Em's 21st Birthday

Today Dad and I travelled down to Bournemouth to see Emily, my littlest sister, for her twenty-first birthday. I cannot believe she's twenty one. That makes me feel quite old! That's Em up there with her birthday cake that I made for her.

I was chuffed with the cake. It turned out really well and it's SO chocolatey! The recipe is a Nigella one from her book Feast. The recipe can be found by clicking here.

We had a nice day - the weather was beautiful. We had lunch at a great restaurant called WestBeach and we sat and ate outside on the deck that overlooks the seafront. So nice! I had some of the best fish and chips I've ever had.

I've had a busy couple of weeks, hence the lack of beads and blogging but I have a free weekend coming up and I'll be melting some glass. Stay tuned for new beads .....

An Official Chocolate Day

There are four days of the year when it's perfectly acceptable to eat chocolate for your breakfast. Those times are your birthday, Easter Sunday, Christmas Day and Valentine's Day. I have been known to eat chocolate for breakfast on other days but we won't talk about that .....

So first thing this morning I revelled in the fact that's it's an Official Chocolate Day and I broke open a beautiful box of Hotel Chocolat loveliness that my fantastic fiancé sent me for Valentine's Day. The chocolates are so pretty - there's lots of pink and dashes of red and they are utterly delicious. Thank you, Mister G!

The Purple Chocolate Of Joy!

Oh how I love Milka chocolate. It's just so smooth and creamy and it has a shiny purple wrapper. With a purple cow on it. What's not to like? It was always quite tricky to get hold of here in the UK but Tesco recently started stocking it. Result!

Lynne and John (Chris's Mum and Dad) have got Milka hot chocolate for their Tassimo coffee machine and I'm now considering getting a Tassimo for the Chris And Laura Box. I tell you, that is one tasty beverage!

Shopping, Chocolate & Socks

It's been a fab Tuesday. Last night Nicky travelled up from Southampton and we spent the evening (and early hours of the morning) having a good old natter. She brought all her wonderful silver jewellery with her for me to have a look at and to ooh-and-aah over. Such prettiness!

Today we went to Oxford and we had lunch in a nice cafe in the Covered Market. This is Nicky posing with her chic new hairdo and enjoying her panini.

Then after a couple of hours mooching around the shops we went to the Thorntons Café where Nicky had the slice of rather naughty-looking chocolate gateau at the top of this post and I had a piece of chocolate caramel shortbread. And a hot chocolate. With whipped cream. And they gave us each a chocolate truffle too. Cocoa overload! Nicky snapped this shot of me licking melted chocolate off my fingers.

One thing I did buy today was a book about knitting socks. I've mentioned before that I have a bit of a sock obsession (hmmm, that's an understatement) and I decided the other week that I want to have a go at making my own. The book I bought has loads of interesting sock patterns including one for a freakish-looking pair that kind of turns your feet into cloven hooves so - get this - you can wear them with flip-flops. That is a heinous fashion crime! Needless to say I won't be knitting those ones but I will keep you posted with my sock-making progress.

Seriously Nice

I just had to tell you about these little chocolatey pieces of loveliness. Chris got me a bag of Hotel Chocolat 'Gemstones' for Christmas and oh my, they are so freakin' good! I urge fellow chocolate fiends to buy some and taste their deliciousness. I'm going to have to get myself some more .....

Too hot for beadmaking! Too hot, I tell you!

My shed is like a sauna. I managed to make four beads yesterday and then I had to stop as I was wilting. It doesn't take a lot of heat to make me wilt - I'm a delicate flower, me! Ha! ;o) It's so warm today I didn't even attempt the making of the beads. Nicky came over this morning and gave me a copy of Step By Step Wire Jewelry which features her fantastic 'Round In Circles' bracelet tutorial. She used some of my beads in her design and it's really nice for me to see them in print. I took the step-by-step photographs for Nicky's tutorial and as a thank you she made me this wonderful silver pendant. Isn't it fab? I love it - it's very me. The magazine will be in the shops next week so if you get a chance to grab a copy, do. Nicky's tutorial is great! So it's been another bead-free weekend for me. Feels odd. I feel naughty for not being down the shed making stuff. Plus I'll be in Cambridge next weekend so that'll be three weekends off in a row! I've not been sat doing nothing, though. I've just done an hour of Yoga on the Wii Fit and no, I still can't master that balancing on one leg thing. I'm becoming quite fond of Dirk though as he's been much nicer to me lately. Today he told me I had 'beautiful form', bless him! My friends Helen and James came over for dinner last night and we spent the whole evening playing with Wii Fit. Annoyingly they have perfect BMIs, leaving me feeling like a fat hedge-pig. But I'm quite pleased with myself as I'm losing weight quite steadily. I want to drop a dress size and I'm getting there slowly through a combination of at least fifty minutes on Wii Fit every day and diet. Yes, the 'D' word. Can't believe it. I always swore to myself that I'd never do a diet of any kind and here I am being all Bridget Jones about my weight - counting naffing calories, not eating lovely puddings, abandoning my beloved chocolate, drinking two litres of uninteresting water a day, having one sugar in my tea instead of two and putting skimmed milk on my boring Shredded Wheat. I would kill for a slice of lemon meringue pie with a splodge of extra thick cream - apples and bananas just don't compare!

My new assistant

Buster never gets up on my desk so I was quite surprised to walk into the room to find him staring intently at my monitor. He looks quite studious. My apologies now for any cat fur in your bead packages. Blame him.

I hope you've had a good Easter despite the crazy weather! What is that all about? This weekend we've had every flavour of weather except thunder and lightning. Mad! Robyn came over yesterday and I did a chocolate rabbit hunt for her inside the house due to the inclement weather. And, get this, chocoholic me never received one iota of chocolate yesterday! Zilch. Nada. Not so much as a Mini Egg. I must be getting too old for Easter eggs! Or maybe I'm just getting fat and people are trying to tell me something . . . . .

Cat Burglar

More Flora beads, this time in lavender and ink blue.

I came downstairs this morning to find my bag of caramelised milk chocolate drops scattered over the lounge floor next to a dozing and pretty smug-looking Buster who had obviously decided he'd help himself. The thing is, he can't have milk in any form otherwise he goes completely crazy. So not only did I have to throw the chocolate drops away (not very appetising when they've been licked by a cat and have tabby fur stuck to them) but I've had to put up with the cat acting like some kind of ninja today. Every time I came out of the shed he was there, lurking. At lunch I opened the shed door and as I walked out a paw swiped me across the head and this evening he chased me up the garden and bit my leg. Note to self - at night make sure chocolate is totally out of feline reach ......

Isn't this a little bit ridiculous?

I thought it was crazy when I saw Cadbury's Mini Eggs and Creme Eggs for sale in our local Tesco Express the day after Boxing Day, but tonight I couldn't believe my eyes when I walked down an aisle in Tesco that was full of proper normal-sized Easter Eggs! What?! We've only just finished with the Christmas festivities. Don't get me wrong, I like chocolate as much as the next chocoholic but this is just plain silly. I was that shocked I whipped my camera phone out and took this photo!

I've spent the last couple of days in the shed making a large set of tab beads which I'm auctioning on eBay. If you're interested you can take a look at the auction by clicking here. It's a larger set of the 'Chaotic Fusion' beads that I posted here the other day.

I'm off up to Cambridge tomorrow but I'll be back with new beads and waffle next week.

See you later!

Another Heart

A lot of you seem to be liking the 'Roses' hearts I've been making. I love red so I thought I'd make a heart in this rich shade. I was a bit sceptical because I'm always wary about putting red with pink but I think it's worked okay.

I ventured into town this evening and yes, I did actually buy a few Christmas pressies. But something has occurred in town. I was just about to go up the escalator when I saw it. Those two words . . . white letters on a black background . . . calling to me . . . Hotel Chocolat.

Yes, they've opened a branch of my favourite chocolate emporium in Southampton. I was pulled in by its tractor beam and I wandered around in a happy daze looking at all the beautiful chocolates. And if you're reading this Chris, I was very good and didn't buy a single thing for me. You'd have been impressed at my self discipline!

Mmmmmm, chocolate!

More fusion beads, this time in a very chocolatey colour combination. They're even more chocolatey than the cocoa ones from last week!

Talking of chocolate, I visited 'Hotel Chocolat' in Cambridge on Saturday. In case you haven't heard of 'Hotel Chocolat' it's a very-naughty-but-oh-so-nice chocolate shop. If you haven't got one near you then do take a look at their website. I'm not sure if me going in there was a good idea or not, really. I mean I get their catalogue through the post regularly and I've eaten many a Hotel Chocolat chocolate that I've been given as gifts but actually going into the shop was a bit different. Chris has done a pretty good job of keeping me out of the shop in the past but I wanted to get a box of chocolates for a friend so I had a dang good excuse to go in there. And yes, of course I got myself chocolate. But the problem now is that I keep thinking of those slabs of chocolate, pink champagne truffles and cute little bags of chocolate drops . . . . . . . . .

'Strawberry Fusion' and a chocolate observation

More new 'Fusion' beads. Can you tell that I'm loving making beads in this new design?!

This next thing is random but I thought I'd say it anyway. Us chocolate lovers quite often moan that Creme Eggs are smaller, Wagon Wheels are definitely half the size they used to be and that you get less Chocolate Buttons in a packet than you used to. (Well, I moan about those things, anyway!) But, last night as I was watching 'Heroes' and munching my way through a big bag of Minstrels I noticed that they've made them bigger! They have definitely grown. Hurrah! Big thank you to the Minstrel makers!

See? A totally random observation but it made this chocoholic happy!