Megan hearts Francis. Officially.

Two dear, dear friends, Megan and Francis are about to get married (woohoo). But that raises the ever-tricky wedding present issue. Which is made even trickier when the bride and groom in question are social innovators and make-stuff-happen-ers, rather than simple collectors of stuff. So I wanted to make something (of course), but make something meaningful to all of us.

I've known Megan for ages, and one road trip long ago, we found ourselves staying on an amazing beach with a couple of Lomos and a strangely abundant stash of sparklers. So we spent an evening fooling around with those. One of the pics of Megan was particularly wedding-friendly. So I framed that. But I didn't have one for Francis, so I framed a sparkler for him, and the night before their wedding, got him to do his own one. Here's the 'before' pics of my gift to them. The 'afters' will be coming soon...

Surprise!

My friend Sven turned 40 last weekend (woohoo), which meant he was summoned back home in Hamburg to be showered with Deutchlove (but not in a rude way). That meant I got to housesit at his flat in Old Street. After shivering away in our Hackney Wick garret for the last few months, I was so grateful for central heating I almost wept. So made a birthday card/thanks installation thing to surprise him when he got back.

It was kind of indulgent for me too. I'd wanted to do something with those foil balloons ever since that Amanda Blank video for THAT song. Anyway, it turns out the balloons are actually pretty expensive. So I scaled back my ambition to fill Sven's whole house with them and opted for the 4-0 option. Classier, right. The pics turned out kind of crappy (damn phone!), but it did actually look pretty awesome in the space. Honest. And Sven almost cried*, allegedly. Win!


*He'd been travelling for about 9 hours when he saw it, so you'll need to include a dash of deranged emotional fatigue in there. But still.

Bundles of joy

By some miracle, I managed to avoid a hangover on New Year's day. Which left me with a day without any plans and a napping/groaning boyfriend confined to the couch. So I got busy making meringues. Obviously. As it turns out, three egg whites can go a long, long way. And after an hour or so I'd made piles of them. Not just figure of speech piles either. Actual piles.

I wanted to take them to a friend's place for dinner that night, but brittle cakes made mostly out of air are notoriously difficult to move around. So I packaged them up with grease paper and string. I'll admit, I got a bit theatrical with it. Still, my sugary brood survived the 236 bus. Made a well deserved entrance. And immediately were crumbled into Eton Mess.

I miss Christmas holidays. Sniff.