Housekeepers Carousel

Hello Darlings, August is quite the perfect time to go for a ride on the Carousel don’t you think, and as it’s been such a long time since the last one, this ride is jam packed with lovely inspiration…
So might I suggest you go pour yourself a long tall glass of raspberry lemonade, then drag  your computer into the garden(should the rain ever stop) and lose yourself in a little bit of Brocante style scrumptiousness?
* First up, Kate Moss’s wedding to die for. Though I am knee high in wedding magazines and addicted to both Ruffled and Rock My Wedding, it’s Kate’s wedding that has really floated my lacy boat, though this festival of froth and rock is a million miles away from what my own little celebration is shaping up to be… Go read the article and watch the wedding video on Vogue…
* Now, (because I bet you thought I had forgotten!) the winner of last weeks Housekeeping Superstar competition was HerbGardener who’s name was picked by random number generator after she retweeted my post and found herself with her name in the hat, so everything in the Brocante store is winging it’s way to her as we speak. But don’t despair if you didn’t win: in retrospect I should have waited to post this little competition until September as there were very few entries while we were all on holiday and playing with the kids, so look out for another chance to win come the Autumn…
* Next: this utterly gorgeous example of style over divine substance. A stunning video featuring a stylised recipe for beet cake that had me swooning for the sheer pretty joy of it…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlbE1Kdfz6E&w=480&h=349]
* Now “Don’t For Boys”: though I can’t find any further information about this little public domain book, it is full of the kind of  scrumptiously old-fashioned earnest advice you hope you impart to your child by emotional osmosis…
“Don’t trifle with your constitution. The strongest is breakable.”
” Don’t stammer before a great personage. To a bright boy the possibility of becoming equally exalted should remove all awkwardness.”
“If you know your ideas are worth money, set up your stand in the market place and stick to your price”
Invaluable.

* Next up, something utterly bewildering. Ella Valentine eggs. Eggs made for baking. Eggs that come in a pink box with a gingham wrapper. Eggs that are eggs that are eggs surely? I mean really: is this the worst kind of insult to throw at the female consumer or genius marketing at it’s very best? I don’t know and will need to try them before I can tell you whether fashion led eggs are the way forward when it comes to cupcakes. They would certainly look pretty in the fridge…
* Now, Gatherings Magazine from the ever so wonderful Heather Spriggs. I know many of you will have flicked through this pretty Issuu, but I wanted to mark it here because the first edition is abundant with the kind of teeny tiny puttery treats I know you will adore…

* Next The Mary Frances Cookbook. Probably the quirkiest, happiest little adventures you or your little people will ever have with Mary France’s beloved kitchen people. Charming narrative, simple but lovely old fashioned recipes and quite the most darling illustrations you will ever find in a cookbook…Let it grace your iPad today…
* A fabulous article about the much under-rated Stella Gibbons, on the advent of the re-issue of many of her lesser known books after Cold Comfort Farm.
* A French Farmhouse table setting to inspire you to fall in love with hydrangeas all over again on Dreamy Whites.
* A recipe for (skinny-100 calorie) red velvet cookies even a bride to be could snaffle as a teeny tiny treat…
* And finally a quote, because a carousel would not be complete without one. This one from Orson Scott Card, and pertinent in a world that currently seems to threaten much inside our own four walls…
“That’s what so many people didn’t understand about life. The real world is the one within the walls of homes; the outside world, of careers and politics and money and fame, that was the fake world, where nothing lasted, and things were real only to the extent they harmed or helped people inside their homes”
Think only about the real world Sweethearts…