Wall Art

So I was sketching the other day and came up with this little Calligraphy style Wall Art.
I've spotted quite a few quote wall prints on Pinterest and Etsy and thought I'd have a go at sketching something of my own. The first quote I chose was "You are my Sunshine my only Sunshine!" G sings this to me all the time so it was an obvious choice. 

I did a couple of quotes to pop on our wall and thought you might like the a peek at them too.
These are great because you can choose whatever quote you like and in any colour and personalise them to your own colour scheme.

Grab a pencil, rubber, pen and some A4 paper or card.

So to start off I picked my quote "A person is a person no matter how small" from Dr Seuss.

First sketch out your quote in pencil onto a piece of A4. The first few times I drew these it took a while to get the letters exactly how I want it that's why we start with pencil so we can easy peasy change it whenever.

Here's a sketch of the alphabet to get you started but if you're writing the letters joined these might change slightly or depending on your own style might look a little different. 

Next go over your lines carefully with a pen. I like to use black as it looks clean but you could choose any colour. 

Fill in and add curves and flicks to the letters of your quote. I drew these in first where I wanted them, then filled in with my pen to make the Calligraphy style font.

Lastly wait until your pen is dry completely then rub out any stray pencil marks you can spot! 

Then hang your handmade quote on the wall and marvel at your craftiness! 

Thanks for reading! Which quotes did you choose? I'd love to see what you've all made!

Katy

Banana Flaxseed Oaty muffins!

As I've mentioned before in my banana bread recipe I have a tendency to buy bananas and forget about them. And I did it again, so just as they were turning brown I decided to bake them up into some muffins.

Some healthy muffins. So I pulled out this banana muffin recipe with flaxseed and oats. It's super simple and so yummy!

You'll need:

200g Self Raising Flour
100g Porridge Oats
50g Flaxseed
100g Brown Sugar
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
A pinch of salt
1 egg
175ml Milk
75ml Vegetable Oil
1/2 Teaspoon vanilla extract
400g Bananas

Mix together the oats, flaxseeds, flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a bowl.

In a jug mix your milk, oil, egg, vanilla extract and mashed bananas.

Mix the liquids into the oats and flour, stir until just combined. Make sure not to over mix, just enough that everything comes together. 

Pop the mix into your muffins cases and put them in the oven at 200' for 15-20 minutes.

Once out pop them on a cooling rack.

And finally ... Enjoy!

Katy

Leon

We came across Leon last year when we took a trip to London and I did crazy amounts of digging to see what wonderful things we had in store. Especially in the food department. We only paid a flying visit to the little Leon place in King's Cross Station before we got our train home, but my oh my was it good.

My mum had bought me some of the Leon cook books for Christmas a few months before we took our trip. But my most recently acquired Leon cookbook is the Fast Vegetarian.

I was so excited to get this for my birthday! I'm a huge fan of vegetarian food, and for the most part I'd choose veggie over meat (maybe except for bacon...)

Not only do the recipes make me feel like I could eat everything in my kitchen the photography is incredible. I only hope and pray that my version of the recipes turn out as great as theirs look. 

It's filled with staple vegetarian recipes, but also interesting and different takes on recipes I know everyone loves. I'm dying to make the cinnamon toast and their Gnocchi recipe. 

Now summer has finally appeared vegetables and salads are going to be my staple, I can't wait to try out all the recipes in here.

My summer will be filled with good food and hopefully some sunshine. There's an exciting few months ahead.

Katy

Making Madeleines

I love to make Madeleines simply because they're so tasty and super simple.

The french traditionally bake these with almonds but I'm more of a fan of the lemon recipe I use when I bake them. 

Ingredients you'll need: 

2 eggs, 

100g Self Raising Flour, 

100g Caster sugar, 

1 Lemon- juice & zest, 

100g Butter- plus extra for greasing the tin, 

How to:

Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius. 

Put the eggs and sugar into a bowl and whisk until light and frothy. 

Add the rest of the ingredients. 

Then whisk again lightly until the ingredients are all incorporated. Then leave to stand for 20 minutes. 

While you're waiting use your extra melted butter to grease the Madeleine tray and then sprinkle with flour. Like me you might make a bit of a mess but just wipe away where you don't need the flour to be. 

After your 20 minutes are up carefully fill each madeleine mould 3/4 full. Bake for 8-10 minutes and keep an eye on them so they don't get burnt. 

Pop them out of the tray, they should just easily lift out if not use a spoon to just nudge them out of the tin. 

They cool quickly and are best eaten within a day or so. A perfect excuse to sit down with a cup of tea and make a few disappear. 

Have you tried Madeleines with other ingredients, what's your favourite recipe? 

Katy

Strawberry season!

It's finally strawberry season! And the strawberries taste really good, so I grabbed some from our market along with some cherries which looked too good to resist.

I thought I'd make them into something a little sweet! Fruity jelly...

I chopped my strawberries and destoned the cherries in to bite size pieces. 

I just wanted to eat this whole bowl while I was chopping them but I had to resist and get the jelly part ready.

I found these adorable little pots last year in a charity shop, 5 of them for £1 I couldn't leave them behind. They have the sweetest little heart pattern in the bottom and are perfect for some little summer jellies. 

I filled the pots up three quarters of the way with the jelly mix and filled the rest up with the strawberries and cherries.

They'll probably take a few hours to chill and set the jelly, but then you can enjoy them in some of this lovely warm weather we've been having. 

I've even brought out my sunglasses this week to enjoy the sunshine! 

Katy