Off The Record: Road Trips, Birds & Beaches

Follow Us on Instagram

Happy Easter! What a glorious week it has been! Despite both myself and Jess being well and truly struck down with the flu, we have managed to have a few little adventures this week, mainly with the men in our lives as we make the most of the long bank holiday weekend.

We have both been on wonderful trips this week Jess to Manchester and Chester and me to Barry Island (which I discovered was not an island at all?) The sun has been shining, the birds have been singing and I have to say it has totally uplifted my mood despite all the coughing and sneezing.

So how have you spent your bank holiday, did you get lots of Easter eggs?

Emily Loves…

♥ Road trips with Mr T! We headed to Barry for the day to visit the Welsh Hawking Centre and the beach. It was such a glorious day and more than anything was wonderful to spend some quality time together.

♥ Football! I even surprised myself with this one this week. Mr T has played football since he was a tot and in all the years we have been together, I have never seen him play, not once. Well this weekend I decided to go along and watch and I actually really enjoyed it, watching him do what he loves the most – what’s more his team won the game, Mr T scored a cracking goal and they were promoted. I would like to think it was presence that brought them such luck?

♥ House Parties! Some wonderful friends of ours have just moved into their new home so to celebrate that/ birthdays they held a party. It was lots of fun to let our hair down, drink lots, eat lots, laugh lots and natter lots.

♥ Easter Eggs! I thought I would be getting too old for this now but every year without fail my my mum and nan spoil me with easter eggs. My nan wasn’t quite happy with just giving me one easter egg this year she even bought me a box of roses to go with it – this is not going to help me get bikini ready now is it?

♥ Jess’s cooking! She has become somewhat of a little chef these past few months. Last night I was invited round to sample her newest dish, a deep fried Brie starter with Tomato chutney and prawn curry for the main. It was so amazeballs, I think I am going to have to invite her to live with me now, so she can cook for me all the time!

Jess Loves…

♥ Visiting the trafford centre for the first time! I was amazed!! Not by the amount of shops though, but by the decor in there, it’s such a well designed & beautiful shopping mall! I loved how the food court looked like a cute European village too!

♥ Road trips with James! (Me & Em have both been racking up some miles this week with our other halves!) On Monday we travelled up to Manchester so James could use his Christmas present I got him (tour of man united stadium). The road trip involved a lot of cheesy singing to kisstory, classic road trip games & a super yummy stop at subway!

♥ Having lunch at Bar lounge in chester. Not only was the food delicious but the cocktails were AMAZING! The way they presented them was super fun, I even saw one bartender spray painting the top of the glasses with edible orange glitter!

♥ And visiting chester for that matter! What a cute historical city, I love places that have so much character like that!

♥ Filming next weeks YouTube challenge with Em! It was definitely a fun one and will give you a little more insight into me & Emily! Stay tuned for that on Wednesday!

♥ Watching Master Chef! Not just the UK one I’ve got the Australian one on series link too! My favourite part is seeing how all the dishes are displayed, I love how creative the chefs get with their presentation!

What We’ve Been Loving Around the Web…

Photography by JENNIFER CORBIN PHOTOGRAPHY via Storyboard Wedding

WEDDING PRETTY

♥ Natures Dream: A Whimsical Bridal Shoot

♥ Hot Air Balloon Wedding

♥ Mad Hatters Tea Party

♥ A Super Sweet Story

♥ A 1970’s War Era Inspired Wedding

♥ Handmade Canadian Barn Wedding

BEST DRESSED

♥ A Handmade Wedding Dress and shoes

♥ A Wild & Romantic Bespoke Dress

♥ A Beautiful Blush Wedding Dress

♥ Golden Bridal Boudoir

Image via ROCK N ROLL BRIDE

DIY’S

♥ Indigo Dye Napkins

♥ Dress Up Your Wedding Invites

♥ Homemade Rope Light

♥ Ombre Glitter Champagne Glasses

♥ DIY Dream Catcher

BUSINESS BITS

♥ Keeping the Blog Fresh

♥ 5 Ways to Keep Readers on your Blog

♥ How to Take Gorgeous, Sale-Making Product Photos

♥ 5 Twitter Changes Bloggers Need to Know

♥ Got Bloggers Block? Here Are 50 Ways to Kick Its Ass!

♥ 5 Tips for Evaluating a Business Idea

FUN READS

♥ How to be an Artist

♥ 41 Secretly Incredible Travel Destinations That Most People Don’t Know About

♥ Entry from a Dogs Diary

♥ And Finally, this film trailer was released last week and the response it has received has been very interesting, to say the least. Titled ‘American Blogger’ the director Chris Wiegand has created a movie that does exactly as it says on the tin. Travelling around America in his newly refurbished Airstream, Chris and his wife interview bloggers. My personal opinion of the trailer was that of being slightly underwhelmed, the selection of bloggers seemed to be quite stereotypical and I wasn’t fussed on how the documentary made out as though blogging was this new phenomenon. However I wanted to cut the dude some slack and all thought I felt like it should be some sort of spoof I would be lying if I said I wasn’t just the slightest bit intrigued to see what he has come up with. People have made worse films right? All that being said, it wasn’t the film that affected me the most, it was the comments that followed the film both on Vimeo and on other blogs where the trailer had been discussed. I was saddened to see comments describing bloggers as “self-centered, self published narcissistic”, “egomaniacal mommy and fashion bloggers” and “largely dumb, too much time on their hands goofballs who think people are interested in their mostly misguided blatherings.” I have seen a lot of blogs to a lot of good and this made me really sad, however everyone is entitled to their opinion. So here it is the trailer that has caused what I imagine will be quite a big debate for some time to come…