Film Friday: Favourites of 2011

As it's the last Friday of the year I decided to round up my favourite films I saw this year. They are, drum roll please..

• Blue Valentine
• Black Swan
• Submarine
• Beginners
• Bridesmaids
• Midnight in Paris
• 50/50

Did I miss out any good ones? Have a lovely new year folks! x

Monsters & Cluedo

Hello and how was your Christmas? Just wanted to share my Christmas present from Tom. He made me this amazing little animation, do take a look as it is really sweet and very much worth a few minutes of your day! It involves a scary monster! Handmade presents are definitely best. xx

Highlights of 2011

Well, another year is coming to a close, which is a good excuse to look back through the photo archives and pick out a few nice things from the past twelve months. In February I moved into the Convent with Tom. Since then we've enjoyed making it into our home and throwing a few parties in the adjoining Chapel to boot. Also this year I visited friends in Chicago for the first time, went on a rainy but fun camping trip to Wales, helped my Nan move house and met up with other nice bloggers at the London Craftacular. I hope next year brings more fun travels and the chance to meet up with other bloggers out there too.

Thanks for reading and have a very happy new year all! x Laura


January - taking Baby Blue for a tour of Nottingham

February - moving day takes its toll on Tom


March - pancake time!


April - learning to fly in Anglesey


May - getting the Chapel ready for my birthday party


June - A walk with my Aunt & Dad near my Nan's house just before she moved


July - Lighting lanterns at Tom & Ollie's annual shimmy in the shire


August- Skimming stones on the Blue Lake, Wales


September - Tom's first gig with his band, Nordenfelt


October - We visited friends in Chicago


November- Showing my Nan the comic I made for her birthday


December - Merry Christmas one & all!

Merry Christmas time! x

Film Friday: It's a Wonderful Life

Well what better film to watch the night before Christmas Eve? Tom has never seen it so I won't spoil it for him (though I think he has seen a lot of clips over the years, this must be the most common film to be referenced in other things!). I love James Stewart and this is of course one of his greatest roles.

8 Singers of Christmas

My illustration, above, is up on the ace Amelia's Magazine today accompanying an article featuring Amelia's favourite Christmas albums of 2011, go check it out! I quite fancy getting hold of the 'For Folk's Sake' album, it sounds really good.

Today i dug out my Sufjan Stevens boxset though which always makes it feel like Christmas, this song being a favourite. What's your favourite Christmas album to listen to this time of year?

Rocking around the Christmas Tree

Well we're all festived up here in our corner of the Convent. We've got the tree decorated as you can see in the slightly manic animation below! And we've made our way through quite a few Christmas films already (home alone, jingle all the way, national lampoon's christmas vacation, bad santa, scott pilgrim- not strictly christmassy but features a lot of snow!) and a few TV specials (the office, simpsons, seinfeld).

Apart from that these past few weeks have been pretty darn busy with Christmas shopping, birthdays and other events and I'm more than ready to just relax for a few days over the Christmas break. Not long to go now!






Messing around with the zoom!

Getting a bit excited dancing around our tree!

Film Friday: Bad Santa

Watched this for the first time recently and really enjoyed it! Bad Santa is a comedy starring Billy Bob Thornton who poses as an in-store Santa in order to plan a massive robbery in the mall on Christmas Day. This film isn't really aimed at kids, as Santa swears a lot, drink a lot and er, likes women a lot too. But when he meets a misfit kid, who gets bullied on the way to school he starts to change his priorities. Well, a little bit anyway.

A Portrait

Kate was the lucky winner of my recent giveaway. I drew this portrait of her and Thom and posted it out to her earlier in the week. They make a very sweet couple so it was fun to draw.

If you would like a similar portrait of you or a loved one just drop me an email to missmillward at gmail.com for more information!

Laura x

O Christmas Tree

On Saturday we bought a tree for the flat, here is a quick little comic I drew about it (although i come across as a bit whiny, poor Tom!). (Also, apologies for the lack of a proper ending!) You can see how happy we were about it in the picture above! Although the tree is quite small it's potted so we can plant it afterwards and it will hopefully grow over the years.

Winter meals

Lately we've had a few nice wintery meals I thought I'd share here. (I've realised 3 out of 4 inolve cheese though, I seem to find it hard to cook without it!)

Macaroni Cheese

Yesterday I made Macaroni Cheese from this recipe and it was delicious! For some reason around Christmas we tend to cook this, it's becoming something of a tradition!

Welsh Rarebit

Love a little bit of Welsh Rarebit for lunch. In case you've never tried it (not sure if this recipe is popular outside the UK?) it's toast topped with a mixture of cheese, egg and Worcestershire Sauce.

Chunky Winter Broth

Tom made this last week and it was a healthy and tasty winter's meal. (Someone in the comments suggested adding pasta which I think would make it a bit more filling as it seemed quite watery at first!)

Potato Dauphinoise

I've wanted to try this for a while, it was a lovely way of using potatoes without resorting to the usual mash/roast combinations. Yummy! Here's the recipe I used.

Film Friday: 50/50

This week I went to watch a new film, 50/50, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a young man called Adam who is diagnosed with serious cancer of the spine and given a 50% chance of survival. It is a story based upon the true life experiences of writer Will Reiser, a good friend of Seth Rogen who plays Adam's best friend in the film.

I was a little worried that the film would be upsetting, and it was. But along with the harrowing moments of watching Adam struggle with his illness there are moments of laughter and comedy too. Overall it's a story about friendship and survival through tough times. I thought the acting was really good and I would really recommend it. Has anyone else seen it yet? What did you think?

What's on your bookshelf?

Back in May I started a series of posts documenting what lies on our huge bookshelves (do you see tom in the picture above? He's busy recording music in his music cupboard!).

A few lovely readers joined in too, and I thought it would be nice to bring the series back for the winter. So here is another shelf from our cabinet, this time containing things I got from my grandmother's house when we were having a clear out when she moved a few months ago. She had to give away quite a lot of books but luckily I rescued a few favourites that needed to be kept.

1 A photo of my grandmother on her 21st birthday, isn't she pretty?

2 Old Ladybird books

3 I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith - this was recommended to me by my grandmother and I remember reading it when I was younger and really enjoying it. It's now one of my favourite books.

4 Swallows & Amazons Series by Arthur Ransome. I loved these stories as a kid and as an adult I think the book covers are so beautiful, they definitely add to the books' charm. These copies belonged to my mother who passed away when I was a teenager. I hope to one day pass them down to someone who appreciates them as much as I do.

5 Painted stones. These were painted by my mum, there is quite a collection of bits and bobs she created. She was brilliant at art and hopefully I inherited a bit of her creativity too.

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Would you like to contribute to the bookshelf series? If so just leave me a comment or email.

Lovely things I spotted recently...

Dancer peg-dolls, spotted on She Draws

How to make glittery Christmas banners via Katie's Pencil Box

Is it too late to make an advent calendar? This one is made by petit pot

Hand stamped gift wrap, via design sponge

I'd really like to try this watercolour lettering, how pretty? via apartment therapy

365 Lucky Days

I just discovered the blog of Lucky Jackson who is creating a hand made embroidery every day for a year. Each week has a different theme (80s teen idol week is a personal fave) They are pretty amazing, see more on her blog here.

Film Friday: The Station Agent

This little known film was recommended to me by Tom a while ago and when we saw it was available to watch in iPlayer I finally had chance to give it a watch. The Station Agent is about a man, born with dwarfism, whose friend has just died, leaving him with his house - a train depot in rural New Jersey. Although he craves solitude, he can't seem to avoid bumping into several friendly characters who live nearby - a hot dog vendor, an artist and a librarian (played by Michelle Williams). I'd definitely recommend searching out this film if you haven't already seen it, it is a very simple yet sweet story with some really moving and funny moments too.

Giveaway Winner!

And the winner of the giveaway is... person number 6 to have commented - ThatKate! Hurray, I will drop you an email soon Kate.

(And if anyone wondered what the top Christmas films were, I totted them up and Home Alone and Nightmare Before Christmas both came out on top! Good choices!)