FROCKS & FORKS

Beauty Buys and Gifts

September 14, 2015sarahloulake

There’s something about September that makes you want to buy supplies- like back to school and stationery purchases. There’s something about just wanting “new”- new starts, new attitudes and (shortly, for me) a new job.

So, the adult version of stationery is beauty supplies. That’s a lie. Stationery is still amazing. However, for the sake of this post (and in reference to my September credit card bill) I have been buying beauty supplies. Online.

There’s been 3 main purchases, and a lovely gift I received this weekend.

Clinique

My usual make us is Mac, but I wanted to try a bit of contouring, so chose these chubby sticks. I purchased two of them: the Chubby Stick Sculpting Highlight for £19 and the Chubby Stick Sculpting Contour, also £19.

I have tried using them: I think I need to watch a bit more YouTube! I ended up with shiny patches and some kind of streaky bits. Need to practice a bit more before I go out in public!

Mac

I did a total overhaul here! Most of them are my Mac staples- but I had a couple of new purchases! I chose a new mascara- upward lash- which needs to be used carefully! I ended up with doll’s eyes this morning! I also got the Velvet Teddy lipstick: I don’t wear lipstick, but this is perfect because it is really close to my natural lip colour. (I don’t wear it because I am always afraid I have put it on wrong!) It is, coincidentally, the Kylie Jenner lipstick- but I’m not going for the collagen plumped look. Natural is fine for me!

Bumble & Bumble

I love this stuff, and have a shelf of it in my bathroom. I needed to order new shampoo (I have been using Creme de Coco all summer) and chose the Seaweed one, which I haven’t tried yet. It does say “suitable for frequent bathers”- which seems a rather redundant statement. I also purchased this creme called “Don’t Blow It”: I try to alternate blow drying and air drying my hair. When it is air dried, I wear it up. I spotted this product and thought it would be perfect to tame some of my frizz on an air drying day! The final product I purchased was SemiSumo (upon the recommendation of a super-chic friend) to try when styling

The best thing about ordering direct from Bumble & Bumble is the samples- I got 3 styling cremes added to my order! I got the Repair, Straight and All Style, as well as a shampoo sample

Tarte

An amazing gift from an amazing friend: this beautiful Tarte Rainforest After Dark Coloured Clay Eye & Cheek Pallet. The colours are perfect, and they go on (and stay on) amazingly. Apparently it’s because of the natural clay

Bristol, Banksy and Bottles of Booze

September 13, 2015sarahloulake

I was born and raised less than an hour from Bristol, and yet I know very little about the city. So, with a visiting friend from America, the plan was to play tourists and see the city. It didn’t necessarily go to the touristy plan, but we found some great places nonetheless.

We didn’t see the suspension bridge in daylight (photos below are from a separate trip to Clifton) but we did drive over it at night, and back underneath it. One of the travel sites did claim that Bristol was like a British San Francisco- maybe a stretch- but exclamations of “it’s like the Golden Gate Bridge!” may add some credibility to Brunel’s engineering feat and the kudos for Britain’s once second city.

So, we started down at the Harbourside, walking through the crafts markets and stopping at The Stable, a place claiming”We’re all about the pizza, pies and cider”. We had a pie (“The Lamb Bam Boogie”) and the four cheese pizza, accompanied by a bottle of Prosecco.

We then ventured up Park Street and looked at some of the street art. This is a great site to get a map of all the different street art in Bristol before reaching the top of Park Street.

With such a strenuous walk, we needed to pause: so we popped into Jamie’s Italian for the second bottle of the day before walking along to Zero Degrees micro brewery for drinks.

We then ended up at Rosemarino in Colston for dinner, where we had beautiful carne antipasti and I had delicious squid ink arancini.

So, less tourism, more indulgence. I wasn’t on vacation, but ate and drank like I was. Oops!

In search of a creative outlet

August 23, 2015sarahloulake

In the last few weeks I have been doing a few creative projects (in need of a creative outlet, in the absence of one at work at the moment!)

Below are 3 of the projects I’ve completed- two for the home and one for expectant friends

Footstool

I used a pattern available on the blog Gleeful Things

The wool I used was Jersey Be Good from Wool and The Gang here which is on sale for £6.35. It took 5 balls of the yarn and is really quick and fast to make. It looks a little bit lumpy in the photos but it has settled into a better shape now! It’s really quick to make, and you don’t have to sew it together, you just have to stuff the footstool half way through and then close the crochet up around it. Big fan of projects with no “making up”!

Bean Bag Style Chair

The project took a LOT of making up! The first bit of the project was pretty fun! It involved this giant wool- you can actually knit it on your arms if you want! It’s from the Wool Couture Company (Facebook page here) and I bought it from Etsy. I also got the needles- they’re like rolling pins- but the fun thing is, you can get a huge amount done in a short amount of time. I did it in an evening.

I then got some sweatshirt material and painstakingly stitched around the whole piece- stuffed the inside- and then closing it up with stitching. It took a while. My fingers hurt. But it gives us some additional seating- which is good, and I couldn’t find any bean bags I liked! It’s also the cosiest thing! I just want to sit on it all the time now!

Baby Stuff

Not for me. Despite the relentless of questioning of “when?” I get (just twice this week…below average!), these are just little gifts for expectant friends. I like giving handmade things for babies (and am so grateful for the hours spent with my mum learning this stuff- it is becoming so useful now!) Baby stuff is quick and easy, so when in desperate search for a quick creative outlet, this massively helps!

A week relaxing in Cyprus- the books I read

July 27, 2015sarahloulake

The most perfect, relaxing week away. I had never been to Cyprus before but was looking for guaranteed sunshine and relaxation, and this place didn’t fail to deliver!

We booked it through James Villas and you can watch a super cheesy YouTube video on the place here. We landed in Paphos, waited about 90 minutes for a hire car (I never usually use Avis, but I was using my airmiles to book it. So bad. Always use Hertz!) and then you have to drive across the island for about an hour to the North shore. Argaka is a tiny town with a pebble beach. Our villa was down a dirt track, through orange and olive groves and located halfway up a hill. A couple of times we didn’t think our little Mitsubishi Colt would make it!

This isn’t a post full of restaurant reviews and recommendations, because- in all honesty- I left this villa once, to get our first stock of food and drink. We cooked every night, slept in everyday and lay around the pool reading all day long. I can, however, give you a summary of the books I read during the week:

Mr Nice by Howard Marks: a fascinating insight into the world of an international hashish smuggler and life in US federal prison. I also learned a little bit more than I needed to know about the special “extras” involved from massage parlours in Hong Kong. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Although, I was left feeling that perhaps others had put their Oxford education to better use than I…

How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran: I loved “How to be a Woman” and “Moranthology“. This book is fictional (or is it?) but largely follows the same themes as “How to be a Woman”. In the back of the book she even apologises to her own siblings for writing yet another book about sex and masturbation. It’s light hearted and if I was in to early 90s indie music, I am sure it would reflect that period of time as a music journalist. One quote sticks with me. It’s about mulberry jam. Read it if you want to know why.

Eat, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss: a re-read, just to keep updated. As you can tell from the grammar of this post, I did not adhere to all it taught. Her enraged passion for apostrophes is contagious though.

Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins: it has remained half read on my Kindle for months. So I finished it off. I think we all know how it goes.

Freakonomics by Stephen D Levitt and Stephen J Dubnar: Easily the best book I have read this year. Utterly fascinating. Lots of Chicago examples, which I loved, but overall it is a phenomenal book that challenges how you think. I love data: I spend much of my day analysing and making decisions using it. This book urges you to think slightly differently and perhaps find another rationale for something- or another route to take. I loved it. Superfreakonomics is also fascinating.

The Sunrise by Victoria Hislop: Holiday reading. I have read The Return, when in Spain (easily the best one), The Island, when in Corfu (and learned a lot about Leprosy) and now The Sunrise in Cyprus. It was certainly educational in terms of helping me understand the Greek/Turkish split of Cyprus. Also, I am fascinated by ghost towns, and the novel is based in the 1970s in a town called Famagusta that was then abandoned, and remains abandoned to this day. Google it. It’s not high brow literature, by any stretch, but it’s nice to read a bit of easy fiction set where you are reading it.

I saved “Grey” by E L James for the end of the week. I have still only read the first 100 pages. Maybe I have matured. Or maybe the book is just awful. If you have read the first 3, remember how- after a while- it was infuriating that she KEPT biting her lip? And he was obsessed with forcing her to eat meals? Well, that’s all there. However, in addition, there is the overuse of the word “twitching”. I put the book down and I haven’t picked it up since I returned. Too much twitching for my liking.

Rescuing and fixing ripped jeans

July 27, 2015sarahloulake

Yes, yes. I ripped my jeans. At work. In the bum. I spent the day sitting down, or pulling my t-shirt over the rip. Luckily I was wearing appropriate pants…

Apart from the shame, I was just sad that my favourite jeans had given out! So, I had a go at fixing them and, after a few stress tests, I think it may have done the trick.

When we were in Gothenburg we bought a repaired pair of Nudie Jeans (see post here) so I had a spy on how they repaired them, and copied them.

It’s pretty simple. I just cut a bit of denim off another pair of jeans and pinned it over the gap, then I used quite a tight running stitch and the reverse button to zig zag over the gap (from top to bottom) and then back down again.

It’s not perfectly hidden, but the jeans are wearable again. I guess, if you were braver than me, you might want to do it in a deliberately bright colour. However, I think I had enough attention on my bum on the day I ripped them!

One Night In Amsterdam

July 26, 2015sarahloulake

When you live in England, you sometimes forget how close Europe is and how it is possible to go get a quick dose of Europe in 24 hours. So, here’s a quick summary of an evening in Amsterdam.

Bristol airport to Schiphol takes 1 hour and you can fly EasyJet.

Dinner for the evening was at The Lobby which is easy to find. Just head to Dam Square, where the National Monument is, and then venture down Nes, a narrow (ish) street and you will find it on your left. Watch out for bicycles…they rule the road here!

The ambience of the place is cosy and dark. Great service from denim shirt clad waiters and waitresses. I remember this because, I wore a denim shirt and avoided standing up all evening, in case I was pulled over to a table. So, if you go- don’t wear a denim shirt. (Some people reading this may say “Just don’t wear a denim shirt. Period.” but I love mine and don’t care what you think!)

The menu on the website isn’t showing the same stuff we had. We definitely started with Flammkuchen, which is a traditional, thin-crusted pizza dish from the Alsace region with creme fraiche and a variety of toppings. We also had a smoked mackerel pate and fresh bread. Then, for main course I had rabbit and asparagus (the best rabbit I have ever had!) but massive food envy for the steak opposite. Yeah, that wasn’t to share. That was for one person.

The lighting over the bar was made from decanters with the bases removed, which I love!

Some dreary shots of the canal in Amsterdam…

…and obligatory souvenir shots. Considering those salt and pepper shakers for the new kitchen. Amsterdam is represented by a more demure (yet glittery) pair of clogs on the tacky fridge magnet collection.

Happy Hallway

July 25, 2015sarahloulake

Just a quick post- because I have been terrible at keeping up with the blog recently!

Here’s some pictures and a quick guide to some of the new bits and pieces in our hallway

Artwork: The bike print matches the one in the bedroom that we purchased in Gothenburg. This is the portrait print and you can buy them from Jolly Good Fellow. They’re screen printed so are €85. The other print is “Welcome to the City of Champions” from the Danish company Playtype and you can buy it on The Poster Club for €40.

Table: Purchased the hairpin legs from this guy in Malmesbury who has an eBay store here then we made and sanded the top to the table

On the table, the wooden bowl is from Homebase here for £11.99, the Pigeon Post Letter Rack by Susan Bradley can be purchased here for £20 and just out of shot is an Anglepoise 1227 light in cream. These can be purchased here on John Lewis for £175. I got mine on Amazon Lightning deals for £70 though!

The walls, as always, are painted in Polished Pebble from Dulux. The lightshades can be purchased here from B&Q for £27.

The shoe rack I have posted about before here

Lovely Loo- downstairs loo makeover

July 4, 2015sarahloulake

This project really did become a labour of love. Turns out tiling is tough. Pay the professionals.

As ever, the walls were painted in Dulux’s Polished Pebble and I used the same tiles as in the kitchen (B&Q’s Underground Tiles now at £18/m2 but got for £10/m2 in the Bank Holiday sales!)

Other bits and pieces

Le Sac En Papier: it’s holding the loo rolls and, to be honest, some of the poor finishing on my tiling! I got mine on notonthehighstreet.com but it is also available at Boudie & Fou which is generally just a beautiful website!

The Leather Strap mirror: from John Lewis for £60. It is heavy so you need a pretty substantial fixing!

The London and New York underground prints are from a Swedish poster company called Kreativitum and I purchased via the Scandinavian Design Center which is a great website with lots of lovely things on it!

The lampshade matches the ones we have in the hallway and is from B&Q for £27 here the lightbulbs are from Amazon and are squirrel cage lightbulbs- just search for “Edison bulbs” and you’ll find a selection!

Once again, an IKEA picture shelf comes in handy! £7 and just the right depth for bottle of potions in a bathroom!

Finally, the cosmetics in the loo

Air freshener is Paddy Wax Room Spray in Tobacco and Patchouli. I got mine from Urban Outfitters but a quick google search shows that they are now selling it on Ocado here– not the exact scent I like, but all the Paddy Wax stuff is good!

Soap is from the Natural Spa Factory, a company in Bath and is Fig and Vanilla. I hadn’t heard of the company before but on a stop at Gloucester Services (seriously…go there. It is the best services ever. There is a farm shop…) I saw it and purchased it. You can also buy it direct from them online here

Finally, the hand cream. I discovered this stuff in a restaurant in Chicago. Every time I went there I would have to go and wash my hands, just for the hand cream (and then smush my hands in the faces of my friends, so they could smell how good this stuff was). Well, here’s the thing. Turns out, the beautiful hand cream was from Babington House, Somerset. I am from Gloucestershire. I just didn’t know! The handcream I have is the herb one and you can buy it here.

A return from DIY purgatory: the kitchen is DONE

June 13, 2015sarahloulake

I haven’t posted for a while because, every Saturday morning, I wake up with a long list of things to do on my Google Keep app. A list of things related to finishing our kitchen/hallway/downstairs loo project. This morning I woke up happy. Happy in the knowledge that, this weekend, I don’t plan on lifting a paintbrush, chisel, Stanley knife or grouting spatula. Happy that there won’t be tools strewn around my house. Happy that I can sit in my kitchen, right now, with a cup of coffee and not have to stress about the thin layer of dust that is coating everything around me.

This wasn’t even a “big” kitchen project. No cupboard changes, no floor changes, no appliance changes. It, really, was merely an update. It just seemed to take forever!

So, what did we do?

New paint- surprise, surprise for anybody who has visited my house or read the blog. It was Polished Pebble from Dulux. I just love it. Our house is sort of open plan downstairs, so it also meant that the rooms can all flow from one to another in the same colour.

New tiles- Underground tiles from B&Q– £18 per m2, but on Bank Holiday they were £10

Those were the two major changes. I had made some…questionable choice before. So we had a red wall to paint over and red subway tiles to rip off the wall first. It was messy and kind of dangerous. I think my rule for the rest of my life will be “white tiles only”. Any passion projects that I do on a whim have consequences: smashing red tiles off the wall, wearing safety goggles, is one of those consequences.

The rest was just decorating. Like I said, this project has taken a while. So when I was in the US in April/May I also picked up a few bits and pieces for the kitchen.

The chairs were from eBay, and are £107 for all 4 here

Storage jar for coffee: Montana 640z Acacia and Glass Jar from Crate and Barrel for £14.50

White Utensil Pot from Sur La Table– I just love that it’s like when you tear the label off a can

Andy Warhol Print from Moderna Museet in Stockholm. There is a series of prints, for 220SEK (around £20) each. The shipping is quite high though! It’s framed in a RIBBA frame from IKEA for £16

New shelving unit. These are custom made by Stratosphere Design and match the bookcases we have in our living room here. The size is so narrow, there are no standard bookshelves on the market we could buy, but as the kitchen overlooks the living room, it’s nice that they are the same. The cost was £150 for the custom made unit, which is actually cheaper than some of the standrd stuff you can buy!

Other “finishing touches” (Left to Right)

– Salt pigs- old from Sainsbury’s, as is the tall, Nordic pepper grinder (£6 in the January sales!)

– Number hooks- 4 for £10 from Gollybygosh on eBay

Menu Salt and Pepper Grinders: I got mine on Amazon. They are kind of expensive and indulgent (£38) but I really like them! Read about the design principle here or you can buy them at Heal’s here. It’s a Danish design company and they have a lot of great stuff.

In contrast, the storage jar for the dishwasher tablets is £7.99 from Dunelm Mill here

And, despite the monochromatic theme of the room, the red Smeg fridge remains, along with the selection of kitsch fridge magnets from around the world!

Fifty Shades of Grey (and Yellow!)- Spare Room Makeover

May 10, 2015sarahloulake

As this is a spare room, we did a bit of upcycling and bargain hunting for it! There’s a few different shades of grey going on, but it’s ok!

Paint- Polished Pebble by Dulux

Lamps- IKEA

Cushions- Target (these were bought in 2013, but they have loads of them!)

Grey blanket- IKEA

Beatles Print- eBay

Bedside tables- old, white ones painted dark grey. I think the handles are Lisbeth Dahl, but you can find a selection at French Grey here

Bed- Ashby Double Bed by Argos £149.99

Duvet Cover- Skandi Geo by Dunelm Mill £16.99

The ottoman has had a couple of leases of life

I purchased it in 2009 on eBay and it was looking a bit worse for wear. I upcycled it once to the cream, more traditional Art Nouveau style but for this room I repainted it with the Polished Pebble and recovered the top with some left over fabric I had from our living room curtains. I just used a staple gun (as opposed to the more traditional braiding and nail method I used before) and it was just a quick, no more than 1 hour, job.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: