feedahappylife Loves: September

>> Tuesday 1 September 2009

A selection of all the things getting feedahappylife excited...updated every month! 

This month I will be mostly............

  • Picking berries and creating jams and fruit liqueurs for Christmas
  • Furthering my craftiness

So 'feedahappylife loves' is less shopping focused than usual and more doing focused! The challenge this month is to find the time and not the pennies to indulge!

Picking Berries...
Following the move to 'the county', I now have access to lots of wild berries and a yearning to create jams and chutneys. On route to mastering this skill, I've found a few rather special websites that are worth perusing if you share a similar desire to play at living 'The Good Life'.

Burgon and Ball are primarily a manufacture of gardening tools but have some really, really nice bits and bobs to further your jam making excellence! I'm partial, and will be purchasing, the following:


The jars and £2.25 each and the label set is £3.95. I'm intending to make enough to give away for presents, but it depends how successful my attempts are!

If you're a fan of growing your own, they also have a good blog about their growing exploits.

You might also need some recipe inspiration if you fancy a change from standard strawberry. I've been getting mine from:
Getting Crafty...

My friend Chloe has a really good blog called http://www.lovemakingit.com/. She's naturally talented at all things crafty, but has lots of easy ways for the less creative amongst us to get crafty too.

My favourite ideas of hers are:

My first big project is going to be making my own table runner and matching placemats (I can't find the right ones anywhere). I'll be buying my fabric from the VandA, who have just reinstated some gorgeous vintage prints in honour of their Quilting exhibition and taking my instruction from lovehome.co.uk. I also want to make some bunting for my dressing room too, but one thing at a time!

I'm also getting lots and lots of crafty inspiration from the book Table Style. Decor8 has done a great review of it, so you can get a sneak peak without purchasing! They have some really good simple ideas for making cute napkin rings and tablemats, some of which are really quick to do!

That should keep me busy enough this month anyway - if anyone has any good chutney or jam recipes, please let me now at feedahappylife@yahoo.co.uk

Helen x

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feedahappylife Loves: August

>> Tuesday 28 July 2009

A selection of all the things getting feedahappylife excited...updated every month!
 
I'm going to get the weird and wonderful out of the way first.....This month I'm lusting after an Eglu. As a result of moving house, I think I'm having a typical woman 'nesting' reaction, though rather than children, it's chickens! An Eglu is an innovative chicken hutch (if Apple made hutches, they'd look like this), that comes with everything you need to start your own version of rural bliss. You get the hutch and the chickens, all they need is a little love and it's fresh eggs every day. I admit, they are not cheap (around £360), and at about £0.25 for a egg at the supermarket, your chickens would need to pop out almost 1500 golden globes to break even......but what price love?!
 

 
Returning to the slightly more normal...I've discovered http://www.todryfor.com/ this month. Home of a huge selection of exciting (!) tea towels. Really, drying dishes is quite the dullest activity and if a witty bit of fabric can add any fun to the occasion, I can justify the expense! My favourites are....
 
 

....I really love this sentiment....

 
....and finally for August, a really, really, really good secret site!!!!
 
http://www.achica.com/ is brilliant! It's a secret sale site, where end of season home products go on sale for about 48 hours (get it while you can...). It's members only, so you'll need to sign-up to join, but it's free to do so at the moment. They have some great brands including Le Creuset, Raymond Blanc, Marco Pierre White etc.... The discounts are amazing and you have to hold yourself back from buying it all..... but think of all the great new things you can cook with all of your new equipment!
 
 
That's all my pennies spent for this month.
 
If you're struggling to find anything, feel free to set me a shopping challenge at feedahappylife@yahoo.co.uk Helen x

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feedahappylife Loves: July

>> Monday 13 July 2009

A selection of all the things getting feedahappylife excited...updated every month!


Oh for the ability to sew and make all things beautiful at home. However, I work, I cook and I live...therefore I must buy rather than make. I want, want, want one of these gorgeous Aprons from Anthropologie:



If aprons were ever going to be exciting, I think this is it! Available for around £26, at one wear per week it's just 50p a wear, justification if ever it was required!

You can look at the full range here or just browse the tempting Anthropologie site.

Next, I'm rather a fan of the website www.re-foundobjects.com. Gorgeous, gorgeous vintage nic nacs tempting the card from the wallet! Top of my shopping list this month are.....


                                                                                    
 .....and these beautiful cake stands (£65)


Stock changes regularly so buy anything you like at the time!!

Ingredient wise, I've been going all-of-a-flutter over the super elegant and delicious St. Germain Elderflower liquor. Mixed with champagne, or to liven up a bottle of cava, it is an absolute treat. I originally had it in a cocktail with champagne and pureed lychees....a bit extravagant to replicate at home!


Buy online or at Waitrose (£18), or come to the house of feedahappylife and indulge with me!

That's all for this month, or have you got more pennies to spend than me?!

Helen x

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feedahappylife Loves: June

>> Thursday 4 June 2009

A selection of all the things getting feedahappylife excited...updated every month!

As a campaigner of the not-so-humble salad, I love, love, love Plenty, the new recipe book by Yotam Ottolenghi....

Ottolenghi is a very cool food shop/cafe/cookery school in London (typical!).
They specialise in vegetarian food with amazing flavours, textures and colours. Really, really special!

This book enables those outside of London to taste a little bit of Ottolenghi life and contains recipes include Saffron Tagliatelle with Spiced Butter and Caramelised Garlic Tart.

To try before you buy, find Ottolenghi recipes here.



Next up, I'm really loving these chopping boards.....

At £70 each, they're not cheap but I think
they make a really nice gift to celebrate a special
event, or a special birthday.

You can choose what is carved into the wood too...

Available from not on the high street where they also have a smaller board for £30, which is really cute.


On the blog front, I'm in awe of the Whisk Kid.
It's run by an American girl who specialises in all things cake. She has some really amazing photography that I can only ever aspire to and really creative recipes, like these Coconut Cupcakes.

....and finally, this month I love my two new, yet-to-be-deployed, kitchen tools....

The Kitchen Aid pasta making attachment and my new Espuma!

As soon as I have a free Saturday I intend to make my own ravioli and serve it with a creamy-pesto foam from the Espuma...(or maybe this cool recipe for chocolate brownie and hot white chocolate Espuma!)



That's all for this month, happy shopping!!
Helenx

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