Pink lemonade

One of the weekends I spent visiting my sister this year we tasted some lovely pink lemonade at Moksha. A cafe we have visited quite often for a drink and a sweet treat. I loved the idea of pink lemonade and so looked for a recipe to make my own at home. I've yet to try this (it may be something my sister and I make together, we love cooking/making in the kitchen with the radio on!); but here's the recipe if you'd like to try it yourself.

Ingredients.

300g caster sugar

1 1/2 lemons, sliced

1 orange, sliced

3x 170g/6oz punnets raspberries

ice and fresh mint to serve, optional

Place all the ingredients in a a large saucepan and pour over 350ml of cold water. Bring to the boil, stirring often, then leave to cool. Pour through a sieve, pressing down with a spoon to extract all the juices. The syrup can then be stored in the fridge for up to a week. To serve, pour a little into a glass and top up with sparkling or still water, ice and mint.

(Recipe courtesy of BBC Good Food).

Have you made pink lemonade before?

Tea and cake

Brighton. Visiting my sister. Out having tea and cake. Purchasing new little friends - Pookis no less, Ernie and Norris from The Big Forest x

The Fairy Tale Fair

Image courtesy of The Fairy Tale Fair

This Saturday if you're in or near Brighton then drop in to The Fairy Tale Fair. I'm visiting my sister for the weekend so will be dropping in for a good ol' nosey around all the stalls. If you want to find out more about them and the stall holders that will be there then drop by their blog - The Fairy Tale Fair enjoy! x

The Hartington

Sunday dinner at The Hartington, Brighton the other weekend with the family. Great to catch up as always, the weather stayed fine and dinner was enjoyed by all x

Sun and Sea..

Just to remind us all that we do and will have (at some point?) sunny warm weather in the UK! These are some pics I took the the other weekend whilst visiting my sister and catching up with the family. Couldn't ask for more - sun, blue skies, warmth, good food and family x

Sparkle

Well hello bloggy bods! well the weekend has been and gone so quickly so I thought I would get back to you with some pics of the event.

Sales were made and goods have found new homes despite the terrible weather that we all seem to be having! It was grey, windy and intermittently rainy all weekend so not especially conducive to people wanting to come out and brave it. However a good weekend was had, such a lovely venue and I haven't found yet such friendly exhibitors! It's always good to somewhat immerse yourself in the company of like minded creative folk at times, don't you think? you can have a good ol chin wag about the ins and outs of your creativity and ideas. Much like we do here amongst our online blogging but I have to say it's always nice to put faces to 'online' names and to see work in the flesh, it's always even more stunning than the photos you see.

So to my pics, I was a bit better this time and actually managed to get a few snaps of the building, in between the raindrops!

The Landmark Arts Centre


A small part of the stunning ceiling


More beauty above my head!


And so to some of the stands there
The lovely Sue Allan was opposite me, which was fab, love her work and I have posted about her before back in March I think



The fabulous Ian, Potnotch, next to me whose ingenious pot hangers sold sooooooooo well


The absolutely exquisite, delicate and stunning work of Karen's, contemporary embroidery, her detail is amazing!


The lovely Jackie and her gorgeous tactile accessories, such vibrant and rich colours with stitched textural details


And one of the delicious food stalls , Planet Cake, that was opposite her, I'm not sure I could've coped sitting opposite it all weekend, I would have succumbed to the lure of the cake.........


And finally some pics of my wee stand, with me trying my hardest to make the best use of the space I had available to display my 'wares' on! With ladders, muslin covered pin boards, mannequins and shelving...........


scarf roll close up


festive skinny long stockings


purses for your pennies


And a small switch around to hang purses off the rungs instead of the fabric scarves


I am now packing up all stock to roll onto my next port of call this week, Brighton Open Houses where my work is being displayed for the next three weekends at Kate Lulham's abode - 'Delicious Delights', so if you live in or around the area be sure to check out some of the houses on the trails, you won't be disappointed!

See you all soon, avoid the raindrops if you can! ;0 x

Artists Open Houses - Brighton

Well, A little later in the week than I was hoping to post about my weekend nosing in and out of other peoples houses(!) but here it is.
It's quite a long post but mostly pics so you can get a glimpse of the visual side of my 'artist's open houses' weekend.

Brochure in hand my sister and I set off to walk the streets and burn some serious shoe rubber! and believe me we did, over the weekend I think we visited around 32 houses !!!!!! Oh my word how nosey are we, but then if you're going to open your doors............

My wee pumps all ready to burn their rubber soles

the sights you see a strolling the streets, old style telephone boxes still make me smile, wonder if it's still in working order ?! should have checked!

The Dragon Fly House - full of amazing work and such a great sculpture/metal work on the side of the house

Oooo a gorgeous front garden to one of the houses

And although it may look like we hadn't been anywhere before we stopped for lunch, we had! and a lot of the houses didn't open until 12pm so we were due for a bite to eat.

salami, mozzarella, rocket, yum

Deservedly empty plates left by us both......

And so back out to pound the pavements.
Lovely window box

Houses visited down the 'twitten'

And featuring................................House number 15 on the Central Brighton Artists trail - AK@37 Dean Street.
This is a house that's doing its first year of the open houses and definitely worth a visit. It hosts the work of 15 fab artists (and such nice peeps too!) Work varies from paintings, illustration, textiles, sculpture, photography, drawings and jewellery.
What a fab curved window, shall we go inside?

Here we are in the entrance hall, I love the fact that in most houses on the trails, every possible inch of space is used in a way to display art and craft

quirky and original jewellery, so fun, laser cut from I think perspex and plastics. I love how the pieces are framed and displayed

fab gorgeously colourful textile purses and bags, just how cool are these fabrics?!

sculptural pieces

sweet pieces of beaded and fabric/textile jewellery

You can't see very well from this image but these, I think they are casts(?) and sculptural pieces of building fronts and little seaside huts

this wave piece of skirting board is so cool, love it!

bright vibrant paintings in the 'outside' room

where we found that v yummy cakes and drinks were being sold, how cool is this little cabinet between the two rooms that the cakes were displayed in?!

Out in the garden were pots of colourful plants and flowers with pieces of v colourful sculpture peeking through

a view from inside the garden looking back in at the house, how pleasant it was to sit outside with our drinks and cake!

Oops unfortunately I wasn't quick enough with my camera before we had devoured the scrummy goodies......

So thank you to all those at Dean street for letting me snap away with my camera. Lovely creative and talented people producing some wonderful work!

Phew! so many lovely houses with some beautiful work. I was less snap happy on the sunday, but I did take a couple of garden pics below.
We loved the sculpture in this garden as well as the perfect ball shrubs, sculptural in themselves

Fabulous water feature

And yes more cake on the sunday too! well....... you have to treat yourselves and indulge one weekend in a while surely??!!!!

So if your are in the Brighton area or near, I cannot recommend doing the artists trails enough! It's so worth the visit each year. Fabulous work, some really lovely people, amazing houses, wonderful gardens and obviously delicious homemade cakes!!!! ;0 x