Merry Christmas!

Heya :)

It's been a little quiet here on the blog lately as we've been having a lovely time exploring Europe

(so far we've been in Berlin and are now spending Christmas in Prague).

I wanted to pop on quickly though to say hello and to wish you a very happy and safe Christmas!

There will be plenty of travel photos coming to the blog soon, but if you'd like to see a few sneak peeks you can check out my Instagram ;)

Happy Christmas!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

My Style Diary - Anniversary Celebrations at Meeka Restaurant

Good morning and Happy Sunday!

As usual I'm up at a ridiculous hour for a Sunday (but  I love it) and I'm sharing with you photos from last night. Yesterday was Tom and my 7 year anniversary - seriously how has it been seven years?! - and to celebrate we decided to do our usual thing and go out and eat! We had been meaning to try out  Meeka Restaurant for ages (the menu has been up on our fridge to remind us for months) and we figured our anniversary was a perfect excuse to go out for a lovely meal. 

I wore one of my favourite dresses; white and floaty, this Zara number is always a winner in my books, and as it was a little chilly, threw on this relaxed boyfriend-style blazer. I love the look of blazers but rarely wear them as they tend to make me feel too dressy, but tonight the oversized look of this one felt perfect paired with the feminine dress.

Tom also dressed up a little, wearing a checked shirt from Trenery. I love the colours and it's nice to see him in something other than a t-shirt every now and then ;)

We definitely weren't disappointment when it came to the food (see below for photos). The restaurant is middle eastern/Moroccan style and everything we ordered was absolutely delicious. 

The dishes are designed to be shared so we started with a few plates of Mezze; Pumpkin hazelnut falafel pockets, Hummus 3 ways with Meeka mixed breads, and Dates stuffed with goats feta, candied walnuts, lemon rocket shallot salad and toasted pepitas. The dates were my particular favourite - you had the sweetness of the dates mixed with the savoury, slightly salty cheese, and then the textures added a whole other dimension. The chewy dates were wrapped in a sort of crispy noodle type thing (no idea what it actually was) that added a lovely crunch. Every bite was just. so. good!

We then shared a vegetable Tajine served with Couscous and finished off our meal with a pretty awesome dessert; Meeka Doughnuts stuffed with salted caramel, cardamom sugar, chocolate hazelnut caramel swirl ice cream, hazelnut praline, macaron and rose petals. It was a good as it sounds. The only part I wasn't a huge fan of was the Persian fairy floss which was perched atop the icecream. It looked beautiful, but there was something about the flavour/texture I just couldn't quite wrap my head around. (This was a very minor thing and Tom seemed to enjoy it so it's probably just my weird taste buds!)

In addition to the lovely food the restaurant was beautifully decorated and atmospheric and the service was top notch too. If you're in Perth I recommend checking this place out - we'll definitely be back again. 

So that brings me to the end of todays post. I hope you have a beautiful Sunday!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

My Outfit:

Dress - Zara

Blazer - Zara

Bag - Jigsaw

Heels - Country Road

Tom's Outfit:

Shirt - Trenery

Jeans - Calvin Klein

Boots - ?

How To Make A Flower Crown

Today I'm sharing with you how to make a flower crown! Perfect for a wedding, fancy dress or just as a beautiful headpiece to jazz up an outfit.

I originally planned to wear this crown for my wedding, however as this was my first go, it turned out a little bigger than I'd intended (I got a tad carried away adding more and more flowers!) so I'm probably going to make one that's a little more delicate for the big day. 

I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty happy with how this flower crown turned out, so I figured I'd share with you how I created it!

I've made a video (see below) to go along with this post too if you'd prefer to watch rather than read :)

What you'll need:

1)  Florist Wire 

2)  Florist Tape (I used a mixture of the paper and parafilm kind)

3) Flowers (artificial or real) 

4) Greenery of some kind 

5) Wire Cutters

Step 1

Start off by creating a circle with the wire that fits nicely on your head. I was using quite fine wire so I twisted a few pieces together to give it a little added thickness and strength. I then used floral tape to wrap all around the wire so I had a neat base to work with.

Step 2

Position the greenery and start wiring it piece by piece onto the crown, overlapping as you go so that the base of the crown is fully covered.

Step 3 

It's time to start wiring the flowers. I've seen tutorials that say you're supposed to stab the wire through the top of the flower stem and then wrap it around the stem, however as my flowers were artificial, I had difficulty stabbing it through (and a few of the flowers, didn't even have much of a stem to wrap around), so instead I just looped the wire through the little hole at the top and then twisted it down so I had something to work with when attaching the flowers to the crown. It's difficult to explain so if you're confused you can check out the video and you'll be able to see this step more clearly.

I then used the florist tape to wrap and cover the wire

(I didn't want to be stabbed in the head with wire while I was wearing my crown so I may have gone a tad overboard with the tape!)

Step 4

Now comes the most fun part of positioning your flowers and wiring them to the crown.

For me there was definitely a bit of trial and error in this process!

Make sure to keep placing the crown on your head and checking in the mirror as you go, because the crown looks really different once you have it on your head!

This is particularly important if you're using bigger flowers as you want to make sure you're orientating them the correct way. It's also a good way to check that the wires are reasonably well hidden.

Because I wanted the flowers to be on the back of the crown, I just make sure to take lots of photos with the self timer on my camera as I went along to make sure it was coming together the way I wanted!

... and there you have it! :)

I hope it was helpful and I would love to see your creations if you give it a go!

Happy flower crown making!

Lauren

xxx