Back to Crafting; Peacock Style...

After a month of being extremely busy, I finally have a weekend to sit back and do nothing.  But there's no rest for the wicked and I have some serious crafting to catch up on.  So I'm dedicating the weekend to craft and this week I have been trawling the internet (mostly Pinterest) for ideas.

Two good friends of mine have recently purchased their first home together (Congratulations Gemma and Nathan!!) and have already started stamping their own style on the place.  Gemma and I have already made plans to use freezer paper to decorate some cushions to match the wallpaper in their living room; but I wanted to do something extra special for them.  After being told very firmly that it could not be anything too girly we got thinking and decided on a piece of artwork for the bedroom.  The walls are painted white and mint green so after racking my brain I remembered some fantastic wallpaper from the Ideal Home Show (which I visited at the weekend) of peacock feathers in dark mauve, blue and a hint of sparkly green a very similar colour to the bedroom walls.

I ran the idea past Gemma and she loved it so I have set about creating a Pinterest board of all my ideas.  You can check out everything I found here; below are a few of my favourites inspirations:

Close Up Peacock Feathers

Peacock Feather Pillows

Peacock Coloured Mixed Media Artwork

Peacock Fabric

The offshoot from this is now I really want a peacock room, I love the colour combination of the feathers they are some of my favourite colours, and the fact they are iridescent and sparkly makes it even better.  Now I will have to make two pieces of artwork, it's been a while since I picked up my paintbrush but I'm really looking forward to this; I'll keep you posted...

Segwey Day

For Christmas my friend Sarah-Jane bought me and Graeme an adventure session on a Segway!! So totally awesome!!

Unfortunately Graeme had far too much uni work so I took my dad instead, we had great fun.  It's very hard to describe how you use it, any tiny movement can send you whizzing around in circles but I soon got used to it.  Dad said it was very similar to skiing as you use your legs to turn corners, it is very unnerving though that the only way to stop is by leaning backwards.  We got the hang of it very quickly and set off around Dinton Pastures, our instructor said we had to stick to the path but there were so many off road trails I really wanted to be let loose.  We both said after the session that we would have to find an off road session to go that let us go faster than 6mph!!

We didn't get to many opportunities to take photos but here I am just about to jump on.

We took a couple of videos too but unfortunately Dad firstly left it on an indoor session so the images are funny colours and then forgot which way to hold the camera (tut tut!!) so mine is in portrait you might want to maximise it to see it better.

Oh well I suppose we will just have to have another go so we can take some better video.

Thank you Sarah!!

Lego Jewellery

I found more Lego jewellery yay!! These very delightful heart necklaces are from Etsy by various different supplies, my favourites are these by MoL Stationary.

 I just love how the clasp is the two pieces of Lego put together, genius!! There are even some with an added bit of sparkle too.  

I really want to make some of these I can imagine layering a few necklaces together would look really good, I just have to get hold of lots of Lego now!!

Relaxing in München Day 3

We had a bit of a slow start on Sunday after our night of partying.  While the boys went to buy pastries for breakfast I stayed behind to have a shower in Scott's ridiculous bath tub.  The bath is placed under the slope of the roof (as it is a top floor flat) and so you can't really stand up, after trying to crouch for a while I gave up and showered sitting down, I felt much better for it too!!

We decided to take a trip to the the Englischer Garten which is a huge park that stretches from the centre of Munich out past Garching (where Scott lives).  It also contains a few Brauhaus' with beer gardens so we could sit outside in the sun.  On our way to the park I spotted a huge tan coloured animal and at first glance it really did look like a Lion, it even had a shaggy mane.  Although on closer inspection with the big lens on my camera it was just a big dog, shame, it would have been more exciting as a lion.

Our first drink was at the Aumeister Biergarten, the boys had given themselves the challenge to drink 3 maß's but decided to stay away from Maximator and drink HB instead.  Even thought the skies were clear it was very chilly so to warm up we took a walk through the park. 

Although all too soon we were all in desperate need for a bathroom break (this had become an all too familiar occurrence) and we had to rush into the city to find a toilet.  We also took in a few sites below is the Theatine Church, Feldherrnhalle and the golden frontage of Munich's National Theatre.

 
There wasn't too much happening on a Sunday afternoon and although I kept getting distracted by sparkly window displays none of the shops were open (I think the boys were quite glad for this!!)

So we decided to warm up with another drink and a glorious ApfelStrudel.  It was heaven!! It tasted so yummy with a vanilla custard and strawberries, I'm going to have to learn how to make it!!

Before heading home we stopped off at a bar for the boys last mas of the day, I was so fed up of lager by this time and when looking at the menu saw a cocktail called Grog; I just had to try it.  Although I was very confused when the waiter brought out a glass of boiling water, a double shot of dark rum, crystallised sugar and amaretto biscuits.  We had to ask the waiter what to do but essentially you chuck it all in together (the biscuits are for dunking) and it was gorgeous, it really warmed me up after a cold day walking around the city.  I would never have thought to put rum with hot water but I will definitely be making this when I get home!!

One thing we didn't realise when we walked into this bar was that although there were a couple of female waitress' there were hardly any other women.  We really should have suspected something when our flowery waiter kept patting Scott on the shoulder and dancing across the room, a German man was also very interested in Erik's voice.  Yes, you're right, we had mistakenly walked into a gay bar!!

After a quick exit we got a lovely greasy Donner Kebab wrap on the way home, we were all shattered after a very full and busy weekend.  Even so we had an amazing time; thanks for a fantastic time boys I had the best weekend and can't wait to go back again in the Summer!!

Party Time in München Day 2

After catching up on some much needed sleep we decided to visit Scott's local Brauhaus for a late lunch and met up with Scott's brother and his girlfriend for the afternoon.  I was absolutely craving salad after eating just meat and pastry the day before and was not disappointed, Erik and I ordered Leberkäse (which is a bit like glazed and cooked Spam but much nicer) topped off with a fried egg and best of all a mixed salad yum!! Scott ordered Weisswurst (veal sausages) which looked a bit funny as they are white but tasted quite nice, I'm not sure how much I agree with veal though??

In the afternoon we went back into Munich and caught the very end of the Rathaus-Glockenspeil playing, I did try to film the end but I forgot how heavy the camera is with the big lens on and my arms were killing me.

We also visited the Catherdral Frauenkirche so the boys could pray for a good result on the football, It seemed to work for Erik but Scott's wishes were reversed and his team (Newcastle) lost 4-0; who's been a bad boy?

We walked around the city a little before visiting the Hostel that Scott stayed in before moving into his flat.  Completely by coincidence I bumped into one of my Uni friends who was staying at the Hostel for his friends stag do, and then cleverly forgot his name (I had already started drinking) but that's no excuse sorry Jono, it was good to see you!!

After leaving Scott's brother we headed to another Brauhaus for dinner, the first we visted looked amazing from the outside but was far too busy.  The second called Augustiner Bräustuben was brilliant and had fantastic food which was much more appealling than the night before (because it included salad yay!!).  Scott went for Schweinshaxe mit Knödel (pork joint and glooey potatoes) and Erik and I had Schnitzel mit Pommes frites (pork fried in egg and breadcrumbs with chips).

We also had quite a few Pretzels; well they shouldn't have left a bowl of them on the table!!

As it was the start of Starkbierfest they had some very strong beers on offer the boys choose Maximator which was 7.5% and lethal.  I don't know how they managed to drink two maß's each of the stuff.  I started on lager but the next table were drinking a schnapps drink called Flotter Willi so I decided to try it.  It is half a pear soaked in schnapps, I'm not sure how many I had in the end but they were so nice!!

We finished the evening off with a dance; but the first club we came to was playing very funny music, cross between pan pipes and dance music, there was even a bongo player in the corner.  The best bit though was everyone seemed to be dancing like an idiot.  I'm not sure if they were being serious but we definitely weren't!!

While I had my camera out all the Germans wanted to have their photo taken with us for some reason; maybe they thought we were famous? and this one of Erik has to be the funniest.  As I say we could't help but joke around it was such a ridiculous club but it was great fun.

And check it out, I wore the R,P,S,L,S t-shirt that I made yay!!  All in all it was an awesome night and great fun just to let loose for a while.

My Trip to München Day 1

A couple weeks ago I quite impulsively decided to book a trip to see my friend Scott, who last year moved to Munich.  I was going to go later in the year but another friend of mine Erik was going so decided to tag along and I'm so glad I did!! One, I didn't have to fly on my own and Two, it's always fun with more people and we had a complete blast together.

After a sleepless night (my nerves got the better of me) we arrived very early at Heathrow Terminal 5.  A few hours later and a bumpy landing we arrived in Germany.  After breakfast at a bakery, they were some good pastries, we set off into the city and decided to do a bit of a Brauhaus (beer house) crawl whilst visiting a few sites along the way.  On the Train in I was in desperate need of a bathroom break, so we got off a few stops early only for me to make a complete fool of myself because I couldn't figure out which was the ladies toilet, so had run back outside the shop to ask Scott, Herren or Damen?? Why couldn't they just have pictures??

The beer houses were all so quaint and full of decorations, the beer was also very good!! Not being a massive fan of beer I stuck mostly to larger but the boys sampled quite a bit of the stronger stuff!!

The Town Hall right in the heart of Munich at the Marienplatz was very impressive especially the Rathaus-Glockenspeil which is a huge mechanical clock on the side of the building with figures dancing and knights jousting.  Unfortunately we were too late for the show and had missed the chimes.  I spotted the Cathedral Frauenkirche over the tops of the buildings but we decided to visit it another day and instead found another beer house instead.

We took a trip to the local market and I was in heaven, I had only brought a tiny suitcase so restrained myself and didn't buy anything, that didn't stop me taking pictures though.  There were so many hand made craft stalls covered in decorative hangings, wreaths and cute Easter presents, they were all so gorgeous!! (Click on any of the pics to see it larger!!)

We also bumped into a very charismatic figure; now we know where Santa goes on Holiday!! Don't you just love his leg warmers!!

After sampling a couple more brewery's we headed to the Hofbräuhaus for dinner and to get our first Maß.  I will admit it I whimped out a bit and got a Ratler (a shandy), we had already had quite a bit to drink and been up since 3.30am!!  The glass's were so heavy when they were full, but like the image I found in my previous post the waiters did carry up to five full glasses in each hand, they must have arms of steel; the boys managed to lift three but I could only lift one.  

The atmosphere was absolutely buzzing, and we had a good laugh over dinner, although I can't say I was overly impressed by the food, the boys had Wurst mit Sauerkraut (a sausage platter with stewed cabbage) and I had Schweinsbraten mit Knödel (crispy pork with potato dumplings).  Now the texture of the dumplings is unlike anything I have ever tasted before, as Erik put it "They taste like glue!!".

Read more of our adventures soon!!