My Vintage Dream Come True!

So we're finally in our house!! It's been a mad few days, but we've got everything here now and have started to make it feel more like our home. There's a lot of decorating to be done and things to be put up on the walls, not to mention still quite a lot of deep cleaning, but it's getting there.
In the middle of all this madness, I had to take half an hour to go and make a little corner of it all mine to escape to later on. Last weekend we went around Hemel town centre for the last time and stopped by in the British Heart Foundation furniture shop. It's full of beautiful vintage (old!) furniture, but it's all really cheap and so unique. No flat pack, lifeless furniture here!! About a month previous to this, one of my best friends went into the same shop and came out with a gorgeous dressing table, complete with long mirror and little details on the draws and fittings. I FOUND MY OWN!

 Ok, ok, ok... It's not glorious looking on it's own without nice things around it. Plus it was pretty dusty. However, it was all original - the mirror and even the drawer lining which is pink floral paper in near perfect condition. So it came to our new home and is now in my bedroom, and with all my ablutions and potions on it, it looks like this...

At some point over the weekend I will be buying fairy lights to put around the mirror. I love that I have finally found a good use for my dyed doilies too (I have bought more recently... I think I may be obsessed...) Other than that, it's perfect!! I sat at it this morning and pampered myself - nothing fancy, but I felt really luxurious whilst I did my normal beauty routine!
The best part of this little slice of girly pleasure?? That old, original piece of furniture cost just £20. YUP. The same price we paid for our Chinese takeaway on our first night! BOOM!

BB xx

Moving On Up...

It's my last night in my little annexe tonight. I'm utterly surrounded by boxes, bags, furniture not in it's right place... it's stressing me out! We're currently sat in the only space place in our living room and trying to pretend that it still feels nice to sit in here: all our pictures are down, my wallhangings, little decorations I have had up since the day I moved in. All packed away. It's REALLY weird.
Tomorrow we're moving into our first ever house with a mortgage attached and all the other house trimmings. I am so excited - internally - and know I will not get a wink of sleep tonight. Once I'm in and all our stuff is unpacked I will feel even better. But I owe a lot to the last 3 years and a month I have had here. A lot has happened...

I moved in November 2010 just after graduating from RNCM. I didn't want to be a burden at home to Mum and Dad and needed my own space. When I moved in the flat was in need of TLC, and over time I gave it the most colourful makeover it could have needed!

I met the love of my life, my future husband, my best friend, my soulmate...

...And got engaged last Christmas!

I have had started and left several wonderful jobs and met some amazing, funny, inspirational and beautiful people, colleagues and friends alike, some of which I am still in touch with.

We have also lost little friends a long the way. Some were better gone and out of our lives (and good bloody riddance). Others it was sad to see them go... (RIP Beau the hamster)

Meanwhile my parents have had a stressful couple of years, in and then out of a pub, and risked everything including our family home. I'll be happy to have them over now for family meals and gatherings at our home.

It's the first big step in our lives together. In the new year I will leaving yet another wonderful job to go and be a student again (AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGH!) and then later in the year become Mrs B, which I will never get tired of saying. I'm going to find my way around a new town that I will hopefully be able to call home. I never liked living in Manchester (no offence) and never felt it was home. I hope LB will feel like home for me and my family as it comes along.
So much has happened since I've been in this flat. I have had the best landlords ever who really do feel like family to me now, and I will miss them both and their little furry friend very, very much. I am so grateful to you both - you know who you are. xxxx

So soon I will be able to post blogs from my new home, and who knows what adventures it will bring??

Bye for now, I need to go pack, and then collapse into bed one more time.

BBxxx

BACON CAKE - The only cake for the man in your life

Happy Birthday, Tom!! 

29 today, and still goooooooooooooooorgeous! We've had a lovely day off together and just enjoying the winter sunshine and being happy. A birthday wouldn't be a birthday without cake though, but somehow this year a Victoria sponge just wasn't going to cut it.

A while ago, Tom came in and showed me this monstrosity on his iPad: 

It's known on the net as a Bacon Explosion: You weave bacon rashers together and then wrap it around about half a tonne of sausage meat which contains MORE bacon, BBQ the whole thing, then slice and die of a sudden yet, I suppose, a happy heartattack. I sadly have neither the funds for half an abattoir of meat or a working BBQ, so I found the next best thing.

Bacon and Beef Loaf (recipe is HERE, and trust me it looks better than the picture on the website... you'll see.) Really simple to make and minimal fuss with the ingredients too.
I added about 60g grated cheddar cheese to the meat and stuffing mixture, but daren't add anymore afterwards! You can if you want to shorten your life significantly.
So ours looked like this, complete with festive birthday candles:

It was so greasy and hot, the candles barely stayed upright in the meaty bacon casing... Disgusting.

I'm happy to say, I think by making this I may have just won the 'Best Girlfriend Ever' competition, judging by the look on his face!!

So make your carnivorous, bacon-lovin' man happy today, ladies... earn endless brownie point; see a change in their willingness to help with stuff around the house (and if you don't, remind them of this!!) and try not to get carried away eating it... I dread to think of the calories. Tom managed just over half of this loaf. WHAT A GUY.

Love, BB xxxx

All That Glitters

Look at the picture below...

Looks tempting, doesn't it? All that delicious, colourful, brightly patterned paper concealing all the things you have been dreaming about all year long. If you live with a frugal person, they will no doubt be carefully undoing the sellotape on each gift, folding the paper and later ironing it for use next year... And I don't blame them!! How expensive is this stuff?!? I agree - it's beautiful and looks 100% Christmassy, but when you start to spend more on the stuff that ultimately gets thrown in the bin than the things wrapped up inside, then you need to seriously look at your financial priorities!! It's crazy!
I am nearly done with my Christmas shopping, and intend to wrap each gift up lovingly enough that it looks like a lot of thought has gone into it, but I won't cringe when all that expensive paper gets tossed into the bin.
I had a sneaky look around the charity shops today. It's been a while. And I found some proper goodies!!

In Hobbycraft, these stamps are sold individually for around £2 per stamp, but there came in a pack and were sold to me for a bargain 75p!! I was also pleasantly surprised to be invited to leave my details for Cancer Research shop so they can contact me if similar items even get donated. I also stated I look out for fabrics, rags and craft materials too. This is genius! It'll encourage regular custom, have stock earmarked to be sold before it gets to the shop floor, and invites people to commit to buying things they request to be called about.
Oxfam had some bargains too: this pair of mugs are perfect for my granddad, who does in fact look like an old wise owl...

And Poundland gave me these bits: the brown paper is perfect present gift wrap, and this whole roll will go beyond Christmas this year. The little photoframe is a silly gift for someone! And the incense because we get through tonnes of it here at home...

Don't trust me that brown paper can be exciting?? Look at this:

Now I will feel happy when I give these to my family, and guilt-free when they throw the paper in the bin... Job done! Try it yourself; brown paper against pretty ribbon scraps, tinsel or bows also looks really effective. You can even glue things on to it like sequins, stickers, cheap tree decorations or glitter.

BB xx

What do you give at Christmas?

Today I finally finished my quilted bed runner for my Grandma for Christmas this year! It's always nice to finish a project and know that sometime soon they will be given to someone who will appreciate them. On a more personal note, I feel a huge sense of achievement because I made this exact same quilt for my mum last year and it took me months to do, whereas this took me 3 Saturday afternoons of work. I'm really pleased, and it's nice to have a marker as to how much I'm learning from all this. Anyway, here's the finished article...

I read another blog this week about Christmas and the awful commercial side of it. It made a lot of good points - people should see it as an opportunity for spending quality time with family and friends, for enjoy simple pleasures and putting your feet up, for enjoying the atmosphere and being comfortable without going completely over the top. I agree, totally. It should be all those things. 
It shouldn't be all about the completely over-the-top indulgent side - apart from anything, times are hard and we should be more careful about how we spend. Christmas shouldn't be an excuse to ignore this fact!!

Every single year I regret how much I over indulge with food and drink, but it's difficult when it's EVERYWHERE and unspoken pressure to just pack it away, even if you're not hungry! 
Some years ago I began to reject the need to buy all that beautiful wrapping paper, ribbon and boxes and tried to find other ways of presenting my gifts to my family - one year everyone got newspaper with graffiti on the pictures, and they loved it! It all still ends up in the bin! 
Charity donations are good for those family members who tell you each year "I don't want anything, don't worry about wasting your money!" My Granddad got a card from me one year from the Hospice of St Francis in Hertfordshire to say that money had been donated in his name towards the cost of new equipment for their patients. I think he appreciated it, especially as my Nan died of cancer in 2006.
I must admit though that I love the sights, sounds, smells and 'feel' that Christmas time brings, and people are effected by those things in different ways. The best thing is how giving it makes people; whilst tin shaking for the Samaritans last year, I was handed a £50 note from a member of the public who then told me they had no family to spend it on otherwise and hoped that it would help the charity to continue to be at the end of the phone for people on their own at Christmas, because having someone there to talk to is so precious.
Homemade gifts is another way of making myself feel like I've given something meaningful but that will also allow me to learn a skill and amuse myself whilst making it. I don't see anything wrong with that.

How do you guys stop yourselves from over spending at Christmas? Do you have ways of giving without losing your senses?

BB xxx