Spello 5/4/11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.