in pursuit of organised-ness

Image from : http://www.paninionline.com/ I used to love the Panini sticker albums & collecting the sticker albums. So when I saw they had released one for the Royal Wedding I thought it may just be grown up enough for me to pick it up. Unfortunately I am yet to find anyone else who is collecting the stickers & I now have a number of doubles I'd like to swap. If you are collecting and would be interested in a swap, leave a comment below or get in touch on Twitter ( @rhiandaniel ). Doubles: 1, 8, 16, 20, 31, 33, 47, 48, 52, 68, 73, 78, 83, 84, 98, 99, 102, 109, 110, 113, 114, 125, 126, 129, 130, 136, 146, 150, 163, 176, 179, 180, 181, 183, 207, 210, 222, 232, 234, 236 Stickers I need: 2, 4, 5, 14, 17, 22, 35, 43, 46, 55, 65, 71, 72, 74, 76, 77, 79, 93, 96, 100, 103, 104, 115, 116, 119, 120, 131, 133, 134, 141, 154, 155, 156, 162, 165, 166, 168, 171, 173, 174, 175, 177, 193, 194, 195, 196, 201, 202, 203, 204, 212, 214, 218, 221, 224, 225, 226, 233, 235, 237, ...

My sister turned 25 this week and has been complaining that I haven't made her a birthday cake. She does live in London, which makes it difficult, but she was home this year. So I decided to make her a cake. The biggest cake I have made so far. A 4 tier sponge cake, covered in buttercream and decorated with sweets!  Each layer consists of a sponge split in two and filled with either raspberry jam or lemon curd. Each on it's own board for ease of serving. From bottom to top, the cake sizes are: 9", 8", 6", 4". Each sponge was smothered in vanilla buttercream and decorated, ready to be assembled at the party venue. Top tier - Sugar paste hearts & Love Hearts with piped buttercream & candy covered chocolate pearls Sugarpaste Happy Birthday banner From Top to Bottom, the sweets I used are: Love Hearts Candy covered chocolates (similar to smarties) White Chocolate Jazzies Dolly Mixtures Fizzy Astro Belts Shrimps Marshmallows And no birthday is complete wi...

You may have heard me mention Brew Drinking Thinkings over the last few weeks, this is beacuse I am one of their food writers. I am one of many bloggers contributing to this fab new online magazine. My focus is home cooking and baking, but the website covers so much more. If you haven't already had a look, go and have a read . I've already published a few cake & baking recipes on the site including: Victoria Sponge with Passion Fruit Cream Fondant Iced Marble Cupcakes Fool-proof Cupcakes   And will be publishing plenty more. You'll also find weekly baking tips on the main Food & Cooking blog page . Keep an eye out for a BDT section appearing on this blog soon to stay up to date on all recipes.

Yes, that's right. Three posts in 2 days! :) As L is for... had no particular week long challenge I figured I had time (& inclination) to move on to the next one without feeling too bogged down. This weeks challenge is to Moisturise . I go through phases when I moisturise all the time, and I do notice how much better my skin is....or rather I notice how bad it feels when I haven't been taking care of it. This post does come at quite a good time as I am very close to finishing my moisturiser and need to buy a new one, and new products always make we want to use them more. I'm also a bit guilty of buying cheaper products, rather than spending on quality. So this is a good opportunity to go and buy a decent moisturiser. Any recommendations would be great! I do tend to moisturise my face once a day, usually before bed. I have been using different day and night moisturiers from Avon. The night one being more of a gel which I do really like and is probably why I moistu...

Slowly catching up with Lottie's Finishing School ! This challenge is all about being Ladylike , and luckily it's an 'easy' one. Here's what Lottie said: All you need to do is think and give a little thought to being ladylike. Think about your own behaviour. Are you ladylike all the time? Do you have a lady like image? If you don’t, what can you change to improve that? Think of a woman from the past or present that you admire. What do you admire about her? Is she ladylike? If so, what makes her ladylike? What is it about her behaviour and look that you like? Lottie defines being ladylike as: Holding yourself with good posture and confidence. Be well presented - always. Move gracefully. Use pleasant language. Use good manners & have good grace. I don't consider myself to be particularly ladylike or un-ladylike. Just somewhere a bit in the middle, I guess. My posture could be better - although being pregnant now I sense it could be a bit ...

I thought it was time I posted a little pregnancy update. I am now 17 weeks (& 3 days) pregnant. Time has actually gone pretty quickly. It really doesn't feel like it's been 5 weeks since I had my scan, and the half way mark seems to be really close all of a sudden. But I am SO excited. Now that it's all sunk in and I've got used to the idea, I can't wait to meet Fidget and see what he or she is going to be like. I am feeling great at the moment. The tiredness seems to have passed (I was up past 11:30 last night & up at 7am and feeling fine). I am eating really well - 3 good meals a day, plus healthy snacks - and some not so healthly, but I reckon baby needs that too. :) I love my fruit and veg at the moment and drink plenty of water. I have pretty much cut out the caffeine, with the exception of 1 cup of tea or coffee if I don't have any de-caff. Haven't had any alcohol since the end of January. I'm not doing a huge amount of exercise as I...

I am so behind on Lottie's Finishing School...but feel like I have some time to get back on track. So, starting where I left off, here is my response to ' K is for... ' This challenge is all about getting organised so that it's easier to be feminine and fabulous each and every morning. You may remember that back in September last year I (or rather hubby) set up a walk-in wardrobe and dressing table for me to use. Well, it doesn't quite look like that anymore! So it was definitely time to sort it all out. All my make-up, brushes, hair stuff was all thrown into the drawer and I couldn't see what I had let alone find what I wanted to use. Here is my table before: Today I have spent some time to empty and go through my make-up drawer so that it now contains my (organised) essentials. Enough to get me going in the morning and ready for bed at night. But with all my other make up and nail varnish stored in a box under my table for when I have time to searc...