London Montage on Lorraine :)

Last week my work was shown on ITV's Lorraine :)

There was a whole feature on how you can decorate and style your home this year with British inspired artwork and accessories - and there mine was!! SO EXCITING!! 

 

Available at Isme.com as well as the Graham and Brown website for a small £25 

A perfect patriotic accessory for you home and just in time for the Jubilee and 2012 Olympics :) 

xx

Im Making Mojitos :)

So I've decided Im going to try and grow a plant this year - I have failed in the past but this year I am determined! I bought a strawberry mojito kit from Sainsburys and inside you get all the bits and bobs to grow your own strawberries and spearmint! 

I planted them a couple of weeks ago so there isn't much happening at the moment but I'm very excited to nurture my new plants into healthy organic summer produce - I feel like the female equivalent to Alan Titchmarsh at the moment :)

 

                                           

I'll keep you all up to date on their progress :) xx

Easter Cupcakes

To make Easter just that little bit extra special, Lotte and I decided we would make cupcakes and delivered them to our nearest and dearest.

With a little help from our friend - the hummingbird bakery cookbook we made some yummy earl grey cupcakes 

Definitely worth a go :)

Ingredients:
For the cakes:

• 3 earl grey tea bags
• 3 tbsp hot water (just boiled)
• 80g butter
• 280g caster sugar
• 240g plain flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/4tsp salt
• 200ml milk
• 2 large eggs

For the icing:

• 50ml milk
• 500g icing sugar
• 160g butter

Method:

1. Put the teabags in the hot water and let it infuse for 30mins.
2. Preheat oven to 190′C and line the muffin tin with liners.
3. In a mixer, mix together butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
4. In a jug, whisk together the milk and eggs, then pour in the infused tea, squeezing out every drop of liquid from the teabags. Save the teabags for the icing.
5. Pour 3 quarters of the milk mixture into the dry ingredients, mix slowly to combine first, then increase speed to mix till the batter is smooth. Pour in the rest of the milk mixture and mix until smooth and lump free.
6. Fill the muffin liners no more than 2/3 full, bake for 18 – 22 minutes, until well risen and golden. When cooked, cool on a cool rack entirely.
7. To make the icing, put the used teabags in the 50ml milk and leave to infuse for 30mins.
8. Mix together the butter and the icing sugar, now mix very slowly at first as it will go everywhere… if using mixer, remember to cover it with a tea towel first. Then mix in the tea flavoured milk until fluffy.
9. Ice the cooled cakes and decorate! 

Enjoy :) xx

Happy Easter Everyone

Happy Easter - hope everyone had a lovely Easter break and ate lots and lots of chocolate.  

Every year my mum decorates our house at home with Easter decorations including an Easter tree - so this year I wanted to do the same in my new flat.  I suggested it to my housemate who had never heard of an Easter tree!! Well after a bit of explaining she soon got on board with the idea and we spent the next evening blowing eggs and covering them in paint, glitter, buttons - we even had our very own Easter Bunny :)

Claire Mayes (age 6)

Haha my mum still likes to hang these every year :) 

( a beak and a mouth??!! )

Follow Me on Pinterest

I had mentioned before that I had come across the amazing website which is Pinterest, well now you can follow me too.  If you type in Claire Mayes into the search box you can see the different things I have pulled and re-pinned and even become a follower of mine.  

If you start your own boards let me know and I'll make sure I follow you too xx

London Montage

I mentioned the other week that the L.O.VE piece of work I did for Graham and Brown was now available at Marks and Spencer, well I recently found out that the other piece of work, the London montage, is also available as an online purchase - how exciting!! 

It is available on Graham and Brown's website - check it out!! xx 

Short and Snappy Weekend Project

These are just a few illustrations I did over the weekend.  I wanted to do a quick snappy project and try and develop 3 characters over the weekend.  I drew a Father Christmas, a Princess and a Pirate. These two are my favourite...not too bad considering I havn't done any character work for 3years x