This morning we went for brunch at Jack’s up in Queen’s Park. It’s such a lovely area, with lots of fancy shops, restaurants and bakeries. It’s only a 10 minute walk from the Mews, so we’ve really been missing out.

Breakfast was very healthy – pancakes, hash browns, eggs and baked beans. Tom had chips with his hash browns for two of his none a day!

Everyone was so full of energy before breakfast…

and then we were defeated by food… it’s not suppose to work this way around. Pete Burns was heading in for lunch when we left.

We then headed to the park and the petting zoo (which is free!). There were goats, chicken, ducks (which walk funny), rabbits and guinea pigs.

We got to pet a little goat.

Afterwards we relaxed in the park, tried not to get hit by balls and low flying kites, saw Pete Burns again and went to Louise’s house.

Dress update: I found some linen for the sailor dress I’m making in Soho. I had to haggle with some wise-cracking Cockney’s to get it but it was only £5 a meter. I almost finished it but then I ran out of white thread. I’m going to have enough fabric leftover to make a matching sailor hat too!

Also, happy Independence Day Americans!

I seem to craft so much faster when it’s cold outside. This week I finished my patchwork quilt, which I had started back in the summer. I had the bulk of the work finished in two days and then left it for months until Monday, when it was so cold, I decided to get it finished. It’s really cosy having the extra layer on the bed and it’s good to snuggle up with in front of the TV and knit.

It’s been another busy crafty week. I’ve finished knitting my scarf, but I want to add pockets and John Lewis have ran out of my shade of yarn, so I’ll have to wait until I’m back in Scotland to get some more. On Wednesday, Tom’s boss Malcolm was hosting an evening at the office, where he showed off the video of Hugh Grant shaving off his moustache. It was really funny and I’ll post it when it’s live.

Alex gave us an early Christmas present last night, which is a really pretty candle holder made out of a tree trunk.

We’ve been making eggnog and ginger beer for our December party this weekend. I’ve also finished my Christmas shopping, which I’m really happy about. I do more shopping in December than I do in the rest of the year.

We launched the Christmas mini issue of Snippets this week with the adorable Twinkie Chan on the cover. She also shared a how-to for crocheting a super cute lollipop brooch.

It’s been another busy week, mostly filled with xmas shopping, movies, eating in diners and pub quizzes. We’ve been going to a pub quiz at Gordon Ramsay’s pub in Chiswick with Ben and Dave. It costs £2 to enter but they give you lots of little snacks from the kitchen – we had pumpkin soup, scrambled egg with truffle on toast, pork pies (not me) and really tasty mince pies. Our name this week was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Fire Hydrant, which we felt was nice and topical. We’ve been spending a lot of time over West recently, on the previous Sunday, we were at a mini Christmas for Mel at Ben & Dave’s with mulled wine, yummy food and generic presents to open.

I’ve fallen in love with Forever 21 - they make such nice clothes and our first order arrived this week. I got a couple of dresses, skirts, belts, a pair of boots and Tom got lots of cool t-shirts. I can’t wait to go on a spending spree in the shop when I get to New York.

On Wednesday we went for a feast at The Diner, complete with hard shakes and Tennessee Toffee Pie for dessert. Afterwards we went to see a midnight movie and Tom lost his wallet but I found it again, after a steward let me back in and we hunted for it in the dark. Speaking of diners, we have our American rail trip all booked for February. We start off in New York for a week, take the train down the east coast (we get beds and our meals on the train) to New Orleans, where we meet up with Emma and Raven for Mardis Gras. It’s going to be so much fun!

At the start of the year, Tom set himself the mission of going to the end of every tube line on the underground map and he only has a couple left to do, so I’ve been keeping him company. Lynz has lent me her Twilight book, so I’ve been reading that.

I’ve also spent a lot of the week wrapping presents, writing cards and doing some Christmas crafting. I can’t post most of the things I’ve made until after xmas, but I did make some geeky Gameboy keyrings, which I think are safe to show off now.

On Friday, we signed up to the DVD store at Maida Vale (the same one Kate Moss goes to, I’ll have you know) and had a girly movie night in with Emma. We watched St. Trinian’s, which is an odd film, and Josie & The Pussycats – I’d forgotten how awesome that film is!

When we got Tom’s pick of film home, we noticed someone had scribbled “worst film ever” on the DVD. We’ve still to watch it to find out.

On Saturday, we ran in to a Santa convention at Trafalgar Square, where there must have been a thousand people in Santa Claus outfits – apparently they were trying to raise awareness of Christmas. They all seemed quite drunk and were handing out chocolates and sweets to everyone.

Tiffany are sponsoring the ice skating at Somerset House, so they have a huge Christmas tree covered in Tiffany charms.

They also had a tuck shop inside a Tiffany box, where you could buy sweets and jewellery.

Tom bought me a cupcake, though I would have settled for a key necklace or this ring.

We had dinner at the Eagle Bar Diner and then went to see Law Abiding Citizen at the big Odeon in Leicester Square. We had went to see a movie a month ago, which had really bad sound, so we were given complementary tickets. Our seats would normally have cost £20 each, because we were in the Royal Circle, which is where all the stars sit during premiers and they had awesome leopard skin seats. That reminds me, Tom’s boss Malcolm had his moustache shaved off by Hugh Grant last week.

This morning we had breakfast at Fifteen. I highly recommend scrambled eggs & mushroom on toast with a side of baked beans and a tasty smoothie.

Afterwards I had a haircut at Taylor Taylor. This time I was at their Commercial Street shop, which is so pretty. Upstairs is all fairytale with chandeliers and stuffed animals for Christmas and downstairs is like a dungeon. They give you special Christmas cocktails, tasty coffee and a head massage before your chop.

I’m going to have to get use to having much shorter hair, but I think I’ll treat myself to some ear muffs to keep warm.

That was a super long post, I’ll update more regularly from now on.

It was open doors day in London yesterday, so we decided to go up Broadgate Tower, one of the few skyscrapers that was open to the public. Tom wanted to go around the Olympics but it was all booked up.

There was a fantastic view, we tried to see our house.

Tom tried to eat the Gerkin, which we had earlier found the bottom of. I was excited because I had never seen it before.

Back at Fashion Week, my sandal snapped but Tom came to my rescue with super glue. We went for a snoop around the exhibition, which was quite cool. There was a wall of super model kisses.

Sadly, we left it too late to get tickets for the Vivienne Westwood show but as we had time to kill before the Pout party, we decided to check out the venue and see the Viv outfits the guests were wearing. We saw Geri Halliwell (wowie a real life Spice Girl), Manolo Blahnik, the ginger one from Girl’s Aloud, Joss Stone, Peaches Geldof and Daisy Lowe. In the evening we were at Adam Street for the Pout party, but we were worn out so we didn’t stay too long.

I’ve just finished watching series 2 of True Blood and I love it so much.

I’ve almost finished my quilt, I’m just waiting for the batting I ordered to arrive and then I can sew it on the back. I’ve had an alright week, mainly recovering from the party, hanging out with friends and going to the cinema. It turns out that Raven did have swine flu and, even though we had all been hanging out with her, none of us caught it.

Yesterday, we went for a slap-up lunch at Plan 9. They make amazing smoothies with names like berry-go-round, cardio angel and acai dream. Tamara Beckwith was there drinking one too. It turns out that lots of stars live near us, including Jude Law, Natalie Imbruglia, Bjork, Kiera Knightly and Sienna Miller.

Tom’s brother Jack has come to stay, so we picked him up from the station and went to see our friend, Ashxyz play at the Good Ship. Amy, who was one of my friends in high school was there, so it was fun catching up after years and years and sharing Vegetarian cafe tips (note to self: got to check out Pogo Cafe for banana, honey & rice milk shakes).

I also bought some new Tatty Devine jewelry in the sale with my birthday money – a huge zip brooch and a heart-shaped glasses necklace.

I was on the hunt for awesome vintage birthday present ideas this weekend, so our first stop was the Button Willow Bazaar at the St Aloysius Social Club. Tom failed to “bat the rat”, but I did get some ideas and a giggle out of the celebrities-made-out-of-vegetables competition.

My favorite was veggie Alan Carr.

Next up was Paradise Gardens in Victoria Park, where they had a steam rides fairground.

We won prizes in the penny arcade and it was all fun and games until…

We went on the waltzers and then Tom’s iPhone went missing. We called it minutes later, when we realized, but somebody had turned it off, so we knew it had been found. We rushed back to the waltzers and told the man in charge, he said “funny, that’s the third phone to go missing in the last two minutes”. When the ride stopped, we ran around, looking inside each car and then I noticed one of the other guys who worked there had an iPhone in his hand. I asked him if he’d just found it and after acting a bit weird, he sheepishly said “oh yeah, it is” and reluctantly handed it over. Afterwards we found two police men and told them to keep an eye on that ride. It’s scary to think how close it got to being stolen forever.

This photo pretty much sums it up. Remember to check your pockets for your valuables when you get off rides.

We decided to head to the calm of Canada Square in Canary Wharf and eat sushi in the park, while pretending to be in New York. They had the world’s largest mac broadcasting sporting videos too. After, we treated ourselves to wine, cheese, pickles and bread at Gorden’s Wine Bar, in the caves under Embankment.

I bought some new shoes in the sale and they arrived today. I ♥ red shoes!

A bunch of people on CO+K asked me to be one of the Crafty Superstars a while back, so I crafted up 5 projects especially and we’ll be launching one each day this week.

The first project was a how-to for sewing a Gothic Lolita Cuff and it marks my third hundred project on the site. That’s a lot of crafting!

I’ve also been doing lots of writing recently. Not only did we just finish the new Snippets but I had interviews with the creator of Irregular Choice and Polly Scattergood today for the next issue. I’ve also just finished “how to enhance your Glastonbury-watching-sofa-experience” for Drowned In Sound, which was fun to write.

We totally failed at seeing 8 out of 10 cats last night, as they’d changed the start time and we didn’t realize, but they’ve put us down as priority for next week. We’d made a packed with Tony to go to Nando’s, because everyone says that it’s good, so we went for dinner. It’s a lot like a glorified take-out joint, a la Chicken Cottage or one of the dodgy fried chicken restaurants you see all over London. You go up to order your own food and there’s a lot of queuing involved. It’s obviously not a very good place for vegetarians. Debra Barr, from The Apprentice was there, being quite mouthy like on the show. When she left, someone shouted “you’re fired!” at her – I bet that doesn’t get old! Afterwards, more fun was to be had at the Hawley Arms.

I wore my new Viv Westwood, Venus top, that Tom got me. I think it looks like something Sailor Girl would wear and I love it to bits.

Tom bumped in to Henry (from The Inbetweener ) again today. Last time we saw him he went on of a tour of our mews, and today he’d just got back from furniture shopping at Ikea. He called us his Mews muse. Tom met another one of our neighbours, who was Freddie Mercury’s costume designer (she made his famous yellow jacket) and now designs for TV shows and movies. She said that Freddie Mercury and David Bowie had visited the mews in the 80′s, so I’ve been trying to imagine them walking up and down our cobbled street.

We had tickets for 8 Out Of 10 Cat’s at BBC television centre last night. Lynsey came along too. She always brings yummy treats and last night she brought chocolate truffles that had a cat in London on the box. We had priority tickets, which meant we had to sit in a section of seats directly in front of the cameras, just before the stage. Our bags and jackets were taken off us and we were told we “would be seen on TV”, eep. Jeremy Clarkson, David Walliams, James from The Apprentice and Holly Walsh (?) were the guests.

Afterwards, I wanted to hug Jimmy Carr but he disappeared. James, from The Apprentice, complimented Tom on his new Vivienne Westwood top and said “it wouldn’t suit me though”.

Aafterwards we had dinner at Wahaca. It’s suppose to be Mexican Market Eating and we ordered tasty quesadilla’s, super spicy tacos, nachos, nuts, churros and a lime tequila sorbet, which came with a very babyish looking spoon.

My parents came down to visit for my birthday. They arrived late in the night and, even though it was the early hours of the morning, we ate cake and opened presents.

I got this gorgeous new mannequin to add to my collection, a Canon compact camera to carry around in my bag and take photos of everything, lots of Momiji doll cuteness, new pots and plants, and other cute stuff.

In the evening, Dad took me to see a play at the Globe. It only costs £5 if you stand but it’s an endurance test for your feet. On the way home, there was a car that had been broken in to, so we stopped to call the police and Julian, who’s in Green Wing and the Barclay’s adverts stopped to speak to us and say how nice we were for reporting it – that’s another famous neighbor.

We went to see Martha Wainwright last night. She was doing a webcast for Virgin at a fancy members club in Covent Garden. We were given free organic beer, which was pretty yummy. Tom spotted the singer from Interpol and supermodel girlfriend, Helena Christensen.

In other star spotting news, Kate Moss lives a few streets away from us and Paul McCartney a few streets from her, we walked past his house on the way home from St. John’s Wood and fans had scratched ‘I ♥ Paul’ in his wall. I don’t like him at all.

I made a camera necklace which is suppose to look like my SLR camera. It took me ages to find shiny paper / plastic.

Cute sticker on the bus home.