I'm such a has-been

I've been eyeing off a pair of Hasbeens for quite some time. There was a gap in my summer wardrobe for a nice sandal – really!! I ordered them online, taking advantage of their post Christmas sale. It took a mere four days for them to make their way from Sweden to my front door – very impressive.

Brag rights

I'm not usually one to brag but I impressed myself with this one.

It wasn't achieved the first time round though. Last weekend I attempted to make a gluten-free rainbow cake – it was a complete disaster. Which meant on the morning of the party I was furiously whipping up a sponge cake in addition to a dozen other things. But I wasn't deterred.

A friend of Ruby's had a party at the same time as Ava's. I took this opportunity to opt out of gluten-free thing and chose to make it easy on myself by buying a couple of packet mixes. I also invested in some gel food colouring which gives a more intense colour than the drops you get at the supermarket.

Cutting the cake was a little bit hairy but when I served the first slice there was a chorus of "Ohhhhh!-s" which was what I was aiming for.

If you too want to impress your friends and family, you'll find the instructions for the rainbow cake here.

Pretty Bunting

I've got a bit of  a thing for bunting at the moment. I think it's a great way to decorate and I've found some great website where you can download cute designs for free. Of course the paper variety isn't going to last as long as fabric, but when it's cheap, easy and pretty – who cares!

I got our Christmas bunting from the folks at Team Kitten.

This Happy Birthday bunting banner was part of a complete birthday set from Draw Pilgrim.

This alphabet bunting from Ruffled can be used to spell out anything. I used it for a simple Happy Birthday!

There's also this "compliment" bunting from How About Orange – one of my favourite websites!

A Google search coughed up heaps of results too!

It's all about LOVE

Happy Valentine's Day my lovlies...

Window garden

This is my little indoor garden. It's the sunniest spot in the house. I like a bit of greenery inside :)

What I did today...

A few weeks back we were driving home from Muriwai beach when we passed a road-side strawberry stall – 'tis definitely the season for it at there are plenty of farms out Muriwai way. I bought some fresh strawberries and a two kilo bag of frozen berries.

Today I decided to make some strawberry jam which everybody loves; I also needed to reclaim some freezer space.

It turned out a little on the runny side but tastes awesome. The pot did boil over a little at one stage so the clean up involved about half an hour of scraping the toffee-like substance off the stove top – sorry, no pics available.