Yellow Bird + Yellow Beard's Birthday | Win $600 Visa Gift Card

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Today we're celebrating Janee of Yellow Bird + Yellow Beard's birthday, and we've hooked up with a group of super bloggers to bring you this great giveaway! To celebrate Janee's birthday we're giving away a whopping $600 Visa Gift Card, which can be spent on anything, anywhere in the world!

Yellow Bird + Yellow Beard Birthday GIVEAWAY | Win $400 Vouchers

Today we've teamed up with a lovely bunch of blogger's from all around the world, to help celebrate Yellow Bird + Yellow Beard's 2nd Blog Birthday! As a celebration of their big day we're all joined together to bring you this pretty whopping prize. The giveaway prize is a $400 gift voucher for one of the following online stores - Amazon, Target, Etsy, Jet Blue or Tiffany's! Everyone is welcome to enter and the giveaway is open worldwide.

Below you can see all the bloggers who've help bring this wonderful giveaway together. You've not only got the chance to win an amazing prize but it's also a great way to discover some new blog, so please take the time to check them out:

Behind the Design | Blythe Ponytail Parades | Buckets & Spades | Chestnut Mocha | Clear the Way | Cloistered Away | Yeobo | Enjoying the Journey | Ex Vitae | Fashiony Fab | Horses of Ares | Jazz Lips & Tulips | Coco Mingo | Kneadle & Bread | Live Colorful | Lucky Number Seven | My Lifebox | Anna Delores | My Paradissi | Of Trees and Hues | Oh So Pretty | Pharr Away | Postcards from Rachel | Rolala Loves | Scavengenius | Sea, Field & Tribe | Sincerely Sara | Squirrelly Minds | Tara Victoria | Undecided Mamas | Yellow Bird + Yellow Beard | Cocorrina 

This giveaway is open internationally.

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Nice Things #2 - The Birthday Presents

Lexon Calculator for those sums

Paris Versus New York by Vahram Muratyan

Loads more quality reading material

Oi Polloi gift voucher, back of the net

One of THEE greatest and jazziest cards ever!

Well it's that time of the year and the friends & family have come up trumps once again. On Sunday I turned the ripe old age of 27. I'm not where I thought I would be in life but I've got a roof over my head, two part time jobs, an internship and a wonderful girlfriend so it ain't all bad. The time will come, I just need to keep positive and pro-active. 

Even though I wasn't feeling my usual chipper self on Sunday morning we got the formalities out of the way and headed down to Avenham Park to check out the last day of the Preston Guild (a celebration of brilliant people and things in the area which only comes around every 20 years!). After an ice cream and some serious dog watching we headed back and got stuck into some presents.

It was a book-heavy year with no complaints. I've been after Paris Verses New York ever since I found out the blog had been turned into a book (or was it the opposite?), check out the blog; it illustrates the differences between the two cities in the form of cartoons. Roadside America is just about the best book I own now, it's full of weird and wonderful happenings from around the States. If you're into advertising, oddities or kitsch stuff then this is the book for you. The whole gang clubbed together to get me a gift voucher for Oi Polloi in Manchester, I usually can't afford anything in there other than socks so I can treat myself to some decent clobber.

Thank you all for your birthday wishes, here to another year.

Birthday's Coming Up

Uniform Wares 200 Series in Cherry Red

It's my birthday in a couple of week......

In reality I'll never get this beaut of a watch by Uniform Wares so I've got some more modest items on my wishlist. I've just asked for a Lexon calculator, Paris vs New York by Vahram Muratyan, a few small stationary bits and the classic birthday present, boxer shorts.

I'll be launching a pretty sweet giveaway very soon, look out for it. It's going to be mega!

Birthday!

So today is my 25th birthday and what better way to celebrate than go on a 3 mile trek up a massive hill(not quite a mountain, it's about 150ft too short to be called a mountain, officially). Pendle Hill to be exact. 

Now I am flipping knackered. I've not had the best of luck over the past few days, I found out I have a large-ish uni project to be in next week, so straight away ran out to buy some printer ink. Forgot my bank card so I wasted another hour going home and coming back. Then got home and my printer decided to break, therefore I had to go out and buy a new printer on my birthday. All that and the fact I woke up feeling terribly sick. 

Onwards and upwards? I could do with some words of encouragement people! Hope everyone is having better luck than I am this week.

Mississippi Mud Pie

I was all out of good ideas for Hollies birthday, seems as I have used up all my good ideas! So I decided to bake her a cake, Mississippi Mud Pie to be exact, one of her favs. If you're interested here is there recipe I used:

Ingredients,

For the base

300g bourbon biscuits, crushed

85g butter, melted

For the filling

85g dark chocolate, minimum 70 per cent cocoa solids for sure

95g/ butter

2 free-range egg

85gmuscovado sugar

100ml double cream

For the fudge sauce

150g dark chocolate

150ml double cream, plus extra to serve

3 tbsp golden syrup

175g icing sugar, sieved

On to the fun bit

Preheat the oven to 180C/365F/Gas 4.

-Mix the biscuits and melted butter together in a bowl. Press the mixture into the base and sides of a 23cm/9in springfrom tin. Chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.
-For the filling, melt the chocolate and butter together in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. (Do not let the base of the bowl touch the water).
-Meanwhile, whisk the eggs and sugar together in a bowl for 5-6 minutes, or until thick and creamy. Fold in the cream and melted chocolate mixture. Pour into the chilled springform tin and bake in the oven for 40-50 minutes, or until just set. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool completely.
-Then for the fudge sauce, heat all of the fudge sauce ingredients in a saucepan, stirring regularly, over a medium heat until the mixture is smooth and glossy. Set aside till cool.

Spread the sauce over the cooled pie and chill in the fridge for 20 minutes. Serve with tones of double cream!

Simple as that and I can safely say it tasted brilliant. Not too shabby for my first ever cake hey!
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Also, I was tagged by Ella Master's the other week, if you haven't visited her blog you really should. She does the sweetest water colours and illustrations. Here goes:

10 things I like( in no particular order)

1. Nature

2. Furniture and architecture

3. Strong coffee with cake

4. Anything to do with space

5. 50s/60s rock/pop/blues music

6. Workwear/Heritage

7. Improvised comedy

8. My girlfriend

9. Art and photography

10. Cheese and beans on toast with brown sauce and black pepper

Happy Birthday Dr. Martens

Thursday 1st April 2010 marked Dr. Martens 50th Birthday, to celebrate they are launching a couple of new ranges including the "Worn" 1460 collection (for all the lazy people!) and new colour in the "Made In England collection.

They have also got a bunch of Dr. Martens fans to talk about why they think the brand has passed the test of time and why they are so special to each of them. Feast your eyes, it's a good watch and great to here a bit about the iconic brand's history;

Here's how I'm wearing mine at the moment;

One 1/2 year old Dr. Martens worn with multi-coloured socks, no names and Topman beige chinos.

The boots are clearly quite a hard looking piece of footwear so at the moment I'm wearing them with trousers that aren't so harsh, just to give a different look to the usual, wearing them with jeans. I'm not completely sure if it works so much yet, what to you think? Good mix of soft and hard?

As I mentioned in my previous post Steve from Style Salvage was lucky enough to take a tour of the Dr. Martens Factory in Northampton last week, there's some great images from his visit. Check out the full post here.

So how do you do/would you wear yours?

Also tomorrow I might give you a sneak preview of a little art project I've been working on, in my spare time. 

And for my Birthday I....

So yesteryday was my 24th birthday, not a big one but I had such a nice day. Hollie was stuck at work all day so I didn't see her till later on that evening but I did meet Harry in town bright and early. There wasn't a cloud in the sky all day and was a typical September summery day.

When I met Harry he presented me with sticky chocolate muffins, which looks amazing.

You want one don't you? Too bad they'll all gone!

I also got some really nice presents, which i SO wanted.

Avedon Fashion - 1941-2000 from Hollie.

The Sartorialist - Scott Schuman

Louis Theroux dvd - thats 22 hours worth of Louis!

Make your own card complete with stickers, all from Jamesy.

Chanel Platinum from my lovely Mum.

Due to postal strikes I haven't really received many cards, so that sucks but can't be help. Fight for your rights Posties! More updates soon on my new room being decorated, my new job and some exciting news about Buckets & Spades.