Monday, June 28, 2010

Summer Garden Mood

White and oxidized copper sakura ring by ZsBcreations
Rose/ 5x5 by Jkphotography
Rosebud - wire wrapped silver plated silver ring by Lindecise
The Roses Garden Necklace – Lariat by LeelaBijou

Today, my moodboard was inspired by our garden. Not a lot of flowers in our garden but it is all so bright green, lots of shade on sunny days and here and there you will find some animal houses and feeders.


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For more Moodboards visit FleurFatale’s blog
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Thursday, June 24, 2010

Summer Pea Soup

I made this cold soup as an hors-d'oeuvre at our Etsy craft party and was asked for the recipe. So here you go...

Picture by sarahmconnolly

The ingredients you need for this summer pea soup:
• olive oil
• 1 leek, finely chopped
• 125 gr celery, finely chopped
• 2 bulbs of garlic, finely chopped
• 150 gr chives, finely chopped
• 450 gr peas (extra fine)
• 1.5 litre chicken stock
• 1 dl low-fat creme
• prosciutto OR smoked salmon - optional
• sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Best to start by chopping the leek, celery and garlic. Heat the oil in a big pan and add the leek, celery and the garlic. Cover it for about 5 minutes and stir regularly. Add the chicken stock, the chives and peas and boil for 15-20 minutes.

Then use a stick blender to blend the soup. Blend until smooth. I recommend to sift the soup as it will remove all hard bits of the peas. After sifting, add the creme and season well with salt and pepper. Leave to cool in the fridge.

Before serving you have the choice to add either small bits of prosciutto or smoked salmon. Both taste great with the pea soup.

Enjoy !

Monday, June 21, 2010

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Party Time !

Mitsy of ArtMind was so kind to invite me to a craft party to celebrate Etsy's 5th Anniversary. Everyone is taking care of something... I'm making some small bites of hors d'oeuvres and some drinks to go with them !


I am so looking forward to tomorrow. First of all to meet quite a few of our EST friends, to chat away an entire day and -let's not forget- CRAFT !
Check out Mitsy's blog for more news on the craft party she is hosting !

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Family Portrait

A few weeks ago I started thinking about a 'thank you' card to send to everyone who sent a card or gave a present for Otis when he was born. Most people will print a photo of the newborn and send that around but I wanted something different. So I started thinking and looking on Etsy (where else?) and came across this little shop Jordyluxe.

Jordan makes personalized cartoon portraits which she will send to you in digital format. I was so excited when I discovered this shop ! I sent Jordan some pictures of us and here's the result. Meet our family !


We printed the cartoon on postcards and sent them to friends and family and everyone was curious to find out who made this cartoon as it resembles us so well :)

They are a success and everyone loves the cartoon so I wanted to share the work of this great artist with you. Jordan has just been on Etsy for a few months. I'm sure she will be very successful !

Thursday, June 10, 2010

My creative space - 10 and counting

In December last year when I was ordered to stay at home for the rest of my pregnancy, I decided to make a baby blanket, The Elvis Blanket. I hadn't crocheted in over a decade so I had to get the hang of it (again). I remember Mitsy's words when I started the project... 'DON'T GIVE UP'. I thought about those words many many times because after a while, you do get bored by crocheting the same squares over and over again.


By the time I had enough squares to make a decent sized blanket that would cover more than Otis' feet and belly, I started reading about how to finish the blanket, crocheting all the squares together. It turned out they would look better with an extra border around each square. *sigh* So I started on the borders and now... there are only 10 squares left that need a border and then... FINALLY ! I can start putting them all together and finish Otis' blanket.


So this is on the table of my creative space today...

You can see more creative work spaces at Kootoyoo's blog.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Japanese Pieces of Art

It's been ages since my last blog post and when I opened a package I got in the mail this morning, I thought I HAVE to write about these! My second thought was I would never ever be able to take pictures that would do these lovely leaves justice...


I found these hot red vintage leaves on wire and already thought they looked nice in the pictures online. But when I opended the package this morning I must have uttered 'ooooh' and 'wow' multiple times. These fabulous old, and as promised by the seller, very rare lampwork glass leaves on wire are vintage Japanese and truly are a piece of art on their own. In addition, the red color is so vibrant, they look like they've just been in the torch !

I love them and know I'll be ordering more of these in the future. As long as the limited stock permits.

It didn't take long to decide how I was going to use them. Only white would make these leaves stand out properly and I had just the perfect white candy jade beads to serve this purpose !