Chocolate Sparklers for Guy Fawkes!

It is my birthday on November 5th which means many fireworks and I came up with this recipe last week because I found a whole tonne of popping candy and decided I should make something fun with it :)

You will need:

1 Packet Pretzel sticks - these were £1 from M&S food

1 bar of any kind of chocolate

A few packets of popping candy - I found a pack of 10 in poundland

Melt chocolate slowly in a bowl over a saucepan of water. 

NOM

Take a pretzel stick and coat one end leaving a small section to keep your fingers clean :)

Sprinkle popping candy over the chocolate twisting as you go, do this over a bowl and you can use the excess up afterwards.

Lay the sticks on a piece of foil on a flat surface, I used a baking tray.

Repeat until you run out of chocolate, lick the bowl clean and leave to set, put in the fridge if you want to speed this process up!

Peel the sticks off of the foil carefully and voila! 

These are too yummy I need to make more of them...

Some very tiny things

Apparently I haven't posted on here in 3 months! I have been focusing a lot on my illustration work over here and applying for jobs since I am now at home and haven't had much time for photography...

Graduating is strange, being at home is strange, especially the notion that I could do almost anything, but I have no idea what to do. I am just trying to keep myself busy and keep on making stuff until I can figure things out!

Yesterday I went cycling, the sun came out and there were some rather beautiful flowers about along with lots of tiny flies and creatures. I ended up coated in tiny black thunder bugs which was not a pleasant experience but it was nice to get out the house and do some exercise for the first time in ages.

Tiny things and gorgeous purple flowers

Some very ethereal skies

I find it funny how close I live to the motorway, normally cycle over one or two bridges when I go cycling! 

Which is mad cos' it's all amongst these beautiful buildings and fields!

My bike resting for a while!

Photographs of pretty things

I have entered a couple of tigerprints design competitions with my illustration work but this months is a little different. They are asking for "photographic blanks" so images for photo cards which can be used for many occasions. 

I have been trawling through my archives of old photographs to find the most commercial images I can find of flowers and colourful happy things as I from following the results of past competitions I know they go for super commercial stuff. Still, I thought I would share the images I came up with as they are all pretty nice to look at...

Running away from uni work...

... to the beach!

It was my sister's birthday last week and my family were down in our caravan in Cornwall for a few days. Since I just finished a deadline (by no means the last one unfortunately) I figured I could take a break to go and see everyone and enjoy the sunshine.

It was a beautiful couple of days, we managed to visit 3 different beaches and eat lunch in the sunshine two days running. 

I didn't take my SLR but used my small camera which actually surprised me with how decent the pictures came out! If you are looking for a compact camera get a Lumix the lenses are epic :)

1973 Reclaimed wrapping paper notebook

Went charity shop shopping today to have a break from work and discovered this wonderful notebook in oxfam. Design company 1973 have made a collection for them which uses reclaimed paper to create notebooks and sketchbooks. 

The one I bought was made from reclaimed wrapping paper, I didn't even want a notebook I just fell in love with all of the patterns on the backs of each page!

These are definitely worth checking out if you have an oxfam in your area as they are all currently half price and you get a whole load of beautiful pieces of artwork for not a lot of money (this one was £2.90) If my desk wasn't already a state I would use them to decorate my walls :)

So beautiful!