It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas...

...well at work at least. So here's a little preview of what I've been getting up to.

When is it ok to put up Christmas decorations because playing with glitter all day at work is making it hard for me to hold out until 1st December.

Happy Halloween

If you haven't guessed, I bloody LOVE Halloween! What's not to love? Dressing up, fake blood (which took several days to wash off), elaborate make up, it's got it all. So here's a few snap shots of my Halloween celebrations. I can't wait to see everyone else's photographs of their outfits!

And don't let those Jack O Lanterns go to waste! Make pumpkin pie or pumpkin loaf! 

Happy Halloween.

Pumpkin Loaf Goodness

So as I mentioned earlier, I made a classic pumpkin pie, see the post about that here, and still have so much left that I was able to branch out and try a pumpkin loaf, that ended up looking like this:

YUM.

Do you want to make it? Well here's what you need:

• 340 g peeled pumpkin
• 150 g clear honey, plus 2 tsp to glaze
• 150 g self-raising wholemeal flour
• 150 g self-raising white flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 150 g butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 tbsp pumpkin seeds  

 Now this is really super easy, I promise. Preheat you oven to 180C or gas mark 4. Boil the pumpkin for about 10-15 minutes, you want it pretty soft. Then drain the pumpkin, whack it in a bowl and mash it all up into a delicious orange mush with a potato masher and add the honey, if you don't have honey, golden syrup works just as well.

In another bowl, mix together the flour, cinnamon and nutmeg, then rub in the butter with your hands until it looks a little like bread cumbs, it's messy but totally worth it. Finally add the pumpkin and give it a good mix with a wooden spoon.

Then all you need to do is cram it all into a greased loaf tin and bake for up to an hour. You'll know when it's done because it'll smell divine! But you can always do the knife test, stab the middle of the loaf with a clean knife, if it comes out with no doughy mixture on it then it's ready to come out of the oven and cool on a wire rack. While it's cooling down, smear some more honey over the top and sprinkle some pumpkin seeds (although I didn't have any and used sunflower seeds) the sticky honey. 

Let it cool, cut into chunks and enjoy!

It was so tasty that Hollie from Livilunches reviewed it! I'm honoured, read her post here.

Happy Halloween folks!

Pumpkin Pie

After using a giant pumpkin as a Halloween prop (see it here) I thought I should take it home and make good use of it. Off to the kitchen I went!

 Pumpkin pie is so underrated here, I made some last Halloween (although it went a weird, green colour) and although it's an odd texture, it's really super tasty! It's also pretty simple to make, here's what you need:

• 750g pumpkin , peeled
• 350g sweet shortcrust pastry (I cheated and used a ready made one)
• plain flour , for dusting
• 140g brown sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp nutmeg 
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 eggs , beaten
• 25g butter , melted
• 175ml milk 

First preheat the oven to 180C. Now, boil the pumpkin until it's lovely, soft and gooey. Then drain it and stick it in a bowl to cool. Then roll out your pastry and cover a greased, loose bottomed cake tin (it makes it so much easier to get it out of the tin, trust me!), add in some parchment paper and baking beans, then bake for 15 minutes, take it out and let it cool.

Once the pastry it out of the oven, crank up the temperature to 200C. In a bowl, mix together the sugar, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon, then add the beaten eggs, milk and butter. Once you've mixed all of that in, whack in the pumpkin and give it a good mix. Then all you need to do it fill the pastry case with this pumpkin filling and get it in the oven. Keep the high temperature for the first 10 minutes, then reduce it back down to 180C and leave it to bake for another 30-40 minutes.

The filling will go all lovely and golden when it's ready to come out of the oven, when it's done, get it on to a cooling rack and leave it to cool. Here's mine below with a piece of pumpkin loaf (recipe is on it's way)...

It's really tasty eaten warm, cold or even re-heated in the microwave, apparently..

Monster Mash

Halloween is one of my favourite times of the year, especially when it means I can have some fun at work. I've had a good few days of playing with pumpkins and Photoshop to create some surreal and fun imagery for Schuh for this week leading up to Halloween. So here's what I've been up to:

Is everyone looking forward to Halloween? I have lots of pumpkin recipes to come, because I couldn't let the giant pumpkin go to waste so stay tuned!

A Shoe?

A Julian Hakes shoe, you heard me, a shoe.

I love that I get to photograph things like this but would anyone actually wear them?

Love

I'm pretty much in love with this song, this man and his voice. That's all.

IKEA

No words needed, the new IKEA ad is delightful.

Zakari Love

I am a huge fan of Hannah Zakari, her shop in Edinburgh is a little cave of goodness. I all ready have the brilliant BLAM necklace:

I'm currently coveting this little beaut, the Whale Necklace:

Because a girl can never have too much jewellery right? Right.

Cakes, Taches, Socks and Bows

This week I made a lemon drizzle birthday cake for Jason (please note I wished him a hapy, not happy birthday due to a broken P)

 

I was forced to bust out the cosy Hello Kitty socks because it's far too chilly for September

 Helped Sarah grow a moustache, I think I fancy her...

And finally put up hooks for all my pretty hair bands so that I remember to wear them as much as possible!

Hope you're all having lovely, relaxing Sundays.

Pink Sunday

Today I've been curled up on my sofa with my favourite ball of fluff (also know as Cupcake, even if she has chewed yet another iPhone case...) watching Sunday TV. So once I got through the cookery shows, Big Bang Theory and Simpsons, I was so pleased to see 10 Things I Hate About You which is without a doubt my favourite 90s rom com. The one thing I did forget was that I always wanted Bianca's prom dress, can you blame me? It's a pink tutu after all!

Now if anyone knows where I can get a similar tutu-type skirt I'll love you forever!

Winter Wooly Time

Winter is definitely here, although I don't know where autumn went, or summer for that matter... So I felt it was time to stock up on some woolies and whilst I'm usually a layers and cardigan girl I was swayed in H&M to buying the best jumper of all time! But the question that keeps puzzling me, what is the animal? A cat, mouse, grey fox, lady wolf?

 And the cosiest scarf I've ever had, honestly, it's like a blanket.

 And then I got a little distracted by animal ears on hats in Accessorize... I won't lie, I am very, very tempted by the earmuffs that I'm sporting in the photograph below, but they may be a little too ridiculous!

Pink Sunday

This Pink Sunday is a little gem from my last trip to London, a cute little pink love heart to brighten up some fencing in Shoreditch.

 

 

DanYELL Sneak Peak

Today I've been snapping some images of new DanYELL products.

Follow her on twitter and stay tuned for some more sneak peaks!

Irregular Choice Skyline Fun

If you follow me on Instagram (smeeeff) you may have seen that I was awarded a handmade Blue Peter badge from Danielle from DanYell, it's it ace? I'm so very proud!

Want to know what I did to deserve such a badge? I had a crafty afternoon in at work last week where I laid on the floor in the studio and made my very own skyline out of card.

With a little bit of magic, also known as Photoshop, it turned into the image below. This is easily the favourite thing I've done for work in a long time!

John Lewis do it again

John Lewis adverts always make me cry, remember the Christmas advert? So imagine my excitement when I was just sat on my sofa, drinking a cuppa this weekend when this little beaut came on the tv.

Oh John Lewis, I love you.

Pink Sunday

This weeks Pink Sunday is dedicated to the pink things I found on my recent trip home (see my post about it here). Firstly I found a pink wheelbarrow which sadly was not for sale, just a pretty piece of decoration at a garden centre. However, once I become a real grown up and have a garden, I will find a pink wheelbarrow.

I also had a really good rummage around the shop in the garden centre and found a whole heap of Liberty/Hello Kitty stationary, I obviously bought a ton of it.

I used my ASOS llama bag for the first time, which is disgraceful as I've had it for ages (I mean I blogged about it here) now...

And most importantly my mum put pink flowers in my room, she thinks of everything.

I hope you've all had a great weekend!

Holiday Time

I was lucky enough to escape from the city last week and visit my parents in their sleepy village in Lincolnshire. I travelled first class (thanks papa bear), and got rather squiffy for free on my way home

I visited papa's new place of work

Realised the the fella who owns the air field my dad flies out of has so much money that he bought a Thunderbird 3, I obviously needed a photo with it...

 I managed to create a PERFECT victory roll (and proceeded to bounce around my parents house clapping)

Betted on all of the grey horses at Beverley Racecourse, only one of which won....

I managed to get some colour on my pasty legs - hoorah!

Made friends with Bella, the very excitable whippet over a fence

I've also developed a rather large obsession with Twin Atlantic...

And up on my return I had a moment of green fingered goodness by re-potting my herbs and what not

And then I changed my hair

All in all, a busy couple of weeks, but a very good couple of weeks. Anyway back to the real world!

Grow hair, grow!

A few months ago I ditched my blonde locks for red, well, orange (previous post here) and I love it. But during my lunch time trawl of Pinterest today I stumbled on this photograph of my favourite lady crush, Christina Hendricks.

Now, that hair is just fabulous, I must start growing my hair immediately. So I'm looking for any tips on hair growing, I'm going to ditch my straighteners as soon as possible and start looking for any products and natural remedies to help my hair grow. Any ideas? Help!

To buy or not to buy...

I love a ridiculous hair accessory, anyone remember the Topshop bunny ears?

Luckily I put them to good use at a friend's bunny party by adding the bow and dressing at Miffy.

It would appear that I have not learnt that animal ears are never used as often as I'd like as I spend a good few hours thinking about these lace kitten ears from River Island:

Someone please tell me repeatedly, you will not wear them, they are a waste of money. But then again, what if I want to dress up as a cat sometime... So to buy or not to buy? Answers on a postcard please.

Baby Time

My job has many perks, but today was the best perk! Today my boss brought in her little girl to see us all and I snuck them both into the studio for a little photo session, everyone get ready to "awww".

And like a true little Schuh baby she even had mini Converse on:

I could certainly get used to playing with babies all day!

Jon Kortajarena for Zara

We all know my ultimate male model crush is the delightfully pretty Jon Kortajarena. Well now he's back and all over the AW12 campaign for Zara - hooray! 

Pink Sunday

As most of you know, I'm a photographer for Schuh, this means my shoe collection is pretty large, I am trying to cut down the purchasing of shoes, especially when I'm always so tempted by other retailers. But ASOS are making it so damn hard! Look at these:

Glitter, check. Bows, check. Pink, check. I might resist, I must resisit.

Do I need to resist?

Mulberry Meets Monsters

I always love Mulberry's campaigns, remember the seaside images? But for AW12 not only have they drafted in one of my all time favourite photographers, Tim Walker, but they taken inspiration from fairytales and titled it A Forest Fairytale. Let's face it, handbags, forests and animals that look like they've walked out of Where the Wild Things Are is always a winner for me.

Find out more on their blog, here.