You've been pretty good to me 2010...

In the past 12 months, I...

• visited Paris with my Mum & fell more head over heels in love with the place. Didn't think that was possible
• finally went to Mildreds, the vegetarian restaurant in Soho that I was dying to try. It was amazing. We just ate starters & pudding. My favourites
  
• got obsessed with Mad Men. Again
• went to Winter Wonderland with Innu. Becoming our little annual Christmas tradition
• got very excited that my best friend was pregnant*
• gave into peer pressure & read "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" books. Didn't expect to like them. Did
• got a new job with my boss of 4 years ago - & had such fun working with him again
• went to All Star Lanes with the family for my birthday & realised that I am awful at bowling but love it anyway
• hung out loads with the coolest kid ever, aka my nephew Joe
• went to the wedding of one of my closest friends & saw her marrying the love of her life
• saw Placebo at Brixton Academy. Only knew about 2 songs - but they were amazing live
  
• decided to take my love of baking more seriously - exciting plans for 2011, hopefully with one of my good friends!
• bought our first Christmas tree since moving in with the OH
• discovered Indian restaurant Tayyabs. There's a reason why there are queues out of the door for that place. I'll be dragging the OH there in the NY
  

But although 2010 has been a pretty good year, I cannot wait for 2011. So many things I want to experience, places I want to explore, ambitions to be met!

And a huge thank you for reading & commenting on my blog. I love reading your little messages. Hope you all have a fun night out - & happy 2011! - Louise x

*she gave birth yesterday to a little baby girl!

Some Christmas wrapping inspiration

I thought I'd share some creative and just amazingly inspiring Christmas wrapping inspiration from around the web today (most discovered via Pinterest) - if you haven't joined, do! Such a great treasure trove:

On the left, via Country Living (with cute vintage card wallet tutorial) & on the right, via Cakies (one of my recent and much loved blog finds)

On the left, via Abrams & the photo on the right has been sourced from Fossil.Life.Style

Photo on the left is courtesy of Dress, Design & Decor & on the right, the photo is from the lovely Poppytalk

Um, so although I was very inspired by the photos above, my creativity has been so far limited to buying some pretty Orla Kiely paper and yellow ribbon (see pic above). Creativity fail me thinks, but hey, I still have about 10 more presents to wrap. I can turn this thing around ;)

Hope you're all enjoying the run up to Christmas - and really hope you all manage to get home in time for Christmas Day. It's been horrible hearing of some people's travel nightmares.

And if the stress does get too much - I thoroughly recommend putting your feet up with a big mug of hot chocolate, a warm mince pie and cheesey Christmas movies. It works a treat for me - Louise x

Lemon meringue cupcakes

I was due to go to my friend's for a cute afternoon tea party but the snow was coming down so thick and fast that we decided to cancel. Which left me with 20 brownies and 10 lemon meringue cupcakes. I would have taken some photos of the brownies but, well, they were our lunch - but we did decide to leave the cupcakes for dessert tonight so here's a little peak at them.

They are ridiculously easy to make. The only tricky part (for me) is the icing. I'm not great at it. But they taste gooooood which of course is the main thing.

Here's the recipe if you fancy doing some baking this weekend. The only recommendation I do have is to wait for the cupcakes to completely cool before piping the meringue onto the top - Louise x

Hey stylish lady!

I thought it might be fun to share a blog that I recently came across that is supplying me with a giddying amount of style inspiration. The blog is called Fancy Treehouse (discovered via Lookbook).

I used to be a little obsessed with whatever the latest trends were (I cringed a little typing that). I guess with age comes a lot more confidence about what someone wants to wear - and I'm drawn more and more to blogs that showcase someone's very individual and personal style. This blog is one of those. Coury's style is just brilliant. Love. What style blogs are currently inspiring you? - Louise x

P.S. Having such a fun day baking for my friend's afternoon tea party tomorrow. Photos to follow. Hope you all have a great weekend.

Some words of wisdom for a Friday

Via Carrie Can

Latest discovery...

I'm not quite sure how I stumbled upon Dujour magazine but I'm sure glad that I did. The styling & photography is to die for...

They feature cute home tours (something that I will never tire of)...

& include yummy sounding & looking recipes...

They've even got me wanting to search out some doilies to present my own baking on - aren't these 2 pictures above adorable?

Photography all from Dujour Magazine

Dressing for the holidays

It has been so much fun having this week off. I bought our first tree since moving in with the OH, had my friend and her son over for an inpromtu snowflake party and have been catching up on a lot of reading in our local coffee shop. I feel so revitalised after this little break! Below is our little tree rather simply decorated - but I'm going to start a tradition of buying a new decoration each year so that we can build up a cute collection.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend - Louise x

♥

I'm pretty much in love with Donna Wilson's little creations, especially Rosie (the beauty on the left) who apparently "likes ladybirds and rainbow beetles, dislikes being on her own" and Rudie Raccoon who "loves rumaging through people's possesions, dislikes cats - they smell funny."

Isn't it such a lovely idea to include little fun details like this with each creature?

I've included a few other beauties below - am veeeery tempted to get the mittens as a little "from me, to me" present :) - Louise x

Best of the street

I absolutely love this look - it's totally relaxed plus she looks 1. warm, 2. comfy & 3. happy! I'm never going to be the kind of girl who sacrifices comfort for fashion so this, for me, is perfect ♥

I hope you all have a fun weekend planned. I'm heading out to buy our first Christmas tree since moving in together (exciting!) - and some pretty decorations, and then I just have to bake these lemon meringue cupcakes (found here). Ever since I found this recipe I can't stop thinking about them - Louise x

Photo via Jak & Jil

Penny Wincer

Some beautifully inspiring pictures from the very talented photographer, Penny Wincer.

It is my absolute dream to one day have my own little bakery/cafe so of course I absolutely adore these pictures! - Louise x