Monday Mood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Yoki the Fat Dragon

Carnival Parade

Dragon hat

Rainy Day Dragon

See more moodboards here.