I want to do a regular (ok, let’s just see how I do) post on what I’m watching each week. I love to watch TV, films and have recently become quite hooked on YouTube so I want to showcase my favourites here.
I wasn’t sure about this Robinson Crusoe themed reality show at first, but I. AM. HOOKED. It’s hilarious, scary, shout at the TV type programming. One minute I think they are doughnuts, the next I’m proud of the kindness they can show each other, they are nutters however and as such make fantastic viewing.
I know this has been on for ages, but it is BRILLIANT, sheer genius and I am so, SO sad that it will be over soon. Luckily or not so luckily they’ve broken up the last season so the second half of the finale season (sob, sob) will be on in the new year.
I found Hannah through a recommendation from, Zoella on one of her videos, and I haven’t stopped watching her since. She started off as a beauty blogger and vlogger and since becoming mum of the handsome little G she has developed into a much more mummy focused vlogger. Hannah and partner live in London with their little man but have recently been vlogging from Florida where they have been staying for the month. She provides funny, honest, easy to watch weekly vlogs and I definitely recommend you have a look and check her out.
So what have you been watching recently? Please let me know in the comments, I’m always after a new show or YouTube-r to get hooked on.
So I’ve had this sewing machine gathering dust in a box for about a year since we moved, I actually bought it about 4/5 years ago when I was hell bent on crafting a wardrobe worth of clothes for my daughter M and myself, hmmm… I made one dress for her, a very slapdash, hand scrawled, a line trapeze style dress out of fleece (cus it doesn’t fray, less edges to hem) sewed on some buttons, felt rather proud of myself and them promptly didn’t sew anything again.
I went on a course around that time to get my self better accustomed with the machine and had a great day making my very own tote bag. The course was in Brixton at ‘Oh Sew‘ and has sadly now closed, as the lady who owns it has relocated, however there are lots of courses available across the country.
A place I am most interested in going to locally is Guthrie and Ghani in Birmingham. A very lovely looking little haberdashery, situated in the centre of lovely Moseley, which runs classes weekly.
Anyway I digress, this post is all about showing off, ha ha! Guess what? Yes, the sewing machine has seen the light of day and with a lot of motivation and a small amount of practical help from my mum I’ve managed to make a garment.
The plan was to create a little summer dress for M however when opening the so-called ‘easy’ pattern I noticed not only my bottom jaw drop with a thud to the carpet but also the gaping hole on my mum’s face. She is a pretty damn capable sewer, she’s my go to lady for hems, alterations and she’s the queen of the curtain! But even this lady was confused by this material based mountain. So I was like, ‘well perhaps we can make something simpler, maybe without a pattern?’ And on I went, I folded the fantastic material purchased at the one and only Birmingham Rag Market and drew a rough a line shape of a skirt, using a ruler and ensuring it was plenty big enough at the waist to fit my little model and allow room for the bunching of the elastic.
Anyway, bla de bla de blah later, a couple of tangles on the sewing machine and we had a nearly finished skirt. Mum had to leave at this point and me and my little model had to pick up Mr Potato from work.
The thing is with me, I want everything NOW, I have no patience, not for things I want and was on my own with an un-hemmed skirt. Now I know how to Wonder Web a garment, you know the iron on stuff, that is aMAAZing but I wanted this skirt to be ‘proppa’, you know quality. So call to mum, brief description of hemming given, me more confused than ever and then I went to YouTube, what did I ever do without the internet? I found a lovely American lady who took me through it step by step in less than 4 minutes. I’d got it. An hour later, pressed and hemmed (without burning the carpet this time) it was ready for M to try on before bedtime
So in short this is my plan, not to stop here but try to keep going, you’ll have to hold me to it though. Next projects planned include some essential sewer’s accessories, a pin cushion and a needle book. Wish me luck!
Are you any good at sewing? What have you made recently?
So this week is my little lady’s 6th birthday, excuse me whilst I fan myself down, knock back a bottle of gin and lay down for a while, but yes, she is growing up (runs away and weeps). Ok, ok I’m pulling my self together. I have to say I’m not the biggest fan of these packaged birthday scenes everyone seems so into these days, or is that just Solihull? I know the kids love them. in fact I have been to some pretty awesome ones this year. And look life is busy, life is hectic and if it pleases your child and makes your life easier, then go you, in fact, maybe I should have done that, no really *quickly wipes beads of sweat from brow*. However, I really like that I can, just about, still string a home made, home based party together and M will still have an ace time. A couple of classic party games, a bit of cheese and pineapple, a bowl of ice cream and a party bag, you can’t fault it can you? Anyway as always the anxiety has begun, ha ha, I told you I’m not knocking your pre made parties, you seem like fun but I love a struggle! So I’ve pinned, see here. I’ve planned, see mad sleepless night’s mind map below, and I think I’m nearly there.
So to start with, I had plans of buying invites, of course I forgot and ended up having to make (this aint as glamorous as it sounds) and print them myself. Canva is brilliant for this stuff, fling together a background and some text and it looks like you’ve had the invites designed for you, well I hope it did?
So onto entertainment, party games are where it is at, so the plan is fairly simple:
When they (the small ones, beware) get there, whack on the bubble machine, a little inane music and let them run wild, whilst children assemble offer face painting. a skill you may have picked up on Pinterest and now realise is something you could possibly do as a career should something awful occur at work and you be forced to set up your own business, just saying.
Once all the guests have arrived, commence the schedule (there is precision here, I am a teacher you know).
1. Activity – Design your own party bags (previously ordered 10x canvas drawstring bags and 3 packets of fabric pens)
2. Wind it up – musical bumps
3. Classic, can’t be missed – pin the tail on the donkey
4. Treasure hunt – preparation well and truly delegated to Grandma, she did them so well when I was a child it would be rude not to
5. Gather the children for the finale, party would not be a party without, PASS THE freaking PARCEL – it’s always a winner, well it is if you wrap interim presents right?
6. The FOOD – last year we delegated well, again, to Grandad, it was ace but under appreciated (aka he made so much we wasted half of it) so this year we are pairing down and simplifying, the dinner this year is simply pizza and ice cream. Slices of warm cheese and tomato doled out to all, a notional offer of crudites and hummus to make me feel ever so slightly virtuous. And then for pudding, ice cream, I have dreams of going all Pinterest (I know I’m obsessed) and providing individual jars of the stuff with an array of sprinkles but inevitably the paper bowls will be out and the kids will still love it.
7. Cake – candles burning, wax melting, clanging chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’. Cake generously provided by amazeball chef Grandad or bought from local supermarket, equally pleasing birthday girl. Sliced, packed in party bags with essential bubbles, balloon, toys (Amazon has been a hero here with multi buys of springs and finger puppets for bargain prices) and sweeties/chocolates (of course).
8. Children slowly depart. Daughter runs round in circles for next hour on sugar high. Mother collapses, only intravenous drip of wine will revive her now.
Done! Well that’s the plan anyway…
Maybe Mcdonalds wouldn’t be frowned apon for next year? What do you do for your children’s birthdays?
So this week, as well as whipping by like lightning, has been blissful. I love holiday times with my little lady and feel very lucky to be able to spend most of these days with her.
Monday began the holidays with Twycross Zoo, just a 40 minute drive from us and a guaranteed fun day out. Tuesday found us wandering down our local canal, feeding the ducks and muttering about how we really should do this more. Wednesday with more rain, was spent with a quick trip to the supermarket and a potter round the newly housed local library then an afternoon slobbed out on the sofa watching Tinkerbell (living the dream!).
Then today, well today was a special day. We began with a trip to the morning showing of ‘Charlie and Lola’s Extremely New Play’ at the REP theatre in Birmingham, well wow, it was simply magical. I won’t give away too much but I highly recommend this production, the puppetry is amazing and I found myself grinning from ear to ear throughout the whole show. It’s on until Saturday here in Birmingham, see here for details. We have seen this company before in Wimbledon at the Polka Theatre, an awesome children’s theatre in south London so I was so excited to hear they were touring and dropping by on old Brum with their new production.
The second wonderous event today ( I won’t count the unfortunate trip to Monsoon and the calamitous accidental purchasing of not one, but two, oh ok, three items of beautiful clothing in between, that is to be kept between me and you ok?). Anyway, if it wasn’t for my stumbling on a few bargains, which may have hampered our chances of being seated immediately at a couple of other restaurants, we wouldn’t have been forced to try the new burger joint in the Bull Ring shopping centre . So Five Guys, oh my. It. Is. AMAZING. I had thought the delights of such dirty, filthy American burgers would never come to the tropical climes of Birmingham, but they have. AND…drum roll please, they only go and cater for coeliacs. Now don’t go all ape on me dear readers they didn’t go so far as offering gluten free buns, although their website does state you can bring your on should you wish. They do however offer god damn delicious, delectable and down right d__________ (you fill the blank with an appropriate alliterative adjective, go on spoil yourself) bun free burgers with ALL the toppings and frankly fantastic chips, golden brown, skin on, crispy, salty goodness (most importantly for us coeliacs, not cross contaminated by any other frying, just pure glorious potatoes). I’m dribbling salivating just thinking about them. *Sigh* People of Birmingham, people of anywhere, seek this place out, it’s awesome.
Ok, and onto the third and final, ok maybe less monumental but equally wonderful flavour revelation of the day, and feeling rather virtuous too I might add. I may be a tad late to the party on this one, but when seeking out a naughty little sweet something before we popped on the train home, we found Yoomoo frozen yoghurt stand in the Food Hall in Selfridges. I don’t know why I’ve never tried this before but boy is it good, we had a vanilla pot with strawberries, white chocolate buttons and chocolate sauce (good choice lil m) and I have to say me and my little companion were mighty pleased with our choice.
So after another classic game of eye-spy on the train back, we are home, cartoons might be on the telly, we might well be planning to *forget* we have washing to sort and we may have turned a blind eye to the mounting toy covered carpet in the living room, but who cares, we had an ace day and I hope you didn’t mind me sharing it with you.
If there is anyone out there, I just thought I should let you know I’m making a few changes. I haven’t written a blog post here for quite some time because it just wasn’t working for me, partly because my life changed and things got a bit hectic but partly because I felt a bit limited. So, a change is as good as rest, so they say, and that is what I’m up to. I’m hoping to expand my repertoire, give you a little window into more that makes me and just have a place to put stuff, you know STUFF, other things apart from food, well, as well as food (I wouldn’t desert you like that dear food). So to start we have change of name. Ice Cream Castles, a lyric from one of my favourite Joni Mitchell songs. Google it.
Me? Well I was getting a bit sick of this poor lonesome blog giving me guilt trips so after spending most of my recent spare time watching YouTube constantly (oh my Sprinkle of Glitter
you are truly addictive!) I decided to just jump in and do a vlog, eek, please be gentle, here it is…
I’m attempting to post this from my iPad so not sure how to embed the video from here, I’ll have a tinker on the pooter later.
Anyways, please comment on the video, like (if you like it), and subscribe to my channel and then I’ll have some idea whether you hate it or not.
So it’s been very quiet here lately, I’ve had big changes afoot, moving house, city and job is a stressful business and since settling back in my beloved Brummy home town I’ve quite appreciated the lack of blogging pressures. But I couldn’t resist this one because I’ve finally found a Chinese restaurant that for one responded to my email asking about gluten free options and two, were so lovely and accommodating when I attended said restaurant that I just had to give them a little shout out.
I’ve got no photos of the food or restaurant (bad, bad food blogger I know), I was so busy shovelling the food down my gullet that the thought did not even enter my delirious food obsessed brain. What I can say they is that they are very helpful there and we managed with the help from the awesome Brian, the manager (? I’m not sure but he should be because he’s ace) to eat a delicious birthday feast of steamed seabass with ginger and spring onion (gluten containing sauce on the side for my lucky non coeliac family,) Kung po king prawns, duck with plum sauce (the best in my humble opinion) and chicken with cashew nuts. It was great to finally eat in a Chinese restaurant again and the service was outstanding. So if you happen to be in need of gluten free Chinese food in Birmingham and want to give it a try I totally recommend the wonderful Tin Tins in Brindley Place.
So anyways I might dip my toe a little further back into the blogging water shortly with perhaps some of the pics of food I’ve encountered this summer so watch this space and please comment below.
See you soon lovely readers, I hope to be back again soon life permitting!
Quick news flash in what would be total radio silence here but my Dad picked this up in M&S the other day and it appears to be gluten free! Will update with review once opened…
I just had to break my radio silence to present what can only be described as heavens nectar in cider form. Basically it tastes like strawberry juice but it’s beautiful still cider. I found this on my return from the frankly awesome Lambeth Country Show, on a little stall outside Herne Hill station (god I’d love to live there, one day lottery gods). Unfortunately like the complete doughnut I am I forgot the name of the stall and sadly my 2 pint carton is not labelled. If anyone knows the brand please let me know in the meantime you will find me next weekend returning to that same spot to stalk that there vendor and purchase some more of his tantalising elixir…
Ice Cream Castles 