I’ve had a bit of a lazy day today. Well, a lot lazy. I didn’t do much of anything at all. One thing I DID do was finish something I’ve had on my To Do list for a a long time. I finished a memory box for mom and dad. Something similar to the one I made for my grandparents.
I’d found this glass fronted display box at a second hand store last year and had always planned to use it to do this, I just never really got around to it. I did give it a coat of paint but sort then sort of got stuck…
Mainly on what to use as a background. I knew I wanted something romantic looking and about a month ago I ordered some pretty rice paper I found when shopping for art supplies online. Once I finally put the paper in the boxit was easy to sort through prints of old photos of mom and dad courting and on their wedding day and pick the ones I would use. There are so many photos it was hard to pick, and mom was so gorgeous…
You can click on the images below to see the steps and close ups of the photos I chose.
I wanted it to be romantic so I picked some lace to include, a rose and a lovely old bracelet of mom’s for a bit of bling.
It was still missing something so I found a rusty bit of wire and twisted it into a heart – perfect! Painted shabby wood, pretty paper, vintage lace, old photos, bling and rust. Can’t get better than that.
I’ve hung it by the door in my bedroom, on the same wall as the box for my grandparents and the photos of dad displayed in the old radio face.
It occurs to me I have the perfect white, lacy, shabby, romantic girly bedroom. Finally. After so many years of black furniture and dark colours. Funny isn’t it?
This is the beginning of sharing projects I’ve been working on since Lockdown 2 Day 1. As I said, things like this need time to dry so I’ve been working on them in spits and spurts, allowing for drying time, errand time, Netflix time and inspiration time.
I’m still working on new stuff so hopefully projects won’t stop coming now and I won’t have to bore you with recipes!
The idea for this was to make a Paros cat, but turns out I made a fat british shorthair instead…
Well, thats ok. I finished her in blue and white tile patterned napkin decoupage and made her pretty anyway.
Paros cats are slinkier and generally thinner. Except for Fatcat. She’s an exception. Still… I need to work on my cats. I just don’t know cats the way I know dogs so this was harder for me. I’ve been able to paint cats but not really sculpt them.
Anyway, the process was similar to the bulldog – starting with cardboard shaped and held together with masking tape. Then papier mache newsprint over the top. I then added a layer of papier mache pulp to smooth her out and create her face and paws. Lastly I decoupaged parts of her in a blue and while napkin and painted the rest to make it really white as the pulp is a pale grey naturally.
Below is a gallery of the process. If you click you can enlarge the photos.
Cardboard and masking tape.
Newsprint to hold it together.
Paper pulp to create paws.
Paper pulp to smooth body.
Painting the white bits white.
Drying.
Not entirely happy with her, as I said, but she’s ok for a first attempt at a cat.
I mean, I also love the soft and chewy Mrs Field’s cookies, but crunchy is my favourite in general.
This morning on errand #2 I stopped at the bakery to buy some crunchy cookies (cause I deserved it) only to find they were out. Oh no. So I bought what I thought LOOKED crunchy – oat and cranberry – but they were disappointingly soft in a not-so-delicious-as-Mrs-Field’s way.
So I looked through my recipe book for something I could make with what I had and found this weetbix slice a lady at one of my jobs in Tasmania used to make. Its really quick and easy and its superbly crunchy!
Ingredients:
1 cup coconut
1 cup self raising flour (though I don’t know why plain wouldn’t do)
1 cup brown sugar
3 weetbix (crushed)
6oz (170g) butter
The instructions said to melt butter and mix with dry ingredients. I softened the butter and put it all into the food processor for a minute. Viola. Ready.
Press into a baking dish and bake till brown on top at 150C.
I probably had the oven at 160C and I also didn’t have the right size square baking dish so I used a pizza pan. I couldn’t cut it into nice squares so I broke it into pieces. So basically I did everything different except the ingredients. It worked out fine.
It took next to no time to make. Quick to bake and great to eat!
Time to share some marble paintings I made the other day and forgot about. How do you forget about stuff you made? Well, you set it aside to photograph, then forget about it. Easy.
No need to adjust the screen. These ones are free-er and more watercolour-ey than my usual work which is a little more detailed. I like them though.
So, other than that what have I been doing? More errands with mom. And more errands for mom who forgot her walking stick in a store so I had to go back for it, and forgot to get some pills so I have to go back this evening to get them. Oh while I’m in town for the pills, I may as well swing by yet another supermarket to get something else she forgot she needed.
I had forgotten my shopping list when I went out this morning so didn’t get things I wanted, so figured thats ok, I’ll get them this evening. Then I’ll stay in all day tomorrow and not go anywhere AT ALL except to walk Lainee.
Then I remembered mom wants to go see her sister.
Sigh…………………………………………………
I miss being lonely…
Meanwhile, when I was making the bed yesterday I found an old sheet or something which was given to me as a gift a few years ago. It has the best embroidery on one end and I was going to make it into a curtain for my bedroom. No more visibility when I have the light on.
However I decided it would look just as good, if not better, as a temporary bed skirt to hide the suitcases I keep under the bed for storage. I plan to paint them all white when I get painting stuff out, but till then this works nicely.
Nice. Even a small change like that can make my day.
Note: I love my suitcases, but all white would look better.
The wild little kitten I took to the vet a few weeks ago with a severe respiratory infection is back. She was always very wild but she got so sick she let me pick her up! The couple in the end house cared for her till she got better and she hung around their place as they continued feeding her. She’d been living somewhere up the hill and disappeared when the couple returned to Athens. Thankfully she’s back and today ate some dry food I put out for her at the feeding station outside my place. Hopefully she’ll come down here to eat from now on and not disappear again. And hopefully she’ll learn to trust me so I can touch her and take her to the vet when she needs spaying.
Another cat without a name… though this one looks like a lemur with her striped tail so a good lemur name will be ideal. In the cartoon movie Madagascar one lemur is Julien but that’s wrong for a girl kitty… maybe Julia. Aye Aye is cute though… Any thoughts? I need two names that suit greeks too. One for the fluffy kitty and one for the kitten.
And I made another friend… How cute is this little guy?
This is what I saw coming down the hill from my walk with Lainee this morning…
And here’s a closeup.
I don’t know these cats’ names, but I call them Fatcat on the left and Stubby on the right cause she’s a very small compact cat. Both very cute and sweet, they were waiting for me to give them a pat.
A bit further on I see Gringa waiting for me on the wall.
And the newest cat on the block. She doesn’t have a name. I took her in to be spayed about 2 weeks ago and she is gorgeous. She hangs around but never seems hungry enough to eat the dry food I put out so she’s obviously getting food from somewhere. She’s incredibly cuddly and purry.
Lastly Bob, who followed me the rest of the way home, cause she actually lives outside my place in a crate I have there (yes, Bob is a girl. If you can have a boy named Sue, you can have a female cat named Bob). She and Gringa and Cheeky cram themselves into that crate at night. They belong to my neighbour and greet me every time I open the door.
NMC (Not My Cat) is still around, though no longer sleeping on my patio. The girl cats made sure to let him know he’s no longer welcome there. But he’s here every morning for some breakfast of cat kibble.
Anyway, I have no finished projects to share yet but I have been busy. I’m working on a ton of things all at once – I’m making sculptures, experimenting with mixed media and have a couple of wood projects on the drawing board, What that means is that one day soon I’ll have a ton to share as each piece gets finished.
Today I didn’t do much work. I mean creative work. I had a serious craving for vietnamese rice paper rolls so I put most of my energy towards that. I have coriander growing in a pot on my front patio and it inspires me to make thai and vietnamese food…
Oh, I also moved a couple of small bits of furniture around in the house, but that doesn’t really count.
I went to the supermarket, the grocer and a mini market to get the supplies I needed to make the rolls. And I spent a really long time on 3 phone calls.
But I did make the rolls, and they turned out amazing!
I’ve made them before so I already knew what I was doing. But I’d never made the peanut dipping sauce before. I’m glad I made it though, it really is the best way to eat the rolls.
This is the recipe I followed, very simple. And apart from having to have everything prepared in separate bowls to put together, really easy to make, even if you’re not sure how to roll them.
I made mine with prawns, some shredded leftover roast chicken breast, rice noodles, cucumber, lettuce, red pepper and carrot. And coriander of course. I skipped the avocado cause the only ones I found would have been more use as a weapon of mass destruction and cost more than I made in a hour at my last job.
End result: they were delicious. But maybe eating four of them was too much…
Meanwhile I’ve started another animal scultpure and worked further on one of the dogs… stay tuned.
Enjoy a pretty picture of my cousin’s pink corner.
I love it. In fact I want it.
But that’s not what I planned to post about today. Today I wanted to post about being brain dead.
Seriously. My brain is stuffed. Or its leaking like a sieve… I’m not sure which. I’ve had to make calls today and I keep making mistakes. I mean, I’m not dialling wrong. I’m dialling one place and asking something unrelated to where I called. For instance I called the accountant and asked about travel to Australia. I called the council and asked details about my unemployment status. Next I’ll ask the Australian embassy about cutting down a dead tree on the road outside my place…
Brain dead. As I said.
So, having established that, here is a photo of the next two dogs I’m working on next to the rag dog I’ve already finished.
I think I’ll end it here for now. There are just too many things going on in my mind to actually make sense. And I have a few more calls to make. Hopefully the right info to the right people this time…
I’ve been promising to share my yogurt ice cream recipe for a while now and thought it was about time…
Before I get into specifics let me explain that I found this recipe in a magazine many years ago and made it, loved it, and have since been trying to make it less fattening and guilty making. So, basically, its not the original recipe any more!
So… originally the recipe called for 750g yogurt, 400g cream, whipped, 1 cup fruit, 1 cup icing sugar. You blend the fruit with the yogurt, add the whipped cream, freeze for 3 hours, then chop it up and blend it again. I can’t remember if it was supposed to be repeated, but I know that it was always rock hard when it was ready.
First time I made it I used raspberries. I had more than one cup, more like two and a bit, so thinking ‘more is better’ I added them all. Wrong. More is not better when dealing with fruit that has pips… The ice cream was amazing but I was constantly spitting out pips .Lesson learned.
The next few times I made it I experimented with using flavoured yogurts, my favourite being a fig yogurt I could get in Australia. For fruit I’ve tried tinned peaches, banana, figs, strawberries, rockmelon. I even tried coffee but don’t recommend it. Yuck.
By far the best flavour I found is banana and strawberry. Together,
On to the cream… when I first made it, in Australia, the cream was so rich and gorgeous it would coat the inside of your mouth. Okay, sounds gross, but I loved the richness of it. Here in Greece cream leaves a lot to be desired. Its like the thinnest of thin whipping creams in Australia and doesn’t have the substance or flavour. Whatever. The point of my experimentation is that I was trying to find a way to make the ice cream better suited to someone (me) who has no will power and is addicted to the stuff. I’ve tried just not making it, but then I crave ice cream… so better to make my own healthier stuff.
In the process of experimenting the first thing I did was use 1kg of yogurt instead of 750g cause I just buy the large tub. I’ve used 5% fat yogurt and 2%, and actually prefer the 2%. Having said that, let me just say that while cream might suck in Greece, the yogurt is out of this world. Better than the greek style yogurt can get in Australia.
Next thing I did was cut down on the sugar. In fact I’d cut down to 1/2 a cup sugar right from the start. Now I use honey.
So, I used more yogurt to cream… then I began cutting down the cream. To be honest, I’m now using no cream at all and it seems fine, even when using 2% yogurt. I can’t really tell the difference. The ice cream is no softer, I still have to cut it into slices and either wait for it to soften so I can eat it, or suck on it like its a popsicle. It really is hard as a rock.
Right. This is my recipe for frozen yogurt/ice cream.
Ingredients:
1kg natural yogurt (no sugar added)
2-3 ripe bananas
1-2 cups strawberries (I use frozen when I can’t get fresh)
1/2 cup honey (you can add more if you need or if the fruit isnt sweet enough)
Put the fruit in the blender and blend till smooth. Add in yogurt, top with honey. Blend till well mixed. Pour into a cake loaf tin and place in freezer. Remove in 4-5 hours and slice. Put in a freezer proof container and return to freezer. Serve slices as required. Eat without feeling guilty cause, like, yogurt is good for you!
How easy is that? You just use the fruit you have and mix it all up in one go, come back 4-5 hours later to slice up and its done!
Firstly I did some baking. I made a cake and some apple crumble. The cake was something I just felt like making. I hadn’t made a cake for ages. It was a plain butter cake but I’m thinking maybe it had a bit too much butter… I used the pure butter made here on Paros cause I was told it was the best for baking. Maybe it was too strong? Who knows.
The apple crumble is something I enjoy making in cold weather usually cause I love to have it as breakfast with yogurt. Yum. I made some more of my yogurt and fruit ice cream as well, cause I’m addicted to it. I promise I’ll share that recipe soon.
I did some washing (well, I just put it in the washing machine and hung it out to dry in the sun). Today was a lovely day, windy but sunny. I took Lainee for a short run on the beach and continued working on my cat project.
This is how the cat began – I started it at the same time as I started the rag dog. I made the body out of cardboard from a weetbix box, the legs and tail out of wire.
I’d been slowly building up the cat body using scrunched up paper, aluminium foil and masking tape, then layes of papier mache. Today I added the head and continued layering paper to give it strength. With papier mache I found that I build up as I need to, even trimming bits off when necessary as I did with the bulldog. I will most likely begin working with papier mache pulp for the next steps.
I had good company while working… I was watching country music videos on YouTube and there was a lot of Alan Jackson in there. I love Alan Jackson. Nothing better than good music and singing out loud while you work.
The cat begins to take shape. Its a slow process as it needs to dry between layers. In between I did other things – its always good to have more than one project on the go.
And, cause Lainee won’t leave me alone, here are some pics of her on the beach. She really is quite demanding… she thinks she’s the only thing I should post about…
She was so happy on the beach today. Its funny how Lainee has been coming out of her shell slowly. I’ve had her for 1.5 years now and it seems like every day she shows me a little more of her character. The first thing she began doing was playing on the bed after I’d had her for a few months, but would stop the minute I tried to join in. Now she wakes up and wants to cuddle and then plays with me. Its our special time.
Since the weather cooled down she’s begun jumping around and even running when we go on our walks. Today she ran up and down the beach. It fills my heart with joy to see her like that.
We’re in full lockdown again as of today. Alert messages that scare the crap out of you. Having to send an SMS every time we leave the house – only allowed to leave home for specific reasons. The codes that got the most use for me last lockdown were shopping (2) and exercise/walking the dog (6). This time i can add ‘assisting an elderly person/relative of the first degree’ to my list. In fact I’ll be using that in a few minutes to go see mom.
This time we added a curfew: no one out after midnight. Well, that was in force up to last night… maybe its earlier now? I don’t know cause I’m usually in bed by then anyway! I sure do live the life!
Lockdown comes as no surprise. We could see it coming a mile away. We went into preventative lockdown in March and we had amazing results with very few cases of COVID 19 and very few deaths. Our cases have reached about 3,000 per day now and the capacity of hospitals to cope with critically ill patients is being stretched. Decisions were made that people over 80 with other health issues would not be treated… Is it any surprise its come to this? Open borders with a pandemic in full swing and what did you expect would happen? Whatever…
I envisage my life will be the same as last time: Adding in one elderly mother I’ll need to shop for cause she’s still on Paros, not in Athens this time. I’ll post something every day, even if its nothing much, just to keep doing something positive. I’d already begun working on some stuff, but this is a great reason to kickstart creativity again.
Lets start with something I finished a couple of days ago, ie pre – lockdown… Sorry about the poor quality of the photos… this phone just doesn’t have as good a camera as my last one.
This little patchwork rag dog is a textile sculpture. His frame is wire and papier mache, then fabric in layers ending with the patchwork layer on top using the tiny scraps I can’t bring myself to throw away when I make something. I have a whole suitcase of small scraps…
I love his cute little face…
A closeup of the stitching. I’m not neat. But I like it that way! The entire outer layer is handstiched pieces and his feet are slightly padded to create toes.
Please excuse the bad photos. I really need to set up the camera and a ‘lightbox’ again. Somehow in this little box of a living room/kitchen/dining room/office/studio…
And here is a photo of the ‘real’ dog.
This is 8 month old Morty. He’s not the real model for the rag dog, but he’s pretty close. He’s gorgeous and doesn’t seem to realise he’s a 25 kilo lump of a dog so I got some GREAT cuddles. I miss my big dog cuddles…I adore Lainee, but a whole body hug is just something else.
junk4joy 