You're Born Naked & The Rest is Drag... So Let's Accessorise With RuPaul's Drag Race Tote Bags, Shall We?

Bianca, Latrice, Alaska, Sharon, Adore, Pearl

I think I'm Northern Ireland's biggest RuPaul's Drag Race fan, and yes I would accept a challenge on that. I asked Instagram did anyone else share my passion, and a friend tagged a girl called Agnes, who definitely seems to be as keen as I to seek out the new season 8 episode on a Tuesday morning. 

Season 7 winner Violet

Even better, Agnes has an  Etsy store selling her own prints of the queens and she'll sell you a canvas tote with your favourite on it too. So all of us can walk into the room purse first, purse first, just like Bob The Drag Queen. Hooray!

Adore

Thorgy

My season 8 favourite Kim Chi

My season 7 favourite, Trixie Mattel

Ginger Minge

Katya

One of my all time favourites, Alyssa. Back rolls? 

Season 8's Acid Betty

Bianca

Pearl

Bendelacreme

Latrice

Miss Fame

Max

Jinkx as Little Edie

A Trip to Dublin

Smix and I drove down to Dublin on Wednesday, for a little getaway. We stayed in the Phoenix Park Travelodge again, which I would highly recommend for families visiting the city. We park there then get a bus into the city centre. They come along every five minutes past the back gate of the hotel, and for one adult and one child it costs just €4.20 to get into the city centre. 

Giant Toymaster store with an animatronic dinosaur! 

Temple Bar area

Yo Sushi for lunch

Johnnie Cupcakes in the Stephen's Green Shopping Centre

Vintage toys in 'Stock' 

Excellent breakfast in Temple Bar

Market Arcade

Future Farming at the Science Gallery

#EggsEverywhere ! Hop Along to your nearest National Trust Property for Chocolate Hunting Fun this Weekend.

Easter is early this year, but the weather is looking promising, should you wish to go egg hunting at the weekend. Cadbury have paired with The National Trust once again, to put on over 300 hunts across the country. Use the hunt locator on their site to see where your nearest event is being held.

It just so happened that we decided to take a spin to Mount Stewart today, one of the Northern Irish National Trust properties hosting a hunt. Their festivities run from Friday 23rd until Monday 25th, and for £1 each, your kids can take part in the lake lapping adventure. The parents get quite competitive at things too, as I remember from previous years! 

Bunny hadn't visited yet, but we had a nice visit and made a little video to share with you.

Coincidentlly we had planned to make our own treasure hunt for viewers of the Smix Brix YouTube channel. My friend Pamela had told me about an app that uses augmented reality called Aurasma.

How it works is person A takes a photo of say the harp, while standing at the red hand. They add the augmented reality aspect and save to Aurasma's database. Person B will come along, open their Aurasma app and stand where they've been told to stand, and point the screen's searching circles, which hopefully will circle in, then they will have the same augmented reality animation or video pop up on their phone. It's sort of like a trigger to make your device play a fun little gif or character.

The device you are searching with has to be online as it were. A non-sim iPad wouldn't work unless you somehow can connect to wifi or someone's phone's tethering. The video above will show you exactly where to stand, and what to point your device at to view the surprise animations. 

So Mount Stewart is a lot of fun this weekend. You may well bump into us again, as we will be back for the Cadbury hunt as usual.  also if you haven't been in a while it's worth going to see the house renovations. Touring the grand house is included in the entrance price.

Want To Get To Know Me Better....?

Tonight I'm being a bit meta and the topic I'm promoting is- myself!  My Instagram account to be exact. My username is @rudedoodle and on there you'll see snippets of what's coming up on here, but also bits and pieces you don't get to see on my blog.

For example this photo from last night, when Smix had a go at putting fake eyelashes on me. I was hoping that I might secretly have a little beauty technician living under my roof, but sadly not!

So you'll see me, more than I am in photographs on here. I also love snapping new and cool products when I'm out an about so my Instagram is a wonderful place for ideas. You will definitely see plenty of cliched food pictures, and the odd bit of beauty too. 

Mostly you will see what Smix & I get up to of a week, so  come on over, you'll be most welcome.

Have You Ever Been In a Room With 10,000 Balloons.....?

This evening Smix & I attended the strangest & quite possibly coolest blogging event yet. Studio Souk in Belfast has partnered with Yelp UK to create a room with 10,000 balloons. The floor and ceiling are covered with them.  

Smix was in his element diving amongst them. 

Studio Souk's balloon party will be open to the public all weekend, with balloon room yoga classes on Sunday as well as selfie competitions with spot prizes. Worth popping in just to say 'I've been in a room with 10,000 balloons'! 

Solo Kitchen, Belfast: Fresh, New, City Centre Casual Dining, Tapas and Cocktails

Solo Kitchen Belfast is a fresh new city centre restaurant combining European and Asian dishes and full & bountiful tapas menu. Solo's sister restaurant, the successful Ambrosia on the Ormeau Road is also owned by Michael Karan, who's vision for casual dining in plush surroundings is based firmly in locally sourced, excellent quality ingredients. 

The restaurant is located on Wellington Place, opposite 'Home', which makes it an ideal location for pre-theatre dining. In fact Solo Kitchen have a dedicated theatre menu alongside their main menu and tapas selection. The menu focuses on traditional European dishes, but also fine dining versions of Asian favourites, such as Biriyani, Tikka Masala and Honey Chilli Chicken.

The tapas menu has over 35 dish options. Stand out delights for me are Solo's Poca Carne (mini steak, peppered sauce, green beans), Calamari a la Paprilla ( calamari sprinkled with paprika & lemon juice) and Mejillones Con Choritzo (mussels, chroritzo, white whine cream sauce, garlic bread). 

Smix and I were invited along last week to try the menu for ourselves. We had just been at Vintage Rocks Hair Salon for a few hours, so we were ravenous! 

To begin I chose the avocado and beetroot salad, which is also available as a main course. The dish is a refreshing start to a meal, with an intriguing wholegrain mustard and citrus dressing. It's a light choice, which is great for me, as give me too hefty a starter and I can't even manage half a main course.

The grill and its sirloin steaks certainly tempted me for my main course, but I decided to go with something a little more interesting. I chose the pork belly, served with wholegrain mustard mash, roasted baby carrot, king prawn, black pudding and candied pecans.  

The presentation was outstanding, and the veg was cooked to perfection. You can see how green the broccoli is, yet it was soft and delicious. It must have been cooked to the exact second! The mustard mash wasn't too spicy, so it went well with the flavours of the pork belly, without overpowering it with spice. The candied pecans were a playful touch, and the black pudding had a devine clove aroma to it. 

The children's menu impressed me with its options of more than just chicken nuggets or burgers. Of course then Smix goes and orders the chicken goujons, but to Solo Kitchen's credit kids can also chose from dishes like honey chilli chicken and steak.

Smix declared his chicken the best he ever tasted, and I'm not sure if it was the long wait at the hairdresser's, but he ate much more than he usually would when we dine out. The children's menu also has dessert choices of a lolly, or icecream. 

My dessert choice was tiramisu. It was beautiful, so much so that I managed to squeeze the whole thing in even after two other courses. The dessert menu is very traditional, so it might be fun to see an Asian dessert choice on there to match the rest of the menu, but that's a very minor 'complaint'. 

Solo Kitchen hope to appeal to the surrounding city workforce, nipping out for a special lunch, or stopping for cocktails and tapas after the office. Their breakfast menu has just launched, being served from 8am-1130am, which would make it worth while taking an earlier train and having fluffy pancakes or a veggie breakfast before the working day begins. All breakfasts come with free tea or coffee, and a refill!

Snixxy Swoons' Big, Chunky, Wooden Statement Jewellery That Won't Cost the Earth

I've blogged about Snixxy Swoons before, but I keep returning to her jewellery as her ideas and ranges change with the season. She's a saved search for me on eBay, and since my initial blog post about her I've bought at least two more lots of jewellery from her. And that's the beauty of her pieces, I can AFFORD to buy a few pieces thanks to her reasonable pricing. You can even make offers on her eBay listings of the price you wish to pay, and you can almost bet that she will include a little extra in your package too. Prices range from £8 to around £20 for the largest pieces.

My favourite new necklace

Her latest ranges are space inspired, and the one I loved, her classic insects, but partnered up with decorations of extra little insects on the necklace chain. I absolutely had to have one, and she kindly sent me an earth and bow tie too!  

All on eBay now

Buzzin' about this brooch

Her beautiful moths have been brought through to the spring collection. I own a brooch similar to this. 

So 'seller:misssnix2' is what you want to search eBay for, and that 100% positive feedback rating never lies. Thanks again for keeping those prices keen and ideas fresh!

My little surprise bow tie! 

Zoingo Boingo: The Flexible Fun Pogo Toy That Tempted Smix Away From His IPad & Out to the Garden!

This week we received the new Zoingo Boingo pogo toy from Flair toys, a spin on the traditional pogo stick with a bouncing ball base and bungee cord handle which allows for more movement and the ability to do more tricks than before. With the weather finally picking up it was the perfect time to tempt Smix outside and off his iPad to learn the skill to 'boinging'.

The Zoingo Boingo is suitable for age 8 and up, so Smix is exactly the target range. The toy comes boxed, and you have a guide to inflate the ball base to prepare it for use. This is where we had a little trouble. Initially we inflated it as much as it could be inflated, which made the ball base quite hard and with no give. This was our mistake! Do not over inflate the ball, it doesn't need to be like a football, allow some give in it and it's a LOT easier to get the hang of pogoing on the Zoingo Boingo. Allow for it to be a little 'squidgy'.

One side of the footplate has a lip, put your foot on this side to start

Around the ball base is the foot plate, and you'll see one side has a little lip. This is the side you put your first foot on, then tip, balance and bounce. Smix got the hang of it very quickly (now we had fixed the over inflated base problem) and within the first session he could do 17 bounces in a row.

The Zoingo works best on grass or pavement, and as you'd imagine isn't suitable for indoors on carpet. I'm just happy to get Smix outside at last and off his iPad! The Zoingo Boingo will be on sale  via Smyths Toys for £24.99 or you can purchase now on Amazon.