Hoots, Health and Heavenly Chocolate

Owl repeating pattern based on these little dudes.


And the cake I made for my Dad's b'day - choco-cherry cream:


But it's okay. I did juice and drink all of these* too:


I love all the funny little deposits the juicer shoots out:


*That's bigger than your standard bowl - it's a mixing bowl!

Kaleidoscope Stars

In a range of colours. :-)

You Are Invited To My Tea Party

I can't help but think this would make quite nice smooth, matte-finish wallpaper for a feature wall in a jazzy tearoom... Maybe? Or tablecloths. Curtains? More is more!

Ahem. Which colourway do you like? The olive-green has a distinct 1940s wartime feel to it I reckon. I decided to stick with a block-colour background and black and white illustrations, as all the cups and cakes and whatnot have a lot of detail, so didn't want everything to become too messy. But could experiment with line colour? What do you think?


Closer-up in golden yellow:


That (hopefully) subtle olive-green:


Duck-egg adoration:


A sweet and sugary coral. I think this may be my favourite...


You may recognise this teatime ensemble (bar a few cupcakes) from my website homepage. I thought I'd give them another lease of life to show them I care. ;-)

Butterflies and Colourway Dilemmas

A fluttery little print I've been working on today - question is: what colourway do you like best?! I can't decide myself...

Trees Please Louise

I worked on this pattern today. And one with butterflies, but I haven't quite finished that one yet. :-)

Watercolour Traumas

I've returned to painting of late instead of my usual drawing/scanning/digital colouring combo. It's been a little traumatic, I won't lie - there is no undo button! I also like the ability of being able to play around with compositions on Photoshop... Hum ho. Here's a little sneak peak of one such watercolour I worked on in the garden today:


It's a happy smiley girl cycling down a summery country lane. With a cat in the basket, as you do. I also took some pics of my 'office':






Fifi the sausage cat:


Hello Fifi.

Porky Weekend

I did a little bit of baking over the bank holiday weekend - on Saturday I made scones and then on Monday I made some brownies. Since the sun was shining so gloriously on Saturday, I thought it'd be rude not to sit out in the garden and partake in a cream tea - after all, the scones were still warm from the oven and I was a mere whisk of cream away from having all the necessary components. Admittedly, I could have done a bit better on the serving front, i.e. prettier plates and made use of a teapot, but I was that desperate to stuff my face (the most ladylike of terminology, I know) that a frantic fling of a paper doily was as much as I could muster when it came to dressing the table.




By Monday, all the scones were gawn. Well, by Sunday afternoon in fact, when I had another cream tea avec ma famille after a trip to the garden centre. So I fancied making something else, something devilishly chocolatey... Queue the entrance of Cookies and Cream Fudge Brownies. Mm hmm. I'd watched the lovely Lorraine Pascale make these beauties a while back on her BBC 2 show, and I happened across the recipe again whilst browsing through her book at a friend's house on Saturday. Now, the recipe says it makes sixteen brownies, but I got.. well, nine. I think this was purely down to how big I cut them, (3x3 as opposed to 4x4? I think that makes sense. My maths ain't all that) as I do like a generous slab of brownie. I also didn't have enough dark chocolate - recipe requires 200g but I only had a 100g bar (bright spark)... Fear not, this is the Peajeux house after all, and I was sure I could muster enough chocolate to make up the extra 100g. I snuffled out a 1/4 eaten 40g bar of the dark stuff and chopped up some fruit and nut to make up the rest. I was two squares over actually, which was fortunate, as I was on the verge of using some Easter egg - an incredibly distressing prospect.

Here's the chopped choc:


The melted butter, just in case you can't imagine what melted butter looks like:


The chopped chocolate, added to the melted butter and the whisked eggs and sugar. Plus a wee bit of flour, cocoa powder, vanilla extract and possibly something else but I can't quite remember. Oh! Oreos, yes yes, some Oreos:


Pouring into the greased and lined baking tray:


The rest of the Oreos waiting patiently to be broken and scattered:


There they go:

Close up. Mmm:


Out of the oven, 25 minutes later:


Cut into squares. Now honestly, 3x3 is way better than 4x4. (Excuse the blurriness, I think it was down to the excitement):


And there we have it! Now I really should get back to updating this blog with drawings...