I just wanna bake - Homemade Marshmallows

I've once again been neglecting my little blog, I must stop doing this.

Recently I've found myself getting a lot more into baking, specifically the idea of making my own sweets. A few weeks ago it was my Mums birthday, and a jar of homemade marshmallows seemed like the perfect gift idea. 

After being overwhelmed by possible recipe ideas online, I picked an egg free one has I hoped this would be easier for a first attempt - you can find the recipe I used here. 

At first I was nervous that there might be a tricky process involved, but it was a lot simpler than I had imaged and I'd certainly recommend giving the recipe ago. From researching how best to make them the one overwhelming essential item for marshmallow, and sweet making in general is a sugar thermometer - this measures the temperature of the sugar when boiling. Without it, its much more guess related, and you have to rely on seeing if the sugar creates balls when dropped in water, the thermometer took out this guess work and made everything much more accurate. 

You can pretty much make the mallows to any flavour you wish - I made Vanilla, Rose and Chocolate flavours (I also added in some food colouring to turn the Rose mallows pink).

Kew Gardens

Several weeks ago I was asked to design some floral inspired prints, so I saw this has the perfect excuse to take a trip to Kew Gardens in search of some botanical inspiration! 

Below are a few of my favourites, I was on a bright colour hunt, but sadly I think I was a bit too late in the summer for a lot of the flowers. I also wandered around Kew's botanical gallery, I hadn't done this before and I'm really glad I did, filled floor to ceiling with beautifully detailed paintings, photography is not aloud the gallery and I don't think a photo would quite to it justice, but its certainly worth a visit if your a fan of florals. 

Updating my Etsy

I'm a massive fan of things to do lists, I'm so scatty and forgetful I find it a lot easier to write down all the things I'll likely forget to do. One of these such things, which has been floating about on my to-do list for some time now, is to update my Etsy shop - which I've finally achieved this week, a few tweaks remain, but for me this counts as it being pretty much crossed off the list. I love the feeling of completing something, and hopefully my list will slowly begin shrinking. 

I find Etsy so tricky, I never know how best to photo my products, and when I've done it I always question if I'm happy with it. One of my biggest dilemmas was the cover banner, I just did not know what I wanted -  only that there had to be pineapples in there somewhere! I'm sure no doubt I'll change it again in a few weeks, but for now I'm happy to finally have my stuff back on Etsy, after some serious neglect. 

You can check out Etsy shop here 

Elton John: Western Homes Community Stadium, Colchester

Elton Johns 'Crocodile Rock' used to blast out from our house at full volume, every morning before school, my mums go to tool to drag us out of bed and up jumping around the living room to 'When Suzie wore her dresses tight'. So its no surprise that Elton had long been on my list of top musicians to see live, I even debated buying a ticket to Bestival last year purely because he was the headlining act. 

When I heard that Elton John would be playing in my home town of Colchester I HAD to go, it seemed strange travelling home to Suffolk from London to see a Legend, a reverse to the usual! Western Holmes community stadium did not disappoint, and nor did Elton John, I hope this is the start of Colchester appearing on the touring locations of many other musicians, and its made my love for Elton ever stronger!

Southbank: Queen Elizabeth Hall Roof Garden

The Thames is one of my favourite things about London, I love it in the day, the night, even in the rain, so obviously South Bank ranks pretty highly among my favourite London places. I hadn't been in a while, so it seemed like the perfect location to enjoy a saturday night, I love how every summer so many cute locations pop up along the river. 

We had been craving a roof top bar, the perfect way to spend a summers evening, and South Bank did not disappoint, watching the sun go down looking over the thames from The Queen Elizabeth Hall Roof Garden. The roof is open till September from 10am-10pm, complete with grass, flowers and wooden mushrooms the perfect relaxing location, one which I'd certainly recommend visiting at some point this summer. The Mango Mojito was my drink of choice for the rooftop, and that alone is enough to bring me back time and time again, a definate must have. 

Polo in the Park and the Kia Oval

The world cup seems to well and truly be upon us now, with England's first game having taken place last saturday, and with it, my interest in sports remains at pretty non-existant. That being said I surprised myself recently by attending not one, but two sporting events last week: Essex V. Surrey 20/20 at the Kia Oval and Polo in the Park. 

The Oval is just a few stops down the northern line for me, so off I went with my Dad to watch the cricket, and it was totally not what I had in mind, I was expecting a quiet evening with the occasional bit of panic as a ball heads toward the crowd. What I got was a wonderfully buzzing atmosphere, everyone surrounding me seemed in great spirits. Gleefully welcoming in the weekend with a pimm's and a spot of cricket, a great way to spend a summers evening - either has a pre night out warm up or the main event. Definantly worth going to if your at a loss for something different to do on a friday night, especially now the summer seems to have arrived.

My next sporting event of the weekend was Chestertons Polo in the Park, at Hurlingham park, Putney. With it came the tough of decision of what to wear, one must make an effort for polo! The park had been transformed into somewhat of a posh festival with the Polo taking place in the centre, the usual greasy burger and chips of a festival were replaced with wonderful food vendors selling pealla, mac 'n' cheese as well as bread flavour ice-cream! I opted for a delicious lamp wrap from French and Grace and would certainly recommend a visit to their premises in Brixton. 

The two areas which most caught my attention were the giant Makhiki tent and a double decker Pimms bus, perfect! Having never watched Polo before I have to admit I didn't really know what was going on, but it was certainly an interesting sport to watch.

Who knows maybe I'll be transformed this Summer and become a major sporting fan, with Wimbledon around the corner you never know!

Sunshine, Daisy, Buttercup

This week I popped back home to suffolk for a few days and was met by an abundance of beautiful flowers that had sprung up since I was last there. The perfect inspiration for drawing; summer flowers and sunshine, I'm a sucker for both.