Love Tokens

Somewhat belatedly I had a good idea for a new Valentine's Day product. Am pleased to report that the orders have been a lot more original than any I could think of and some of them quite saucy ....

I get so excited every time I see an order pop up because I can't wait to read what people are putting on them. Most of them make me say "ahhhhh", some just "oh" and quite a few "gosh" {with raised eyebrows}. 

Listed as Personalised Love Tokens on my notonthehighstreet page.

Chocolate Crunch

Reading Silverpebble's blog post about Cosiness and Comfort, I thought I would share the easiest most cosy and comfortable pudding ever as part of Silverpebble's & Thrifty Household's Making Winter.

Family story is that some of my cousins (all now in their 50s and maybe even 60s!) kept coming home from primary school and telling my lovely Scottish Aunt, who happens to be an extremely good cook, that they had had the most delicious pudding at school. The dinner lady was asked for the recipe and eventually relented and undaunted by the fact that it was for 96 portions my Aunt was able to serve it up to my cousins at home. We must have liked it too and so mum asked for the recipe and we had it often. It is definitely my "oh my goodness look at the time what are we going to have for pudding" fall back. It helps that it is just as yummy cold as it is hot.

It has to be the quickest pudding ever and is real winter comfort food.

Be warned - it is very sweet!

175g (6oz) marg (I actually use butter)
175g (6oz) sugar
15g (¾oz) cocoa
1 egg

210g (7½oz) self-raising flour
vanilla


Melt the margarine, add vanilla, sugar, cocoa, flour and egg.


Press into greased tin. Brush with water and sprinke with sugar. Bake at 375/190 for 20 minutes.

Serve with chocolate custard and cream.

Top Drawer

I went to Top Drawer last Tuesday as it features in my one day I'm going to exhibit there plans. So I went for a gander, a lookabout, a recce. I also hoped to meet Dots and Spots, The Green Gal, Snapdragon and What Katie Did Next (bonus to meet SewSister).  Over the past year that I have been blogging and tweeting, I have followed and read their blogs and admired what they have achieved.

Bearing in mind this is a trade show and I went on the last day I wouldn't have been at all surprised if they had had enough of chatting, I wouldn't have been surprised if they wondered why this strange woman was talking to them as if she knew them and I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd decided to keep their little trade/show secrets to themselves. 

Well not one bit of it. They were all charming. All generous in their time chatting to me. All far lovelier than I had thought they even would be. 

http://dotsandspotsdesign.blogspot.com/2012/01/top-drawer-2012.html

http://www.thegreengal.co.uk/2012/01/top-drawer-preparations.html

http://snapdragongarden.typepad.com/snapdragons_garden/2012/01/and-we-are-off-.html

http://www.whatkatiedidnext.co.uk/blog/what-katie-did-next-was-top-drawer-at-earls-court-2012

Thank you Becky, Gabrielle, Jane and Katie for taking the time to stop and have a little chat, it was really lovely to meet you all.

Would you like that in Large, Medium or Small

I have been a busy, busy bee. I've revamped a lot of my nothonthehighstreet products so that I can offer bunting in small, medium and large.

I've got lots and lots more photos to take and upload but I'm getting there and hopefully by the end of the week most of my products will be available in three different sizes, five different fonts and ten different colours!

Weekday Tea and Wearing Me Down Slowly

Every day, week day tea. I find it hard to come up with something that pleases everyone and  pretty much fail every night. This week I've tried Sweet & Sour chicken "OK but why does it have celery and peppers in it" and Fish Pie "I hate fish" "Why did you put the peas in it" ..... grrrrr. Actually the noodles and stir-fry on Wednesday went down OK but last night I decided to just give in completely. So it was Sausage + Mash + Baked Beans - Any Vegetables = Happy Children.

As we are on an economy drive I've also stopped buying puddings/biscuits so now have to make something every night. This is way more exciting and successful. Trifle, jelly, Angel Delight (OK not exactly making) and last night gooey chocolate pudding. If only we could live off pudding alone.

Project :: Sky 365

Annie from Knitsofacto has started a great project called Project :: Sky 365. I won't go into lengthy explanations here go read it first hand to get all the information (suffice to say I love it). 

There is a road that I drive on at least twice a day (if not three times four times) which is just absolutely beautiful for sky spotting. The boys and I often say "wow look at that sky" so this project is perfect for us. 

Coincidentally I had already started my own little sky/landscape project and am going to try and take a photo every month from the same place at the same time. This is January at about 8am, the strange glow on the bottom right hand side is because I'm stopping and quickly taking a photo by the side of the car and it was so dark the lights are on!

I hope I remember each month and the plan is that it will be a log of the changing seasons. I'll let you know how I get on but back to the Project :: Sky 365, here are three photos one taken by Archie, one by Oscar (with his phone) and one by me.

Archie and I have completely missed the whole point of the project by including trees in our photos. We just find it tricky not to because it just makes the sky look so biiiiiiig.

A big thank you to Annie for starting this. We are really enjoying it and loving the excuse to put some of our photos into a project.

The Name is Purple, Cadbury Purple

Well tango tangerine may be the "colour" for 2012 but brides seem to be favouring purple and my new Cadbury Purple to be exact.

However, hen party planners favour Princess Pink.

The question is, are these two selling the best because these are the ones the customer loves the best or is it because I've put them as the main image? Ahhhh if only I knew ..... ?

You were only supposed to blow the ....

Back in September I told you about this fantastic Letterpress course I went on. What I couldn't show you was the poster I made because it was a Christmas present. Well here it is ...

Sorry about the bad photo - it is very tricky taking photos of framed things.

As is obvious one of our favourite family films is The Italian Job, I only add this because I have been surprised how many people don't know where this saying comes from and would hate any reader to think I'm just plain rude!

If you are interested in seeing other letterpress work then have a look at the Flickr photostream where you will also my poster going through the various stages. 

Channel your inner tango ... tangerine is back

Well who would have thought I'd be ahead of the fashions? According to myPANTONE the colour of 2012 is Tangerine Tango. In this blog post Orange back in January 2011 I expressed my love of orange so does this mean I am way ahead of the trends or does it mean I'm painfully out of fashion because I liked it in 2011 as opposed to 2012?

New Year Revamp

One of my new year resolutions was to review my nothinthehighstreet shopfront. I've not exactly completed this but I've made a start. It was all getting a bit messy so now my wedding bunting has changed to Just Married Bunting and includes this rather nice purple or "cadbury purple" as described by the customer who ordered it.

I get lots of requests to make bespoke bunting so have now {rather obviously} added Bespoke Personalised Large Card Bunting which is only a tiny bit more expensive than my Personalised Bunting but you get exactly what you want.

So I'm going to tackle the rest of the shopfront this week .... and tidy my workspace .... unless of course something more interesting comes up.

I spent about two hours chatting to the vicar on Friday morning instead of working, I'm so easily distracted. Decided it must be quite nice to be a vicar because he was "working" whilst chatting but then again you do have to work on Sundays and you do have to be lovely and kind ALL the time so perhaps not.

Feel the lurve ...

So you've packed away the Christmas things, so obviously it is time to think about the next celebration! Only five and half weeks to Valentine's Day ....

Valentine's Day Bunting

Personalised Valentine's Day Gift Box

Bunting and boxes available through notonthehighstreet.

A New Family Hobby?

We went Geocaching and we just may have found a new family hobby. It's such a simple but great idea and I really enjoyed the excitement of it but then again as my mother (yet again) pointed out to me I am very easily pleased.

I realise we are very late to catch on to this activity but for those of you as unfamiliar about Geocaching as we were until Boxing Day it is "a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location."

It is a great way to encourage the boys to go for a walk and they are keen to go and "do another one". Not only did we get to find some "treasure" but we also visited a beautiful church, abbey ruins, watermill and very well hidden World War II pill box.We are already planning our next Geocaching adventure. 

New Year Resolutions

Last year my resolutions were a bit vague - I think I managed about three. So this year I will be more specific.

• Tidy up my workspace and become more organised.
• Do an online branding course.
• Sort out my noths shop and make it more cohesive.
• Take up belly dancing.
• Approach local shop about selling Daisyley product (v scary).

Oh and I suppose I should add a few family ones too.

• Don't shout so much - try counting to ten.
• Don't get annoyed with the boys when I cook something and they won't try it.
• Don't get annoyed when Ed goes out on a Friday night just when we are about to have tea.

I give the three above about three days ... max.

I really enjoyed 2011.

Setting up Daisyley has been time consuming but I feel I've learnt so much and I'm excited about making it grow in 2012. I've got lots of ideas and I can't wait to get back to work.

Going on a family holiday for the first time in years was a major highlight and we all loved it, if only we could do it every year.

I can not wait to see what 2012 has to offer .... 

Sadly a lot of our friends had a less than happy year and 2011 was difficult for so many, so I wish everyone a happy and healthy 2012.