This week has felt like an extension of my birthday. On Monday, I received a box of awesome treats from Medusa’s Make-Up and then my purple heart-shaped Daisy Rock bass, and then on Tuesday Sarah sent a package of awesome birthday treats, including a super cute Momiji doll with a really sweet note inside.

I love love love my bass. It’s looks even prettier in real life and it’s really easy to play because it’s designed for girls fingers. Tom and I have been playing Desaparecidos, McClusky and Paramore… hehe!

This week’s work included making Make-Up tutorials for Medusa’s Make-Up.

This is the first one I’ve made, so I hope I described everything properly.

I got a lot of purple things for my birthday, including this awesome Canon camera from Tom. It has a wide-angle lense, so all my photos will be 16:9 and it’ll look like I’m in a movie.

I couldn’t resist taking minature-style photos of Camden.

It looks so cute, like a toy-set complete with miniature drug dealers and punks.

Ross invited us along to their party in a really cool pub up in Belsize Park.

His band, Mars Patrol were using half the room to shoot a music video. We were too scared to go in it but there were break dancers, sumo wrestlers, dogs and lots of crazy people.

Today, we’re off on the hunt for weird ice cream. Last week I made some lemon sorbet, which was sooo easy and really tasty!

It was Tom’s birthday on Wednesday, so I surprised him after work with a trip to the Absolut Ice Bar.

It was very very cold…

but they dress you in a big warm cloak and gloves.

The glasses were made of ice too and the cocktails glowed under the UV lights. The menu was a compass and you picked the cocktail you wanted by the direction.

The bar was covered with various ice art and sculptures.

I liked dressing up as an eskimo and wish I could have a furry hood all the time.

It was nice to get outside in the warmth after.

I treated Tom to dinner at the Diner, where he got to open some of his presents (including this very pretty one from Raven).

Then we had time to kill in an empty St Pancras while waiting for my parent’s train to arrive…

so we played pop-up ping pong, which was so much fun!

It was our birthday party last night, so I went for a makeover at MAC beforehand.

Last time I let the artist take full control and she went a bit crazy but this time I knew what I wanted, so I loved the end result so much more. Ellie, the makeup artist asked if I was a beauty journalist, because I came in prepared with a notebook of looks I wanted to try out. She also gave me a huge list of websites to check for CO+K and places to go in Bristol next weekend.

She even let me take photos as we went along, so I could put it on CO+K and thought that was a really good idea everyone should do.

I left with a big bag of makeup and then went shopping for a new outfit too.

We headed home and it was party time! I think we’d picked the worst day of the summer to have our party, as everyone was away but we can’t do any other weekends. It was lots of fun anyway!

We made Hurricane Cocktails like we had in New Orleans and brought out the Mardis Gras beads.

I baked a chocolate absinthe cake…

which we set on fire and was much cooler than birthday candles. We served it with Lego-shaped vodka jelly and even King Charles enjoyed his slice! Other party food included enough candy to kill someone, delicious homemade pizza from Raz & Anna and questionable chocolates from Dave.

Mel sent a video message from Toronto!

Lynz gave me an awesome pair of scissors earrings (very CO+K) and Tony gave me a download of the Dr Horrible Sing-A-Long-Blog (I don’t know what it is yet – we’ll watch it at bedtime).

Dave played us a little gig when everyone left and warned us about the impending mid-twenties crisis which may, or may not be waiting around the corner for us… 4 more days until I’m 25, eep!

We started our Adventure Saturday yesterday with some chips from Mr Fish in Queen’s Park, which Mitch had told us is the best chip shop in London. They were very good and I managed to nab 20 chip forks so I can make this Tatty Devine necklace.

We picked up an iSpy London book to help us with our adventures. We’re hoping to get it finished by the end of the year but it gave us the idea to make a grown up’s version with fun stuff like: get your photo snapped at Rough Trade or drink bubble tea in China Town.

Fist we jumped on the newly reopened East London Line. I know East is a bit old fashioned but we weren’t expecting people to be dressed like this… hehehe!

We headed down south where we found Railway Avenue…

which had the Brunel Museum on it. The museum was really cute and only cost £2. The Brunel tunnel was the first underwater tunnel beneath the Thames. It first opened as a shopping arcade and they held a banquet in it. Today the tube runs through it.

Tom liked the train bench that was outside.

There was an awesome bridge one too.

We were in luck as it was a special day  at the museum where they were giving people train tours of the tunnel and letting them go down in to the old entrace hall. This was the first time it had been opened in 140 years and we had to squeeze through a little mine entrance and climb down a rickety staircase. It was really cool inside though – here’s a photo to give you a better idea.

Afterwards we went on the hunt for a Cockney cash machine which Ben from Leap had told us about. We found one but they don’t support Cockney as a language option anymore, so we couldn’t withdraw any bangers and mash.

We wandered around East London for a while.

We spotted a weird fish lamp…

and this dragon, which I love!

We decided to head out even further East and got the train past Stratford, where the Olympics was coming together nicely!

Eventually we got to Lakeside shopping centre, where we got to be mallrats and it felt like being back in West Edmonton Mall – my Canadian home away from home as a teenager. They have gumball machines…

and Taco Bell! I think it may be the only one in Britain.

The food was just as good as I remember and just as cheap – a hard shell taco is only 79p.

Just like I would have done in Canada, we went for a snoop around the pet shop after which had super cute bunnies.

The rest of the animals were all snoozing.

This hamster was really cute.

After shopping for a while and Tom not letting me get him an I Heart Omaha t-shirt, we went for dinner at Old Orleans. A restaurant on a fake steam barge which looks similar to the one we actually saw in New Orleans.

The food was really good, we ordered burgers with diced home fries, corn bread and a pitcher of Hurricane (which wasn’t as strong as in Nola). The person next to us ordered food that came out sizzling with a huge cloud of smoke steaming off it.

Afterwards we had more cocktails. I went for a Louisiana Jam which was Southern Comfort, apple juice, sourz, apricot jam and mint served in a jam jar. Jam in drinks is actually really nice. Tom had a Bywater Bramble which came in a glass with a scary face on.

We found a copy of Flair Magazine which has a photo of our bed in it – I was very sleepy by the end of the day and wished I could be back in it.

We walked up Monument yesterday. It’s as tall as the distance from where the great fire of London started. I took a tall photo of it too!

There were 311 steps…

which made you feel dizzy by the time you got to the top but they give you a certificate.

The views were worth the dizziness. On one side you could see all over the city from St. Paul’s to the Gherkin.

The other side has views over the river and Tower Bridge.

Afterwards we tried out Boris’s new bike hire scheme. I hadn’t been on a bike since I was little, so I was a little unsteady but hopefully it’ll all come back to me soon… what’s that saying?

Next up we headed to Chiswick, where we spotted this Charles & Diana wall, which must have been painted a very long time ago. I also got Nigella Lawson’s Domestic Goddess book super cheap in a bookstore – I’ve always wanted it.

Then went for a tour of Fuller’s Brewery where they make London Pride.

We got to wear super fashionable orange vests.

It was fun learning about how the beer is made and getting to smell all the different malts – cara malt and chocolate malt were the nicest, so I tried to decipher them the beers after.

The best part of the tour was when they took us in to the cellar and let us try all of the beers.

We tried a bit of each beer but my favourites were Discovery, a light biscuity beer, and London Porter, which tasted like coffee and chocolate.

It was the last tour of the day and our nice tour guide let us stay in the bar until everyone had drank as much beer as they could manage. We all left drunk and the tour is awesome, so go on it if you get a chance!

Ahoy! I finally finished my sailor dress. This is the second dress that I’ve made and now I have the hang of it, I’m going to make lots more.

I’ve started a new fashion scrapbook to keep all my ideas in, so I’ve been drawing coquette’s (which I will do a how-to for soon) and cutting out pictures and fabric patches. The fabric I used for this dress was a striped linen, which cost £5 a meter.

It has big bulky pockets at either side (I love pockets on dresses), metal buttons down the front and a wide collar.

I’m going to style it with a sailor hat, anchor necklace from Forever 21, the Vivienne Westwood pirate boots I wish I had and a bottle of rum!

It’s been another fun and crazy busy week. On Tuesday we went for a picnic in Holland Park with Sarah & Bruno, saw Inception on Wednesday and on Thursday, I was invited on the first ever Leap office night out, which included lots of cocktails, Moroccan food and shisha.

Tom made a frame for his bus blind, painted it black and put it on the wall. The blind is from a real bus and has hundreds of stops on it, including School Bus, Partial Route etc, so he put a curtain chain on it and you can twist it round. We’re going to get some LED fairy lights to put behind it so that it lights up at night.

Tom’s parents have been in Italy so came for a visit on their way back. They brought us two cute wooden animal cocktail stick holders.

On Saturday we went for lunch at Gail’s Bread up in Queen’s Park.

They make amazing salads and it feels like you’re having an indoor picnic.

I love their metal lightbulbs.

We jumped in the car and went for tiramisu at Cake Boy in Battersea.

They gave us a sneak peak at a tea party cake they’d just made. It had a little boy and girl with all their imaginary friends sitting around it. We really want an icing Annabelle & Baby (our two favourite teddies) on top of our wedding cake!

We then went for a drive through Richmond park, where we were lucky to find a huge herd of deer right next to the road. This one was really sleepy, so didn’t mind us sitting next to him. I joked that he must have had a late stag night… hehe!

I think they had hay fever because they kept sneezing (you can hear a couple of sneezes in this video).

Next up, we then went to Hampton Court and had a look around the gardens.

The roses were really pretty…

and there was a cute little dog hiding in them.

We went through the maze and followed Tom…

who walked straight through to the middle in about 3 minutes, without getting lost. He didn’t even use Google maps.

They had cute button seats. I wish we had a garden… and a maze.

In the evening we had dinner at Carluccio’s in Bayswater, where I had a voucher for a free bottle of wine. I had sorbet afterwards which was soooo tasty, I’m going to learn how to make it this week.

I love my new cake stand. Tom brought home some macaroons and they look so pretty on it. I tried baking my own again and I almost have it perfected, I just need to buy more eggs. There was a heatwave last week which meant it was way too hot to work in the mews, so I went to work with Tom at Leap in Soho. He’s hired Tony as his second-in-command tech guy, so it was nice to see another friendly face (and play on his new iPhone).

I got Tom this awesome Vivienne Westwood sailor top. I spotted it a while back when it was £160, so I waited for it to go cheap in the sale. It looks so good and he wore it…

… on Saturday with his Sailor hat. King Charles said he should dress like a sailor everyday!

Saturday was Louise’s Mad Hatter’s tea party in Queen’s Park. The first of many events stretching over a week for her birthday.

Can you spot the person who forgot to wear a hat / animal ears?

I wore a fascinator that I made in hat making class.

There was no actual tea but lots and lots of food. I baked whoopie pies, which everyone liked, yay!

They were super easy to make and I’ve posted my recipe for peanut butter whoopie pies on CO+K:

On Sunday we all watched the World Cup and supported Spain because Paul the Octopus said they’d win. Yesterday, Tom and I went to see Rhod Gilbert’s new radio show. We had to hand in comments about things we don’t like about shopping and Rhod read mine out and tried to find me in the crowd but I hid.

What a crazy weekend! On Sunday, we made a new feature for CO+K called Suggested Share and here we are showing it off to Mark Zuckerberg.

Everyone really liked the site and one of the big FB bosses even pointed out how much he loved Crafterella in the corner.

The new feature shows you which of your Facebook friends would be interested in the project you’re looking at. So if you’re on a cupcake recipe, it’ll suggest sharing it with your friends who love cupcakes and if you’re looking at a tutorial for Lady Gaga sunglasses, it’ll suggest telling your friends who are Lady Gaga fans.

Here’s a video of Tom presenting the feature on Sunday night – he explains it way better than I can.

The feature was one of the winners, so on Monday we got to present it as part of the European Facebook conference at the Barbican (which Zuck was speaking at and was being streamed live on the internet). We also had a booth, where we got to showcase the feature to lots of journalists from The Financial Times, TechCrunch etc.

After no food and little sleep we finally got to relax with a cocktail party in the Barbican Gardens (which looked like somewhere Posion Ivy would live).

… and then a ladybird landed on my finger on the way home, yay!

It’s starting to feel like summer in the Mews again, so Tom and I replanted our flower baskets. Unfortunately, we don’t have Em and Raven to lean out of the window and water them anymore, so we’re going to have to throw water up in the air and hope it lands on them.

On Saturday, we did the British thing of thinking “it’s summer but it might not be tomorrow” and spent it picnicking in Regent’s Park and walking in the woods of Hampstead.

We even climbed up a tree to see the view.

The animals were out in full cute force.

After walking all the way to Highgate, we stopped for white hot chocolate and Austrian cakes at Mozart’s Cafe.

This cake looked a little questionable!

Today was spent in a similar fashion, relaxing on Primrose Hill followed up with a drink in Hampstead with Emma and Alex.

I got an awesome set of candy jars, which are perfect for storing my necklaces, beads and bracelets!

Last night we watched the Spend an evening with Saddle Creek documentary and it’s made me want to move to Omaha and start a band even more.