Iron Cupcake: Showstoppers

My favourite Sunday evening activity rolled around again last weekend- cake o'clock at Iron Cupcake Leeds. For those of you that regularly visit this little space on the internet, you'll have heard me waffling on about this on quite a regular basis; I've been a regular at the monthly competition for a good few years now and pride myself on my excellent eating cake judging abilities. Plus I have experienced life as a baker (once out of the last 44 competitions...). This month's theme was a special one as it was advertised as the last competition that Zoe would be running, so to mark the end of an era, the bakers had to create Showstoppers. 

There were some real beauties as usual, the bakers had gone all out to make some showstopping designs and flavours for us lucky eaters to test. I had two real favourites this time- Curtain Closer Chocolate Orange Cupcakes (apparently I'm not the only one who's a sucker for chocolate orange as these were the winners!), and Its Always The Quiet Ones Rhubarb and Custards (they were just so beautiful and really delicious too!). 

Here's a few of the other entries too- it always amazes me how much effort goes into each and every cake!

Although last week was Zoe's last ever Iron Cupcake, there was an exciting announcement that the competition was not over for good... cue sighs of relief from keen bakers and hungry bellies across Leeds. My best friend Charlie has taken over the event now which is flipping fantastic news- she's going to make a great little hostess (I'm not biased at all, honest!). So if you live around Leeds you can rest safe in the knowledge that once a month, the upstairs room in The Adelphi will still be filled to the brim with cake, cake and more cake.

Smiles of the week: Who's gonna catch you now?

Can't believe its Monday again already (and Monday's nearly over now too...), where oh where is this year going?! Time really does seem to whizz by so much quicker now I'm a sort-of adult. Its pretty bloomin' scary! Now its getting towards summer, I'd quite like time to slow itself down ever so slightly so that we can all enjoy it that little bit longer. 

Its been a busy old week for me, but one of the best I've had in a while. So I've had no trouble whatsoever putting together my little round up of the last seven days today! Here you go lovely people (be warned- its been quite a food filled week...)

Spending my evenings sat outside sipping teacup cocktails and cider whilst eating lots of lovely food.

Falling asleep in the sun (again). 

Making the most of the Leeds Love Food festival over the weekend, I had a list as long as my arm of stalls I wanted to try, three days just wasn't enough time to eat my way through it all!

Drinking gallons of old fashioned lemonade at the festival. Best stall by far.

Getting all excited about becoming the new 'proper' photographer for Iron Cupcake Leeds next month when my delightful friend Charlie takes over running it. I feel its a good excuse to make cake so I can 'practice' taking decent photos of it!

Signing for the most beautiful house to move into next month after a hilarious day of house hunting. I can't wait to make it all homely and pretty with the other girls. 

Celebratory cupcakes in the park when we realised we'd found THE ONE.

Finding the prettiest teacup whilst browsing the local vintage shops and getting far too excited that Headingley will soon be on my doorstep once again. 

Beach- San Cisco

I need it, I need it today

Image: Pinterest

Isn't it amazing what a bit of sunshine can do for our general happiness and enthusiasm for life? Even just sitting in and watching the telly becomes far more pleasant when you can look out of your window and see gorgeous watercolour skies like the ones above. I've been snapping away of an evening when the sun has started to set because skies like this bring such a massive smile to my face.

 I love wandering through outdoor spaces during the summer and seeing people radiating happiness, there's something about the blue skies and sunshine that makes everybody so much friendlier and sociable, filling up beer gardens and city centres whilst catching up with friends. Sitting in a park full of people sat around on blankets with barbecues, cider and music makes a place feel like a real community- something which the winter rarely brings us as everybody is too busy hibernating and rushing about in an attempt to keep warm.

 Summer is a time to say a massive YES to everything that comes your way, nobody wants to miss a second spent out in the gorgeous weather since we never know how long its going to last. In fact, as I'm writing this, the sky outside has turned horrifically grey after a beautiful week of soaring temperatures. I rest my case. 

Need It-Splashh

She tastes like sunlight

dress: Primark, shoes: Next, sunglasses: New Look

Last night was an evening of alfresco dining and cocktails in teapots with my lovely friend Coral. Being able to happily sit outside in the evening without a jacket is absolute perfection as far as I'm concerned, and more than makes up for being cooped up in work through the day without even any decent windows to longingly gaze out of.

I bought this dress in Chester over Easter in the hope that the weather would soon get nice enough to be able to wear it. As it stands, I've only been able to wear it in the last week or two so have been making up for lost time by wearing it ALL THE BLOOMIN' TIME (my wardrobe is severely lacking in summery dresses... I blame the unpredictable British climate). Since buying this dress, I've seen a few variations of it in different styles appearing, but who can blame Primark for over-egging the fabric when its just so pretty. I got a lovely compliment on the pattern last night- it was mistaken for a Laura Ashley print! Primark, you should be proud of yourselves.

California Daze- Peace

Smiles of the week: I'm a human elevator

Today, all of the teachers I work with were gushing about how good their week off over half term was. All well and good for them but I'm not lucky enough to get school holidays off like they do. Last week it was just little old me and my partner in crime who works with the younger kids in the hospital spending a week in our eerily quiet office. To make up for the lack of human contact, we turned to youtube and spent the week dancing around the office (which actually did wonders for our motivation... not sure how our co-workers would feel if we made this a daily occurrence  but quite frankly a daily boogie on the way to the wards would do us all the world of good!). 

Unconventional working weeks aside, I've had a very lazy relaxing week. For all you nosy people out there, here's a bit of what I've been enjoying over the last seven days.

My Mum's astounding technological abilities via Facetime. She was all set to write her iPad off as broken and send it back to the shop because the camera on the back of it wasn't working. After about five minutes of my Mum getting concerned about how it had broken my Dad pointed out that she had the cover over the camera. Whoops.

Taking every possible moment to sit out in the sun. I fully believe in making the most of the sun whilst we can... you can never guarantee how long its going to last for! Plus its a great opportunity to actually spend some quality time with a good book (or three) and my iPod.

Finally downloading the A Beautiful Mess app (about a month after the rest of the world) and spending hours prettying up all my photos.

Having a barbecue with my bestie and eating my own body weight in grilled aubergine and halloumi after already having eaten two burgers. 

Smelling somebody's takeaway pizza in the lift on my way home from work and deciding that we NEEDED to order pizza the next day. This was an exciting decision in Kazland. I can probably count the amount of takeaways I eat in a year on one hand.

Rewarding myself with an afternoon off work (see, my week at work really wasn't that traumatic...) and ending up at the opening of the new Joy in Leeds (which I whittered on about a few days ago here).

Sampling the delights of the Leeds Farmers Market in town on Sunday. Stall owners cower in fear when they see me approaching to eat my body weight in their samples of cheese/brownies/chocolate/olives.

What's made you smile this week?

 Human Elevator- The Cast of Cheers

A sign saying closed but we're back in business

top: Topshop, jeans: Topshop, shoes: Fred Perry, necklace: Topshop, rings: River Island, Anklets: Accessorize

This lovely weather we've been having (if you ignore the crazy wind that seems to be accompanying the sunshine here in Leeds) has made me finally want to brighten up my wardrobe for the summer. I'm still reluctant to buy myself a pair of sandals because I'm convinced that as soon as I do the sun will disappear forever, but I'm happy to embrace bare arms and lighter colours. And so entered these jeans. I've tried Topshop's Joni jeans on about 100 different occasions now and eventually came to the conclusion that they're NEVER going to suit me. My hips just aren't designed for their super figure hugging material (although they were the comfiest things I've ever tried on...) and quite frankly they looked ridiculous on me. Luckily, I quickly fell in love with the Jamie jeans instead, still high waisted, better material plus I loved the acid wash colour. Take that Joni jeans, I don't need you anymore. 

I've also been finding a lot of jewellery in the shops over the last week or so that I've been unable to tear myself away from, usually I don't find much jewellery on the high street and tend to find more on the internet but I've been pleasantly surprised lately! 

I'm off to have a jolly little time with some sink unblocker. Oh yes, I lead a highly glamorous lifestyle. 

Pushing it- The Family Rain

Summer girlfriends, house in Jamaica

Friday turned out to be the perfect day to take an afternoon off work. Not only was the sun shining, but the new flagship Joy in Leeds was having its much anticipated and weather appropriate beach party opening event. Ever since I found out about Joy moving into the old Urban Outfitters store I'd been getting a bit over-excited about it opening- the shop is huge! I love looking at all of the pretty prints and cute homeware in Joy and so the idea of it moving to a shop that was at least double the size of its old Leeds store meant only one thing to me- TWICE AS MUCH TO LOOK AT!

I joined the queue at exactly the right time, being about the 197th person in the queue, as the first 200 visitors got given free summer themed goodie bags. Amongst lots of other little treats (including a pair of novelty sunglasses with a giant palm tree and flamingo on the sides...) I was really excited to see a sample of a new Bumble and Bumble surf shampoo and conditioner... can't wait to see what its like, although I am concerned that I'll fall in love with it and decide I have to buy the full sized ones. My bank balance is scared already.

I also had a stroke of luck when I joined the queue as I ended up being stood just behind the lovely Sophie from onetenzeroseven who was the person who'd made me aware of the event in the first place. It was really great to finally meet another blogger (especially as it made me feel a bit less silly taking pictures of EVERYTHING in the shop as there were two of us snapping away with our DSLRs!). 

The shop was incredible inside, they'd put so much effort into making the shop look really pretty with pictures everywhere as well as a wall of old fashioned cameras which I absolutely loved. Plus there were Hawaiian flowers everywhere (including on all of the shoppers who'd queued up for the opening!) and a pop up cocktail bar serving mojitos so it really did feel like a summer beach party inside. If only shopping was always like that!

Jamaica- Theme Park