Have a heart.......

Just spreading some love on Valentines Day :)

Boo to Friday 13th

I am by no means a superstitious person usually. I did not realise until the evening that this day was Friday 13th. When I did everything fell into place.

A few crummy minor incidents blighted my day (the details of which I won't bore you with here). But the major upset happened late afternoon. I was out on the veranda photographing some beads and making the most of the lovely natural light. I turned to go back into the house to fetch my gloves, slipped, kicked over the tripod and sent my beloved camera crashing to the ground. So now the flash unit is completely shattered. I also got a pretty nasty electric shock off the thing when I was inspecting the damage. And I have a big bruise on my bum to boot. BOO!

Here's a picture of some cherries anyway. Just for the heck of it!

Out and about again!

With the half term break upon us, a scattering of fresh snow and A kitted out with her new skis (thanks Arne!) off we set for an afternoon of cross-country skiing. This kind of skiing is lovely - the stillness of the forest has a great calming effect on me and it's easy to control the speed (i.e. slow!).

I am such a baby about downhill, as I hate falling and have an aversion to ski lifts. But cross-country is pretty non-scary. It was about minus five that afternoon - a strange combination of being all sweaty but yet freezing at the same time - so we took a flask of hot choc with us. The final score I may add was 2 - 2 (-we both fell twice!)

Appley-cinnamony comfort food

I have been home for the last few days looking after A who has come down with a bout of the flu. So, in an effort to keep cabin fever at bay, I decided to get out a stash of recipes I've been wanting to try out. When I was a kid myself, I remember ice cream being the only thing I really felt like when I was under the weather.

This was pretty simple to do. It's basically apple slices fried in butter (yes!) for a few minutes each side. I then sprinkled about 2 tbsps of brown sugar over them in the pan, added the chopped zest and juice of half a lemon and a sprinkle of cinnamon. The apples caramelize in a minute or two, ready to be served warm with a dollop of vanilla ice-cream.

I just had to show you this. With some Christmas money burning a hole in her pocket, my daughter decided to browse Etsy in the hope of finding something to spend it on. She finally settled on a little critter from morninglori's shop. Lori made "Alice" to order for us with our choice of fabric and Alice is now winging her way to us across the Atlantic as we speak....

Inauguration party

Well, he's now officially installed and some of the US community of Jönköping got together at E's to celebrate in style. Being the generous hostess that she is, E even extended the invite to some non-US peeps, like me.

Beautiful baubles........

I recently bought a small batch of these georgeous blown glass hollow beads. I used some for earrings and sold the rest in my Etsy shop. They have been rather popular -after just a week I only have one lot left.

Lucky cats

Just bought these cute little cat beads, which I'm adding to my shop.

Finally got my act together.....

..... and finished my digital picture course. It was an online university course which required a lot of discipline to do the lessons and tasks, something I am clearly lacking as I finished a year late!

For my final assignment I wanted to do a not-your-run-of-the-mill portrait series. So I turned A into Thumbelina and created this pic of her on a bell pepper (ecologically grown by me I may add!). I also did a pic of her sitting on a wooden spoon and inside a coke bottle. About 10 hours of photoshopping went into these pics........

The First Frost

Woke up October 30 to a gorgeous sprinking of frost. My liitle hortensia with its faded blooms got a frosting.