Blogging is brilliant.

It's brilliant because it brings communities together, raises thousands for charity, develops life long friendships and brings you opportunities you'd only dream of!

And.... it brought me to Buddy.

Oh what a night! Kirsten and I have been giddy for a couple of weeks, my sister was livid as was my brother and sister in law in New Jersey who adore his show Cake Boss! If you haven't seen it you are one of the few, his shows are televised in 190 countries! 

I had no idea what to expect from an international celebrity. But he surpassed all expectations.

Charming, witty, informal, welcoming (He kissed us all on two cheeks asking "This is what you do in England right?!") and led the most informal workshop, bouncing questions back and forwards between bloggers, journalists and television network staff, who were all as giddy as we were.

Buddy is passionate about creating a legacy and it was his strong sense of family that was so overwhelming. He wants a successful empire but he wants a clean, family, wholesome empire. One which will inspire generations to bake.

He calls it "Empowering the home baker." 

Buddy had both the men and women captivated in the basement kitchen of L'Atelier des Chefs in London's Mayfair. I was impressed with his sincerity and the way in which he openly discussed his own ups and downs and family heartbreak. This isn't a skill he has mastered, it's his natural charm.

We were all invited as part of a promotional event for his new line of bakeware. A HUGE new line of everything you could possibly ever want or need. But there were moments when you forgot he had a new line to sell. There were no figures or statistics, no hard sell, just banter. 

There were bloggers, bakers and writers and it was wonderful to meet Caroline too! 

But what I noticed was how classic the styling of the new collection was. With a reputation for creating enormous, extravagant cakes and even covering a whole car in fondant icing once, I had imagined the packaging, colours and patterns to have a show business quality to them. But no. Beautifully packaged, timeless products and pretty decorations. Feminine colour palette but the metal bakeware and gadgets have a strong unisex feel which I can see men and women alike snapping up as soon as they hit UK stores. If you can't wait until then you can purchase the range on Amazon.

Thanks to the official TLC photographer for providing the image of me icing my "marble" creation. Eek!

We were all sent home with a marvellous goodie bag full of treats to try and watch, apron and books including The Cake Decorating Bible by Juliet Sear, Cake Boss' ambassador in the UK. And Kirsten won the prize for the best decorated cake! Go Kirsten! 

Thank you to Porter Marketing for such a brilliant invitation.

And don't forget to watch the new series of Cake Boss on TLC on Fridays at 9pm.

And if you haven't yet nominated your favourite blogs for the BritMums Brilliance in Blogging Awards (yes I know - it's blog awards season!) today is your last chance!

You don't have to submit links to everything just the blog website links you love. 

Of course I'd be thrilled to be nominated this year so if you think I deserve a place in the shortlist you can nominate HERE.

Welcome to another month of beautiful Bento!

It was great to see so many link up last month and I feel inspired by all the different ideas.

The best thing about Bento is you can be as creative as you want or as time allows.

You don’t HAVE to be a creative genius, just empty packets! How hard is that?

Have you seen the cute divider plates? Start there. Bento is all about thinking about the way we present our food. So instead of a plate of foil and plastic wrapping, let your children really see what feast they have before them. 

We can all work up to Hello Kitty figures made from seaweed and rice!

I am a busy parent and I have no time to have to use tweezers in order to create a masterpiece, but I do have time to separate. Use silicon cups in a shallow lunch box to stop them rattling around, or lidded pots or even better as it’s Easter time, refillable eggs! There are also loads of different lunch boxes available which have pre divided plastic sections.

The boys helped me choose the ingredients for these ideas and then proceeded to eat everything like a tasting platter! Sammy’s eyes were as wide as the eye picks when he saw it all come out to the table, and that is my biggest inspiration for making meal times more fun.

And if you don’t think your children may appreciate the extra effort think about whether little things make a difference to you, in terms of presentation. I have no idea why but when I eat a sandwich that has been cut into triangles it just feels nicer than in squares and a cup of tea just feels more special, when the tea bag comes with a string in a little envelope of it’s own?! Am I mad?!

Last year’s Easter Bento Babies was full of colour and this year is no different!

5 ideas to get you through a holiday week.

Fresh coconut/Scotch egg/Pepperarmi/Pasta/Pistachio nuts/Blueberries

Sweetcorn rings/Bruschetta and hummus/Dried cranberries/Chunks of ham/Cocoa Snack bar/Kiwi and grapes

Pretzel mix/Strawberries/Green pepper,Cold noodles/Almonds and a chocolate egg/Babybel cheese

Salami/Yoghurt/Cucumber/Mango/Japanese crackers/Boiled egg

Pumpkin seeds, yoghurt covered strawberries, cashew nuts and cranberries/Carrot and mini sweet corns with a salsa dip/Pineapple and dried pear/Sweet treat/Fruit puree and bunny biscuits/Scotch pancake

It’s a hard job expanding your children’s palettes. But it’s even harder if we never try. It’s easy to get into a routine and I’m often guilty of serving the same 5 dinners on rotation, in amongst a few dinners that go ping. I’ve got into a bad habit of using lunch time to experiment and then it’s the same old spag bol or mince related dinner on the menu! 

I watched a BritMums video hangout the other day and was amazed at the kinds of meals the bloggers were talking about, that they serve to their families. There’s no reason why we can’t challenge their taste buds with flavour and spice and I am going to attempt a few new dishes over the Easter holidays to add to our family repertoire. 

Any suggestions?! 

Join in and share the love of Bento! Link up your lovely lunches and snack teas and let's all inspire each other. It's not about what looks the most fancy it's about sharing ideas to get our little ones eating better!

Linking up with #TastyTuesdays, #recipeoftheweek, Share with Me and Eats Amazing

Hello hello!

It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks preparing for the Easter holidays and having the boys at home for 2 weeks. I have been working my cherry print socks off, been chained to the laptop, much to the despair of my husband, and in an attempt to rectify a home/life balance have been a bit quieter lately on the blog.

I even had a day off everything on Friday and had a girly day of lunch, shopping and non stop gas bagging with a lady I wish I lived closer to. If you are a blogger you will find it hard to believe that Katie and I managed to get through a 2 hour lunch without sending a single tweet! But as we don't get many opportunities to see each other we made the absolute most of it!

BUT, I am bursting with ideas so watch out for a nice steady stream of things to make and hopefully some pretty things to inspire you. 

So we have have lots to catch up on....

Show notes:

• Let Her Eat Clean
• Design Bloggers at Home by Ellie Tennant
• Bright Bazaar by Will Taylor
• Blognix - blog conference
• Fantasy swimwear
• The Old School Club

Do you ever get weeks like this, when it seems like one opportunity leads to another, then another?

It's times like this that you need to focus on the good bits to get you through the hard bits!

Here are a few snaps from behind the scenes at the photo shoot. A couple I borrowed from the very lovely Ruth and a few final shots mixed in. The shoot was for a social media campaign for  a successful Functional Medicine Doctor In London and I had the pleasure of working with a premier Paleo chef, Pete.

The trick of this shoot was to create a bank of images that could be used in different seasons and for different campaigns. So each dish had to have several styles to convey the different times you might eat it and create atmosphere. Which meant lots of props! 

One of the best things was seeing all my charity shop bargains come to life. 

I love how much we smiled through this shoot!

These were genuinely happy faces!

And speaking of happy, since I reactivated my Instagram account I have never felt more creative or inspired. And I had a thought this morning about creating a rainy day book of photos. Most of the photos you see on my Instagram account are taken on my iPhone and although they may not be perfectly crisp, I think it would make a sweet book of inspiration to cheer me up in stressful times. I need to dig out my little Selphy photo printer!

Happy week everyone, what ever you do, do it with pride, a smile and record it in some small way. 

These are the good times.

Linking up with #whatsthestory, #magicmoments, #magpiemonday