Sorry sorry sorry for the torrent of pictures, I have been pretty productive over the last few days craft wise and am feeling quite pleased with myself and wanted to show off a few things! All the above are, or will shortly be, available over in le shop.

In other news, I have my induction day at Boots tomorrow, eep! Quite looking forward to it actually, I enjoyed working in retail when I was at college and it will give me a little extra when I starting supply teaching.

My boyfriend's Canadian aunt and uncle are coming to Norwich for a visit this weekend so I am trying to think of 'typically British' activities for us to do with them, any ideas would be very much appreciated :)

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Well, I think someone was fibbing when they said it was going to be 24°c in Norwich today! Grey grey grey. I've had a pretty productive day, but I've found it's actually quite hard to get motivated when you don't really have anything you need or have to do from day to day. I doubt I'll be saying that in September when it's back to proper work, mind!


Anyway, enough glumness - have a cute picture:

Meet Arthur and Patrick the Roborovski hamsters. They're the world's smallest hamsters, and they like to sleep in the world's biggest strawberry :)


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Today has been a grey day so to cheer myself and my boyfriend up I made a tasty lemon drizzle cake. My boyfriend's mum gave me this recipe and it's too delicious not to share - the cake is so light and fluffy and goes crunchy on top when the lemon icing sets. Nom nom nom. 


You will need (sorry the weights are in ounces, I've never bothered to work out the equivalents!):


4oz margarine/butter
6oz sugar
2 eggs
6oz self raising flour
2-5 tablespoons of milk
2 lemons
3oz icing sugar


Preheat your oven at about 160°c (for fan assisted ovens, about 180°c for standard). Cream the margarine and sugar in a mixing bowl. Sift in the flour and beat in the eggs (I like to put both eggs in a mug first and mix them up so it's easier to add them a bit at a time) and stir until smooth. Grate the lemons and add the rind to the mixture (but don't throw away the lemons themselves as you will need them later) and add 2 to 5 tablespoons of milk to give the mixture 'dropping consistency'. Now I'm no baking expert and have never asked anyone what this means so I have always gone with adding the milk until the mixture drops gently off the wooden spoon and this seems to work fine. Once the mixture is ready get yourself a deep rectangular baking tin and line with baking/greaseproof paper. Spoon the mixture in and pop everything in the over for about 1 hour.


Just before the hour is up, take the lemons and squeeze the juice into a bowl. Add the icing sugar and mix together to give a delicious sugary lemony mixture - I like to give it a whiz with a electric hand whisk to get out any lumps. Once the cake has risen and is golden brown and still a little soft to the touch, grab yourself a knitting needle or kebab stick (or anything long, thin and pointy) and poke the cake evenly all over about 10 times, pushing the needle down to the bottom of the baking tin. Pour the lemon icing sugar all over the cake and allow to cool. It tastes particularly good if you leave it for about an hour and have a slice when the icing sugar is just starting to set and the cake is still warm!


It seems to have a huge amount of sugar in it for a smallish cake, maybe that's why it tastes so good?

So. I've finally done it - I've gone and listed some things on my brandspankingnew(ish) Etsy shop. I've not used Etsy before, so fingers crossed these lovelies wont get lost in the hoards of fantastic things I've already seen on there.

I've really enjoyed the last few days of making and in my current state of semi-employment it's a great way to fill the time. My dad recently bought me these brilliant old farthings with a little wren embossed on them:

So I found these brassy coloured vintage settings on eBay to pop them in...

Lovely. These will be up in the shop shortly.

Now the only problem I seem to be having with Etsy at the moment is stopping myself from buying trinkets from all the other shops, eep. I have a feeling this venture may end up costing me more than I bargained for! Check out this floral plate necklace by Sasha & Elisabeth.

Yum!

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News

So this shop business didn't seem to go well way back when, let's see if I can get a bit more motivated and get things moving this time :)