New products and plans for the weekend

The new range of floral flavoured biscuits and Easter cookies is now available at the Her Little Place boutique! Choose from zesty lemon Easter bunnies, sandwiched together with a delicious citrus frosting, or treat lovely mums to something a little different to a bunch of flowers, with my lavender and rose shortbread.

(All pictures by Sarah A)

The cookies come beautifully presented in natural Kraft boxes, tied with Swiss ribbon - prices for Easter and Mother's Day cookies start from £11.99, while the classic range of either chocolate "chunk" or plain vanilla iced cookies start at £9.99.

Meanwhile, this weekend I'm busy baking a Rachel Allen chocolate cake for a friend's birthday (which will appear on What's Cooking soon!) followed by a chalkboard makeover project in the kitchen - which I'm nervous about, but am confident it will look very cool! So watch this space for now, and have a good weekend
H xx

Florals for spring

There's a scene in the Devil Wears Prada (which I've seen a zillion times) where editorial are sitting in a features meeting and one of the team pitches "florals" for the spring issue. Miranda Priestly holds their gaze, pauses and then cuts back with: "Florals. For Spring. How very original."

So it mightn't be original, but it's definitely that time of year when we're all aching for the first flower head to peep through the frost (it's still frosty). Flowers in fashion for springtime is a year-on-year trend (see Elle, Net a Porter's floral range, and Erdem's ladylike floral fancies that have been a big hit at London Fashion Week and that everyone was talking about at Vogue) and it's only natural they trickle into homestyle too - DesignSponge's latest weekly wrap up was all about flower power. After all, who wouldn't have fresh flowers piled high all around their home to signal the start of a new season?

Well, while it's still a little early to say it's spring (ok, quite early), there's time and scope to be inspired yet - and floral doesn't have to mean chintzy or old fashioned. Take a look at this luxe lounge where the flower power is minimal (see the mural on the wall) and the overall style is more Roche-Bobois-boho-chic than girly-girl...

(pic via Living Etc)

This DesignSponge sneak peek of an Upper West side NYC apartment has wild flowers everywhere, uncontrived in empty vintage bottles and jam jars...

...a look that's so casual and pretty that you don't even need a trip to the florist for it - try daisies in a vintage French bottle (as seen at Re). A simple few flowers on the windowsill look so much prettier than a fancy bouquet...

And single big fat blooms in glass bowls look angelic (as seen at Black Pearl Press)

...while you can keep it simple and low key, and very unfussily ungirly, by combining floral prints with smokey greys and muted shades as seen at the gorgeous This Is Glamorous

I've waxed lyrical about using blooms in baking a few weeks ago and am now pleased to announce that the new range of floral shortbread cookie gift boxes are now available at the Her Little Place boutique - lavender and rose shortbread for Mother's Day start at £9.99.

Fingers crossed for Springtime x

Happy pancake day

As if you really need an excuse to eat sugary, syrupy pancakes: but today is Shrove Tuesday, the night for those who practice Lent to indulge one last time, while the rest of us simply get to play with nice fillings.

Inspired by family brunch on Sunday, I've written a piece all about pancakes for the Guardian today. The piece includes my dad's recipe for perfect pancakes which we still adhere to on weekend brunch - and for those of you who have an obsession with kitchenware, I've picked out some fun products you didn't think you'd need but possibly will now that you've seen them too. Flick through the photos and enjoy, and feel free to add your favourite pancake anecdotes/recipes on the bottom of my Guardian piece.

Happy flipping pancake day x

Baking with roses

Although it feels far from it, soon (hopefully) spring time will be here, bringing with it bright poppets of colour - cherry blossom, dahlia, peonies...pretty petals everywhere. I love the idea of baking with flowers; it seems such a delicate addition. But sadly I have no blooms on my balcony to experiment with, so I've decided to give it a try with rosewater instead. A few nights ago, I came up with a buttery rose biscuit recipe, which was my own variation of a traditional shortbread recipe with a bit of a twist. It's simple and sweet, and smells delicious when baking - rose water is really so very pretty and gives such velvety lightness.

For those of you who have a garden waiting to bloom, you can plan ahead with the Goddess of Cake's succinct guide to edible flowers; she confirms that rose petals can be added to cake doughs and batters, but take the white bit of the coloured petal off first as that can be bitter. It goes without saying that you'd best avoid pulling the petals off shop-bought roses in bouquets that may have (or probably have) been treated with pesticides. If they're fresh out the garden, you should still wash them and let them dry naturally before chopping and cooking. Of course, you can always add dried or fresh rose buds too as the finishing touch.

(Above: rose scented Lamingtons at Delicious Delicious Delicious)

There are some lovely recipes with roses around - rose petal and coconut fudge over on GelsKitchen, rosewater cookies at 5orangepotatoes, rose and candied ginger cake at Martha Stewart, and an absolutely exquisite sounding raspberry and rose petal millefeuille made with puff pasty and double cream on BBC Food. Sadly my photography skills are not up to scratch and the pictures I took of my rose scented shortbread biccies came out blurry - so you're just going to have to trust me on how pretty they were (I cut them in a mix of rounds and hearts).

I'm working on a "floral" range of biscuits for Her Little Place - perfect for Mother's Day - so look out for those too. Have a rose-filled Valentine's weekend x

Bookish and baking

While scouting around for gifts online, I found this for sale at the Tate's shop, by illustrator Sara Fanelli.

As a bit of a fonataholic with a love for message-prints, I thought "I must buy this" - but then I stupidly realised it wasn't in fact a print, at all, but a book which happens to have a beautiful front cover, which would also happen to look lovely in my lounge, mounted in a nice black frame. Other than buying the book to then take the cover off (which sounds so very wrong), I'll have to make do with looking at Sara's other prints online - but it got me thinking, sometimes books have brilliant artwork that you do kinda wish they'd make bigger as wall art.

Art Meets Print has a whole load of book-covers-as-posters but I'm not sure even my teen-self could be thrilled to wake up to a Sylvia Path cover (aside from anything else, it's not that exciting to look at) - although, with that shocking pink and that grey, there could be colour inspiration in there somewhere.

Moving on, this weekend has been a big one for my baking. For one, I've had loads of Valentine's orders to do, which has been lovely and I hope everyone who's on the receiving end is made mighty happy by their beloved's choice of gift.

And for another, I've got my supersize heart-shaped cookies for sale at Frame's new cafe in Shoreditch this week too - so many, many thanks to Pip and Joan for letting me place my cookies there. Frame's a brilliantly funky workout studio (it's where I started doing yoga) and if you're London-based and looking for somewhere inspiring, fun and different to get fit - go there. It has bunting and open brick walls (enough said). Plus their cafe has just opened too (and the cookies are made with reduced fat ingredients!).

For those of you still wanting to get something sweeter than flowers for Valentine's, don't forget that you've still got until the end of today to place an order for a Valentine's cookie box. They'll then be freshly baked, iced, packed and posted out by Wednesday to make sure you get them for the end of the week.

Hope you all have a fantastic start to the week - more later x

Small spaces

This week I've been writing a piece all about small-space living for the Guardian. Given that I live in what is essentially a glorified bedroom it's a subject close to my heart ;). Well ok, so it's not actually *that* small - but when writing the piece I picked up on Apartment Therapy's Smallest Coolest Home Contest and am now hugely inspired.

For the year and a half that I've been in my flat, I've put off doing a lot of things - convincing myself that sooner or later I'd maybe one day move out and rent it to someone who possibly wouldn't want my patterned walls - and so while I love all my bits and pieces that give it character, I regret not having made more of a splash on the walls. Confession time: yes, they remain a painful magnolia, to this day.

So I've been overwhelmingly inspired by the small spaces over on Apartment Therapy's contest page. I love that none of these pics look too cataloguey, nor do they look too fashiony; contemporary, yes, but also classic, warm and muted.

This girl went grey and yellow even though her entire home really is but a bedroom...

...while this attic is so grown-up and sultry that it makes me want to delete my place and start all over again. Sigh.

And last but not least, the flat with the coveted title of being officially the smallest but coolest flat in the States: this gorgeous San Fran pad, all moody and retro but soft and characterful at the same time.

When interior designer Kia Sunda came over last week to chip in with aforementioned Guardian piece, she gave me some brilliant ideas to play with (grey and orange, grey and orange), ideas that were in my head but I was perhaps a bit too shy to commit to wallspace. But I'm thinking: it's project time. My kitchen, this blog - watch this space.

Hope you're equally inspired. And, before I sign off for the weekend, many thanks to the team at Domestic Sluttery and TheGinLady for mentioning the Her Little Place boutique for Valentine's cards this week. If you do want to place an order for Valentine's cookies - hurry; you've got until Monday to get it in time.

Happy Friday x

Sleepy owls - back in stock

Tu-whit-tu-whoo! The sleepy owl notecards are back in stock, for all of you who'd been waiting for them (they sold out rather quickly first time round!). Designed by Gooseberry Moon, this droopy-eyed little fella is printed on white linen textured card and comes with brown recycled envelopes.

A pack of four notecards costs £4 - visit the Her Little Place boutique to place an order.

Don't forget you've got until February 8 to place an order for Valentine's gift cookie boxes. Just don't forget to select the Valentine's option from the drop down menu.

February blues

Pinch, punch, the first of the month and I'm working on a design piece for the Guardian with interior designer Kia who isn't afraid of using dramatic colour - she's done a black hallway for one client. She came over to my place on Friday, and flicking through her portfolio, I stopped at this inky navy room that she made over for one of her London clients. Love it!

The white isn't actually a white - it's more of a soft grey - but it gives a brilliant clean finish and looks amazing against the deep blue and copper touches - artwork with those copper-bronzey-tarnished yellow shades would look stunning over the modern mantlepiece. The rug - which matches without being too matchy matchy in my favourite shade of grey - was one Kia designed especially for the room.

Last summer everyone was blogging about Zooey Deschanel's deep blue studio - look how great the mustard-ochre-yellow shade looks in her pictures (photos taken from Apartment Therapy) below. No doubt her skirt was deliberately picked to bring out the colours, but the yellow piano is very cool. I'm not sure about that lamp being red though; however, if it was mustard then it would maybe have ended up looking a little too contrived.

I'm not too keen on the stripes - I'm pretty sure if you're going to go that bold with colour, you do it all the way, but I still love the fact that something so dark still looks classic...

This month's World of Interiors features Rodman Primack's and Rudy Weissenberg's apartment - with indigo walls, a dove grey Chesterfield and cushions in different shades of greys and olives that work really well together (the WoI doesn't share its pictures online so you'll just have to go buy a copy)

New York interior designer Amanda Nisbet used blue in her own home, featured in Elements of Style - although I don't really like it with the flashes of orange (I prefer the ochre)...

...I do however like it paired with the white beamed ceilings - it still doesn't overdo it on the dark stakes and simply stands as a really rich colour choice which adds interest.

And of course, who can forget the Carrie Bradshaw apartment makeover - not a deep navy, but perhaps a more workable shade for those who are too scared to go too dark waters. Whether or not you like the overall look, it's still a really lovely shade of blue - softer but brighter than navy, but still statement-worthy (photos from Mirror Mirror).

So if you're suffering from the February blues, turn it into something rich, deep, dramatic and striking!