Hell Bunny Olivia Cardi

Anyone who knows anything about rockabilly fashion knows about the Dita Cardi, everyone who doesn't have one - wants one. This includes me. The downside is that it's very expensive, nearly £100 and you have to ship it from Australia and I've heard horror stories about buyers getting stung by customs making it even more expensive. 

 

Finally a UK brand Hell Bunny had produced a cardi with a similar and elegant feel making it much more realisic to buy more than one...which is great as the Olivia Cardi comes in two colours, green and red. I bought mine from eBay for about £30 which was an absolute steal in comparison. I love red but I first went for the green one. 

It's green and black with black embroidered roses across the bust, black buttons right up to the neck which has a really cute a Parisian feel tie up folded down collar.  The green is a stunning vibrant green which really pops and looks great against my red hair. The fabric is so soft and holds its shape really well. 

I'm definitely going to be buying the red version and I really hope they bring out some more colours in the spring. Has anyone else snapped one of these Olivia Cardis up yet?

I teamed it with my back velvet check pencil skirt from Primark and black tights. I think this picture shows off the colour really well.

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Motel Schmotel - Brighton

So as I mentioned in my Brighton post we were looking for a nice little place that had parking in the center. This wasn't as easy as it sounded but then we found Motel Schmotel, the name instantly drew me in, it seemed quirky and fun - and that's exactly what it was.  Checking it out on tripadvisor really sealed the deal, check it out for yourself if you're thinking of staying there.

It on Russel Square which is literally about two streets away from the shopping center, not that you'd know - it's lovely and quiet when you head to bed. We got there a little early which was great as we got parked out front which they gave us permits for, we were too early for check in so they kept out bags and put them in our room for when we got back which was lovely. So we went shopping :)

We stayed in room 4 which slept 3, a double and a single and it even had its own little balcony! It's a shame it's so cold at the moment so we didn't get to use it but I can imagine it's lovely in summer, or even spring to be honest! The room was a good size in my opinion, some reports say the rooms are tiny and I guess if it's a double it could be smaller but ours was quite big really so can only go on that. Perfect for us.

The decor was really nice and fresh, light walls, big mirrors and a few quirky features and prints. The 'pleasure' one did make me laugh as a mother and daughter staying together, but very Brighton so how could you not laugh.

Every room has its own bathroom, small but who cares, no shared bathrooms is always a plus and nicely decorated too. You can't see the shower in this picture but it's just to the right. Every room also has it's own flatscreen TV and there's free wifi, you really couldn't complain.

One of the bits I loved the most was the welcome book in the room. It had all of the information you need about breakfast, the local area, where to go, where to eat, if you need anything etc and a bit about them. The restaurant recommendation part was the best, we found an amazing restaurant, that I'll write about later and they were spot on with their reviews.

Motel Schmotel pride themselves on being green, organic and local as possible so all of the food is as local as possible and you get more than just the normal option a greasy fry up. Their full English, which we chose came with egg, thick cut bacon (yum), Sussex sausage, homefries, roasted tomato and chili relish (seriously, they need to sell this by the BOTTLE) and toast. My only tiniest suggestion would be that the butter that came with it wasn't so cold as it was hard to spread - and that is literally the only thing. It was really filling, but without making you feel sick and not a spot of grease in sight. I do hear though, if you pick the boiled eggs that they draw faces on them! I love this!

You get a good size fridge in your room with a good bottle of milk and also water which was a nice touch, and forget the rubbish shortbread you normally get in hotels for your tea - here you get Penguin bars...PENGUINS!! And to top it off you get a little piece of mint rock on your pillow with Motel Schmotel written through it. All of the dated aspects of hotels and B&Bs you think of are banished here and replaced with something just that little bit different.

I really couldn't recommend this place enough if you're thinking of staying in Brighton 5/5 from me!


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60th Birthday Giant Golfing Cupcake

Hello again!

I'm hoping this post uploads correctly, I was really disappointed that my Choccywoccydoodah post only uploaded the first two paragraphs and picture when I'd actually done a big post, it's up and running now though so if you saw it when it was tiny please check it out now it's up in all its glory.

So anyway for the latest cake, it's not often I get asked to do cakes for men so it can be a good time to try out some new techniques and get me out of my comfort zone.

This cake was from word of mouth which is really nice, for a gentleman turning 60 and they wanted to get him a giant cupcake which I thought was really sweet. It can be hard to get them to not look too feminine as they are in the cutest form of cake, but I think I managed it :)

He loves golf so I thought this theme could be done really well. I'd seen a few ideas on the internet and had a good idea of what would look great. I though I'd make it a whole golfing green! This would be hard as my usual favourite rose swirl icing wouldn't really be suitable to look like grass so I had to pipe it with a normal star nozzle all over, I was worried this could look a bit messy but actually it looked really effective.

To get the green as bright as I have I used a good dollop of Mint Green Sugarflair colouring paste, have faith it will go brighter and I find it does colour up a little bit after it's mixed but that might just be me. I used the same colour in some fondant to get the smooth part of the grass.

For the flag I used one of the cake pop sticks I had and made the actual flag out of red gum paste so it looked like it was flapping in the wind. I also made a little golf ball ready to be putted in (is that the right terminology? Not sure!!) .

I wanted the bottom to look like a sand bunker so made it a dark sand/light brown colour by mixing Sugarflair Dark Brown and Melon Yellow. I tied a thin red ribbon around the bottom to match the flag and is a bit more manly than my usual pink one :).

To really finish it off I made a '60' for the smooth bit of green in fondant with Christmas Red colouring paste . I made it in a curly style again as the 50th wedding anniversary giant cupcake as I loved how it looked, the chunky number cutters can be a bit over powering for smaller cakes like these. I think this is around my 23rd giant cupcake of the year, roughly. I think I could make a blog dedicated entirely to the little gems I love them!

As I've got a bit of a cake break coming up, eg. no order in the next week or so I can do some proper blogging about all the cakes I made for my birthday that I promised to put up. I'll try to get them up over the next week. Pin It Now!