Celebrating Halloween...

I don't usually do Halloween, but this year I have had fun carving a home grown pumpkin....

Crocheting a set of cute friendly ghosts (completely by accident, these all fit inside each other, so they're nesting ghost dolls!)...

Watching Dracula at the theatre, drinking out of my Halloween cup, reading my vampire book and wearing spooky socks!

Happy Halloween everyone! 

Library of Birmingham...

Last week I went to the shiny new Library of Birmingham.  I am in love with it!

There are some beautiful bird paintings on the old library building...

I think this was on floor 4, there are lots of balconies and view points to look out over the city...

On floor 7 is a Shakespeare room, it is most beautiful and old looking, which is a real contrast with the rest of the building.  There is also a viewing point on this level, with huge glass windows to look out over the city.

Up at the tippity top there is a (not so secret) garden.  It had started to rain while I was there, but in the summer it would be lovely to take a book up here to read.  There were amazing views of the city from here too (but my camera wasn't playing ball)!

We went down from the top in this very exciting, great glass elevator, Charlie and the chocolate factory-esque lift. wheee!

The inside of the rest of the library is amazing too, I would LOVE this to be my local library and to visit every week for my books.

Have you been to the new Birmingham Library?  What did you think?

Illuminate Festival Birmingham...

Hello...I just wanted to share some photos I took last night at n interactive light art festival called Illuminate in Birmingham.  My favourite bit was the Lanterns of Terracotta Warriors exhibit, which was originally created for the Bejing Olympics in 2008.  The lanterns were taller than me!  I really loved seeing them.

There was also fire dancers, doing fire poi and stuff (they were ok, but a little too cheesey for me), a modern dance piece (also not for me!), we managed to miss the 360 degree, 3d cinema which sounded good. My other favourite part was the band that lead us along the trail to the next exhibit, they had light up hats! 

I also went to the Library of Birmingham, but those photos are for another post!

Vegan Chocolate Brownie Cake Recipe...

My friend made me this cookbook years ago...

Inside is this magical recipe for vegan chocolate brownies.  They're really simple to make, and have the taste and texture of brownies or chocolate muffins, rich, a bit sticky and very chocolaty.  

I've written it out incase you can't see it clearly ...

Ingredients - 2 cups plain flour, 1 cup sugar, 2/3 cup cocoa powder, 1 cup of oil/margarine (melted marg. makes for a more gooey mix and I often add less oil), 1 heaped tsp baking powder, 1 tsp vanilla extract, pinch salt.

Instructions - Pre-heat the oven to medium/low, mix together all the dry ingredients, add the oil or melted margarine and other wet ingredients and mix very well, add water to mix if you feel it's too dry, put ingredients into a greased and lined baking tin.  Cook on medium low for between 20-30 minutes, or until the top is not shiny.

 I added vegan buttercream icing (margarine and icing sugar and vanilla extract mixed together), sprinkles and edible glitter.  The dinosaur candles turned it into a birthday vegan chocolate brownie cake!

Handmade Cards and a Cow Poster (!)...

I always make my own cards for Birthdays and things, these are my most recent creations...

I made this space invader card using a paper weaving tutorial I found online after googling for 'geeky cards for boys'.  It was pretty easy to make, but my weaving isn't quite perfect, which makes me twitch a bit!  I really like the letter stickers, which were from Wilkinsons.

These two are less creative, just sticking stuff together really.  The Brigitte Bardot one for my friend who likes vintage ladies and a flowery one for Mums birthday.  Someone gave me some card making stuff they were clearing out, so I have nice papers and sparkly things to use at the moment!

Little did I know that when I got involved with helping my local Rainbow Guides unit I would end up drawing giant pictures of cows, but such is life.  There is a notice board in the church hall, and each term we decorate it with something relating to the badge we're doing, and the older girls help as part of their leaving-rainbows 'pot of gold' badge.  You can see the badge I copied it from in the photo, it's called 'The Moo Challenge'.  I left the picture blank so the girls could colour it in.

Have you been making anything?

Garden Update...Pretty Pond, Pumpkin Baby, Plums, Flowers, Monster Growth and First Harvest...

These are some photos from my Mums garden from a few weeks ago, it's a bit more autumnal now and most of the fruit and veg are just about coming to an end.

The pond we dug when we moved there is looking lovely, and so is the garden...

In my little veggie plot I have lovely nasturtiums growing, huge broad beans, enormous pumpkin leaves, and mini sweet corn coming.  The spinach, quinoa and lettuce that I planted a couple of weeks ago has pretty much failed to do anything.

There's even a tiny pumpkin baby making an appearance beneath the giant leaves...

My sunflower has flowered...

There are plums on the plum tree...

And here's my first little harvest, some broad beans and a courgette.  I prefer to pick my courgettes when they're a bit on the smaller size, I think they're tastier.  I picked 2 more courgettes today and there are more coming on the plant too!

How do your gardens grow?

From here

Library Love...Maddaddam, Simply Jiggy, 500 Toys, My Cool Allotment...

This month I've been reading...

Maddaddam - Margaret Atwood
This is the last book in a trilogy (the first two books, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, were helpfully summarised in the first few pages for those of us who have bad memories, the first book was written in 2003 so it's been a while!).  Margaret Atwood is one of my favourite authors and this didn't disappoint.  This is perfect post-apocalypse, survival, growing your own, new society type reading.  Loved it!

Simply Jiggy - Jiggy Majhu
One word...pakora bread! That's right, this book contains the recipe for pakora bread, bread dipped in pakora batter then deep fried, which one imagines to be the Indian equivalent of fried bread.  Sounds amazing!  Although this isn't a vegetarian/vegan cook book, there is a chapter on vegetable dishes and plenty of the starters and side dishes are veggie anyway.

500 Toys to Knit, Crochet, Felt and Sew - Nguyen Le
This book is so cute, it has loads of projects in it.  Variations for each pattern in the book are provided too, for example, you can use the sewn ballerina pattern as a base to make a princess, girl scout, ballerina cat, felt paper style dress up doll and a puppet.  Lots of inspiration! I especially like the crochet octopus and the ukulele cushion.

My Cool Allotment - Lia Leendertz
This book makes me dream of having an allotment of my own.  The chapters are split up into things like 'edible jungle', 'food from home' and 'a feast of flowers', and each chapter features 5 or 6 examples of cool allotments along those themes.  Lots of lovely pictures and inspiration, and the interesting stories of the people who created the allotments.

Have you read anything interesting recently?

('scuse terrible lighting on these pictures - where has the sun gone!)

Easy Green Things To Do This Month...October 2013...

Here's this month's list of easy green and eco friendly actions...

Sign Oxfam's petition to ask big companies to source ethical sugar in their products.  While you're looking on the Oxfam website, see if there's any Oxjam events on near you this month.

Use Greenpeace's online letter to ask Russian authorities to release 30 activists being held without charge. 

Sign WWF's petition to prevent Virunga, Africa's oldest national park, from becoming an oil field.

Put your name on CPRE's charter to show your support for their ideas about protecting the UKs green spaces.

Sign Sustran's petition asking to make it easier to cycle to work.

If you have any ideas to be added to this months list, then let me know in the comments section and if I like it, I'll add it!  And feel free to share any of this info (or the whole post) wherever and with whoever you like!