What happened... since May

So busy with my cardmaking blog, but...

This cannot be an explanation for total absence in here! I'm making cards - fact, but not only this!

So... what happened since May? Quite a bit I can say :)

We started dealing with our garden:

I found rather big amount of sea glass on our beach, when we decided one day we need some nice walk :)

Won this beauty on Instagram:

We were in Newcastle and found great place called Greek Grill in Heaton :) Very yummy food plus nice chat with cook and owner of the place - we recommend this place to all Greek food lovers!

This little piece I won on Twitter during #CupcakeHour one Thusday :) It is creation of Joanna Pearce.

You can find and buy her pieces here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/MaisyPlum.

Below my first ever ATC (Artist Trading Card) card - I love how its turned out :)

Next - my son's card for his friend (next door neighbour's son)

Dom loves cardmaking :)

And last but not least...

Courgettes and limes cupcakes I made using this recipe: http://www.womanandhome.com/recipes/535633/courgette-and-lime-cake.

Yummy!!! My man wants more of them:)

That's all for today peeps!

Will try my hardest to write more here in coming days :)

Bit busy Tobisia :)

Bad me... again didn't wrote much here for a bit!

Whole month gone!

So.... What happened since my last writing?

Here you go:

I'm a member of Designing Team for Conie Fong Art & Design, you can find her beautiful digis here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ConieFongArt.

Some of my creations with her images:

New release from April: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/511461358/digital-stamp-digi-stamp-digistamp-conie?ref=shop_home_active_7

New release from May: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/528119929/digital-stamp-digi-stamp-digistamp-conie?ref=shop_home_active_5

Card I made for my Mum's birthday and also as my inspiration/challenge for May at Conie's FB group. I used image called: Moonflower Lullaby: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/289136333/digital-stamp-digi-stamp-digistamp?ref=shop_home_active_40

I decided to create new coupon code for my Etsy shop, so if anyone interested, check my current offer: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TobisiasLilThing?ref=hdr_shop_menu and use 40OFFSALE for 40% off on every purchase.

As my son will be 5 soon (tomorrow) and we decided to organize a little party for him, we were bit busy to find good place, make invitation, buy gifts, make card, bake a cake... lots to do :)

Here card for him:

We have some Lego for him :) I spent lots of time to figured out the best cream for his cake cause I didn't want buttercream (to heavy and sugary for my taste) and I found solution :)

Here my first ever fondant decoration for cake :)

I know my Stegosaurus looks bit funny and possibly is bit too big, but... as my old friend said: Bake big birthday cake!

Hmmm... I think that's all I wanted to write today... 

Till next time friends!

Meet Lynn

Today I want you to meet Lynn - owner of etsy shop 'Lynn Hanousek Designs'.

Lynn is member of HandmadeMovement Team - Home of Sneak Attacks ( if you want to know more about this team, check:
https://www.etsy.com/uk/teams/7565/handmademovement and http://handmademovement.blogspot.co.uk/).

Lynn lives in Astoria, Long Island City, Queens, NY in USA.

Tell us more about Astoria - place where you live.

'Astoria is a short train ride into mid-town Manhattan and right next to LaGuardia Airport. So its a handy place to live. Like the rest of Queens County, our neighborhood is ethnically diverse, resulting in a great variety of restaurants and yummy food'.

Above photo of Astoria Park I found through Google search - nice place isn't it? 

My next question to Lynn was: Are you born New Yorker?

She said: 'I was born in nearby New Jersey but have lived more then 2/3 of my life in various parts of NYC so I consider myself a New Yorker. My Mom was born in NY state and 2 of my Grandparents were born in NYC so I suppose its in my genes.'

Lynn has her etsy shop running on etsy since 2007. In early days she was selling vintage pieces and handmade jewellery, also from sea glass.

Are you still making jewellery with sea glass?

'I haven't made sea glass jewelry for awhile but I have jars of glass lining my window sill gleaned from our travels. A great local source is in Astoria Park along the East River. When I walk there, I sigh and think, 'Gotta get back to making sea glass jewelry'.

You can read about sea glass in Astoria Park and Lynn's jewelry here: https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/making-jewelry-from-east-river-glass/.

Currently Lynn is selling her own paintings, here my faves:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/211694568/black-cats-and-birds-blue-horizontal?ref=shop_home_active_2

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/492502640/nyc-new-york-city-skyline-acrylic?ref=shop_home_active_1

Are you self-taught painter or you have school degree in art?

I've been painting since I was in jr. high school (age 12/13). the art teacher told my parents to buy me a painting kit and just let me go to it. Throughout high school and college I received some instruction but I majored in Art Education and teaching was the main emphasis not becoming a professional artist. I guess you could say I am self taught with some help from my teachers.

Lynn is proper cat lover, so I just couldn't not ask about her kitten's muses and had this answer:

'... I get home and I'm greeted by 3 kitties. They are all very sociable and like lots of attention. They hang out with us all day and have a hand (paw) in everything we do. I love cats' eyes. I find them very expressive and that is reflected in my paintings.'

Below Lynn's kitties:

This handsome boy had his birthday on Fool's Day (April 1st) - no kidding!

She's beautiful!

Look at these eyes!

My last question to Lynn was: Is any place in the world you want to see? Why?

I've been blessed to visit many places in the world. One place I would like to see that I haven't is the eastern part of Germany where some of my ancestors came from.

I met Lynn on etsy almost 3 years ago when my shop was Sneak Attacked, but now I can say I know her little bit better :).

If you want to check Lynn's paintings go: https://www.etsy.com/shop/LynnHanousekDesigns.

Hope you enjoyed reading.

Till next post friends!

Day on the beach

We had so beautiful day today, that we decided to spent some time on the beach.

Dom took his bucket and spade, he wanted to build sandcastles :)

Sky was almost totally blue...

I spent little bit of time looking for sea glass - not much luck today, but saw lots of interesting pebbles and shells.

Dom was digging holes with his spade, asking Daddy for water to pour in there and I was working on sandcastle, which we finished together decorating it with stones and shells.

Then we went to Coastline restaurant for hot chocolate, cake and ice creams :) After sweet treat we back to the beach where we could observe high tide. 

Our sandcastle was already gone under waves, but Dom still could dig some more holes and back home with lots of sand in his shoes :)

That's all for today friends!

Till next post!

Chocolate cookies for Dom

Today before I walk my son to school I promised him cookies. Had crazy, bit hectic day, but... my son have his cookies  😊.

After school he checked them and... wanted more then just one allowed before dinner 😊.

Want to make them?

Here recipe (I modified recipe found in 'Cookies!' by Pippa Cuthbert and Lindley Cameron Wilson):

Ingredients: 

250 g dark chocolate (70% min), 60 g cocoa powder, 100 g unsalted butter, 3 eggs, 100 g soft brown sugar, 2 tsp vanilla extract, 75 g plain flour, 1/4 tsp baking powder.

Place chocolate, butter and cocoa powder in metal bowl and place over a pan of simmering water and stir occasionally until melted, set aside to cool. Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla extract until nicely combined, add chocolate mixture, mix, add flour and baking powder and mix until just combined. Cover the dough and chill (2-3 hours). Preheat oven to 200 C. Roll dough quickly into small balls, place on baking sheets and bake about 10 minutes. 

Allow to cool and enjoy 😊.

Till next post!

Midterm break

Last week was a little break from school for Dom. I can say that was very interesting time - first time only me, Dom and Tula (Daddy was working).

We had little bit of chocolate fudge I made around weekend

As inspiration for this fudge I had recipe found through pinterest: http://theprettybee.com/2015/11/3-ingredient-dairy-free-fudge.html.

My version contained: 550 g dark chocolate, 1 can of coconut milk and around 3 tbsp of icing sugar :)

We had fun making cookies from Dr Oetker book from 1930.

Dom helped me with finishing this nice card - details you can find here: http://tobicards.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/february-challenge-at-conie-fong-art-fb.html

He also had his time with card making - I received my crafting mag with stepper cards kit as free gift and Dom decided he wants to use it :) He made 4 nice stepper cards with minimum of my help.

Beautiful work isn't it?

We also read a lot and Dom painted 3 new 'masterpieces', we bought some new books and colouring books and spent a little bit of time in Whitley Bay where we had a stop for drink and cake :). We had fun watching Tula running wild in the garden, making new chewing toy for her and trying to explain her that Dom's sleepers are not for chewing (no luck).

Overall - very nice time together :)

Pyramid cookies

Today finally I found a time to check one of the recipes I found in book Mum sent me few weeks ago. This little book unfortunately is not complete - few pages missing. It is Dr Oetker's recipe book from 1930.

I decided to bake cookies which I'm calling Pyramid shortbread cookies.

To make them you need:

60 g sugar, 150 g butter, 180 g flour, 50 g ground almonds, pinch of cinnamon and about 1.5 tsp baking powder.

Preheat oven to 200 C. 'Knead' all ingredients together for nice elastic dough, then roll, cut and bake around 10 minutes (until golden).

Ball of dough before rolling

I used star cookie cutter, but you can use any kind you want.

Cooling down :)

Use jam or chocolate cream between cookies, place on each other as shown above and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Enjoy with tea or coffee!