There’s something fishy about this cake….

A few weeks ago I tried my hand at baking a birthday cake for a colleagues milestone birthday. It came about after I had an unfortunate incident with the microwave at work and a piece of cod I was reheating. Our office smelt like cod for days so the most obvious theme I could think of for the birthday cake was a fish.

Like a good baker I researched away on YouTube on what the best fish shaped cakes were out there. I came across this amazing video and decided I had to give it a go!

Looks impressive!

So armed with my apron, YouTube and enough icing sugar to last a life time I gave it a go!

I think it came out quite well!

I should probably add we are still friends and she loved the cake!

2013 Goodreads Challenge

Last year I signed myself up to take part in the Goodreads 2012 reading challenge.

I set myself the challenge of reading at least 30 new books within the year….needless to say I didn’t quite make it! I managed the grand total of 21 books throughout the year which I am still quite pleased about!

These included:

I Am Legend – Richard Matheson

Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson

The Silver Linings Play Book – Matthew Quick

Dinner With a Vampire (The Dark Heroine, #1) – Abigail Gibbs

PUSH – Sapphire

Dracula – Bram Stoker

Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

Life of Pi – Yann Martel

The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky

The Hobbit – J.R.R Tolkien

Me Before You - Moyes, Jojo

Fifty Shades Freed (Fifty Shades, #3) - E.L. James

Fifty Shades Darker (Fifty Shades, #2) - E.L. James

Fifty Shades of Grey (Fifty Shades, #1) - E.L. James

My Name Is Memory – Ann Brashers

Carmilla – Joseph Sheriden Le Fanu

The Lorax – Dr Seuss

Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3) - Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2) – Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games #1) – Suzanne Collins

Thirteen Reasons Why – Jay Asher

 

Whilst i’m pretty pleased I tackled a few classic books…i’m also ashamed to say I gave into the hype and read the 50 Shades trilogy!

 

 

 

 

I have quite a few books in my ‘to read’ pile for this year. These include:

 

 

The Passage – Justin Cronin (Currently reading and I love it!)

 

The Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee

 

Wonder – RJ Palacio

 

The Fault in our Stars – John Green

 

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time – Mark Haddon

 

Stardust – Neil Gaiman

 

The Odyssey – Homer

If anyone else is taking part in the reading challenge, let me know! It would be great to follow others progress too…hopefully it will encourage me to keep on track.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clothbound Classics

I will always be a book fan – theres nothing better than a great collection on your shelf! I will always choose a physical book over a download, theres just something about getting a brand new book.

My sister introduced me to the Penguin Clothbound Classics range in October 2012. As soon as I started reading the clothbound edition of ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ I just knew I had to collect them all!

The Clothbound Classics range are designed by the immensely talented Coralie Bickford-Smith in partnership with Penguin. If you are interested in learning more about Coralie and the process to create these fantastic books, you can find a fantastic interview here.

In the meantime…..heres some lovely photos (Thank you new camera!!) of the books i’ve already collected.

 

My dream Clothbound versions would be:

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

Wizard of Oz

1984

The Chrysalids

Game of Thrones Series

More information on the Clothbound Classics can be found here and if you are interested in perusing them in person, head over to your local Waterstones and I hope you find them as beautiful as I do

The Edgar Allen Poe Leather-bound book is a Barnes and Nobel edition – also available at Waterstones! Not all of this series is available in the UK, although you can order then from the USA Barnes and Nobel website for quite reasonable shipping costs.

I would love the Jurassic Park and Wicked versions – Waterstones please get these in!

New Years Resolutions

It’s that time of year again…new years resolutions! I’m great at thinking them up but awful at keeping them!

There are some things that I have to do this year in order to become a fully fledged ‘grown up’.

In no particular order these are…..

 

Saving money

 

I’m awful with money. I’m the kind of person that think ‘oh well I really need that’ when looking at bargain boots that I will probably never wear. Some of you might know that I’m great at hoarding random junk that I come across at second hands shops and junk shops (I have bowls, frames and even a whisk knocking around somewhere!). What I’m not so great at is putting money away for a rainy day. The way things are at the minutes, it looks as if I could do with putting some money away as nobody seems to know what is around the corner in this current financial crisis.

I came across this great weekly savings challenge on Reddit and I’m going to try to stick to it! Any little helps right?! It’s in Dollars but I will user British Pounds instead.

Move out!

Okay so this one is directly linked to saving some money. I’ve been living with my aunty and her family for over three years now so as I can pay off some of my student debts and save (??!?!?!). One downside to this is that I’m terrified of living alone! Every creak of the floorboards and I think somebody has broken into the house. I was left ‘house sitting’ earlier this week which turned out to be more of a nightmare than I had thought. Our house alarm decided to go off for no reason at 3 am and being very sleepy I couldn’t figure out what it was. In my sleepy state I then proceeded to set off the smoke alarms so I had two sets of alarms beeping at me. Needless to say I was close to a heart attack.

So that’s why I will be a disaster living alone.

Doing more things that make me happy

Spending more time with friends, less time on work and generally enjoying life!

Reading

I’m also hoping to complete my Goodreads reading challenge….but more on that later!

Have you made any new years resolutions?

Christmas 2012

Another year another christmas holiday!

Since I haven’t blogged in almost 10 months (seriously a bad blogger….) I figured now would be a good time to start again with it being a new year.

Christmas is always spent at home, surrounded by family and friends. I’ve just hit the big 2-5 which means being a ‘grown up’ in the real word, although Santa still knows how to spoil me

I got a great selection of books (which ill post about later!), shoes, bits and pieces and my favourite thing…a new camera! So armed with my new camera expect a lot of new photo posts!

My second favourite things…..Lego stormtrooper alarm clock!

Anyway I hope you all had a lovely christmas holiday and I shall return soon with new posts and some better photos!

Sorry i’m a bad bad blogger!

Im sorry – Ive turned into a bad bad blogger these past few months!

Ive been tied up at work, coursework and general happenings to sit down and put some thoughts down.

Anyway to say sorry heres some lovely recent findings from Pinterest to hopefully raise a smile

Jubilee Facts!

What an exciting few days we’re having here in the UK.

Red, white and blue is everywhere you look at the moment, brightening up this dull June weather! We had a lovely party yesterday (in the rain!) – complete with bingo and a red, white and blue theme! I even attempted some fancy 1950s hair which I will post about later.
In celebration of the jubilee, here is a small collection of facts about Queen Elizabeth!

• The monarch learnt to drive in 1945.
• Unusual live gifts given to the monarch on foreign tours include: two tortoises presented in the Seychelles in 1972; a seven-year-old bull elephant called Jumbo from the president of Cameroon in 1972 to mark the Queen’s silver wedding anniversary; and two black beavers presented after a visit to Canada.
• In an average year, the monarch will host more than 50,000 people at banquets, lunches, dinners, receptions and garden parties at Buckingham Palace. The sovereign also hosts more than 8,000 people each year at garden parties and investitures at Holyroodhouse, during Holyrood Week.
• The sovereign has owned more than 30 corgis during her reign, starting with Susan who was a present for her 18th birthday in 1944. A good proportion of these have been direct descendants from Susan. The Queen currently has three corgis – Monty, Willow and Holly.  The Queen also introduced a new breed of dog known as the dorgi when one of her corgis was mated with a dachshund named Pipkin which belonged to Princess Margaret.
•  The Queen has sat for 129 portraits during her reign.
• During the past 60 years almost one and a half million people have attended garden parties at Buckingham Palace or the Palace of Holyroodhouse. The Queen ended debutante presentation parties in 1958.
•  The sovereign has given out approximately 90,000 Christmas puddings to staff, continuing the custom of George V and George VI.
• During the last 60 years, the Queen has undertaken 261 official overseas visits, including 78 state visits, to 116 different countries.

Facts from Huffington Post

Queen of United Kingdom (as well as Canada, Australia, and other Commonwealth realms) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)