Hello everybody! I hope you have all had a lovely week. It is half term for me at the minute but it is sadly nearly over :( But anyways, it is nearly summer and I am so so super excited for it and hopefully for lots of beautiful weather. I am absolutely in love with summer. Everyone seems so much happier and every day seems like an adventure. It seems so many amazing memories are created in the summer. I also love all the cute summer outfits which you get to wear when the sun is shining and will hopefully be posting a summer lookbook very very soon.
Also, you may have noticed that my blog design has changed a little but this is hopefully only temporary as I have designed a whole new layout which I absolutely love but I am trying to work out how to put it on my blog at the minute and I am so so stuck because, as some of you may know, I am the worst at technology. So if any of you know how to work this, I would be so so grateful if you could leave me a little comment or message me. Thank you so so much. This is what I would love for my blog to look like:
I also really wanted to tell you about a project I have started working on. One of my friends has recently released the first chapter of her book - Dearest Amelia - on Wattpad (which is an app on which you can post stories) and her whole book will later be coming out on Kindle. I am so so proud of her because she has worked really hard to get this so make sure to go and check it out on Wattpad. I loved the first chapter so so much as it was so beautiful and well-written and related so much to her life so I am super excited for her second chapter to come out. Anyways, I was really inspired by her and decided to begin writing my own which I am super excited for. I have always loved writing and have a massive passion for it and hope to someday release a book when I am a little older. This little online book is called 'Enchanted Moments' and I can't really explain what it is about as I am not really sure yet as, when I'm writing, I prefer just to see where the story is taking me rather than following a strict plan. When I used to write a lot of stories in my English lessons in primary, I used to hate how restricted I felt as we had to follow the rules of a specific genre and follow the plan we had made in previous lessons. When planning, I never knew what to write on my planning sheet and would sometimes just write something random as I knew I wouldn't follow my plan anyway. I am also one of those people who can't write anything well if I have a restricted length and can only produce a good piece of writing if I can make it as long as I want. In primary, I used to write stories about 30 A4 pages long. Anyways, I really hope I will be motivated enough to finish it and post it on Wattpad very soon.
Anyways, ramble over.
This post is basically a collection of perfect days out which I have been wanting to write about for a long while and which would probably make to short a post alone so I have decided to write one big post about what is happening in my life right now and some of the things I have been doing. So I hope you enjoy this post (after the long rambling introduction) and make sure to leave me a little comment below.
(Also, I am so so sorry for the amount of times I have said 'anyways' in this post. It seems to be my new favourite word...)
Day out with Abby:
So the first of these days out is a day spent with one of my best friends, Abby, and if you follow her blog, (http://sprinkleofteen.blogspot.co.uk/) you may have seen her post on it.
We spent the morning in the super pretty park near where we live, walking around taking millions of photos (so a lot of this section will be pics).
We then walked on a little past this random statue (which I have no clue what it's meant to be) and lots of pretty daffodils.
I love this cute little pond so much. I think it is so pretty and photogenic, despite the fact it is quite muddy and most of the reeds around it are dead (although they do grow back in the summer). These little ducks were the cutest. I think they were in love :) They made me jump a mile though when they splashed into the pond when I didn't even realise they were there.
We then walked through the cute little forest pathway which was so so pretty as all the trees had just started blossoming. It felt like we were in Paris.
There were also some random sheep and pig statues which Abby and I rode on like we were five again.
On the side of the old library, there is this really creative book collage graffiti and I think it looks amazing, despite the super creepy clown.
We left the park then and went to meet our friend Keeley (www.keeleydeabanks@blogspot.co.uk) who moved schools and house in September and we hadn't seen in forever. It was so so lovely to see her after so long. At first I didn't recognise her as she has recently dyed her hair bleach blonde (Elsa blonde- it looks so so pretty) and I nearly walked straight past her then I realised it was her. We then walked into town and went around the shops for a little while then grabbed a Costa which was so so yummy. We then caught the bus home and Keeley came up to my house and Abby went home. One of our other best friends, Tasha then came up as well as Keeley, her and I used to the bestest friends and still are even though we don't get to see each other too much any more. The girls slept at my house and we watched a few movies (Pitch Perfect obviously) with ice cream, played with my guinea pigs and did a little pampering.
I had such a lovely day with my girlies!
Photography at the Beach at sunset:
The next of these days was spent on the beach in New Forest. I recently went to New Forest on holiday for a little while and I literally fell in love with the little village we stayed in. It was so so pretty with lots of cute little cottages and trees full of blossom. The beach was also super pretty. I absolutely love the beach at sunset so I asked if we could spend an evening there to watch the sun set and take lots of pictures. It was so perfect.
Mid-air shots of my brother
Smexy Mikey, smexy...
Disney-themed Spring party:
The third of these days was one of the most amazing parties ever. Me and all of my friends are super obsessed with Disney so Tasha and I decided to organize a Disney-themed Spring break party and sleepover. It may sound super childish but we are all like toddlers. We had a dress theme of anything Disney and I went as Giselle from Enchanted (which I absolutely love). We decided to send out cute little hand-made invitations the day before the party and hand delivered them through the girls letter boxes then drove away.
I was so so sad because I didn't manage to take many pictures, sorry :(
The party was so perfect. Tasha and I spent 9½ hours setting it all up. It was a kind of garden party as it was a Spring break party and we spent a lot of time outside. Tasha and I planned a timetable of things we were going to do and Tasha had the idea to write each activity on a little piece of paper and pop it inside a balloon and on the front of the balloon, write what time the activity would take place and at that time, we would pop each balloon to see what we would do next. We did lots of activities such as: a crowning ceremony- we made paper crowns with new 'princess names' written on them (Princess Tasharella, Princess Natarella, etc...); Easter egg hunt- we bought mini plastic egg shells and put sweets and mini bath fizzers inside and hid them around my garden; inuendo bingo- this is a challenge where you split into two teams and one team fills their mouths with water and the other team have to try and make them laugh (we are constantly playing this); food- lots of yummy pizza, homemade Disney cupcakes and ice cream :) ; a Disney quiz; star gazing in the garden; pampering; movies- Disney; photo booth- Tasha and I put a sheet over a door and stuck lots of cute pics onto it then took lots of selfies in front of it. We also had lots of cute venues in 'the Royal Palace' including: a cinema- we set up a comfy movie room and also a ticket booth outside which you could get 'movie tickets', popcorn boxes and also a pick and mix- we popped a few packets of sweets in different bowls with little scoops and weighing scales; the ballroom- Tasha and I found out all the girls' celebrity crushes and printed out pics of them and we each had to take it in turns to impress our celebrity crush then if we did, we got to go to 'the ball' with them; the princess pamper room- we set up my foot spa and lots of pamper treatments. The garden was so pretty. Tasha and I put candles all the way up the steps (it looked so amazing in the night), set up cute little dining area with a table and chairs and Disney themed table cloths, plates, napkins and cups, a mini bar- with Shloer and ice cream, my paddling pool- we popped lots of candles and deck chairs around it and put rose petals in the water. We also decorated the garden and living room with Disney posters and balloons.
It was so so amazing. I loved it so much. It was so lovely to be able to feel like a child again. I hope this section gave you lots of inspiration if you ever want to do something similar.
Rainbow cakes:
The last of these sections isn't really a day out but I really really wanted to include this anyways. For some reason my family decided to have a Great British Bake Off competition so we all designed an food speciality to bake. I decided to go for cupcakes as I am constantly baking them so I hoped it would be a safe bet. I designed these white chocolate and raspberry flavoured rainbow cupcakes with a little help from Instagram but added my own little twist. I will leave the recipe below so make sure to check it out. Also, I am so sorry for how unfocused some of these pictures are. For some reason, my camera just didn't want to focus.
I used mini fizzy belts to make a cute little rainbow and used butter icing to make clouds to stick the rainbow in.
I also made different coloured sponges then sandwiched them together with melted white chocolate which I then left to set.
White Chocolate and Raspberry Cupcakes Recipe
Serves 6
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 50g sugar
- 50g butter
- 75g flour
- 1 egg
- Pink, yellow, green and blue food colouring
- A handful of fresh raspberries
- 1 bar of white chocolate
For the topping:
- 50g icing sugar
- 25g butter
- Raspberry flavouring
- Pink food colouring
- White chocolate chips
- Raspberry sprinkles
- Blue stiff icing
- Mini fizzy rainbow belts
Method
- Firstly, combine the butter and sugar in a bowl
- Secondly, mix in the flour
- Next, crack the egg into a smaller bowl and beat with a fork until it is a yellowish-orange creamy liquid
- Combine the egg to the mixture and mix with an electric whisk.
- Then, whisk in the raspberries.
- Now, separate your mixture into four bowls and add a different colour to each bowl.
- Place 24 cupcake cases into your cupcake tray and fill each one to about ¼ full, six of each colour.
- Next, place your cupcakes in the oven at gas mark 6, 200 degrees Celsius or 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 15-20 minutes.
- Whilst your cupcakes are baking, melt your chocolate on a fondue maker, on the stove or in the microwave.
- When your cupcakes are cooked, place them on a cooling rack to cool.
- When the cupcakes have cooled, take them out of their cupcake cases and sandwich them on top of each other with the melted chocolate (one of each colour) and place them in a cupcake case.
- You should now have 6 cupcakes. In a new bowl, combine your icing sugar and butter.
- Placing this bowl to one side, make 3 circles out of the blue stiff icing and place them on top of three of the cakes.
- On these three cupcakes, place two tiny blobs of the butter cream you previously made on each side of the cupcake.
- Now, take a fizzy belt and fold it in half, then gently place it onto the cupcake, its ends in the butter cream. Repeat this with the other two cupcakes.
- With the remaining butter cream, add a little pink food colouring and raspberry flavouring into the mix then pipe onto the remaining cupcakes.
- Sprinkle raspberry sprinkles and white chocolate chips over these three cupcakes.
- Make sure to enjoy them and take lots of pics of your recreations for Instagram and Facebook and make sure to tag me!
Anyways, I hope you have enjoyed this post and it has given you some inspiration for perfect days out with family and friends. I hope you all have a lovely week. Thank you so much for reading and make sure to leave me a little comment below. Love you so much
Beauty Flutter
Natalie x
Make sure to watch out for my next blog post:
