Instagram Prints from Origrami

I was very excited to receive this parcel through the post filled with Instagram prints from Origrami! Origrami is a great site that allows you to upload your photos from your Instragram account very easily and have them printed in Polaroid style prints. Each print has a map on the back in relation to where it was uploaded (I need to stop uploading them at home, rather than on the move, as a lot of them were my home address!). The photos come in these lovely, camera themed boxes with a really nicely designed tag. The company's based in Australia; with free shipping worldwide and only £12 for 32 photos it's a bargain! Plus the little boxes coming through the post can cheer up anyone's day. 

Vintage postcards

I found some lovely postcards in Boyes in Scarborough. Boyes is a shop that sells an assortment of cheap things from end of line shampoos, fishing equipment, ribbon, curtains, gardening stuff, toys and basically all of those bits of bobs you never knew you needed. It's known by some people as a bit of a dump but it's got all of the odd things you need in one place. 

I went in to get some new buttons but at 39p each these were an absolute steal so I bought 7 of them! In the blog I did back in March on my trip to Scarborough there were lots of beautiful old buildings - this is the nicest Boyes building I've ever seen- most of them are in 1970s style shopping centres!

Saltaire Arts Trail

Ahh.... Saltaire Arts Trail, what a breath of fresh air compared to most days of my week. Once a year in May, the Saltaire Arts Trail brings together a chance to go in Salts Mill, buy nice things in the Makers' Fair and have a nosey around people's houses. This year was especially nice as the sun was beaming down and everyone seemed to be in a good mood! 

I headed down with my Mum and a family friend, Jenny, to have a look around - first stop was the Makers' Fair where I bought a lovely selection of cards (about 11 cards - but you ever have too many cards, right?!). Six of them were from Sunlight on Closed Lids, who create really nice printed cards with clean, bright designs. I've been coming to the Arts Trail for the last 3 years and always stock up on these cards; they sell them in the Mill also but you can snap them up for only £2 each on the stall (or 3 for £5). The rest of the cards were from artists dotted around the fair - I bought so many cards as I wanted the large scale prints but couldn't justify buying 11 of them! 

The Makers' Fair was in the beautiful Victoria Hall (you can see the ceiling below) and was filled with lots of handmade goodies - from necklaces and prints to hand carved wooden chopping boards and ceramics. The stalls that caught my eye most were the stalls with screenprints - such lovely designs! 

Next we moved to look in Salts Mill which is always a pleasure. Salts Mill, set up in its current guise in 1987 by Jonathan Silver, was once a textile mill opened by Sir Titus Salt in 1853. The mill today houses galleries, restaurants, shops and the most beautiful book shop I've ever seen.  The mill is a shrine to one of my favourite artists, David Hockney, and the gallery-cum-shop (the photo to the right below) lets you look at the art work AND buy art equipment at the same time. I love it in here but I always end up leaving with a new piece of equipment I'll never use (I have some charcoal tucked away that I bought 5 years ago but in that moment I just HAD to have it). 

Finally we moved on to have a look around the houses...

The houses surrounding the mill were built to house the workers of the mill and are ordered so that the foreman's houses at the end of each street were the tallest and largest houses on the street (apparently so the foremen could keep a watchful eye!). All of the streets are named after Salt's children (Mary, Helen, Amelia, Albert, Fanny and more - he had a lot of children!) and the houses are small and perfectly formed. As part of the Arts Trail about 20 of the houses open their doors to present artwork for sale - giving you a chance to look at the art work and have a good nosey around people's houses! Of course, I always want to live there before the day is through as the houses are just so nice. 

All of the houses that have artwork for sale have red bunting outside and range from the weird to the wonderful. My favourites were Clare Caulfield who creates really nice illustrations and Salts Press who I bought a lovely print from for a tenner.  

Saltaire is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is kept in beautiful condition - it's my favourite place in Yorkshire and I would recommend a visit all year round but it is especially good when the Arts Trail is on. 

Food glorious food

I spotted this beautiful food blog from a guy in Sydney and had to share it. Named Heneedsfood, the blog is really well designed, has some lovely photos and also some really nice recipes. 

This recipe for Kruske (pears) caught my eye - they look delicious and include my favourite flavour (almonds!). 

I found the recipe on TasteSpotting. It's a great site that brings together lots of different blogs - I'd recommend it as it's great for finding inspiration! 

Envelope Club

I signed up to the Envelope Club last month after spotting it on The Culture Vultures Blog. What a great idea - sending nice things through the post to other people and getting nice things in return! 

I was delighted to receive an envelope through the post filled with stickers, a card and a folding bird from Kate - I took a few pictures to show you the kind of thing that comes through. It cheered me up mid week and I would recommend it to anyone who likes sending letters. The bird that Kate sent through fits perfectly by my desk with my other birds. 

Here's a selection of pictures of what I sent through to Kate. I found these lovely old fashioned postcards in Scarborough for 39p of the old railway advertisements and added some clippings from my sticker collection. Also, I discovered Death By Tea at the Saltaire Arts Trail whose card you can see in the photo below - she makes some really nice things so I thought I'd pass her card on. I particularly like her digitally printed cards which are very reasonable. More on Saltaire Arts Trail later. 

A little love and a lot of gloss paint

With a little love, care and a lot of gloss paint I turned my old, scruffy wooden candle holder into something fit for a living room. There are a few handy hints I picked up from my mum that I wanted to share. 

I started off with my old wooden bowl, which, over the years has become covered in wax from one to many candles blown out. As you can see from the picture below, it's in a pretty bad state and as I hovered with it over the bin I thought, wait!, I can probably do something with this...

My mum introduced me to 'Stain Stop'. An absolute godsend when decorating, stain stop can be sprayed on to anything you want to paint to cover up any greasy marks (very good for kitchen walls!). In this case I scraped off as much candle wax as I could and sprayed some over the top to stop the wax showing through. 

Using quite a thick brush I painted white gloss paint over the top, using a smaller brush to get in the nooks and crannies and giving it a second coat here and there. I left to dry and popped some candles in and it's like having a new candle holder!

Afterlight photos

I have an obsession with Instagram (as you can probably tell!) so imagine my delight when I found Afterlight for iPhone. It has many of the same features as Instagram but takes it a bit further, enabling you to shape photos, change the contrast, brightness, clarity, etc. 

Here's something I made from photos shaped into letters.

It also has film 'textures' which is a feature I really like - here's some photos I've put through on the app. Photographers may be shaking their heads in despair on 'adding' 'film textures' but I think it's good fun. I particularly like the filter applied to the daffodils as it's a bit more subtle but the one of the right hand side with the red streak looks good too.

For £0.69 it's a bargain and a must for those who love to put photos through Instagram's filters as it gives you more control over the effects and how much you want to apply them. A feature I really like is being able to put the photos through Afterlight and immediately open them in Instagram to upload as the two programmes can be linked. The two work well together and give you more control. Can you recommend any other photo apps for the iPhone? 

Crumpets with Paul

I made some crumpets recently from Paul Hollywood's new book 'Bread' - it's worth getting hold of for a tenner on Amazon (rather than the usual £20 in shops) as the book is full of lots of easy to follow recipes with pictures showing you step by step what to do (here's an example 
below).

I like that he shows you how to make one type of bread through step-by-step photo instructions and then gives you 1-2 recipes to make with that certain type of bread afterwards - this is great to get bread more into everyday meals (not that I need help with that as I absolutely love bread). 

The recipe to follow for crumpets is quite a long one so leave plenty of time - I started making them for a lazy Sunday breakfast at 9.30am and they weren't finished until lunch! Here's the recipe below:

Makes 10-12 crumpets

• 175g strong white bread flour
• 175g plain flour
• 14g fast-action yeast
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• 350ml warm milk
• 150-200ml tepid water
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp salt
• Oil for cooking - I used olive oil as it's all I had in
• Crumpet rings - these are crucial and you can't make the crumpets without them. I got mine from Lakeland and they're very good and non-stick. They're quite expensive at over £10 a set - do you know anyone who wants to split a pack? I shared mine with my Mum as you only need to keep the crumpets in the rings until they're set and you can use the rings again and again.

Put the flours in a bowl and mix in the yeast evenly. 

In a jug dissolve the sugar in the warm milk, then pour in the flour mixture.

Beat the mixture with a wooden spoon for about 3-4 mins until you have a 'smooth batter' - this was incredibly difficult to do as the mixture is so thick it feels like you're fighting with in, not making it 'smooth' - I managed it in the end but it helps to have someone with a strong arm around! You need to do this to make sure the crumpets develop the holes that we all know and love. 

Cover the bowl with clingfilm (or a tea towel) and leave for 1 hour. The batter rises a lot and it needs to be left alone to do this or else the crumpets won't turn out. I left mine on a warm windowsill which worked a treat. 

In a jug, mix 150ml of the tepid water with the bicarb of soda and salt. Stir this liquid into the batter until evenly combined - use more water if you need to to make a thick dropping consistency. When I first did this step I thought I had done something very wrong as it looked like a big soggy mess sitting in a bowl of water - I persevered though and made it through. 

Cover the bowl and leave the batter to rise for 20 minutes. You'll see little holes start to appear.

Heat up a frying pan on a medium-low heat. Grease the inside of the crumpet rings with oil and the pan. 

As Paul says, it's a good idea to start with a trial crumpet. The books says that like with pancakes the first one is never the best - this was definitely the case for me! So give the pan chance to heat up by running a trial crumpet first. 

Keep the cooking 'low and slow' - my biggest mistake was heating up to quickly and I ended up with some burnt bottoms! 

Now you're ready with your crumpet rings - add in the batter and leave to cook for 6-8 minutes. You'll see the bubbles start to rise in the mixture after a while (you can speed up cooking by gently popping these bubbles with a sharp knife). To further speed up the whole process, take the crumpets out of the rings when they're set and get ready for the next batch whilst they're still cooking (see the pan photo below). 

Once the tops have set, turn the crumpets over to lightly cook the top for a further couple of minutes. I made mine thicker than expected I think so needed to add a further 5 minutes on to the cooking time.

Once they're cooked re-grease your crumpet rings and repeat. Then serve warm with butter or re-toast later on. I enjoyed mine with butter and egg and later on with golden syrup (I have a particularly sweet tooth and this just seems to go). 

The Ropewalk, Barton - paradise over the bridge.

Having been to The Ropewalk a few months ago to do a glass-work day course I went back recently to check out the print exhibition and catch up with my Mum and Dad over a cup of tea in the cafe. The Ropewalk, just over the bridge from Hull in Barton, is a mini paradise filled with prints (I can't help myself - I just love anything etched or lino-printed), a cafe, a gallery, a sculpture garden, a museum, a shop and on a strange offshoot in the cafe they also sell Mr Huda's sauces which I can't find anywhere in Leeds.

The Ropewalk is a breath of fresh air in this part of the world and just makes me feel, well, better, when I walk in. I've taken a few pics below to give you more of a feel for the place but it's well worth a visit if you're in the area (and even if you're not!) as there's plenty of art on display and there's a nice cafe to get some lunch. 

Having dabbled with a bit printmaking in the past it's nice to see what other people are doing and it inspired me to come home and work on my own lino block (admittedly, this is still just a thought... watch this space).

Salt and Pepper Squid

Tonight I decided on a special treat of squid for tea after seeing a tasty looking recipe in a copy Good Food magazine that's been hanging around for ages. The original recipe is here and I tweaked it a little to match what I had in. It's a quick recipe (apart from preparing the squid!) that looks impressive and tastes delicious and here it is.

• 1 tbsp of black peppercorns (whole)
• 1 tsp of chilli powder
• 1/2 tbsp crushed sea salt (this was originalyl 1 tbsp in the recipe but trying to reduce my salt intake - it was still very salty!)
• 8 tbsp plain flour
• 400g squid, cleaned
• Groundnut oil for deep frying
• Lemon wedges to serve

Firstly - crush together the peppercorns, chilli flakes and sea salt in a pestle and mortar. Then mix this mixture with the flour. 

Cut the squid hoods up (they must have been prepared at this point, I asked the fish monger at Leeds Market to do this for me which is the easiest (and best!) way to make sure it's done properly). Slit down and across the squid to score (this makes the squid curl up when cooked which looks nice) and cut into bite sized strips. The original recipe doesn't include the tentacles but I did and they were well worth adding (I cut off the heads for good measure). 

Coat the squid pieces in the mixture and fry in the groundnut oil and fry for 4-5 minutes until golden. Make sure the oil is nice and hot before you put the squid in - it needs to be almost spitting at you so you get the best result for crispiness. The original recipe says 1-2 minutes but I left it in for a bit longer so they went crispy and golden brown. 

Serve with lemon (and salad, and olives, and bread and anything else you like!). 

Lomo experiments

I have a beautiful lomography fish eye camera that I bought about 8 years ago on Ebay for a steal and I've finally found it again after being parted for all these years. Just like the one above. I love lomos, I love everything about them - from their shiny casings, to the photos they take, to the little communities online worshiping lomos.

I'd have loved this post to be all about my first adventures with my fisheye and how wonderful it was - it was very wonderful taking the photos - sadly, the results didn't agree with me. But... I have learnt for next time. Here's a few things I discovered along the way.

Always take the photos in bright light - the flash isn't very strong and you'll feel let down that the lovely photos of Leeds Market didn't come out.

Don't open your camera too early - it lets the light in! I honestly thought the film was ready to come out. It wasn't. Saying that thought I quite like the second one of the sculpture at The Ropewalk, Barton. 

Taking photos of food makes you happy. Especially when it involves Leeds Market. 

And above all else - some photos will turn out whether you take them inside or not so just shoot and hope for the best!

Next I want a La Sardina and a Coloursplash! 

Noz World Tour

Noz Monsters like to tour the world - here are a few trips they've been on lately!

Where's my matching beach hut? 

Taking in some culture at The Alhambra, Spain

Overlooking Granada, Spain

 Scarborough - enjoying the view

Soaking up some sunshine in Chania, Crete

 Visiting The Angel of The North

 Contemplating a swim in Paleochora, Crete