VINTA's Fall Party

Back in October, VINTA (my mom's baking and event design company) held a promotional autumnal event at a local neighbourhood cafe in Glyfada. My mom decorated the cart in true autumnal style (leaves, pumpkin, burlap... You get the picture.) and served up homemade chocolate chip cookies, brownies, fudge, warm apple cider and three flavours of my own homemade coffee syrups.

We had so much fun preparing for this event and I loved creating something from scratch with my own two hands. The coffee syrup flavours I chose were caramel, chocolate mint and gingerbread. My inspiration, of course, came from Starbucks' own holiday flavours. More on the coffee syrups later.

I had so much fun taking pictures of the event. I even made a promo video which you can see here.

A few of my favourite things

Movies & TV: Someone please stop the trend for senseless remakes of classic 80s movies. They're fine just as they are!

Music: I hear this FUN. song every time an ad for The New Normal comes up on FOXlife and I've kind of become addicted to it.

Books: Game of Thrones pop-up book. Enough said.

Food: My cousin is doing a sugar detox, taking her cues from Sarah Wilson's 'I Quit Sugar' book and website. I'd be interested to try this; I just need to mentally and psychologically prepare myself for a life without dessert.

Travel: Travel Prep Pointers from the beautiful Emily of Cupcakes and Cashmere. 

Blog: As soon as I'm done with being pregnant I'm SO starting the monthly fitness challenges on Blogilates.com. You can follow Cassey on Instagram too for an added jolt of inspiration.

Etsy: One of the most original iPhone cases I've ever seen. Want.

Brain Food: Things all noughties teenagers will remember. This list is very much geared towards teenagers who grew up in the UK.

Science & Tech: I just downloaded A Beautiful Mess' Lightroom Presets and I'm so thrilled with the way they look! I used the Lillian preset for our Easter pics which you can see here.

Have a wonderful week!

Island Easter

I love Easter! Not only is it an excuse to eat copious amounts of chocolate and meat, but the weather tends to be damn near perfect. It's hot enough that you can wear short sleeves but not too hot that it's uncomfortable.

I especially enjoy spending Easter at my Dad's gorgeous house on the island of Aegina. We spent the weekend over there doing all the traditional things Greek Easter calls for -- having a midnight meat feast after church (although hubby and I passed out before that), getting the lamb on a spit, cracking eggs and just generally spending the day relaxing and drinking by the pool (minus the drinking for me). Poor hubby, though, spent a lot of the time chasing after Henry as my Dad's house is the least childproof house in the history of childproofing. Henry was so good though -- all things considering!

It's starting to smell a lot like summer around these parts -- and I'm so excited!

                                                                Have a wonderful day!

                  
 

Green & Yellow

In September last year, I had the absolute pleasure of shooting a baptism for which my mom designed a bespoke candy cart, complete with her homemade special Vinta cookies and red velvet cake jars as favours.

It was so fun to see the whole thing come together. My mom made absolutely everything by hand - including the cart! If you'd like to know more about what she does, you can visit the VINTA website here and you can follow her on Facebook here.

I loved looking back through these pictures because it made me want to pick up my camera again and really start learning about photography and how to use the darn thing.

A small little on-going goal I'm setting myself for 2014...

Do you have any on-going goals that keep recurring through the years?

A few of my favourite things

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Movies & TV: This atmospheric short sci-fi film hits all the right notes. 

Music: Make music with your keyboard. Rat-a-tat-tat.

Books: I love reading sci-fi. And The Martian is making it onto my Amazon wishlist.

Food: Tortilla pizzas because, hello! they're quick, easy, delicious and you can use whatever toppings you want. They're like skinny pizzas.

Travel: Captainwise is perfect for simple and easy travel: just input your budget and your travel dates and it will tell you how far you can go. It's one of the prettier sites too. They currently only fly out of Athens, Greece but they'll be expanding very soon!

Blog: I never fail to be inspired by creative Kathleen's blog. And now that she's had a beautiful baby boy, I can relate to her even more. Joy!

Etsy: How can you not think happy thoughts by looking at this gorgeous Roald Dahl quote print (pssst -- there are giraffes on it too!).

Brain Food: An article on why people online don't read til the end. Let's see how much of it you get through. (Disclaimer: I didn't actually get through the whole thing. What? I'm a mom -- and pregnant!)

Science & Tech: A beautifully shot, futuristic short film about what it would be like to become one with our apps.

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Have a wonderful week!

Birds of Paradise

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to my aunt's house for a ladies brunch to celebrate her birthday. My aunt has phenomenal taste in everything. She designed jungle-themed centrepieces and flower decorations and put together a mouth-watering menu. She asked me to bring my camera along to take some snaps as so many special family events go unphotographed -- and she's absolutely right! Aren't the tables just gorgeous?

I definitely need to make more of an effort to take photos of everyday life. Don't you?

A few of my favourite things

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Movies & TV: The hubs and I go through TV shows like dirty underwear. We're always on the lookout for some quality box-viewing. IMdB's list of highest rated TV shows is our go-to source for new finds.

Music: Game of Thrones is back on (yessss!). While it was off air, I'd listen to The National's version of this song to get my throne-y fix.

Books: Henry absolutely adores all books by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler of 'The Gruffalo' fame. And, from a parent's perspective, they're also really fun to read!

Food: Make your own cheese. Great idea for an at-home date night.

Travel: 10 restaurants in unexpected places.

Blog: I rarely follow london-based blogs (not sure why!), but I love Courtney's take on life in London with kids. And her instagram feed is just gorgeous.

Etsy: I've mentioned this shop before, but I can't get enough of Dear Delilah Handmade's beautiful, vintage-y trinkets.

Brain Food: Achieving work-life balance in 5 steps. Get this: "In the ten years from 1986 to 1996, work-life balance was mentioned in the media 32 times. In 2007 alone, it was mentioned 1674 times." Yikes.

Science & Tech: I love the look, the sound and the specs of this cinema camera. Such beauty.

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Have a wonderful week!

Henry's First Birthday

 

Oh dear, I'm playing major catch up this week. Henry's first birthday was almost exactly a month ago on March 8. It was such a special day and so lovely to see him playing with all his little friends. My mom did such an incredible job with the cake, favours and decorations. That mini burger you see up there, is actually a brownie sandwiched between two pieces of cake, topped with coloured cream cheese. They were HEAVENLY!

I can't quite believe how much he's grown and changed over a single year. He's gone from a newborn to a little boy in just 12 months. It's been amazing to watch him grow and learn new skills; and it's been such a joy to fall even more in love with him with every month.

In other news, I've decided that blogging daily (or even every other day) is not really my style. Managing a restless toddler, and an even more restless bump, leaves me very little time to do the things I used to do in my free time. So this is what I'm going to do: I'll be posting once a week to recap on everything we got up to and then I'll be posting interesting links of a few of my favourite things. 

Some of my favourite blogs have this simple template and I just love being able to read them quickly and at the same time get so much out of the posts.

So without further ado, here are a few of my favourite things:

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Movies & TV: The Wrap's 8 Under-the-Radar Summer Movies.

Music: I am obsessed with The Departed soundtrack on Spotify. (Hot tip: it features the song from the last ever scene of Breaking Bad: Baby Blue by Badfinger.)

Books: Interview with George R.R. Martin in Vanity Fair on how he plans to keep the Game of Thrones TV show from catching up to his books. I'm reading the series now and I'm obsessed!

Food: Jamie Oliver's '15-Minute Meals' cookbook is a god send. Delicious, nutritious, super fast food. The chicken with herb couscous is one of my faves.

Travel: One of my biggest dreams is to go glamping in the UK with all of Henry's cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents.

Blog: I love the Smart, Pretty and Awkward and The Senses Five blogs for inspiring me to follow a similar blog format.

Etsy: Some of the prettiest scarves I ever did see.

Brain Food: Gratitude tops Time's list of things proven to make you happier. I wholeheartedly agree with the entire list.

Science & Tech: I'm loving learning my way around Adobe's Lightroom 5. This tutorial video is a must for beginners.

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FYI, I'm doing the #100happydays photo challenge on Instagram and it's loads of fun. I'm MarsCW if you want to follow or play along!

Have a wonderful week!