We’re back in London now and it was so sad to leave America. Everyone was so nice and they got even nicer the further south we went.

We got up early on Wednesday morning, still recovering from Mardi Gras and packed up to leave.

It was sad saying bye to Raven but I’m sure we’ll see her soon.

Our first flight was to Houston, Texas where we stopped to spend our remaining dollars on some tasty fast food from Wendy’s. The flight home went smooth, although piloted by a George Bush sound-a-like with two Sarah Palin look-a-like hostesses.

I watched Where The Wild Things Are and an amazing reality / contest show called Ultimate Cake Off, which I really need to get more of.

London’s all rainy but at least it’s Fashion Week and we arrived home to find a bunch of show invites in the mail. Also, a few more versions of my Kitty Hood Scarf have appeared on CO+K – I love them so much!

New Orleans was amazing, everything was just as I thought it would be. We only had about 30 hours int he city,  but it was enough to get a feel for the place and I’m sure we’ll go back soon.

Raven was happy to have everyone on her stomping ground and seeing her again made it feel like we’d seen her only yesterday. (I love how you can see Emma in the sunglasses in this photo).

It was Mardi Gras, so we all got dressed up in our costumes. Tom was a sailor, I was a mermaid, Emma and Raven were cowgirls with oversized hats, Morgan was Captain Morgan and Amber (Raven’s sister) opted for a classy boa and mask combo.

We stared the day by watching some of the parades. Everyone was still celebrating from winning the superbowl, so we ended up with the Who Dat! song in our head, which goes along the lines of “Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints? Who dat! Who dat!“.

Everyone was throwing beads in to the crowd, so we ended up with dozens of them around our necks.

We picked the worst parade watching spot, which was out of the sunlight, so we got cold pretty quickly.

We warmed up with hot bowls of gumbo.

Gumbo is a thick soup / stew with rice. I went for the seafood one which was quite yummy.

After lunch, we went for a wander around the French Quarter, which had such pretty buildings.

Emma and Raven got acquainted with the god fearing locals.

Our next stop was Pat O’Brien’s for some Hurricane cocktails.

These were super strong but so easy to drink. Morgan and Amber tried to teach me how to tie knots with cherry stalks.

It got lovely and warm in the sun, so we stayed out in the beer garden for a while.

After a few too many Hurricanes, we headed down to Bourbon street, which was a massive street party with people throwing beads down from the balconies.

Everyone’s costumes were amazing. Next time I want to dress up as a sugar skull.

Even the animals were dressed up.

If I ever have to move to Nola, I found the perfect house on Bourbon Street. I really want a porch with a swinging chair.

Tom and I took some time out to see the rest of the city. Everyone we met was so nice.

The shoreline was really pretty.

This was exactly how I imagined New Orleans to look.

In the evening, we all went for dinner at Mother’s Diner, where Tom managed to confuse the waiter by asking for “a glass of waiter”. I had pancakes for pancake day!

Afterwards we went for a drink in a pirate bar.

After leaving New York an hour late, we took the Crescent train on our journey to New Orleans.

The journey was 30 hours long but it meant that we’d get to see a lot more of America.

We had our own little room, complete with bunk beds, seats and a toilet (you’d really have to be friends with the person you’re traveling with). You can see a tour of the room here.

It was pretty watching the sunset over Washington.

We tried to get as much WIFI as we could in stations, but it didn’t work too well.

All of our meals were provided in the dining carriage, which was all pretty for Valentine’s day. We sat with a couple from Virginia, who were keen to discuss what food we had / didn’t have in the UK. The asked “d’yall got salt and pepper over in England?” and if we drank tea.

The peanut butter pie was amazing!

Even the buildings were celebrating Valentine’s day.

When we went for breakfast the next morning, the train had been decorated for Mardi Gras. The staff were all so friendly.

The French toast was yummy and so filling.

The landscape changed so much as we hit the south.

Such pretty forests. We kept an eye out for bears and crocodiles.

Places of note included Birmingham, Alabama and Atlanta, Georgia and Tennessee. Over dinner in the evening, an old lady complemented us on how good our English was, after we told her we came from Britain and she hadn’t realized it was our native language…

We pulled in to New Orleans in the late evening.

We shared a cab with 6 other people in to the centre, which was in full swing from Mardi Gras.

This is the view from our hotel room.

And now we’re reunited with Emma and Raven! The party starts in the morning…

I’m back in London now. Tom met us at the airport which was such a nice surprise. I’m going to miss the sunshine.

I forgot to post photos of the hotel before. It was really nice and right next to the pool, which was the best bit. We would sit out on the balcony at night and watch movies on my laptop.

Someone on CO+K has already made a version of my Kitty Hood Scarf. It took me over a year to finish and they did it in just 1 week! It looks fantastic too.

Today we brunched with Lynz, Claire & Emma at Plan 9, had the cheapest round ever at the Warrington and then went for cupcakes at Hummingbird.

On the way home I spotted this shop covered in bows. I want to do the same to the Mews!

There’s an interview with me in the latest issue of Sew Hip magazine. It’s also got my how-to and the pattern for making Louis Vuitton style rabbit ears. You can pick a copy up in WH Smith and you’ll know it’s the right issue because it’s got the ears on the cover!

On the subject of crafting, I’ve almost finished my kitty ear hooded scarf, which I started knitting in Paris well over a year ago. I’m just making pockets for it now. It’s sooooo cosy! I’ll post the pattern on CO+K when it’s finished.

In an attempt to eat super healthy in 2010, I signed up to Graze, who deliver healthy snack boxes filled with nuts, fruits and seeds every week. Let me know if you fancy a free box and I’ll give you a code!

Tom got me a couple of late Christmas presents from the Vivienne Westwood sale including an awesome rosette and wrap scoop top, I love them both so much.

The snow has been preventing us from going out as much, so we’ve been raiding the DVD store and having movie nights in with Emma. We did have a trip to Ikea, where we got a new TV bench, magnetic knife rack and rails so that we could hang the bus blind up. This photo reminds me that I need to work on my costume for Mardis Gras – I’m thinking of making a mermaid tail.

If you’ve ever wondered where I come from, here’s an awful video showing Fife at it’s “best” – you can see why I left.

We got back to London to discover this amazing portairt of Emma, Tom, Me and Raven, which Raven had painted for us as a Christmas present. It’s based on this photo and she’s captured all the little details, like the necklace we gave her as her leaving present. It’s only 6 weeks until we see her in New Orleans for Mardis Gras.

Our last day in Scotland was spent in Edinburgh with my family. We went to an amazing little cafe called the Roseleaf down in Leith. It’s full of quirky little touches, such as menus binding inside copies of National Geographic and hardback books, candles in teacups and mismatched tableware.

The food was delicious too. We had waffles, pilled with caramelised bananas and sampled the applewood mac n cheese.

We’re back in London now. Last night we spent new year’s eve with friends in Ealing and woke up feeling oddly refreshed to catch a bit of the new year’s parade in town.

Selfridges has an amazing Vivienne Westwood window display.

I want it all, especially the Westwood baubles for our xmas tree.

My new year’s resolutions are to be super organized, craft lots, be proactive, think positive, jog everyday, travel more and catch up with old friends. What are your resolutions?

We’re having a Scottish tour of all of our friends. First stop was Perth with my family, which was heavily covered in snow.

We had a snowball fight with my Dad.

We warmed up with breakfast at Spoons before heading through to Dundee. (My Nana is wearing her squirrel brooch).

We saw our old flat in Dundee, which reminded us how much we didn’t miss the city.

We had a wander around the shops for a while and I managed to find the diary-a-month Moleskins that I wanted. You get a different coloured mini journal for each month, so I’ll be able to take them travelling and keep them in my bag at all times. We bumped in to our old friend Stuart outside the DCA, which was handy because we’d lost his number, and invited him to our pub meet-up later.

In the evening we had dinner and drinks with our old Dundee friends at our ex-local, The Counting House. Duncan also came up from KDY and Emma came through from Arbroath.

The big news is that Malcolm and Kirsty are engaged, he proposed on Christmas Eve and they are the happiest couple that you will ever meet. It was really nice catching up with old friends, reminding us that it’s the people we miss and not the city.

The train back to KDY was covered in trash, Duncan said we were in the “Skins carriage”.

Last night, the few of us who were left in London went for a Christmas dinner at The Diner in Camden. I brought the remaining crackers from our tree so that we could tell jokes and wear crowns while we tucked in to our dinner of breakfast foods including pancakes, hash browns and waffles.

Tom’s boss gave us a copy of the London Nude Tech Calendar to hang up in the Mews, which has him naked on the inside cover.

After dinner we went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. It was huge and filled with hundreds of stalls.

There was a chatting and singing moose, which Lynsey informed us we had to see.

We had cherry mulled wine and roasted chestnuts, which I had for the first time and thought tasted like nutty potatoes.

In other news, it’s looking quite snowy in the Mews.

I also made Tom a couple of RSS cushions to match the social-networking ones I had made on Sunday.

On Saturday we had a Christmas party at the Mews for our friends. We had mulled wine, mince pies, homemade eggnog and gingerbeer (which tasted better than the shop bought bottle that Lynz bought) and presents for everyone wrapped under the tree. I even made some presents…

including a hama bead 3D glasses necklace for Lynsey. I can now post the how-to and it’s here.

Before the party, Tom surprised me with a bag from Vivienne Westwood. My party outfit consisted of a black H&M dress, necklace from Forever 21, sparkly silver eyeshadow, my Vivienne Westwood horns…

and a new pair of Vivienne Westwood skull and crossbone earrings. They’re so sparkly and come in an indestructible box. Tom also got me an hour at Lucky Voice karaoke with up to 15 friends, which will be so much fun.

I gave Tom a whole bunch of geeky presents, including this Come In / Go Away ambigram doormat.

Twitter and Facebook mousepads.

iPhone application coasters.

… and yesterday I sewed him a set of social-networkig cushions. I’m making a pair of matching RSS ones for him today.

Emma gave Tom the best present though, which will be two pet goldfish when we get back from Scotland. We need to start thinking up names… any suggestions?

I also made a couple of squirrel brooches yesterday for the family – I hope they don’t look on here before xmas. Check out the how-to here.

We’d been looking forward to December so that we could open our Lego advent calendar.

It’s pirate themed and each day you get something to build, I’m looking forward to getting the little Lego mermaid.

Don’t worry if you don’t have an advent calendar though, we’ve put together a crafty one for CO+K with a how-to for everyday until Christmas.

On Wednesday night we went to see Twilight. I still can’t make my mind up about the film, so Lynz has lent me her book of it to read. (This lipstick covered tube poster still makes me giggle).

It was an 11.30pm screening, so we had the whole cinema to ourselves, which was the advantage of going so late, but we had to walk home from Finchley Road because we had missed the last bus. It had stopped raining and it was a nice walk, so we didn’t mind.

On Thursday we picked up this year’s Christmas tree from Clifton Nurseries. We thought we had picked a similar size to last year but it turned out to be 2 foot taller and much heavier. Luckily a nice bus driver let us take it home on the bus and dropped us off round the corner next to the Mews. We had to buy a bigger stand to fit it though.

On Friday, Emma moved flat – back in the direction of the Mews and we headed in to town to meet Tom from work. It was Beer O’Clock at the Leap offices, so we were invited in for drinks, organic chocolate and played a game of Jenga, while Malcolm (the boss) was outside with a film crew trying to get passers by to shave off his moustache (which he had grown for Movember) and ended up cycling off in a pedicab while holding up a sign. We didn’t see him again, so we don’t know if he succeeded.

There are two very cute fish who live in the office and now I really want to get some. We met up with Alex and went for dinner afterwards.

Yesterday, we started decorating our tree. We’re going to have a December party and have all our friends come over to help decorate, drink mulled wine, eat mince pies and listen to the Bright Eye’s Christmas album.

New decorations this year include a jumping reindeer and a glass lollipop. In the evening, we headed over to Ealing to hang out with Lynz, Claire and friends.

In other news, I did a nice little interview for Amelia’s magazine and you can read it here.