The Fabulous Times

Royal Apothic Launch at Anthropologie, King’s Road, London

May 17, 2013 By Christine 4 Comments

Last night we headed down to the iconic King’s Road, London to celebrate the launch of Royal Apothic’s new perfume at Anthropologie. The perfume named after the historical building ‘Antiquarius Petals’ now the site for Anthropologie’s store was created to celebrate 100 years of The RHS Chelsea Flower Show, as featured in our previous post. We lavished ourselves in Royal Apothic’s latest scent, sipped cocktails, donned floral head dresses created by the lovely Flower Appreciation Society ladies, ogled at pretty dresses and cooed at the Anthropologie office dog. Here are a few snaps from our fabulous evening:

Royal Apothic: Antiquarius Petals the brand new bespoke fragrance for Anthropologie is inspired by the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and is a fresh, contemporary floral scent. The new scent is infused with blackberry, grapefruit, mandarin, tangerine and floral mid notes of jasmine, orange blossom, violet and rose with base notes of patchouli, eucalyptus, sandalwood, exotic musk & vanilla. The scent smells fresh and feminine, a perfectly wearable floral scent that’s not too granny or overpowering. There is also a hand cream in the same scent, available exclusively at Anthropologie .

anthropologie-launch-cocktail Anthropologie: The Anthropologie store housed an eclectic mix of homeware, clothing, beauty products and books. In true Anthropologie style, every surface be it an embroidered dress or hand painted rolling pin was a luscious, patterned visual spectacular! The Kings Road store is a vast expanse of space, merchandised to perfection, mixing the stripped back industrial interior of the historical building with the textural, brightly coloured range of lifestyle goods designed by Anthropologie and various globally based independent artists. Anthropologie cleverly mix contemporary design with elaborate decor and goods oozing traditional creative craft and ethnic inspired techniques.

Flower Appreciation Society: The fabulous ladies of the Flower Appreciation Society worked throughout the night to give each party guest a beautiful bouquet headband. Florists by trade, the flowers were freshly cut in all the colours of summer. We were so excited to get our headbands, we chatted and watched as the ladies cut the flowers and fashioned our headbands. The Flower Society ladies told us their mission is to ‘get everyone in the world wearing floral headbands’ as they make you ‘instantly smile’. I opted for pink tones to match my new Raspberry Jessica nails and true enough, couldn’t stop smiling. We got quite a few compliments on the tube ride home! Thank you ladies.‘What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity’ -Joseph Addison

Christine

The Fabulous Times

Filed Under: Beauty Tagged With: Anthropologie, Apparel, Beauty, fashion, London, Perfume

Sugar Free Blueberry + Strawberry Breakfast Muffin Recipe

May 15, 2013 By Christine Leave a Comment

The perfect sugar-free breakfast treat. Here is the simplest of recipes for Blueberry and Strawberry Muffins, not only are they easy to make, delicious and relatively healthy, the whole list of ingredients costs the equivalent of one coffee and muffin at Starbucks! the difference is you’ll have ingredients left over for to repeat the recipe. I would suggest serving your muffins with coffee for the greatest leisurely breakfast. The following recipe made around 14 individual muffins, so you could prepare a batch and eat them throughout the week.

Preparation Time: 10 mins Cooking Time: 20-25 mins

Ingredients: 4 tbsp vegetable oil, 200g wholemeal self raising flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 5 tbsp SPLENDA® granulated, 175ml buttermilk/milk, 1 egg, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 100g blueberries, 100g strawberries.

How to make your amazing muffins:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Prepare a 12-hole muffin tray with paper cases. This is best done in advance so the batter doesn’t have to wait before being poured into the cases.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl, then gently stir in the SPLENDA® Granulated.

3. In a separate bowl, mix the milk, vanilla extract, egg and the oil together. Make a well in the centre of the flour and slowly fold in the liquid. When all the liquid is added, beat well and add the blueberries and strawberries.

4. Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin tray so that each case is about two-thirds full. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. You can test whether the muffins are cooked by pressing lightly on one; if the top springs back, they are ready.

5. Cool the muffins on a wire rack.

Tip: For a really indulgent treat they can be served slightly warm, split and spread with butter and jam.

sugar-free-blueberry-muffins-recipe
‘All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast’ -John Gunther

Christine

The Fabulous Times

Filed Under: Food, Recipe Tagged With: breakfast, Food, muffins, Recipe, Sugar free

Nostalgic Summer Holiday- The Fabulous Times Goes To France

May 14, 2013 By Christine Leave a Comment

Dreaming of the perfect summer holiday? The Fabulous Times will be travelling to France in a little under a week to share with you the ideal nostalgic summer holiday. With budget flights from as little as £80 return there really is no reason not to head to the continent for a summer jaunt. Five fabulous Times ladies will be packing up and flying out to the picturesque Limoges for seven nights in rural France, expect plenty of scrumptious picnic food ideas, outdoors adventure recommendations, daily ramblings, holiday reads, summer wardrobe suggestions and photo-shoot fun.

Inspiration: I’ve been busy compiling a Nostalgic Summer Pintrest board with a collection of inspirational images and beautiful photography. Creating a vision board before any adventure or creative project can be one of the greatest ways to making your dreams come true. To read more about how to create a vision board click HERE

Destination: We are heading to a traditional rural French gites named Grandmont Gites in Limoges (regular readers may recognise our destination from our travels last spring) Limoges is unspoilt and steeped in Medieval history renowned for it’s 19th Century porcelain production. Limoges Train Station was used for the stunning Coco Chanel advert starring Audrey Tatou.

Wardrobe: With plenty of outdoors adventures planned all five gals will be packing their favourite Hunter wellies and some of their finest brightly coloured nostalgic summer frocks (shown above) by Laura Ashley. This perfect straw Panama hat is by George at ASDA for only £8, originally intended for men but if you’re rocking voluminous hair then it’ll sit comfortably over your locks and give you that laid back continental style, Poirot eat your heart out! Join us on our summer adventure.

‘Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not’ -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Christine

The Fabulous Times

Filed Under: Travel Tagged With: France, Holiday, Limoges, Summer, Travel

Spiced Beetroot + Orange Summer Chutney Recipe

May 10, 2013 By Christine Leave a Comment

This Spiced Beetroot & Orange Chutney with it’s incredibly rich and vivid colour looks and tastes amazing served with cheese and cold meats, ideal for a summer picnic, it’s very easy to make and can be great to give as a gift too. The excellent thing about chutney making is there’s no need to be neat, you can roughly chop your ingredients, throw them in a pan and stir, then after an hour, spoon your chutney into jars, stick on the labels and way-hey! impressive and delicious treats for you and your friends to enjoy. The following recipe filled 9 jars. beetroot-chutney-recipe

Prep time approx 20minutes. Cook for 1hour.

What you’ll need: 1½kg raw beetroot , trimmed, peeled and diced (wear gloves!), 3 onions , chopped, 3 eating apples , peeled and grated zest and juice 3 oranges, 2 tbsp white or yellow mustard seeds, 1 tbsp coriander seeds, 1 tbsp ground cloves, 1 tbsp ground cinnamon, 700ml red wine vinegar, 700g golden granulated sugar, approx 9 airtight jars.

To Make your chutney:

1. In a preserving pan or your largest saucepan, mix together all the ingredients well. Bring to a gentle simmer, then cook for 1 hr, stirring occasionally, until the chutney is thick and the beetroot tender.
2. While the chutney is cooking, prepare your jars by thoroughly washing them by hand, then put in a hot oven to sterilise for 10-15 mins. Once the chutney is ready, let it settle for 10 mins, then spoon into the jars and seal while still hot.

You can eat your chutney straight away but it will taste even better after a month. Will keep for up to 6 months in a cool dark place. Once opened, refrigerate and eat within 2 months.

beetroot-chutney-recipe-homemade I opted to use a bright yellow fabric for the top as it’s a light, summery chutney and the yellow sets off the rich colour of the beetroot wonderfully! Cut your choice fabric into small squares and secure with an elastic band or ribbon as desired.