BACK TO THE FUTURE

Sundays are the only day Matt and I seem to get free anymore so we've been spending them wisely lately, taking trips to our favourite places, thinking about what we'll do in the future, talking about exciting wedding plans, giggling and forever searching for new tearooms and trying out amazing cakes.

Last Sunday we decided to visit Lincoln, where we used to live and realised we do miss it and it's very dear in our hearts. We talked about how lovely it would be to renovate an old house, have breakfast in the garden and start a little family, scooping up our belongings and our baby rabbit to live in a historic city sounds like the absolute dream.

A giant Starbucks and lots of tiny paces up a very steep hill later, we took in the epic grandeur of the cathedral, pointed at cute little houses and oohed and aahhed at all the little trinkets, teas and cakes we found in the tiny treasure troves that Lincoln has. I lit a candle and wrote a prayer for those lovely people we are now without and that we miss with all our hearts, I hope they are somewhere peaceful with endless tea and laughter and cake always. Speaking of cake, we had the most amazing peanut butter and chocolate cake from Bunty's that is perfectly perched on the slope of Steep Hill. It was wonderful!

Afterwards we contemplated ice cream but decided we'd rather have a lovely meal out together so we could talk more about wedding plans and other lovely things but the place we were hoping to dine in was fully booked to the brim, we shall visit again one day. We headed home as the sun was going down, back to our little family life with our bunny we missed so much and had a lovely night in with chinese food and good films.

Hope you had a darling weekend lovelies. What are your favourite places to visit?

LET THEM EAT CAKE

I love spending afternoons laughing and catching up with the lovely ladies in my life, my mum, my auntie and my great grandma. It's a wonderful thing to have to have over 4 generations in a room at the same time. I hope when I'm in my golden years that I can still laugh, play the piano like a pro (she  played effortlessly for me, it was like being at my own gig, amazing!) and paint and find everything hilarious. My mum and auntie are the same and it's wonderful.

Here's to more tea and cake and giggling like teenagers.

the simple things

Happy Friday lovelies, hope you've all had a darling week, full of mini milks, sunny afternoons & midnight bubble baths. This week I've been illustrating, drinking lots of tea as usual, picking out sundresses & floral collared shirts to wear, playing with our little rabbit and constantly checking the progress of our grass in our back garden, all of this sunshine has meant it's actually grown! Hooray! 

I'd love to do some progress posts & advice for complete beginners of how to actually keep things growing in their little space of floral loveliness, a place to sip strawberry drinks in the summer, host barbecues, relax amongst honeysuckles, roses and picnic blankets, a place to dream about the future and laugh until your sides hurt, a place to look up at the stars and wonder what's out there, thinking about how amazing it all is. 

It's so strange, I feel that nearing my twenty sixth birthday I'm actually catching up with myself, feeling more and more like I did on my fifth birthday where I told my dad that I absolutely did not want to be a six year old and crying about it. But then as you grow older you're totally thankful and sometimes amazed that you've reached another year older, thinking about all the wonderful things, no matter how small that you've done and achieved and wondering about all the amazing experiences that will fill your life as you move through it all. 

This summer has been so lovely so far, and I'm so looking forward to all the summers to come, especially next year as Matt and I will be married and that is a new adventure! So the rain is here now, which is the perfect opportunity to make another tea! 

What are your summer plans? Future plans! I'd love to hear about them. 

TUESDAY WISHLIST #4

Tea and sleep are very much on my Tuesday wish list, things haven't been great lately but thankfully I have lovely illustrations to keep my mind busy.

We lost our little rabbit on Sunday afternoon and miss him terribly, our home isn't the same without him, we were the three musketeers, a small family. We're remembering his little face, his vibrancy, the way he'd always greet us and his constant affection. He was so loved and he loved everyone.

Hope you're all having a lovely week.

TUESDAY WISHLIST #2

001 black floral playsuit | this pretty little number is from miss selfridge and i'm totally smitten, i love the shape and pattern, super cute for summer time & i'd pair with tights for early autumn days.

002 topshop nail varnish in disclosed | the perfect pastel mint colour for nails in spring time, i'm a big fan of the topshop nail colours although sometimes pastel shades of any brand can take a while to build up opacity.

003 asos molly t-bar shoes | these shoes are just adorable and the peppermint colour makes them so unique!

004 vanilla milkshake | this is just because vanilla milkshakes are always good!

005 tall tea mug by indigo | obviously i love tea and i'm a tea cup hoarder, i bought two others last week, what was i thinking. this mug is simple and would make a great addition to any mug collection, hello studio time with tea.

FRIDAY LOVES: BREAKFAST FOOD EDITION

Spring days put me in the best mood, sunshine in the mornings is meant for fresh breakfasts to set you up for the rest of your lovely day. A lot of the time I'm still in my pyjamas late morning on weekends and it becomes more of a brunch thing, usually in a rush. But I do like to take twenty minutes or so with a hot tea in my reusable starbucks cup, yummy wholegrain toast with cream cheese and cucumber & then an apple for on the go, not forgetting some gum for my bag.

What's your favourite spring time breakfasts?

FRIDAY LOVES: NIGHTS IN EDITION

Untitled #38 

001 saturday nights lately | Since subscribing to netflix we've been finishing off tv shows that we'd started watching. One I've been desperate to finish was season 2 of AHS, Asylum because I'm dying to see season 3, Coven. So it's amazing, if not a little graphic, no spoilers but definitely don't eat when you're watching it! The cast are amazing and Sarah Paulson was definitely my favourite in season 2, her character Lana Winters was the heroine you were desperate to survive until the end, although Lily Rabe as Sister Mary Eunice was also incredible! 

002 Reusable Starbucks cups with my favourite tea, currently Yorkshire Gold. I'm gonna have to purchase more of my all time favourite, Teapigs everyday brew because it's awesome and I miss it. 

003 Topshop nail polishes are a welcome edition to nights in, this one in Cloak and Dagger matched perfectly with endless episodes of AHS

004  In other news, we've booked our lovely wedding, I've been making lists and collages, would you like to see wedding related blog posts? Leave me a 'hell yeah' in the comments if you would. 

BECAUSE IT LOOKS LIKE THAT YOU'VE GOT MORE TO LEARN

I love Saturday mornings, soaking up the sunshine in the conservatory, talking over plans and adventures. The weekends are for making zines, illustrating loveliness, family times, date nights.

What do you like doing on Saturdays?

PASTEL SATURDAYS

image: weheartit

Drinking tea, wearing florals, making travel plans. I need to catch up with Game Of Thrones after becoming obsessed with Vampire Diaries (who else is excited for season five?) I'd really love to read the books but don't want to spoil it. I'm a total sucker for a supernatural series, coveting shows like Supernatural and American Horror Story.

Lately Matt and I have been loving forest walks and soaking up the sun in our little garden, then pulling down the blinds and snuggling up with the latest season of GOT under a huge floral blanket. Tea and victoria sponge cake from M&S is the perfect way to spend a weekend.

How do you like spending early spring weekends?

FELICITY JONES / MINI ZINE

I adore Felicity Jones, she's adorable and such a talented actress in some of my favourite films Chalet Girl and Cemetery Junction as well as crushing on Wednesday Addams, Clueless & the Drive soundtrack. So I've made a mini zine based on her gorgeous style, brunette locks, doe eyes and pretty pout. In pastel colours and six pages of Felicity prettiness, a little treat for yourself, a new edition to your zine collection, super sweet to send to you BFF. Order yours here.

SUPER, SUPER FRESH

So you lovelies know how much I love tea, my twitter name is @natashalikestea, so I really love it. My weekend treat and absolute must is the super delicious everyday brew from Teapigs. I usually pop one of their silky tea triangles into a huge Cath Kidston mug, this makes for an epic tea which lasts a while. It always makes me happy, sometimes I'll have to make another just because it's so yummy! You can always find me illustrating away in my studio with a mug of this. This tea is amazing with breakfast or on a rainy afternoon, it's a great pick me up and I've been sharing it with everyone I know. I've tried some of their other delectable flavours too and I adore their chocolate flake tea, which makes a super healthy alternative to the classic tea and biscuit/ chocolate bar combination. I don't know how Teapigs do it, but they are definitely top of the all time best cups of tea! Thanks Teapigs for making such a fab product! They're on twitter too, catch up with all things tea on there.

I'm always on the lookout for lovely teas so if you know any other great brands like Teapigs I'd love to hear about them and give them a go.

WE'RE NEVER DONE WITH KILLING TIME

Hello lovelies, how are you today? Any good plans for the weekend? I'm finding January half good and exciting, a fresh start and all that but then the other half is just this huge pending gloom, mountains of work and jobs that keep mounting up and just generally feeling a little glum. But it doesn't have to be that way, I'm finding taking little steps to help organise my day, taking on smaller tasks makes things found much less daunting. I've found myself having this constant collection of desk essentials which help me through the busy of days.

IPAD ♥ this amazing little device is the mini version which I kindly and very generously given to me for Christmas by my lovely fiancee Matt. His thoughts behind this were that it would help me with all my freelance work as well as being super handy or catching up with episodes of Sherlock on the bbc iplayer app, the power of technology! I've found it so helpful, it's like a bigger version of my phone but I'm able to do so much more without it being restrictive or miniscule. It's a great way of staying connected with social media too, it's like a diary, youtube viewer, blog updater, sketchbook, inspiration portal all in one! Well done, Apple.

BENETINT lip balm ♥ ooh this is totally brilliant, it's a hydrating companion (what?!) and if I find myself looking ghostly pale or in need of a quick injection of lip balm then this baby is always on hand.

MINI SCHEDULER ♥ I picked up this adorable little diary from Artbox many moons ago, yep I'm one of those stationery hoarders! I have shelves and shelves of pretty paper books and cards that I just can't bring myself to write in, it's like psyching yourself up to jump off something high or plunge into a cold pool (is that just me as well?) Anyway, these mini schedulers are blank, genius! So they never run out and you can be as precious or as messy as you like because you fill them in for the month/ year that's relevant to you. This one is exceptionally tiny, so it's probably not great for those of us who have big handwriting, you have to have handwriting the size of a baby bunny's paw. But they're still great, they come in loads of sizes too so there's one for everyone. Perfect for dropping in your bag and you've always got somewhere to write your notes/ ideas/ dates/ meetings etc!

There's also usually a scattering of mechanical pencils (which I love) on my desk, along with tea in a Disney cup of choice, stacks of the latest magazines, and lost nail varnishes (where do they come from?) 

I'd love to hear about items you find helpful, what gets you through the day whether it's busy or chilled? Share your desk essentials! 

BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE

Hello lovelies, how is November treating you? I'm feeling really festive, wanting to burn cinnamon-y candles, bake mince pies for everyone (still haven't yet though, oops!), watch Christmas films although we haven't managed to do a whole lot of sparkly Christmas marathoning because we've been super busy making our living room pretty! Hurrah! Don't you love diy! I'm starting to fall out with it a bit but then you have a lovely new space and it's cool then.

I still have to track down an advent calendar! Have you lovelies got yours yet? I don't think you ever really grow out of that, is twenty-odd too old?! Nooo, I think while I still get asked for ID it's a perfect excuse for buying chocolate meant for children. What are you darlings most looking forward to over November/ December? Let me know, I love reading about everyone's plans & traditions!

In the meantime (whilst listening to my super festive mixtape) I'm packing up lovely orders for you guys! I still have spaces left for custom portrait commissions (psst there's still a huge 20% off too!) if you lovelies want to tweet me @natashalikestea or send me an email velvetwolves@live.com I'd love to hear from you! Have a lovely week darlings!

SHE WAY OUT

Some Audrey Hepburn inspired pastel drawings I did a while back

THEY HAVE A SECRET WORLD IN THE TWILIGHT

This last week my sister has been to stay and so we've been a little bit addicted to top knots and messy waves, tea, endless episodes of the inbetweeners, dreaming of autumn, cherry hair, picking up wooly jumpers, burning pumpkin candles, lots of laughing, the most amazing great expectations (the douglas booth one), pretty cakes and impromptu dancing to Beyonce ♥

pictures weheartit,com

I DON'T WANT TO BE HOW THEY WANT ME TO BE

Afternoons in the bitter cold but my sister and I tried to cheer ourselves up with early easter treats and looked at all the pretty things in the shop windows. There are so many lovely places to visit that I see almost every day and it's really nice to have time to appreciate them. Hurry up Spring!