Foreboding Skies

I took a short cut through an alleyway one glorious afternoon & immediately I snapped this shot.

 Check out the colours in those skies, the glory of nature can often move me to tears.

The urban combination of an ugly beautiful

I took a picture of the silhouette of this tree - an eerily beautiful

I do not have many words today & lately I have been quite tired, fatiguing often so hence why I have not been posting a lot lately.

I love how the pink bleeds into the grey clouds.

I will rest up for the next coming days & try to head off to the gym earlier in the day & get all my painting & creating done in the rest of the day.

I enjoyed the perspective of this photo as well.

Picnic Pizza - Part II

Well hey there!

It's a Monday morning & guess what?? I don't have to go to work today - Yippee!!!

Pizza dough - ready to go!

Spreading the pasata onto pizza base

Also the latest news is that I've applied for a new job & I don't like to put all my eggs into one basket but um....yeah....I kinda did....stay tuned I will let you know how it turns out.

Anyway enough of this & that, I would like to go back to the picnic pizza. This is part II as promised, slow I know but I made it!
This is the dough already prepped & rolled out ready to go, I spread some ordinary pasata sauce on top (Bolognese sauce).
Than I added toppings, mushrooms, olives, reduced fat cheese, calarmari on one side & salami on the other side, since, L_______a doesn't eat meat & prefers seafood.

I then topped this with fresh herbs, basil & parsley, salt & pepper & some nice chilli flakes to top it off & whacked it in the oven for a good 15 - 20 mins probably less than that. It was so quick & convenient.

Then I made the berry yoghurt smoothie with homemade yoghurt, frozen berrries & pure maple syrup whizzed it up with a bit of fresh mint & voila! A yummy & healthful delicious snack, I poured into smoothie shakers & took it with me on the road. It was such a simple & enjoyable afternoon.

Homemade yoghurt

Pizza Picnic - Part I

So here is a list of homemade food items for the picnic today:

1)  Picnic Pizza (which was just really a very tasty homemade pizza)

Here is the picnic pizza I made on Friday for a quick picnic at the park with my sisters whilst they were on a 1 hour lunch break. 

Quick, tasty, nutritional & better tasting than take out pizza.

Fresh out of the oven...yummy!

2)  All Berry Smoothie - I finally got to use my homemade yoghurt (yay!)

Introducing Homemade all berry smoothie.

My homemade yoghurt!

3)  3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies - yes, that's right, I am a repeat offender! I simply can't stop using this recipe because it is so quick & you can literally make a batch even when you're running out the door.

We had an enjoyable lunch in the park & I took some pictures of the beautiful flower in full bloom which I shall post in part II of the pizza picnic.

Peanut Butter Cookies & Wild Flowers

I snapped this up at my local shopping centre car park, to find beauty wherever you are is the key to staying beautiful.

Today was a very hot day but it was so nice to have warm weather with beautiful skies as lately we've been having storms. By now, if you've been following this blog that is, you would of noticed that I simply adore storms.

To me, the intense pulsating flashes of lightening across a blackened sky combined with the dramatic roar & crash of thunder followed by the downpour of heavy rain is like an opera made by our creator. A gift of lights, noise & water to make us humans take notice, after all this is life!

The gorgeous lilac contrasted against the greenery of the thorny stems in this photo make my heart skip a beat!

We do not live on an ant farm nor are we machines, we must always take the time to acknowledge the elements & in particular to give thanks to our creator. I tried to photograph a storm whilst I was driving home on monday night but the photo's weren't clear. Perhaps it was not meant to be...

Well today I would like to share some picture's of a wild flower I snapped whilst gathering ingredients for an easy peasy peanut butter cookie recipe. Actually it was at my local Aldi's supermarket car park. Why was I there you ask? 

I am in awe of nature, can you believe I found these wild flowers outside the car park at my local Aldi's store? Got to love Aldi's...

Well I love home made cookies, the smell of fresh baked cookies straight from out of the oven beats store bought any day! Also homemade cooking, well homemade anything teaches us the importance of eating good food. 

Yes, there is sugar inside these cookies & peanut butter but they don't have all the long list of preserving agents, emulsifiers, flavour enhancers etc. This clever recipe is so easy & most ingredients you will have in your pantry I burnt my first batch so that is why I had to do a quick run to my local Aldi's store. I found it on itunes can you believe it? Read on....

Recently I subscribed to a frugal podcast from Rachel Boering who hosts The Frugal Living Show.

One of her episodes (episode 6) includes one entitled: 'This & That - Cookies & Craft' which features a 3 ingredient cookie recipe.

It is so easy & so simple & apparently Rachel Boering herself has been making these same cookies since she was 8 years old. Wow!

These are the ingredients & the final product - so easy!

Here is the recipe & no stress, it requires 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 cup of sugar & 1 egg - I kid you not!

All you do is mix the sugar & egg together to a good emulsion than add your peanut butter. I used smooth & I'm pretty sure that is what Rachel used too.

Next step is to line your cookie sheet with greased baking paper, put spoonfuls of cookie mixture onto sheet & put in a moderate oven for around 12 minutes.

I actually have a fan forced oven so I put on an even lower heat & I prefer to hang around the kitchen & be a cookie stalker whilst there baking. (Only because I burnt my first batch this morning when I did my first trial!)

The smell of fresh baked cookies is heavenly, enjoy with a cup of earl grey tea.

Recycled Junk

Guten Tag,

Wie geht es Ihnen?

Yesterday I was feeling tired, a little run down & worse for wear. I was not a very productive chap, I spent the whole day pretty much skyping R_____. We chatted about our future plans, babies, study, moving out of state etc.

My soda pop Christmas tree decoration in the making...still need to figure out how to um...de-sharpen the edges but it looks good for the moment!

As usual I couldn't keep my hands still so I kept them moving on a project, a good friend of mine made some really pretty christmas decorations from soda cans. So I too have been making some great christmas decorations in the same spirit as her so on monday when I was out & about vintage shopping I remembered that there was a Korean supermarket in B______.

Pretty stars! Yay, Christmas is upon us...joy to the world!

It was quite a hot day so I decided to grab a nice cold drink from the large variety I knew this they stocked. There were x2 supermarkets but the girl at the first one was quite rude so I decided to give my business to the 2nd store. (I don't like rude people!)
Imagine if I ran my Etsy shop in the same manner as this girl at the Korean supermarket did, I wouldn't have any customers!

The bold, graphic use of colour is a trip!

I told her off before I made my exit & went straight to shop #2. Actually in the end the 2nd shop had a better layout, you are not so cramped in there. They don't have overstocked aisles so it isn't so frustrating trying to locate items.
Ok, forget about the nasty girl at shop, moving on to bigger & brighter things...
I really love the colourful candy wrappers, the bold graphics on there soda cans, the unusual calligraphic style of writing.
I am so enticed by the interesting use of design on all these products, most of the food I probably wouldn't eat unless it was my time to junk out once a month. I bought quite a few products & shared them with my family urging everyone to hurry up so I could get my hands on wrappers, empty cans etc

What to do with all that colourful junk?

Which reminds me, I went to visit the Little Leiden Hausen yesterday & he sends a big huge Cheerful  Guten Tag to all his fanbase of um....err.....1. He is in good spirits & urged me not to waste my time on skype & to get back into the creative & productive spirit which is exactly what I will do.

I am being a little random in this post today, flipping from one subject matter to the next as my title is about recycled junk which I will get back to in a minute. Hold your wild horses!

Well I have been working on a few things, Christmas decorations & perhaps some jewellery items. I'm still working on it right now. Here is one of my finished projects made from a lemonade soda can. It is a star, it is my first one so bear with me.

Wow! It is amazing how pretty you can make junk...it is still in infant stages but you can see part of the transformation already.

I will post another item today when I finish adding a hanging attatchment to some other small stars that I have used an old ice cream container lid, kids juice boxes & dishwashing liquid container that I have cut up & refashioned into dangling stars.....err.....um....or thereabouts.

Here is the star I was working on when I was being lazy on the couch caught up in skype convo....oh, my! I put this one on my fridge to remind me about the beauty in junk!

Well that is my post for today folks plus I heard from E______, it was really nice to get word from him. I will sign off here for now I am itching to get back to my stars & little christmas trees, I have decided to add some of that expensive gold ink I purchased on a whim 6 months ago but did not end up using.
I really enjoy getting into the spirit of Christmas plus it is the perfect opportunity to use gold & silver & not feel bad about doing so.

The Shoots

This morning I woke up with a sense of dread, yes, you read that right, the big 'D' word. I know I have only just began this blog but it is my little corner of peace in a world that is filled with so much misery & hateful people. 

I have been working with the same particular organisation for 3 years & in that time I have experienced much hardships & often at times, painful situations involving work collegues.  

            

Rather than writing about that today I want to take a moment here & write instead about how I deal with it. There is no simple formula or secret method, I use my creativity & talent that God has blessed me with to help me get through some tough times.





Growing beautiful & colourful flowers, herbs & much more of nature's bounty is one of the elements of my creativity that I have been exploring lately. I felt so down when I woke up this morning with that one thought in my mind, can you believe how a cingular thought can stir such unhappiness in a person's heart? I quickly tried to analyse why I was feeling this way & I realised I was becoming swept up in the emotional part of my thoughts thus triggering a negative reaction.

I decided to brainstorm ideas on how to counter act these negative thoughts & one of them is to harness my creativity but also to go back to practising yoga as well as working out at the gym more often.

When my soul felt so heavy in that moment so as I was doing a routine check on my balcony to see how the seedlings were progressing I was nicely surprised by what I discovered today.
Actually it was just what I needed.

Shoots have started to appear,  I noticed the thyme, pak choy, mixed lettuce,  & peas have delicately peaked out from beneath the soil. This was a feel good moment for me & I held the joy that I felt in that moment of time.

I strive to live with passion daily regardless of the struggles & hurdles that everyday life presents, I always try to remember the smaller things.


This is what keeps me going, it is after all, the little things in life that give us joy.

Bread

Today I decided that I will bake more often, one of the things I really enjoy is making bread, I am not a stickler for rules when it comes to basic bread making.

In fact I am more an 'intuitive' baker & like to just simply mix fresh yeast, handfuls of wholemeal flour & white flour, add warm soy milk, sugar or honey - oh and a pinch of salt for luck!

My breads often come out dense with a medium crust comparable to sourdough bread.


My family enjoy the taste and with most homemade bread because it lacks the preservatives, emulsifiers & other additives that supermarket varieties contain, it has a limited shelf life.

However, I have never been able to keep my homemade bread for more than 1 day because it is normally gobbled up by then.

I have just finished making a loaf of white bread which I used a sourdough bug I started a few days ago. The raw dough was a lot more pliable & elastic when I was kneading it.

Geez, that reminds me I forgot to feed my sourdough starter! Well they're pretty easy to start, just take some flour & water, mix to make a paste & leave it in a wide mouth jar.

It is best to leave it out on the counter for a few days, when you notice it start to bubble on the surface & a stronger yeast like smell coming from it, than it is ready. Keep in your fridge & as long as you keep feeding it with flour/water at least once a week, you will have a sourdough starter, pretty much for life!

If it gets mouldy whilst in the airing out stage, first few days of beginning your starter, just dump that mixture in your compost & start again. Simple!

Anyway, here are some pictures of my 'intuitive sourdough bread loaf' - the smell of baked bread wafting from your kitchen is enough to send the neighbours into a frenzy! It is so rewarding to whip up a batch of homemade bread & so tasty too...

The Children Of Our World

Today I had the opportunity to photograph some amazing children that live on my ______'s street.
These kids come from a variety of different backgrounds, not only in culture but religion, age & gender too but you would never had known any differences by observing them all play together.

The beauty about children is that they don't fear what they don't know, they have too much curiosity that propels them to play together & share laughter with each other. As David Bowie once sang:

And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their world
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through...

I can sit here now & write about how this will change when they start becoming the grown up's they observe in the world around them but if I did that I would probably be doing myself & our greater humanity a dis-service.

I would much prefer to look forward to the gifts that the children of this world offer us, discovery, hope & courage to be the people they were put on our earth to be.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't tell them to grow up and out of it...

Storm

I was driving towards my ________ home & I was hoping to get a few shots of the in coming storm. Lucky I had my digital Nikon D90 whilst we were crawling with traffic.

I love storms, to me, they represent the necessary storms that we as humans experience in our day to day lives. 

Some storms we have are small & some of them are so big that they overwhelm us & to be honest, these are the storms that I prefer. 

I captured this from my car. I was thinking how blessed I am to be able to capture this image.  

I sit here listening to the distant roll of thunder & I know that an amazing show will pan out across the darkened skies soon this will be the lightening that will follow.

We live in an amazing world & I am always in awe of our creator's gifts.

Thank You so much for your wonderful creation's.

Happy Birthday!

I have a long list of birthday's coming up this month & next month.



Firstly, C_____'s birthday falls on the 6th which is this saturday & I must finish my hand appliqued Happy Birthday banner.

Then, next month on the 17th is S_______'s birthday & following that is Little Leiden Hausen which is on the 20th. He will turn 1 years old.

The banner is handmade for a reason, a legacy, an heirloom or a memory he can look back on when 

he celebrates his 21st birthday. 

This project amongst one of many projects on hand is one that will get priority at the moment.

 I wonder what happened to the time when we used to bake birthday cakes for each other & celebrate with family, friends & feasting.

I believe we are strongly in need of a revival of all our yesteryear sentimentalities & I know I am the perfect person who can lead such a revolution. 

Let me lead the way...