Chocolate Week 2012

Chocolate Week starts on Monday 8th October, and we are licking our lips already.

We're all massive chocoholics in the Simple Things office, so we were very excited when rumours of Chocolate Week reached our ears. A whole seven days dedicated to our favourite sweet treat? The right side of swimsuit season? Events all over the UK? Sign us up!

If you can make it down to London, the grand finale Chocolate Unwrapped, with top British chocolatiers, demonstrations, and lots and lots tasting opportunities is a no-brainer. If not, check out the Chocolate Week website for more info on what's going on near you.

Book Launch : My Berlin Kitchen

We've been feeling the Berlin love ever since reading all about Sandra Juto's experiences of her city in The Simple Things issue 1.

Luckily, tying in neatly with our feature is the release of The Wednesday Chef Luisa Weiss' My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (With Recipes).

As you'll have gathered from the title, this is not just a cookbook, but a memoir of Luisa's journey so far, punctuated with the recipes that defined these different phases in her life.

In her own words, from when Luisa first decided to put pen to paper:

'I'm moving back to Berlin and I'm writing a book, about Berlin, about my life, about cooking and home and family and love, about being divided and finding a way back to being whole again, about a city and its recipes, and a girl who's learning how to find her way.'

Wordless Wednesdays ... in the garden

From Carrots and Kids.

Shop love : Rockett St George

We've been crushing on Rockett St George for quite some time now.

They're top of our list for very, very cool tea towels, and just generally excel in hunting down homeware designs with a sense of humour. Superb case in point, this tableware range including a glass milk carton and glass ziplock bag.

Also going straight into the basket are this homemade biscuit stamp (if we're baking, we want some credit) and fab typewriter tea towel. Told you they made cool tea towels!

Check out the Rockett St George online store to pick out your favourites.

Blackberry buckle cake recipe

This blackberry cake recipe makes the most of blackberries, which are at their juicy, inky purple best right about now.

Blogger Sarah from Lemon Fire Brigade baked this cake after a day out berry-picking with her family. Her snaps made us want to drop what we were doing immediately, pull on some wellies and track down the nearest blackberry bush.

Sarah has mixed together her blackberries with blackcurrants, which are also in season at the moment, and created a recipe with a high proportion of berries. This makes for a very beautiful cake (she calls it tie-dye style, which sums it up pretty perfectly), and provides a tart counter to the sweet vanilla sponge.

Do you have any favourite berry recipes? Share below!

The Simple Things launch party video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIKZVN5B3TU *Sigh* We loved our launch party. So many fab people, so much amazing cheese.

In the midst of all our excitement for issue 2, this gorgeous little video of the launch party provided us with a moment of calm. Spot anyone you recognise?

P.S. You can also see some pics from the party here ...

Wrist Worms by Sandra Juto

Sandra Juto's Wrist Worms are just the best way to fend off the early autumn nip in the air.

Hand-crocheted and available in a range of gorge autumnal shades, these keep you cosy and let you type on your computer, swipe on your iphone or eat your cupcake (fluff-free) in a way that is rather tricky with regular mitts.

Head over to Sandra Juto's online shop to get your hands on a pair.

Issue 2 - out soon!

Tah-dah! The Simple Things Issue 2 goes on sale in the UK on 4th October! What do you think of our cover?

As it's our October issue, we're embracing all things autumnal. We'll be chatting crusty loaves with a fabulous baker brother, seeing the sights of Amsterdam, whizzing through fallen leaves on bicycles and rounding the day off with a bonfire party. All, of course, with crafts and recipes worthy of fireworks.

Issue 1 is still available, but not for much longer. If you've not got your hands on one yet, get down to the shops sharpish to start your collection!

For a rundown of where you can get your hands on the mag, check out our 'Find us' page, or download our digital version here.

Postage stamp craft

Our friends at Oxfam got in touch last week in search of some crafty ideas to go with the bags of vintage stamps they're selling in the Oxfam online shop. We love a challenge, so here you go - a round-up of our tip-top postage stamp craft ideas...

First up is A Law Student's Journey, who's put her own twist on a well-established trend to create this postage stamp bunting.  Very simple, quirky and somehow much more winter-appropriate than fabric bunting. We love.

Requiring a little more patience and dexterity are Just Something I Made's miniature stamp houses. Blogger Cathe has tucked a roll of stamps inside hers and made it into a stamp dispenser, and we think this would be a super-cute way to store stickers. Pop over to Just Something I Made for a free printable template.

Finally, we couldn't do a postage stamp craft round-up without a little découpage (they're already sticky on the back, for goodness sake!). Crafty blogs are awash with postage stamp découpage ideas, but our favourite is this dresser from The Next Stitch. A gorge display of stamps, dove grey paintwork and a little gold leaf. Perfectly imperfect and shabby-chic at its best.

For the best range of vintage stamps around, pop over to the Oxfam online shop (and check out their new Oxfam Shops Facebook page while you're at it!).

Wordless Wednesdays ... morning coffee

By Marion Berrin at L'Inventaire de L'Esthétique.

Win! Josie Jeffery's Seedswap (closed)

Competition time! We've got 5 copies of Josie Jeffery's Seedswap to give away.

In her Seedswap guide, Josie introduces the exciting new global seed swapping movement, looks at why plant heritage is so important and gives us plenty of advice on how to go about getting involve!

We've got 5 shiny new copies to give away! Click over to our competition homepage to enter.

P.S. If you're already embracing the seed swapping spirit, this year's

Great Seed Swap

will be taking place on Saturday 20 October at Wakehurst. Pop over to the

Kew Gardens website

for more info!

How to make your own butter

At The Simple Things, we think that sometimes it's worth putting a little extra effort in to make something everyday a little more special.

With that in mind, take a peek at this recipe for homemade butter at Longest Acres. The instructions require no specialist equipment and are so simple, they made us wonder why we'd never tied this before.

We're planning on having a go at this when we next have a free hour. We're daydreaming of toasted English muffins spread with butter made with our own fair hands, eaten tucked up in bed on a lazy weekend morning. Totally idyllic.

Issue 1 : reader photos!

The Simple Things went to press last week - can you believe it?!

We're still buzzing from the launch, and could not be more pleased about all your amazing comments! Loads of you have been sharing pics of yourselves getting into the Simple Things spirit - taking time out to do some crafting, baking (our raspberry brownies especially proved to be a massive hit!) or get back to nature. Here are a few of our favourites.

Keep 'em coming on our Facebook and Twitter pages, we love to see what you're up to!

Thanks to (deep breath) ...Caroline Madaher, Miss Leoniest, My Red Wellies, Betherina, Jody Richardson, House Mouse, Madeline Norris, Poppy Sakulku, Bella and Will, Kate Helen Carter, Forest Flower 23 and Jayne Lynch for your photos.

How to make origami cranes

How lovely are these little origami cranes?

This weekend, we'll be taking some time out to folding up a mini flock from mismatched papers, and stringing them up with some bright thread. So simple and so pretty.

Pop over to the Penelope and Pip website for a free paper crane printable.

Illustrated Bites

When Heather Diane's herb illustrations popped up on our Pinterest feed earlier this week, we instantly fell in love. Californian artist Heather combines her love of food with her talent for drawing to create quirky illustrated guides to all of her favourite foodstuffs.

Our favourites are her latest edible flower design and super-pretty herb guide . Check out heather's website for more illustrated loveliness.

Mollie Makes Christmas book - reader offer!

Have you heard? The Simple Things' big sister Mollie Makes has put together their very own Mollie Makes Christmas book!

Mollie Makes Christmas is filled with cute craft projects for the festive period, designed exclusively by regular Mollie Makes contributors especially for you. Whatever your craft of choice, there are ideas to decorate your home or give as gifts, all with the loveliness you'd expect from your fave craft mag!

Mollie Makes Christmas is out on 4th October in the UK, but pre-order now and enter code Mollieloves at the checkout to get your copy for just £7.00 (it's usually £9.99)!

Click here to pre-order your copy now.

Wordless Wednesdays ... afternoon tea

By Alice Gao at Lingered Upon.

Etsy love : Good Intent

You'll know from our Canopy and Stars post a couple of weeks ago that we're big fans of camping. The latest items to make our holiday lust-list are these beautiful handmade sleeping bags.

The handiwork of Etsy seller Good Intent (geddit?), we have a whole lot of love for their lush fabric combos and wriggle-friendly shape. We might have missed the camping-appropriate weather window for this year, but these unzip into a lightweight quilt, which makes them perfect for visitors during the colder months.

Vegetable of the month ... courgette

Champion of the veggie patch this month is the courgette. Join us as we round up our fave recipes for you to get stuck in to...

Kicking off our collection is Gourmande in the kitchen's raw courgette ribbon salad which we'll be trying out while there's still a little summer warmth in the air.

This salad was born when garden-less blogger Sylvie offered to help take some home-grown courgettes off her friends' hands - what a good Samaritan! We love that it requires barely any ingredients. A little dressing, some crunchy pine nuts and crumbled goats' cheese are all that's needed to make the courgette shine.

When the weather starts getting a little chillier, Cafe Johnsonia's spicy courgette wedges will be just the thing to warm us up. Blogger Lindsey 'made this up as she went along' and assures us that we can do just the same. We're thinking cumin, garlic and a little paprika...mmm...

Finally, we had been hunting out courgette cake recipes for this post, but when we came across this beautiful harvest cake on Roost we just had to share it with you. This recipe combines courgette with apple and carrot, and is sweetened with honey and vanilla cream. We think it'll taste as wonderful as it looks.

Do you have any favourite courgette recipes? Share 'em below!

Remember to check out the rest of our vegetable of the month series.

Welly boot liner DIY

It's half-way through September now and we can't ignore it any more ... we've officially reached autumn.

We might be waving goodbye to the sunshine for a while, but it's definitely not all bad. Autumn means blackberries and apples, brightly coloured leaves and blustery strolls in the countryside.

Combat the nip in the air and the drizzly days with these welly boot liners from H is for Handmade. We especially like her clever scarf upcycling for the turnovers.

Do our readers have any ideas for autumn craft projects? We'd love to hear from you!