A little trip to Fortnum and Masons

Today I had a day to myself and mostly spent the day in the lovely Fortnum and Masons. I went here to pick up a very special anniversary present for my parents which I can not say as they do read this blog, but I will post it on the day of them being married for 25years! 

Apart from just picking up a rather special present for them, I had lunch at The Fountain resturant. I have been her before for breakfast with my parents but this time I was on my own. There is nothing wrong with having a lunch on your own particularly here. The resturant is a lovely atmosphere with a central bar with a modern style chandelier in the middle. The staff are all lovely and one even commented on how he liked my vintage style when he brought me the bill.

I decided to have a pot of peppermint tea with a goats cheese and heritage beetroot salad. I have never had heritage beetroot before but it was so lovely, nice chunks of purple and white beetroot with thin orange slices underneath. ( Sorry not sure what the different terms are). I love my cheese and this was no exception for the goats cheese on the plate. It was so smooth and soft it would just melt on your mouth. I know its winter but it would be a lovely summer dish. 

 After my meal I went to pick up a few things for myself and then it was time to go out into the lovely rain. I stillsmell fortnums on my clothes as weird as this sounds but it reminds me of the time we went to Disneyland and stay in the Disneyland hotel for my mums birthday.

Camden Town

If you was a follower of my previous blog 'Happiness Crafts', then you would find I used to talk about London a lot and visiting Camden in particular. Before I moved to London, I would visit Camden twice a year with my Mum and we have been doing this since I was 14/15; that is nearly 10 YEARS AGO! (I have only just come to this realisation). Back in them years I was a little alternative shall we say and Camden Market was the perfect place to buy the majority of my clothing from. Each year we would go and my style developed further to being, at the moment and probably forever, a lover of all things vintage and incorporating vintage into my style particularly the 40s/50s. Anyways enough of this and back on to Camden.

Since moving here in October the other day was the first day I went to Camden and without my Mum. Usually we would go on a Sunday were it is so busy you struggle to move and can only go ideally in one direction. I decided against going at the weekend and it was quiet completely different to the hype I am use to, but luckily Camden Lock Food market was on and I had a little bite to eat for my lunch. I decided to have a Piadina, which is Italian.

It was so good I could have gone back for more. It had homemade pesto, rocket, tomatoes and finished with melted brie which wasn't too melted making me like it even more. If you ever see this place go to it they do do a meat option to for all you non veggie people out there. While I was eating my Piadina there was also some very hungry looking sparrows.

After my lunch I thought lets go for something cold, crazy I know, and went off and visited one of my favorite ice cream parlour, Chin Chin Labs, who making their ice cream using dry ice and a wonderful arrangement of flavours. The whole place is decorated like a laboratory with toppings in test tubes and beakers back in the day they would serve the ice cream with a medicine spoon as well. Anyways, I had the special which was beetroot with Saffron Meringue and little drizzle of chocolate sauce and all I can say is wow! You had the slight earthy natural sweetness from the beetroot with a little help of warm chocolate sauce with an added crunch from the meringue. I would love to have this again if they ever bring it back!

Taking a visit to Camden wasn't just about the food, I went and visited one of my favorite vintage reproduction clothing store; Collectif. I have a wide range of their clothing and that visit was to be no exception, I picked up a very cute cherry print jumper with a little bow in the sale for £18 (I had seen this prior to the sale) and I also picked myself up a bargain, a pair of cropped high waisted jeans at £7! I don't know how I did it though as they look like they are full price online. Now I am not one to wear trousers/jeans but these were a snap and look great on. I will take a picture soon of this ensemble but for now here is a picture of the items I brought.

I hope I can take more visits to Camden and take one of my besties, Mel with me to enjoy some amazing ice cream!

Keeping fit

Well today I have officially joined a gym and have gone for an induction today. This is the start of my keeping fit regime I want to start doing. I have a couple of goals I would like to achieve and that is to tone up and loose a little bit of extra gained weight that has appeared over the last couple of years. I blame the fact of too much junk food and letting myself go with my ex. I did use to do pole and burlesque dancing classes before I moved to London but I did that more out of enjoyment then exercise.

This will be a new start for me as I have NEVER been to the gym and I am not really the most sporty of people, but (this is a big but) if I remember I will try to log my weight at the beginning of the month in my very spanking new diary I brought last week for blogging notes, my life, work and also my weight. I guess you can say it is a 'Bridget Jones Diary'

 Hopefully I will start to loose a little bit of excess fat and tone up soon.

52 Week Photography Challenge- Textiles

So here is my photography challenge from last week. Again I photographed this one down Camden of all the beautiful and vibrant fabric you find there.

Such an amazing place! Got to love Camden Town

52 Week Photography Challenge- Cold

Okay just a quick little post. It has been cold here in London, UK. However it has not snowed or even shown any frost. I have been wrapped up for work in the morning with a big chunky scarf warm gloves and some very spotty and fluffy earmuffs but there has not been any physical sign of 'cold.'

So for this one I risked the cold and had ice-cream from one of my favorite little ice cream parlors in Camden Town, Chin Chin Labs. I will be posting a review later on today which I will leave a link to. So here is my representation of 'cold' with a little help of the effects on my phone.

This was a beetroot and Saffron ice cream and it was AMAZING! More to come about this later on in the blog.

52 week Photography Challenge- Architecture

Well so much for trying to post all my images on Friday last week! To be honest it has been a little bit of struggle to decided what to photograph for the 1st week and 3rd week but this category I found really easy.
Living in London there is a wide range of architectural history. From the houses of Parliament to Buckingham palace. But when you walking along a busy well known street like High Street Kensington and you look up above all the shops you can see a wide range of architecture from historical to modern. This photograph I took on my phone was on my way to work in the morning. I love how the light is captured and the black and white gives it a eery tone.

I have done similar architectural photography in the past and I must admit I enjoyed it and the results came out brilliantly. Maybe this could be a little side project to look above the shops of London and explore the architectural history of the city. Some of architecture work can be seen on my website just click on the link below.

Lifes Captured Moments- Architecture

I hope to fulfil my other weekly challenges by the end of the week.

Latte Art

Working at a Coffee Shop I get to practice a lot of latte art on customers drinks. I have worked for Starbucks for over a year and half and I worked in a previous independent coffee shop for just over a year so I have had plenty of practice but it is only recently that I have got back into it.
I did a competition at the beginning of last year in which I was trying to perfect a swan. This isn't my best one but you get the idea.

I like it but the milk is not right. Too much foam

Because the competition will fingers crossed be coming up again I have been constantly practicing to get the perfect latte milk, the creamy flat white milk along with a frothy cappuccino. The lat couple of days I have seen some of my best ones.

Heart (sorry about the shadow)

Leaf

Leaf finished with a heart

The last one has to be my favorite that I have done so far and this was done on a hot chocolate. If anyone was wondering I taught myself how to do all the latte art I have done and I have found a variety of you tubes videos have helped with this along with seeking some inspiration from pinterest. Just look at these amazing Japanese ones wish I could do that!

I will continue my progress with the latte art and will keep you all updated if I enter the competition again or not this year. Fingers crossed I will get to go to Regional as I couldn't last year even if I did win my district.

52 week photo challenge

I have decided to take up the 52 week photo challenge to keep my photography ideas flowing.  I would have done the daily but I just think there would not be enough time in the day for me to be doing this. I have already missed 2 weeks so I will try and do a catch up along with the next photo challenge. I will be, the  majority of the time,  be using my phone but it does have good quality camera.

I have looked over a couple of different challenges particularly through pinterest and came across this one that I believe I am able to do even if it does say 2012 themes we can imagine it is for this year.

If I remember I will post every Friday my photo for each challenge. This friday there will be 3 on the blog as I want to try and catch up. Have fun following my photos of the challenge and if you like join in and leave a link in the comments to your photos. 

First week of the New Year so far.

So much for trying to write a blog regularly, I am going to have to keep a diary and organize my blog around my work and photography life. Anyways from tomorrow it has officially been one week since the new year and the beginning of my new blog. On the 2nd January it was my dads birthday in which I brought him a new camera bag for his new camera and a book along with a handmade card as always.

I was not sure what to do for his card I always struggle, but my parents have been traveling a lot, particularly last year, and have more plans for this year so it only seemed fitting to have a travel themed birthday card. As well as it being my dads birthday that day it was my works Christmas party, in which much alcohol was consumed and lots of secret Santa gifts was given. I had a lovely gift, from a fellow colleague, wrapped lovingly in a Starbucks green apron. My gift was a book on Photography, well the history of photography which reminded me of my first year of University studying this particular subject. I shall thurely enjoy reading it.

During the rest of the week I treated myself to a little benefit makeup hall. I got given some gift vouchers for christmas in which both stores had Benefit makeup counters in; bonus! I only had to use £8 of my own money and I got all these items. Full size bottles as well!

Along with treating myself to a little benefit makeup hall, I treated my body to a healthy dinner yesterday. Working in High Street Kensington I have the perks of working not far from the Whole Foods store in which they have a lovely range of food. I decided on the deli counter in which I got myself a quinoa cake with some butternut squash and cranberries finished off with a salad.

So much colour on the plate, this beats my Jacket potato I'm having tonight!

I have so many plans for this blog that I am going to use a notebook along with a diary to help plan my days better with my quite busy schedule from now.  

Hope everyone's first week of the New Year as been a fun filled one!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

In 2014 a lot had happened with my life, I split from my boyfriend of over 3 years and I moved out of our flat in Hereford to live with both my Nan and Uncle in London. I had to request a transfer from my old Starbucks store in Hereford to one within London and start making new friends. I had to quit my part time job as a photographer at the Vintage Birmingham Salon which I must say are brilliant you should go check them out. Just click on the picture below.

The Vintage Salon

I have started this new blog to follow with the big changes I have made in my life so far. New blog, new life new me. This blog is more intended as a personal diary for myself to see how far I have come within this new year but everyone is free to follow my journey. As seen as I am starting a fresh I better introduce myself.

My name is Jasmin, I am 23 years old, self employed photographer and a barista for Starbucks. I currently live in Fulham, London with my Nan and my Uncle. I am an all round creative type of person and like to show my creativity in what I do, whether on my sewing machine or even at work. I can be shy at first but when you get to know me I am a bubbly, chatty person with great personality. I have a love of all things vintage and I am inspired by the 40s and 50s. Even though I am inspired by these eras I like to give a quirky modern twist to my style. My photography website is called Life's Captured Moments, (please click below if you would like to view my work)

Life's Captured Moments

Now you have got to know a little bit about me I have decided to set some new years resolutions. I know everyone sets resolutions and don't plan to stick to them (believe me I'm one of them) but I hope I can stick by these ones as I feel they are more suited to me. I have created a list in which I will have in a separate tag to tick off when each one is completed.

This blog is going to be about my personal life; a diary if you will. I want to blog about friends, choices I will make, my crafts, my photography and just a general overview of my life. As said before this blog is a diary, in which anyone is welcomed to follow.

I hope everyone has a great 2015, and I hope lots of good changes come your way.