BLOGMAS DAY 2- STOCKING FILLERS

‘Ello there, how are we all. It is now the second of day of Christmas so there are now only 23 days left till Christmas day, eeek I’m so excited I actually can’t explain it. Everyone at school keeps telling me that it is still ages away but I’ve stopped listening to them, bring on the Christmas song, mice pies and ques for everything. In this post I am going to link some sites to find presents on as I know how hard it can be to find good sites. I will also do a few DIYs but later in the month, I think I really need to write a list of what all the post are going to be about. Anyway on to the post…

Etsy- If you don’t know what Etsy is than I am ashamed of you, not really, but honestly if you haven’t already go and check this out it is full of cool presents and stuff.

Romwe- I only recently found this site but everything on here is so cheap and would be great to get little stocking fillers for people

Soictey6- This place is amazing I love all of the prints that they do and you get such a big price range, from little stocking fillers to big under the tree presents

Redbubble- I found this site through Instagram and it just has lots of unique and cool bits and bobs to get for all those awkward people out there.

Your local store- If you’re not like me and you leave your Christmas shopping to the last minute just pop down to your local shop and they will probably have some chocolate or some nice smelly stuff

I hope that I helped you even just a little bit, hope you have had a nice day.

Love Tavi xxx

Blogmas Day 1- Feel the Power of Love

Heyyya, how are we all? Good I hope.  Today is the first of December do that means that I should start Blogmas, right? Given this year’s track record of blogging I’m not sure how successful this will be, but hopefully it will work. I am currently listening to everyone’s of John Lewis’ Holiday advert songs and they are all so good. I am trying my best to not get too excited about the Holidays but honestly this month coming up is going to be such a good month. Leading up to the Holidays I am doing something every weekend, but I will tell you about those when the time comes. At the moment let’s just take a moment to appreciate the world around us and be happy for all the people that we have been thankfully blessed with.

In Britain we don’t have thanksgiving and it really upsets me because I have so much to be thankful for and so much that I take for granted so this post is dedicated to the things all of us need to be thankful for. We need to be thankful for the love that so many of have and so many of don’t have and if you don’t have it go exploring and find the love that everyone deserves. This last month I have met so many new amazing people and it has left my heart too large for my chest. I don’t think that I can explain how thankful and happy I am that I have this love, because I believe that without some sort of love whether it’s being love or feeling love and gratified for someone else everyone should have it, if I could give one present to everyone I would give them enteral love as I believe that if we gave them that then all the politicians would have respect for each other and I just think that a lot of problems that have happened recently could be solved if just fix the one problem of the missing love. So let’s fix this and this holiday try and give someone an act of extraordinariness and make some feel loved, whether it’s the old lady next door who spends their Holiday alone or that homeless man you see everyone on the way to work. Let them more than anyone else feel the power of love and I bet that you will too.

Hope you all had a fabby day, Happy Advent

Love Tavi xxxxxxx

The Liebster Award

Hello there, I have been gone for a while now and if you read my last post you will know that my camera is broken which is the main reason that I have disappeared, also that and I have now started my G.C.S.E year so it feels like I always have a piece of homework that I have to complete or something to revise for. So when the opportunity to do the liebster award came around, again, I bookmarked it and meant to do it but I just kept forgetting. And so I present to you:

The Liebster Award-Nominated by Harriet  

(And yes I have done this already about this time last year but why not do it again?)

I must post 11 facts about myself, and then answer the 11 questions given to me and write 11 questions for the next group of nominees that I will choose. I must tagged 5-11 people with less than 200 followers (I slightly cheated here) and let them know that they have been tagged and I cannot tag people back again. So let’s go…

11 Facts about Me:

·         I wear skirts more than trousers (even in winter)

·         My favourite food it raspberries, I could live of them

·         When I am older I have no idea what I want to be

·         I live on a hill that is almost a mountain

·         I love rain

·         I sail a boat (RS Feva)

·         Even though I have never been outside of Europe, I have travelled to a foreign country 14 times

·         I would love to travel the world and live in tent

·         I slept on a bench in a felid last night, scouts make me do weird stuff

·         I have a playlist for every season

·         Apparently I am severely dyslexic

Harriet’s Questions:

·         Do you have a middle name? Yes it is “Alice Luna/Moon”

·         Do you know what you would have been called if you were the opposite sex? No but I do know my Mother wanted to call me Moon/Luna

·         What’s your favourite shade of lipstick? I don’t use lipstick, so not sure

·         Where is your favourite place to go on holiday? Anywhere where I can ski

·         Who was the past person you texted? Probably my Mother

·         What is your favourite magazine? OH comely, best magazine ever

·         What motivates you in life? My imagination and the things and people around me

·         How did you decide the name of your blog? It’s a very long story, but basically birdhouses are small and so is my blog

·    Who is your favourite Disney character? I have only ever seen one original Disney film and I didn’t really have a favourite character from that film

·         What is your favourite meal? Pasta, I love pasta so much

·       If you could be anywhere, doing anything right now what would you choose? I’m not sure, somewhere new and exciting, somewhere which would simulate brilliant ideas and make me feel amazing.

My Questions

·         What is your favourite season?

·         Have you ever been camping?

·         Are you doing what you want to be doing in life?

·         Where would you like to live?

·         What is your favourite book?

·         Do you have any fears, and if so what are they?

·         What did you dream of last night?

·         Why do you enjoy blogging?

·         How many hours of sleep did you get last night?

·         What song did you listen to last?

·         If you could have any power what would it be?

My Nominees

·         Abby Louise

·         Emma Toady Tomorrow

·         Anasofiachic

·         Minding BB

·         A Day in the Life of a Anonymous Me

·         Veronica Bizzarri

I hope that you all know a little bit more about me now, hopefully my camera will get fixed and I will begin to post more regularly, but until then, I hope you have a good week.

I do have one small request, which is too slick on THIS LINK. This girl is amazing, she knows my Mother really well and she is pushing a bed from the top of Scotland to Lands’ End to raise money to build a children’s hospital, just go check out Rosie’s page she is one super dooper amazing girl.

Lots of love Octavia xxx

This Blog...

Heyy, it’s Octavia and I am very excited to tell you that it is now officially autumn. The leaves have started falling, it’s getting much colder and I’m wearing a scarf. Autumn is my favorite seasons because of the colours, I love all the browns, deep dark reds, maroons, I just love all of them the way that they remind me of a cozy night inside under a blanket, watching films. I also love the scents the way that it goes from the fresh scents of summer, to the warm, engulfing scents that make you want to just live in autumn (well at least it does for me).

This post isn’t going to be a bout autumn, because my camera has brokenL, so I am unable to take photos it is just going to be a briefing of what I have planned for you this autumn. Some of the main ideas that I’ve had is to give this blog a makeover because well its looking a bit on the sad side, and I’ve had this logo for a while, I’m pretty sure I know what I want to do  I just need to get Molly to answer her emails. As soon as I have a new camera I will probably post some baking stuff because you all seem to love my baking posts, and I love doing them and writing them. I’m obviously going to be posting my usual photos, but I may also spice things up a bit by doing some DIYs but I’m not 100% sure, only about 98%.

Anyway, nice short post for you all today, so I will probably see you all again this week, it just depends on my homework levels.

Love you all lots, Octavia xxx 

My Summer Holiday- France

Bonjour, Octavia here, it is the first day of September which means school will be starting soon which means I need to share my holiday pictures while it is still the holiday. This is my second attempt at this post as last time I tried to do it my laptop died on me before I managed to post it –whoops- but I'm here now and hopefully I will finish writing before this laptop also dies on me.

This summer I was extremely lucky and went to both France and Italy, but in total there where over 500 pictures so I have decided to half my pictures and first post the pictures just from Italy then later post the pictures from Italy, hopefully not too later though, so without further ado here are the photos of my holiday in France, enjoyyyyyyyyyy.

 Me trying out some sunglasses in the airport

This is what I carried around with me every day when on holiday

Hand food S&G | Phone and headphones | Carmex | Hairbands | Purse 

Dress- Abercrombie and Fitch | Shoes- Birkenstock 

Mont. Blanc (just visible through the clouds)

Exploring in the river with my sister 

Shadows….

Very pretty daisy’s that I took far to many photos of

Try and guess what this one is 

FONDUE, (this actually tasted disgusting but I couldn’t go to France without having fondue)

Finally the super cool outdoor sledge run that we went on

I really hope that you enjoyed those photos and that they show my trip well. When I was writing the first half of this post I realised that I have now had this blog for over a year, which seems like a long time. I made this blog as a way to express my thoughts and just have something to do at the weekend and I never expected to get a huge audience as what I write is far from brilliant and there are far better bloggers out there, but I still enjoy it and I don’t care if no one reads these posts because when writing you should always write for yourself first then the audience, because what’s the point in writing if what your writing makes you unhappy or you don’t believe in what your writing. So if you’re on the fence ab out writing a blog, jump of the fence and start writing a blog you have nothing to lose, it gives you something to look forward to doing and helps de clutter your brain from all those random thoughts that you may have. Writing this blog was one of the best decisions I made last year, and I made a lot of decisions, so give it a go if it doesn’t work out, oh well, if it does then I hope you have as much fun as I blogging.

So after that rambling post, I wish you lots of luck in your hopes and dreams, and I will see you very soon, xxxxxx.

Peach and Vanilla cupcakes.

Hello my lovely people, long time no see, and it is mainly my fault a little bit of the fault does go to my sleep as my sleep has been very disturbed recently and I have no idea why, if it’s anything to go on I am writing this at one in the morning listening to “Don’t stop belivin’”, what has my life come to. Anyway, how are you all? I am now on holiday which is very exciting; I am going to France and Italy so brace yourselves for A LOT of pictures.

Now onto the main topic of the post, which is obviously peach cupcakes, I made these a while ago but my Mother stole my camera and never gave it back so I temporarily lost the pictures but all is good now (except for the fact that I  have now lost the camera, but oh well). Yes so here is a little recipe that you can make just in time for summer and holiday’s.

You will need:

             3 eggs

              The weight of the eggs in:

   Golden caster sugar

   Self-raising flour

   Unsalted butter

                1 Tsp. vanilla extract

                4 flat peaches, you can use normal but only use 2 or 3 depending on the size

Before doing any baking I like to collect all of my ingredients and lay them out but this is optional, however what is not optional is that you need to preheat the oven to 180◦C and put 12 cupcake cases in a tray. NOT MUFFIN CASES, there is not enough mixture for big muffin cases and also the recipe works out better with cupcake cases as they are lighter and smaller.

First combine the butter and sugar in the bowl until smooth and creamy, this is easier if you use butter at room temperature.

Next add the eggs one at a time, at this point add a few tablespoons of the flour as it prevent the mixture from curdling (going lumpy), something which I did not do and as you can see did affect my cake mixture luckily not my actual cakes, so it won’t be the end of the world if your cake mixture curdles but it is better if it doesn’t. After mixing in the eggs your mixture may seem slightly runny or curdly but don’t worry I’m yet to find a person who can’t make a cake, yet.

Before adding the peaches you want to cut them up, and I'm going to be honest with you and say that there is no easy way to do this but to just get in there and tackle the peaches. There probably is an easier way but I just don't know of it.

Once you have cut the peaches add them and the vanilla extract to the bowl, don’t over mix the peaches or they will just incorporate into the mixture and you won’t be able to taste them.

      At this point I released that i should take the photos from above

Now sift (I know sifting is so, so annoying but it makes the cakes so much lighter) in the flour, then carefully fold in the flour to the mixture, preferably using a metal spoon.

Finally put them in the oven for 10-15mins or until golden brown and not squidgy to touch. Once cooked leave them to chill for half an hour and eat them, or ice them using whatever kind of icing you like, I used vanilla butter cream and used a piping bag but you can decorate them however you want to decorate them.

I really hope you try out my recipe and enjoy it because I really enjoyed baking the cakes and eating them. I also hope that wherever you are in the world (except Australia) that you are making the most of the summer sun, get out there and enjoy yourself even if it is raining, just have fun, enjoy life and notice all the little things.

Octavia xx