believe me, it really DOES smell like one! I melted down the chunks of melt and pour soap in the microwave in 30 second blasts until it was completely liquid. After that I halved the mix. In the first one I added just a few drops colouring and in the second one I added considerably more so it would be a much darker red.

I poured the lighter red/almost pink half into a soap mould (but you can use any ordinary baking tin if its a silicone one...probably metal too, but for some reason the idea of liquid and metal makes my hair stand on end!) and then waited a few minutes until there was a skin on both batches of soap. With the darker one I turned it out of the plastic tub it was in and started to roughly chop it up with a knife into cubes. I then added these into the batch of lighter soap, pushing them down gently so they sank into the liquid. 

You have to remember at this point to spray the soap with rubbing alcohol. I didn't have this in a spray form but only a gel form so I used some vodka in a spray bottle which worked just fine as well. Due to the alcohol content of vodka it's pretty much almost the same as vodka. Yep, think about that when you next drink your glass of vodka - you're basically drinking what they use to wash their hands in hospitals! 

A sprinkle of strawberry seeds on top of the soap and all that was left to do was wait a few hours for it to set. I guess it took about 4 hours or so before mine was set and it turned out with no problems at all. Adding those cubes of colour gave a nice effect and once it was chopped up into blocks the effect was really fantastic! For a first attempt I was really, really proud of this and I can't wait to make some more soap. 

Painting birthday cards

Today I spent the day making a birthday card for my moms upcoming birthday. Don't worry, the chances are very unlikely that she'll see this post! And if she does - HAPPY BIIIIRTHDAAAY! 

She really likes elephants so I just watercolour painted this picture I found on google for her onto some card. Its not amazing, but for a hour or so job by someone who doesn't claim to be a painter I'd say it's pretty good. I hope she'll like it as well!

Changes

Since last summer I had quite light blonde hair. My natural hair colour is dark blonde but I went through a phase of being really obsessed with getting lighter hair! I finally did it last summer and I loved it! I got a full head of highlights which appeared to cause relatively little to no damage at all to my past the shoulders long hair, but I bet this was almost mostly due to the fact that my hair is so thick and in such great condition anyway. It also helps that I got it done by a really talented and lovely hairdresser over at GBH hair design .

The good thing about highlights also is that if you have a light coloured natural hair regrowth anyway, the regrowth once the highlights start to grow out is pretty natural looking and all blends in. This means that I didn't have to recolour my hair for almost half a year! Isn't that crazy?

I recently got some more highlights around a month ago to top up and brighten things up, but I felt as if this didn't go as well. The hairdresser was obviously a lot less talented than the previous one and I feel like I was over processed a little, because my hair felt very coarse and sticky for days afterwards and I also found it was a bit too bright than I wanted.

So while having blonde hair has been great I've been feeling for a while now like stepping up to something a little darker again. I'm not talking any chocolate browns or blacks, but rather just a natural looking dark blonde/light brown that is based more around my natural colour. I'm going to the hairdresser next week and I've got the following pictures along as inspiration. And yep, it's just a pure coincidence that all of these girls are 'big nosed girls' like myself ;)

Actress and singer, Charlotte Gainsbourg. I like her almost there but not that in your face kind of bangs/fringe, and her hair colour.

Norwegian Idol star , Linnea Dale. I like the length of her hair and her parting on the side. Also that she has such a natural look but looks so cute!

Film maker, Sofia Coppola. Love the hair colour! It's really the light brown colour I'm looking for.

I'll make sure to blog about whatever change I make next week. You know...if I don't chicken out or anything  !

Pinterest

I'm not sure how you guys feel about the website Pinterest, but I for one love it! It's like one giant moodboard and makes it so much easier to keep track of things that you love instead of having to save a billion bookmarks onto your internet browser.

You can make as many different boards that you want. Then all you have to do is install the 'Pin It' button onto your internet browser and it's as simple as that. Browse any website you want and when you see something that inspires you or that you might want to own in the future for example, just press the pin it button and it goes directly to your board.

My favourite board is my 'for the home' board. It's full of stuff from Modcloth and Lakeland! You can view it here!

When I grow up, I want to be an interior designer

Although I don't live in my own home yet I still can't resist getting some cute homeware things when I see them. Just like these two cups I found the other day. They were in a sale...and then I saw the typography on the left hand side one and fell in love with it. Its the secret interior-designer in me speaking! 

Sunshine and beaches

This weekend has been pretty full and busy for my standards. If I'm not working on weekends I'm either usually not even in the country or I'm just hibernating at home resting and catching up with cooking or crafting.  This weekend however I've had a special visitor in the form of my boyfriend. He is definitely the kind of guy who likes to remain active throughout the day....a complete contrast to someone like me, who can quite happily spend the entire day doing absolutely nothing in particular and not moving from the same place!

Because the weather was supposed to be fairly sunny and not too cold we decided it would be a nice idea to visit an old quaint village in Kent called Rye. It's full of cute old buildings and cobbled streets, as well as unusual gift shops. It can be nice to spend an afternoon walking around exploring, especially if the weather is as good. 

The best part about Rye however is probably the fact that a short bus ride away or a short cycle ride away if you're lucky....(more about that in a minute) lies the beautiful sandy beach of Camber. You might not think a sandy beach is that special, but for someone who lives in England it definitely is, as we don't really get sandy beaches here but rather pebbly ones. Unfortunately by the time we got to the bike rental place it was closed already, but we plan to make up for that by renting some bikes today instead.

I could really have taken pictures at the beach all day long! 

Isn't it nice? And I think that the polaroid camera on my iPhone makes it look even better. 

And lastly, it's always nice to be given the opportunity to sit down at the beach and take in the world so easily as this :)

It may not be Christmas anymore...but....

Earlier on in December I made a Kugelhopf, which are mostly traditionally eaten around that time of year (but can also be enjoyed at any other time of the year as well). 

I thought I'd share the recipe with you because it's something I really enjoyed making and it's something that I think looks really pretty after it's finished.


1) Gather your ingredients: 

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (less than 1 envelope)

2 tablespoons warm water (105–115°F)

1 cup whole milk

7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon pieces and softened

6 tablespoons granulated sugar

3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups golden raisins

1 teaspoon finely grated fresh orange or lemon zest

About 20 whole blanched almonds (1/2 ounces)

1 tablespoon confectioners sugar

2)  Stir together yeast and water in a small bowl and let stand until foamy, 5 to 10 minutes. (If mixture doesn't foam, discard and start over with new yeast.)

Heat milk with 6 tablespoons butter and granulated sugar over low heat, stirring, until mixture is warm (105 to 115°F), butter is melted, and sugar is dissolved.

3)Sift together flour and salt into bowl of standing mixer. Make a well in flour and add yeast mixture. Add warm milk in a slow stream, mixing at low speed with paddle attachment. Increase speed to medium and beat in eggs 1 at a time, then beat in raisins and zest. Continue to beat until dough is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. (Dough will be very sticky.)

4)Butter kugelhopf mold with remaining tablespoon butter. Put 1 almond in each depression in bottom of mold (the almonds are only decorative; you can skip them altogether if your mold has no depressions), then scrape spoonfuls of dough evenly into mold (dough will be very elastic). Cover top of mold with oiled plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let dough rise in a warm place until it fills pan, about 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 400°F.

5)Remove towel from kugelhopf and gently peel off plastic wrap. Bake kugelhopf in middle of oven 15 minutes, then loosely cover mold with foil and continue to bake until golden and a tester inserted in center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes more. Cool in pan 2 minutes, then invert cake onto a rack to cool completely, about 1 hour. Dust with confectioners sugar.

Going dotty

Because of my job I don't often see the point in doing manicures any more because due to the amount of times I have to wash my hands during the day manicures never last more than a day without chipping and turning horrible looking. I have a few days off in the coming week though and because of that I decided to go ahead and do a polka dot manicure. Its the first time that I really used the dotting tool that my lovely friend Savannah gave me, but I think it looks cute anyway. Now let's see how long it lasts!

Finally finished...

Ta da! Finished off this beautiful sea green coloured alpaca cabled neck warmer/scarf. In actual fact, I had finished days ago but only got around to putting on these vintage buttons today (when I say vintage,I mean great grandmother's collection vintage). You can't really see the cables that well because this picture has been taken from the front view and also because I have such a large amount of thick, curly hair to cover it! I hope the recipient will like it as much as I do. I'm almost sad to give it away!

How to protect yourself against vampires...garlic cupcakes!

It's no secret that I'm a big lover of garlic. Pretty much all of my favourite foods have got garlic in them, when I go to restaurants the first thing on the menu that will catch my eye is the word garlic and when I cook at home I always usually use garlic too, even if the recipe doesn't call for it. 

I'm quite sure that I inherited this garlic love from my father. If you thought I was bad, he's even worse. He's been known to even enjoy a 'garlic sandwich'. 

Last week my dad came home for a visit (he works away for months at a time) and today while I was browsing through some of my favourite baking blogs I came across a recipe for garlic cupcakes from The Cupcake Project which I thought would be absolutely perfect to make for him! 

Sure, I know, it sounds like a weird combination but think of all the other great weird food combinations that have worked....: Bacon and maple syrup, chocolate and beer, chocolate and chilli...the list is endless! 

Oh, and sorry, but as usual I was being my forgetful self and only remembered way after I'd finished the baking part that I had forgotten to document the making of it. I'm really sorry about that and promise that next time I'll do a picture tutorial. 

Here's the ingredients you'll need for the chocolate garlic sponge: 

• 2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup of butter (unsalted)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup sour cream
• 4 1/2 oz bittersweet chocolate
• 2/3 cup brewed coffee
• 8 cloves of roasted garlic (you can see the tutorial here of how to roast garlic)

and here is the method on how to make them: 

1) Whisk flour, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl

2) Beat butter and sugar in a bowl for 1 minute until light and fluffy.

3)Beat in eggs and sour cream.

4)Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or the microwave.

5)Mix the chocolate into the wet ingredients.

6)Alternately fold in the flour mixture and coffee into the batter.

7)Mash garlic cloves and mix into batter.

8)Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full.

9)Bake at 350 F for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out of the cupcake clean.

And here's what you'll need for the cream cheese frosting: 

8 oz cream cheese, room temperature

1/4 C unsalted butter, room temperature

3 C powdered sugar, sifted

2 t garlic powder

1 t ground coffee 

Here's the method on how to make the frosting:

1)Beat cream cheese and butter until smooth.

2)Slowly mix in the powdered sugar.

3)Mix in the garlic powder and ground coffee until integrated.

Enjoy! But more importantly, remember to stock up on breathe mints! :P 

Thank you to The Cupcake Project for this great recipe!

I love...

My new Aztec printed skirt! Please ignore the grey socks, they will not be part of this outfit in the future! :P

Dear Charlotte Gainsbourg,

You are really just me, but in celebrity form.

""I wanted to re-do my nose as an adolescent but thank God my father said, 'Keep your personality, your personality is in your nose', so I didn't do it. Everything tends to show you that you shouldn't touch your face, but I don't know... it's difficult being an actress because the camera magnifies absolutely everything."

She tells me she is rigorous about skincare – she recently discovered Crème de la Mer and uses a touch of make-up daily to cover up spots, but overall, she's not very interested in beauty regimens. Her hair is a natural colour ("although I would dye it if it went grey, which is a bit like Botox in a way"), and she cuts her fringe herself. "I don't take the time to do massages or go to spas, for example, and my feet are terrible," she says.

And when she's off duty, Gainsbourg admits, she isn't too bothered about fashion, either. "I'm always wearing the same things: jeans and an old pair of boots. I like to find myself again after wearing the costumes of a film so it's going back to what I'm used to. I don't like making too much effort." For her musical performances and the red carpet, she is dressed by Ghesquière who, she says, helps her to be more adventurous with her choice of clothes.

Otherwise, she says, she is uninterested. "I'm not very classical," she admits, "it doesn't suit me. I'm not really part of the fashion world and I like keeping a distance."

(quote taken from an interview in The Independent)

I have been thinking of a Charlotteesque hairstyle and have been toying with the idea of going back to brunette coloured hair for ages now. What do you guys think?

It's hard to find things better in life than a really good cup of tea

Today I wanted to write a small blog post about one of my favourite brands of tea. If you know me at all, you'll know that one of things I value most highly in life is a good cup of tea.

All my life I've drunk tea the 'British way' (with milk) because hey, that's how we drink it in South Africa too. Ever since I've been spending more time in mainland Europe however I started to expand from just your average black tea into a whole world of flavours and spices and blends...all without milk! European tea and coffee houses are really the best! It did take a lot of convincing, however...I will always remember the running joke of the family of my ex-boyfriend about how I used to drink 'baby tea' because it had milk in it.

In Austria and Germany they have a brand of tea called Teekanne. Teekane specialise in herbal and fruit teas, and I think you can even get them in America now. I think they have the most delightful names...take a look at these:

"French Kiss" (a strawberry and cherry flavoured tea) 

"Heisse Liebe" ("Hot Love".A raspberry and vanilla flavoured tea...my personal favourite! I have boxes of it!)

"Kleine Suende" (This is hard to translate. I think it almost means something like "Little Sinner". It's a blueberry and vanilla flavoured tea)

Aren't those tea names all just adorable? And they taste great too! Check out the other flavours over here 

All pictures sourced from: www.austria-onlineshop.com, www.teekanne.at and www.emmas-enkel.de 

Cast on!

Today I cast on and began this cabled scarf which I hope to turn into a birthday gift for a very special person (I doubt she's reading this blog...and if she is...happy early birthday! haha!). The yarn I've used is a Paton's Silenzio Chunky..it's a blend of wool and alpaca and really soft and gorgeous to knit with. I've only knit up around half a ball of yarn so far and I've only got until next week Friday to finish it - eep!! Wish me luck everyone.

Oh, and don't forget to look out for my future projects which I'll feature on the blog. These will include trying out marbling for the first time (hoping to make a marbled silk scarf) and attempting to knit my first jumper/jersey/sweater (for whatever version of English you use!) which I hope will be a lot easier than trying to knit socks......

Starting spring early with a polka dot dress

Here's one of the dresses I got at H&M the other day. I got a matching rabbit printed one too...but they're really for spring with a quite thin fabric, so I almost froze to death trying to get this picture!

Winter weather calls for one thing only...soup!

Every year I suffer with the same problem. In summer, I go around complaining to anyone who will listen that I'm sick of the heat and that I can't wait for the snow and ice of winter, but a few months into winter I do the complete opposite and complain about how I'm sick of having frozen limbs and can't wait for the humidity and bare legs of summer.

To soften the pain the one thing I absolutely love doing during winter is making soups of all kind. I like to think of myself as a bit of a master of soups, if I'm honest. It's just that I haven't made a bad batch of soup to date! 

Yesterday I made this asparagus soup which I blended up with the new blender I got for my birthday. Here's the recipe to share with you all: 

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

400g fresh asparagus, finely chopped

500ml vegetable stock

salt and pepper

4 tablespoons double cream

1) Heat the olive oil in a saucepan and fry the onion for a few minutes until it's softened up.

2)Add the asparagus and fry it with the onions until that has softened up too.

3) Add the vegetable stock to the mix and boil it. Season the soup with the salt and pepper and let it simmer for around 5-7 minutes.

4) Add the cream and blend the soup until it's silky smooth. 

By the way, you can also add any other green vegetables to this is you feel like it. I added in some peas and it made a nice addition to the soup. Enjoy!

My Birthday

(During my 23rd birthday dinner-party celebration. Silly hats and balloons a requirement)

Yesterday was my 23rd birthday! I already celebrated 2 weeks before by holding a dinner party at my house for 4 of my friends where I made two different variations of tagliatelle pasta for everyone from a recipe which I adapted from the great Italian cooking bible I got for Christmas from my boyfriend. One version was with an Italian ham and cream sauce and the other was a vegetarian option for myself and one of my friends with an asparagus cream sauce - it was a hit! Apart from with my best friend, who I shamefully forgot she's not a fan of peas! For dessert I made a lemon syllabub (one of the easiest and tastiest recipes ever invented I think). I'll post the recipes shortly after making this post and you can find them in the 'Favourite recipes' section of the blog.

We spent the rest of the evening playing Just Dance on the Wii (hilarious, believe me) where I realised I am a master at Take on Me by my Norwegian heroes A-HA and playing our own very special version of Scattegories. It was a lovely evening! I'm glad we all made the effort to get together and celebrate!

(Yesterday during my 23rd birthday lunch with my mom)

Yesterday, during my actual birthday, I spent the day with my mom in Brighton. I'm lucky enough to live within a reasonable distance to Brighton which is definitely one of my favourite cities. It's got a strange laid back cosmopolitan vibe that is very difficult to find elsewhere. I'd love to live there someday! 

My mom and I had lunch at an Italian restaurant together. The portions are huge!! I had a pesto tagliatelle and my mom had a lasagne. 

(Tomato-Pesto Tagliatelle!)

We did a little shopping too. I bought two new adorable dresses - one with polka dots, the other with this cute bunny print on it. I'll make a different post dedicated to those new dresses in the following days from now. I also managed to pick up a super cool new purple tie dye purse on sale in Urban Outfitters. 

After a lot more shopping and stopping off at a sweet little cafe with the most delicious juices we stopped off to visit my brother and his girlfriend who live in Brighton. So all in all, I had a great day!! 

Now on to the important part.....the gifts!!!!!! 

I received this beautiful Skagen watch from my parents. I've been admiring their watches for a long, long time. It's typical Danish Design - clean lines and very modular looking. I absolutely love it! Among other things I also received a lot of new cooking equipment from my parents including a very powerful looking blender (which I plan to test out on a soup recipe later on), a brand new mixer to mix up my cake batters with, some colourful silicone cupcake cases, a year subscription to National Geographic Traveller and, subtle hint, a shoe rack to keep my mountain collection of shoes tidy - ha ha!

My brother and his girlfriend were also very generous. They gave me these polka dot knitting bags so I can finally keep all of my balls of wool tidy and stop having needles scattered all over the floor. They also gave me that little cassette bag filled with a lot of fun things, which you'll see below.

(Sea-green coloured beaded bracelets, nail polish and ice cream earrings!!)

I also received a lot of lovely items from my friends

I this cute heart pendant necklace and loads of balls of yarn in different colours from one friend. A bird printed notebook and an H&M voucher from another friend and a self-made photo album of memories, pyjamas and polka dot socks from another friend. 

So, thank you for all the messages, gifts and well wishes everyone. I had a lovely day and I'm so glad I got to share it with all of you.