Two Trees Belgium

MOVED

2011-07-28T22:10:00.000-07:00

This is the last post for this blog.

All new post will be written down here:

http://twotreesblog.blogspot.com/

Thanks, Annemiek

Dutch Plums

2011-07-19T04:01:00.000-07:00

My brother has an orchard and is one of the top 10 plum growers in the Netherlands. Last week they started picking the first plums of this years harvest.

This year he will be one of the selected sellers by GIJS, they select the best of Dutch fresh fruit, vegetable, dairy, ... suppliers. The website promotes their wares which are sold through the supermarket chain named PLUS in the Netherlands. They already came to interview him and take pictures, but his profile is not online yet.

Anyway of you see plums in the PLUS supermarket with this card on the crate you know they come from my brothers orchard :-)

Looking for something to bake with plums, there's several recipes on my blog, just type plum in the google search bar which you find on the right hand side of this blog and you will find them all.

Remembering Max

2011-07-07T08:59:00.000-07:00

Max went missing on Monday the 27th of June. For days we searched, called and handed posted flyers in the whole neighborhood, put them up in shops and put pictures on lost and found animal websites. Yesterday our neighbor was working in the garden and did a sad discovery, Max had been lying there all along. Several times I had had the urge to look there, but thought it would look strange if I was looking in the neighbors bushes. Maybe it's better that I did not find him, maybe it would have been, than we might have been able to bury him somewhere else, at my parents place where he was from. Now the neighbor buried him there as he was to far gone to move. I have not seen him, my hubby had a quick peek and I asked the neighbor for Max's collar so we would be sure. Don't know why I asked, I guess because I somewhere hoped it would be a different blue collar from a different grey cat.

I never felt so sad after loosing a pet, others died of old age, but little Max was only 14 months old. He had been born the 22th of April with 4 sisters and brothers behind the pig stall of my parents's neighbors. His mum is the neighbors cat, but they were happy to find new places for the kittens, so my mum took care of 3 and I took 2 home with me on Sunday the 13th of June 2010

We named them Max and Sientje.

Our two older cats did not much like these lively youngsters, but it did get a bit better and once I found them all on the bed together, a rare occasion.

It was so cute to see Sientje trying to connect with Sam and Mol when Max was still alive,

now it's just heart breaking.

-------

These are the things I want to remember about Max, in random order:

he loved water, he had to have a drink from the bathroom tab the last few months

and was utterly fascinated by it

he would come and wonder at the washing machine when I was there to switch it on

he was fascinated by the ice on our pond

he was always happy, even after 5 visits to the vet in a months time he was not cross with me for always taking him there and having to give him tablets

he would always come sort of skipping home on his long legs when you called,

we nicknamed him long shanks for a while

he would be waiting behind the scullery door in the morning, were he slept with his sis

in the evenings he would be waiting to be fed and than go to bed,

if it took longer than expected he wouldn't start meowing,

but just go outdoors and than be back when I called him

he would lean against your hand when you would pet him, sometimes nearly falling over

he loved chasing flies and eating them

when we stepped from the shower Max would go in to drink the water

he was afraid of cars and would often still choose the backdoor even if we went in through the frontdoor

he had his own favorite chair, of which I don't even have a picture of him in it

he loved to bite your fingers and nose

he would lie and watch with his front paws crossed at the world

he loved playing with his sis and she with him

if you woke him from sleep his eyes would open in a special way

he would sometime sleep with the tip of his tongue sticking from his mouth

he would follow me often from the house to the atelier and sleep near where I worked

he would purr at the slightest attention and could "type" like the best

he loved to play with feathers or little ball shaped plants he had found outside

when we came home by car often he had been waiting under the hedge beside the parking

when it was hot he found himself a place in the shade under the lavender

or would lay with his belly flat on the cool tiled floor

he would talk to flies, bees and birds

he was patient and would hardly ever meow, or else very softly,

like when we took him and his sis in the car to stay at my parents house

he was just absolutely cute, sweet and funny

he was curious, full of life and happiness

Below is the last picture I took on the 1st of June, he had curled up beside the garden table were I was taking pictures of some jewellery. It is hard to believe he is not going with us to our new house, where ever that may be. The last thing I remember is him pressing his paw against the door to open it, to go out with hubby who was leaving for the train.

Notre petit copain, you are dearly missed and you will always have a place in our heart.

Friday Find - Spoons

2011-06-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

For a while I've had somewhere lurking in the back of my mind the idea to do something with spoons. When I came across this shop I was convinced, I am right, there is more to spoons.

KADO KADO

2011-06-23T01:42:00.000-07:00

A while ago a fellow crafter, Lief Van Rosendaal asked me if I would like to participate in a temporary shop near Antwerp in October. Of course I would :-) I have just finished designing the flyer for this event.

The location is an old train station, so we named our shop KADO KADO, it has the rhythm of a train and KADO means present in Dutch.

The link to the facebook page is not yet the nice short version, as we need 25 fans first, so feel free to like this page so we can change that soon. Thanks!

Straw Bale Houses

2011-06-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I went with my hubby to a course and workshop about straw bale houses organised by Casa Calida. As we are looking to move we want to keep all options open and had come across this affordable method for a new built home.

Each straw house has a window of proof,
a large one in this case.

We learned that:

mice don't like these houses, as the straw is mostly cellulose, which they don't eat. It too tightly packed and enclosed for them to built homes in.
straw houses breath, they take in extra moisture if it is too damp and evaporate this dampness once it gets to dry. So very nice air inside these houses :-)
you need little heating, a large house can be heated with 6kW wood burner
you can do a lot of the building work yourself
your house can be spacious, with large windows and mezzanines, last are good for air circulation
it is strong, some houses dating back from 1914 or so are still around and in good condition

Want to see what a straw house looks like? Have a look here. You see there is no typical straw house. But the basics are more or less the same everywhere, stacking straw and sealing it with loam:

So after a day looking at straw bale houses and getting to grips with the basic building techniques, we were convinced, now all we have to do is find a bit of land to built it on ...... and make our wishlist:

an open plan kitchen with an AGA or similar heat storage cooker, this will give a nice background heat, besides great food
an open plan living/dining room with a Bullerjan woodstove, the smallest Bullerjan is enough to heat the hole house :-)
lots of large windows, facing south
sun-heated water
a warm bathroom, so if need be (electric) underfloor heating in the bathroom
a mezzanine
a windmill to make electricity
lots of room for books
open bicycle storage, always ready to go
large light atelier
large garden with room for vegetables, fruit, chickens, ...
a special window of proof
outside is clad with a mix of wood and a natural chalk-mixture
straw in the floors and roof too, maximum natural insulation!

Happy Stats

2011-06-19T01:21:00.000-07:00

Another week passed, do not know where the hours went, it was over in a jiffy.

But now time for some happy stats.

Going on a workshop learning about straw bale houses, how to built one and finish it with a layer of loam.
Seeing a full rainbow and start of a double.
Firing the kiln with many custom orders and all coming out just perfect.
Listing many new items in my etsy shop.
Seeing a hummingbird hawk-moth, rare site in our parts of the world.
A new handmade cat collar for each of our cats.
Bug ring in the post from Renathe, so special. I'll wear it today.

How was your week? Hope you found lots to smile about too.

Friday Find

2011-06-17T00:58:00.000-07:00

From The Ink Society

Monday Mood Pit Fired

2011-05-30T04:13:00.000-07:00

1 2

3 4

Today is firing day, with a pit fire and raku. With all of our ceramics group we created items espacially to be fired in one of the above techniques. In the pitcures you see examles of pit fired pieces. One never knows how it will emerge from the fire, which adds to the fun. More pit fired items om etsy here. If you want to see how it works, read this blog post from last years firing day.

My creative space: auction-eye-hospital part 2

2011-05-26T23:39:00.000-07:00

If you read my last post, you know I have been working on an artwork to be auctioned for the eye hospital in Rotterdam. The auction is now online (in Dutch) and the first bids have been placed. Saturday the 4th of July the auction ends during the benefit dinner and party.

So here a pictures of the final work:

I painted the box an off white, so the contrast with the clay would not be too harsh. Two holes in the back make it easy to hang the box well. On the back you also find clay Two Trees logo and my signature. The batteries are easy accessible and so is the on/off switch. The white box is 25x25x6cm and each clay block approx 9x9x4cm. If you want to bid, you have to press the link "formulier" on this page, fill in the name of the work (light box) the bid you want to place and your details. If you like to see more pictures, go here.

My Creative Space - auction eye hospital

2011-05-15T06:16:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine is a doctor for the eye hospital in Rotterdam. They have a very modern and different approach to the hospital experience as I learned when I attended TEDx Rotterdam last year:

Frans Hiddema - TEDxRotterdam 2010 from TEDxRotterdam on Vimeo.

Perhaps just as different is the charity football event which they organise for the 5th time this year. A team from the Rotterdam eye hospital plays against a team from the Moorfield (UK) eye hospital. They will play in "de Kuip" so not just any football stadium. During the after party an art auction is held to raise money for the hospital. This year I'll be one of the artists contributing. I'm happy to be part of all this.

Cause everyone is a bit blind in the forest, as one cannot see the trees from the wood ;-) And besides there's always these unexpected creatures suddenly blinking their eyes at you. So I created 4 squares in clay with textures of tree bark.

Tiny LED lights will be inserted into the holes / eye sockets, which will give this effect when lit, 2 bright eyes:

All will be mounted on a white background, which I asked the local carpenter to make for me as I wanted it to be perfect with mitred corners and such, which I cannot do myself. The on/off switch and battery compartment will be hidden in there too. I hope it will be liked and fetch lots of money, the auction end of last year for another good cause of one of my story bowls was a great success, so I hope this will be too.

Art trail Tholen

2011-05-04T05:40:00.000-07:00

Last weekend you could find me and my creations at the art trail in Tholen, Zeeland, the Netherlands. For me it was a first time, both to participate in Tholen and to perticipate in an art trail. For the city of Tholen it was the 15th time they organised this. It coincided with queensday, which is celebrated on the 30th of April each year. the weather was perfect and a lot of people were out and about. Besides the art trail there was a flea market too and lots of music performers. I had been assigned a space in someone's house. She "donates" a space of her house to the art trail for several years now.

I was very happy with the location, a gorgeous old house near the church with a landlady who looked after me very well. Another upside from being at a market, to be inside, warm, with a toilet close and someone making you cups of tea :-)

The place was small, but that was perfect for my small creations, I had especially brought my collection of Dutch Folklore inspired items as a lot of them are inspired by Zeeland's folklore.

I met Andrea from atelier28 in Tholen at the opening, she is an etsy seller too and I had never met her in real life before. She gave me a warm welcome in her atelier. Her work is even more lovely in real than when you see the pictures in her etsy shop, which is well worth a visit.

I can't wait till we have a new house, we are in the middle of searching,

and I can start buying decorations again.

Andrea wrote a blogpost about the art trail too, you find it here.

Spello 8/4/11

2011-04-22T00:29:00.000-07:00

Feels like more than just 2 weeks ago when we were getting ready to fly back to Belgium and say good bye to Umbria. We had decided to spent the morning in Spello, have lunch and drive to the tiny cute airport of Perugia.

Bought some nice souvenirs, linen and olive wood

Saw some more marvellous churches and such.

Had lunch at the place where we ate our first dinner

Bye Bye Spello

During the morning I had received a text message from ryanair saying something like: "if you want to change your flight contact..." we thought; strange, but nice of them to think we might want to stay longer. We would have loved too, but the cats were waiting for us at home.

When we arrived at the airport we found out that our flight had been cancelled, hence the strange text message. So we rang ryanair, they have still seats on the flight from Rome later that day. Ok, lets check if we can keep the car and drive there. We could, the clever lady from the car rental also pointed out, but if Charleroi is closed will be able to fly from Rome or just be stuck again. Hey, good point! So we rang back, double checked we would be able to land in Charleroi and booked. The airport of Charleroi had reopened at that point. So off to Rome, to hit the Friday afternoon traffic, but we made it on time.

Pity you can't see anything from Rome driving on the ring road. Like with Paris you at least can catch a glimpse of the Eiffel tower.

So we got a little extra of Italy, some more nice views and even sitting in traffic was not that bad, had our flight not been cancelled, we would have hit the traffic around Brussels, so Rome was a nice change.

We were home just after midnight, the cats were trilled to see us. Usually Mol, the eldest is cross when we have been away for a few days, but 5 days was enough for her to be just happy as well :-)

Spello 7/4/11

2011-04-21T10:42:00.000-07:00

Thursday 7th of April, our last full day in Italy, so we had to make the most of it. We started with cappuccino and croissants in a local bar.

Than we headed to Assisi, to see the basilica of St Francis. We were overwhelmed by the amount of tourists and nicely surprised to see "our" statue from St Francis again. The interior of the basilica is amazing, one was not allowed to take pictures, so you will just have to go see for yourselves ;-)

On wondering through Assisi, you could find me drooling in front of these shop windows.

I did get me some nice nougat and meringue, some of it even made it back to Belgium.

This on top of the "dolci" we would have after lunch and dinner. Is it a holiday or is it a holiday ;-)

This nice mural on a ceiling in an alley somewhere in Assisi reminded me of Jeroen Bosch's work, I like the thin lines and that there is so much white in it.

More nice paintings, we saw these in several galleries, paintings with happy monks.by Luigi Silvis

After lunch we drive to Gubbio, another Medieval town. We were recommended by the landlord of our apartment to go here, as it's more authentic than Assisi (were in later century buildings were restored in a mediaeval style). We walked around for a while, just site seeing when we saw a sign for a funivia, a cable way. It was a bit more wobble and just a basket, so I did not think it very fun, but it was worth the views.

Temperatures rose to 27°C that day, so we were happy to find a nice pace with ice cream.

A little shop full of handmade notebooks with leather covers, in all sizes, too much choice.

We left Gubbio behind and continued to make most of our day by driving to lake Trasimeno, the sun had just set as we arrived at the shore.

Some nice seafood for a change, although the pasta with fresh forest asparagus, we had previous days, is a real treat too.

Tomorrow our last day in Spello, with a little extra, stay tuned!

Spello 6/4/11

2011-04-20T00:17:00.000-07:00

Travelling 2 weeks back in time, the weather today in Belgium is just as gorgeous as it was in Italy than; Sunny and warm. We planned a trip to Dunarobba to see the fossilised forest and than make our way back trought the mountains and visit some more places. When walking to the car, which was parked just outside the old city walls, we found there was a market in Spello, so we had a quick look around. I liked the way they used umbrellas as baskets.

The colors of the trees were just stunning, fresh green mixed with warm browns.

We drove past a large industry producing bricks, just before we found the centre for the fosil forest. Not so strange it turned out as they found the trees in the clay they were mining for the bricks.

If you go to the above link or this one, you'll see what it looked like when they found it. Now all trees are covered with a tin roof to protect them from the elements.

The wood is still wood, bone dry wood, it has not turned to stone. They date back from the time of the mamoets and are all under an angle as the ground has shifted position since. They are huge all over 1 meter in diameter and 1 or more meters tall.

After all this amazement it was time for lunch with a large coke for a change, instead of wine, as we still had lots of driving to do.

Of course we came across some sheep in the mountains.

We stopped at Gualdo Cattaneo and hoped to climb the tower, unfortunately we were to early in the season and it was not open on Wednesdays yet.

The views from the tower would have been more spectacular, but from the village we got some great views too.

We spotted a lovely ceiling through an open window, which was closed quickly when they heard us outside, but we got the picture anyway :-)

We leave the top of the mountain and Gualdo-Cattaneo to drive to our next destination.

Montefalco, famous for it's wines (and oils).

We stepped throught the doors of another old church, Chiesa Sant' Agostina, dating back to the 13th century and were amazed, this was much older than any of the other churches we had seen so far, it had old beams for the ceiling, very few status and sculptures, but lots of wall panitings.

The church also housed the exceptionally well preserved remains of someone.

(I now know after reading about the church (see link above) that it is a 14th century unknown pilgrim)

It seriously gave me the creeps as he was suddenly there sitting in a glass box, so unexpected, that I needed some sun ....

....... and famous Montefalco wine to get rid of the chills.

We left Montefalco to have our dinner in Spello, with more local wines :-)

On the way we saw a place with old FIAT cars, the original version of the FIAT 500 we were driving, it's bigger brother the 750 and this tiny bus, isn't it the cutest one you've ever seen.

Spello 5/4/11

2011-04-19T00:16:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago we were having breakfast on the terrace of our apartment in Spello, planning the day. The weather was a bit grey, so no mountain drives, cause the views would not be there anyway. We decided to drive to Foligno and Bevagna. In Foligno we quickly found this arch after parking our car and thought the centre has to be near.

But alas no luck, we only found it after an hour and a half, turned out we passed the tourist info on our search, but missed it and missed the centre too, we did see some nice houses on our walk though.

When we finally found the old centre we had a good look around.

And a detailed shot, one can only see these with a zoom or binoculars, so when they were created no one could really see them well, makes you wonder.

A nice surprise was a square with a statue dedicated to 18th centrury architect Giuseppe Piermarini

A man carrying a spike crawling with little man and on each side of the base a plaque with little faces, turtles and sketches of his work

After a nice lunch we set out for Bevagna and hoped to be more lucky and not spend first half looking for everything.

We quickly found a church dedicated to St Francis, it was apparently here that he preached to the birds :-)

Some nice views, the weather had cleared by now.

Somewhere in June Bevagna is send back in time to the middle ages. During the year several houses are open where one can see mediaeval crafts in progress. There was the paper maker:

Rags were sorted by type, cotton, linen, ... and torn, than meshed up in these stone containers with help of a watermill. The slush was transferred to a bigger vessel, were the paper was made by draining the slush through a screen, leaving the fibers behind. Once dry you would have paper, here some is drying further:

The bell maker, were bells for churches and so are cast, below the kiln were the will heat the bronze and let it flow into the pit were the mould of the bell is waiting to be filled.

Below the bench were the bell mould was made in clay. I would not mind seeing this process in work, so one day we might have to go back in June.

Besides these there was also a place were they make candles form beeswax, a weaver and an atelier where they made pigment, paints and painting.

More nice views driving back to Spello.

Were it was high time for a pizza :-) and more local wine.

Spello 4/4/11

2011-04-18T01:54:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago my hubby and me flew to Perugia airport in Italy for a short holiday. We "only" took 730 pictures in 5 days, so I'll have no problem sharing some with you, not difficult to select some at all......
To make it a bit easier on me I decide I will share some with you each day this week of our adventures 2 weeks ago.

Monday 4th of April

We said goodbye to our cats and let the neighbour know we would be away for the week. Off to the airport, to land in Perugia around 16h.

The cutest little airport with just one tiny conveyor belt for all flights, which were only a few a week.

We picked up our rental car and set out for Spello

Once we arrived we left our luggage in the appartment and set out to discover Spello.

Spello is a small mediaeval town, with lots of nice streets like this one below.

An arch dating back to Roman times

And St Francis. Only being 10 minutes drive form Assisi, the area was littered with everything St Francis. This statue represents the return of Frances to Assisi, we would see other copies later in the week in other places. St Francis is the one who preached to the birds, which makes him rather cute ;-)

Spello is not very touristy, but their were some nice shops with crafts, linen, olive wood, foods, ceramics and such. Some nice restaurants too.

The cherry tree in "our" garden was blossoming :-)

After a nice meal and lost of wine we slept like roses, ready for a new day.

The Chair Project part 3

2011-04-04T22:56:00.000-07:00

My chair is nearly finished, I will finished it when I'm back from my trip to Italy. below you find some pictures, so you can see how it's progressing. (Previous posts here: part 1 and part 2.)

First carrots are glued in place and testing how the rabbit
and birds sit on the chair.

The carrots got their leaves now too. A little white mouse is sitting in the dark half globe; more underworld items still have to be added with more mice, earth-worm and a mole.

The chair will be on display the first weekend of September in Sint Job, Belgium together with the chairs of my fellow ceramist. You find more info on the event here (in Dutch)

Happy Stats

2011-04-03T02:56:00.000-07:00

I didn't write any happy stats for a long time, but I do think they are a good way of looking back, see what you have achieved and give yourself a pat on the shoulder. I guess I sort of have made them in my mind. But writing them down is better as you add the all up and see the total picture.
This week I got some real sad news about a cousin of mine and it only made me realise one should enjoy life every single day of it. It made me realise I'm real happy with the way I'm living my life, working from home, doing various jobs, from admin for a real nice group of coaches, to the odd interior design job and, last but not least, to the creating in porcelain, silver and glass and the selling of my creations. I love to be connected to all these other crafters around the world, thanks to the wonderful internet. So here we go my list of happy stats:

all came from the kiln in good shape, including my new Namaste Rabbit
enjoying the good weather
house hunting and dreaming about what the new house will be
creating lots of custom orders
my dear yoga teacher who organised a home party for me to sell my creations
planning the next Two Trees pop-up-shop at Lombardia in Antwerp
seeing the first lambs hop around the fields
the frog that came to live in our pond
me and hubby going to Italy for a few days soon
being very happy with my (way of) life

Have a great week!

Sweet Saturday - Macarons

2011-03-26T00:23:00.000-07:00

Today another easy recipe for some gorgeous biscuits. I like the chewiness of these biscuits. Here the recipe is with ground almonds, but I think you can use cocos or another ground nut just as well.

Macarons

250 gr ground almonds
240 gr icing sugar
35 gr flour
4 egg whites
1 sachet vanilla sugar

Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Add the ground almonds, icing sugar, vanilla sugar and flour to a bowl and mix. make a little hollow in the mix for the egg whites, mix all slowly.
Cover a baking tray with baking parchment, make little (approx 3cm) balls of the mix and divide over the paper. bake for about 15-20 minutes until the macarons are golden brown.

Two Trees Party

2011-03-22T01:40:00.000-07:00

Tupperware is famous for it's parties and it's a tested concept, so why not adopt it to sell your hand-made work. If the person whom organises the party likes your work, big change her/his friends will like it too. Having someone else talk about your work with you is the best word-of-mouth promotion you can get, and here it's happens right on the spot. They don't have to remember about it and look up a shop or website later, they can see the goods their friend is raving about here and now.

So I set about organising my first home party last week, together with my yoga teacher, Martine van Bulck. The party took place in the room where she normally gives her yoga classes. But it turned out to be a great location to display jewellery and ceramics too.

We slightly adopted the home-party idea in this case as anyone was welcome, not just by invitation. So a bit of an open house at the same time. I invited al my contacts, she invited hers and we put a note by the street to welcome in passers-by. It was a success and we are already thinking of organising another party in the autumn.

Do you want to organise a Two Trees home party, please contact me. The party can be open as the one described above or by your invitation only. As the organising host you will receive a certificate to say that 2 trees for the orang-outangs in Sumatra have been planted in your name, besides other benefits. Look forward to hearing from you.

Boxes from Nepal

2011-03-21T03:48:00.000-07:00

Last week I received my new fair-trade and hand-made jewellery gift boxes from Nepal. I already had similar boxes for a while for my story bowls:

It took me a while to come up with the right sizes for my jewellery boxes, preferable would fit letterbox mail, to keep shipping cost low and be versatile in use at the same time.
All the boxes, both my story bowl boxes as my jewellery boxes are made by 2 small Nepalese companies. I know the money they earn from making my boxing goes straight to their, and their employees, families to make their lives better. One company makes the felt for the lining, this companies employs on 10 women en 4 men. Very often the women are the sole provider in a Nepalese family. The other company employs 7 women and 2 men; they make the paper and the boxes. A company called STRAID in the Netherlands liaisons between me and the companies in Nepal. They got a nice website and webshop with all sorts of handmade good from around the world.

And here they are, in the typical Two Trees lime green colour:

I had them made in 3 sizes:

2 for necklaces, earrings, bracelets and such which are also fine for letterbox mail

and one taller for rings, cuff-links, ...

The interior is lined with black felt,

the lid has black paper on the inside and my logo and name printed in silver.

The boxes close with a typical Eastern closure a tiny stick slots though a loop of paper.

I'm real proud to have these lovely boxes the compliment my jewellery.

Sweet Saturday - Baked Lime Cheesecake with Ricotta, Pineapple and Passion-fruit

2011-03-19T00:40:00.000-07:00

Another recipe for a cheesecake, this time I used ricotta instead of cream cheese.

Baked Lime Cheesecake with Ricotta, Pineapple and Passion-fruit

250 gr biscuits, digestive, ginger or "speculaas"
75 gr butter, melted

500 gr ricotta
250 ml cream
3 eggs
175 gr of sugar including 2 sachets vanilla sugar
zest of 3 limes

250 ml cream
(vanilla) sugar to taste for the whipped cream
1/2 pineapple
4-6 passionfruits

Crunch up the biscuits (I used "speculaas" and a pinch of ground ginger) till they are very fine, add the melted butter and put into a baking tray. Push down well and leave to cool in the fridge.

Preheat the (fan) oven to 150°C.
Mix the ricotta, cream, eggs, sugar and zest well for a few minutes so some air gets in. Poor on top of the biscuit base and bake for 45-55 minutes in the oven, until it starts to go a little brown. Leave to cool with the door closed, than move to fridge and cool it overnight. If it has some cracks, don't worry as you will cover these with the topping.

Transfer the cheese cake to a nice plate for serving. Whip the cream with sugar to taste and spread over the cheesecake. Slice the pineapple real fine (like carpaccio) and divide over the cream, as a last touch add the passion fruit seeds.

Bon appetit!

Who Moved My Cheese

2011-03-15T11:27:00.000-07:00

My very first corporate order.

Recently I became part of a group of coaches who needed someone to run their virtual back office. As they are all self employed, including me, they don't have an office-space for Conlibrio; so I work from home, which is great.

For one of their current projects they use the book "Who Moved my Cheese" on dealing with change in your work and life. It's a great little book, I read it years ago and if you have some change going on in your life, it's a great read.

Anyway as you can guess from the tittle it involves cheese, and who else would be worried about their cheese being moved than mice. So the characters in the story are mice.When the coaches saw this bowl, which coincidently sold just recently to someone in the USA, they got an idea to give a little something to each participant of these workshops And here they are 26 little mouse each with a piece of cheese:

A local carpenter made the blocks of wood for me, I oiled them with a white oil to give them a nice finish.

Each one is different, I just can't make the same things twice.

If you want to see more I uploaded all their pictures to my flickr were you can see some of the making of as well. Here the final one for this blog post:

Today the were give to the participants and I just got a call that they were well liked, I'm so happy they all find new loving homes :-)

Porcelain Music

2011-03-08T07:00:00.000-08:00

Who would have thought of using porcelian bowls to make music. Of course I knew that a bowl had a very nice ring when tapped, something which I love about porcelain. But Roos Van de Velde takes it to a higher level. She plays on the bowls she makes. I visited her yesterday (with a group of fellow ceramists) and she gave a little performance, the quality is not great (you can hear us oh-ing and ah-ing in the background ;-), but I'd like to share it wih you anyway. The music on her website is also composed, made and sung by her.

An impression of the visit, her house and her work I will post later on the Dutch Handmade website.

Sweet Saturday - Sweet Potatoe Pudding

2011-02-18T23:46:00.000-08:00

After the last Sweet Saturday recipe I was left with 5 egg yolks as I only needed whites to make the meringue. On searching what to do with those I found this lovely site: how to use up egg yolks and as they say: "If life hands you egg yolks, you can't make lemonade". But they give a lot of nice suggestions, sweet or savoury to do with your eggs yolks, nicely divided in 1, 2, 3, .... and so on egg yolks. I chose to make a Sweet Potatoe Pie, but as I could not find in sweet potatoes in this tiny village I froze the egg yolks until I did get sweet potatoes. I whipped the eggyolks with some salt before freezing them and they defrosted just fine, gave them a little whisk before using them in the recipe below.

Ready to go into the oven.

Sweet Potato Pudding

600 gr sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
250 gr plain soft cheese or yoghurt
120 gr dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
5 egg yolks
salt to taste
handful of toasted almonds or pecan nuts
maple syrup

Steam the sweet potato cubes for 20-25 min until soft.

Place the steamed cubes in a bowl and mix to a pulp.
Add yogurt, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, yolks, and salt to taste, and beat until well combined.
Pour this batter into an oven dish.
Sprinkle nuts on top and drizzle with maple syrup.

Bake for 50 to 55 minutes at 165°C (180°C for a traditional oven + preheat).
Remove from oven and cool. Serve cooled and if any is left over, keep it in the frige.

Bon apetit!

The Chair Project part 2

2011-02-17T03:19:00.000-08:00

The chair project is evolving a bit further, I made more elements in clay and porcelain. The carrots (see previous post) would need leafs too, tricky to make. I solved it by gathering plumes from reed and drying these. Once dried I dipped these in liquid porcelain, the type which is used for casting, and fired them only once, at 1280°C. Normally you would fire porcelain twice, but after the bisque firing at 950°c these would be too fragile too handle as the supporting reed has burned away and the porcelain has not reached it's full strength.

Some mice have appeared and some birds too. One would expect the part above the ground to be clear, white, happy, normal and the part below dark, gloomy, crooked, ... But I chose for these to be mixed. White porcelain with the crooked figures of the rabbit and mice and the dark figures of the birds, mole and earthworm look fairly normal.

Sweet Saturday - Pavlova

2011-02-05T08:27:00.000-08:00

I'm a sucker for meringues but don't have them as much as I used too. When I lived in Ireland I would go to the local bakery to have my lunch and 99 out of a 100 times it would be a brown sandwich with tuna and corn followed by a meringue. Well 2 meringues stuck together by a dollop of cream and a little dot of red fruit jelly on top....hhhmmmmmm

I tried making meringues myself before but to no great success and I have not tried since. The meringues they sell here are just not the same, so today I will venture to make a meringue once more as part of pavlova.

PAVLOVA

For the meringue base:

5 egg whites
100 gr of icing sugar
120 gr of fine casting sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar or some essence
1 teaspoon of balsamico vinegar
1 tablespoon of corn starch/flour

For the topping:

250ml cream
sugar to taste
250-500 gr of red fruit (may be frozen)

Preheat the oven (not fan, just under and bottom heat) to 130°C.

Wisk the egg whites with the sugars, than add the vinegar, keep wisking and when it starts to get ticker add the corn flour. Keep wisking until you can pull nice peaks that stay in shape from it.

Cover a baking tray wit baking parchement and spoon the mixtures unto this, roughly in a 20 cm diameter. I was amazed by it's lovely silk sheen, which I could not tell so well when it was till in the bowl.

Pull up the sides to give it more of a base shape and bake for 1-1,5 hours. I switched the oven of at 1 hour 15 min when it had a tiny bit of colour. Leave in the oven with the door closed too cool.

Whip the cream with sugar to taste, add vanilla or cinnamon for an extra touch.

Transfer the cooled meringue unto a nice big plate.

Spoon the whipped cream on top of it and finish with the fresh or defrosted red fruits, defrosted raspberries in my case. By than everyone will be in the kitchen eye-balling this feast of fluffiness. I think I may be proud and say this time the meringue worked out fine, light as a feather, lots of taste and just perfect with raspberries and cinnamon cream.

Bon apetit!

Friday Finds: Cristian Bors & Marius Ritiu

2011-02-03T22:38:00.000-08:00

When I was at the Verbeke Foundation a few weeks ago I discovered some nice artists and the projects they are working on. I wrote a little about it for the Dutch Handmade website.

Two artists from Romania stood out. Our guide told us these 2 friends had become famous by attracting the attention of museums in a very original way, they just impose themselves wherever they can.

Just outside Antwerp there is a sculpture park, het Middelheim, spring last year they parked themselves just outside the fence, looking in.

If you look well, you'll see these are sculptures. The museum curators noticed too and liked them so much they let them into the sculpture park, mission accomplished. It got the attention of the Verbeke Foundation and they let them in. They have been adding their name wherever they can. Like to this work by Jan Fabre, a collection of head stones and a list of names. Orlan on the list correspondents to the headstone in the picture.

Have a look at the 2 names at the bottom of the list ;-)

For the certified copy exhibition they made copies of famous schulptures in the same way as the sculpture of themselves outside het Middelheim. They take endless pictures of the sculpture or themselves and stick these toghether agian in the same shape as the original.

Want to discover more about these to guys go here.

Year of the Rabbit

2011-02-02T22:56:00.000-08:00

3 feb 2011
Today the year of the rabbit starts according to the Chinese calender.

I always liked rabbits, I had some when I was a kid, the big Flemish ones I remember best. I started collecting sculptures of rabbits when I was a kid and kept collecting till my early twenties. If I'd go somewhere I'd look for a rabbit to add to my collection. Most are stacked way in a box at my parents house, but some have made it to my current home:

Now I can make my own rabbits and I do in clay and porcelain and I bet it want be long until I will come up with a silver rabbit too. Their are more people on etsy with a love for rabbits, here a curious collection:

Happy New Year!

Flickr Favourites

2011-02-01T00:51:00.000-08:00

I liked Artmind's theme so much that today I'll join in.

My favourite home:

1. A simple cosy home 2. Untitled

3. d R e a M H o m E 4. Cuzco again...

Since me and my hubby are looking for a new home this theme is right up my sleeve. We're looking for an old house, which has nice old features, but the interior will be more modern. We both like the mix of old and new and lots of natural materials, wood, stone, glass, steel. There will be a place for lots of books and lots of cosy corners for our cats, a kitchen with an AGA cooker would be lovely. A warm bathroom with a hot shower. And a space for my workshop where I can play with water, fire, clay, silver and glass, but also a space for an exhibition area and perhaps a space to let out for yoga classes or small seminaries or to give workshops........

The Chair Project part 1

2011-01-30T06:05:00.000-08:00

On Monday evenings I meet up with a group of fellow ceramist to play with clay. We are all experienced ceramist, but like to meet and be challenged so we still have a teacher, who comes in every 3 weeks or so. Usually we pick a few group projects but are otherwise free to do what we want. We make some excursions every year to any ceramic related event that has our fancy. I like it a lot and it draws one out of ones comfort zone, it's nice to see what other do and how different they work.

This season we are working towards a group exhibition in September of this year. Last summer we picked the theme and since September last year we have been working on it. We chose to buy the same chair and do something with it. This is the chair:

Some make a ceramic cushion for it, another turned it into a chessboard, someone will cover it with little ceramic beetles or ceramic figures of men, some are turning in into an abstract work of art. And me?

I'm turning it into a little world, a scene, a Tim Burton inspired landscape. The last only happened when I was already working on it. I quickly had the idea of a rabbit sitting on the edge, but why was it there, a rabbit alone was too easy. Than I imagined the slats to be rows in a garden with vegetables, carrots in this case. And than it just kept on growing. I got all these elements so far:

The dark clay still has to be fired and some bits of paper are stuck in the clay they will be gone after firing.

Here ends part 1 of the Chair Project, see what other elements where added and how they will be assembled in the upcoming blogs about this project. The final blog will reveal all 10 or so chairs.

Sweet Saturday - Bread Pudding

2011-01-22T00:21:00.000-08:00

Do you have bread left over or do you have chickens to feed it too? I keep ours and take it my parents for the chickens. But now I had so much I thought I might use some of it to make a fairly traditional Belgium dish: bread pudding. I made my own variation, the basic version is with bread, milk, eggs, sugar, cinnamon and raisins. This is my version:

350 gr of stale bread
3 eggs
0,5 litre milk
cherries (bottle of 370ml from the supermarket, drained)
120 gr of dark brown sugar
2 slices of gingerbread
some vanilla essence or sugar
cinnamon, teaspoon
chocolate buttons, handful

Preheat the fan oven to 160°C and tear the bread in smaller bits. Butter a baking tin or glass bowl.

Bring the milk to boil and add the bread. Take from the heat and add sugar, eggs, cinnamon, vanilla and stir. Add the diced gingerbread, cherries and stir, add the chocolate buttons at the very last, quick stir and poor into the bowl or tin. bake for 50 minutes.

Enjoy!!

Monday Mood

2011-01-17T01:56:00.000-08:00

The Third Monday of January is supposed to be the most depressing in the year,

if you want to know why, read it here.

I actually woke up feeling there was a little black cloud looming over my head.

To quickly erase this feeling I decided to give a "BLEUMONDAY" discount of 25% in my etsy shop today.

Also made myself a cheery blue Monday Moodboard.

Scarf by Manon Knits

Painting by Jaime Best

Owl print by Box 64 Studios

Bag by Arva available in the Europe for Charity Shop

Shipping on the border of Belgium and the Netherlands

2011-01-14T09:42:00.000-08:00

Everyone want to keep their shipping costs as low as possible and to help myself I have made an overview of the shipping options for someone like me, living in Belgium but the Dutch border is close. Belgium post Bpost gives more divisions in weight, Dutch post TNT in regions, so I kept it as compact as possible allowing for these differences. A general trend is usually easily spotted. Why are my shipping rates not as per these tables? Well I round off the amounts and allow a little for handling too.

Sheet for post that fits through the letterbox, approx max 30mm tick
Sheet for post that does not fit in the letterbox

If you want to add (perhaps for those living near Belgium, Netherlands and Germany) to this list, just let me know and I'll send you the original files.
If I made a mistake in typing or other I'm not responsible!
I've indicated track and trace for some shipping options, but you might want to look into that further.
I've not looked at insurance, registered and so on, usually these are extra again.
Kiala B and DHLforyou NL prices as for service point to servicepoint
I've not included http://www.postzegelsmetkorting.nl/ rates but these are -20% from TNT from what they claim.

Happy shipping!

Sweet Saturday - Baked Mango cheesecake

2011-01-01T02:35:00.000-08:00

First of all very best wishes to all of you for 2011,

enjoy every minute of it in good health, good company and good humour.

Here a recipe for baked mango cheesecake. I love the baked ones much better than the none baked ones. I made it the day before, so it could cool overnight and it was just the perfect dessert to top off 2010, not too heavy, even nice and fresh with raspberry sauce, mango sorbet and fresh mango on the side.
This recipe is the right amount for a 24 cm/9 inch baking tin.

75 gr butter melted
200 gr of digestive biscuits in crumbs
500 gr mascarpone
500 gr soft cream cheese
150 gr sugar
a tin of mango slices
4 eggs
1 mango
raspberry sauce
mango sorbet

Mix the melted butter and the biscuit crumbs and press firmly into the baking tin. Leave this than to coll for minimum on hour in the fridge.

Drain the mango slices and mix these, you should have about 200ml of mango purée.

Preheat the oven to 150°C or 130°C if you have a fan oven.

Mix the cream cheese, mascarpone, sugar and mango purée. Beat the eggs and add these too. Pour all on top of the biscuit base and bake for 1,5 hour.

Leave to cool with the door closed for another hour or the cake will crack. When cool enough put it in the fridge and leave it overnight to cool.

Dress the plates or the cake whatever you prefer with fresh mango and raspberry sauce, some mango sorbet on the side and enjoy!

A little help for a friend

2010-12-09T07:22:00.000-08:00

My story bowls come in nice paper boxes which are lined with felt. I get them through the company STRAID - straight aid - from the Netherlands who have these custom made for me in Nepal. Today I got the sad news that Hari, the owner of the felting company died at 38, way to young and leaving behind his wife and 3 kids. Ten families were depending on Hari's company for their income as well. Now STRAID wants to help to keep the company and the families going.

Therefore STRAID now offers a set of 5 gift cards (made by the company who makes my paper boxes) with envelopes and a wind chime in paper for only 9,85 euro of which at least 4 euro's will go to Hari's company. You can buy them via this link if you live in the Netherlands add code HARI10 on check out and the special offer price will be calculated. Best contact Marcel at STRAID if you live outside the Netherlands.

So you might think why not sell some felt products from Hari's company as a special offer instead of cards, simple because not enough were left in stock.

Give a friend a little help :-) Thanks!

getting ready for Xmas: Decemberwinkel

2010-12-08T12:56:00.000-08:00

Today I helped to set up the Decembershop, a temporary shop where approx 12-15 local artists sell their work. This year it is located in a barn. Last week we cleared the barn and set up the lights and display area's and today these displays were filled with the goodies. On the Dutch Handmade site you can see an impression of the nearly finished shop. Here I'd like to share some of my new items with you. I took the pictures late at night, inside and other not such good conditions, so excuse the quality.

Story Bowl: Lonely rabbit in the dessert where he lives in a box.

Story Bowl: Are you an Angel?

New necklaces and rings in the serie 'Dutch Folklore'

New necklace in sterling silver: Funky Chicken

Above it, a porcelain bird on a silver necklace, more porcelain animals will follow.

Story Bowl: Wanna go for a ride babe?

Another Funky Chicken in sterling silver.

Wants these, come to the Decemberwinkel!

Sweet Saturday

2010-11-20T01:24:00.000-08:00

Apple's with Bailyes cream liqueur in a filo wrapping

I made this after reading another recipe with apples and Baileys. But I did want something wrapped in dough, which was not the case in the other recipe, as I wanted to hand these out as treats. I did not take measurements of the ingredients so these are guesses.

5 small apples
50 gr of dark brown sugar
50 gr of butter
dash of baileys
50 ml cream
ground cinnamon to taste
ground ginger to taste
ready bought filo dough

As I'm writing these down I can imagine raisins soaked in the Baileys first would go well with it too.

Take a baking tray for scones or muffins, fill each cup with 4 layers of filo dough, I just tore these into roughly the shape I wanted. I did not butter the tray.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Cut the apples and fry them in the butter in a pan, I added them apple by apple, so you have very soft pieces of apple and some with a bit of crunch in the end. Add the sugar, spices, cream and Bailyes too.

Once this is ready add a spoon full to each filo filled cup in the tray. And put in the oven for about 12 minutes.

Enjoy!!

PS Best served warm.

PS If you don't want to bother with the filo, I'm sure this apple-baileys mix will go real nice with some ice-cream.

Golden Gull - the award

2010-11-11T09:29:00.000-08:00

Today was the big day, the award: the winner of the golden gull would be announced on the largest book-fair of Flanders in Antwerp. It was really busy and we spend ages looking for parking, but arrived at the award ceremony just in time.

The jury members Heidi Lenaerts and Rudi Vanschoonbeeck read some abstracts form the books which had entered the competion for best book published under own management and organised by "Creatief Schrijven" (creative writing). Karolien van Ransbeeck completed the presentation with some beautiful unplugged songs.

It was publisher Rudi Vanschoonbeeck who announced the winner: Bart Vermeer with his poetry album Medea-Brutus.

Here Bart Vermeer just received the award and shows it to the public:

And here a picture of Bart with the award (safely in it's box) and myself with the award winning book:

Bart was so good to let me keep that copy of the book :-)

I hope he is really happy with this very special story bowl I made.

Many thanks to Bart for the book and

many thanks to the organisation Creatief Schrijven to commision me to make the award!

If you want to read about the making of the golden gull, go here.

Golden Gull - the making

2010-11-11T06:43:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I got a phone-call from an organisation "Creatief Schrijven" (creative writing). They had seen my work and they liked it; would I want to make an award called "De Gouden Meeuw", de golden seagull, for the best book published in private management. Of course I would; I was honoured to be asked!

I hinted here and there I was working on this, but did not want to reveal anything until the price was awarded to the winner today on the bookfair in Antwerp.

As they had seen my work and my story-bowls, they had for this occasion to make a bowl with a little seagull standing in it. But my mind started to work and I got a flying gull in my head, so I proposed this design instead:

They liked it too, so I went to work, I made the bowl in porcelain and made a second bowl in clay so it could support the porcelain bowl during firing. I had first in mind to string the gull on 1 wire, but quickly realised that this would be too wobble and changed the design to have a wire running under each wing. So I made several seagulls, which was ok, than I had spares and I would have some to test the gold finishes. In the end I also made another bowl as the first one did warp too much.

Turned out that the real gold leaf (head) gave the nicest finish, I had looked at fake gold leaf and gold paint (wing). So I tested the paint and real gold leaf. I got some special glue for the last and it worked fine, nothing as difficult as I had expected. Maybe it's because I work very fine that I did not have the troubles that some others had, as I read on comments on the internet. Just touch it with your hand as little as possible and use a soft brush the press it to the object.

I hung the gull on a very fine steel-wire. The end I closed with a silver bead and I hung a porcelain label with my logo and initials on it too. Found a nice box and ready it was to go to the winner.

Read part 2 to know who the winner is.

Sweet Saturday

2010-11-06T02:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my birthday and I baked myself this nice cake in a special cake-tin which I had given to myself a few weeks ago. With it came this lovely recipe for a chocolate and raspberry cake.

Chocolate & Raspberry Cake

250 gr of dark chocolate
250 gr of butter
4 large eggs
1 sachet of vanilla sugar
350 gr of white sugar
350 gr of flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
100 gr of ground almonds
150 gr of raspberries fresh or frozen

Melt the butter and the chocolate in a pot, once melted leave to cool.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 180°C.

Mix the eggs, sugar, vanilla sugar and a pinch of salt (unless the butter is salted than leave salt out).

Mix the flour, baking powder and the ground almonds and add this to the egg mix.

Spoon the now lukewarm chocolate/butter mix through it carefully, followed by the raspberries.

Spoon into the baking tin (buttered!) and bake for about 45 minutes.

Leave to cool in the tin and than transfer to a plate.

I will decorate it later with icing sugar, raspberries and cream, just before serving it.

Monday Mood

2010-11-01T01:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I made a Monday Moodboard. It's just been so busy and I just did not feel like it. Blogging should be fun and not compulsory! But here I am with lots of gold-leaf. I'm not a gold person at all, but I was asked to make an award and there is gold in there. Today I hope to be able to pick up some gold leaf scraps from a friend to test with it, before I buy a whole booklet to find it does work with porcelain. So gold-leaf on my mind:

Goldleaf and Hydrangea Soap by Amelias

Goldleaf Earrings by Lizzy B Designs

Green Gold Bead by Bead Impressions

Gold Point Vessel by Up in the Air Somewhere

Sweet Saturday

2010-10-30T00:41:00.000-07:00

Something nice for breakfast or afternoon tea: scones. I started by following the recipe as described in the AVOCA cookbook, but than made an error when I was too enthusiastic pouring in the cream. The dough was too moist and instead of more flour I thought it might be nice to add ground almonds.

Scones à la Annemiek (makes about 6-10 scones)

225 gr of self raising flour
pinch of baking powder
25 gr of sugar
55 gr of salted butter, cubed(or if unsalted add a pinch of salt)
1 egg, beaten
100 ml cream
40 gr of ground almonds

Mix the flour, baking powder and sugar into a bowl. Add the butter and rub it in until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the beaten egg, the cream and the ground almonds, mix until it has a soft doughy texture.

Gather the dough into a ball and roll it out on a floured surface to a thickness of 2,5 cm. stamp round shapes from it and place these on a baking tray (greased or covered with baking parchment). Brush the tops with some egg mixed with water (I just used the bit of egg which was left in the cup I had beaten it in) and bake for 15-20 minutes in a preheated oven of 180°C.

Enjoy!

My Creative Space

2010-10-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

Busy, busy, busy as everyone these days I guess.

My MOO minicards arrived which I had made for my ear studs, it says on the front surgical steel & porcelain, on the back my website and my logo. Much neater I think than using my business cards for this purpose.

Also busy making new bowls in porcelain, with flying pigs amongst others:

And I was commissioned to make an award.

I will share pictures of this project once it is finished.

Sweet Saturday

2010-10-23T00:18:00.000-07:00

Nearly no Sweet Saturday, as I missed some ingredients for the recipe I wanted to make, than thought of something else, but same problem. I really need to go grocery shopping with desserts and cookies in mind again :-)
But I still had all the ingredients for ShortBread, well more or less, I adjusted the amounts to suit the amount of flour I had left, but still have 3 baking trays of cookies, so plenty. I also used salted butter, well some as I did not have enough unsalted butter and added some vanilla scented/flavoured sugar too.

ShortBread

400 gr of plain flour
200 gr of corn flour
200 gr of icing sugar
400 gr of butter (I used 225 unsalted and 175 salted)
1 sachet of vanilla sugar

Mix or sift the flours and the sugar into a bowl. Rub in the butter until you have a soft ball. Roll this out to a thickness of about 1cm on a lightly floured worktop, preferable a cool stone top. Cut out in whatever shape you want; since all my cookie cutter have ended up in my atelier they are not really suitable for food any more, so I used a small cup ;-)

Place them on a baking tray lined with baking parchment and leave to cool for at least 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C for a fan oven, as I have one and the cookies have gone to soft and than cooked too quick to look like shortbread). Bake them for about 1 hour, leave in a rack to cool. So here they are a bit flatter than usual for shortbread and not so long in the oven either, but they taste fine :-)

Ai Weiwei: Sunflower seeds

2010-10-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

Last week I somewhere picked up something about an exhibition of/with millions of sunflower seeds in porcelain by
Ai WeiWei, which got my attention straight away. I found this great video on you-tube about the project.

I not only learned about the project and it's background, how sunflowers are part of China, but also saw a bit of how porcelain is found and made. It does not start live as mud or clay, but more something rock-like. And something I would never do is open the oven while red-hot because the temperature shock can make the fired pieces crack. I guess the seeds being so small and made of solid porcelain they can withstand this temperature change.

Anyway if you got 15 minutes to spare it's well worth viewing.

Happy Stats

2010-10-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

Still tired from a long, but great, night out with friends as I write these happy stats:

great trip to Ireland, good to see my friends there and catch up
starting a collaboration with my friend Shauna and writing guest post for Artminds blog together
job hunting and getting a more clear idea on what I want to do beside my crafting
short visit to Middelburg, were I spend all my time in this award winning bookshop
buying an baking tin inspired by a 'Zeeuwse Knop', so fun to see how this element from my Dutch heritage is picked up by different people, dusted off and transformed into something new
great night out with friends enjoying good food in Bruges
Visiting my parents and bringing back a fresh supply of apples and pears, the car smelled gorgeous driving home

Sweet Saturday

2010-10-14T23:30:00.000-07:00

Banana Bread

225 gr self-raising flour (or if plain flour add baking powder)
salt
teaspoon of cinnamon
110 gr sugar
1 egg
75 ml sunflower oil
2 sachets of vanilla sugar (or some vanilla essence)
65 gr of chopped pecan nuts
3 large bananas

Mix flour, salt and cinnamon, add the sugar. Mix in (gently! don't bead) the egg, sunflower oil and vanilla sugar. Smash the banana with a fork and chop the pecan nuts. Fold in them into the mixture. Butter a tin loaf and fill up with the mixture.

Bake in a preheated oven of 180°C for 50-60 min. If it springs back when you prod it with your finger it's ready. Once you take it from the oven be patient and leave it another 10 minutes in the tin before taking it out, than let it cool further on a wire rack.

Enjoy!!!

Friday Finds

2010-10-14T23:05:00.000-07:00

Not every Friday but some Fridays I will share some remarkable finds with you.

Today that is TASART, tas is Ducth for bag, so art bags.

I met Yvette Wiers, the woman behind TASART on a fair in Hasselt. She had a booth beside mine and we could talk very little as it was so busy, but her bags facinated me.

She makes them from old leather motorbike jackets and coats and combines them with

the strangest of other items: parts from bicycles, telephones, skates, old keys, ......

It's a great way to recycle, I might just dig out my old leather bikers pants to get a custom bag from her ;-)

(yep, in another era I used to be a biker and owned one too, cruising around Ireland :-)

You find all info on the bags, Yvette and her work on www.tasart.nl

Le Veauthibault 2010 - making paperclay

2010-10-14T00:13:00.000-07:00

When I was in France last month I also made my own paperclay. As it is a bit messy I preferred to make it in France and not in my own tiny atelier. I had some pieces which were not suitable for firing after drying and kept those to make paperclay. Of course you can buy ready made paperclay, but this way you can reuse failed pieces (so long as they have not been fired) and create something new with them. I do like working with paper clay and paper porcelain as it stronger due to the fibers.

The recipe is easy:

1 empty box for 6 eggs

750 grams of dry clay

0,5 liter of warm to hot water

Tear the box to small pieces and put in a bowl, add the hot water and mix well.

Grind to dry clay to as fine a powder as possible.

I just batched it with a rolling pin until it look like this:

Add the powder clay to the paper slush and mix well.
If you want you can add a stain at this point. In this case the clay is antracite clay so not much use to add a colorstain to it, but works well for porcelain and white clays.

Put all unto a slab of plaster (you can make this yourself or buy ready made from some DIY stores), which will suck out the moist. Leave it to dry and turn if need be.
I left mine to dry overnight and there was no need to turn, there will be if you leave it out in the sun.

Once it's dried to a consistency you are happy to work with kneed it and store it air tight.

Inspirational Ireland

2010-10-12T22:56:00.000-07:00

Last week I spend a few days in Ireland.

I lived there over 10 years ago, just bought a ticket and went. Lucky for me the Celtic tiger had just started roaring it was not hard to find a place to stay and a job; designing kitchens for the rich and famous of Ireland.

I go back at least once a year to catch up with friends and stay in touch.

I spend some time on the coast, enjoying the sun and the view. Later in the week I went with a friend and her kids to the Botanical Gardens. All museums have free access and so do these gardens. I never went there when I lived in Ireland, so it was a good reason to go. The weather was just gorgeous and there was a temporary exhibition of sculptures in all shapes and sizes.

Happy Bronze Friends

Twig Goat

Looking for the fairies under the fairy seat mushroom.

Mixed Media Dove

Iron Deer

Cute Squirl

Amazing Plant Sculpture

Paparazzi, they were al taking pictures using there mobiles....

Organic Sculpture in Felt

Autumn

2010-10-12T01:31:00.000-07:00

The season of nuts and tangerines has arrived :-)

Marché Bricolé

2010-10-04T01:20:00.000-07:00

Hi there, did you have a great weekend too? I hope so. I enjoyed a great day at the fair Marché Bricolé in Bruges, Belgium. It was real busy and the weather was just lovely, I had a spot with the sun on my back, hhmmmm. And just across from me a nice coffee and tea stall, lucky for me they had GingerLove too.

Beside me Greet from Fleurfatale had a stall, we could hardly chat as it was so busy all day. We'll just have to catch up later. I have joined her and Mitsy from Artmind to write a regular "With love from Belgium" post on the Dutch Handmade blog. You can read my first post there tomorrow.

My new ear studs went flying out the door, as did my rings and necklaces, especially the roses. Also got a visit from clients who had bought before and came to tell how many compliments they had received already.

It is so nice to make people happy and receive compliments.

The sun did not only bring out a lot of people but I saw lots of ladybugs too. A little girl pointed one out to her dad, it was sitting in the street in from of my stall. Her dad picked it up and set it down in a safer place, so cute :-)

One ladybug came to visit me and found my cat and mouse brooch real interesting :-)

Sweet Saturday

2010-10-01T23:18:00.000-07:00

This Sweet Saturday a recipe for cinnamon rolls.

Ingredients:

450 gr of white flour
pinch of salt
50 gr of sugar
50 gr of soft butter
200 ml milk
22 gr of dried yeast
1 egg

Filling:

100 gr soft butter
100 gr brown sugar
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon (or a bit more if you really love cinnamon :-)
1 egg

Sieve the flour and mix with the salt and sugar, than rub in the butter. Heat the milk until warm, blood temperature and mix with the yeast, add the egg. Combine the 2 mixtures, using the dough hook or by hand, until springy and smooth. Cover and leave to rise for about 30 min in a warm, draft free place.

Mix the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and egg to make the filling.

Knead the risen dough lightly and roll out a quarter to form the base of a cake-tin (diameter about 23cm). Roll the reminder into a large rectangle. Spread the filling over the rectangle and roll up. Leave a strip on one side filling free. Roll the rectangle up towards the free strip, egg wash strip if need be to make it stick, but usually a bit of water works too.

Slice the roll into 8 slices, set these on the base, well divided. Bake for about 30 minutes at 180°C.

Enjoy!

Monday Mood

2010-09-26T23:23:00.000-07:00

Taking hubby's car to the garage today for a check up.

1. 135 Auburn Boattail by Paul McWain Photo

2. Road Cushion 1 by Syko

3.Vroom Vroom Blanket by Cuddled with Love

4. Traffic Jam by Cassia Beck

Happy Stats

2010-09-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

breakfast at a friends house in Antwerp last Sunday followed by strolling around 'Zuiderzinnen': all sorts of acts and performances in the area where she lived related to literature
yoga, so glad I started following classes again
taking pictures of new creations, Max was so good to give a hand, well paw, getting the lighttent ready

making my mum, sis and my self happy with a cardigan for us each from Maija Fashion
going to the esty meeting in Amsterdam, so nice to meet so many other etsy sellers and Matt and Benedikta from the Berlin office
driving to Amsterdam and back with Mitsy from Artmind (express your feelings with ceramics), great to have great company when driving far
staying with Marta from Martice (all to keep your laptop cosy), so good to meet her, she is just great
sharing a booth at the Crafty Markt with Liesbeth en Barry van Pinipiru (if you're looking for a great t-shirt look no further and they're organic too!) and meeting many other etsy sellers there too

Sweet Saturday

2010-09-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

This Sweet Saturday I have for you a recipe for a little nice nibble to take with you. As I am doing to today, bringing it to the Crafty Markt in Amsterdam to share with others.

Apricots in puff paste

1 roll of ready made puff paste
12 half abricots (may come from a can)
100 gr soft butter
100 gr sugar
100 gr ground almond
1 tablespoon flour
1 egg
dash of amaretto or similar

Either you make one big one or several small one, I made small ones, 12 in total. In this case stamp 12 smaller circles from the large puff paste roll and put one in each baking mould (buttered). Else just fold the paste with the baking paper into a baking tin. And make some tiny holes in it with a fork.

Mix the sugar, butter, ground almond, amaretto, flour and egg and put one teaspoon in each mold. I did about a table spoon but this is too much, as you will see later. If you make a big one, just poor all in the tin.

Top off with a half apricot and bake for 30min at 180°C.

you see here a tablespoon is just a bit too much :-)

Enjoy!!

PS If you make the individual ones you'll have mix and puff paste left over, just be creative with this and put it in the oven with the baking tray full of 'proper' pies.

Le Veauthibault 2010 - Paper Kiln

2010-09-23T01:40:00.000-07:00

Today I want to share some more memories of my trip to France with you.

The last full day we made a paper kiln and it was a lot of fun.

Most of us had prepared a little bowl in the days before so they were dry when Friday came.

We used a grill form an old BBQ as a base. We made a channel underneath to be able to add wood and fuel the fire. On top we constructed a basket in metal wire to hold the ceramics.

We filled the basket with charcoal and the dry clay pieces.

We stacked wood we had collected on our walks around the basket.

We wrapped the wood with cardboard, leaving a hole for a chimney in the top.

Than followed 7 layers of clay slush and newspapers, one layer slush, one layer newspaper and so on.

The finished paper kiln with a cute chimney and holes either side to light the fire and add more wood.

What to do with the left over slush.....slush fight!

Watching the kiln shrink as the fire burns higher and higher,
we kept adding wood until is was well alight on all sides.

Well into the night we removed the paper surround,
the wood had burned away and all the charcoal is glowing.
This is good, we need much heat for long around the pieces.

In the morning we found it like this. Perfect result, only 2 bowls were broken,
most likely because there was air trapped in the clay.

These are the ones I made, I had added stripes in copper-oxide and a glaze.
For the glaze it had not been hot enough so that came off or
it was because the glaze was too old and past it's sell-by-date.

Well hope you enjoyed our fun day too and maybe it will inspire you to make your own paper kiln.

Monday Mood

2010-09-19T23:30:00.000-07:00

I spotted this Monday Mood before starting mine: http://soledevita.blogspot.com/
I think it's a great idea, so I'm joining her and make my own mood-board from items sold in the Europe for Charity shop too. You find a selection of great items donated by artist from all over Europe in all colours, shape, sizes and price ranges :-)

Rhodonite and Onyx Earrings - donated by Alatvian

Dancing silk felted scarf - donated by IngerMaaike

Purple pinback buttons (set of 2) - donated by SoleDeVita
Magenta and sparkling charcoal crochet flower brooch - donated by TheBroochBoutique

Interested in buying any of the above items, you'll find them here any many others:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/EuropeForCharity

Happy Stats

2010-09-19T00:36:00.000-07:00

This weeks happy stats cover the last 2 weeks, as I was away to a rain drenched ceramic market last Sunday, which did not make me happy but this all did:

thinking of new designs
laughing and creating in good company whilst enjoying good food in France
will take part with my work in a local December shop run by a group of local artists
getting lots of cuddles from our kitten Sientje, she really missed me :-)
planning a trip to Ireland to my writer friend Shauna to work more on our project 'story bowls'

Wishing you all a wonderful new week!

Sweet Saturday

2010-09-17T23:24:00.000-07:00

We have 2 apple trees in our garden, so here a quick and easy recipe for an apple pie. Most of the work is in arranging the slices of apples neatly on the pastry.

Here (in the back) as part of the dessert buffet for a family BBQ

Apple and cream on puff pastry

ready made puff pastry
2-3 apples depending on size
200 ml cream
3 tablespoons of sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar
1 tablespoon of flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 180°C (hot air with extra heath from underneath if possible)

Roll the pasty on to a low baking tin and prick holes in the bottom with a fork all over. Peel the apples and slice them, lay them like rooftiles neatly on the puff pastry.

Mix the cream, sugar, cinnamon and flour and pour this over the apples. Bake for about 25 min at 180°C

Enjoy!!

Entries for the EST challenge

2010-09-17T00:21:00.000-07:00

Last week I won the EST challenge set by Anastasia from L'Acccent Nou, so now I'm hosting the new challenge and I choose 'heritage' as the theme. Here the entries, new ones will be added regularly, from which a winner will be chosen Monday 20th of Sept at 20h Belgium time.

Turquoise and Copper earrings by Alatvian ,
who's taken her inspiration from mother Earth's rich heritage

Basket from Scheveningen - Holland by P8Accessories ,

who's taken her inspiration from her mother's hometown

La Dame Espagnola - necklace by Star of the East,
who has taken her inspiration from her Spanish roots

Well, it's 20th of September past 20h and these are all the entries, lovely ones, but few. Was it too difficult, was my description of the theme too vague, was everyone too busy, was it a boring theme, ..... I don't know.

Anyway I liked all the entries and I would have been forever doubting about whom to choose, so ask my hubby to pick a number 1, 2 or 3. He picked number 3, so Star of the East is the lucky winner. Hurray!

Le Veauthibault 2010

2010-09-15T22:40:00.000-07:00

Sunday the 5th of September we left with 3 cars and 1 van with 10 women and 1 dog from Belgium for 7 days to

Le Veauthibault in France to create with clay, porcelain, silver(clay), glass, fimo, paint, paper, plaster and wood.

Below the view from my place in the atelier and impressions around the house.

Usually I would go for a short walk in the morning, sometimes Thibault, the dog of the landlord would walk with me.

We had a real good time, the evening we filled with playing games, visiting the local wine farm or sitting around the fire watching stars. The landlord Jacques made our breakfast, lunch, dinner and entertained us with ghost stories in the cellar.

All in all I had a great time, created a lot of which I will share more later.

Button Wednesday

2010-09-15T03:38:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I decided to send a surprise gift to my biggest fan and you can read all about that on her blog.
I send her some of my buttons as she is a huge button fan and creates with buttons too.

Here are some other buttons I made:

This set of 3 in red of which one has a little cat is available from the Europe for Charity shop on Etsy,

currently supporting the people of Pakistan.

EST Challenge

2010-09-11T12:17:00.000-07:00

What a surprise (I've been computer-less since last Sunday cause I was off for a creative week in France, no internet, hardly a working cell phone, so no news what so ever) to find I won last weeks EST challenge. So many thanks to Anastasia from L'Accent Nou and sorry for the delay. But here we go, I guess it will be fine to close this challenge the 20th of September (say 20h Belgium time) instead of the 13th, else there will be very little time to create.

I'd like to challenge you to make something in spired by (your) heritage. Why heritage, well I just spend a week in 16th century house, lots of heritage there and I like history and folklore (hence my jewellery inspired by folklore from the region where I was born and bred), but not in a dusty, rusty kind of way, but as part of today and the future. Please send your entries to annemiek [at] twotrees [dot] be or via an etsy convo.

See the entries here: http://twotreesbelgium.blogspot.com/2010/09/entries-for-est-challenge.html

Happy Stats

2010-09-04T22:44:00.000-07:00

Here are my happy stats for the past week:

packing for a creative week in France
visting Mix-Art and found they sold more of my creations
making more story bowls
firing 2 kilns
packing for ceramic market in Lommel
enjoyed the good weather

Picture from last year in Le Veauthibault

Sweet Saturday

2010-09-03T23:39:00.000-07:00

For this Sweet Saturday I made for you a recipe with rhubarb. This comes from a book written by Anouck and Joris, who run the lovely B&B 'la maison blanche aux volets bleus' in Bretagne, France. They give cookery courses too, just check out their site to know more.

Rhubarb Pie/Cake - Tarte au Rhubarbe

125 gr soft butter
125 gr sugar
3 eggs, split in whites and yolks
125 gr self-raising flour (or plain flour + 2 teaspoons of baking powder)
250 gr of rhubarb or 2 stalks
10 gr coarse sugar

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Mix the soft butter/molten butter and the sugar, add the egg yolks and flour.

beat the egg whites until white peaks form and spoon this carefully through the mix. Butter a baking tin with a diameter of about 25cm, I dust it than with flour so the cake will come loose even easier.

Put the mix in the tin.

Cut the rhubarb into thin slices and spread these over the mix. Sprinkle the coarse sugar over the rhubarb.

bake for 30-35 minutes in a 180°C oven.

Enjoy - Bon Apetit!

My Creative Space

2010-09-02T06:30:00.000-07:00

As you might know I'm leaving this Sunday for a creative week in France. What will I be doing there??? Well I'll take wood, silver, silver clay, porcelain and dried clay. I'll will mostly concentrate on the coming X-mas season. On the handmade-Europe blog you could have a sneek-peek at what to expect from European sellers this autumn/winter. If you popped over you saw that it also featured my porcelain-star garlands, so I'll be making lots of stars. I will make long, short and even longer garlands with the stars and single stars too. Besides the garlands I have another nice cosy wintery item in mind with stars. When I'm fed up making stars I'll turn to silver, silver clay and wood, to work on some new jewellery designs I have in mind. The dried clay I'll use to make my own paperclay and maybe I'll use it there or I'll just use it later back home. From last year I know that time just flies even if we work all day and some evenings too. But it good fun too and the landlord looks very well after us, cooking lovely lunches, dinners and breakfast with fresh croissants...............hhhmmmmm

Anyway I'm preparing 2 large boxes filled with all above and the according tools. Why am I packing 3 days beforehand, well we have to deliver them to the person whom drives the van beforehand. Besides packing I'm also finishing some last little ceramic items to go in the kiln tonight. As I will not be firing or glazing in France I can do some glazing tomorrow and fire it all on Friday night.

Have a creative day!!

My Creative Space

2010-09-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

Currently I'm making more bowls for the fair on the 12th of September in Lommel. As you may know a lot of my bowls feature animals. Sometimes I need to see some pictures just to get the shape and porportions right in my head. I google the animal in question and look through the pictures.

I already made a bowl with a standing bear today and wanted to make another one in a different position. Browsing I came across this story and I just have to make a bowl with bear and a cat now. If it survives the firings you can come and see it at the fair in Lommel.

Monday Mood

2010-08-29T23:12:00.000-07:00

Next Sunday I'm off to France to be creative for a week with a group of fellow ceramists, silver clay, glass bead, soapstone artists, and even a welder. Got a busy week ahead since I want to make more for the fair which takes place the day after I'm back from France in Lommel, Belgium. (They used a picture of one of my bowls for their advertising poster which made me really happy.)
But first France and to get in the mood, an all French mood board today.

Autumn shade nuno felt scarf

Pole Orange

Vintage collection French pharmacy

Whimsical Woman with bird on her head

Head over to Fleurfatale's blog if you want to see more mood boards.

Happy Stats

2010-08-29T01:04:00.000-07:00

Last week I skipped the happy stats, was too busy preparing the BBQ for the family (20+ people), but I can now add this event to my happy stats as it was a great succes. Anyway here the stats for the last 2 weeks.

Sientje trying to catch rain drops.
Wonderful BBQ with good weather, good food and good company.
Sending packages all over the world.
Receiving a lovely message from friends whom I send a surprise gift.
Successful fair yesterday in Hasselt in many ways: meeting fans, meeting others crafters, a visit from Mitsy from Artmind and nice sales to top it off.
Lovely day in Zeeland with hubby, eat lots of seafood and went on a very windy boat trip:

Sweet Saturday

2010-08-27T22:35:00.000-07:00

Stewed plums - Plum sauce

4 large plums or approx 250gr
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground star-aniseed
2 tablespoons of sugar

Peel and half the plums. Mix in the sugar and the spices and stew for 10-15min in a pot on the hob or in an oven of 180°C. Serve cooled with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream or yoghurt ice.

My Creative Space

2010-08-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

Today I'm getting ready for Saturdays fair. I hope tomorrow the weather will be better so me and hubby can enjoy the last day of his holidays together. The preparations involved besides pricing, packaging, something with plums too:

I made ...... (you'll get to know what this Sweet Saturday) as a give away to the persons who come to the Hand-made in Belgium-fair in Hasselt and who buy over 30 euro of my creations for as long as my stock of this plum-recipe lasts.

Sweet Saturday

2010-08-20T23:12:00.000-07:00

Sweet Saturday is here again with another recipe for plums:

Plum under a Cake

about 1 kilo of plums
3 tablespoons of sugar
1 sachet of vanilla sugar
4 tablespoons of water
125 gr sugar
125 gr soft butter
2 eggs
125 gr self-raising flour

Preheat the oven to 180°C

Half the plums and take the peel partly off, put these in a buttered baking tin. I leave a bit of peel on cause it gives such a nice colour. make a syrup by boiling the water, sugar and vanilla sugar down. When you draw a stripe in it and it stays for a bit it is ready. Pour this over the plums.

Mix the soft butter with the sugar, add the eggs and than the flour. Spoon this over the plums.

Bake at 180°C for 25 minutes until golden brown.

Enjoy!!

My Creative Space

2010-08-18T06:47:00.000-07:00

Today I'm doing a bit of everything. Sunday we have the family over for a BBQ, so the house, garden and garage need to look sort of OK. At least it is dry and sunny so I can do some work in the garden, it has gone rather bushy in places. Than there is a lot of the stuff in in the garage that needs to be sorted. I started making boxes for different purposes by labelling them. In my atelier is a fridge which will be handy near the garden, so need to get that looking sort of presentable too and the fridge cleaned and filled. Of course while I'm there I cannot resist fiddling around with some beads I made. Made some pictures of new items while the sun is out. So basicly running from here to there and finishing nothing yet. Well still have 3 days......

Monday Mood

2010-08-16T00:05:00.000-07:00

Reading the books of the dragon Temeraire by Noami Novik at the moment; finished book 3 last night. So happy when the postman brought books 4 and 5 this morning.

See more moodboards here.

Happy Stats

2010-08-15T01:12:00.000-07:00

This week was the first week of holidays for my hubby. We already had decided not to travel far this year as we did not want to leave the 2 little kittens alone for too long. So we had a lovely week doing some day trips on the Harley and me also preparing for the fair.

great day trips on the bike, with no rain luckily
preparing for the fair, making lots of new jewellery
finished 7 story bowls too, some for the shops that sell my work, some will appear on etsy
visit from my sister with her baby girl
meeting fans at the fair, always a bit shy with so much lovely comments

Sweet Saturday

2010-08-13T22:45:00.000-07:00

Another recipe with plums:

Pie with plums and hazelnuts

puff pastry (I use the ready made ones from the supermarket)
1kg plums (firm)
50 gr melted butter
50 gr sugar
50 gr of ground almonds or a mix of almonds and hazelnuts
1 egg
1 dessert spoon flour
dash of amaretto
crushed hazelnuts (I used the sugared ones which you can buy to put on ice cream)

Roll the puff paste into a low pie dish and prick with a fork holes in the bottom. Mix the melted butter, egg, sugar, flour and amaretto and poor on to the base. Half the plums and make 2 small slices in the back so the peel will come off in pieces when you eat it later. Arrange the plums, skin side up on the mixture. Sprinkle with a handful of crushed hazelnuts and bake for 20-30 min in a (preheated) oven of 180°C.

Enjoy!

Monday Mood

2010-08-09T00:27:00.000-07:00

Ik ga op vakantie en ik neem mee:
I'm off on a holiday and I'll take with me:
(Well, I'm not going far or long, but hubby is off from work for 3 weeks, so we'll be in holiday mood)

Swirl Tree Leather Journal

Little Red Hood Shoulder Bag

Little Flared Dress in Red

Light Green Lace Scarf

Happy Stats

2010-08-07T22:38:00.000-07:00

Here we go:

lovely day in Leuven meeting friends and finding a new (to open) shop to sell my items
loevely meal at favorite Indian restaurant in Antwerp: Saffraan
making lots of new things in porcelain
went to see this circus, loved it!

Sweet Saturday

2010-08-06T22:07:00.000-07:00

Used some of the last cherries we had ourselves this year to make:

Cherry Clafoutis

1kg cherries
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
125gr sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar
75 gr melted butter
75gr flour
125 ml milk
125 ml cream
dash of amaretto

Butter a baking tin or dish. Put the cherries in without their stems all around the bottom of the tin.

Mix the egg, egg yolk and sugar until it's white and foamy, add the melted butter and flour followed by the milk, cream and amaretto. Poor this mixture over the cherries and bake for 30°C in an oven of 180°C.

Remember to warn beforehand that the stones are still in the cherries.

But they add to the flavor, so worth it ;-)

Enjoy!

My Creative Space

2010-08-06T03:54:00.000-07:00

Making bowls, brooches, buttons, ....... for upcoming fairs and shops which sell my items,

while Max is keeping a close eye on things.

1 bag 3 occasions

2010-08-04T11:50:00.000-07:00

chic casual funky

Do you like this bag? I got it from Karuski, this is a one off, but she has this model in other fabrics too. I asked for an extra brooch in red, so I could adjust the bag to the occasion. Once I had it at home I found that the red puppy brooch I got from Mitsy (Artmind) goes very well with it too. So one bag tree styles for tree occasions and I did not even try a brooch made by myself for my bag yet ;-)

Monday Mood

2010-08-02T00:24:00.000-07:00

To stay in tune with yesterday's blog and last Sweet Saturdays; more plum:

Lilac sparkle ring

Pebbles and Honey felted necklace

Time maschine

Heaven and Earth earrings

Plums

2010-08-01T10:06:00.000-07:00

My brother has an orchard in Zeeland, the Netherlands, with plums, apples and pears. It was my dad's before and it is nice to see that the land stays in the family even though it is tough making a living in agriculture these days. In a few seconds a years work can be destroyed. Spring frost can freeze all of the flowers so you're left will nothing or very little and just have to wait till next year. Hail will damage the fruit so that it is only good for making apple sauce at best or go to waste at worst. Rain will make the plums crack if it falls in big amounts at the wrong time of the riping stage, so you can't sell these anymore.
But when the harvest is good ad the prices are right you can make up for the bad year. Of course working outdoors in each season is a reward too.

I was just at my brothers when a large batch of plums was collected. The scent in the barn, when full of freshly picked plums, is intoxicatedly good. By the time I thought of the idea for this blog they were gone, but imagine the collection of containers with full crates instead of empty ones. These are ready to be filled the next day. Each container goes on a little wagon and several wagons make up a little train that is pulled through the orchard so there can always be empty crates near the pickers.

The plum pickers use buckets which they wear on their shoulder to collect the plums. They look at the color and they feel the softness to judge if it's ready to pick. The older trees are taller and they use step ladders to get at the higher plums. Also if the weather is warm, as it should be in this season, you're always nicely in the shades of the trees when picking.

Once the bucket is full they are carefully emptied into the crates. The plums have a layer of wax on them, which gives them a lovely satin/silk finish. Some people think it's residue or put on by the fruit grower but it isn't, it's natural. You can eat them like that or just give them a polish if you prefer them looking that way. I think it's a bit like with white and brown eggs, one of those other misconceptions. You hardly see any white ones any more, cause brown ones look more healthy and free range by themselves, but they're just laid by brown chickens. I feel sorry for the white chickens and that their eggs are liked less just because they're white.

Anyway once the plums are picked they are sorted into big ones, small ones, good ones and bad ones (damaged or too ripe). This is done by emptying a crate onto a rolling platform. One person is emptying crates while two others stand on each side and sort the plums into other crates according to size and goodness. Then the crates with the sorted plums go to the auction to be bought by traders and from where they go to supermarkets and so on. The plum season has just started, but there are different varieties ripe at different times, so you'll find the in the shops for a good few weeks now.

So go get those lovely fresh plums :-)

Happy Stats

2010-07-31T23:13:00.000-07:00

The weeks just fly by, I can't believe I'm sitting here again at my desk writing my happy stats. Is it really Sunday morning..........

supply shopping with my sister
seeing my niece, who's now 7 months and grown so much since I last saw her
making lots of desserts
my jewelery now on display beside my bowls at mix-art
a picture of one of my bowls is used for the advert of ceramic market Lommel (B)

Sweet Saturday

2010-07-31T12:03:00.000-07:00

With lovely plums ripe in our garden and lovely lush lavender what else to make than:

Lavender Roasted Plums with Lime Mascarpone

2-3 plums per person depending on size
1 stalk of lavender per person
brown sugar
amaretto
mascarpone 225 gr
1 dessert spoon of icing sugar
fine zest of 1-2 limes

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Halve the plums and thread them onto a lavender stalk. Cover the end with foil else they'll burn. Put on a baking tray and sprinkle with brown sugar and amaretto.

Place in the oven for 15-20 min, depending on the size of the plum, you want them to hold shape.

Mix the mascarpone with the zest and the icing sugar and cool.

Serve the plums warm with a dot of mascarpone on each halved plum.

Enjoy!!!

Monday Mood

2010-07-26T02:46:00.000-07:00

Happy Stats

2010-07-24T23:55:00.000-07:00

This week was another nice week, with lots of sunny weather. Time just flew again. Bought lots of nice things (or so I hope; they still have to arrive) on etsy and the internet, presents for friends and myself too :-)

But these things made me most happy this week:

Seeing the kittens discover the world
Firing a kiln and making more jewelry
Went to a circus/dance act by Feria Musica with friends, which was nice and bit strange too
The lost pigeon who landed in our garden was reunited with it's owner
Making Banoffi Pie for the first time
Trying out mattresses in the shops, was a weird sensation to lie on a slow foam mattress

Sweet Saturday

2010-07-24T05:37:00.000-07:00

Banoffi Pie

The first time I tasted this dessert was in Ireland. I lived there for 3 years and Banoffi Pie is one of the things I will always associate with my time there. Whenever I go back and I see Banoffi Pie on the menu I get one.

This is the first time I made it myself at home. I found the original recipe here: http://www.hungrymonk.co.uk/pages/banoffi.htm. Sometimes you find it spelled Banoffy or very often Banoffee (I guess the bananas and toffee (or coffee) in the recipe made people think it was spelled this way.

I have made my own variation, using other receipies I found as inspiration. Most of these other recipes have an easier base, using biscuits instead of a base you have to bake first. I decided to try 3 types of biscuits for the base. Shortbread, Digistives and very low countries, good old speculaas.

Ingredients

100 gr of melted butter
250 gr of crunched biscuits
1 can of condensed milk
2 table spoons of (brown) sugar
1 table spoon of butter
pecan nuts
3 bananas
375ml cream
sugar
1/2 teaspoon instant coffee (optional)
chocolate to grate (optional)

In a lot of recipes you boil the can of condensed milk for at least 3 hours, keeping it submerged all the time. Once cooled you open the can and caramel comes out. Check the can every so often that it is still submerged!

While this boils you can crunch the 250 gr biscuits till the size of bead crumbs and mix with 100gr of melted butter. Put on a base, press it well and leave to cool in the fridge for 1 hour. I wrapped the base in cling-film first. In this case I had the base divided in 3 one section for each type of biscuit I used.

The boiling of the can did not work for me, I probable have been to careful and let it simmer rather than boil. So instead I put the condensed milk than I a pot adding 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and 1 tablespoon of butter. Bring to the boil and stir, stir, stir until it thickens and smells of caramel Leave to cool and keep stirring. Than spread the mixture over the biscuit base. I put of circle of pecan-nuts around the perimeter of the base. I let this cool more while I whipped the cream (with sugar to taste and the instant coffee).

Slice the bananas and divide over the base, top with the cream (has a nice soft caramel color from the added instant coffee) and grate some dark chocolate on top of it.

Enjoy!

PS All bases are equally nice, the speculaas works well too :-)

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MOVED

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My creative space: auction-eye-hospital part 2

My Creative Space - auction eye hospital

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Spello 8/4/11

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Spello 6/4/11

Spello 5/4/11

Spello 4/4/11

The Chair Project part 3

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getting ready for Xmas: Decemberwinkel

Sweet Saturday

Golden Gull - the award

Golden Gull - the making

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Ai Weiwei: Sunflower seeds

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Sweet Saturday

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Le Veauthibault 2010 - making paperclay

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Marché Bricolé

Sweet Saturday

Monday Mood

Happy Stats

Sweet Saturday

Le Veauthibault 2010 - Paper Kiln

Monday Mood

Rhodonite and Onyx Earrings - donated by Alatvian

Dancing silk felted scarf - donated by IngerMaaike

Purple pinback buttons (set of 2) - donated by SoleDeVitaMagenta and sparkling charcoal crochet flower brooch - donated by TheBroochBoutique

Purple pinback buttons (set of 2) - donated by SoleDeVita

Magenta and sparkling charcoal crochet flower brooch - donated by TheBroochBoutique

Interested in buying any of the above items, you'll find them here any many others: http://www.etsy.com/shop/EuropeForCharity

Interested in buying any of the above items, you'll find them here any many others: http://www.etsy.com/shop/EuropeForCharity

Happy Stats

Sweet Saturday

Entries for the EST challenge

Le Veauthibault 2010

Button Wednesday

EST Challenge

Happy Stats

Sweet Saturday

My Creative Space

My Creative Space

Monday Mood

Happy Stats

Purple pinback buttons (set of 2) - donated by SoleDeVita
Magenta and sparkling charcoal crochet flower brooch - donated by TheBroochBoutique

Interested in buying any of the above items, you'll find them here any many others:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/EuropeForCharity

Interested in buying any of the above items, you'll find them here any many others:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/EuropeForCharity