Things I Loved, March 2015.

This month I loved,

* sunshine * crochet magazine arriving through my post box * croissants * watching Doctor Who, The 100, Neighbours and Great British Sewing Bee * spending time with my little nieces, my big niece is 20 months now and is doing 3 or 4 word sentences, like 'chicken, box, row', which means putting the chicken door stop into her toy box, getting in too, then singing row row row your boat! She's soo clever!  My little niece is 5 months and so cute and cuddly and lovely and starting to sit up * wetherspoons * new books * daffodils and crocus * setting a completion date for our house buying! *   I've watched some great films this month, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, It's Kind of a Funny Story, The Punk Singer (sooo good!), Easy A  *  eating too many chocolate bunnies * solar eclipse (although I hurt my eyes trying to look at it!) * SPRING! * buying a zebra table from the charity shop * reading at lunchtime *

Hope you've had a good month too?

Vegan Easter, Choices Dairy Free 'Milk' Chocolate Bunny.

I thought it would be rude not to try the dairy free 'milk' chocolate version of Choices vegan chocolate easter bunnies, after enjoying the Choices white chocolate bunny so much. 

The brown bunny is just as cute, and has a similar vanilla-y flavour.  The vegan milk chocolate version is a little less sweet and you can definitely taste that it's more cocoa-y. 

I bought my Choices vegan bunny from Holland and Barrett and it cost £1.25 (although they're on offer buy one get one half price!).

Are you ready for Easter?

Short Tip Triangle Crochet Scarf, Pink Clouds.

I used the lovely free pattern by Ateljé Bohemian for a Short Tip Triangle Scarf from Ravelry to make this little shawl.  Unfortunately the pattern has since disappeared from the internet, which is a shame because it's lovely, and I wanted to make another one!  I'm going to have a really good look at this one I've made, and see if I can work out the pattern from that. 

I bought the yarn ageeeees ago, from Aldi.  It reminds me of a cardigan I had as a child, it was made from similar pink and blue variegated wool and had little pink elephant buttons. 

The yarn is DK and I used a 6mm crochet hook.  I used just over a skein of yarn for my shawl. 

I love the colours, it reminds me of the sky when there's a pink sunset.  Which is my favourite kind of sky!  

Linking up with Annemarie's Haakblog and Flaunt it Friday. 

What are you making?

Photo an Hour, March 2015

Yesterday was Photo an Hour day.

Photo an hour is organised by Louisa and Jane, and you can take part on Twitter or Instagram.

Here are my photos, 

9am - It's a lovely sunny day! 

10am - Setting up on the sofa with my breakfast to Skype my friend who lives in Brazil.

 

11am - I went out on my balcony to see if it was warm enough to go out without a coat - it was!

 

12pm -  Still getting up and ready, I got distracted by the internet, my boyfriend Joe by his book.

 

1pm - Wetherspoons for lunch.  I can only have chips there, but they're good chips!

2pm - Walking home.  I love this little row of 3 Georgian houses as you walk up the road to my flat, they're so pretty.

3pm - Catching up on Neighbours.

4pm - I was having a nap, and I didn't take a photo!  I love an afternoon nap!

5pm - Look at that light, I love spring! 

6pm - I collect my compostable waste all week, and take it round to mum's compost heap at the bottom of the garden.

7pm - At Mums, watching telly and eating curry.

8pm - Mum is involved in trying to buy a local building that used to be a cinema, to turn back into a cinema and arts centre.  We were grimly determined to get this donations tin open and count the contents!

9pm - Still at Mums, watching a programme about the Leeds-Liverpool canal.

10pm - Back home, watching The Voice and playing Words with Friends.

11pm - I just wanted to include a photo of my new retro zebra side table.  I love it, but no-one else feels the love (apart from my mum, who bought it for me on Friday for £2 from the charity shop!).

12am - Book and bed!  

Did you take part this month?

You can see my previous photo an hour posts here.

Simple Pleasures #24.

My Easter cactus is flowering.

Vegan Easter, Choices White Chocolate Bunny.

I used to love white chocolate, so I was excited to eat this Choices vegan white chocolate bunny.  

The bunny is really cute and the chocolate is lovely, sweet and creamy.  I don't actually like the smell of it, it smells of very heavy, overpowering vanilla to me, but I like the taste, which is milder sweet vanilla.  It's a little sickly to eat all in one go, but if you're dedicated you can manage it!

I bought my Choices vegan bunny from Holland and Barrett and it cost £1.25 (although as they're on offer buy one get one half price, it would be rude not to get two!).

What's your favourite vegan Easter chocolate?

A Few of my Favourite Pins.

I love Pinterest, here are some lovely things I've recently pinned,

Crochet Flowers Dangly Mobile Garland.

I wanted to make a present for my friend in Brazil (that I visited last year, and that I made the granny stripe blanket for).  It had to be small, because I was asking her mum to take it with her when she visited.

I decided on a dangly, mobile, garland thingy!

 

I followed the free pattern for amigurumi stars by Amy's Odyssey that I found on Ravelry.  Mine look more like flowers, because I did the 3 rounds in 3 different colours.  I've made this pattern using solid colours before and they looked a lot more star like. 

I used a 3mm crochet hook and lots of DK yarn from my stash.  There are 2 little gold bells on the end that I attached to a chain of crochet.   

Here it is in action.  I think I might make one for myself!

Linking up with Flaunt it Friday and Annemarie's Haakblog.

What are you making at the moment?

Spring on the Balcony.

Today has been so warm and sunny and lovely.  

This is probably (hopefully!) my last spring with my balcony garden, so I'm appreciating it's pretty spring flowers even more this year!

Do you have spring yet?

Vegan Easter, Vegan Sticky Hot Cross Buns, from Vegan Life Magazine Issue 4.

This month's subscription issue of Vegan Life Magazine pinged into my Magazine App and I practically drooled flicking through it. 

Photo C/O Vegan Life Magazine

I couldn't wait to try out the 'Sticky Hot Cross Buns' recipe.  I've never really made bread before, as is evident below, but I don't think I can blame the recipe for that!  The steps were really easy and the recipe really clear.

The recipe makes 12 vegan hot cross buns, I scaled it down to make 4.

I decided to make hot happy buns, instead of hot cross buns!  So I gave them smiley faces!  They looked a little, erm, horrific when they came out of the oven, so I quickly picked off the face bits (and ate them!) and carried on with no-cross buns!

I glazed them and then ate one hot from the oven! 

Even though my hot cross buns don't look a lot like the photo in the magazine, they're still super yummy!  I usually make flatbreads, I think this might be the first yeasted bread I've ever made as an adult,  I clearly need to work on my bread-making skills.   I'm very proud of myself for making some edible, non-burnt, tasty buns, even if they weren't perfect.

Boyfriend's reaction was 'ooh heavy' and 'like a bagel', but he did say they tasted nice!

You can find the recipe yourself in issue 4 of Vegan Life Magazine.  Let me know if yours turn out better than mine!

I'm linking this post up with Aniko's Make Thrift and Tell challenge, for March the theme is Domestic.  

You can subscribe to Vegan Life on paper or digitally.  There's also a handy app for digital subscriptions.  You can even read some articles for free on their website before you decide to subscribe!

 

Disclosure - I have been provided with a free digital subscription to Vegan Life Magazine in return for reviewing this publication.  I have my own little page in the bloggers section on their lovely website.  All opinions are, of course, my own.

National Museum, Cardiff. Part 2.

I loved the natural history displays in the National Museum in Cardiff.  They were so nicely laid out, the dinosaurs were the best bit!  

The wooly mammoth's ears and trunks moved, which made me jump!  My favourite was the wooly rhino.  I didn't know wooly rhino's existed until we went to Cardiff!

Look at that wooly little fella!  I wish wooly rhinos really did roam around Cardiff!

National Museum, Cardiff. Part 1.

While we were in Cardiff we spent a couple of hours in the National Museum.  We saw art by Monet, Van Gough, Rodin and lots more.  I loved the gallery full of art by Welsh artists, but you aren't allowed to take photos of most of those works. 

I have some photos of dinosaurs and a wooly rhino from the Museum to share next time!