Time flies...

Wow I'm not sure what happened to those last two weeks - they truly flew by! And here I am, without a craft or recipe to share - I think it's fair to say life has been pretty busy :)

I'm working on a bigger project than normal (yes, I am actually managing to concentrate on something that takes longer than 1 hour) so I'm hoping to share that with you soon. But for now, I will leave you with a little word of advice for your Saturday.

Make this. Eat this. Enjoy this.

I pinned this roasted butternut squash and sweet potato lasagne by How Sweet It Is over a year ago and last night we finally got round to cooking it. It was SO tasty, a mouthwatering blend of squash and sweet potato with sage, shallot, garlic and brown butter. Jessica at How Sweet It Is does some seriously amazing things with brown butter. It would also make an amazing side dish for chicken :)

Try it.

(But double the quantity of squash and sweet potato to serve 2 as a main meal, it made a tiny amount!)

That's all folks, have a great weekend!

Blogger Spotlight - Origami Est

Happy Friday! It's such a great feeling isn't it? Tonight we're seeing friends and then tomorrow my parents are coming up to visit - I'm looking forward to this weekend!

I've been thinking about how I want to use this little space of mine and one thing I definitely want to do more of is to promote the lovely blogs and businesses that I find.

I'm starting with a friend of mine, Esther of Origami Est. She is such a lovely person and is seriously talented in the craft section of life. Esther was the first person I met when I moved to Cambridge, she invited me round to have a cuppa and make origami. It was a lot of fun but I discovered that I was still terrible at origami!

Esther on the hand transforms paper into the most beautiful things. And she sells them over at her brand spanking new website origami est. Not only can you purchase some beautiful papercraft but all the proceeds of every purchase goes to the amazing charity Stop The Traffik.

Here are a few of my favourites...

Rafaelita flowerball

Message heart gift card

Cherry blossom flowerball

Photocube

Plus the original origami flowerball and the ring holder...I could basically list everything, it's all so pretty! Esther is going to be visiting here in a guest post in the near future to show us how to make origami bows so stay tuned :)

Have a great weekend!

Chocolate caramel melts...

Don't you love it when something great comes about unexpected? Typing that sentence makes me feel like I should follow that statement up with a profound story of self discovery...but I'm actually just going to talk about my discovery of these chocolate caramel-melt-in-your-mouth little morsels of deliciousness. 

These were originally going to be centres for some truffles - but then my truffle mixture didn't set. Which turned out not to be such a bad thing because 1) these were the end result, and 2) Andrew and I got to eat about twenty truffles worth of rich chocolate ganache for pudding that night.

Ingredients:

20g butter
40g light brown sugar
3tbsp golden syrup
35ml double cream
50g good quality milk or dark chocolate - this would work great with Cadburys!

Method:

1) Place all ingredients except the chocolate into a saucepan and place over a high heat. Bring to the boil and boil for 2-4 minutes, stirring regularly, until the sauce has thickened.

2) Add the chocolate and remove from the heat, stir until the chocolate has melted and combined.

3) Line a plate or tray with clingfilm and lightly oil the surface. Spread the mixture evenly across the plate and cover with clingfilm.

4) Place in the freezer for 1 hour (or until set). Use a small cookie cutter to cut out discs to your desired size!

This weekend...

1) I baked pretzels for the first time - I may have eaten all six.
2) We finally sowed our seeds for our veg bag - it was SO good to get outside in the garden.
3) I got ridiculously excited when we purchased a mini greenhouse!
4) Another garden related item - our yellow crocuses sprung up this weekend - they made me happy :)
4) We went to Oxburgh Hall - oh yeah, and we didn't even wear coats outside - YES!
5) I significantly depleted my Easter chocolate...may have to move onto Andrew's chocolate soon.
6) Returned to my never-ending embroidery project while watching Paris-Roubaix.

Our plans changed this weekend which meant we were left with 2 whole days with no plans! It was so relaxing and it felt good to get outside in the sunshine! It's got me daydreaming about our garden, bbqs and summertime!

What did you do this weekend?

D.I.Y. fabric wall art...

Today I'm guest posting for Meike so head over to Blueberry Days to check out how I made this sweet fabric wall art (it also includes a cheats guide on how to print ink onto fabric!)

DIY earrings - bringing some glamour to the bee...

Today we're going glam! Day to day my wardrobe definitely fits into the 'casual' category but every now and again I love getting dressed up! These earrings are the perfect accessory for such occasions :)

I present to you the joys of home made jewellery -these earrings are made with Swarovski crystals yet cost far less to make than what a lot of high street shops would sell earrings with just glass beads. I have a couple of go-to online bead shops that I would recommend for sourcing beads (if you're UK based) - The Bead Shop and and Beads Direct. Of course you could make these even more cheaply by using glass beads.

Details to make these exact earrings - you will need 5 Pearls (1 large, 2 medium, 1 small and 1 extra small), 4 Crystals (2 medium, 2 small) and 9 headpins.

1) Cut two pieces of chain which are four links in length.

2) Feed the largest pearl onto a headpin and use the flat nosed plier to bend the pin 90 degrees just a couple of millimetres above the pearl. Next create an 'eye' (the loop at the top) with the round-nosed pliers. Here's how to do that if you're not sure (these images are not from this project)...

Repeat this for the rest of the pearls and crystals.

3) Attach the beads to the chain in the following order -

1st link - Large pearl
2nd link - Medium pearl and 2 medium crystals
3rd link - Small pearl and 1 small crystal
4th link - 1 small crystal
(you will have the extra small pearl left over)

4) Taking one of the fish hook earrings, open it and add the extra small pearl and the chain.

Repeat steps 3&4 for the second earring.

If you're not used to manipulating wire then these may take a little while but it's a great skill to have as it will give you so much flexibility in jewellery making! Using this method you can create so many different effects, either by changing up the length of chain, size of beads or the type of beads!