A belated merry christmas and happy new year!

Sorry it's been so long since I last blogged, I've been busy again with little time to do any blogging. I spent almost a month over in California during Christmas and new years and on top of all that I was sick over there and still recovering. I had a really good Christmas and new years eve and hope you all did too! The weekend before Christmas I was lucky enough to spend 2 and a half days in Disneyland, so will do a report of my time there. I also got to go to my very first lakers game which was very enjoyable and also visited the Danish Village of Solvang. I have a lot of catching up to do and so many things I want to blog about so hopefully in the next few weeks I can get those done. I think I'll start with my Disney trip as that is already written up :)

My latest cakes and cupcakes

A few weeks ago before I left for California I was busy helping out at my parents cake shop, we were working on our Christmas window, it took a while to do but I really like it. 
Here is the finished window. Photos are a bit dark because they were taken at night.

The whole window

My decorated cupcakes in the window

My Christmas Tree cake in the window with a train circling it

Santa Claus Cake made by my dad

I really love the nightmare before Christmas so decided I'd try making some decorated cupcakes along with some pumpkin themed cupcakes for Halloween! All the nightmare before christmas and jack skellington faces were all hand cut and hand painted. It took a lot of concentration!

A year ago I hated fondant, I just couldn't get to grips with the stuff but after a lot of practice I think I'm starting to get more confident with it :) Hope you like the cakes and cupcakes, what do you think of them? 

Disney Magic at Harrods

On Thursday this week, I took a trip to Harrods so I could see the Christmas Lights before I left. I met my sister at Harrods and we had a look in the pet section. My cat loves plastic bags and my mum had told me that they sell a cat toy that's soft on the outside but scrunchy like a bag on the inside so I had a look for that but didn't find anything :( Things have changed a bit here, years ago I remember they had things like big palaces for cats and dogs and tiaras, now everything is a bit run of the mill like you would find in most pet stores (except twice the price? lol) 

On the same floor they have a section called Disney Magic, for any other Disney geeks out there it's amazing! They have their own cafe and a Cinderella Slipper Salon where you can go and buy your own pair of Cinderella shoes. They have 3 styles, one for young kinds, one for bigger kids and another for adults. These are exclusive to Harrods only and can be bought in store. Prices range from £25 to £35. Me and my sister both ended up buying a pair. I'm not sure if I'll actually wear mine or keep them as a keepsake, they are quite sparkly! 

I'm in love with these shoes!

 
Along with the shoes I also bought some Prestat chocolate truffles and some Harrods Belgian hot chocolate. Some English treats to bring with me for Christmas :)

After we were done here we took a walk to Shaftesbury Avenue and ate at a small restaurant called Little Sicily which is on Rupert Street. It's an Italian restaurant and well worth the money. I'd highly recommend it.

Long time since I blogged...

It's been a very long time since I blogged and if I'm honest I've been avoiding it like I had been a lot of things. Things got really busy for me, I had hospital appointments, moved house and then had a lot of uni deadlines. So much happened in such a small amount of time that I just didn't have spare time to blog. Hopefully that can change soon and I can keep it regular again. I'm back in California again, I arrived Saturday and will be staying over Christmas and new year. I really wanted to spend Christmas with the bf this year so I bit the bullet and decided I would, even though I'm really going to miss my family and pets (Christmas is awesome with them). I've already received a few early Christmas presents one of them being the ciate mini mani month, where you get a mini nail polish every day leading up to Christmas. I was going to do a blog post/countdown with them but as it's already the 10th December and I've seen others doing the same, I think I might just do one whole blog post at the end of the month. The other gift I received which I was really excited about was the Andy Warhol NARS palette. I'll do a separate post in a few weeks time once I've had time to play with it. I didn't bring my dlsr out here with me, so I'll be using my iphone to take pics (it's better quality than my digital camera!)

I've been up to quite a few things since my last post, I managed to get tickets to the paralympics which was absolutely amazing being in that stadium and hearing everyone singing God Save The Queen. I was so glad I got to be a part of it, the Olympic stadium was so nice just to walk around. 

I also went to see Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie at the o2 arena, probably not most peoples taste in music but I love 'em! The show was amazing. My sister is now living in Canary Wharf so I was able to stay there the night.

Last night, we stopped off at one of the Christmas tree places out here, we picked out a really nice tree. Just have to decorate it now, I love real trees they smell really nice and fresh and gets me into the Christmas spirit. We're planning on going to Disneyland for a couple of days just before Christmas, I'm such a geek when it comes to Disneyland! I'm hoping we'll be able to get one of the special Disneyland Candy Canes they give out each year.

Do you have anything special planned for Christmas?

Take me out to the ball game!

Wednesday evening I went to LA to see my first ever baseball game at the Dodgers stadium, I've wanted to go to a baseball game for years. I wouldn't say I'm a big fan but I do enjoy watching it on tv and I find it much more interesting than football (English football). The tickets we got were purchased from Stub Hub which is a great website where people who have season passes and can't make it on a certain day will sell their tickets, the total price for tickets was $16 for two. Bargain! 

It was kind of a last minute decision to go to a game and I hadn't brought my Dodgers tshirt that I'd bought a few months back so I went out last minute to find a new one. I didn't find any women's shirts sadly and all the men's smalls were gone too, so I had to settle for a large kids shirt haha! Maybe it was juniors? I'm not sure but it definitely wasn't an adult size.

The front of the shirt just says Los Angeles with the number 22 underneath. The back has a big '22' and the name 'Kershaw' which is the guy who pitches for the Dodgers. I tied a knot on the side of the tshirt to tighten it a little and I think it looks a lot better this way than just a big baggy tshirt, I just paired it with some grey shorts from American Eagle and pair of blue and white Ralph Lauren espadrilles

If you've ever played rounders in school, baseball is pretty much identical. There are a few differences, like the bat is bigger and longer and instead of batting with one hand you use two. It's quite easy to follow and if you don't understand just look at the screen or ask the person next to you ;)

The most fun is in the crowd, someone started a wave and it went around the stadium about 5 times in a row. They also do a kiss cam and some guy proposed to his girlfriend on it, then they have a dance cam. Just watching everyone is really fun. 

As usual with sports arena's the food was overpriced but the Dodger Dog I had was so good and I couldn't go to a baseball game and NOT have a hot dog.

For my first ever baseball game and the price it cost to go, I had an awesome time. Not only that but it ended well with the Dodgers winning, yay! It was so much fun not just to watch the game but interacting with the crowd. I'm hoping to go and see the Dallas cowboys this weekend as they're in the area for practice and all games are free :) 

Have a good weekend! 

Linnet Bird Loves: Olympic Pop Tarts

I found these while shopping in Wal-Mart a few days ago, it's been ages since I even had pop tarts but I spotted these and bought them as I just love the Olympics and I thought it was a good novelty way to get into the spirit of the games. They taste great too!

These are for the USA team with the white stars and red in the middle, I think they look awesome. Red, White and Blue are the same colours as the British Flag too, so I can cheer on both teams. I'm so proud of Team GB, we've managed to win more golds than the Beijing games and have beat our Target of 48 medals which is one more than the last games. In fact we're guaranteed another SIX medals, one in the Sailing and 5 in the Boxing. I'm hoping some of those will be golds. It's been a long time since we've done this well, I always remember us coming around 10th place. 

I've always been a huge fan of the Olympics and was looking forward to these games, especially because it's in my home town. I'm originally from West Ham which has the same post code as Stratford (They created a new one specifically for the Olympic Park) and I'm so glad the West Ham football club are going to get the stadium after the games. Unfortunately I come home just after the games end, which means I won't even get to see the Mountain Biking event which is happening in the field's behind my house :( I do have tickets for the Paralympics though, which means when I get home I'll be able to go into and see the Olympic park before the games officially end, yay!!! 

Go Teams GB and USA!

First OOTD!

A few weekends ago I spent the day in Santa Barbara along the pier and had lunch at a really nice place overlooking the water called longboard's Grill. If you're ever visiting the pier is amazing, and on Sundays they have lots of local artists selling their art along by the sea front. I decided to wear this cream dress from H&M that has flowers stitched into in on the left. You can't see the bag I'm wearing in this photo but I'm doing a what's in my bag post soon, so you can see it there :) The sunglasses are Marc by Marc Jacobs and I just wore a pair of O'neill sandals with it. 

And an artistic photo of the sunglasses lol