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