All The Live Long Day: October 2011

Monday, 31 October 2011

Halloween Giveaway Winner!

We have a winner for the Halloween giveaway!

The True Random Number Generator has taken its pick and the lucky girl is commenter number 2.
JESSICA ANN!

Congratulations on winning the cross stitch set, I hope you will have fun with it. Let me know your address and I will sent your prize on its way!
Thanks to everybody who entered. You can find the pattern here if you would still like to give cross stitching a go!

Happy Halloween!

I hope y'all are having a really scary day!

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Marco and I just got our pumpkin carving in on time yesterday.

Here are some of the essential ingredients for pumpkin carving at our house. First things first: some spiced apple juice. Spiced as well as spiked, as you can see.

Secondly, you obviously need pumpkins. And a handsome carving companion will always be welcome, too.

We drew our designs on the pumpkins with CD markers. The lines were really easy to remove with nail polish remover and some cotton pads.

This is how our pumpkins turned out. Marco did a classic face, whereas I went all fancy and carved a cat and some windows. I used an apple coring tool to make some round holes as additional embellishments.

Then all we had to do was to wait for it to get dark...

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I hope you have fun today, if you are celebrating. We have the candy bowl at the ready and will be watching some scary movies tonight. Happy Halloween!

Friday, 28 October 2011

Halloween Cross Stitch Giveaway

This weekend is your last chance to enter!
Click the logo to find out how.

Fine Tuning: The Secret Sisters - Tennessee Me

Sisters with voices, beautiful hair and immaculate dresses!

Wishing you all a happy weekend!

Thursday, 27 October 2011

Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook

When I visit other people's houses, I always like to go through their cookbook collection for some inspiration (if I know them well enough and they don't mind...).

When I was in Canada, I was thoroughly admiring my mom-in-law's Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook from the late 50s. I love food history in that form. I really dig all the old fashioned wording and the slightly awkward food photography. Reading this book made me want to go buy a ring mould and to invite some girlfriends around for bridge. And I definitely feel like incorporating more stuffed and shaped foods into my diet!

I am happy to say that I was able to track down second-hand copy here in Britain and am now a proud owner of my own Encyclopedic Cookbook. I have spent a few evenings just reading it and am probably going to give a few of the whackier recipes a try some time soon.

While most of the photos in the book are in black-and-white, here are some of the colour plates for your enjoyment:

The book also contains some beautifully designed plates on hostessing and meat cuts:

And here are some of the dishes with descriptions:

Did you think cake pops were a recent invention, too?

Friend, if you want to be particular about my food, I will serve you devilled chicken. Or if you're really lucky, bologna baskets or frankfurters in jelly!

There! That's why I think I need some bridge in my life!

Do you take as long as I do thinking about the colour scheme of your sandwiches? Or are you too busy covering carrots in breadcrumbs to make them real or twirling your spuds?

If you are too harried to cover cream cheese in grapes or cut out cats for your Halloween pies, maybe the refrigerator cake will still make your guests give off cries of delight...

And this is the piece de resistance. From the kids' food section. Mock duck. Meaning: asking your butcher to trim a lamb shoulder to look like a duck. Hilarious. Personally I am thinking more along the lines for when your cat pies don't turn out and you need another, seriously scary option for your Halloween buffet...

I think I'm ready to don my apron. I will let you know if anything I try to cook does turn out.

Do you have any cookbooks from days of yore that you still use?

Wednesday, 26 October 2011

Thank you!

Gee whiz!

I have 50 followers!

Fifty of you cared enough

about this space

to actually sign up

for updates publicly?

Me in your eyes,

every day, on fifty different computery devices!? Really?!? You serious? How do I feel about that?
LET'S SAY IT WITH NATALIE DEE:

What's that you say, all your lurkers and feed subscribers and email readers? Oh, don't be silly. Of course I love you, too!

Tuesday, 25 October 2011

New Stuff

Gah, when will I ever stop playing with my blog design? Probably never. I wanted to give All The Live Long Day a bit of a fall makeover and initially was only planning to add a new photo of myself and to change the background. But one thing led to another and I ended up with a new header and different text colours, too. I hope you like.
Speaking of makeovers. I hope you approve of the new photos of this girl on the front page and in the About section. My friend Christina had found a voucher for a half price makeover session, so she and I went to partake in one of those afternoons where they give you free make-up and then take your pictures after, also for free. And then they start showing you the photos they have taken and the one free print that is included turns into a purchase of 3 more, just because you look kinda fabulous and are sure that your grandparents will appreciate a new photo of you...
Christina and I were both really self-concious during the shoot, because photo poses are just awkward (too much bring-your-face-closer-to-the-wall, tilt-your-head, give-a-mile, cross-your-legs, straighten-your-back, would-you-like-to-change-into-your-second-set-of-clothes-here-in-this-room-where-there-is-no-screen-and-any-member-of-staff-could-just-open-the-door-on-you-like-that...).
But it was cool to see how it's done. The room where we were shot was only tiny, divided by a curtain to give space for two sessions at once. The walls were painted all in different colours and had different sections of wallpaper for a variety of photo backgrounds. In addition to that, there were various backdrops that could be rolled down from the ceiling and a few props like chairs, feather boas, guitars and such. Minimal equipment for maximum effect.
Here are the shots that I liked and ended up ordering:

Isn't Christina beautiful? She just has the kindest face! (Love you, girlfriend!) And the wrinkles around my eye and nose in picture 2?! I swear they are not normally there. I really am hoping that it really is just cakey make-up and not me being in denial about being ancient...

Here are the before photos of us girls, in which we are looking fairly fresh-faced (even if I say so myself):

And here are the "afters" in which we both look slightly orange:

The best thing about the whole makeover was the fact that Christina and I convinced our boys that they just needed to take us out after, what with us looking all prettyfied.

We met up at a fantastic old pub called the Cittie Of Yorke, where the boys had gotten themselves ready for their hot dates:

Christina & Rich and Marco & I

We then were taken to Smiths of Smithfield, the restaurant belonging to John Torode of Masterchef fame. The food was okay, but service was very, very slow. Which was a problem in so far that our husbands had fixed another item on our itinerary for the night...

KARAOKE!

The crazy boys had booked us a private room at a karaoke club! Excitement! Not just because it meant that I could step out of my heels... We had our own little juke box to pick the songs from and a bell to call for a waitress.

I found that Mint Juleps help immensely with my singing skills... I believe Marco and I were doing "Islands In The Stream" when that photo was taken. Kenny + Dolly forever!

Of course there had to be some Pearl Jam, and then Christina and I sang "Reach", with Rich as our backup singer and dancer. You all remember S Club 7, right?

We had an excellent night! I am not 100% sure I'm ready for doing Karaoke in front of an audience other than my friends, but I would definitely do this again. And I thought both our husbands did so well with organizing this evening for us. Christina and I both agreed that we would like to make it a regular fixture. (Hint, hint, husbands!)

Finally, I will leave you with a gratuitous shot of my fancy makeover hair, just before I took all the pins out:

Monday, 24 October 2011

Mary Blair

I love Google Doodles anytime, but I was very taken by the one from last Friday:

It was created in celebration of Mary Blair, an illustrator who worked for Disney most of her life. She would have been 100 years old on 21 October.

I followed a few of the Google links and found such a great catalogue of work. Mary Blair not only created images for Disney, but also painted privately, illustrated books and provided drawings for advertisements.

Her style is very colourful, bursting with life and really, really cute. A lot of her designs feature children, animals and flowers.

Here are a few ones that I loved: