Christmas round 2 and 3

So my main Christmas this year and part 2 of the festive holidays took place in my home town in Somerset, I say 'town' but I come from a teeny tiny village in the middle of no-where (there wasnt even a house here to buy so we build our own). It was such a magical and perfect Christmas, Made extra special by my Boyfriend coming to stay too, it was his first Christmas with my family and I think he was a bit shocked by how excited we all get about it :) We had such a great time and I was so lucky to get some amazing gifts, including some awesome crafty bits and photography things so I'm excited to start playing with them. We spent our time, eating, drinking, playing games and darts and watching christmas films. It was lovely spending a few days with my family and seeing some members of the family who I hadn't seen in a long time. Here are a few photos of what we got up to.

The final part of my Christmas was spent in the Midland's, at my boyfriend's Mum's house. I adore their house as its soo traditional and has a real countryside and homely feel to it, especially with all the gorgeous red decorations. I spent alot of the time there playing and snuggling up with Suki, a 13 week old kitten, she is sooo adorable :) We ate even more delicious food and drank our fair share of wine :) Here are a few photos of the animals we shared the last days of our Christmas with.

I am one very lucky girl to have so many people to share the holiday season with and share so many great times. I am so glad everyone liked their home-made presents and were very appreciative of the time and thought that went into making them. I will post soon on the gifts that I made and how you can make them yourself. I hope you had a great Christmas and am looking forward to spending New Year with my family :)

Christmas Round 1

Merry Christmas all!! For us, christmas has already started :) yay! As I spend half of my time in Hampshire (where my flat is) and half in Somerset (where my family live) I am so lucky to get more than one christmas, including a third in the midlands where my Boyfriends family live..... I know pretty greedy, right? We decided to celebrate Portsmouth Christmas on Tuesday, which was the night before I left for Somerset. It was so lovely as we made a real effort to make it homely and like a real Christmas. We spent the day shopping, then my housemate (bless her) cooked a roast for 5 of us while I wrapped presents and made things for the table, I was so proud of the table and I thought it looked great. Then we all sat down to a delicious roast and all ate far too much (just like you are supposed to at Christmas) and drank lots of wine. Then it was time for presents, I was given a lovely china box which says 'precious pretty things' on it and some braclets and have been promised some trousers which are to be bought in the January sales :) The night was finished of by all snuggling up with blankets and wine and watching The Grinch. All in all, it was a perfect evening with great friends, now I am back in Somerset and about to embark on second Christmas with my family and lovely Boyfriend, I am one very excited girl :) Here are some photos of Portsmouth Christmas, and some of the tree. To make it personal, I made nearly all of the decorations myself, with a little help making the stockings from my housemate, I hope you like them and I hope you are enjoying your celebrations and are getting really excited for all the festive things to come.

Week in Photos

I dont seem to have many photos for this week, however its been quite nice. It has mainly been me getting ready for christmas, I've been making Christmas decorations for our tree, lots of presents and nice little things to make it a special Christmas. I will post soon about all the decorations I made to hopefully spark some inspiration for your trees too. I am really looking forward to this christmas as it has been a manic and quite stressful year so I cant wait to go home and have a few days of pure festive fun with my loved ones. This week I have also been getting little Ethel introduced to the other rats and more comfortable with us, its going well and she has settled in so well in only a week. My step-sister also came to stay at the weekend, it was lovely to see her as I dont get to very often and she got a chance to see my new flat and meet everyone. Overall quite a pleasant week :)

1: Little Ethel eating, 2: Ethel doing acrobatics, 3: Emily (my step-sister) and me, 4: A pile of clothes from my housemate's wardrobe sort out, 5: Bambi and Luke having a cuddle, 6: Our Christmas tree, I will post better photos in the post soon to follow.

Week in photos

1: Port and cheese board set from my grandparents, 2: Cheese, meats and crackers on the new cheese board, 3: Crochet cushion cover I made for my housemate, Amy, 4: Birthday cake for Amy made by my boyfriend and with a little help from me when decorating it. 5+6, Cath Kidson pyjamas bought for me by my lovely grandparents, 7: Spider-man advent calendar, 8: 'Homemaker' magazine, which has been keeping me busy with lots of crafty christmas things to make.

As you may be able to guess by the cushion cover and cake above, it was my housmate's birthday this week. To celebrate, we went for a meal at Las Iguanas, It was a delicious meal and lots of fun, its so nice to get a big group of us in one place to celebrate together. Above is a few photos from the night.

1: Me and Luke looking very attractive, 2: Me!, 3: Birthday drinks, 4: Me and the birthday girl struggling to keep straight faces, 5: Me and Luke again, looking a bit more normal, 6: The birthday girl and Liam, 7: Aj, drinking a very manly cocktail.

We also had really good and bad news with the rattie family this week. Petal who was one of my first rats and was 2 years old, sadly passed away. She will be really missed :( You can see her little face in the photo on the right. Also below is a photo of Luke and the remaining members of the rat family.

However, there is now a new addition, below is little Ethal. She is brown and white with a grey chin. We've only had her a couple days but already she is very brave, taking to us very quickly and getting on really well with the other rats. She is so cuddly and excitable and I think she is going to fit in well. 

Week in Photos

We have been starting to get the festive spirit this past few weeks, I saw the christmas lights in london and we went down to watch the ones on our street. It was a lovely evening of singing, dancing, pulled pork rolls and fireworks. When we got home, we decided to make our own mulled wine (photo 2) it was quite ingenious as we didn't really know what went in it or what we had in the cupboards but it turned out to be delicious and very warming. My housemate also made us the most amazing curry with all the trimmings (photo 3)..... yummy! It has also been a week of lots of coffee, its perfect for warming you up and giving you a boost on cold wintery mornings (photo 1+4). the last photo is my outfit for the london shoot (seen in the post below). 

I had a lovely delivery at my door this week. I had won the Movie Monday competition on The Morose Bee's blog and I chose this pirate mug as my prize. I absolutely love it, its so fun and unique.

We also had our first housemates night out, just us girls. it is shameful that it took us this long as we've been living together for like 6 months, but we either run out of money or have gone out with different groups of people. It was an awesome night out, which started with a few bottles of pink champagne in a stunning wine bar which my housemate works at. We then moved onto a 90's themed club and met up with a couple of friends. We had so much fun dancing and drinking cocktails to cheesy music from our pasts. Great fun was had by all. My head and legs were pretty furious with me the next day but it is worth it every now and then to have such a great time. Here are a couple photos from the night.

Focus on Imaging.

For anyone who is a photographer or interested in photography then you are most likely aware of the Focus On Imaging show and may have even visited it yourself. It is Europe's biggest annual imaging show with over 200 exhibitors and loads of great talks.

I was soo lucky to be given the opportunity to be a part of the advertising campaign and feature in the photo taken by the talented Matt Sills. It was such a fun day, I got the chance to experience what it is like to be in a professional studio, it was massive and very impressive. The shoot was at Holborn Studios in London, it gave me such drive to think that one day I could be a photographer for a shoot that size. 40 photographers were asked to be in the photo so it gave me a good chance for networking and talking about cameras and other photography things with like-minded people. It was strange to be infront of the camera for a change but we were photographed with our cameras so I did still get to hide behind mine a bit. Not sure if you will even see my face in the final photo. It will be used in photography magazines and posters to promote and advertise the Focus on Imaging show in March 2013.

We got slightly lost on the way to and from the shoot so got a lovely tour around london. It was my kind of tour as we were warm and comfy in the car and my legs didn't have to ache from all the walking around. It has been many years since i'd been to london so it was so nice to see all the places I had previously visited and many new ones that I am yet to explore. We also got a chance to see some of the christmas lights which were spectacular and has really got me feeling christmassy. I also saw policemen on horses which is something I had never seen before, looked so strange and out of place in the middle of a traffic jam. All in all is was a very interesting, educational and fun day, I cant wait to see the final photo in a magazine, I will definitely have to buy one.

Life Lately.....

So I havn't posted since we got Bambi and missed a few week in photos posts, but thats because not much has really happened. I've been very poorly the last few weeks because I reacted badly to some new medication which left me very exhausted. I also had quite a few hospital and doctors appointments so it hasn't been too much fun. However i'm feeling a lot better now and hopefully can get back to normal life again a bit.

My dear mum came to stay with me over the weekend (seen in the photo with me and Luke). It was so nice to spend lots of time with her and we had such a good catch-up. Of course we ate and drank lots of delicious things too. We did a spot of shopping down my favourite shopping roads and she kindly bought me a jumper and scarf and a few christmas decorations. I do miss her so much when she goes but its only a few weeks till I will be home with all my family for christmas.





Speaking of christmas, my housemates and I decided that all our tree decorations would be handmade this year. No more tacky plastic baubles which are dented and cracked, we will only have personal, hand crafted decorations, so we made a start on them. Here are the first ones i've made to give you a taster (I will do a whole post on how to make them soon).

Little Bambi is settling in well, getting braver and more confident everyday. She has been getting in a few fights with one of the older rats, Lemmi. However things seem to be getting better and we hope that soon they can all sleep in the same cage without fighting. She has fitted in soo well and definitely become one of the little rodent family. Even though it wasn't a great few weeks, I did eat really well. My boyfriend cooked a delicious roast (seen below), my mum brought down lovely homemade food and we went out for a few meals so my tummy has been very happy. We also discovered that we can make homemade mulled wine from scratch so i'm sure we will be doing that again soon, its so delicious and the smell just makes me feel soo christmassy. I leave you with a photo of me and my friend, slightly tipsy in a pub being as cool as ever.

Let me introduce you to Bambi!

Well apart from the Halloween party (which can be seen in the post below) it has been a pretty awful week! I've been very ill and spent most of the days in bed, luckily I have an amazing boyfriend and friends who took great care of me and made it as nice as it could be. We spent the week watching films with duvets and tea. I hadnt left the house in days so my housemate took me out for a spot of shopping at a vintage fair. I'm so glad she made me go as I felt so much better for getting out and I bought some gorgeous fabrics so I can start making Christmas presents.




There was also some great news from the week. We got a new addition to our little rat family.... Let me introduce you to Bambi!!.....

She is the smallest and cutest rat i've ever seen, soo adorable. We named her Bambi because it means 'young girl' which she definitely is. Also, she has no idea what she is doing with her legs most of the time and resembles Bambi trying to walk. She is the best distraction from feeling ill and makes me smile every time I see her little face. We hadn't realised how big the other rats had got but they make Bambi look so tiny. I leave you with a picture of Bambi giving me a little kiss on the cheek.

Happy Halloween!!!

I hope you all had a great halloween :) we had an awesome one. We decided to have a costume flat party and had great fun making decorations and making the flat look really spooky throughout the day. We also made a massive curry, a cake, fruit punch, gingerbread cookies cut in the shape of coffins and of course carved pumpkins (mine is the bat one). Every single crumb of the food was gone by the end of the night so I guess everyone enjoyed them. I really enjoyed putting together my vampire costume, It consisted of a cloak which my mum made, the necklace made by Lizette and a lace top over a red top and pencil skirt. It was a great night of games, interesting costumes, music and of course lots of drinking. There were lots of great costumes, here is a selection of some of them.

1: My vampire costume, 2: Mad scientist, 3: MJ, 4: 006.5 and me, 5: Sugar skull and me, 6: Butterfly, 7: Sugar skull, 8: Zombie Mario, 9: Little Cook































The flat looked awesome and really set the mood for the night, here are some photos of the little touches we did. 1: drippy candles in old wine bottles, 2: candles, 3: skull shot glasses, 4: string of bats, I cut out bats from black paper and sewed them together, 5: more drippy candles, 6: lots of sweets.









Here is a photo of Luke and me in our costumes. 006.5 and a vampire, I pulled that pose a lot throughout the night :p.

I will leave you with a few photos of my face painted by my housemate in the days leading up to halloween. I was a little poorly so we decided to do some painting because who can be sad when their face is a pumpkin :p