*Pay it Forward*

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment here on my blog.
I don’t yet know what that gift will be, (well actually I do see below!!!) but you will receive it within 365 days. (Hopefully before!! Tee hee!)
The only thing you have to do in return is "pay it forward" by doing the same lovely thing for people on your blog.

Ok so here are my gifts.

The first one is a Baby Pink Set, which consists of a pink hanging spoon, a pink gingham hanging heart and a small pink heart hanging.

The next gift is a rustic set which includes a large coffee stained hanging heart, a wooden heart welcome sign and a rustic style greetings card.

The last gift consists of a small heart chalkboard, a rustic set of 4 coffee stained gingham coasters and 2 small lavender filled hanging hearts.

So, the first 3 people to leave a message will receive a gift, the first 2 people can state which gift set they would like if they want to in their message!

Then all you have to do is send me your address details to my e-mail address which you can find on my profile page under contact.

love Alison x

*Lovely & Sunny*

Well it's lovely and sunny today, hot too!!! Phew! But I have developed a cold this week, not a major one but a nuisance none-the-less!

I'm afraid I have had time for the Pay it Forward this week either, I have the gifts sorted but I wanted to take photos of them so that people knew what they were getting, hopefully I will get it done next week before I go on holiday!

It was my eldest sisters 25th Wedding Anniversary on Tuesday and they are coming up to visit for the weekend as we are having a big family party for it tomorrow night so it should be great fun! She has hired somewhere but didn't hire a disco so I offered my services to be incharge of the music, so I've been kept very busy this week working all the party music out!!!
I will be kept busy tomorrow decorating the room with hellium balloons,banners, ribbons and setting all the tables etc. but then later on I will be party-ing the night away!

Hope you all have a fab weekend!

*Yoo Hoo*

Hallo everyone, we are back!!!
Had a lovely time in Germany, had nice weather, ate and drank lots, went to a huge fair in Hamburg which was great ~ it had a big old fashioned German beer tent in the middle, with the bar people dressed in traditional German dress, it was really busy and loud ~ those Germans love to sing and wave beer about! Tee Hee! It had a stage with live bands too and the biggest beers you have every seen, which obviously I partook in!!!
You can't really tell how big these are from the photo but they were huge!!!!!

This was us at DESY, this is the place where our friend works ~ this is us with our passes to get in!!!! We have lots of photos of us inside which I won't bore you with!

This photo was taken at the beach, this paddle boat passed us by! The beach at Hamburg is always really busy with people enjoying themselves having BBQ's mostly! Whilst we where there on Saturday afternoon, a whole band set up with a singer too, and there were 4 stag/hen do's that we saw, and a whole group of people set up a huge bar and grill ~ they had music and they even had those high cocktail tables to stand around!!!!!! Crazy!

These photos were taken in central Hamburg on Sunday, there was a big cycle race going on, so it was really busy and lots of cyclists were all over, they had the end of the race in the main street with stands and big screen tvs.

We didn't seem to take a lot of photos this time with being there a few times before we have a lot of photos of Hamburg, this time we seem to have a lot of us drinking and eating and I seem to look horrid on them all!!!! Typical!
Anyhoo we had a good weekend!

*Hamburg here we come!*

Well we are off to Hamburg first thing in the morning for a long weekend.
We are visiting a friend of ours who lives there, he is a Doctor and no not a normal run of the mill G.P oh no, he's a Doctor of Particle Physics of course!!!

We have been a few times before, which is nice as we know our way around well now, it is such a lovely place to live. He is leaving in September as his experiment finishes and so he will be back living in the UK for a year before jetting off somewhere lovely again, so this will be our last visit to Hamburg whilst he is there, but hopefully not our last visit!

This is us last July in Hamburg, boy was is hot, remember that really lovely hot summer we had last year ~ aahhhh! I think it was in the 30's for the full week we were there last year, too hot to do anything really, so won't be disappointed if it isn't as hot this weekend!

Well must dash and get on with packing, hope you all have a fabulous weekend!
See you when I get back!
Tschüs

*Goodies in the Post*

Oooohhh looky, looky!! I'm a lucky girl!
These are my fab goodies that I received in the post today from *Sarah at Pink Petal Designs* for the Pay it Forward exchange!
There is a little hardback book covered in lovely fabric with roses on, and a lovely little red and white polka dot tissue holder and they came with the sweet little card from Sarah.
Thank you so much Sarah I really appreciate them, they are fab!
I love receiving goodies in the post, don't you?!

I will be doing my Pay it Forward next week hopefully so keep your eyes peeled if you are interested!

Oh and regarding the naughty Victoria Sponge recipe you can find the recipe *here*
Toodle-oo for now
x

*eek*

*eek* Friends forgive me, for I have been naughty!!!
I have gone and made a Victoria Sponge cake, see evidence above!!!!

Now it is naughty as I am meant to be trying hard to lose some weight for my hols ~ well I am going to Hamburg for a long weekend on Thursday so this week doesn't count right???
BUT I am going on a lazying around, doing nothing, sun, beach and *eek* bikini holiday to Bulgaria in 3 weeks time, yes 3 weeks time, and is my body ready for such exposure well I'm thinking not, especially as we are off to Germany in a few days and will be eating my own weight in delicious foods and ales no doubt, so why oh why I have I made a yummy scrummy cake ~ well unfortunately I don't have an answer! For some reason the kitchen was just screaming 'come and bake, come and bake, it's fun' over and over at me until I finally gave in!

Oh hips and tummy please forgive me ~ I'm only human!!!

*Cooking Substitutes*

I've found this fab list of ingredient substitutes and thought I would share it with you all!

Breadcrumbs
Crushed water biscuits or cornflakes.

Cornflour/Cornstarch (1tbsp. as a thickener)
Use 2 level tbsp. plain flour.

Single Cream (1/2 pint/285ml)
Use 8fl. oz./225ml milk plus 2fl. oz/60ml melted unsalted butter.

Honey (8fl. oz/225ml)
8 oz./225g sugar plus 4 tbsp. water or golden syrup.

Dark Brown/Muscovado Sugar
White sugar and a teaspoon/5ml of treacle or molasses per 100g.
Lemon juice (1 tsp)
1/2 tsp. vinegar or lime juice.

Whole milk (1/2 pint/285ml)
1/2 pint/285 ml. skimmed milk plus 3 tsp. melted butter.

Seafood/Thousand Island sauce
Use 2:1 mix of salad cream and tomato ketchup. You can alter the quantities of each to taste.

Gravy
Condensed tinned soup or packet soup made up with half the usual quantity of water.

Need sour milk or cream
Just add a tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar to each half pint of fresh milk or cream and stand at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
Or use natural yoghurt.

Baking Chocolate
For every ounce (oz) of unsweetened baking chocolate required, mix a quarter of a tablespoon of butter with 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder.

Recipe requires self raising flour and you only have plain
Plain flour can be used with the addition of baking powder. The amount to add varies depending upon what is being cooked, however, a usual amount would be 1 level teaspoon of baking powder to 4oz. flour.

No baking powder
This can be substituted with two parts Cream of Tartar to one part Bicarbonate of Soda/Baking Soda.

No fresh yeast
Two teaspoons of dried yeast can be used for 1/2 oz. of fresh yeast. Follow instructions on the dried yeast packed.

Short of an egg
If you need an extra egg for a cake recipe that uses a raising agent such as baking powder or self raising flour, replace the missing egg with 15ml (1 tablespoon) of vinegar. This will not affect the result.

*Call off the Search*

For what seems like an absolute age, I have been searching for the perfect bread bin!
This search has been going on for months and months and everywhere I have been I have had to 'quickly have a look to see if they have any bread bins'.
I'm sure all you lovelies out there will know what I mean, when you want something and you seem to have a certain look in your head of what you want and then it seems to consume your whole life!!!
Well the other night I just gave in, yes that's right I just gave in!!! I thought my search was going to become endless and so I just bought one. I wasn't really what I was after but hey ho, it is fine and it does the job, right?

So here it is ...



This is the one I settled on, I wasn't even after a round one, I was actually thinking of a square one, but I think I just became so disheartened with my search that I had a weak moment and just decided that was it, this bread bin obsession I have been living with had to end!

We got it from TK Maxx, which isn't a shop I go in much, but it was near a book shop that we were going to, so we popped in just in case!
It was only £9.99 a bargain we thought, and actually they have the very same ones in Matalan for £20 as we found out last night!!!!

Anyhoo, it looks ok in the kitchen, actually better than I thought it was going to! But now I will spend weeks re-arranging things in the kitchen, so it looks just right!!!
Does anyone else do this? I tend to do this with everything I buy ~ but I love doing it, even when I just can't get it just right and get in a horrid mood and decide everything is just rubbish, which tends to be the time when my husband says ever so kindly 'well lets just get rid of it all then' and then I realise I can't get rid of everything and carry on happily moving things around! I really hope I am not alone in this bizarre behaviour!!!

Anyhoo, for now my obsessive bread bin search is over, and now I can carry on with my search for the 'perfect cushions' for my sofa!
No-one said being a 'Perfect Housewife' was easy!

*Wares for Sale*

Hallo today sweetie pies!

Some of you asked to see closeups of my stall, and if you click on the picture of my stall in the previous post you can see it a lot closer up, and have a good nose about! Tee hee!
Plus here are 2 closeup piccies for you too! I didn't take anymore closeup ones for some reason so this is all I have!

The above picture shows some kitchen items that I've painted in a Cornish cream colour and distressed for a lovely shabby cottage look, and below are a couple of wooden spoons, that I've painted and distressed and then added a lovely 50's style shabby rose decal which I also lightly sanded to give that lovely aged look.
I love these spoons, but I've found that people are slightly shy about them, I don't think they 'understand' them or know what to do with them!?! But hey ho, I absolutely love them!!!!



I'm selling a lot of my wares off at my e-bay shop, which you can find *here*!

It's been lovely and sunny here these last few days, dare I say the 'S' word ~ positively summery, so I hope it's been lovely for you too!

Ta ta for now!