♥ design: packaging

I've just found these divine packagings on the net. Don't you think they are so sweet and cute?? I think it's the best way to convert a sample meal in a cool and appealing bite! They aren't posh, the ideal snack for a party or to serve in their branded corners. Last year I went to the ice rink at Somersethouse in London, actually one of the most impressive skating backdrops in town, and it was sponsored by TIFFANY ... I let to you the comments!!! It was stunning, amazing ... make me wow!!
The atmosphire was already great because of the setting, you know the Somerset House is a massive and imposing building on the Themes and then the Tiffany green was in every nooks so try to imagine the splendour... If you'd like to skate there next year don't forget to book in advance the tickets, it's pretty popular this place so it's quite hard to find tickets.

Actually skating is not my cup of tea but it's worth to go there just to have a look and have a cup of coffee at the temporary Tiffany bar.

♥ I love you

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

♥ City guide: still London

Hi guys, sorry for my absence but I was off and i took all those days to relax myself and try to guess...where ddi i spend the most of them? Exactly, in London! I had really wonderful time!
Here the best things I'd like to share with you:

♥ COCKTAILS SCHOOL @ 69 colebrooke row . We had a classroom on 5 amazing cocktails in this supe cool bar. It's in angel in a nook just off Upper Street.
If you fancy trying some of these unique cocktails then do book one f their Cocktail Masterclasses. Tony Conigliaro and Nick Strangeway are truly the greatest bartenders in the world. Thank you guys, it was great!!!
♥ GORDON'S WINE BAR is the oldest wine bar in London. The atmophire made me wow!!! It buried deep beneath the street where you only can see a suble sign and a really small door. Downstairs is all bare brickwork arches and candlelit tables. Ideal, if you're looking for somwhere to take your first date. It was crowed of drinkers of all ages. You can breathe the love of this unique venue and of good wine.
♥ SUPPER CLUB is a place in Notting Hill just off Portobello Rd, it's quite cool. You can eat, drink and dance there. Honestly it's not my cup of tea, too cool and apparence but it was nice because we spent much time talking randomly on our bed/table, it was pretty relaxeing.
♥ GREENWICH is so cute. I went there on Sunday and i bumped into a sweet market, so nice! G. is crowded of restaurants, caffee, bars and pub and we had a down right English fish&chips. you have to go on the hill and watching the skyline...awesome! Also you can get G through the foot tunnel under the Thames. FYI: It is 1,217 feet in length and approx 50 feet deep. Its original purpose was to allow south London residents to work in the docks on the Isle of Dogs. It was designed by Sir Alexander Binnie and was opened on 4 August 1902 at a cost of £127,000. The tunnel is lined with 200,000 glazed white tiles. It is open 24 hours a day, although the lifts do not always run the full time.
♥ CANARY WHALF is a large office and shopping development in East London really close to Greenwich, actually is a new business district. It's built on the site of the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs so there are lots of little docks and the atmosphire in the night is quite stunning because there are lots of restaurents on the rivers and the view is great, if you like the skycraper. ok it's not the best place in London of course but if you are around it's worth to have a walk there.

♥ it's

I silently root for us while you are scrunching your past life up and this makes you younger of 10 years in a bunch of minutes
I love to create our special phrases and only we can get them. This language says we can try for ever to dance together trusting each other. In the meantime I wear my pringles socks having a milkshake, I can savour your flavour
I fall in love with coffee every morning but time blows off quickly and I’m again at the airport with my luggage through the checking desk waiting for my flight listening my favorite playlist losing myself. In a couple of days I’ll be again at the airport but this time I already feel a squeeze in my stomach

I wanna toast to every time I would have shouted but nothing went out from my mouth

Something is happening, it has happened, it’ll happen ...

♥ quote of the week

♥ People lose health to make money and then lose money to recover health ♥

♥ cooking school: hummus

I'm going on holiday next days so I wanna leave to you a special recipe I love: Hummus.

It is quite popular throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa but also in Europe especially in London (where I tasted it first). Usually I eat it with pita but it's also great with raw carrots, celery, and cauliflower. My version is spicier than most (I love chilli pepper, you know!!) and uses more lemon juice than most. This recipe is from an elderly Lebanese woman so I'm sure enought it's good.

As you can notice it's really easy to make: preparetion time takes around 10 minutes and trust me it's a delicacy.

Ingredients:
♥ 1 16 oz. can chick peas; drained and well-rinsed
♥ 1/4 c tahini (sesame paste)
♥ 2 lg. cloves garlic; chopped
♥ 5 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice (about two lemons)
♥ 1/5 cup olive oil
♥ 1 tsp. coarse salt
♥ 1 tsp. ground cumin
♥ 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
♥ 1/5 cup warm water

Preparation:

1. Place all ingredients except water in a food processor and process for about 2 minutes.

2. Remove lid and scrape down sides. Add water and process briefly again. Scrape down sides. The mixture should be somewhat coarse and not quite runny. Add a bit more water if needed.

3. Refrigerate for four hours to allow flavors to meld. The consistency will thicken to a firm paste.

Enjoy your hummus.

♥ St. Valentine's day round 4 - freeprintable

Here you go if you are looking for nice freeprintables and of course about Valentine set. I found some divine creativities on the web such as wraping, scrapset, greeting card and some more ideas to decore your stuff.

Here a neutral set with a kick of red - vintage, modern, elegant - such as a fun little collection of digital scrapbook papers and elements.

Two peas in a bucket, one of my favorite site, offers us another really nice digikit regarding cupido (it includes 6 sparkly papers, 7 cute elements and a complete alpha that will leave you dazzled and lovestruck).

I also suggest you these cute blogs to get a cute greeting card as free pdf: cottage indistrialist e creaturecomforts . Here you go for adorable lovebird cards, perfect for your valentine (designed by Lee May Foster) but they are in sale.

♥ some words make me happy

"need you, deep in my arms,
tucked and curled into my body,
softly sleeping, lips open and purring,
kiss you whilst you sleep and when you rise,
morning brings brand new adventures,
my green eyed sunrise, so warm to touch"

♥ quote of the week

"Everybody knows a certain thing is unrealizable until somebody unaware of this comes and invents it"

Albert Einstein

♥ St. Valentine's day- round 3 - cooking school

This morning the suggestion I'd like to give you is about Valentine's dinner. I mean, we could take this occasion to stay close with our parter and have with him/her a special/cute dinner. One of my favorite recipe is flan, all types of flan usually look so small, tender and cute, basically they are delicacies of the food world. I choose this recipe as starter: Prawns and porcini flan. Prawns are quite

♥ INGREDIENTS
Flan:
6 prawns, peeled
100 gr Porcini Mushrooms
a bit of butter
1 ½ tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
half glass of white wine
1 cloves of garlic (don't worry you don't smell of it and garlic is so aphrodisiac!!)
2 eggs
a bit of parsley
nutmeg, salt and pepper

Sauce:
bechamel
100 GR grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
salt and pepper

♥ PREPARATION
Bechamel Sauce: Heat up your pre made bechamel with a bit of milk , away from the heat add the grated Parmesan cheese stirring to amalgamate and also salt and pepper.

To prepare the flan: sauté the sliced mushrooms in oil and a nut of butter with a garlic clove, nugmet, salt and pepper. Remove the garlic clove when golden-brown. Mix together the 2 prawns, mushrooms, 3/4 of the sauce, the egg yolk, grated Parmesan cheese, a bunch of parsley and mix everything. Add the whipped white eggs to the mixture.
Put into the cupcake pans and bake in the oven for 10 minutes (180°) till they are cooked. Turn over the flan on the plate and cover with the left bechamel sauce. Embellish with the left praws and some teeny piece of parsey.

Enjoy your meal!!

♥ St. Valentine's day- round 2

I've just found this crunchy idea on a really cute and italian yummy blog. This could be a grat idea to start better your St.Valentine's day. Let me remind you... having coffee every morning with your partner is something special to me. Anyway you could make your Valentine' rise cuter following this easy cuddle.

Make shortcrust pastry and the trick is : to cut the rolled dough with the same shape of your heart coffee-cup (obiouvsly you need to buy it previously!).

♥ INGREDIENTS:

300 gr flour
150 gr butter
100 gr sugar
1 yolk
1 whole eggs
a bit of lemon peel
a bit of salt
half of teaspoon of baking powder

About direction you can see this past post: cookies.

Isn't it so cute??

♥ St. Valentine's day- round 1

Here the first tip on Valentine. Today I'm posting about videos and greeting cards.
Actually I use this website to make some funny videos about holidays or really nice evenings or events just to share with friends to keep laughing a bit. I just made this video to show you how this tool works: you can upload your favorite pics, choose music, post and write someting and then ... bang! you can get your video. I choose the Valentine's theme but honesly this layout is quite ... trash and teen spirit :-( but if you are on roll you can find out some really nice one. I'm embarassed about it...!!!

♥ And now create yours video slideshow

♥ St. Valentine's day

The most love day is approaching and I've decided to look for some nice, lovely and usefull things on the web to share/suggest you such as free printables, photos, unusual and oddball gifts and also aphrodisiac recipes (I already have a wonderful book about that).



I promise I'll post 5 posts about St. Valentine's day. Of course if you have some suggestion to give me please don't hesitate, they are really welcome! Where will I be on Love Day? In London!!! I LOVE London and "coffee in the morning" at all.

♥ The art of table setting - II

Basically, if you don’t still get it, I LOVE to guest my friends for supper at home and I’d like everything is fine and cool to make our meeting pleasant and bright. Actually housing friends is one of my faves. I LOVE table looks like elegant and easy in the same time, this is the start point then I’m sure your creativity will come out by itself. On the right a collage of some pics I took in my dining room during the dinner of last week with my parents and brother. I set up the table in this way: I bought a new roll of paper runner to set my table by mydrap.com (I chose the coffee color to get a cozier and warmer environment) and I put 2 runners across the square table, they are very useful and seems of real fabric, you can throw away them at the end of the evening and save time because avoid to wash up the tablecloth. Anyway I used my allday plates and embedded some red roses close (by seletti) to the glass just to enrich all places. I found 2 old bottles used to keep the fresh milk (when my grandmother was young) in a stall of a brick-e-brack market and I use to bring water on the table using them, I can’t stand the plastic bottles. I use also to enrich them with some sliced of lemon or a twig of rosemary inside. If you like this idea you should try and check out on this wonderful website: farmhouse. This trick makes the water seems fresher and looks so cute. At least that evening was really good laugh, we absolutely had a good time together, I guess that sweet table made us in a good mood. When I notice that friends of mine enjoy the evening I’m at cock-a-hoop because that mean I get my aim with little and creative tricks.
Ok I have to admit I’m such a buff of beauty!