Monday Mood

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

• 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

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

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

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

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

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!!