Wordless Wednesday

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x S.K.K x

wordless Wednesday




enjoy your wednesday 
thank you for making the middle of the week such a fun day with all your great photographs. 
if you are playing along today for the first time all you have to do to join in is enter your wordless blog post in the list below & link back to here so others can join in too. thank you




Jane Means

Jane Means
Jane Means
Jane Means
Jane Means
Jane Means
At The Country Living Fair show last month I discovered Jane Means. Her stand was such eye candy, with rolls and rolls of delightful ribbons and Easter decorations. Jane Means, an ex florist, started her business in 1995 making bespoke cards and wedding stationery which became very successful and a card she was commissioned to make for the Queen was on display at Buckingham Palace Mews. In the late nineties Jane turned her hand to her real passion, gift wrapping, and after completing her teacher training she started gift wrapping courses in her parents Lincolnshire watermill.

Jane is now known as Britain's gift wrapping expert and runs a gift wrapping school up and down the country, appearing on television and featuring in many glossy magazines and national newspapers.

From the website:

"She has worked for a well known French Fashion house in Europe, wrapped a gift for the Queen and personally gift wrapped for various celebrities (She won't disclose names!)."

She also designs her own ribbon collections and decorations, which are featured regularly in the press and are sold online and wholesale.

I bought quite a few of her wonderful ribbons on the day and have started incorporating them into my Easter decorations, coming soon...

Have a sweet day!

Vanilla Meringues

I made some yummy light fluffy vanilla meringues today.


Here is how I made them ...

4 egg whites
1 cup caster sugar
1 vanilla bean

Beat the egg whites on high speed in an electric mixer until they are frothy
Add the caster sugar and continue to beat on high until stiff peaks form
Add the seeds from the centre of the vanilla bean
On a lined baking tray place evenly spaced out dollops of meringue mixture 
Bake in a fan forced oven on 90 deg C for an hour 
Allow to cool in the oven with the door ajar


Serve on a platter with some pretty patterned paper underneath.
Enjoy!

Leanne

The praise junkie


Most of the posts I write have my incessant need for praise buried in them somewhere (go on, you'll find it). It's quite possible that I wouldn't even get out of bed in the mornings if LOML wasn't there with a swift 'you look gorgeous today, honey'. I'm such a praise-junkie that part of me even believes him.

Growing up I would seek praise like a heat-missile seeks prey. The need to please others was ingrained and impossible to shake. Which of course led to gushes of tears should I actually go the opposite way and disappoint someone. My poor parents, disciplining their daughter through a sea of snot. (Don't worry, Mum and Dad, karma came calling... Cappers is exactly the same as me. It's tragic.)

So, help me out a little. I've been nominated (by my sister, don't get too excited) for the People's Choice Awards in the Sydney Writers' Centre Best Australian Blogs 2011. It's very exciting as besides realising my dream of drowning in an avalanche of praise-sweet-praise, I could also win a creative writing course. Yes, I really could!

So, please. Vote for me. Then I will stop with this incessant groveling, I promise. Oh, at least until the Kidspot Best Blogs award comes out 'cos I've been nommed in that one too... why, yes, yes I have.

Click on the image to vote. I'm on page 2 (I always wanted to say that, or was it page 3 that had the chicks?).


[Image via weheartit and I can't for the life of me work out why searching for 'praise' just ended up with a whole lot of pics of dogs. Well, maybe I could work it out, but still.]

by the sea

When my husband & I made the sea change just over four years ago it was a big life changing decision for us. We packed up our family of three into a truck & headed down the unknown path of moving to a new place & a new town. 
Settling in to our new way of life had it's ups & downs. With a toddler to keep entertained, with out the comfort of close friends & family around, & an early morning start for my husband so he could commute to his old job. We sometimes wondered if we had done the right thing. 
It took time. Time to settle. Four months into making our new house a home my husband found work much closer to home. This was a comfort to me, knowing he was close by. A new career path for him & finding out we were adding to our family that coming December meant more exciting times ahead.
We love the move we made. Less pollution, no peak hour traffic & a gorgeous environment to bring up our 2 girls. They love kicking off their shoes & running on the sand. No weekend is complete with out a visit to the beach.
Certainly the best place for us right now is by the sea.