Monday 29 December 2014

Just let me speak, ok?

Bonjour, Octavia here today, me and molly have spoken about when we will post and I think we decided on me on Monday and molly on Thursday which suits me and here quite well. Knowing me I will end up posting whenever as my life has very little order or direction, but I will try to stick to this for everyone else’s sake.

I am ill, so I am in bed listening to Ed Sheeran, but I felt like doing a spontaneous blogpost, I’m not really sure what to right about life I suppose, after all that is what topic suits me best when it comes to rambling, so read on to hear me ramble on about whatever comes to mind as I write this.

I hope that you all had a good Christmas, I did to a certain extent, I do love Christmas but think as you get older the joy and excitement is lost from it, well at least I feel that way. My sister woke me up a 6am maybe 5am and I just told her to p*ss off. I did say sorry later but I just wasn’t excited for Christmas. Anyone else feel like this?

So I shall not be doing a “what I got for Christmas” post just because I feel like it is showing off slightly and also I don’t know where I’ve put half my presents. However I did get girl online by Zoe Sugg aka Zoella and I want to address all the “hate” as you could put it towards her for this book. If you watch her videos and read her blog the just by reading this book you can see so, so many of the ideas where her own. My dad actually said to me before it had come out “don’t you think it will be ghost written” I replied with “um no” because I am quite a big Zoella fan and I couldn’t imagine her doing that, then it came out that it was and I was more shocked than surprised but then I realised the logic. She’s 24, leads a busy life how she could find space to write an 80,000 word book. I don’t think it’s wrong but I think that it is wrong that she implied that he had wrote it when actually she had just helped to write it. What I think is even worse is how much “hate” she got of it, I mean give her a break people you try writing a book it is hard. I think what she did was quite bad was bad, but how some people treated her was 10 times as bad.

On a more positive not I am going to try and start doing more running, every morning I’m going to give a go at running on the hills, I went with my sister once and felt really good the whole day, maybe that was just the coffee, who knows but I found that running is actually quite fun and makes you feel good about yourself because you have actually done something. Give it a go, it won’t hurt you (too much) and you never know you may discover a whole new person.

I feel like I’ve rambled enough, what do you want to see here next year I’m gonna do more baking, probably another room tour and I’m going skiing so I can take you with me, and I’ll probably do some walk photos.

Hope you all have a really fabby new year.


Octavia xxx 

Wednesday 24 December 2014

ON THE FIRST DAY OF CHRISTMAS.......

So, that is the end of Blogmas...... Me and Tavi have really enjoyed doing this for you, hope you liked it too! Well, I'm not writing anymore since it is Christmas Eve, and I'm too busy putting out cookies and milk for Santa today to blog. Soz guys......

See you again in the New Year (OMG 2K15) when I will do a New Year's resolutions post.

Ba-bye, and Merry Christmas from Molly and Octavia xx

Tuesday 23 December 2014

BLOGMAS: DAY 23 - CHRISTMAS DIY'S

Bonjour, bonjour, and bonjour, how has your day been? I have been in London today for a Christmas thing with my family, not fun, and that is why this post is being written at 1:07am and that it is now actually Christmas Eve, yessssssssssss. This post is one that should have been posted weeks ago but I have just never got around to it, so here are two Christmas DIYs that are good for late Christmas present or to decorate. Enjoy!!!!


The first thing I am going show you is clove oranges. Which very simple but smells heavenly and can be used as a last minute Christmas decoration; I personally shall be hanging these bad boys all around the house.

For this all you will need is some cloves and oranges, yes it really is that simple.




To make these you must simply stick the cloves into the orange, I didn’t have time to do the whole orange, but if you do, do it for sure as it smells so nice and looks fab. You could however make some cute patterns, I just did a little ring all around the orange, but get creative think of some cool designs. To hang them up simply just wrap some ribbon around the orange and hang from where ever you want to smell nice and the longer you leave these the better they get as the oranges dry out and, yes they are just SO GOOD.

The next DIY is a little more complicated but still pretty simple, and that is bath bombs, and yes these are relatively easy to make surprisingly. You can make them either with essential oils, which will make your skin smooth, or do what I did and use dried ground spices, I have given you two recipes here and feel free to alter either of them to your favourite scents.

For the spice once you will need: (makes one)

         1 tbsp. citric acid- available from chemists
         1 tbsp. bicarb soda
         1½ tbsp. cinnamon
         1½ tbsp. ginger
         1tsp. water- preferably in a spray bottle
         1 tbsp. cloves

First of all put all your dry ingredients in the bowl: citric acid, bicarb, cinnamon, and ginger (but not the cloves) then mix them together until fully incorporated.


Now spray your water into the bowl and straight after spraying mix so that your bath bombs don’t fizz to before you’ve even finished, this can be a little difficult so don’t worry it’s not the end of the world and they’ll still work just not as fizzy. Also make sure that you don’t add to much water as you only just want them to be combined, DO NOT MAKE IT INTO A PASTE, it should be they consistently of brown sugar.
 
this is just a general spay bottle I found around the house


Once you have done that line the bottom of your mould, I used a sea shell but you can use water you like, cup bowl cake tin, just whatever, with the dried flowers to make a nice pattern when they have dried. Then just put it into the mould for at least 12 hours, but more if possible.





This is the recipe for the bath bombs made with oil, very similar but there are a few differences.


You shall need: (to make one)

1 tbsp. citric acid- available from chemists
1 tbsp. bicarb soda
¼ tbsp. food colouring, colour of your choice
¼ tbsp. oil of your choice in scent
1 tbsp. dried flowers

First of all put all your dry ingredients in the bowl: citric acid, bicarb, (but not the dried flowers) then mix them together until fully incorporated.

Now pour your food colouring and oil into the bowl and straight after putting it in, MIX so that your bath bombs don’t fizz to before you’ve even finished, this can be a little difficult so don’t worry it’s not the end of the world and they’ll still work just not as fizzy. Also make sure that you don’t add to much as you only just want them to be combined, DO NOT MAKE IT INTO A PASTE, it should be they consistently of brown sugar.

Once you have done that line the bottom of your mould, I used a sea shell but you can use water you like, cup bowl cake tin, just whatever, with the dried flowers to make a nice pattern when they have dried. Then just put it into the mould for at least 12 hours, but more if possible.



Hope you liked that I couldn’t be bothered to re-write a whole new set of instructions so I just copied and pasted them in the end, I really hope you liked it as this will be the last proper blogmas post from me, but I shall still be seeing you very, very soon my little birds.

Night, night, wherever you are, have a very merry Christmas


Love Tavi xxxxxx

Monday 22 December 2014

BLOGMAS: DAY 22 - RANDOMNESS THAT HAS ORDER

Hello, hello, helloooooo you people of today, and today I have no clue what to write about. So I'm just going to talk about MY CHRISTMAS.

Christmas Eve
10-30 AM - 4-30 PM : Tidying, cleaning, dusting, clearing, arranging... Generally preparing the house for the insaneness of the next day.

Approx. 4-45 PM : My parents' friend arrives to chat and there is much biscuits and presents.

6-00 PM : My parents' friend leaves and my grandparents arrive.

7-00 PM : Nice, quiet family dinner.

8-00 PM : Leaving out biscuits and milk for Santa, cos who wants to grow up?

9-00 PM : Being herded to bed (way too early) by adults who just want to sleep.

Christmas Day
7-30 AM : The only day of the year I get out of bed willingly before 11. Running downstairs to look at the presents.

7-45 AM : First breakfast (cereal)

8-30 AM : The lazy parentals finally awake and we (me and ma bro) rip open all the stocking presents.

9-30 AM : My grandparents wake up and come downstairs.

10-00 AM : Second breakfast (toast, croissants, chocolate coins from stockings and satsumas)

11-00 AM : Me and the sibling open presents from far away family we're not gonna see

12-00 NOON : My cousin, Auntie and Uncle arrive and that is when it gets crazy

1-30 PM : Walk before lunch

2-00 PM : Massive lunch/dinner thing that lasts till about 9, with more presents between food

Approx. 9-00 PM: Bedtime for the kiddies! (yay, not.)

So that’s it for today, whether Octavia shall appear tomorrow is a mystery to all of us, and always will be, lolz ;) 

Molly says bye 

Sunday 21 December 2014

BLOGMAS: DAY 21 - CHRISTMAS TREEE

Hello there people, how has your day been, I put my tree up yesterday and it now is beginning to feel like Christmas. My friend Elly helped me and so did my sister Naomi, and because they are silly and annoying ;) they have managed to get into my photos. I have gone for a red and white theme this year with a little bit of sliver and a tiny hint of gold. My house is beginning to get all Christmassy now and it makes me so excited, we are going to my granddads tomorrow so you may just have to hope really badly for a post on the 23rd. Anyway hope you enjoy observing my tree, see you on the other side.




















So I hope you liked that, and I know molly has only just done hers but you can’t do blogmas without sharing your tree. We have a real one, as per, this year and we got it from Waitrose for £20 so if you haven’t got your tree yet Waitrose is the place to go. I am very proud of my tree, and I hope you like it too.
Love ya lots
Tavi xxxxxx       

Saturday 20 December 2014

BLOGMAS: DAY 20 - CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

Well then, only 4 sleeps till Christmas!

Hi again from Molly. Today I have another photography post, this time it is of the Christmas decoration of my High Street. Enjoy, I froze my fingers for this!



I've always liked this one. It just looks warm in there.

The slightly scary one eyed angel down the end of the High Street

The most beautiful shop window

The old church at the end of the street - I have stories about this place

 Right, I did have more pictures but my computer is being weird and won't let me load them, so.....

Bye bye!!


Friday 19 December 2014

BLOGMAS: DAY 19 - SKIING

Hey there I haven’t done a “not much effort put in” post for a while so I thought why not? Today I am going to be discussing the wonder that is skiing. Oh how I love to ski, I wish I could just ski every single day for the rest of my life, I would never get bored. EVER.

I want to talk to you about this because all my friends are going on the ski school trip and have been learning how to ski from scratch and it’s just quite funny because I am quite into skiing personally, I wouldn’t consider myself particularly good, but I would say that I’m ok.

I am also going skiing this year but not on the school one unfortunately because hopefully I will be going with my parents and granddad, who pays for us all to go, and I may even get to see my sister because she out in the alps doing a ski season (so jealous of her) while chalet girling, so that would be good.

If any of you have been skiing I would like to know where you go and what kinda runs you do, I do red and black personally, but I want to know what you lovely people think. I also go to a place called Murren normally and even though it is great there and I can’t wait to go back I have been there so many times I recon  I have done most runs, even some of the off piste ones.

Love you guys so much tell me about what you are planning on doing this Christmas,

Tavi xxxxxx

Thursday 18 December 2014

BLOGMAS: DAY 18 - CHRISTMAS TREE

Hello hello hello! Today it is Molly. I honestly can't believe that it's only a week till Christmas. I have just spent my whole evening wrapping gifts for some friends, and yeah, it took a while....


So today's post is on MY VERY OWN CHRISTMAS TREE! I took some pics for you and here they are........


My teacher a few years ago made me this. 

I really like our glass baubles



Because I was taking photos through a kaleidoscope

Like this one better, this is of some Christmas lights we have strung up around the house.



So, there you go! Hope you liked this, see you on Saturday..... Ciao!

Wednesday 17 December 2014

BLOGMAS: DAY 17 - CHOCOLATE BISCUITS

Hey people, how’s life? Today I made some chocolate biscuits for my friends as Christmas presents and I thought you lovely people might also like to know how to make them, so here it is – chocolate chip cookies dipped in dark chocolate, mmmmm.

You shall be needing:

85g butter
1 egg
100g sugar
200g flour
175g good quality dark chocolate broken into smallish pieces
1 tsp. bicarb


Firstly preheat your oven to 150°C, then line a baking tray with parchment paper or a tray liner.

Next put your butter and sugar, and, you've guessed it, cream until pale and combined.



Now add the egg and beat together, it may curdle but as per usual in these instructions just ignore that.



Then add your flour, bicarb and 75g of the chocolate, mix until completely combined, then turn out onto a flour surface and if you want to shape it just roll it out but I just rolled the mixture between my hands and flattened them out, then put them on the baking sheet and into the oven for 10-15 mins or until golden brown.






Once that’s done, melt your chocolate, this can be done when there in the oven it doesn’t matter, I did mine over a bain-marie, which is just a heat proof bowl (with the chocolate in) over a pan of just boiling water until the chocolate melts, or you can do yours in the microwave.




When the chocolate melted and your biscuits are out the oven you just dip them, how you do it is up to you, but I just half dipped mine as they will be quite rich with all the dark chocolate in them.



Hope you liked this, I am giving these to people for Christmas as I thought that would be really sweet. I am going to leave you with these yummy hot chocolate I made to help me get through waiting for my photos to upload (yes they take that long), and it is just the YUMMYIEST thing ever.

Lots and lots of love Tavi xxxxxx