Monday 28 September 2015

Chocolate Chip Scone

Oh my goodness! Its another baking post!
This wont be the last, I hope to do some Halloween themed baking posts!

Something my family love to eat are scones, I like cheese compared to plain scones and I recently decided to try something different....Chocolate chip scones! These are my favourite scones and I just had to share them on the blog....lets get into it!

What you will need:
225g Self raising flour
50g cold butter
Pinch of salt
120ml Milk
100g Chocolate Chips
Round tin

1. To begin with get the boring stuff out of the way, pre heat your oven to 220 degrees and line or grease your tin.

2. Measure out the flour and salt and place into the mixing bowl followed by the butter.

3. Now this is where things start to get messy, Rub together the butter and flour using your fingertips until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.

4. Add the milk to the mixture and stir everything together. Once everything is mixed add in the chocolate chips and knead the dough in the bowl folding in the chocolate chips.
(It will look like a lot of Chocolate chips for scones but believe me its worth it they are yum!)

5. Place the dough straight into the round tin, spread it out slightly and pop it into the oven for 12-15mins and then done!!

Enjoy baking!! 
Leave a comment if you try these, I would love to know!


Saturday 19 September 2015

High Street Vintage

Do you love Vintage clothes, but hate some of the prices?
Well visit your local Sainsburys and then your in luck, for some inspired vintage pieces.

(I tried to write that like an old advert)

I love 40/50/60s - Everything from the Music to the homeware, but something I love the most is the clothes. Whilst with my mum shopping in Sainsburys a while back I noticed a lot of dresses and skirts all inspired by the 40's and 50's- The style, cut and prints. Now Sainsburys isn't somewhere everyone would look for clothes and especially someone my age, but Sainsburys have some great pieces- Especially if you, like me like vintage.
These are two of my favourite things I have picked up from Sainsburys. The white skirt is a perfect summer piece with the light fabrics and lovely floral pattern - I picked this up in one of there half price sales fro £9. Another favourite is this black dress covered in yellow and orange parrots, again light fabric perfect for summer but also transitional into autumn and winter - This again was picked  up in one of there half price sales but I cant remember the price. Both skirts on these come just above the knee and perfect for creating a circle when you spin around - key....
Neither of these two things are still available as far as I am aware but Sainsburys do some nice dresses with a 40's and 50's feel - I have my eye on a navy spotty tea dress.
1940 and 50's are two of my favourite eras for clothes and hair, and I love looking at original vintage pieces of clothes until I see some of the prices. I think really, with vintage clothes shopping you have to go to the right places to get the bargains, some places throw any old price on things just because of the era its from.

I like to scroll through Pinterest as well as Instagram all the time to gain vintage outfit inspiration. To then create something which is inspired by the images I have found. Both outfits above are inspired by 50's and the other call the midwife (so still 50's), Yellow floral dress I picked up in Next a while ago, I dressed this up with vintage inspired accessories as well as some vintage hair. Whilst I posed with the Tardis at Chatham Dockyards I wore some dark black and purple tartan trousers (Primark) and a white knit jumper (charity shop), Inspired by an outfit Jenny Lee wore in Call the Midwife.

I am always looking out for some vintage inspired pieces in high street shops as well as charity shops that are inexpensive - Sainsburys is the best in my opinion for inspired pieces.

Know anywhere to get some affordable vintage pieces?
Leave places in the comments.


Monday 14 September 2015

Gingerbread Cupcakes

Decided to make some more cupcakes didnt I!
Yes, Yes I did! I think they are some of the yummiest and some of my favourite cupcakes I have made. Now gingerbread anything usually appears on YouTube and blogs in late November and throughout December not mid September. I was a typical British rainy day when I made these and it felt very autumnal, I felt gingerbread cupcakes would be fitting in some way.

What you will need:

The Cakes:
120g butter (room temperature)
100g light or dark brown sugar
1 egg
120ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
165g self raising flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 tea spoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Butter Icing:
110g Icing sugar
70g butter
Vanilla essence
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 tea spoon ground ginger
mini gingerbread men

To begin with you want to line the cupcake tin and pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees.

1. In a bowl you want to add all of the dry ingredients; Flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Mix all together and put aside for now.

2. In a separate bowl add the brown sugar and butter and mix together until smooth and creamy, using either a wooden spoon or a fancy mixer.

3. Next crack in the eggs and add the vanilla essence to the butter and sugar and mix away.

4. Grab the bowl of dry ingredients and start to add slowly to the ingredients and fold everything together. Once everything is mixed add the mixture evenly to the cases and pop into the oven for 10-15mins.

Icing:

Flavoured icing like this is something I have never done before so it was going to be all trial and error using spice. Even though the cakes contain some spice, having spice in the icing doesn't make it to spicey so dont worry about that.
To begin with you want to add the butter into the bow and mix it on its own for a bit before slowly adding the icing sugar. Along with the vanilla essence add in the cinnamon and ginger, I found when I was making these I couldn't taste the cinnamon at first, so dont over add it.
Once the cakes are completely cool pipe on the icing, Leave the cakes a while so the icing can set, once the icing is completely set you can taste spice in the icing.
Don't forget to add your little gingerbread men on top and if you want add some edible glitter.

These are some of my favourite cupcakes I have made, so enjoy making them!


Monday 7 September 2015

Vintage Hair || Mini Victory Roll

 A vintage hair post is something I have wanted to do for a long time, I just never manage to get the photos to work how I want. My camera decided to cooperate with me the other day to do this post.

I'm always watching videos on Vintage Hair and how to do it on YouTube by watching 'Cherry dollface' videos. How to do Victory Rolls is one video I have watched a fair amount and my hair just wont cooperate with this style so I have given up now trying to get them to work. 
Instead I have managed a mini victory roll and I wanted to share how to do it in today's post.

(sorry about the background..)

What you will need:

- Straightener or curling iron
- Styling clips
- Hair grips/ bobby pins
-comb
- back combing brush
-Hairspray

I'm going to begin with saying, I am not the greatest when it comes to explaining things but I'm going to try.

1. To start with you want to section a part of your hair, I go from the top of my ear and straight up. Once you have sectioned this part of your hair, tie or clip back other parts of your hair out the way.

2. Start to curl, I curl up and away from the face. When you are doing this you want to try and part the hair into 3/4 sections. After you have curled a piece roll it back upon its self to create a pin curl and clip it down by using a styling clip.

3. Leave the hair until it is completely cool before you take it out and try and style it.

4. Once the hair is cooled using the comb back comb the hair at the roots, after you have done this lightly brush all three sections together (You dont want to put it up and the hair separates back to sections and try not to brush the back combing out).

5. Use a bit of hair spray on the front of the hair, using the backcombing brush very lightly smooth over the hair so there is no fly away's.

6. Take all the hair up and using the curl of the hair roll it back down and secure onto your head using bobby pins. This does involve alot of trial and error, and points when you want to give up completely, I do this almost every other day and I sill mess up at times.
When securing the roll make sure you try and hide the clips, sometimes it can be hard (especially when the hair your using can be different lengths or its thick) The more backcombing the more it holds.

Finally the hairspray again.

If you want to know how to produce proper victory rolls I recommend looking on YouTube.
I hope you enjoyed this slightly different post, If I can achieve anything else I may do more like this.



Thursday 3 September 2015

Lush || Frozen bath bomb

I had another little pop into Lush didnt I! 

Well my local Lush got some new products in and I had to go and have a look at what they had. I have noticed recently at Lush that everywhere seems to be getting select things in from the original 'Oxford Street exclusive' collection. 
So I finally got my hands on the 'Frozen' bath bomb, this was something I had read about online and wanted to get when I visited the oxford street lush, but left without it.

'Do you want to have a bath bomb? Do you want to splash and play?
Enjoy the most magical soak in the kingdom with this shimmering blue bath bomb, which spills out rolling snow drifts of silver luster. Uplifting neroli from Tunisia and precious rose oil from Turkey are sure to spread a little sunshine and melt the iciest of moods. If your day's felt like a series of doors in your face, this shiny, sky blue bomb filled with sparkle provides the perfect fairy tale ending. Step in, take a deep breath and let it go.'
( LOVE all the frozen puns in the description of this)

Even though I had read a fair amount on the Oxford Street exclusive products and this bath bomb, I still didnt know exactly what to expect. I was expecting quite a light minty scent for the theme of Frozen.  It is a two toned blue bath bomb with a lovely floral scent, which is full of glitter and turns the blue bright blue. It is a new lush favorite of mine and will definitely be repurchasing the bath bomb.