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Sunday Catch Up

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We hope you are enjoying our weekly catch ups, it is a great chance for us to look back at our week and reflect on how the blog is going. We also love reading other blogs to find posts to share with you, there are so many talented and inspirational bloggers out there.

From Orchard Blog

Read our tips on how to create a botanical theme tablescape of an Italian dinner party we hosted. read here
This week we had some rather yummy Kir Royales as our cocktail of the week. read here
After having visited the National Trust’s Belton House earlier this summer, we have written up out thoughts. read here

From Elsewhere

As complete and unashamed nordiphiles, we love the My Scandinavian Home blog. Especialiy this gorgeous apartment in Gothenburg. read here
We’re still in a beach house state of mind, so we loved Jenni Kayne’s Airy living room makeover done with the help of One Kings Lane. read here
Copenhagen is one of our favourite cities so we are loving the Travellettes 10 reasons to fall in love with the city.

We hope you enjoy these links and have a very happy Sunday!

Rich & Calum

21st August 2016

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Days Out | Belton House

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Orchard Blog

Earlier this summer we visited the picture perfect Belton House in Grantham, Lincolnshire. A National Trust property that could possibly be the ideal English country house? Built in the 1680s by Sir John Brownlow, Belton House is cited as one of the finest examples of Carolean architecture that flourished after the restoration of Charles II.

The House

To enter the house you ascend a grand sweep of steps into the grand marble hall. It is from here that you start your tour of the house. There is no set route, you can wander around the rooms at your will. The interiors feature a range of decorative styles, including: restoration, regency, victorian, and 1930 styles. The various styles are a product of ongoing refurbishment by subsequent generations of the family. Of particular interest is the friendship between Perry Cust, 6th Baron Brownlow and Edward, Prince of Wales. Bolton House was one of the locations in which the Prince of Wales’ affair with Wallis Simpson was played out, resulting in the infamous abdication crisis.

The Gardens

Once outside, the gardens include formal Italian and Dutch styles near the house, leading into informal gardens and small boating lake. There is a wonderful orangery showing lots of lovely exotic plants. Near the orangery is a 12th-century parish church, the church of St Peter and St Paul, where many of the Brownlow and Cust families are buried. The gardens are surrounded by a further 1300 acres of deer park, perfect for exploring, adventuring and picnicking.

More Information

Belton House has been used as a location for several films and tv programmes, possibly most famously used in the 1995 TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice as the house of Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

The National Trust have made sure there is plenty for families to do. There are both indoor and outdoor adventure play areas which we have to say looked awesome! At the Discovery Centre there are craft activities and dressing up.

Belton House is a great day out, whether with kids or without. We really enjoyed exploring the house and garden and wish we had more time to explore the grounds. Find out more about Belton House at the National Trust website.

19th August 2016

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Cocktail of the Week | Kir Royale Champagne Cocktail

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Orchard Blog

To top off the week long celebrations for Calum’s birthday we hosted a french style dinner party for a dozen of our friends. Like any good meal, it should always start with a cocktail as a welcome drink. As we went for a French theme dinner, we pulled out the Crème de Cassis, a blackcurrant liqueur, and the champagne that we picked up on our recent trip to France and created our cocktail of the week, a Kir Royale.

The Kir Royale is based on the Kir cocktail, in which white wine is used rather than champagne. The Kir was originally called a blanc-cassis and can be dated back to 1841 following the increased production levels of the Crème de Cassis. It was usually made with red wine, but after a man called Fèlix Kir, who was the mayor of Dijon after World War II, made the drink popular by presenting it at hosted events to visiting dignitaries, it was renamed. There are thoughts to suggest that the drink was reintroduced as the German Army ‘confiscated’ all the red in Burgundy during the war and left with a large amount of white. The drink has evolved greatly in recent years with the inclusion of many other versions with different liqueur such as peach, or different drinks such as beer, cider and even milk.

For this week’s cocktail, you will need:

Crème de Casis
Champagne or other sparkling wine
Flute glass

To start, make sure the sparkling white you use is chilled. Add two teaspoons of crème de casis to the flute and fill the glass with the sparkling wine. Then sit back and enjoy this week’s cocktail, the Kir Royale.

It is a perfect drink to use as an aperitif and to add a slight difference to serving just champagne.

18th August 2016

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How to Create a Botanical Table Theme

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Orchard Blog

We are still feeling inspired by our current favourite interior design book Botanical Style by Selina Lake. So when it came to setting the table for an Italian dinner party we had we knew we wanted a botanical table theme. We host frequently so mixing up the styles is fun way of adding a new dimension to each event.

For our botanical table theme we started by heading to our local garden centre to by some gorgeous green houseplants. We picked up a sword fern, a couple of maidenhair ferns and a couple of mind-your-own-business. You can read more about these plants here. We find that using plants can be a great alternative to cut flowers for creating the perfect table centre. More often than not it works out cheaper than buying cut flowers, and you get the added bonus of new plants to keep, or to give to your guests at the end of the eventing for presents.

We placed the plants a mixture of rustic containers that we had collected over the years and mixed these in with some green glass lantern and some vintage glass bottles. We also made some tea light holders in some washed out glass yoghurt pots with a bit of garden twine tied around the rim, economical and very effective.

We’d managed to borrow some collapsible tables to create a big enough dinner table to confirmable sit eight people. These tables are not the most attractive so to hide them we used a crisp white tablecloth. We broke this up with a natural coloured table runner and similar coloured napkins to keep the theme grounded. To continue the green from the plants we uses some green water glasses (purchased from ikea for 50p each). And Rich designed the menus and place names using a green palm leave motif.

Botanical Table Theme was perfect for our evenings festivities. We had a wonderful time!

17th August 2016

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Top Five | Birthday Bonanza

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Orchard Blog

It’s been Calum’s birthday this week! A perfect excuse for parties, presents and cake! What else has been in our top five this week you ask? Let’s have a look:

One

For Calum’s birthday present Rich got him this Crosley Crusier Turntable. Calum has hankering for a while so what better excuse than a birthday. We have a selection of Vinyl already and be looking to increase our collection now!

Two

To be honest Hettie would probably make the Top Five every week. She is such a gorgeous dog in temperament as well as looks but that wasn’t the reason for this entry! This week whilst Rich has been taking her out on walks he’s discovered the joy of Monocle Magazines podcasts. If you are not familiar with them go have a look!

Three

Our Lovely friends Nikki & Mike recently went to Chapel Down winery in Kent, they were telling us all about it and it is definitely on our list of places to visit now! In the mean time they very generously brought back a couple of bottle of english wine for us to sample, we can’t wait

Four

Birthdays obviously need birthday cards, Rich was very excited when he discovered Papier.com here you can personalise your own cards and invites. Seeing as we both love golden retrievers Rich thought this Smudge Ink design was perfect. They also work with a couple of our favourite studios, 1canoe2 and Small Adventure, as well as many others. I am sure well be using them again in the future.

Five

We have a card, and a present. Only one thing left for a perfect birthday – Cake!! For a change Rich headed into the kitchen to create this pimped up Victoria sponge cake. With all that fruit it must be very healthy and good for you no?

15th August 2016

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Sunday Catch Up

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Orchard Blog

We don’t know about you but we think there is nothing better than a lazy Sunday morning catching up with the news and our favourite blogs. We are therefore going to start a Sunday catch up post linking back to what we have been blogging about that week and a selection of our favourite posts from other bloggers.

From Orchard Blog

Read our review of Botanical Style by Selina Lake, a gorgeous interior design book with lots of inspiration read here
We tried our hands at mixing Negronis for our cocktail of the week feature. read here
Feeling inspired by our love of Alderney and the beach we collated a design scheme for a beach house living room read here

From Elsewhere

Over at Lobster & Swan, Jeska shared her take on creating a garden retreat, a gorgeous hideaway at the end of the garden read here
Inspired by the new Swallows & Amazon Film, Sara from Me and Orla went on an adventure and for an old fashioned picnic read here
Will from Bright.Bazaar has been reviewing The New Shingled House, a book that is definitely now on our wish list read here

We hope you enjoy these links and have a very happy Sunday!

Rich & Calum

14th August 2016

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Design Inspiration | Beach House Style

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Orchard Blog

Inspired by our recent post on Alderney, we’ve been thinking a lot about beach house style. Our perfect beach house would be a laid back retreat just a couple of stems about from gorgeous golden sand between our toes. Feeling inspired by this beach house state of mind we collected the best in sandy tones and laid-back style to create a scheme for a living room that will remind us of Alderney. Details of our finds are below, what do you think?

Beach House Style | Where to buy:

fig.1 Wilton Layered White Mirror One World Trading
fig.2 Visit Alderney Print Orchard Market on Etsy
fig.3 Alderney Landmarks Print Orchard Market on Etsy
fig.4 Two Seated Izzy Sofa Sofa.com
fig.5 Safavieh Gold & Ivory Rug Wayfair.co.uk
fig.6 Sahara Coffee Table Swoon Editions
fig.7 Diamond Cushion West Elm
fig.8 Frehel Table Lamp John Lewis
fig.9 Beehive Blanket Tartan Blanket Company
fig.10 Salcombe Lantern Lights4Fun
fig.11 Beside the Seaside by Jane Struthers
fig.12 Anchor Vase John Lewis
fig.13 Sunny Day Dulux
fig.14 Sandy Steps Dulux
fig.15 Pearl Grey Dulux

12th August 2016

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Cocktail of the Week | Negroni

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Orchard Blog

For this week’s cocktail of the week, we took inspiration from a recent Italian themed dinner party we had. There are a plethora of Italian cocktails that we could have tried, but the Negroni was the one cocktail neither of us had sampled before and thought it would be giving it a try, especially as it used up some of the red Vermouth we have!

The Negroni has a link to Italian nobility through Count Camilo Negroni. It was reportedly first mixed in Florence in 1919 where the Count asked his bartender to boost his favourite cocktail the Americano. His bartender, Fosco Scarselli, replaced the soda water in the Americano with gin and gave it an orange garnish to distinguish it as a different drink. Given that the family started producing a ready made version of the drink in 1919, it is possible that this story is a little bit of a corporate myth. On the other hand, if it is true, it is a good start to how most cocktails are made, by experimentation.

For this week’s cocktail, you will need:

1 measure of gin
1 measure of sweet red vermouth
1 measure of Campari
Ice
One orange for garnish

To make the cocktail, take a tumbler or old fashioned style glass and add the ice. Pour in the gin, red vermouth and Campari over the ice. Stir the mix and add the orange for the garnish and there you have the cocktail of the week, the Negroni.

The cocktail has a very dry, bitter taste and probably needed more ice than we added. However, as Orsen Wells stated when he came across the drink “The bitters are excellent for your liver, the gin is bad for you. They balance each other”, we will take that as a sign that we made it correctly.

11th August 2016

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Book Review | Botanical Style by Selina Lake

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Orchard Blog

Book Review Botanical Style by Selina Lake

We spend a lot of time planning home decor, it doesn’t matter if it was our rented flat or for our ideal future home. It is one of our passions and, in part the reason behind this blog. As well as almost single handily keeping the magazine industry going and a healthy pinterest/instagram addiction, we do love a good interiors book to scour through and find ideas that we can us. We also like to have a stack of beautiful books on the coffee table to delve into every so often. It is the little things in life that makes us happy! With that in mind it brings us to todays posts, a brief review of Botanical Style by Selina Lake, our latest interiors book purchase and a goldmine of stunning inspiration.

Selina Lake is a freelance interior & lifestyle stylist (that might be Rich’s dream job!) and Botanical Style is her seventh book. We first heard of the book when Selina did a book signing at Anthropologie in Guildford, being local to us we picked up the event on social media. We were’t able to make it along but our interest was peaked and we wanted to buy a copy!

Botanical style can mean many things to many people, and to this end the book is operated in to five separate styles: Vintage Botanicals, Boho Botanicals, Industrial Botanicals, Tropical Botanicals and Natural Botanicals. Different chapters will appeal to different people. Rich loves the vintage and natural chapters, Calum like the tropical style and we both love the industrial industrial. As well as explaining the styles in depth there are also individual style tips and little make projects. Reading the book we were itching to get out to the local garden centre to add to our already healthy supply of houseplants!

The key to a good interiors book is plenty of great photos to illustrate the ideas, the photographer, Rachel Whiting, does a great job at bringing the style to life. We’ve already spent hours pouring over every gorgeous image for inspiration, and I am sure this is a book we will return back to time and time again.

There is so much inspiration packed into this book, from romantic summer houses to tropical glamour. For anyone with green fingers (or wishes they did) we thoroughly recommend this book, it has made us very happy!

You can buy Botanical Style by Selina Lake here

Follow Selina’s Blog here

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Top Five | London Adventures

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Orchard Blog

Next week is Calum’s birthday so at the weekend we headed into London for a day for adventures. It was great fun but very tiring but seeing as the Olympics also kicked off so we can get some R&R whilst watching all the obscure sports possible. Three day eventing anyone?

One

Continuing our love of all things apian we enjoying all the bees visiting the echinops in the garden. Great to watch the busy bees getting on with their lives and Rich managed to take this cool picture of a little guy collecting the nectar. Well done bee!

Two

One of Calum’s birthday treats was a trip to Swingers in London (Don’t worry it is nothing untoward simply crazy golf.) Located in The City, this basement venue has two nine hole crazy golf course, a couple of bars and several food options. You can book in advance or they hold hold their spaces back for walk-ups. Beer, pizza and crazy golf. We loved it!

Three

As part of Calum’s birthday celebrations we headed to Shakespeare’s Globe to see The Taming of a Shrew. It was a great production but the play’s misogynistic storyline didn’t sit with our liberal outlook. The Globe is a magical place to watch Shakespeare and the £5 standing tickets make it an absolute steal!

Four

Much excitement from the Greenhouse. The tomatoes, peppers, chilli’s, cucumber and aubergines are all coming on very well. The Veg patch has been a constant battle with slugs and snails, but we are having more success in here! We’ll be harvesting soon.

Five

On Sunday morning we decided to have a proper breakfast and enjoy it whilst catching up with all the Olympic action we had missed. One of our favourite breakfasts is a continental spread, perfect for enjoying over a couple of hours on a lazy Sunday morning.

8th August 2016

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