Art.co.uk tin signs

Today on shops i love I bring you Art.co.uk. Art.co.uk is an online boutique full of, you guessed it, art! From posters to prints to framed art to wall art collections. The website is easy to navigate and is split into helpful categories like art styles, products, and collections. From the website: "We work with passion to bring you the world's largest art collection.Whatever your interest, your décor style, your inspiration – we're sure to have that piece you can't live without."

Ice Cream tin sign

Afternoon Teas tin sign

Strawberries & Cream tin sign

I love nostalgic vintage tin signs and have a few I have collected over the years. I especially like using them outside as I think they add quirkiness and interest. When the lovely peeps at Art.co.uk offered to send me three, I jumped at the chance! You see, the night before I had spent ages perusing the internet looking for a lovely tin sign to go above my potting bench and after much searching found what I was looking for at art.co.uk and bought a Cibron & Sons seed one which I have hung above my potting bench. So the following morning when I received the mail I was so excited as I had fallen in love with so many of their tin signs.

They have such a wonderful large variety of them it took me ages to decide, but in the end I opted for ones from the cuisine section. I chose the retro pink and blue American Soft Serve Ice Cream tin sign, the vintage looking Afternoon Teas tin sign and the nostalgic Strawberries and Cream tin sign. They arrived promptly and were mounted on card so they arrived in pristine condition. After playing around with where they would go I hung the two smaller ones either side of my bench from the fence using cup hooks and gardener's twine. I re-arranged my old tin signs and hung the Afternoon Tea one under my bunting above my dining area.



Thank you Art.co.uk, you have made my secret garden all the more special to me...

More lovely tin signs from Art.co.uk

*I was not paid for this review - I was sent three tin signs of my choosing. Torie Jayne does not accept payment for any of her posts.

Have a sweet day!

Gluten-free millionaire's shortbread

The lovely peeps at Tala liked what I did with their cake stand and bun tray and asked if there was something else I would like to review. I chose a traditional design Tala-embossed swiss roll tin that is made in England -(40 x 28 x 2.5cm). The reason I chose the swiss roll tin is that I don't own anything like it and I was missing out on making tray bakes! With my lovely new swiss roll tin I decided to make a fabulously sweet gluten-free millionaire's shortbread, which consists of a crunchy shortbread base, a gooey caramel center and a top layer of crisp chocolate. Also known as a caramel shortcake, caramel squares or caramel slice.





Gluten-free millionaire's shortbread (makes one tray)

Ingredients

Shortbread
• 250g gluten-free plain flour
• 175g butter, softened
• 75g caster sugar
• 1 tsp xantham gum

Caramel
• 100g butter
• 100g light brown sugar
• 2 x 397g cans of condensed milk

Chocolate polka dot topping
• 150g dark chocolate
• 100g white chocolate

Cooking instructions

Shortbread
1. Preheat oven to 180C (160c fan) / 355F
2. Lighly grease a swiss roll tin
3. Mix the flour, xantham gum and sugar in a bowl
4. Rub in the butter till the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs
5. Knead the mixture till you have a ball of dough
6. Press the dough into the prepared tin till you have a flat even surface
7. Lightly prick the top of the shortbread
8. Bake for about 20 mins until firm to the touch and lightly browned
9. Leave in tin to cool

Caramel
1. Place the caramel ingredients in a saucepan
2. Heat on low heat until sugar has dissolved
3. Bring to the boil stirring continuously, then reduce heat and simmer for around 10 minutes or until mixture has thickened.
4. Remove from heat and spread the caramel over the cooled shortbread
5. Leave in tin to cool

Chocolate polka dot topping
1. Melt the dark chocolate in a microwave on low heat or in a bowl over a pan of hot water (or bain marie)
2. Pour melted dark chocolate over cold caramel
3. Melt the white chocolate in a microwave on low heat or in a bowl over a pan of hot water (or bain marie)
4. Place white chocolate into a piping bag fitted with a small nozzle, or use a disposable piping bag and cut off end to create small hole
5. Pipe small spots of white chocolate onto dark chocolate
6. When you have piped all the white chocolate spots gently tap the tray so the surface of chocolate becomes flat
7. Leave in tin to cool
8. Using a sharp knife cut millionaire shortbread into squares or bars
9. Store in a air tight container

Pink gingham ribbon from Jane Means

Have a sweet day!

Pears

Source 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Today on Inspirational Pins I bring you another seasonal fruit: pears.

In Europe, the Bartlett pear is known as the Williams pear. It got its American name when a Bostonian named Enoch Bartlett bought a pear orchard and, not knowing the pears already had a name, began distributing them as Bartlett pears.

To see more pear recipes check out my Pinterest board, Pears. I want to have a go at the pear macaron slice!

Have a sweet day!

Bombay Duck giveaway winner

My apologies for being so late on announcing the winner!

My contest ended last week and I picked a winner using random.org and I am delighted to announce the winner of the £50 Bombay Duck giveaway is...

Laura, from High Street Home her blog where she shares pretty homes, cool new products and the odd thrifted find. Laura said she would like to spend her voucher on cake stands.

Congratulations Laura, you will receive £50 worth of store credit for Bombay Duck.

Thank you to all of you sweets that entered, to my loyal followers and new friends.

Have a sweet day!

My secret garden dining area

I updated my dining area in my "secret garden" by stringing up some of
my pretty wooden bunting, hanging more vintage tin signs, and adding a tablecloth.



For my casual dining area I spruced up our old bistro chairs with a lick of paint and recently replaced my old bistro table with an identical new one.

I looked everywhere for a nice round tablecloth for my bistro table but could only find rectangle ones I liked, so I decided to make my own...




I simply cut a circle of oilcloth fabric and hand stitched a pink crochet hem to the edge.





Have a sweet day!

My secret garden

My secret garden design

At the back of my garden I had a patio area next to my spruced up garden shed, but it was pretty dull and uninviting, so I re-designed it to be reminiscent of an outdoor living room. I started off by gathering up lots of inspiration for my outdoor living room. I wanted it to be a stylish, comfortable place for casual dining and relaxing...



We had already made the patio area bigger as the grass was worn away outside the shed and with constant use it was always going to be that way. But I didn't like the look of the patio even after we had cleaned the stones. To give it a more country feel we covered the patio area in pea shingle.





What lies behind the twinkly arch...

...but a secret garden.

My perfect place to serve sweet treats!




For comfy seating I bought a cheap wooden bench and gave it a make over.

At the entrance I added a £6.99 garden arch that I wrapped 100 solar-powered LED lights round so it twinkles at night and have started growing rambling roses on it. Now if only I had some magic fairy dust that got my roses to smother my arch in pretty pink flowers! Tomorrow I will be sharing with you all the details...

Have a sweet day!

My Garden Design

How my garden looks now

How my garden looked after we had dismantled the old shed and put up new green fences on the right hand side, and fixed and painted the back fence.

How my garden looked when we bought it

Since Spring I have been adding a few finishing touches to my garden that I have been sharing with you here on Torie Jayne, like my potting bench, herb etagere and my pink wheelbarrow planter. I have also been updating my facebook page photo albums with all our house - before, during and after pics. Due to this a couple of friends who had been browsing through my garden photos asked me how I went about designing our garden. I used Adobe Illustrator first to draw up what the garden looked like, and then to make a mood board of ideas, finishing by drawing up how I wanted it to look. Today I thought I would share with you those designs.

After designing how I wanted the garden to look came the hard work, which you can read about here - "My garden transformation". Over the years I have lost a few plants to frost and others I have moved when they got too big for where I had first planted them. I have also been updating my outdoor lounge at the back of the garden with some hand made bunting and more vintage tin signs. More of which is coming later this week...




To see all my large garden photos from before, during, to now, check out "My Garden - A Transformation" album on my Facebook page. Here you will also find links to all the posts I have done about my garden so everything is easy to find...

Have a sweet day!