Country Living bookazines

I recently purchased two Country Living bookazines, entitled 'Handmade style' and 'Create your own Country Home'. Both are 292 pages of glossy beautiful photographs, brilliant articles, excellent sourcebooks and useful tips on how to create your own dream home no matter what you budget. Avid readers of the magazine may notice some repeats in the photographs or the articles, but for the casual reader I would definitely recommend these fantastic magazines to keep as they encompass all areas of styling and decorating a country home.

I've picked some of my favourite spreads below to show the fantastic photography, articles and layouts, perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon read out in the garden.

How to guides show what to do with fabric scraps or an old battered suitcase

Beautiful photography highlights colour schemes, household items or beautiful florals and how to use them in your own space.

Decorating ideas give you tips on how to use colour, fabric and texture to create your perfect look

Articles on english craftspeople who take you inside their studios and show you how they create their beautiful pieces

Gorgeous layouts and complimentary photography to tempt you in to each article

Gorgeous inspiration pages for each room in your house

A Day Trip to Oxford

My friend decided that for her Birthday she wanted to take a day trip to Oxford, so that is what we did! We drove to the Park & Ride at Peartree, and the got the bus from there (I would really recommend this as parking and driving around Oxford is notoriously difficult, plus you get to see some of the lovely houses for a bit of a snoop on your way in!) 

Once there we didn’t really have a plan, and set off for a wander around all of the fabulous buildings including the Bodelian Library, Radcliffe Camera, Ashmolean museum and the English version of the Bridge of Sighs, Hertford Bridge.

I have never really spent any time in Oxford, and to get the opportunity to have a wander and look at all of the fabulous buildings. Usually you can go in and have a look around the colleges, but we found that some of them were in the middle of the end of year celebrations, and saw several students wandering blearily around dressed in their robes and garbed in silly string!

There are also some fabulous shops in Oxford including Blackwells bookshop, a haven for anything wordy, a great artshop containing an excellent selection of prints and art and design books, a great covered market selling everything from leather satchels to the catch of the day and The Grand Cafe, England's first coffee house according to Samuel Pepy's Diary of 1650. It really is an amazing looking tea room however unfortunately we were too full to partake, but pressing our noses up against the windows, the baked goods looked amazing!

Birthday Baking...Summer Sausage Rolls, Chicken and Sausagemeat Pies and Chocolate and Cherry Birthday Cake

I had a few days off before my birthday this year, and the majority of my time seemed to be taken up with baking, which was fantastic! However I did manage to fit in a few other things such as a spot of shopping, a trip to Oxford and No.1 Court tickets to Wimbledon!

I had quite a varied menu to prepare for, I made Summer Sausage Rolls and Millionaire’s Shortbread to take into work, individual chicken and sauasagemeat pies to take in my picnic to Wimbledon and my Chocolate and Cherry Birthday cake for Sunday afternoon tea along with more sausage rolls and sultana scones.

Summer Sausage Rolls

I found this recipe on the BBC Good Food website and I can thoroughly recommend it. In fact I made a quantity and a half to make sure that there were enough to go around and to completely use up a pack of puff pastry. The flavours are fantastic and only improve the day after baking. Don’t be tempted to put more than one clove of garlic in even if you make a quantity an a half, otherwise the flavour will overwhelm all of the other lovely ingredients. The inclusion of the sundried tomatoes and basil is great and adds a lovely summery fresh flavour. You may think that the rolls may be such a different texture to a sausage roll that you may be used to, but once the chicken and bacon has been diced, it melds into a great texture. One final tip, make sure that you make enough for everyone as it is impossible to eat just one of these!

Individual Chicken and Sausagemeat Pies

For the last couple of years my mum has used a fantastic recipe for a Christmas pie that always goes down fantastically hot or cold. I always enjoy it at that time of year so I was keen to see if I could adapt the recipe so that it could be used all year round. I decided to omit all of the fruit and keep just the chicken and seasoned sausage meat mixed with softened red onions. I bought individual pie dishes from Lakeland (If you want to make a proper double-crusted pie, a metal pie dish is essential) as I thought that their individual size would make them perfect to take on a picnic. I used shortcrust pastry on the bottom, a layer of sausage, then chicken, then sausage then a puff pastry lattice lid. Individual pies obviously take a slightly shorter time to cook than a large pie, so keep an eye on them if you are adapting a larger pie recipe. I worked from the large recipe and found I had enough sausage but too much chicken and pastry, so I will need to work on my quantities for next time I make these. I already have ideas for all sorts of individual pie treats including steak and ale and chicken, ham and leek!

Chocolate and Cherry Cake

As has now become a bit of a tradition over the last few years, my yearly birthday cake as usual had to be something spectacular! I decided to steer away from a sugarpaste covered cake from the last few years, and once more delved into my favourite Mich Turner cookery book and chose a chocolate and cherry cake covered with ganache and decorated with fresh cherries. The cherries used in the cake are soaked in vintage port overnight, and then folded gently into the mixture. The cake comes out of the oven looking almost like a brownie with a papery cracked top, but fantastically flat so great for decorating! The recipe stated to use a ganache buttercream to put onto the cake as a crumb coat first of all, but I thought that might be a bit of overkill, so I stuck with just using the ganache to decorate it.

Tips for working with Ganache: When recipes mention pouring ganache over cakes, it always fills me with trepidation, and because of this I have never actually tried it. I find you get exactly the same effect by allowing the ganache to cool and using a palette knife to spread it over the cake. You get the same shine and the same finish, but without the heartbreak of losing some of it to your counter and your sponge cloth. 

I always try and leave cake and ganache separately overnight before putting the two together. If when you come to spread it over the cake, your ganache is too hard, put the glass bowl over a pan of boiling water poured from the kettle. Keep stirring and watch carefully until it gets to the desired consistency. If it goes too far, don’t worry, let it cool down a bit, better to be too runny than too hard or it will pull crumbs out of your cake. 

When working with ganache, dollop a large amount on the top on the cake, and then using the palette knife carefully spread it and work it down over the sides, this way you wont be in any danger of dropping a dollop on the counter and it can be more controlled.

When piping, the ganache needs to be a little harder. Do not waste money on a fancy piping bag holder, a tall glass will do the job just fine. Add the desired nozzle to the bag, put the bag in the glass, fold the sides over the top and voila, a piping bag stand! 

The Nest - Velux Window and Tab Top Curtains

In my new apartment, we have a mixture of Velux and normal windows. For ease of use and visual interest, we have decided to go for blinds at three windows, tab top curtains for the easy to reach windows and also curtains on the Velux windows. These will be completed by fixing a metal cafe rod to the top and bottom of each of the windows, and sliding curtains curtains onto the poles so that they slide open and closed, with ties on the back to keep them open. 

I roped my expert curtain maker (my mum!) in to help with this project (she's amazing at turning my every fabric whim into reality) 

The below photos show the process of making the curtains for the velux windows, whist the photo on the bottom shows hand sewing the cream pompoms onto the bottom of the tab top curtains. These pompoms will also feature on the blackout blinds that we plan to use in the kitchen, landing and study.

Making the ties for the back of the Velux window curtains

Attaching the ties to the back of the Velux curtains

Measuring and pinning the curtains

Pinning the pockets for the cafe rods to slide through

Hand sewing the pompon trim to the bottom of the tab top curtains

The Nest - Chair Upholstery

After the success of painting the chairs, I have been focussing on upholstering the seat pads and the backs for the last couple of weekends. I have never tried upholstery before, but I can now confirm that you need a lot of patience plus nerves and fingertips of steel!

The seat pads were fairly simple. We added extra padding to the seats with a layer of wadding, and then attached a layer of white fabric (Old sheet is excellent for this if you have one lying around) over the top and attached it in each corner. To cover the pad, I cut a piece of fabric to size, and then pressed a small seam allowance to neaten the edges. To make sure that the fabric is stretched evenly, attach the corners first, using a staple gun (Make sure you have a good quality one, ours was a little old and cranky and we spent the majority of the time removing wobbly and ineffective staples!).

It helps if you have a couple of willing volunteers for this task, as you need a lot of hands to make sure that the fabric tension is correct and it isn't pulling in any strange directions. This isn't so important with a floral or a plain material, but with a stripe it's essential! Neaten the corner sections by pulling each side over the top, and stapling firmly in place. Mark the fabric lightly with a pencil to show where the holes are for screwing the pad back to the chair.

Carefully measure the fabric to make sure you have enough

Two hands are always better than one!

Stapling the fabric in place

Marking the screw holes onto the back of the seat pad 

(When it comes to screwing the pad in place, cut the fabric slightly to create a small hole, otherwise the screw will pull the fabric)

The finished pad back in the seat.

The backs of the chairs were a little more difficult to say the least...! To make them easier to remove for cleaning, I decided on an envelope closure with buttons and reinforced with velcro, rather than sewing them directly to the chair. We managed to get three backs completed today, but the fourth defeated us. The last one had a slightly knobbly section on the underside of the back that completely threw out the alignment of the stripes, and we decided it was wise to leave it for another day before we threw it out of the window in anger!

However, before that it all went swimmingly! Using the fabric that we took off as a template, we cut out the fabric and attached interfacing to the inside to give a better finish. We sewed around the curves at the top, and fitted it tightly to the top corners. We pressed the sides of the fabric to the correct width to wrap around the chair, attached the velcro with the ribbon fastening and then covered the buttons for the fastening. We then put the cover onto the chair, wrapped the bottom section up to the top, and then hand sewed the buttons on in the correct place. I am really pleased with the three that we completed, and this is only overshadowed by the defeat of the last one, I hate having to leave a project unfinished for another week!

Covering your own buttons

Cut out the circles of fabric for that you want to use for your buttons using the template on the back of the pack

Sew a loose running stitch around the outside of the circle, making sure that you have a knot in the end of your thread.

Place the button without the back in the middle of the circle

Gather the fabric around the button using the loose thread. Smooth any wrinkles around the edge using your fingers

Make sure that the fabric is as smooth as possible and then snap the back on to the button

Covering the chair backs

Pinning the fabric and interfacing to follow the shape of the corners

Snipping the fabric to smooth the corners 

Pressing the sides to fold around the back

Showing the velcro strips and the ribbon fastening for the buttons.

Placing the buttons, checking that the loops are the correct size and then hand sewing to attach

 The finished dining room chair with one of the next Sherlock chairs (currently minus its legs!)