icklebabe.com, it's in the blog

So this week I had a dream about the lost boys, it may have been the spicy cheese I’d been eating or the fact that Me and Teen Ellie had been talking about our school girl  crushes ( hers are currently Drake, Drake aaaand Drake, she has it bad people, anyway…) .

Mine were Christian Slatter from the movie Heathers ( can you say seeee-wooooon) and Jason Patrick from The Lost Boys ( and also Morten Harket who incidentally , reminds me a little of Josh Hartnett ? and the super cute Corey Haim…;)

In the dream I was Jamie Gertz ( don’t be laughing now! ) , I always wanted  to be her .   She was so , well, beautifully lost , just waiting for someone to come save her from those nasty vampire types.  Yes I know technically she was a vampire, but not a * proper* blood sucking evil one.

Looking over old pictures of her now ( yes, this IS what I do in my spare time ) I think she is bang on trend too…

Come on, let me show you the evidence…

The jingly jangle arm candy ( no not Kieffer…I mean the stacked bracelets… love! ) fash blogger uniform,  Honestly WTF would be proud ….

Red Lippy, long hair, long gypsy skirts, cool milatarty jackets, black eyes….

Okay..stil not convinced?

Looky at these Pictures of  Georgia May Jagger For Elle France… Lost Boys Esque ?

Or,  This from Free People …

Loving this girls eye make-up! …

And this From Winter Kate ( Nichole Richie’s clothing Line) , I can soo see Star ( Jamie Gertz ) rocking this chain headdress and purple sheer maxi, which I kinda love! ….

{ Winter Kate Spring Look Book Via }

So thats it, proof that A… Im getting old ( I remember my Mum telling me, fashion always comes back again)

…and B)…oh sod it, I don’t really have a B… Im just old  :  ) But I still Love the whole Boho Lost girl Vibe !  ….

I will leave you with this, I think If Michael ( Jason Patrick) and Star had ever had a love child, she would look like this gorgeous creature, 10 year old model, Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau. She  is the Giselle Bundchen of  children’s high fashion, and a total boho baby! CUTE!

{ Thy-Lane Via }

I first came up with the idea for these burgers out of necessity,  I swear  (swear!) I ordered Burger buns from Mr Tesco, but sadly none were delivered.  So on monday when it was raining cats and dogs outside and I could  convince no man, beast (or teenager)  to go to the shops for me, the healthy burger in the  chip *bun* was born.

But this is no ordinary chip,  noooo , this is a  perfectly crisp, slightly spicy, baked sweet potato chip ( French Fries to any lovely readers from the US ) .

As well as being just divine with the burger they are also super healthy too, sweet potatoes are low in calories, very high in beta-carotene and they also raise our blood levels of vitamin A ( great for good skin and vision, bonus! ) . Obviously a thousand times better than any soggy olde’bun!

And when I tweeted & Instagramed the picture that same day, I thought I must be onto something, because a record amount of you asked me for the recipe. So here it is…Healthy food should’nt taste this good im sure, but hay… if it is, im not gonna argue ; ). Hope you give it a go to, I’d love to know what you think.

( Oh and by the way, I am working on a veggie burger too, but not just any veggie burger…THE best veggie burger ever, one that even Big *Monster Meat Eating* J will scoff and say “By Jingo Thats Good” ( he never actually says By Jingo, ever, but you’ know,  it sounds kind of good when I write it )  … Anyway, wish me luck and stay tuned for the results ; )  )

Makes 6 large Burgers ( I froze 2)

• For the burger :
• olive oil
•  1 large red onion ( or 2 small)  peeled and finely chopped ( I chopped  in the mixer)
• 1 garlic clove
• 3 slices of white bread
•  500g good-quality lean minced beef
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
•  1 heaped teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
•  1 large egg, preferably free-range or organic, beaten
• A handful of fresh grated Parmesan cheese
• pinch of chilli flakes

• For Sweet Potato *Bun*
• ( Makes 4 *buns*)
• 4 medium sweet potato’s
• a good few pinches of sea salt
• a pinch of chilli flakes
• olive oil ( 1 and a half tablespoons approx)

Firstly start by making the burgers. Fry the red onion and the garlic in a little olive oil for about ten mins on med-low until they are translucent and soft, but not brown. Put aside to cool. Then put the bread in a food processor and pulse until you have pretty fine bread crumbs ( this is strangly fun! but that might just be me ). Then put all the ingredients ( including bread crumbs and cooled red onion) into a big bowl and mix. Scrunch together ( clean hand please) really well ( also fun, honest) until evenly combined. Then form into six burger shapes. Put on a oiled baking tray and refridgerate for at least an hour so they set well. ( Me and milly made them in the morning, refrigerated them and then  brought them out to cook for tea ) .

For the chip/bun,  chop up the sweet potato’s into chunky, square chip shapes, discarding  the top and bottoms ( remember we are going to place the burger ontop of the chips and then chips on top so regular shapes are good, but they dont need to be perfect ) .

Place chips on a big baking tray and toss with the oil, salt and chilli. Place in a pre heated oven at around 200oc for 25-30 mins until crisp and golden ( sweet potato cooks a little faster than regular potato’s so when they are brown they are done ).

Whilst they are cooking fry the burgers, they are quite thick so I put them in a oiled pan for around 25 mins on med/low , top with chesse at the end and bung them under the grill for a min.

Now just plate up, I used three or four chunky chips on the bottom, then burger then topped with the same amount of fries and maybe a pickle? (optional of course) .  Serve with giant salad drizzled with a little olive oil lemon and sea salt…YUM!

The only downside is you do need a knife and fork, but heck its worth the cutlery, honestly!

See u soon soon lovelies, I will leave you with a very wet image from this week,  strangely I’m discoving that April showers are actually fun, with a little person in tow ; )

have a really fab weekend! xxx

So this week was my first Instagram birthday, and I could still spend hours a day on there ( and sometimes do!  ; )) .

It has a very real family feel about it and although my first love will always, always be twitter I think IG beats it for genuine friendships and community right now.  Twitter has become more of a place for *selling* stuff,  your products,  your blog,  your views…  It just sometimes feels more hard going, although I have made and continue to make real lasting friendships on there, its just harder.  I think anybody who has been part of twitter for a long time will agree, its just got slightly jaded with time.

Instagram on the other hand is just people sharing their memories, loves and art, I may sound like a bit of a Pollyanna but I honestly feel it there.  I think it helps too that a lot of times you are seeing captures of peoples lives which you make instant  connection’s too. They do say a pictures says a thousand words, that’s a lot more than you get on twitter ; ) .

Im not sure what the new FaceBook buy out means for us or the new influx of Android users, but I really hope it doesn’t change things too much. Not that I don’t welcome new people, its lovely getting new Twitter friends popping up on my Instagram feed,  its just that Instagram felt like a great up and coming neighbourhood  that nobody knew about.  Now its really *out there* I just hope it remains the same.

Any how, the real purpose of this post is a few tips and tricks ive learnt along the way, freinds often ask about apps and stuff so I thought it would be nice to put it down on *paper* here.  Not that I am in any way an expert but I do edit a lot and ask a lot of ( maybe cheeky) questions from others so I have some really good apps to share…

Here goes..

The Basics – The very best for basic edits that look like a natural (none edited) picture are from the photo shop app PS Express.  I don’t think its more than a few pounds from app store but its fabulous for sharpening things up, and blending things out.  The Reduce Noise is great for portrait shots ( evens out skin tone, makes you look younger , like touche eclat for your entire face *wink ) and the basic shapen and exposure features are perfect for food or product shots. Or for when you just want to make a candid natural shot more striking.

Also Camera+ is perfect for basic editing like cropping, but it also has a lovely selection of filters, my fave’s are Depth of field,  Tailfins, Ansel, Sunkiss’ed and Nostalgia. 

My friend ( @sheckamecka) recently told me about another one called PhotoStudio too, I haven’t had chance to properly discover that one yet, but if you already have the others it might be worth a look for a change up. Filter Mania is also good for certain shots but the effects are sometimes a bit to obvious looking to me, still fun to play around with though.

{ The food shot above was edited in PS Express and then  *tear drop* framed using the plop frame on the Pixlromatic app, both super easy and found on app store }

Fun for Effects – when you want to add a little twinkle or a rainbow flare or two, both  LensLight and Xiamen App ( look for the red dragon icon at app store search) are brilliant! And great to play around with.

{ The above shot of Milly was edited with Camera+ and LensLight app, spectrum ring and text was added using a great app called easyTITLER } 

{ Above montage of Milly was made with picframe,  camera+ and Xiamen apps }

Frames and Lettering –  You can get a photo montage picture that’s great for all kinds of shots from nature to cute kids pictures with an app called PicFrame, this lets you add lots of pictures to one square, creating pretty collage’s.  Two great apps for adding text ( in many different fonts and colours) to your pictures are Phonto and easyTITLER , text gives an extra dimension and character to your pictures. If every picture tells a story, the text can help to give it personality !

The Square Ready app is for creating a perfect sqaure ready for Instagram and also great for making a square picture ready for frameing like this circle frame below, made using Super Retro ( if you don’t start with a perfect square you wont get a circle )

Other great apps for  when you get more accomplished are ColorSplash ( for adding dramatic splashes of colour to your black and white shots), Juxtaposer  ( for laying multi pictures on top of each other ) and SigNote ( for adding your cute doodles and writing right on top of your pictures )

And finally, Instagram itself of course has its own filters, my favorite are Rise and the new Sierra, both add a nice glow and light to your edited or none edited pictures.

Also If your just starting out on IG and you want to make instant connections (and follows)  with people you can always try entering other popular  ( and super nice) IG’ers challenges. I  like @OwlBolt’s weekly challenge ( she has a new one every Tuesday) , @thisisjules rolling weekly Collage challenge and @joshjohnson’s nightly and weekly challenges.  All will get you out there and seen by like minded folk and will make you instant friends.  All you do is add the challenge hash tag to your pictures and you will appear on Instagram searches of each challenge : ) Oh, and don’t forget to like and comment on lots of other peoples pictures too, that really helps.

A few more random IG pictures….

Finally… If your already an IG addict like me, Ive found some fun products to feed your adiction too.

Like this , make your own pillows out of your instagram pictures, a little bit naff maybe, but also a lot fun! Great for wedding or baby photo’s perhaps too?

Or how about this? for your next phone case?

So that’s it, I’m off to get dressed now ( yes it is nealy 11 am, oh the joys of school hols ! hehe )

Anyway, its pretty fair to say,  I Heart Instagram ! … don’t you? ; ) xxx

This week Milly has been off nursery, not sure if she had a bad cold or hayfever but her eyes were really red and puffy and she kept telling me she had  “Ned (head) ache” .

But rather than have her sat in front of the telly for days on end (although we did that too, with blankets ; )) I thought it’d be fun to try a few new projects. We started with the sensory box, I’ve been bookmarking blogs about them for ages but never actually got around to doing it. Its a bit like when you pin a load of things to pinterest, you know you want to give them all a go and then you don’t have time. And then you have pinterest guilt, you know when you think everybody in the whole world is building lifesize rocket ships out of toliet roll tubes with their kids?,  except you.

You can drown in that sort of mummy guilt, let me tell you ; )

Anyway… sensory boxes are great fun to make and play with, you can find out lots more about them here, but basically you choose a theme ( we went fairy tea party, because, well,  we have fairies and tea party stuff ) but you can choose anything. Farmyard, zoo, baking.  And the great thing is you can use the *play sand* you make for the next box.  This week fairies,  next week pirates maybe?! : )

So if you want to make one this is what you’ll need ( or rather what I used when I raided my cupboards, but you can use any combination or just one, although I think the different textures are fun and probably more educational, but what’d I know! ; ) hehe…

1 bag or box of Risotto Rice

1 bag of Semolina (for the sandy bit)

1 bag of quinoa

1 bag of buckwheat

1 bag of yellow lentils

Food colouring ( i used blue and red)

( you can also use pasta, but it takes a lot longer to dry, maybe a day)

Put the quinoa in a baking tin and drop a few spots of food colouring in, then get your hands in and toss around until evenly coated (mily loved to do this)

Do the same with the rissotto rice

I kept the buckwheat plain.

Then just leave for a few mins to dry, while you go wash your hands.

Then take a big plasic box, we used a shallow long one, like the ones you put under your bed. And fill it with the buckwheat,  quinoa, yellow lentils, rice and semolina.

Mix it all up and hey presto, you have the ground work on a little world, in which to create. We added fairies, toadstools, alphabet letters from an old scrabble set and a few bits from a tea set to create ours. We also filled a little bowl with old beads, vintage (or  grandma’s ) buttons, and  broken / junk necklaces  from ebay to use as fairy * treasure* .

There you go, hours of fun! I can honestly say out of all the toys Milly has she has already played with this the most. I think its important to change it up every few weeks though, before boredom sets in. She wants a construction site next. Thats my girl ;D

Yes, I know she STILL has her dummy ( even our waiter at the chinese restaurant at the weekend mentioned it ; /  ) ..we are working on it, but I believe in the gentle softly softly ideal  : ) I’m hoping she’s just going to give it up on her own, someday….really soon!

We also did some leaf painting. I fogot how much fun simple things like that are, as well as the leaves we used toliet roll tubes and foam balls for making patterns. You can uses anything, cars are good, and its great fun getting a big bowl of soapy water for a car wash afterwards … I really want to try this too, party blower painting, messy fun!

but nothing a long play in the bath can’t sort out ; )

What have you been up to this week lovelies?  Will you be tring out a sensory box of your own? hope so!

Also, do you have an words of wisdom about our dummy situation? i would be very appreciative ; )

See you Friday folks XXX

Last night I was lying in bed and big j did his nightly thang ( nooo not that;)) , dumping the double duvet on me. You see he hates duvets, he says they’re too heavy, he is a sheets and blankets kind a guy.

In clothing terms its a bit like wearing layers rather than a big jumper. Me ?..I like the big jumper, the layers aaaaand the bed socks, anyway..

As he chucked the duvet unceremoniously over my head, a sentence popped into my head… “We don’t dooo duvets” … And I started to laugh and repeat it out loud. At first big j thought I’d gone mad ( it’s been a long time coming) but then I reminded him of Trevor and Simon, do you remember them? From going live and live and kicking days, they had several catch phrases, we don’t do duvets and swing your pants were my fave. Me and jay looked them up on the interweb. Live and kicking was a whooping 18 years ago, and then we found the trevor and simon website ( yes, there is such a thing ; ) )  and oh my goodness they got, well, … older!

Then it hit me, we all have. Strangely though I don’t feel any different, not really. I was on a cup of jo  recently and she had posted these amazing pictures from photographer Tom Hussey …

It pretty much says it all doesn’t it, only our bodies get old.
Who we are stays the same for always I guess.
What do you think, do you remember Trevor and Simon days?
Do you feel the same inside, or do you think life changes you? Obviously anyone under 25 will not have a clue what I’m talking about, but don’t worry you will one day ; )

This is the soundtrack to this post, because i think photos and reflections are true anchors…
Happy Monday Folks , go swing your pants! X

I know, I know, they’re not new, but I am loving the whole chevron thing at the mo. It seems so fresh and springlike to me,  and a bit more whimsical than your average stripe.

What do you think?..

{From top left to right, Dress & girl with flowers both from Pinterest, Chevron undies set from Fox & Rose, red and chevron print dress from Yellow Cake @ etsy }

{ From top left, both Chevron bracelets over at Free People gorg shop by the way, Geometric leather chevron necklace from Rare Bird @ Etsy , Pretty chevron lace top from pinterest }

{ Top left and bottom right all Missoni at Design Options, top right is from the Vogue knitting pattern book 2011, bottom right chartreuse one shoulder chevron dress from Rag Tag @ Etsy }

{ Top 3 all at Design Sponge, cute stationary bottom left Pinterest, Middle Deer Antlers Chevron Print Set from Aldari Art over @ Etsy, bottom right Paper N Stitch Blog  }

{ From top Left, Super lovely Vintage Inspired dress from Gracie Mae Kids , cute boys bow tie from Black cat Meow Designs  @ Etsy, bottom left GORG ( im so buying it !!!) dress from Eco friendly Kids clothes company The Measure  , bottom right, cute shift from Simplicity Couture @ Etsy , another gem of a shop from little girls }

I also found some great  How to’s.  I really want to try them all, but Im gonna start with the chest of drawers. Milly’s are from our old bedroom stuff, so I cant wait for the weather to get sunny so I  can paint them yellow in the garden.

Lets just say im hooked!!! This year is looking remarkably Chevron like! ; -)

Cute how to on painting your own Cheveron Rug, using a simple Ikea rug over at The House of Smiths  ….

DIY Hex Bracelet inspired by designer collection Giles & Brother  . They real designer stuff is fab, but might be fun to try making your own, full tutorial over at Honestly WTF, my new Favorited way to loose myself… for like half a day! ;D   ….

And Pretty Child’s Chest, Chevron Make over from Design Sponge. So pretty, Im looking forward to giving it a try …

As you’ve probably noticed I always try and include Independent retailers and craftspeople in my posts, Being one myself I know how hard it is to ever get noticed  *no matter how much you wave and say hay looook i’m over hereeee! * er herm..anyway …. so I’m delighted to take part in my fellow blogger Karen’s Independents Day link,  she’s running a monthly slot on her fabulous blog all about independent retailers.  So i’m bigging up  all the independents I’ve featured here,

Gracie Mae Kids lovely handmade little girl dresses

Black cat Meow Designs  little boy bow ties

The Measure   gorgeous eco  clothing for little people, I have my eye on the dress pictured for Milly

Simplicity Couture more super pretty girl dresses

Aldari Art woodland chevron art

Rag Tag original, pretty  ladies dresses

Yellow Cake more gorgeous dresses

Rare Bird wonderful one off leather jewellery

Fox & Rose, to die for unique undies for foxy ladies ( er herm… Style on the couch  ? ; ) )

Giles & Brother  whimsical  designer jewellery pieces by brother and sister Duo based in New York. One of their leather bracelets are on my birthday wish list

Free People big-ish but still independent, bohemian ladies fashion company. With a great vintage clothing section.

Massive big up to Karen over at All About The Boys  too, long may your Independents Day’s continue! Catch her first edition and all others taking part, here  x

I love the oscars, I know its not totally *rock & roll* to say that in these more serious, subdued  times. But its exactly this,  that makes the oscars such an escapist pleasure.

I am not really bothered who gets to take home an award  really though, its just the dresses…and oh what dresses….

Michelle Williams,  in Louis Vuitton got my best dressed vote ( followed closely by Penelope Cruz, channelling Elizabeth Taylor ) .

From the colour of the beautifully cut frothy fabric to the freshness of her pretty face, she  just blew me away!  What’s  your fave?