So, the time is almost upon us – the Company Style Blogger Awards 2013!

The awards are on 29 May in London and I literally can’t wait to go! My blog has never been nominated for an award before, let alone shortlisted so I’m really excited to go along and meet some new faces in the blogging world.

Next task is of course deciding what to wear, I would post up a couple of options to get your thoughts but I currently don’t even know what options I have….need to get cracking on that!

So in the meantime, I have another favour to ask of all you lovelies.

A few friends have nominated me in the Cosmo Blog Awards in the Best New Fashion Blog Category and I would be eternally grateful (I really, really, really would) if you could take 2 minutes to vote for me in this section.

Apparently it asks if my blog is under a year old – it isn’t! And I don’t think you need any other info apart from the link which is as follows:

http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/blogs/cosmo-blog-awards-2013/enter-the-2013-cosmopolitan-blog-awards-nominate-now

Thanks in advance to anyone who does take the time to vote for me!

Written by Maitha Ahmed on Peony and Blue Peony and Blue -

I love a good cupcake – who doesn’t?! When I think of top cupcakes, I automatically think of The Hummingbird Bakery.

There’s something about your own personal mini cake in it’s own case where the topping is as good as the cake itself (if not better!)

We even chose to have cupcakes rather than a big cake at our wedding – and it was made by the perfect combination of my wonderful mother who happens to be a master in the kitchen and a recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. Yum yum! Needless to say of the 120 cupcakes made, there were none left by the end of the night – note there were only about 45 guests, greedy greedy!

Anyway, I digress.

Back to the point. I love a cupcake. Most people I know love cupcakes. So imagine how exciting it was when one of last week’s deliveries was – yes, a box of cupcakes!!

Made by my sister’s friend Gayle, the cupcakes looked absolutely amazing, which you can all see for yourselves but they also tasted great. The frosting wasn’t too sweet and the fondant decorations were tasty too (they can sometimes taste a bit soapy but not these).

Gayle bakes at The Hummingbird Bakery but in her free time (where on earth does she find the time?!) she bakes her own creations with imaginative and realistic decorations.

As most of you know, I work in travel PR so these cakes were travel themed – my entire office struggled to choose favourite designs!

If you’d like to get in touch with Gayle to order cakes for a birthday or special event just drop me a line and I’ll happily put you in touch – lots of people are jumping on the baking/cupcake bandwagon but Gayle is a pro with a heck of a lot of skill and talent so I’d highly recommend her. Email me at maitha@peonyandblue.com for more info.

Written by Maitha Ahmed on Peony and Blue Peony and Blue -

It’s been a busy few weeks recently, hence the break in posts but I’m back on track now and catching up with myself!

There are lots of exciting posts coming but here are some highlights of what I’ve been up to. It’s a bit of everything really, from a weekend in Brighton and trip to gay Paris to various blogger and press events and a bit of everything in between.

In the last month I’ve had some exciting news  - more to come on that soon!

And it’s also been press day season which I love but working in travel PR full time makes it quite hard to escape the office and run to the press days! I’ve managed to get to a couple in the evenings though and they’ve all been really good fun.

Too many things I want to post about and not enough time! Eventually I’ll get there, in the meantime, have a peruse through these.

Clearly I’ve taken to snapping pics of everything I’ve eaten – I’ve been hanging out with food bloggers too much!

Written by Maitha Ahmed on Peony and Blue Peony and Blue -

This week I was lucky enough to be invited to the Marks & Spencer AW13 press day and what a great event it was!

I think it as one of the best press days I’ve been to – great venue, one of the friendliest press teams and uber organisation. Not to mention a fantastic collection.

As most of you, if not all, know – I hate winter. I hate being cold, I hate winter coats and I hate having to always wear hats and scarves. As much as I hate to admit it though, this collection actually made me quite excited about winter attire.

It’s hard to choose a favourite range within the AW13 collection and I definitely got snap happy!

As well as the women’s wear and lingerie (so pretty!) I had a quick browse round the kidswear and although I don’t blog about kids’ clothes, there were so many lovely things I couldn’t resist taking a few pictures.

It was a fantastic evening and I finally got to meet the lovely Laura from the M&S press team! Thanks again to the team for the invite, fun evening and wonderful goody bag.

There were so many items I liked I’ll do a separate post on the collection but here are some highlights from the evening.

Written by Maitha Ahmed on Peony and Blue Peony and Blue -

This trend post combines two things that I never wear and never thought I’d want to wear – 1) leather and 2) pencil skirts.

But combined? Amaaaaaazing!!! I’m not sure what’s caused this obsession with leather pencil skirts but it’s got to the point where this week alone I have bought company magazine purely because on flicking through I saw a picture of a leather pencil. That’s not all….it gets worse, a lot worse…I actually touched a woman’s skirt because it was so beautiful I just had to! But I was talking to her at the time…and she did say how amazing it felt (while feeling it herself) so obviously I had to ask if I too could feel it. Surprisingly she was ok with this – and it felt GOOD!

There are a few in particular that I have my eye on. Luckily (for my bank account but not my heart/obsession) none of them are currently available in my size!

This first one from Oasis is gorgeous, it’s a neutral metallic so easy to wear with lots of different colours. It’s also not too narrow – always a worry, can you walk in your pencil?!

For a more classic look, this skirt from ASOS is perfect. It comes in both tan and red but personally I much prefer the deep maroon.

Now…I’ve left my ultimate favourite till last! This beauty from Marks & Spencer  is so beautiful…I absolutely love the colour. Typically it’s the most expensive of the three….by far….arghhh!!! This is also the skirt that I touched – thanks again M&S press lady! So I can confirm the quality of the leather is top, top, top!

Written by Maitha Ahmed on Peony and Blue Peony and Blue -

Well this is exciting, I’ve just read about the DIY Fashion Lounge at H&M’s flagship Oxford Circus store in London.

It’s only taking place over two days – Thursday 16th and Friday 17th and DIY blogger Elle Frost is collaborating with our Swedish friends at H&M so she’ll be on hand to help you DIY your fashion picks!

All you need to do is spend £25 in store and keep your receipt (!) take your items to the lounge and pick one of the three projects – fringing, studding or embellishing (my personal favourite).

Written by Maitha Ahmed on Peony and Blue Peony and Blue -

This week I was lucky enough to be invited to a Great Gatsby themed event of 1920s makeup and hair.

Held at the Sergio Giannasso salon in Covent Garden, London, we were treated to bubbles and tiramisu on arrival – not bad for a Monday evening!

As well as Sergio, we were hosted by the lovely Sophie of The Bristle Brush Co

We all got the chance to have a 1920s make over complete with 1920s hair – in my case, soft waves and a sequin headband with feather!

It was a great evening organised by my good friend Sarah of Sarah Betty Style

Thanks again to all – especially for the generous goody bag, look forward to using my specially chosen brush!

Wonderful goody bag treats!p

Hostess with the mostest Sarah Betty, some of the lovely girls from Wahanda and Sergio himself.

Written by Maitha Ahmed on Peony and Blue Peony and Blue -

I spent pretty much all of last weekend in Brighton – my old student town!

I was there for a social media/blogging conference so much of the weekend was spent inside but it was still lovely walking in the sunshine between the hotel and conference venue.

It was a great event put on by Michael Ball of Travel Massive and Paul Dow, the one and only TravMonkey.

The event was really well-organised and I managed to get along to a fair few sessions on varied topics, from travel photography to advanced SEO and social media.

Each session was led by an expert in that particular field and I came away feeling even more inspired about my own blog as well as working with bloggers in my day job as a travel PR.

Now ironically I’m rubbish at taking photos on my travels but here are a few shots of my sunny weekend in Brighton!

My top Brighton spots:

- The pier and seafront

- The Lanes for lazy wanderings and browsing

- The Pavilion – it’s gorgeous, have a picnic in the gardens!

Hope you all managed to make the most of the summer weather too!

Written by Maitha Ahmed on Peony and Blue Peony and Blue -

A few weeks ago I had an email saying that I had been nominated for the Company Magazine #Stylebloggerawards

At first I thought it was a spammy email that had gone out to every single blogger to encourage everyone to enter but then it was followed up by a personal email and a couple of friends let me know they had read about the awards and put my blog forward. I thought it was very sweet but didn’t think much of it after that.

Then I had a few more emails to say people had nominated me so I put the Company Magazine awards badge on my blog, tweeted and asked work colleagues to vote but as a) my office is quite small and b) other bloggers were going all out to collect up those precious votes, I really didn’t think I stood a chance. Particularly as it was the first year my blog had been entered.

But, as my mother would say – you never know so never say never! Today, I had THE most amazing news ever. My blog has been shortlisted down to the final 10 in my category!!! SO exciting. A massive thank you to everyone who voted for my blog, I really do appreciate it.

So now, there’s one more round of votes, so here goes – if you enjoy reading my blog and helped get me this far please do vote one more time! http://www.company.co.uk/company-blog-awards-2013-with-new-look I’m in the best fashion newcomer category.

Thanks again and fingers crossed!

Written by Maitha Ahmed on Peony and Blue Peony and Blue -

Last week I went for a night at the Circus in London, an amazing blogger event put on and hosted by the lovely crew from AX Paris.

I hadn’t been to Circus before and contrary to what I’d heard about it, it isn’t seedy, it isn’t trashy and dancers aren’t scantily-clad.

In fact, the dancers are hugely talented, mixing ballet and gymnastics brilliantly.

It was great fun and as well as the dance performances, the photo booth with dress up props was a great hit! My prop of choice was the captain’s hat!

The event was held to showcase the latest advert and it was one of the best organised events I’ve been to – plenty of things to keep us occupied from cocktails and Pan-Asian canapés to the dance performances photo booth with props and of course rails of clothes to peruse.

Unfortunately my pictures of the dancers were appalling! So I won’t bother sharing those with you all!

It was great to meet lots of bloggers who I’ve been chatting to on twitter but never actually met before and nice to catch up with those I’ve already met. All in all, a lovely evening which ended with the biggest goody bag in history!

Thanks to my partner in crime Sarah Betty – she blogs here: sarahbettystyle.co.uk and all who put the event on and of course the very generous goody bag – more on that to come.

Written by Maitha Ahmed on Peony and Blue Peony and Blue -