Magic Morsels – Pierre Herme Macarons
As a really big macaron fan I have was just a tad excited to find out that Pierre Herme was opening a concession in Selfridges! This is his first English outlet and do feel rather lucky that it’s in London and so close by. I love, love, love Laduree macarons to bits however, as their popularity grows in London the choice of flavours seems to diminish a little. Now these little morsels don’t come cheap, at £2 a go they are quite a bit more expensive more than Luduree, however, they do offer some fantastically different flavours and are quite a bit larger. My favourites were the passion fruit and milk chocolate, rose and quince and the lemon and hazelnut praline – yum!
The packaging was fresh, exciting and pretty cute. The box was adorned with French doodle-type drawings depicting Pierre himself and the locations that he has stores in. They looked so perfect in their little yellow box, perfectly sealed and accompanied by a menu – this really help you remember which flavours your selected! By the time I got home I was struggling to remember – the choice is quite vast. Overall, I think I’ll be back to pay the Pierre Herme counter another visit, in fact I know I’ll be back. Next time I’ll try new flavours and hopefully they’ll last a little longer (I ate 6 in one go). He,he! Have a lovely week!
Best Blanket
For my Birthday I receive a very special present that I have been waiting to share, however the light has been far too poor to photograph it nicely. My lovely Mum crotched me this stunning, lovely, beautiful blanket and I am totally smitten with it. It’s become the main focus in my living room, the colours are so perfect and the fact that it was hand made with love makes it so special – needless to say I don’t let many people sit on the sofa with it on (no way). I am totally in awe of my Mum’s talents, I can’t knit, let alone crotchet something so pretty.
It’s placed on the second sofa in our front room, this retro leather couch belongs to our land-lady and I am rather fond of it. It’s beautifully worn, smells ever-so-slightly of smoke and I just know it’s had an interesting life. This all sounds a little odd I know, but I find strange little things like this interesting and comforting sometimes. Plus, I’ve polished it so many times you can barely smell the smoke anymore (which is good). For anyone who knows me, you will understand just how much I love blankets, I seriously adore a warm, beautiful blanket to snuggle up with at all times of year. So, when I received this stunner it was love. Unique and lovely – I love it. I know, I am being irrationally mushy about a blanket, but somethings are worth gushing over. The end.
Have a great week everyone!
Helen and Miles Home
After spending some time browsing the very talented Interior styling Flickr pool/group set up by Holly Becker, it reminded me that I rarely take that many pictures of my flat (well, ones that actually let you see what’s going on). This isn’t deliberate, ever since I moved in and got settled it’s always so blooming dark, my flat is lower ground as well. So, on an unusually sunny day last weekend I managed to grab these shots of my re-arranged living room.
We have re-positioned our recycled cardboard H and M to near the window, just so everyone gets a good ideas who lives here he,he! We turned our bookcase on it’s side and filled it with all my favourite decorative, white and glass items. I am so mad about white and glass at the moment, it’s great to have somewhere dedicated just for this. It sounds silly but even just re-ordering the living room furniture has given the room and me a new burst of energy – especially when the sun finally shines!
The the pink and peach roses were my Valetine’s present from Miles, they lasted so long – I was very impressed. I think they liked the sunshine too! Other than basking in the sunshine last weekend, I’ve been mostly feeling poorly and under the weather (again). However, when I am not feeling the winter illness blues I’ve been enjoying the new edition of Lula, listening to Emiliana Torrini, Local Natives and Elie Goulding. Bliss.
February Itch?
Is anyone else getting the February itch? You know the one, where you start to tell yourself that spring must be on the way when really it’s no where near. You start to optimistically wear one less layer, feel the need to buy fresh flowers and browse through spring fashion collections all day long dreaming of the weather to wear this and that? Well I’ve got the february itch bad. I am blooming sick of chunky knits and long sleeve t-shirts – scarves and gloves be gone! I want sunlight to take pictures and some sunshine to bathe in, I think my serotonin levels are at zero! My morning, banana and match soya shakes keep my happy though, every glass is a little fresh glass of energy heaven.
I love this green and blue combo, these shades look so fresh and zesty together, exactly how I’d like to feel right now. I always get my Matcha from Tea Pigs and the table runner with apples on is from Habitat. Loving the new Charlotte Gainsbourg album right now along with the amazing new Orla Kiely collection (clothes that dreams are made of). I hope everyone has a lovely week, we are predicted more snow so I think I need to put my spring hopes on hold for a while – I guess I’ll just have to stick with my Matcha remedy.
L-O-V-E
Happy Valentine’s Day 2010 everyone, I know I am 1 day late. It just seems to be the way I’m operating lately, constantly running one day late. I hope Cupid was kind to everyone this year? I received a lovely bunch of flowers and a cute card from my Valentine. It was all pretty low key year this year with our April holiday adventure coming up – must save money for those San Fran shops and cupcakes! These are a few photos I took just after my Birthday, however they seem very suitable for Valentine’s. The glass bon bon jar was a gift from Miles (Zara Home I think). and the Sweets were from the glorious Hope and Greenwood. The book was a sketch book covered by me and the pom pom was left over from Christmas.
I didn’t leave the house all day on Valentine’s for feeling ill, I don’t know if anyone else is experiencing this but I have never been so poorly as I have this winter – so strange? These little felt hearts cheer me up they are great for decorating things and recently I gave two of them in a little gift box with a voucher to my cousin for her wedding present. Miles and I celebrated Valentine’s early this year, well Thursday to be exact. We went to Rich Mix to see Stornaway and Beth Jeans Houghton, both of which were brilliant! Stornaway are one talent band that make very beautiful music. It was a lovely evening, one to make me realise how lucky I am living in London, having such great access to such fun and inspiring things. Another inspiring thing is the The Book Club, where you can eat brunch and then play free ping pong in a pretty cool hang out. London, I love you!
Happy Birthday’s and Future Holiday’s
So on the 14th I turned 25, a quarter of a century. It’s been a little bit hectic between being rather poorly and Birthday celebrations, hence why this blog post has taken so long to get written. I had the most lovely Birthday, it was incredibly special as I got to see and celebrate with so many great people. I took two days off work and Miles and went for afternoon tea at The Langham – which was lovely. During our tea we were greeted with celeb appearances from Amy Winehouse and Fern Britton – I had no idea it was such a hot spot for the rich and famous?! We then had dinner with good friends at Pizza East in Shoreditch, which is super yummy and feels very New York. The next day (my actual Birthday) was spent curled up on my Mum’s sofa in a blanket relaxing with my lovely sisters and Dad – bliss.
I was so lucky when it came to gifts, again the thought that people put into what they buy me is really touching. One gift that I can’t get over is Miles’ collection of lovely treats (in the photo). Not only did he buy me my favourite things in the world; pajamas, a knitted cable blanket, Paris stamps and macarons. He also surprised me with a holiday to the west coast of America. We fly into San Francisco and will be traveling down to LA exploring all the different towns and cities en-route for 2.5 weeks. This was the nicest gesture and we are already having a blast planning the route, all the places we want to visit and all the food we want to eat! I received so much cake for my Birthday that I could have opened a shop! From home baked cream cakes from friends and hand delivered cupcakes from colleagues I was totally caked out! I loved it of course, however, I have no idea what made them think that I like cake?
Pink Corners
After my blue post I felt the need to share a little pink. I have a few places in the flat that I still indulge in a little pink. It seems to creep into the corners, little collections of things that seem to accumulate in pretty formations. Things I haven’t get put away from Christmas, New Year and things I use every day. This collection of girl treats, sits messy, yet pretty on my desk – you can tell I don’t use this desk much to work from. I received the Marc Jacobs, Lola perfume for Christmas and I totally love the bottle – it’s a blooming work of art! The Luella bag, well that held a special Christmas treat from the lovely Holly – sob, sob I will miss Luella creations.
Above is another little pink indulgence, my bedside table where the blue bird and fawn keep watch over everything. I love my Roberts radio, it’s just so damn lovely. I also have a test sheet of photos Miles took of my two beautiful nephews there, I love the action shots and black and white rawness to these little images, really captures there lively spirit. Then last on the bedside table is my collection of eye/sleep masks – I can’t sleep without one. I know, it’s terrible to think you can’t sleep without something but I recently got a silkskin eye mask and it really is amazing, it has lavender in it and is dreamy. Anyway, that was a little look at my pink corners. I hope everyone has survived Monday and is keeping warm? It’s certainly wool socks and jumbo knitted scarf weather – sunshine I do miss you!
Robot Story
Seeing as I am about to turn 25 in just a few days time I thought I would put a little childish post up, while I still can get away with it. The light in the living room was great yesterday, the sun was shining and the whole room was flooded with bright light. There’s something about bright light that makes everything look fresh and inspiring and this made me reach for the camera and snap everything around me. As you can probably tell from my last few months worth of posts, I’m a little bit in love with blue of late and when I saw Miles’ pale blue robot staring out of the cabinet at me yesterday I really wanted to capture the colour.
I think when it came to capturing the colour the child came out in me and I grabbed my new Dala horse and put the two together, just like a child would. The juxtaposition between the soft decorative swirls on the horse contrasts strongly against the right angles and straight lines on the robot, it’s almost a bit surreal. It’s sort of like the robot is the cowboy and the Dala is his trusted horse – ha,ha! You can tell I’ve not been out much this weekend! It’s still snowy, dark and freezing here in London and although we go on about the weather a lot here in the UK at the moment it’s mostly because January is a bit of a depressing month. Lack of money to do things, lack of day light hours to do them in and lack of motivation to commit to those new year resolutions. Pah!
So, this is the end of my childish robot story I think they ride off into the sunset, get the girl and save the day! Well, you need a little optimism on a dark day like today. I think for now I am going to focus on the exciting week ahead, my Birthday, my family, my friends and most of all Miles. I’ll get to spend 2 full days with Miles, uninterrupted and doing fun things – Yay! Also, if anyone is interested in design, Miles’ is taking part in Design 365 where he creates something each day for a whole year! You can check out his latest designs here.
Vintage Tea Cup Candles
For Christmas gifts this year I decided to make everyone a vintage tea cup candle. I had a stack of tea cups in storage and really needed a new craft project – plus I really wanted to make everyone something homemade as part of their overall Christmas presents. I have to say that candle making (like this) was really fun and simple. It’s not without it’s problems, the wax cracking, not using enough dye and under-filling the cups, but this aside I think even the most non-crafty person could give this a go.
These vintage cup are all Queen Anne bone china and Colclough bone china, some are passed down from my Grandma, others are sourced by my Mum from charity shops in Whitstable and the rest were cups I had in storage. I wanted the candles I made to leave minimal damage on the tea cups so I opted for soya wax from candles4u. The soya wax is so soft that you can literally wash any residue out once the candle is finished, meaning you can again use the cup for tea or grab a wax refill.
Here’s a sample of the finished product. I boxed them all up with lovely brown recycled card boxes, Petra Boase happy tape, some second hand coral string and a homemade label. I wish I had a picture of them boxed but I was rushing around so much at Christmas it just never happened. I still have a stack of candles left, I think these will work well as reserve pressies for Birthdays, Anniversaries and everything else. I know everyone has probably had a go at making these, I am a little late to the party, but what the hell I thought I’d share mine anyway. Happy Saturday everyone, I’m off to watch Gigantic (hope those bad reviews I read were bogus).
Goodbye Christmas, Hello 2010!
Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great time and welcomed 2010 in style. I went to a very cool 1920’s prohibition evening in London, it was charming and so different. However, too many Gatsby cocktails and Champagne meant I am a little vague on the details – ouch! I am determined now to see the new year in fully, happy, healthy and without a hangover or sleep deprivation. These last few post will wrap up Christmas and move on to fresher things. This is was my touch of pink this Christmas, a white frosted twig adorned with all my pink glass ornaments. My main colour-way was blue a silver, so I decided to keep all the pink guys together on their own twig.
These are vintage inspired glass ornaments and glass fish ornaments from Russia – all fashioned in an Ikea flower pot. Please forgive the crumpled table cloth, (slipping standards I know) ironing really is not my thing. In other news I do have lots of resolutions this year, many more than usual and I think someone that really summed up how I felt was this post here on The Red Thread. I won’t bore you with the details of my personal resolutions, but I really hope that 2010 is the year for change – my fingers are tightly crossed that I can pull this one off. I turn 25 in 10 days time – a grown-up age requires a few grown-up decisions. Wishing everyone the best of luck with the resolutions and new year plans – here’s to a great 2010!
