What's Doin?

I have always made bracelets cushions and pencil cases for the fun of it. It is an enjoyable and relaxing thing for me too do. I love sitting down to tea time TV and getting my craft on. One of my friends said a few months ago after I gave them a bracelet and bowtie I had made 'why the hell dont you sell these?'.. So, thats what im now doing. I thought I would give it a shot at selling things that I have made which is a nerve wracking yet exciting thing to do.

My shop on Etsy is called What's Doin'? Weird name? Not to me. Whenever I am back home up north and making anything crafty my now 3 year old nephew would ALWAYS ask.. 'Aunty Wawen, What's doin'?. So thats where is came from. The phrase has stuck in my family and now we all say it, not matter what age we are. Its a part of our diction now!

I had my awesome friend Nikki take a few photos of her wearing my bowties too so a big THANK YOU to her :)

If you would like to check out my shop click on the link below and let me know what you think. 

WWW.ETSY.COM/UK/SHOP/WHATSDOING

 x

Im in Bonny Scotland!

My word it has been a weird few weeks. After my last post my awesome little nephew got taken into hospital and was there for just under two weeks so a lot of my time has been spent driving back and forth to Alder Hey, sitting with him on his cool hospital bed that had a remote to move up and down and in and out, whilst watching Peppa Pig and and anything with trucks on it! However the little dude is all well now..just fancied giving us a scare for a while. I will get him back when he's older..and make him pay for the petrol money I spent! ;)

I am now in the beautiful city of Edinburgh for the annual Fringe Festival which if you havent been is a huge month long festival with a lot of comedy shows, theatre, plays and a whole load of street performers. It's an amazing atmosphere and as this is my third year I can say for sure that it is getting bigger and bigger.

If you didnt know my other half, Luke, is a stand-up comic (hence the reason Im here and hence the reason we have never been on holiday together. I now realise comedians dont earn much for the first 10 years of their career! ) so I come up each year to support him and enjoy the a million and one things to do up here for free! Also I decided to get some gigs up here myself so earning a few pennies too. Win win.

Are any of you up here this year for the festival? Plug time.  If you are and are wondering what shows to go and see of course I would recommend the show Luke is in which is called AAA Stand-Up at The Pleasance Court Yard (Venue 33) 7.15pm everyday. 

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS AND TICKETS

..and if you want suggestions of the FREE shows to see I highly recommend all on the list below (just click the link) 

CLICK HERE FOR A LIST OF AWESOME FREE SHOWS

Let me know if you have any suggestions of shows for myself to go and see to :)

L.

Living with a Vegetarian

I was flicking through the thousands of photos I have taken on my phone and the majority of them are food related. Not sure what is wrong with me but I feel I cant eat a meal without taking a picture first. Some make in to my Instagram..some just float around on my phone doing nothing. Am I the only one here?

As a meat eater living with a veggie...with a broken freezer (yes that mean I can have ice cream, ice lollies or peas!) it can be a little annoying. If i buy nice fresh meat I have to eat to all within a few days. However it has made me eat things I haven't before like quorn! I lie actually, I have had veggie sausages before but thats it! Now I have quorn chicken in everything! Its so delicious..tastes like chicken (In my opinion) and is not bad for you. Bonus. 

If you have a food blog or know an awesome healthy veggie recipe send me a link as we are in the process of trying to eat more healthy and make better choices basically!

I thought I would share just a small percentage of food pictures with you..

We had a little picnic the other day. Instead of the sandwiches and sausage rolls we went for Ryvita's and Jelly!

These veggie burgers were delicious. Instead of the bun we decided to have it in romaine lettuce and I honestly didnt miss the bread!

Watermelon...a MUST in anyone's fridge

Quorn cottage pie. I have to admit. It wasn't the same as a good traditional beef cottage pie but it was still tasty and comforting. 

Quorn sausages in a casserole!! yes! Simple easy food. The rosemary ones from Linda McCartney are amazing!

Mexican night...a favourite in this household. with homemade guacamole and salsa!

I am still a meat eater and always will be but for the most part I pick a veggie meal of a meaty one.! :)

Lauren x

Hello Again..

Well hello there... I haven't blogged in what feels like forever but I'm back. I love blogging and have no idea why I stopped a few months back. This post isn't really about anything apart from a little catch up.

So, erm.. not much has changed really. I'm still living in London and loving it. There is always so much to do down here whether it is taking a trip to Hyde Park for an ice cream or going to the theatre to see an amazing play or musical. (I am going to see A Chorus Line on Monday and am ridiculously excited!)

If any of you follow me and Instagram you may have seen I have a few new friends...the squirrels! Which my boyfriend and I have started calling ' the kids'..yep..we have gone crazy! We have Ray who lives at the back of our house and Fish who lives at the front (we can tell the difference) and to be honest, how could I not take five thousand photos a day of them. I was in Dorothy Perkins today and saw a cute jumper with a squig on it (see pic below) a few weeks ago I wouldn't think about buying it but now..I want!

Each weekend I am still singing in various venues all over London and Kent and I get to visit some beautiful places. Most recently I was in Whitsable and think I could buy a house there and live happily ever after buy the fishing hut.

Anyway, Im in need of a brew. Quite silly for not making one before writing all this really but I shall leave you with a few pictures.

What have you guys been up to?

xx

A Saturday Treat - Low Fat Banana Bread

I say this is a 'treat' in the tittle because even though its a low fat recipe it does have some butter in it. Although I used marg to make it slightly better. I found this reciepe on the BBC site and it is ridiculously scrummy! I also added so Omega Sprinkles (mixture of pumpkin seeds etc) to make it and energizing bread. I do love banana in everything..I made Banana and Walnut Muffins a while ago which you can find HERE. Let me know if you try this yummy goodness :)

Ingredients

150g Caster Sugar

50g Butter or Margarine

2 eggs

4 tbs water

3 mashed Ripe Bananas

200g plain flour

1tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp Baking Powder

1- Preheat the oven to 180°C 

2- Beat the sugar and butter/margarine together then beat in the eggs, water and mashed bananas.

3- Mix in the flour, bicarb of soda, salt and baking powder.

4- Pour the mixture into a loaf tin and bake for 60mintes (check at 50minutes)

5- And Hey Presto! 

EAT!!! EJOY!!! SHARE!! (or maybe not!)

Lauren x

30 Day Shred: Day 1

So I decided to join in the 'fun' of doing the 30 day shred. I have never been one for fitness videos dvds but since I have seen such good results from other people I decided to give it a go. If you haven't heard of the 30 Day Shred before its a 20 minute workout for 30 days. There are 3 levels in which you do for 10 days each level and over the month you are meant to feel stronger, fitter and lose a little weight. You can buy the DVD although I have found all three levels on youtube HERE. HERE & HERE. If you are going to have a go at it though please research first making sure its right for you.

I have been quite lucky with my weight as I have never felt the need to go on a diet. In college I took performing arts so was doing jazz, ballet and tap a lot which kept me fit. Then when I lived in Cyprus for four years I did some dancing but I have to say..the heat made you not want to eat loads anyway. Now being back in the UK for a few years I have definitely felt the pounds start to pile on and my boyfriend and I are massive sweet lovers so that never helps! 

I did the first workout today and my goodness..it looks easy but its not. I came away feeling like someone had punched me in the legs and arms (weird places to punch someone in the leg?!) but a few hours later Im not in as much pain. Please bare in mind I am a massive wimp so I may exaggerate a little at times. 

Im looking forward to tomorrows session though so it cant be that bad! I am taking before and after pictures. Whether I will post them on here or not is a different question but I will keep you updated on my progress.

Oh and after Tuesday's post I have bought myslef a little notepad that is just for my daily lists and it is for sure helping me get things done! Thanks for the lovely comments and tweets :)

Lauren x

Getting Motivated

Why is it that I find it so hard to get myself motivated? Am I the only one? Recently more so for some reason but I always have loads of craft ideas in my head to do..then never do them. Or I have a million and one things to do around the house (just general clothes washing, organising, etc) yet I find it so difficult to get off my fat booty to do it! IM SO LAZY! I am just out of routine and need to get me a new one. 

I have found that writing things down and listing things is helping.. I think its the satisfaction of being able to cross the jobs off your list. I am more likely to do the ironing if I have written it down first...Weird...but if it works im sticking to it. So heres my little list of things to do over the next few days (If it is written on here then I will HAVE to do them)

• Sew Lukes Jeans
• Write up blog posts
• Do the dishwasher each night (rather than in the morning)
• Research Festivals
• Learn new songs for gigs
• Deep clean bathroom
• Clean MakeUp brushes

Do you have any good motivational tips?! 

Lauren x

Flowering Tea

Now this is something I hadn't seen before and being a massive tea fan it did excite me.. My mum brought these backs from a little trip to Chester and I couldn't wait to try it out. So here is the result.

The pack of two didn't come with instructions so I had no idea of what kind of tea it was but after a bit of research it seems to be the Jasmine Fusion kind. I love jasmine tea however this did not taste like the regular tea bag sort.. Even though I wasn't a massive fan of the taste it still gave me much entertainment for a good 30 minutes...just watching it open up into the flower is incredible and after my good friend Debs telling me about JINGTEA I am definitely going to pay them a visit and get some that I will actually enjoy drinking as well as starring at!

Caetagram Phone Case

A few weeks back in America they had their Black Friday sale. A crazy sale that goes on in all the shops the day after Thanksgiving and thanks to Lily Pebbles from What I Heart Today I found out that Casetagram were having a Black Friday sale with $10 off. I jumped at the chance and purchased this awesome personalized phone case. I had seen them before but at around $25 per case plus P&P I wasn't so sure. However this deal was $10 off AND free shipping! Hello! I chose all of my favourite photos from my Instagram (you can also upload from your file and from Facebook . It has some family pictures on there..friends and memory snaps. I just love it! My boyfriend always said I was a crazy one for phone cases as I can find myself on eBay looking for hours at a time but I think this one will definitely be on my phone for a good few months at least! It took around 2 weeks to arrive which was good as they warned me of about 4 weeks. If you have been looking at them wondering whether to get one..do it.. you wont regret it. Just make sure when you are designing your case check it is exactly how you want it before you save because you cant go back and change it unless you email them and get them to do it. I found that out the hard way but they were extremely nice and got things changed for me. The quality is great and you can customize them in lots of different ways.

Lauren x

p.s. 5 sleeps!!

OOTD - Those cold sunny days!

Jumper - Primark (Men's section)

Jeans - Dorothy Perkins

Shirt - Internacionale (Last year)

Shoes - Converse

Hat - Primark

This was an outfit from last week when me and the other half went for a walk in the local park. It was such a nice sunny day but oh me oh my it was chilly! It is a gorgeous park with a beautiful pub in the middle. There are hundreds of huge trees where the little squirrels live. I end up trying to stalk the squirrels even though I know they wont come near me! I had some boring black gloves too but I took them off. Im back up North now until after Christmas so have time to get some Christmas craft posts up soon.

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend :)

Lauren x

Free Hand Drawn Printable Gift Tags

I stumbled across these on HEY LOOK's blog and had to share them. Cute gift tags that you can print out for free HERE. My gift tags for the year...sorted.

Do you make your own gift tags and decorations at Christmas?

Lauren x

LUMI Magique

Its the time of the year where my skin starts to look dull and gloomy therefore I whip the highlighters out to add a tad of glow to the face. I am usually one for powder highlighters however when I spotted this one I thought I would give it a go seen as I prefer cream blushers to powders so thought it might be the same for highlighters. 

It is such a light texture so does not feel 'cakey' at all and put under my eyes over the top of my Bobbi Brown Corrector I think it works well and brightens up the area with it being a concealer too (Bonus!) Also I like to pop a bit at the top of my cheekbones to boost them up a bit and with its SLIGHT shimmer it really catches in the light without you looking like a glitter ball!

Silly me picked up the wrong colour.. Instead of meaning to get No.2 Medium I got No.3 Dark which surprisingly is not dark at all so I would say to try it in the shop before buying as you may be a different colour than you expected.

(No makeup apart from the highlighter product)

(poop lighting for you to see it anyway! Fail!)

The LUMI MAGIQUE can be purchased HERE for £8.49 but I have seen this in some market stalls for much cheaper so check out your local markets first. 

Is is L'Oreal who own YSL? As it is basically the touche eclat right?

What is you favourite highlighter?

Lauren x

Banana and Walnut Muffins Recipe

Just round the corner from my new flat is a market stall that sell a ridiculous amount of fruit for just £1. Its basically one pound per bowl and in that bowl fit around 15 bananas! Yes great price you may think..but I bought apples and grapes too so needless to say we had a lot of bananas running out of time to be eaten!

Since I have been feeling poop all week with a stooopid chest infection I decided to make something yummy that reminds me of when I was younger (My Nan and I used to make something similar) so here is my Banana and Walnut Muffins.

Ingredients-

230g Plain Flour

200g White Sugar

1tsp Baking Powder

¼ tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

¼ Salt

1 tsp Cinnamon

80g Chopped Walnuts

2 Eggs

100g melted sated butter

3 ripe Bananas (mushed or mashed, however you would like to say it)

1tsp Vanilla Extract

Ready for how simple it is?!

• In a bowl mix all the ingredients together
• In a seperate bowl mix all of the wet ingredients
• Pour the wet ingriendents into the dry and fold to mix it all together
• Pop a heaped spoonful of the mixture into 12 cupcakes cases that are in a cupcake or muffin baking tray
• pop them in the oven for around 13 minutes or until you can stick a knife in them and it comes out clear
• and VWALA! 

They are SO delicious and so yummy warm straight from the oven. They would be great with custard or cream too! 

Let me know if you try them..

Lauren x