Edinburgh - places and things we saw... Part 2

Our Monday in Edinburgh was planned (partially)- we had tickets and panda visit booked :)

So we catch Lothian Bus no 26 and we went to the ZOO...

Weather wasn't great, sun was fighting with rain most of the morning... but at least wasn't too warm :)

We were in ZOO rather early, so we didn't saw too many animal first, but all that changed with passing time. And we realized that is nothing funny in my man's friend info that we will need hiking shoes for this part of our visit in Edinburgh... Walking around the Zoo was like hiking around the high hills :)
Dom was exited, running wild, happy every time he spotted animal before we did it :)

We saw lots of birds

and meerkats

lots of kinds of monkeys, Dom had a little conversation with baboons :)

wallabies

koalas

lion

Of course we saw both giant pandas, unfortunately pics are too blurry :(

After ZOO we make our way to Old Town to go for Edinburgh Castle. Dom checked every single gun on castle keep :) 

and was very interested in bagpipes

Tuesday was our last day in Scotland so we decided to go to Scottish National Gallery.

What I can say... just lots of amazing paintings and sculptures. Dom was interested in paintings with animals and ships and sculptures. We were just breathing atmosphere and enjoy masterpieces on the walls. So many big names in one place can be overwhelming :) Da Vinci, Monet, Van Gogh, Rafael, Dahl, Botticelli... and many, many more. We didn't saw everything, cause Dom decided he has enough, but I can say that is very possible we saw about 3/4 of everything what is in there - we will go there again for sure.

Edinburgh - places and things we saw... Part 1

We spent just few days in Edinburgh and because of Dom we didn't want to force sightseeing too much. That not means we saw nothing :)

We found :

Writers' Museum hidden near Royal Mile. Great place for bookworms I think :)

We'll back to make this tour when Dom will be older, cause looks very interesting.

In our way to Royal Botanic Gardens we spot him

He just landed in the river when we were walking over the bridge :)

Botanic Gardens are really something! Huge area with lots of plants, bushes and trees, we saw a lot, but we are pretty sure we didn't saw everything. 

Lush green trees

Navy blue irises :)

Chinese hills

More blue :)

Shades of green :)

Interesting tree -shame we couldn't see it blooming...

White orchids. We saw few more species :) All of them beautiful.

In one of the glass houses rooms.

Glass houses catch Dom's eye, he was checking all inside, he found pond with fishes, was counting frog sculptures in desert plants room, and was very interested in the oldest tree fossil which we found in the front of glass houses. We spent there few hours and back with lots of photos :)

I don't want to overload you with pics from just one place, so next time I'll show you what more we had a chance to see ;)

Edinburgh and food

We back from Edinburgh yesterday late afternoon.

View from Edinburgh Castle

It is good to be back home :)

We like Edinburgh! And Dom likes it too :)

Our Edinburgh trip contains few 'first times' for our boy:
* first time in proper train
* first time in hotel
* first time the ZOO
* first time in Botanic Gardens.

We also were in Edinburgh Castle and Dom was sitting on the biggest gun in there :) and we saw amazing paintings in Scottish National Gallery - Da Vinci, Van Gogh and Monet  included.

Big fact is, you cannot walk and see lots of places when your tummy is empty. We couldn't find Indian restaurant we checked few years ago - simply didn't remember where it is situated, but we had our noses, so... we found few places with nice food.

First place we found was Hanam's - just step from Royal Mile - Kurdish and Middle Eastern food - very nice food, friendly staff, but you need to book a table, cause they are very busy place.

I can say that our second foodie place we found accidentally :) Nova Pizza - hidden on Hove Street - bit away from noisiness of Princess Street. Cute restaurant/pizzeria. Great place for vegans and vegetarians, as no meat is found on their pizzas, but... great also for meat-eaters with choice of veg meat pizzas - we check it ( hmmmm yummy!). Novelty for us plus info for foodies allergic to tomato sauce they have white pizzas in offer! You can also create your own pizza from their toppings too :)
Big plus of this place is also very nice and helpful staff. We will back there :)

Other place we eat from was Saigon Saigon - chinese restaurant situated on S St Andrew St, just few steps from Princess Street. Place full of customers non-stop from opening to closing. Nice choice of food from menu cards, also buffet and take-away option. To be honest with you - we love Chinese food - but we checked dim sum first time in our lives :) Sure place for food for us when we go to Edinburgh next time :)

Nice place for late breakfast or early lunch is The Pantry - situated on N W Circus Place. Great for families with children - kids menu and playing area for little ones included. We had yummy and filling brunch there with very tasty fruit/veg cold pressed juice (check: Purple :). So another stop point for us when we go to Edinburgh next time :)

Enough writing about food for now, cause that makes me hungry ;)

Hope you'll have a chance to check these and other foodie places in Edinburgh by yourself soon!

Ants, kitty card and other things

Ants - our street nightmare I dare to say... Everybody has problems with them year by year, we aren't even sure from where they are coming from... We're suspecting some big nest somewhere...

Few weeks ago, when we spot first few of them in the house, we just killed them and clean allover with citrus cleaning liquid - peace from them for 2 weeks or so... and they back.. strange not to the kitchen from the garden, but from front street to the living room - citrus thingies in hands again, even not 2 days and Dom spot them on the floor in corridor between kitchen and living room...

I had enough, I can live with ants in the garden, but when they are coming to the house - they have small chances for long living. I bought special ants bait and anti-ants spray.

No signs of them so far! And I really hope we are done with them this year...

From happier news, yesterday I received gift from Quick Card Made Easy magazine - they printed my card in their last issue :)

My kitty/spotlight card in the spotlights :)

Gift I received :)

Card I made today using some pieces from my gift :)

I also tried to make my first ever stud earrings, I still need to cut stud piece to proper length and find this 'butterfly' piece to have them finished.

Stud piece - coiled and lightly hammered :)

Earrings waiting for finishing touches :)

Meet Lynn

Today I want you to meet Lynn, one of our many cat loving members in Handmade Movement Team on Etsy.

Lynn is from Astoria, Long Island City, USA.

She's selling animal themed graphics and part of profit from them is going for animal charities. As she wrote under her shop banner : 'Lynn Hanousek Designs - Art for the cat lover in you'.

All about her art pieces and Lynn herself (between the lines :)) you can read in her shop announcement: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/LynnHanousekDesigns?ref=profile_shopname

Lynn is Etsy seller since 2007, so she's very experienced with this selling web. Plus she's great chatter and lovely Lady, simply one of key members of our team :)

Unfortunately her shop is on 'holiday mode' at the moment (fingers crossed she'll reopen it soon).

My faves from her shop:

Simply beautiful!

Sooo cute!

Something for Halloween :)

Sea themed :)

Nice piece of jewellery for cat lover :)

She was also mentioned and interviewed by The New York Times, link to article here: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/making-jewelry-from-east-river-glass/?_r=0

I like Lynn for her sense of humour and straight forward character, she's nice, sensible woman and good friend to lots of us :)

Indian food - why not :)

Sometimes we like something with a little kick :)

Plus Dom loves rice, so yesterday I made Indian, just little 'Curry in hurry' :)

Why little? Too humid to eat a lot and my boys were more for drinks then food, so...

I sliced into strips 1 medium size chicken breast , half of red pepper, 1 nice size shallot (you can use onion) and chopped 2 cloves of garlic.
On frying pan I heat heaped teaspoon of coconut oil, add meat and fried until lost pinky colour, add prepared veggies, gave them a nice stir, add few handfuls of green peas, 2 spoons of korma pasta ( you can use any curry pasta you like ) and can of coconut milk (400 ml) and cooked it until liquid reduced a bit and all cooked through.

Here my curry bubbling in the pan :)

Then added bit of lime juice and pour my curry on the rice already waiting for it on the plates.

Just before disappeared :)

You can decorate it with fresh coriander if you wish, add naan bread and onion salad :)

Around the house

Good title for post :) Just ... I have no idea what I should write :)

Weather is sooo English theme :)
And weather is.. we can say very hard to predict - forecast was talking about torrential downpour for yesterday - we have none, not even one drop of water, sunny... hmmm not exactly, humid - yes.

Two weeks ago we fought with ants - nasty little creatures - coming to the house without invitation :(
Success! We rid of them :) Cleaning everything possible outside with lemon kick them away :)

We sow dwarf bean seeds in the garden - nothing show up - 2 weeks already... We sow some more with Dom today - fingers crossed will be better this time :)

Our watermelons needed a bit of split up :) so I split them :)

I'm curious where I should plant them - I'm sure they should be in the garden, the problem is they need good soil and full Sun... my garden is south side so if is nice day we have lots of Sun, unfortunately soil in our garden is very poor.... Hmmm... Need to find the solution for it.

From crafty things: I was practicing with aluminium wire I found in my stash and made this:

More about it you can find on my other blog :) http://coppertobi.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/coiling.html

With some chill out time I back to being a bookworm :) and 'eating' books again ;)

What I read since last week:

Agatha Christie:

Halloween Party

Taken at the flood

Donna Leon:

Death at La Fenice

Ewa Bialolecka:

Tkacz Iluzji

 - in English title will be 'Weaver of Illusion' if I'm not wrong, but I didn't found English translation of this book.

At the moment I'm reading 'A Venetian Reckoning' by Donna Leon - I like her books a lot :)

I also checked few new cooking recipes and looks like some of them stay with us for longer. Will add them to my blog next time I'll be cooking them :)

Week with Dom

Whole week at home with 4yo with chickenpox can be tricky, you cannot go with him for walk to town or for shopping, keeping him inside finishing with 'moods'.

We are lucky to have a garden, but how to play there when is windy, drizzly and cold? Try to explain that to your toddler...

Dom is Lego mad, but also crafty kid, so I decided to deal with his homework ;) Took out some paper, pencils and paints.

Dom's worm

and butterfly

We had lots of fun with these ladybirds :)

Nice spiders don't you think? You should saw my arms - Dom decided also paint on me, cause that funny :)

The other day Dom wanted to play with stamps, he was choosing which stamp I should use and where - we coloured it later, I think I use it for nice card :)

The weather changed a bit during the week so Dom had some time in the garden, riding his scooter and looking for bugs :) He also build lots from Lego:

Firefighters boat?

One of the castles we build together in living room - just before it was destroyed by Dom with huge laugh :)

I catch a bit of time and play creative too :)

Practising basics of wire wrapping :)

Lapis lazuli and seed beads :) Nice, short statement necklace :)

We also watched bit of teli - Mr Maker program - thanks to that I have idea for our next crafty time :)

That's all for today peeps ;) Have a great weekend!

Meet Amanda

I didn't write here for a while.... Sorry for that. I was busy with my new project - I finally decided properly learn to make wired jewellery - you can follow my learning process on http://coppertobi.blogspot.co.uk/.

Time to back to some writing tho :)

Today I want you to meet Amanda. She's from Michigan, USA and she's selling cute hair accessories in her etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CuteNCurlyBowtique?ref=profile_shopname.

She was very minimalistic when writing about herself on her Etsy profile :) All she wrote there is:

I'm just another coffee addicted crafty mom. 

:) Brilliant quote don't you think?

If you want to know more about Amanda and how she started her business, check her About story here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CuteNCurlyBowtique?ref=profile_shopname#about.

Amanda is Etsy seller since 2011 and have great stats :), but with her cute creations I'm not surprised :)

She's selling hair bows for lots of occasions, eg. for Valentines, Christmas, Halloween, but also cute bows with animals, sports etc.

Some of my faves from her shop (shame I have short hair and no daughter :)) :

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/98197449/owl-hair-bow-girls-pink-lime-green-bow?ref=shop_home_active_16

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/125088881/easter-hair-bow-girls-carrot-bow-orange?ref=shop_home_active_7

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/114652032/cowgirl-hair-bow-girls-pink-brown?ref=shop_home_active_11

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/169850355/valentines-girls-hair-bow-set-pink?ref=shop_home_active_5

Amanda's busy girl now, expecting a baby girl and moving a house. She's a nice girl, friendly and chatty. Great member of Handmade Movement Team who participate our Sneak Attacks in every possible way (hosting them, faving new shops and products etc.).

If you like examples of her products and you have a little girl in family you want to give her something nice just pop in to Amanda's shop: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CuteNCurlyBowtique.

That's all for today my friends!