~summer check list~

howdy...

I apologise for my lack of posts recently, but I have been busy travelling the world and being a spy.

so, as people think that summer is coming  ~I still need convincing~  I decided to do a summer preparation post thing... umm... yEAh. so here tis.

fishy biz is going down. wow i'm so hilarious.

i'm hoping that I don't only speak for myself that I enter the summer with high spirits and at the end am left curled up in a ball on my bed, crying cos I have to go back to school and I haven't done anything in the holidays. wORst feelinG.

so I came up with this list. thank me later

 

 

 

 

 

1.

make a scrapbook.

 

I started doing this every summer a few years ago, and it is honestly one of the best things you can spend your time doing in the summer holidays. not only does it help you to remember what you've done in the holiday when you have have your black moment the day before school, but it's something to show your kids and grandkids what us youngsters did back in days of yore. apart from that, its a great way to spend time productively when you're bored or its raining.

 

2.
bake cute stuff.

baking not only makes you feel like you're doing something with your life, but it has delicious outcomes. this summer, I dare you eat as many cake and cookies as you want, without feeling bad or guilty, cos lets face it: nO oNe actually follows a completely healthy diet, and everyone eats junk food. be like me and spend all day watching adventure time and friends and eating anything with sugar in it. its a good way of life.  *does a double chin belly wobble dance*

3.
invite all your friends over.

5-6 weeks is a long time for anyone to be apart and if you're anything like me, then when you get back to school and you haven't seen your friends for the whole of the summer holidays then it will be really awkward. you just end up sitting there while they talk about all the fun they had together when they met and or just generally left their houses. which I totally do... yup...

4.
spend time with real people

I nod here to family. yes, I appreciate that you're a grumpy teen (probably) who hates their parents. but they're only getting older, and when you get older, you'll be so glad that you spent time with them *superior patronising voice*  p.s. social media doesn't count (cries into their iphone)

5.
make a summer checklist

this will help you to avoid wasting away in front of the TV, eating too much cheese and being generally unproductive. make sure they're things you actually want, and can afford to do cos otherwise, there's no point in writing one. they don't even have to be big achievements, but I always feel like I've spent my time so much better when I can tick whatever I've done off a list.

I hope that this was vaguely helpful.

i'm going to try and post every week this summer with summery themes :)
I will happen I promise.

lots of love my little chubkins

love poppy xx

hellooo,


so yesterday I had another fit of creativeness and a longing for iced tea, and this was the result. I searched in Google a recipe for iced tea, and this was one of the first results which had a high rating, so I decided to give it a go. it was soooo worth it, it is delicious. I have added a few things to the recipe to make it more to my taste, but you can leave them out if you want. Here's how you make it:

ingredients:

2 teabags

2 cups of water

the peel of 1/4 of a lemon/orange

12 teaspoons of sugar

MAKES 12 CUPS

*I say cups not ml because it genuinely depends on sizes of glasses you have*

  



sterilise your bottle before you put anything in it, to get rid of any nasty germies, by pouring boiling water in it. 

 

put 2 teabags in a measuring jug or pitcher and then add the peel from your chosen citrus fruit (I 'spect you could probably use lime instead of lemon or orange if you wanted). I didn't have any lemons, limes or even oranges lying around, cos i'm not exotic enough *sniff sniff* so I used some juice from a jiff lemon instead, which worked just fine. 

 

 

If you pour 2 cups of water straight into the kettle, then you know that when you pour the water into the jug, there is the right amount. once you've boiled the water DON'T POUR IT IN STRAIGHT IN, leave it to sit for about 30 seconds, so that it isn't too hot. then leave it to stew for 5 minutes.*you can add the sugar here if you want*

 

 

then discard the teabags, pour it into bottle, and seal it straight away.

 

 

leave it in the fridge until it is cool. don't drink it before this time unless want a drink that is all lukewarm. If you make this in the summer, you'll especially want it to be nice and cool, so you can also add ice cubes. to serve, you fill the glass about 1/3 full and top up the rest with water. then, add 2 small teaspoons of sugar. I think that next time I make this, I will put the sugar in as it is stewing so that it dissolves better, although I didn't do that for this batch and it's still fine, so don't worry about it! 

 

 

then kick back in the sun and be all tumblr.

 

I hope that if you make this, you enjoy it as much as I did. I think it only keeps for 2-3 days, so I'd drink it sooner rather than later. I already have quite a few ideas for how I could use this handy little recipe, for example a summer tea party. picture lots of cake, iced tea and bunting and fairy lights in the trees.

sounds pretty close to heaven to me!

poppy xx

 

Non-school uniform days

Faced with an unexpected and rapidly looming non-school uniform day, I was once again forced to take a long hard look at my wardrobe. As most secondary school girls will know, one cannot wear the same exact outfit twice without being judged by mean faux-popular girls and spoilt rich brats. Therefore, as per usual, I was reduced to a quivering mess of turmoil when I found, as always, there is nothing in my wardrobe which has not been worn to school before, or that doesn't look like it belongs to my 5-year old cousin.

What does a girl do when faced with an outfit (or lack of outfit) dilemma? Answer: head straight on over to Primark, which I proceeded to do with great haste. After quickly skimming the children's section and finding nothing, I sadly headed upstairs to the womenswear section. let me explain my situation to readers baffled as to why a nearly-15 year old still looks in the children's section. I am one of those awful people who will buy anything that looks vaguely alright, and since I don't have a whole load of money or self-discipline right now, I try to stay out of the way of things which may tempt me. Also, I find the number of clothes really overwhelming and I just DON'T KNOW where to start!

Since we had a non-school uniform last Friday, I noticed that literally every girl in about 2 tutor groups were wearing THE EXACT SAME THING! I'm not sure whether it was coordinated, or if it's just some extraordinary new fashion shift I had no idea about (it wouldn't surprise me). Every single one was wearing black skinny jeans, converse and a denim jacket with the sleeves rolled up. it was really weird, I felt like I was gate-crashing some strange and exclusive meeting.

As I am a part-time metaphorical sheep, I jumped on the bandwagon and bought me myself a nice pair of black skinnies for only £7! combined with a lovely charcoal ribbed vest with lace edged straps and my denim jacket, I was sorted. the only problem was that while I found my lovely new outfit, I spotted about 10 other items that I fell in love with. in my mind, that was a cause for immediate action, and so after school the next day, I once again hurried along to Primark to spend another afternoon revelling clothes that i'm not going to buy. In fact I actually went into that changing room 4 times in 2 days. that's got to be some kind of record!

To my embarrassment, it was the same guy at the fitting room as the day before, the guy who knows that I only buy about one thing out of 10. he literally beams every time he sees me. it's actually a bit weird... anyway on the second day I bought some darn cute lifeguard-style shorts, that are red with white piping. I have literally lived in them since, even if that means having to stay in my bed or cocoon myself in a blanket in front of the TV, its worth it cos I feel so athletic and summery (kinda ironic I know)

so now I have my outfit, and all I have left to do is to hope that some new fad hasn't been born since
wish me luck,
poppy xx 

cute cat washi tape holder

 

hi again,

I bet that every single person reading this has washi tapes! I cannot preach it enough, they are the answer to life. I bought 3 new ones yesterday and they're really cute. And then, cos I'm part neat freak, I started thinking, HOW AM I GONNA STORE THESES BABIES??? and then I came up with this. I'm not gonna lie, I'm really proud of myself, because I'm the type of person who will plan to do something cool and then not actually do it. But if you're not that type of person, then GIVE THIS A GO! I promise it will make your life better.

 

HOW TO MAKE IT:



You only need to use half a standard packet of Fimo. I chose to use
white, but you can always use a different colour.

Take about 1/3 of the Fimo you're using and roll it into a big cylinder.
Make sure it fits loosely inside the tape. This will be the torso
 



make 2 longish sausages, and stick them onto the front of the
torso to make arms that will rest on the top of the tapes.
 



roll a large piece of Fimo into a sphere for the head



make 2 small triangles and add them to the head.

Put the cat on a baking tray and bake it in the oven at 110o for 30 minutes.



Measure the amount of.. um.. stick(?)  you need to fit all your tapes on, and paint it a nice colour.
Because my theme for this whole project, was Chinese ornamental cats, I then wrote my name on
it in Chinese characters, but you don't have to do that if you don't want.



Then draw on a face. the baked Fimo won't hold watercolours, so if you want to paint it on,
you'll need to use acrylics. I did it using sharpie and a pink felt tip to colour in the nose. however
you can't use felt tips for the whole face as it will just rub off. I then wrote the Chinese
characters for "creativeness". you don't have to do that either. And now you're done! yay!

I'm really aware that this has been a ridiculously long post but I wanted to give you guys the opportunity to make it as well, it's just so darn cute!

I hope you enjoyed this, and if there are any more "how to makes" that you'd like me to do then just comment!

toodle-do
poppy xx





MCBUSTED

YESSS you better believe it, I went to see McBusted, the childhood boyband obsession of all children in the noughties. who's jealous?? hehe

so, I was offered some tickets from a friend, whose mum managed to bag 4 for £6 each! so of course, I eagerly accepted and fritted away the day before hand in Zara, Tate Britain and a river taxi. but as all Londoners should know, NEVER TRUST PUBLIC TRANSPORT. it always lies. some bozo on the river taxi told us it would take under 40 minutes to get to the O2 . ha. it took an hour and a half at least. so, we missed the first support act but I got to see the second one so that's fine!



let me just take a moment to fangirl. they were soooo good. there's something strangely nostalgic about yelling the lyrics of songs you were obsessed with back in days of yore with, oh, about 50 thousand people. they're pretty good at entertaining too. the stage was like a massive arcade game, and here's the twist... it actually worked. in the middle of the concert they treated us to watching them jump around on massive buttons and launch themselves at huge joysticks.

personally I was always more of a McFly girl but my friend was practically raised on busted, or so she tells me. comment on which you were a fan of if you want to, I'd love to hear if anyone else was also kinda obsessed. I hope I wasn't the only one  :-?

cheerio

poppy xx

easter

I'm an awful blogger and I haven't even started yet. I'm warning you my posts will no doubt be very erratic, like I haven't posted for a while now but I have loads of ideas!!!

As is the tradition in my family I spent Easter Sunday and following days with my grandparents and other family members. I'd like to say that I'm now drowning in chocolate but sadly I'm not. perhaps it's for the better...



As my paternal grandparents are farmers, whenever I looked out of the kitchen window, I got to enjoy the picturesque view of lambs frolicking in a green field scattered with buttercups. I didn't get a picture of that, but I did get sent some pictures of other sheepy stuff by my aunt so HOORAY for her organisation:


who enjoyed the sun in our April heat wave? I must say I thought that the UK was incapable of producing such nice weather even in the summer. hopefully the sun didn't melt your chocolate, or skin. Sadly although our weather was below 30 degrees I actually burnt after ONE DAY  at the beach. I'm really disappointed in myself, I must admit! I hope that your spoils were highly profitable.

yours piggishly,

poppy xx

welcome chummies

hello to anyone reading this...

 I humbly welcome you to my blog!

ok, I'm going to warn you now, I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes blogging, but hopefully it will be ok!
I was inspired to start this blog by my friend flora's blog ( http://prettylittlethingstodo.blogspot.co.uk/ - please go check it out if you haven't already, she's amazing ) and so I'm going to try a have blog which is just as good as hers is!

right, so basically, I'm planning to write about:
- random updates on what's going on in my life (whoop whoop)
- how to makes
- how to bakes
- reviews on stuff (books, films and general stuff)
- maybe guides and lists and stuff

I realise this all sounds really nerdy and boring but is there any other way to write a welcome? seriously...

anyway, tata for now

poppy xx