A cosy autumn day in the Cotswolds 🐿️🪵🍂 countryside walks, villages, baking, and painting

Let's go for a walk. What you doing? What I love about going for walks in the English countryside compared to being in Australia is you don't have to worry about snakes, spiders, bugs, all those sorts of things. It's a walk that's nice and peaceful. It's not as scary. I have a dream of living in the countryside one day. I don't know how that's going to work in Australia because I'm actually terrified of bugs, anything that flies, spiders. I'm going to have to get over that or I could just move to the English countryside and not have to worry about it as much. Something else that I find really novel about going for a walk through the English countryside is all the produce that you can harvest. You'll just be walking and there's blackberries in the hedgerows or apple trees and all sorts of things that you can harvest yourself. I think that's really, really cool. Our Airbnb host actually got us some walnuts that she harvested yesterday, so I think a little bit later on I'm going to make some cookies. Good morning everyone. We've just got back from our walk and we're getting ready for the day. We're going to go explore a couple of villages and just sort of bop around the countryside and see where the day takes us. So I thought we'd get ready together today because I've just bought all of those pieces which you guys have been loving. I thought I'll show you how I'm styling them. We're doing a little bit of layering today and the first piece that I've got on is this white t-shirt. This is the Clean Cut Regular t-shirt from COS. I really like their t-shirts because they're a little bit thicker so they hold their shape but also because they're a cropped length so it's easy to wear it out like this without it being too baggy or easy to tuck it in and you don't have too much material to actually tuck in to your bottoms which I also really like so it doesn't bunch up underneath your clothes. I'm pairing that with this little skort. This is the one from H&M. This is a lovely little plaid detail and it's got this little bulk buckle on the side which I think is really, really cute. It's a skort so we've got shorts on underneath and then we've just got the skirt as the front flap here. And then I've also got on these little stockings underneath as well so that's just to add a little bit of extra warmth and I think it looks really, really cute. The first layer that we're going for is this cardigan. This is the Brushed Cashmere Cardigan from COS. I absolutely love this. It's one of my favourite pieces that I purchased. I love the colour. It's so soft, so warm, so cosy. It just feels like you're wearing a nice, warm, cosy hug. And I love the colour as well. It just pairs. It's a nice neutral colour so it just pairs really well with everything. And the best part is it slightly covers your hands as well so it keeps your hands nice and warm. And then the last layer that we're going in with is this jacket. This is the Massimo Dutti Wool Cropped Jacket. This is probably my other favourite purchase from my recent shopping haul. I absolutely love it. It goes so nicely with all of my outfits and it keeps me so nice and warm as well. It's also a really similar colour to the cardigan which I think is quite pretty which means you can easily pair these two items together. So you could easily wear this outfit with the jacket open like this. I still think that looks really cute. Or I prefer to button it up. It gives a little bit more of a tailored, finished look. Buttoning it all the way up to the top. I'm going to pair it with these black loafers. These are from H&M as well. I think this outfit would be really cute in the city as well. And whilst it's not too cold, I think you can still get away with wearing the shorts. So this is the outfit. It's a little hard because I can't get a full length for you. And the lighting isn't too great in here but I'm sure you can get an idea of what it looks like. I'm still trying to figure out the best place to film in this cottage. Because there's not a lot of natural light and obviously the very changeable English weather makes it a little harder to film inside. So I'll pop up a photo so that you can see what the outfit actually looks like. For my jewellery, I'm just keeping it really simple. I wear the same jewellery every single day. These were just a gift from Jessie's parents from Italy. My engagement ring. This is an infinity ring. And my bracelet. This ties in really nicely with my necklace. Which you can't see. And then just my black vintage Cartier watch. I think the black watch ties in really nicely with the rest of the detail. The darker details in the outfit. The shoes. The darker buttons. And the bag. For perfume, I'm going with my... Well, not any perfume. This is the Jo Malone English Pear and Freesia. I think it's my signature scent. I absolutely love it. And it ties in really nicely with being in the English countryside as well. As for finishing off my hair. This is a new product for me. This is the Kerastase hair oil. I usually use the Gisu hair oil. Which I absolutely love. But this one was on sale. So I thought I'll give it a go. Because I haven't tried it before. And I know everyone online seems to love it. And it was on sale. So why not try something whilst it's on sale. I will say I do like it. My hair is definitely noticeably softer and shinier. After using it for probably about a week now. But what I don't like about it compared to the Gisu oil. Is this one is really fragrant. It's got a much stronger scent to it. Which I don't really love. I mean it's definitely a beautiful product. It adds like a nice shine and finish to your hair. So it's like a nice little finishing piece to pop on before you head out the door. And then as for my bag. I only have one bag with me. Obviously I'm travelling. So I can't take too many handbags with me. And this is just my black Oratum bag. This is an Australian brand. And they have really beautiful quality bags for quite a decent price. And I'm just going to wear it with a cross body strap today. I think the black ties in again really nicely with the mood of the outfit. And all of the other black details. So that is the finished outfit. I think it's a really cute little autumnal outfit. And you can wear this around the city as well. I think it would be really lovely. Oh. Lip gloss. Almost forgot. How could I forget? Lip gloss. This is literally the only lip gloss that I own. It's Charlotte Tilbury Pillow Talk. It's my favourite. I love the colour. Because I find it's really quite nice and natural. It's quite similar to my natural lip colour. So I think it goes really nicely. And honestly, I've had this. I've had this for so long. I actually don't remember when I bought this. But it's just lasted me for so long. So, yeah. That is me for the day. Let's head out. Let's explore. We're going to a little town called Bybury. Which I'm sure most of you have probably heard of if not been to. It pops up on all of the lists for must-visit towns in the Cotswolds. So, of course, we have to go and check that out. And then I think we're going to head to Cirencester afterwards. Because that's quite near where we're staying. And we haven't been there yet. Plus, Jessie needs to get some running shoes. And, yeah. So, we're going to go do that. That's our plan for the day. And we're going to do a little bit of painting this afternoon. And I'm really excited to show you this idea. Because I think if you wanted to give it a go, this would be a really fun idea for Christmas. So, let's get on the road. How cute is this little garden? It's beautiful. We've just got home from exploring a couple of villages. And we have a few hours to kill before we head out to dinner at a pub tonight. And I thought, we're kind of craving something sweet. Our Airbnb host harvested all of these walnuts for us yesterday. And she dropped them off with a little nutcracker. So, I thought, let's go make some cookies. We've picked up a couple of ingredients from the shop. So, that's what we're going to do. Also, Jessie and I have been talking about Christmas. Because we have to send Christmas presents back to Australia. So, we need to be really organised. And usually, I'll admit, we are not organised when it comes to presents. When it comes to Christmas gifts. Things like that. So, we need to get organised. We were looking at some beautiful shops today. And all these beautiful gifts. And it kind of prompted us to, yeah, we need to start thinking about presents that we're going to be sending back. We also have birthdays coming up as well. So, on that topic, I thought, let's do a little bit of painting. Because I saw a few weeks ago on TikTok, this lady was painting her own gift tags. I thought that sounded like a really fun idea. So, why don't we do that? We'll make some cookies. We'll do a little bit of painting. And then we'll head out. So, let's get into the kitchen. I've actually never used a nutcracker before. So, I've got no idea if I'm doing this right. I'm not sure how much you're supposed to squeeze it. Because it seems like I've kind of squeezed it a little too hard. And it's broken the nut. So, maybe I need to be a bit more gentle. Oh, there we go. Let's fill some in there. How cool is this? See, I would never have known that these were walnuts if I walked past these in the street. I never would have known that. I have a feeling I'm doing this completely wrong. But... There's a first time for everything, right? This is going to take a while. I won't bore you through this. I'm going to crack all of these nuts and I'll be right back. Is it just me? Are these giving a weird resemblance to a brain? Or is that just me? Okay, so now that that's done, we can get on with making the cookies. So, we're going in first with some butter. And the sugar. And we're just going to mix these together. Obviously, this would be a lot easier if you had a mixer of some sort. But, I'm staying in an Airbnb and I just don't have one available. So, I'm making the most with what I've got. Adding in an egg. Some vanilla extract. About a teaspoon. We're just going to sift in the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. We're going to now add in the maple syrup. Proper measuring cups or devices or anything. So, a lot of this is just sort of guessing. A lot of guesswork going into this. Hopefully, it turns out okay. Yeah, that looks pretty good. We're just going to now add in the walnuts that we crushed earlier. Just sort of fold these in. Okay, we're just going to roll these into little balls. And pop them on. Let's go get these in the oven. So, I thought whilst we're waiting for the cookies to bake, we'll have a very quick book club catch up. I think we might do a proper catch up maybe once every fortnight. That should give everyone enough time to read the books. I was so overjoyed with the response that I got on last week's video about people wanting to join a book club and their comments and things like that. So, it was really, really lovely to see. I'm still about halfway through Hamnet. I'm really loving it at the moment. It's actually so good. And I'm sort of verbally relaying everything to Jesse. So, he's really enjoying it as well. And by the comments, a lot of you guys have either already read it or are currently reading it. You also mentioned that there's a movie coming out. So, I think that's really cool because once we finish reading it, we can then go to the cinemas and watch the movie. If it's going to be in the cinemas, I actually have to double check that. Or if it's just going to be like streamed. Anyway, yeah, so I thought next week we can meet again and we can talk about Hamnet, what we enjoyed about it and things like that. I would love your recommendations for another book to read. So, something that we could start together next week. Let me know in the comments below if there's a book that you're currently reading that you're absolutely loving or something that's been on your to-read list. A few have popped up for me. One, I think it's called Rebecca, keeps popping up. And A Little Life, although I think that's actually quite heavy from what I've seen. I wouldn't mind reading something sort of thought-provoking or maybe even like a thriller or something along those lines. I recently read all of like the Cinnamon Bun Bookstore books and I really, really loved those. Anything romance or kind of feel good. Let me know in the comments below if there's something that you guys want to read or something that you could recommend because I'm open for suggestions. I'm heading to Oxford in a few days. So, yeah, I'll probably pop into a bookstore then and grab something. So, yeah, let me know your thoughts. And if you have finished Hamnet or are still reading it, let me know what you think about it as well because so far I think it's really, really good. Anyway, let's move on. I'm going to paint some Christmas gift tags. I thought this would be a really fun idea. Even if you, it doesn't have to be anything fancy, but I think it adds a really nice personal touch and it's just a lot of fun. I also think that this would be a great activity to do with friends or if you have kids, a way to get them involved. I think it's just, yeah, a lot of fun. So that's what we're going to get up to now. Once the cookies are ready, we'll start painting. Okay, so I've just flipped up this little sort of maple glaze. I'm going to just drizzle this over the cookies. I can't tell if I want to sort of just drizzle it like this or sort of do more of a dollop. I might do a couple of each. The cookies themselves are really nice because they're not overly sweet. So I think this little glaze just adds a little bit of extra sweetness to them. The glaze is literally just icing sugar and maple syrup and then I just added in a little bit of water just to thin it out. I'm just going to go in with some little crushed walnuts on top just for something a little extra because why not? They look really good. Honestly, is there anything better than a nice cozy afternoon at home, having a cup of tea, some freshly baked cookies, and then painting or reading a book or something? We are about to start painting. I was sort of really loosely playing around this morning with some little sketch ideas. I quite like the little house, the little reef here, the baubles, things like that. So I think we'll do those a little bit bigger as actual gift tags. This was another one that I was playing around with as well. I thought that was quite pretty. And then obviously we'd puncture a little hole up the top here and put some string through and then stick it onto the present. So that's what we're going to get up to now. I think there's three designs that I really like that I'm going to do today. I'll just quickly show you what I'm using. This is just my Winsor & Newton watercolour kit. It's really messy at the moment. I'll link this below. I picked up a couple of other brushes whilst I was at Cirencester today, just more detail brushes, but essentially you just want one that's a little bit thicker and then more detail sort of brush. You don't need a lot here. Honestly, these are really simple. You can just use any sort of brushes, but essentially if you're going to be doing finer details, you want one with a thinner tip. The base of the house here where it meets the snow, I'm not forming like a straight line because I want it to look like the snow is sort of piled up against the house. It's not perfectly even. These sort of gift tags, they don't have to be too perfect. I mean, you kind of want them to know that you've done these yourselves. So it's okay if they're a little sort of more painterly and a little bit loose. They don't have to be perfect. They're allowed to be a little messy. And I think that just adds to the charm and the character of it. So I'm not being too precise here as if I was painting a proper scene. I'm just sort of doing this really loosely. On the side of the house, I want it to be a little bit darker just to give a little bit of perspective. So I'm going to add a little bit more pigment to this section. I also have to add a little bit of a darker color just underneath the use of the house. Just again to add a little bit of shadow. And I'm just going in again with a little bit more pigment just to sort of draw in some lines and shapes just so that the building doesn't look too flat. Just mixing up a really washed out grey. You kind of just want it to look almost like dirty water. This is going to be your snow. You just kind of want it to look like there's snow piled up in certain places. I'm also going to use that same grey to sort of draw a little outline on the roof. Just down the back here to make a little chimney. Using a slightly more pigmented version of that grey color. I'm just going to draw in some little windows. The beauty about painting trees, especially Christmas trees, is they're actually really quite simple. You're just sort of drawing downward strokes. They really don't need to be too complicated. For the second one, I'm just going to sort of paint some very loose leaves. Probably starting midway up. Again, these really don't need to be too detailed. If you're going for more of a painterly look, it doesn't really matter. You can keep it really nice and soft and just sort of casual. Obviously, you can add as much detail as you want. I'm just keeping it nice and simple. I'm just working my way down with these little Vs. I'm just working my way down until I get about halfway. I'm using a brown now to draw some thin sticks that have little seeds on them. I kind of think some little red berries would look really pretty on here too. For the rest of the wreath, I'm actually going in with a black pen. Because you've just got a little bit more control. Essentially, I'm just going to draw in the rest of the wreath with a little bow. That's number two. You could potentially draw a little house or a little animal in here if you wanted to, but I like it nice and simple. That's number one. A little bit of a better look there. We're going to set these aside and get started on our next ones. For this first one, I'm just going to draw a branch across the circle here. I'm just using the same brown as before, just a little bit more pigmented now because I want it a bit darker. I'm just using the pen again here just to draw in the string and the little top of the bauble. For the last one, I'm just going to use the exact same colours this time. I'm going to draw a very thin branch coming across. Then we're coming in with this green colour again. As before, we're just drawing little leaves. This is our four little Christmas tags. We're just going to put some holes and some string in them. This is the finished little gift tags. I really like this one, I would say. This one's probably my favourite, followed by... I think this one's really cute as well. This one's really lovely as well. I just attached some string to them, some straw actually, because that's all I had. But you can obviously use some ribbon or whatever. This one, I feel like I still need to work on this because it didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to. But I still really think they're quite cute. And you can obviously write on these as well. You can write on the back or you could write something like Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or something. But yeah, just a really lovely, fun activity to do.