Lovely things 3: birthday edition

Hi folks! My birthday and my trip to London are over and I had an amazing time! I was very spoiled. Which can only mean that it's time for some more.. Lovely things!

My boyfriend got me this adorable knitted brooch! I was very impressed by his present choosing skills, he took my love of knitting and my love of jewellery and came up with the perfect gift for me.

"A Little Owl Wearing Glasses" by Ashley Percival.

I had this amazing print pinned on my Pinterest for ages and my sneaky friend found it and ordered it for me. I just need to get a frame - and a place to hang it, my house is filling up with Etsy art. (Which is clearly a good thing).

Likewise my sister knew I had my eye on this metal necklace from Cos and she managed to track it down for me. Cos is one of my favourite shops but they only have a tiny concession in a shop in Dublin only stocks a very small selection of what's on the website. We went to the huge Cos in Westfield in London and I had to hold myself back - I just got a black jumper. But it's the perfect black jumper!

Image and recipe from Heat Oven to 350

My sister also made me these incredible homemade peanut butter cups instead of a birthday cake. These were seriously amazing. The recipe was another Pinterest find and sometimes I'm sceptical about internet recipes. Will adding sugar, butter and peanut butter to graham crackers/digestive biscuits REALLY replicate a delicious Reese's Peanut Butter cup? The answer was yes! If you love peanut butter as much as I do you have to try these.

While in London I finally got to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Considering I'm an art history graduate, it's pretty disgraceful that I've never been before! I picked up an amazing pattern book in the shop which was one of a series. It's a book of beautiful extracts of patterns by designers including William Morris (one of my favourites) and the best part is that it comes with a cd-rom of high res images of the patterns. So you might see some of the patterns popping up on my blog soon!


I hope everyone had a fab couple of weeks - can you believe it's officially the start of summer tomorrow? The weather here has been horrific!

Red and red and red all over

It's my birthday on Thursday, I can't wait! I love my birthday, even though I'm getting very depressingly old (30 next year!). I got this dress as my birthday dress, it was only €13 in Forever 21 - economy birthday! I'm going out to dinner with a bunch of friends on my actual day, then this weekend I'm off to London. We booked a "top secret hotel" through Last Minute and when the email arrived it turned out to be the Hilton. So not a complete economy birthday after all?

Also, why is it that as soon as you find a product you like, it's discontinued or no shops stock it anymore. I finally found my perfect hair colour (L'Oreal Feria Mango Intense Copper) which I've blabbed on about before. Now, suddenly, I can't find it in the one shop in Dublin that used to sell it. The colour I have now is Feria Paprika Power, and if you look at the box it didn't turn out ANYTHING like it's supposed to. What a pain!

Does anyone else have a birthday coming up? Do you love yours as much as I love mine?

No iron day

Happy Easter folks! I don't have many Easter traditions, apart from eating plenty of chocolate. I started a little early by eating the ears and face off my Lindt bunny. My friends' families seem to have all sorts of fancy things happening - lamb dinners, egg hunts, Easter outfits.. do you have any Easter rituals?

In other news (using the term "news" lightly) my iron finally gave up this week. It made getting ready for work pretty interesting. Instead of giving in a buying a new iron, I tried to wear outfits that didn't require ironing. As you can see, I had a very crumpled week.

Are you an ironer? My boyfriend used to iron his t-shirts and I have a friend who irons tea towels and underwear (madness!) I only give in when it's silk, or a work shirt!
Hope everyone has a lovely Easter weekend!