Dear Acorn

Thanks for making such a satisfying crunch when I step on you when out walking.

Like this? Then here's my inspiration.

Freddie M

Today would have been Freddie Mercury's 65th birthday. This year in November it's also 20 years since Freddie died. Unbelievable. So here's a tribute to the greatest showman and performer ever, IMHO.

The day after.....

Saturday night we had a barbecue to celebrate Mr. M's move into my house in Habo. I was planning on documenting this occasion with my camera, but people started to arrive, the wine started to flow, the chicken sizzled on the grill and all thoughts of photography went out of my head. It was a lovely warm evening, with great company and we sat out well into the night.

These are scenes taken on Sunday morning, when we woke up to the rain and a bit of a hangover to be quite frank........

Gällstad

Alice and I took a trip to the outlet town Gällstad last weekend, to buy jeans, and discovered this sweet interior design store called Hemma Hos Haglund. Their blog is well worth a visit too as the photography is great.





These tin signs got our attention. I especially liked the 'Mirror mirror on the wall, what the hell happened?' one!







But in the end we went with these: Alice bought the top one and I bought the Shoot for the moon one. It is going to hang in my workroom and remind me to aim high in my new business venture.

Market day

I have done a few craft shows now, but never a market. So when I saw Mullsjö market advertised a couple of weeks ago I rang up the organisers and booked myself a spot. As I don't have a huge inventory (I usually make to order) I quickly got to work, to get my stock levels up.








The day before the market things were NOT looking great weatherwise. It rained non-stop all day and was windy and cold and I was seriously thinking over if I should even take part or not. But Saturday's forecast was better, so Alice and I drove up there Friday evening to pitch the (specially purchased) tent in the cold drizzle. It was going to be an early start Saturday so I figured this would be one less thing to do.



Finally the thing was up, after a bit of swearing and some frazzled nerves. Unfortunately, due to storm winds during the night the thing blew down. But it didn't take us long to peg it down again with the help of a couple of burly male stallholders on Saturday morning. Soon my stall was set up and people started to come:





That's me!:



There were a lot of visitors, especially during the morning and I was fairly pleased with my sales. It also gave me the chance to plug my up-and-coming-and-opening-soon website joony.se to all customers! In the afternoon it brightened up and when things calmed down and people started to leave, I left my trusted assistand Alice in charge of the stall (working for me for 10 percent commission I may add!) and took a few general snapshots.

All these photos were taken on my phone, so not great quality.





This is not something I could do regularly! But now and then it's a lot of fun.

Raining dogs and cats

Here's something for all animal lovers. It gets funnier every time you watch it.

I also found a feline version on YouTube by the same poster. Almost as funny I think.....

A good day

This morning I had my first ever meeting with a local retailer who is interested in stocking my jewelry. It was a lot of work beforehand putting together a presentable collection and working out terms, prices etc, but it paid off, as she is going to be selling my range from October! Chuffed to bits! Will keep you posted.......

On the grill

Saw a recipe in a women's magazine for grilled tortilla wraps that I had to try out and I loved them. As always I 'tweaked' it a little to adapt to what I had in my fridge. Ingredients for 4 wraps:

tortilla bread
1 avocado
half a red onion
mozzarella cheese
grated cheese
mache lettuce or rocket/ruccola
cherry tomatoes
fresh basil leaves
lemon or lime juice
salt and black pepppar

Chop all the ingredients and lay them on the tortilla. Sprinkle with lemon/lime juice and season with salt and pepper.



You may want to put a little less filling in them than I did!



Roll them and secure with a couple of toothpicks and lay them on the barbecue for a few minutes each side until browned. Keep an eye on them though, as they don't take long.

The mozzarella melts and becomes lovely and gooey.....

Staycation

Having a staycation this summer and am enjoying it immensely. I've bought lots of lovely plants for the veranda and my favourite has to be the gorgeous pink hydrangea.

Alice's Birthday Bash Spread

My little Alice turned 15 last week and what better way to celebrate than with cake. There was lots of it too as we couldn't quite make the choice of what to make, so we made them all. Triple layer chocolate and raspberry cake with chocolate fudge frosting, blackberry and strawberry pavlova and Alice's speciality - cupcakes.

The chocolate fudge frosting was especially nice and I am writing down the recipe below in order to be able to find it here in the future:

50g butter
200g dark chocolate
3 tbsps double cream
half a standard tub of philadelphia

Melt the chocolate and butter together by stirring slowly over a double boiler of simmering water. When completely melted stir in the cream and then the philadelpia and stir in thoroughly. It's good to soften up and stir the cream cheese first before adding it to the choc mix. Allow to cool slightly - but not set - before spreading out on the cake.

These cakes aren't edible although they look yummy - they're made of felt and I ordered them from an Etsy seller. Hoping to do a tea-party themed jewelry display with them in the future.