Muffin Morning

I love blueberry muffins, especially Mark Bittman's recipe for them. The little bit of lemon zest and little bit of cinnamon make these stand apart from some other recipes I've tried in the past. Actually I've made these so many times I can't really remember what other blueberry muffins taste like. And sometimes they are cause for celebration! I never buy blueberry muffins when I'm out because I know I won't like them as much as these. This recipe is also great because he gives some nice variations. And you can use fresh or frozen blueberries (I used frozen here). So, if you like blueberry muffins, try this recipe. Remember to read all the way through, though, because the ingredients vary a bit from the original base recipe.

Morning Market

This morning we went to a new market at the Horniman Museam near our house. The market is set up behind the museum and gardens, and it's great for bringing the kids because there's plenty of space to run around. I tried something called a koeksister in donut format, which is originally a South African treat. It had some good spices, like cardamom and topped with coconut. We bought some produce, meat and flowers too. It was a fun morning out. And this is my first attempt using the blogger app to blog on my phone. I wonder if it will show up right?!!

Easy as Pie

I love Alicia Paulson's blog. It's one of my favorite blogs. She's a great inspiration to me. I don't read many blogs regularly these days because my time is limited and there are just so many lovely blogs. But hers has stuck with me. It's the sort of blog I read and always feel inspired by afterwards. She just has a special, and very consistent, way of capturing ordinary everyday life in a beautiful way. Every once in a while I'll read about something she cooks and I get the urge to make it right away. Like Tuesday, right after I read her blog post, I had to make this apple pie asap!

Hire Me!

Recently I've had a few photography commissions and feel a bit in the dark ages for not having a proper web site dedicated solely to my photos. For a while now I've been meaning to give my photos a better and more professional home than sloppy o'l Flickr (I'm not a huge Flickr fan). And now, thanks to Squarespace, I've done just that! I'm not a web designer by any means. Sometimes I'm surprised I can even write my own blog. I'm quite the granny when it comes to some aspects of technology, but Squarespace was super easy and fun to use. And they are lightning fast when it comes to responding to help queries. I needed to email them a few times for some basic troubleshooting and received replies within minutes each time. Gotta love some good customer service! Although my site is about as simple as it gets, I can tell it would be easy to use any of their templates (which are all very customizable, by the way). I still have some tweaking to do, like on my title name and the "writing" page, which is a jumble right now. But this is a start! Let me know what you think. Here is the site. I've tried to include a good variety of photos and styles, using different lighting situations and lenses. I have a lot to learn, but the beginning is always a good place to start! 

Decorative Living Fair

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of going to the Decorative Living Fair at Chelsea Old Town Hall, hosted by Caroline Zoob. It was like going to a wonderful antique mall with the best selection of vendors. Normally held in Kent, this year's event was in London, so I made arrangements to go, (which means I hired a babysitter so I could go solo!) and had a few happy hours browsing beautiful vintage housewares and some really great handmade items as well. I met so many nice people and bought a few trinkets. Here are some snapshots from the fair. I liked so many stalls, but it was quite busy when I was there, and it was hard to squeeze into many of them to get photos. But here are a few! Photos above, in clockwise from top left, are from Blue Linen Cupboard, Old Rectory Sales, Lois Kirsten, Gazehound Vintage, Old Rectory Sales again, and Sam Lindsay.

Mollie Makes Home

I love getting good things in the mail, especially my favorite magazines! I'm looking forward to getting the second edition of Mollie Makes Home later this week. I can tell this issue will be filled with interior eye candy galore, and I'm also super excited that Caroline from 91 Magazine and Patchwork Harmony was the editor for the issue! I'm always interested in seeing how designers, crafters and creative shop owners live, and even more so when it's a collection of people carefully chosen by Caroline and the Mollie Makes team. Here is a peek below.

Weekend Market

One thing I really like about our neighborhood is our little Saturday market. It's on Northcross Road in East Dulwich, a few blocks from us. Although it's small, with only a handful of vendors, it has a good variety of food, crafts, and vintage treasures. When we first found this neighborhood, the market was a big selling point for us. Here are some market pictures from when we first moved here.

Tasty Bakes

That book cover is adorable, isn't it? It reminds me of Lois helping in the kitchen. I found the image on pinterest of course and put it on my "because it makes me happy" board. I think it's fun to cook when I have a recipe. I get really excited to try new recipes. Without a recipe though I'm totally clueless, and I find cooking frustrating. It's sort of like understanding the words of a language but not how to string them together to make sensible sentences. I can cook a few things without a recipe, but not much! I'm not creative at all when it comes to cooking. Andrew, on the other hand, is very creative in the kitchen and can whip up something delicious out of practically nothing. He's spontaneous and intuitive when it comes to cooking so he does especially well with savory dishes. I like structure and specific instructions, so I'm more suited towards baking, and I do love to bake!

Inspiring Clothes for Little Ones

Lately I've had the bug to make more wee clothes now that I've finished one pretty nice dress for lil' Miss. I want to make so many things! I wish I could read French. Then I'm sure I'd buy some of these Citronille sewing patterns. Maybe I should attempt to translate a pattern. They have a few patterns in English, but it's some of their patterns that are only available in French that I especially like, like this one. So cute! And I really like so many Oliver + S patterns. I have a lot of sewing inspiration on one of my Pinterest boards. And more wee clothes inspiration on this board. I just like looking at designer wee clothes for inspiration. One line I came across on Pinterest is Pala Mino (top shown above). Adorable! I love the mix of fabrics and the vintage modern vibe that her clothes have. So cute. Now I'm going to go get lost on Pinterest for a few minutes. I have a new rule: No looking at Pinterest before bed. I get too jazzed up and then can't sleep. Inspiration overload!

Follow Your Heart

Although we've lived here 3.5 years, I still feel a little out of place sometimes, or rather just not quite at home. This is due to a variety of factors, I think, but when I'm not quite feeling at home, I remind myself of all the things I love about living here, and one of those many things is Jessie and Buddug's shop. I definitely feel right at home at their shop. Both Jessie and Buddug have so many new things since I last visited. And they are busily working on stocking the shop for Christmas. Last week I went to their annual tea party and had a wonderful time looking around the shop.