Snapshots: Spring Break

Bits Of My Life

Hello again all! Don't worry, despite my lack of activity hear, on Twitter and on Instagram I am actually still alive. Real life has been kicking my ass a bit lately, so I took a quick blog break to focus on my offline life. I'm not the only one, I've noticed quite a few bloggers taking small breaks recently, it's funny how exhausting a hobby can be!

All my spare time recently has been spent up catching up on household activities, trying to finish an embroidery for Mother's Day (let's hope she doesn't read about it here first) and spending some quality time with our little family unit before some changes in our work schedules next week. I've even fallen behind on my 365 but I have managed to take a couple of photos over the weekend and over the last few days. 

Monday Link List: 036

Monday Link List

This gorgeous print by theSIBLINGshop

This illustration is absolutely stunning, I love the tiny birds.


This quote is absolutely beautiful.


I love this outfit from Kaylah, the colours, the stripes, I wish I could steal this whole outfit (hell, can I just steal her whole wardrobe?)

I love this heart shoe DIY from Marisa, so cute!

And another shoe related DIY, this time from A Beautiful Mess, so glad for the return of flats

You Mean The World To Me: Sarah's Valentine's Day post to her readers was absolutely lovely, I seriously felt all warm and fuzzy inside as I read it. It perfectly echoes how I feel about all of you too (only much more elegantly than I could have put it).

Tips For Decorating With Vintage: One day I will have the perfect, slightly kitsch, vintage home, until then I can take advice like this while I work towards my dream home.

How To Make An Animated Image: I've made a couple of gifs using online creators but they never came out nicely enough that I would want to share them with you guys, knowing I can do it in Photoshop will make it so much easier!

Penpal Group Anyone: I'm absolutely useless with penpals, I take forever between letters but I thought I'd share Erin's idea for a group between bloggers if any of you are interested.

Advertising 101: Gia makes some wonderful points about growing your blog through advertising, and how to choose the best blogs to advertise on.

Date Night Ideas: We decided to wait until the end of the month to celebrate Valentine's around here, but I might spread it out over the rest of the month with these fun ideas.

Happy Valentine's Day: Another lovely post, LA's list of things that she loves makes me really happy, I've started listing things so I can write my own.

Master of None: Elizabeth muses on investing time versus money and learning when you can't do it all yourself.

Coffee Talk - Creativity: Chantilly talks about finding inspiration and nurturing your creativity.

When Looking For A Dog: Kristina talks about the different options for getting a dog, and of course advocates for adoption. Rescuing an animal is an amazing thing to do, and you can find needy animals of pretty much every breed online.

365 Project: Week 7

365

Day 41: Close up of Mania's eyes (we like to refer to her blue one as her David Bowie eye)

Day 42: Fluffy white clouds, what a lovely sight

Day 43: Off to have a wander round some charity shops (came home with a lovely stripy dress for £3.50!)

Day 44: Slate wall in the basement of the National Museum of Scotland

Day 45: True love is someone who will make you a cup of tea, and doesn't laugh when you turn it into an excuse for a photo shoot

Day 46: Scallywag isn't sure if she wants to play with the stick or eat it

Day 47: Homemade lasagne for dinner - yum!

Snapshots: Spontaneous Day of Fun

Bits Of My Life
Do you ever have those days when nothing seems to go quite to plan, but in an absolutely wonderful way? That's exactly what happened to us today. Our plan of staying at home, doing some tidying and generally getting our stuff together. Instead we woke up, saw the snow, said stuff it, and then spent the day having fun instead.

We started the day walking the dogs across to meet a friend who was holding a bake sale. The dogs had loads of fun running around on the way there, and then even more getting all sorts of attention outside the university library. After making a donation and eating some cake we headed back home for several cups of coffee to warm us up.

Having decided that today just wasn't really going to plan we called up a few friend's who live close by and proposed another trip to the museum. By the time we got there it was only a couple of hours till closing time, but we still had fun exploring the basement level and seeing all the old Scottish stuff, while eating leftover bake sale cakes. 

So it wasn't a particularly different day from normal, but it did involve all my favourite things, sometimes it is nice to simply spend the day doing things that make you happy. And in that vein, I'm off to curl up on the sofa with the dogs and watch a film. Happy Wednesday folks. 




Monday Link List: 035

Monday Link List

This outfit from Kaley is absolutely beautiful - and isn't that bag fantastic!

I love the scan from the BioDivLibrary's Flickr stream.

I've been thinking a lot about travelling lately, especially as 2 of our friends have just returned from taking their van around Europe. I think I could get rid of all my possessions quite easily if it meant I got to live in Constance. 

The dyed flowers from Dream A Little Bigger are absolutely beautiful, I can't wait to try it out myself.

The Red Velvet cookies look absolutely striking, perfect for Valentines.

I love this photo of Zooey Deschanel by Ellen Von Unwerth for Lulu magazine, or maybe I just wish it was warm enough to frolic on the beach...

Know Your Food - How To Make Coffee: I love Faith's post about the process of making coffee, considering it is something I drink every day I should probably know a little more about it!

How To Organise Your Clothes In One Day: I've loved the whole of Mrs Thrifty's How To Organise Your Life posts, but I think this one is probably the one I could use most.

Tips For Driving With Dogs: Ok, so we don't have a car at the moment, but we do go for trips with friends who have transport and I'm always on the look out for advice to make it easier.

Russian Family Cut Off From World For 40 Years: I found this article absolutely fascinating, such a different way of life than anything I can imagine.

Basic Camera, Brilliant Pictures: I loved Sarah's latest post on photography focussing on contrast, texture and lines. The further into my 365 project I get the more difficult I am finding it to get interesting shots. This post really inspired me to try out some new things.

Glue Guide: I never realised how much there is to know about glue, Allison's post really opened my eyes!

365 Project: Week 6

365

Day 34: Hungover Sunday so we went for a meander with the dogs

Day 35: The National Museum of Scotland (I really want this typewriter)

Day 36: Fun with the puppies

Day 37: Tidy, tidy, tidy

Day 38: Finished another embroidery, more on that below

Day 39: Waiting outside the shops with the dogs

Day 40: Cute little rabbit pen holder

Conscientious Consumer: I've been feeling a little let down by my local charity shops this week, they seem to be getting progressively more expensive, and have less and less things I like in them (and just in time for my shopping ban) but I did manage to find a lovely corduroy shirt dress and green skirt that I have worn 3 times already. We've been really good at cooking this week too, apart from late last night when we bought a couple of pizzas instead of cooking (it was pretty late though). I feel like this aspect of my resolutions is going really well, and my bank balance is certainly happy about it too.

Create More: This week I managed to start and finish a new embroidery! I usually do some blog reading while I watch tv but I made a switch to being crafty instead and it has really paid off. Now I just need to find a nice frame so I can display it.

Be A Better Blogger: This one hasn't gone quite so well, I found a load of amazing new blogs in this months blog hop but I've not done a lot of blog reading or commenting this week. I'm planning on catching up with everyone today before I sort out tomorrow's Monday Link List post.

Hope you have all had great weekends, as I said, I'm looking forward to some blog reading today then trying to come up with something to give my better half for Valentines (so much pressure for one day!)

Snapshots: National Museum of Scotland

Adventures

The National Museum is one of my absolute favourite places in Edinburgh, I would recommend it to anyone who visits the city. It's free to get in, although they do occasionally have visiting exhibitions that you have to pay to see (like the Viking one). You could spend all day walking round admiring everything else though. This post is pretty photo heavy, so I think I'll just let you guys enjoy them and not say any more.  




This puppy looks a little bit like Mania when Scallywag tries to steal her food.