DIY Gift: Photo Frame

I made this as a present to one of my favourite gals, and guess what... she loved it!!

Honestly, DIY gifts carry so much more sentimental than bought gifts.

This Personalised Photo Frame is super easy peasy to make too...

What you'll need:

• Photo Frame
• Photographs & quotes
• Glue (I used Pritt stick)
• Scissors
• Craft accessories like stickers etc...

Step 1) Find cute pics & quotes which you know your friend will love. I printed the photos on 5x7 photo paper for a more professional finish.

Step 2) Organise & glue your chosen photos onto some cardboard, the same size of the glass for the frame.

Step 3) This part is completely up to you, you can keep it simple with just photographs or make it more rustic and personalised with accessories & decor. I used train tickets, stickers, feathers and pattern card.

Step 4) Assemble the glass and the backboard of the frame once the glue had dried.

Step 5) Take pics for insta of how tumblr your frame looks

(or you could wrap it for the recipient of the gift of course... probably the better choice)

Festive Chocolate Brownies

If you're tired from super sweet candy canes or bored to death of cinnamon spice (and all things nice) then this recipe is for you! Trust me I was so close to adding a dash of mixed spice or pumpkin pie spice, but I controlled my urges for the sake of keeping it simple and classic.

With all the unhealthy foods being digested this holiday, you'd expect this one to be too. HOWEVER, you are mistaken!  Sweet potatoes are incredible: they're bursting with nutritional goodness with all their antioxidants, and their anti-inflammatory properties, as well as being awesome blood sugar-regulators. Furthermore,  raw cacao is also a superfood as it is such an insanely rich source of antioxidants, one of the best in the world, as well as being packed with a number of other beneficial nutrients: manganese, which helps oxygenate the blood; magnesium, which helps maintain healthy bodily nerves, muscles and bones; and sulphur, which builds strong nails and hair, and promotes beautiful skin.

Not too sweet or spiced this brownie is:

• Gooey
• Soft
• Moist
• Squidgy 

*This recipe is adapted from Deliciously Ella

Ingredients: 

Mixture: 

– 2 medium to large sweet potatoes (600g)

– 2/3 of a cup of ground almonds (80g)

– 1/2 a cup of buckwheat or brown rice flour (100g)

– 14 medjool dates

– 4 tablespoons of raw cacao

– 3 tablespoons of pure maple syrup

– a pinch of salt

Optional Additions:

- Handful of chopped brazil nuts

- Handful of cranberries

- tsp of pumpkin seeds

- tsp zest of an orange

You'll also need a peeler and sharp knife. Preheat oven to 180C Fan.

Peel, chop and steam both potatoes until they're soft

In a separate bowl (while the potatoes are steaming) add the dry ingredients, then the maple syrup and mix well. 

Once the sweet potatoes are soft, add them to a food processor with the dates and blend till a smooth, rich paste is formed.

Add in the wet mixture to the dry chocolate bowl and combine together.

Add in the extras (I'd recommend) and stir in.

Add brownie mixture to a baking tray and smooth with a damp spatula. Then bake for 25-30 minutes until crisp on top. 

Once cooked, cut into 10 squares and dust with icing sugar & serve.

I found these went really well paired with some ice cream!

Hope you try out this recipe, have an amazing christmas and dig in...

DIY: Candy Cane sugar scrub

DIY Christmas presents are the best. They're thoughtful and personalised. This was one of the funnest, most rewarding one i've made. This sugar scrub looks expensive and professional and the smell is to die for!

What you'll need:

• 1/2 cup (4 oz.) granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup (2 oz.) coconut oil, melted (preferably organic)
• red food coloring
• peppermint extract 
• rose essence/extract 

I used this as rough guide, and altered it as i went along. If you need more of anything just add a little at a time.

Melt the coconut oil in the microwave and pour over sugar.

Stir then separate into two bowls. Add the food colouring to one of them and throughly mix in.

I popped the bowls in the freezer for 3 minutes just slightly set the mixture.


After 3 minutes start layering each colour in a jar. I used an old glass coconut oil jar.


Fill all the way to the top alternating every time.

I finally added a M as the person i'm giving this to is called Molli. Adding an initial makes it personalised and a much better gift in my opinion. I was super happy with the result and hope she likes it!

If you try it out be sure to send me a picture
Jess
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DIY - Tumblr inspired notebooks

Jazzing up your back to school supplies by personalising them with your favourite tumblr posts!

I've seen tonnes of back-to-school Diy's over the internet lately so i decided to try my own!

So let's turn this boring old notebook into a fabulous fun one!

First things first, go on tumblr and find your pictures. I went through my 'hearted' ones and also searched 'overlays' to get the cute accessories.

Now cut them out exactly around their edges to give a finished and professional look.

You will now want to place the pictures around and see how it looks. Switch them up to make it to your taste. You want to leave a section in the middle for your name or subject.

Next, you want to glue them down! The overlays look really good when overlapped on your bigger pictures.

Make a place card with your name or subject on. I just did my name because i don't use notebooks for classes. I used pretty card for the background and stickers for the letters.

Finally, i used washi tape around the title to make it stand out. Now we're done! It was so easy and i'm in love with it!

Hope you liked this post
See you soon
Jess
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Vegan Diet Meal Plans

Hi guys,

This post is full of recipes that are vegan and super healthy. My daily diet doesn't contain any meat and only small amounts of diary meaning it's not hard for me to try veganism. The benefits of trying veganism are great because you're getting loads of fruit and veggies! It also is a pretty high carb diet but I don't really mind that!

So-without- further a do here are my vegan example meals, whether you are just trying to incorporate healthier meals to your life or trying full time veganism.... ENJOY.


DAY 1

Breakfast

To start the day off right, I made my daily porridge. It is made with almond milk (recipe here) organic porridge oats, chia seeds, coconut oil, then topped with bananas, strawberries, blueberries and coconut flakes.

This is such a great breakfast as it provides you with tonnes of energy and because of the chia seeds, fills you up. The chia seeds expand in your stomach making you feel fuller.





Lunch

 For lunch i made an apple and tomato raw dip with some pita, cucumber and pepper slices. I have a major obsession over humus and so decided to try some other, homemade, healthier dips. This dip was made from a recipe book called 'The Raw Food Diet'.

Raw means that the food product hasn't been cooked over 40.6 Celsius. Once the food has been cooked over this, all it's living enzymes and nutrients have been killed. Read more about the diet.

Seeing as the dip was only blended together in a processor it is considered 'raw' and very healthy and beneficial for the body.

Dinner

 Finally I had a spinach, avocado salad with peppers, cucumber and walnuts. I personally find salads really boring without a dressing. This dressing can be found (here.) I made this dressing because it is a lot healthier than mayo or caesar dressings plus it's raw!

Salads are super healthy but not that filling so I had some dessert later on.






Dessert

 This is a super delicious but vegan, raw and healthy dessert! What more could I want??

It's a banana and walnut ice cream with strawberries, blueberries and coconut flakes. (pretty similar to my breakfast, opps)

I made the ice cream by blending 2 frozen bananas, some walnuts, agave nectar and a little bit of coconut water together. Then just topped with the fruit.





DAY 2 

Breakfast

(Sorry for the really bad photography making this look horrible) trust me, this breakfast tastes so much better than it looks. It is the 'Rawtarians breakfast bowl' (recipe here)

The Rawtarians blog is full of great raw vegan recipes from making almond milk to healthy pizza. I would really recommend it to anyone trying to eat more raw. http://www.therawtarian.com/ 






Lunch
I recently bought a vegetarian recipe book from 'The Works' which contains some vegan recipes in too. This is one of them. It is rice with green veg; the veggies are asparagus, green beans and courgette. I LOVED it. It contained Thai green curry paste which i fell in love with! I'm a lover of spice and flavour.

Anyway i used many recipes from this book throughout this post.





Dinner

My Dad is such a good curry maker! This is lentil and spinach curry with corriander and lemon. Adding corriander and lemon is the best decision you will ever make in your life! Well at least as far as curry goes. It adds a sharp and fresh taste to the mildly spicy curry.

The curry is also really light and easily digestible. I LOVED IT...






DAY 3

Breakfast

This morning I drank a green smoothie. It contained spinach, cucumber, banana, apple, maca and coconut water. This is my most simple recipe that tastes really nice. I sometimes will also add a date to make it sweeter.

Maca is a like a protein powder. It great for getting protein in this diet. Seeing as most protein comes from animal products it's important to replace the lost protein with greens and powders like Maca.







Lunch

Lunch was a mixture of pita slices, pepper and tomatoes with a spicy avocado dip. The dip came from the veggie book, it had a kick of spice from the chilli powder but the coolness of the avocado cooled it down.

I had made quiet a lot of the dip meaning i can keep it for the next couple of days in the fridge.






Dinner

This is literally the best cous cous ever! For the cous cous I just poured over enough boiling water to cover it. Then added a vegetable stock and crushed garlic. It contained roasted veggies like red onion, cherry tomatoes, butternut squash ect. Then fresh salad like cucumber, tomatoes, mint and parsley. Finally topped with toasted pine nuts and pomegranate.

I love this cous cous because it's so fresh and summery. Also because you can adapt the roasted vegetables to whatever. Sometimes I include red pepper and courgettes.

DAY 4

Breakfast

Banana buckwheat pancakes are one of my favorite breakfast treats. They can be topped with almost anything! Here i used mango, bananas, blueberries, raspberries and coconut flakes.

I got the recipe from another one of my favorite blogs. (Find it here.)

I don't have these too often but when i do, i fall in LOVE. The best thing about them is that they are healthy AND tasty.




Lunch

For lunch I had some left over cous cous, left over avocado dip, pita and crudities.

Another great thing about the cous cous is that it tastes just as great kept in the fridge for the next day.

The dip was just a delicious too!





Dinner

This is pesto pasta and salad. I really like green pesto on my pasta, it's my fave!

It's much better to use brown pasta than white pasta because it's easier for the stomach to digest.

Also try to pair meals with salad as it helps the stomach to start digesting.







DAY 5

Breakfast

Today i just had the same porridge i had earlier on in the week. Even when i'm not doing a vegan challenge i still eat this! I top it with whatever fruit i have in the house and usually adapt it it the seasons. In winter when fresh fruit isn't available i use dates, dried figs and goji berries.








Lunch

For today's lunch i had a wrap with lettuce, pepper and tomato with the last of the spicy avocado dip and Quorn chicken dippers.

This wrap tasted just as great as normal chicken wraps do! I would definitely recommend it as a substitute for them.

The avocado worked great as a sauce. I would usually have mayo, which really isn't healthy. Or vegan for that matter!





Dinner

For dinner I created something from the vegetarian book. This is a lentil bolognese. The lentils replaced the meat and went down a treat.  The spaghetti I used was spelt. Spelt is an ancient grain which is easier for the stomach to digest. Unfortunately I didn't really know whether they classed as vegan but the ingredients listed no animal product so I guessed they were.

I really enjoyed this version of the classic and would definitely eat to again.






DAY 6

Breakfast

BANANA BUCKWHEAT PANCAKE TIME! My guilty pleasure! The fruit i had with it was peaches, raspberries, strawberries and banana. I also added some coconut flakes, walnuts and almonds for a crunch with agave syrup drizzled over the top. Yum central.






Lunch

Today i made some soup. I roasted some cauliflower, aubergines, courgettes, peppers, tomatoes, onion, celery and chilli in the oven with olive oil, salt and pepper. I then blitzed them together in a blender with 1 pint of vegetable stock.

It was a super creamy perfect soup! The roasting makes the veggies sweet but adding the chilli made an all-round brilliant soup!





Dinner

For dinner my dad made a curry. This used green lentils and spinach. It was SO yummy!

I love to try different things, especially when they originate from different countries... like India! 

I love to travel a lot and just can't wait until i can go travelling around the world!  For now though, while i'm stuck in England, eating different countries cuisines makes me feel like i'm there. That's what i love about the power of food. It can instantly transport you to somewhere else.

DAY 7 

Breakfast

My mum made Kate Magic's buckwheat cereal with strawberries and blueberries. It was a raw take on cereal and tasted quite nice.

I absolutely love buckwheat in breakfasts because of the crunch they give. They really masked the 'crunchy nut corn flake' texture. 

Lunch

For this delicious recipe click here as i have already done a post on my blog about how to make it!

Soup is a great way to stay vegan and healthy!











Dinner

For dinner i had another cous cous recipe. This time it had roasted fennel, courgette, pepper, cherry and salad tomatoes and red onion. I added thyme and rosemary to the vegetables for flavour which worked great!










Dessert

I had tonnes of fruit in the house and was also a bit hungry still.  

This is the frozen banana ice cream i spoke about earlier. This time i topped it with banana, peach, strawberries and blueberries.

I hope you liked my examples of vegan meals. I really enjoyed trying this diet and found loads of new recipes and ingredients to try through it.

See you soon,
Jess
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