I am in love with these three pieces from Evans' range by Clements Ribeiro - the Kimmy blouse (my favourite), the Grace skirt and the Grace dress. 

With such lovely outfits you must have lovely jewellery. I have stretched ears and sometimes it can be hard to find tunnels or plugs that are feminine enough for posh events. I fell in love with these gold heart tunnels and ordered them straight away - I hope they get here in time for my SIL's 30th shindig at the weekend!

When you look nice you have to smell nice and La Petite Robe Noire is the nicest new scent I've found in a long time. Guerlain perfumes are a big thing in my family - my mum and sister and I adore pretty much all of them and my dad has some great men's fragrances by them too. We fell in love with it when visiting Birmingham recently and Pete has bought me a bottle for my birthday.

This vintage-tastic fur collared dress from Littlewoods is pretty fabulous too - it's from Myleene Klass' new range. I'm very tempted as it could make a perfect Christmas dress...

And the last of my fashion picks, this gorgeous giant bow scarf by Susannahbean Handmade! I'm putting this right on my Christmas list but I would love it in a baby blue hue!

This amazing poster print is going on the list too. True Romance is one of my favourite movies and this perfect pink poster by Needle Design captures the kitschness of it perfectly.

How beautiful are these gum paste hearts by Sarah Signe? It's my birthday next week and I may try fashioning something similar for my birthday cake as sadly these would not arrive with me in time!

I hope everyone's weeks are going well, I am crazy busy with cupcake orders, my SIL's big 30th birthday party this weekend and then my birthday next week.

Oh and we turned the heating on today, so summer is officially over. Boooo!

I've attended quite a few antique and curio fairs over the last couple of weeks and come out with some great finds!

I'm particularly fond of the smiley fox broach above - I paid £5 for him which is quite a lot really, but I couldn't resist his happy little face and bright red enamelled tongue! The pretty aqua vine broach on his left was £3 and looks lovely on a jet black sweater.

Pete had sent me on a mission as he just got his first three piece suit and wanted a pocket watch to go with it - this lovely piece caught my eye with its lovely pale green numbers and hands. Apparently it was made locally in Leicester and from what we can find online is probably from the mid 1950's - if anyone has anymore information about these watches please let me know as Pete is very interested to know more about it!

I bought these two little oil paintings from my local bric-a-brac market for £4 - they're not really anything special but they remind me of a tea tray my grandparents used to have that was black with the same style flowers on.

This silver seashell vanity tray was from a curio fair on Sunday. It's a bit tarnished which I think is why it was only £4.50, but it's quite big and will be very useful for storing rings and plugs.

I have probably mentioned that I have a real thing for champagne saucers and old martini glasses before, so it's no surprise that this little rainbow set has made it into the collection. I paid £6 for the set - as you can say they need a bit of a dust and polish!!!

This was just a silly little 50p purchase because I loved the little bird couple on the front. I only saw that it was signed when I got it home - isn't Bert a great name?

Have you found any great thrifting bargains lately?

I just adore a weekend with no plans that suddenly turns into a weekend of fun. Being invited to a last minute barbecue is the perfect excuse for me to grab a recipe book and try out something new, so when our lovely friend Rob invited us to one at his parent's house last Saturday I knew some baking was in order.

I picked out several books that I've not baked from yet (serial baking book buyer here) and went to sit with Pete and Cleo to decide what to go for. As I flicked through very ladylike volumes such as Miette Bakery Cookbook, Tea with Bea and The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook I asked Pete to give The Butch Bakery Cookbook a browse as I knew he'd love it.

I adore this book as it's so different from the usual twee cupcake offerings. It pitches itself as being a book of 'desserts for dudes' and really doesn't disappoint with its booze, coffee or bacon fuelled concoctions to name just a few flavours that they utilise. They also decorate a lot of their cakes with chocolate discs in masculine prints like camouflage or argyle or with 'sawdust' sprinkles made from things like lime zest sugar or finely chopped crystallised ginger. No longer are cupcakes just for girls!

They are also man sized - the recipes make 12 'jumbo muffin' sized cupcakes which are much larger than standard, so I used some tulip muffin cases as they are a good size and I thought they were pretty manly looking. You will need to stock up on muffin sized cases and a muffin tin rather than fairy cake tin if you want to cook from this book.

Pete picked out three recipes in particular that caught his eye, the first being ' Rush Hour' a stout and gingerbread cake with ginger frosting, 'Old Fashioned' based on his favourite whiskey beverage and 'Beer Run', a stout and chocolate cake topped with vanilla stour buttercream and chocolate covered pretzel bits. I wasn't in a ginger mood that day, so opted for the Beer Run which was very appropriate as Rob's Dad is a real ale drinker.

The cake itself was made using the melting method often used in brownies where you melt the butter rather than creaming it with the sugar. This gives a much moister and tender crumbed cake, although it doesn't tend to rise into a dome like traditional cupcake recipes do. This makes no difference when it comes to cupcakes in my opinion as you'll be adding generous amounts of frosting and decoration anyway.

The buttercream was a traditional butter and icing sugar mix with vanilla and stout to flavour it, and as I couldn't get chocolate pretzels I used crushed salted ones and a drizzle of melted milk chocolate to finish which I think looked fab. Rather than the obvious Guinness I opted to use the stout below which I got at my local Tesco - can you guess why I bought it? I really am a sucker for a pretty label or anything with a pin up on!

All together these were a magnificent treat. The super moist cake with its rich cocoa flavour and hoppy twang from the beer offset the sweet frosting perfectly and the added salty crunch of the topping was great. They also looked pretty damn good in their dark cases with camel coloured frosting and sprinkling of woody pretzel bits and chocolate drizzle. Everyone at the barbecue loved them and hey, isn't that what a hostess gift is all about?

I seriously suggest you make the man in your life something from this book, it's worth the effort just seeing his face light up at the words 'beer cake'!