What's on my bedside table and books to read this summer

I love books. I love reading. I love being in the fantasy world and switch off for a while. Books work better for me than movies, I never "lived" a movie while I actually "live" a book, if that make any sense at all. 

I love collecting books. I've got plenty of them and it still is not enough for me. And I never sell a book or exchange it for another one. I get the idea though and I think it's really sweet. But my books are mine and it would feel weird of saying good-bye to them as it feels that we shared something together. A book really becomes a friend to me and you don't get rid of your friends.

I have many books I haven't even read yet or read half of it and left it and now I don't remember where I finished (or what it actually was about) and have to start from the beginning. So I decided that this summer, starting from tonight, I will read the books I never had time to read. And to be sure I'll do that I moved them to my bedside table. 

So now on my bedside table I have: 

- 10 books I want to read, 

- an alarm clock I accidently stole from my previous landlord. It was in the room we used to rent and I just packed it up with everything else when we were moving.. if you're reading this Mr. Duncan then just know that I am really sorry  (no, not really as I totally love the clock)

- two dwarfs from my shop - they remind me of how lucky I am to be able to follow my dreams

- gameboy - Mr. Hubby still believes he can beat me on Mario Bros but I'm simply the best so he has no chances. I don't tell him that though. Only when I want to tease him. Which is always

 

How is it that I never know what to write in my posts and then when I start they become so super long? I really wanted to make it short.. Anyway, I won't bore you any more (if any of you actually got to this point). Here's the list of books I'm gonna read. If you are interested of course :)

1. The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono - this story is so short it won't take me longer than 30 minutes to read it yet I still haven't done so.. 
2. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - I read this book about 4 times already. It's my favourite one of all times so I will read it again.
3. Arthur and George by Julian Barnes - I only bought this book because I really liked the cover. Yes, I do that quite often.
4. Self by Yann Martel - bought that one as I really liked Life of Pi 
5. Couscous with Pauline by Tina Johnston - written by my friend and I even have it signed! 
6. Tomorrow, Insha'allah by Tina Johnston - already read it once couple of years ago and loved it! Want to read it again as Couscous with Pauline is a continuation so need to be in the picture :) You can buy the books here
7. Life of Pi by Yann Martel - already read half of it, then left it (lack of time again!) and now I don't know where I finished..
8. Rio Anaconda by Wojciech Cejrowski - it's probably the wittiest, funniest and saddest travel book written (already started so I know). I don't think it's been translated to English yet, but if you know Polish then I strongly recommend it!
9. Atonement by Ian McEwan - started that one countless times and never went through the second chapter.. Don't ask me why
10. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell - I think there was a movie made and Mr. Hubby wanted to see it. I made him wait until I read the book first.. (there are three more movies he wants to see but waits for me to read the book)

What are you going to read this summer?     

Photo taking practice

I was practicing taking photos this morning (as they say - practice makes perfect) and I think I'm making some progress. Well, at least I'm satisfied with them, especially when compared to the very first photos I took.

1. Paper lampshade that soon will be renewed.  2. The Chip' n 'Dale clock that we have no idea where we took it from plus our retro wedding invitation and a little heart Mr Hubby made for me.  3. My collection of cacti in mushroom candle holders from House Doctor. The little ones with our names were used as place cards (and favors) at our first wedding - yes, we had two. Cos we like celebrating.  4. The most beautiful wedding present we got from my godmother. Painted on glass specially for us!

Home

Mr Hubby and I went to visit my family last weekend. We went for a walk with my father to a nearby forest. It was really cold (-20C!) but absolutely beautiful. We had some lunch and my very special secret tea. It was great! I want more days like this...

Apart of that it's been a very busy week. And I still haven't managed to do everything I planned. Weeks should have more days. Hope you had a great week and a relaxing weekend!

I was thinking of the ways to use a cake stand and this is what I came up with.

I used Rice Etagére for the photos. The etagére comes from the shop and you soon will be able to buy it online (yey, we are finally opening our online shop!)

Have a great evening!

I finished the project last night but couldn't take good photos until this morning.. So with a little delay here it comes: super easy photo holder DIY.

1. Supplies needed: some stones, washed and dried; easy to fold wire; brushes and paint. I used acrylic paint and it covered the stones perfectly. You can also spray the stones with clear spray once they are painted and dried - it would add some shine and make the colours brighter.

2. Paint your stones in chosen colours.

3. Wire the stones around as shown on the photo. Do the top loop by wiring around a pencil.

4. Add your photos and ta-da! You have an original photo didplay!

Tips:

You can leave your stones unpainted to create a natural look.

Use black and white photos if your stones are colourful.

Paint one side of a stone, wait until dry and paint the other side. 

You can paint your stones all in one colour to match your interior deco.

The holders are great as table number holders!

Have fun and see you soon!

Daily life

Piri the Cat decided to get unwell yesterday, just when I decided to do another project and share it with you. Instead I had to go to the vet, get some medication for her and spent the rest of the evening looking after her. She just wanted to cuddle, which was quite nice. She is better now, she even brought a dead bird for me in the morning - I suppose she wanted to thank me.. 

Anyway, I'll share the project with you this evening - it's a fun project, so pop in later to check it!

A pallet shelf

Our room is pretty small and although we love being surrounded by lots of pretty things, we can't put too much in here as it will look too cluttered. I wanted a simple, yet original shelf were I could display my favourite items.

So we came up with this simple pallet shelf. It was very easy to make and - the best part - it was free.

  Leon too wanted to be photographed

The little dwarfs are from the shop - they make me smile and they remind me of how lucky I am to follow my dreams!

Picnic date

Here's another super simple, yet original date idea - Indoor Picnic Date. Enjoy!

The Picnic Date

Ok, somehow it doesn't look as good as it really was, but that's just to give you an idea. For that date you really don't need much! And you can prepare in literally 10 minutes!

What I did:

• Bought cheese: brie, Camembert, cheddar
• Bought ham (at least I pretended it was ham) 
• Got fresh bread - baguettes works best
• Got my favourite wine
• Got some fresh vegetables (just imagine they are on the photo)
• Set up the scene: put blanket on the floor, lit some candles, sprinkle everything with little paper hearts, hung paper clouds to make it look like a real picnic outside, brought the biggest plants we have - we needed some trees!

Other ideas for the date, which I didn't have time to make:

• Prepare "summer" salad - just put together lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes.. you have the idea. Mix olive oil with honey, salt, black pepper, crushed garlic, a little bit of hot chili and lemon juice and add to salad, then sprinkle everything with roasted pumpkin seeds or chopped roasted nuts
• Pour some olive oil in a small bowl, add some spices if you like - use for dipping your bread in
• Hang bunting up for more festive look

Obviously, Mr Boyfriend and I couldn't just clean up everything after we finished taking photos... So we had another very nice date!

Late Night Project

I made the "painting" couple of nights before to brighten up my room. It really needed some splash of colours since everything in it is white (for some reason the wall looks pink on that photo! Trust me, it's not). I decided to finally finish up the room and decorate it (Mr Boyfriend and I started doing it almost half a year ago!..) - one of my (many) New Year Resolutions. 
I would prefer something brighter but for now that will do. I do apologise for the quality of the photo, that's the only one I have for the moment..

Coffee and walnut cupcakes

The best cupcakes ever! Well, the best recipe I've tried so far anyway. Although I realise that the picture does not sell it too well.. Had few mishaps when making them last night (set too low temperature and the cakes melted, saved only 3 of them and the rest became one big mess...). They were delicious anyway! Making more tonight as Mr Boyfriend simply looooves them :)


You will need:
175g flour
175g butter at room temperature
175g caster sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp baking powder
45ml espresso coffee (or freshly brewed, strong coffee)
50g walnuts (or pretty much as many or as little as you want)


For the syrup
30 ml hot espresso coffee
50g light muscovado sugar


For the topping
150g butter
200g icing sugar
3 tsp instant coffee 

Preheat the oven to 180C. Mix together flour, butter, sugar, baking powder and eggs until smooth. Add coffee and chopped walnuts.
Spoon the mixture into 12 paper cake cases and bake for about 15 min (the tops should spring back when pressed with a finger).
While the cakes are baking, stir together coffee and sugar. You should get thick syrup.
As soon as the cakes are out of the oven, pierce them in several places and drizzle over the syrup, leave to cool.
To make the topping, cream the butter with sugar and coffee for about 3 min. Put the mixture into the piping bag and pipe it on to the cakes. As I don't have a pipng bag I used an ordinary plastic bag and cut off the corner. You could also spread the buttercream on with a knife.


Enjoy!


PS. I'll try to translate the recipe to Slovak tonight (need to ask my sweet assistant for help)


Kat 




As promised here we come in Slovak :)


Budete potrebovať: 
175g polohrubej múky
175g krupicového cukru
175g masla v izbovej teplote
3 veľké vajcia
1 lyžička kypriaceho prášku
45ml espresso kávy (čerstvo uvarená)
50g orechov


Sirup:
30ml espresso kávy
50g hnedého cukru


Na ozdobenie:
200g práškového cukru
150g masla
3 lyžičky instantnej kávy


Postup:
Predhrejeme rúru na 180 C.
Vymiešame do hladka múku, cukor, maslo, vajíčka a prášok do pečiva. Pridáme studenú kávu a nasekané orechy. 
Lyžičkou naberáme masu do 12 formičiek a pečieme 15 minút. Sú hotové keď ich zmačknete a oni sa vrátia naspäť.
Kým sú v rúre, urobíme si sirup. Do horúcej kávy pridáme cukor a vymiešame.
Keď ich dáme z rúry von, urobíme do nich dierky a polejeme ich sirupom. Necháme vychladnúť.
Na ozdobu vymiešame práškový cukor, maslo a kávu.
Keď cup cakes vychladnú, ozdobíme ich krémom.


Dobrú chuť!

Busy December

I've been working hard for last couple of weeks and I really can't see the results.. I've been making doorstops, cushions, Christmas decorations, cakes (yummy yummy cakes!), doing lots of cleaning and somehow everything looks the same. I can't believe it's nearly Christmas and I still haven't managed to do half of the things I need to do. 

The Cookie Day was a disaster, no-one turned up as everyone was busy. I have to admit, I was very disappointed. And sad. But my lovely boyfriend and our house-mate made the weekend absolutely fantastic! 

The things I did on the weekend (I just realised it's already thursday!! When? How?!):

1. Baked some cupcakes. Dead easy, dead delicious!
2. Put a Christmas tree up and half dressed it.
3. Did mulled wine. Then drunk it.
4. Did a little party.
5. Watched the best movie ever made (I mean the best!) called "Baraka". 
6. Thought a lot.
7. Went out to my favourite local pub and drunk the best beer - Hobgoblin.
8. Was visited by my sister and the cutest baby boy (I soooo love him!)
9. Finished making doorstops.
10. Sold all doorstops.
11. Drunk some more wine.
12. Drunk some more beer.
13. Chatted, chatted, chatted...

Here are the cupcakes. Just to make you want them ;)

I made lots of angels. Will put pictures soon!

Kat

Lazy Weekend

I had a very lazy, relaxing Sunday. And I well deserved it. I cleaned up the working space yesterday and although it looks nothing like I wanted, it's clean and organised. And I have no troubles finding stuff any more. 

It looks like that now:

I even sorted out my threads and put a board up. It took me more than a day to do everything, didn't realise I had so much rubbish here!

I found my old sketch book. I forgot how much I enjoy drawing. And I also found some dried orange slices from last Christmas projects, so did an orange and cinnamon stick decoration. Smells really nice.

Ok, it's time for bed now. It's going to be a very, very long day tomorrow. And to be quite honest I can't wait. Really like my "new" workplace :)

Kat

New Week Resolutions

I spent last few days in bed due to my cold (it's gone now, yeeey!) thinking. I realised that:

1. I am extremely disorganised. 
2. I am not doing half of the things I want to. 
3. I am not exercising at all. 
4. I do not go out as often as I would like to. 
5. My room is a mess. 
6. I am wasting my time. 
7. I am going depressed again. 
8. Most of my friends moved out and now I have just few people I could go and visit. 
9. And so on...

So I came up with a brilliant idea. I made a list of all the things I want to do and things I need to do, and did the same for my business. Then I did sort of a "time-plan" - by when I want to achieve it etc. 

My list is really long, but I feel much better knowing what I need to do. I'm much calmer as I know that if I stick to the plan I will earn enough money and have more spare time :) Then I can bake a real cake for Mr Boyfriend (if he decides to talk to me again as we had a little argument).

Here are some things from my list:

1. Clean and organise my working space as for now it looks like that:

And I want it to look more less like that:

Photos from:http://www.rachelleonard.com/my_right_brain/2009/10/charlotte-tangyes-footprint.html

2. Work on the website and upload the blog DAILY!!!

3. Sign up for Zumba.

4. Decorate the room.

I was looking around and realised I have few very nice things I'm hiding instead of using as decoration. Here are some of them:

5. Start organising Christmas. Hope it's not too late for the business..

6. Read more "F**k it" and make it my philosophy.

I bought the book for Mr Boyfriend last Christmas. It was black and white so I coloured each page to make it more personal. And he really liked it :)

7. Get in touch with everyone I know so that I can get more friends.

I have more than 20 points on my "to do" list.. I feel quite good that I did it. And feel motivated. So I'll leave you for now as I have to clean my working space :D Shame I can't paint the walls different colours. 

I'll let you know how it turned out. And I hope it will be pretty soon!

Kat

PS. How do you like my old-looking photos? Wanted to put them without a frame but honestly don't know how.

Eating marshmallows, working hard

Hi guys! I know, promised to update the blog regularly and not really doing it.. But there is so much happening right now I hardly find time for myself. And it's a very very good thing. Not that I have no "me time", but that I'm so busy.

Yesterday my lovely boyfriend helped me with making labels for my products. Instead of spending the evening watching TV we sat together with hot chocolate and marshmallows, designed and made lots and lots of them. We used a very old typing machine to write the info inside, and because it's old and doesn't write very good I had to bang the letters and my finger tips are pretty damaged now. But we had great time, it took us a while to figure out all the measurements and everything else, and that was really funny. I think they turn out really well and quite original. Really proud of myself. And my boyfriend (fiancé to be and future husband). 

Kat

Very busy working

I'm really sorry for not updating my posts daily.. I got so busy! I even have to make my tea in a thermos as don't have time to go to the kitchen every time I need a drink.

This is my little workshop. No time to clean that up either. Quite difficult to work in that mess..

I'm very busy working on lots of projects at once, and really don't have time to take any pictures of the finished stuff. I'm quite stress and have little time left, but why I'll tell you later..

Kat