Feel Good Food

Baking is lots of fun, but it also takes up a lot of time and that does stop me from doing so at times. But when I read you could easily make a little chocolate cake in the microwave I tried it immediately. This was the result:

I just love this squirrel cake mold. It's from France and I bought it over the summer. It took me till now to try though.

This cake was made with some Milo instead of cocao, but it tasted really good. Later I've also tried it with some chocolate sprinkles mixed in and even some chocolate syrup. I love that it's so easily adjustable and that it's plenty for two to eat from. Here's the basic recipe:

Put in a bowl: 4 tablespoons of flour, 4 tbs sugar and 2 tbs cocao, mix together.

That crack an egg and add it to the mix along with 3tbs of milk and 3 tbs oil, mix well and (put it a mold if you like) microwave for 3 minutes.

Super easy and super quick! Now you can just whip up a chocolate cake when you have an unexpected visitor. Awesome, right?

Lovely Movies

Often I find that the big comedy actors, such as Will Ferrell and Jim Carrey, are great in serious movies. And when I spotted the cover of "Reign Over Me" I thought that it might be the same with Adam Sandler(even though I'm not to big a fan of most of his movies). On top of that the movie also features Don Cheadle, Donald Sutherland, Saffron Burrows and Liv Tyler, so it couldn't go wrong really.

However... I didn't expect it to be this amazing! It is truly a great movie. I know I love most movies I've just seen, but this one really is amazing.

It is realistic, funny, sad and the acting is superb. Especially the scene where Adam Sandler's character opens up to his parents in law(don't click if you don't want spoilers;), I was moved to tears but also had to laugh a little and that is a hard combination to achieve.

This is one I could definitely watch again soon and I have plans of doing just that. I can't believe I pulled this one out of a sale bin.

Oh, and one more thing. Watch the extras on the dvd!

Wishlist

Herome's World Inspired Colors has released a new winter line. And it has a few lovely colors.

I usually blend a similar color to this dark teal, which I might even prefer because it has more depth that way, but I think this one looks pretty neat too.

I've never once in my life tried red nailpolish. I find that the classic bright red just doesn't match my skin well, but this one looks beautiful.

What are your favorite colors for nailpolish? I love to "blend" a lot, where I start with a plain color and then do a second coat of a different color that shimmers. It often leads to fun results and I just love to experiment with it. I'm currently sporting a dark greyish brown with tiny glitters in light purple. It's a bit rockstar-chique and I really like it.

Owl Things Considered

As promised here are some pictures of the owls a lovely friend of mine had sent me for Halloween. Aren't they adorable?!

When I first heard Little Dragon's Twice I instantly fell in love with the song. It's a slow song with such an interesting vibe, I can listen to it over and over again.

Most of their songs are completely different though, more up-tempo, electronic and jazzy. It's a very original sound and I love it!

The singer, Yukimi Nagano, does a lot of sideprojects too and has sung for both Hird and Koop and Little Dragon is currently touring with Gorillaz. As I'm typing this they're performing in my city, but I only just found out... Oh well, I'd rather see them solo anyway.

So what do you think? Do you know any music similar to this that I might like too?

Feel Good Food

Apart from making all sorts of warm lunches and one really basic dinner instructed by my mom I had never really tried cooking. But now I discovered a Japanese cooking channel on YouTube called Cooking With Dog(don't worry, it's just with a dog sitting next to the woman cooking, they don't teach you how to prepare one).

I was addicted instantly and saw most videos a bunch of times already. Immediately I started planning dinners and went to buy all the ingredients for all sorts of dishes.

First things I made were the Japanese sweets Tofu Dango with different toppings. This is the instruction video:

It is the most healthy Japanese candy and it was quite easy to make and tasted very good

I also thought it was time to properly make sushi, so I got sushi rice and even Dashi Kombu the seaweed they steam it with.

Here's my california roll and salmon filled onigiri.

Apart from that I also prepared a few side dishes. Japanese style spinach omelet and my absolute favorite: honey seasoned pumpkin! This is one of the best things I have ever tasted and it wasn't hard to make at all.

I slightly changed the instructions, because I didn't want to deep fry it. Here's the altered recipe.

You'll need:

• Kabocha, which is a pumpkin like these(it might be hard to slice, but it's worth it)
• Honey
• Roasted black sesame seeds
• Vegetable oil

Cut the pumkin into pieces ( I made them about 1" by 2").

Put them in a plastic microwavable container along with some water.

Microwave for 4 minutes.

Take the skin of(it's easier to do so after it's boiled) and cut in half.

Put a bit of oil into a pan and bake till the become a bit golden brown on either side.

Pour a bit of honey over it and sprinkle with the sesame seeds, mix to evenly spread it. Do this according to taste.

Enjoy!

So this was the entire menu of my very first dinner, not bad right? Do you recall what you first made?

Next up will probably be Udon and Mochi. Have you ever tried your hand at Japanese cuisine? I'd love to hear about it.

Giveaway Winner!

It is time to announce the winner of the Chouettes (owl necklace + matching item of your choice) giveaway!

Thank you all so much for entering and following, blogging, "liking" and so on.

All of you combined earned 75 entries! But there can only be one winner and that is...

Dottie

Enjoy your prizes!

~

If you just missed the giveaway and want to get a necklace like that for yourself or are sad you didn't win, you can always go and spoil yourself at Chouettes anyway;)

Thanks again and good luck next time!

Lovely Movies

It was my mom's birthday today and I took her to the movies to see "the Other Guys". She's a huge Samuel L. Jackson fan so when I found out his new movie premiered yesterday I knew I had to take her. It was tough keeping it a secret, but I managed to keep her in the dark until his face showed up on the screen.

Too bad he died after 5 minutes though.

Either way it was a fun movie. When watching the trailer I wasn't sure if we'd like the humor, but it was great! And the action was awesome too. It has some pretty original and totally out of the blue action scenes.

It was such a surprising movie in so many ways. And did you know Will Ferrell could sing? That alone is worth the watch really.

Did you see anything good lately? Maybe went to "the Other Guys" too?

Wishlist

It's been such a long time since I wrote a wishlist post. There just wasn't really anything worth mentioning to you guys, until now. I am suddenly very excited about Japanese cooking and I want a rice cooker. You may now think: "Well what's so interesting about rice cookers then?" The thing is, if and when I do get a rice cooker, I want one that's cute. So here are some examples.

I will do a post soon on all the things I prepared today, I took some pictures although they might not be that great given the fact that there is no natural light in this time of year. It was delicious though and I can't wait to tell you about it!

Pretty Sculptures

This is the first time I'm posting sculptures. It's not that I don't like them, I'm actually looking forward to doing more 3D stuff myself, it's just that I don't know that many sculptors.

However Scott Radke's one that's pretty much right up my alley, creepy and (I suppose maybe a little) cute, and with owls! Odd owls, but still most definitely owls.

I will be honest and tell you that it creeps me out a bit too. Although it is something that I can get used to.

If you want to gt even more creepy you should check out a music video featuring Scott Radke's puppets. I found it a tad bit too creepy to post on the blog, but if you want to see it you can click here.

Whether you like it or not, you have to admit that all the creature are really original and that, even though he uses a lot of real-life animals as inspirations or bases, Scott Radke's created this completely new world.

The pictures of his work are phenomenal, it looks like an amazing oil painting. It's so hard to imagine you could actually few these creatures in 3D, isn't it?

Of course I like the owls a lot, but his sea life creatures are amazing too! But I'm just a sucker for teal and orange combined, as well as pretty patterns.

So what do you think? Is it something you can appreciate or did I just go a little too creepy-horror-freakshow on my readers?

Owl Things Considered

For a while now I've been thinking about making more owl designs. After Ga'Hoole that urge became stronger and when I was sketching barn owls, the idea suddenly hit me! Why not make an owlette?

It is inspired by cute little Eglantine and I made it as soft and fuzzy as I possibly could. Hopefully I'll be able to make one for the shop soon too. A brooch. Or maybe even a bookmark?! And I'm hoping to make a stuffed little owlette too, not just a head. How cute would that be?

Anyway here's a little Eglantine clip, just because I grab any excuse to look at her again:

The moment I have more time on my hands, I might expand my Ga'Hoole felt designs a little. There's no such thing as too many owls, right?

Marvelous Music

If you like CocoRosie and artist that are making music with a similar cool weirdness it is impossible not to come across Joanna Newsom.

Her voice is pretty odd and I really had to get used to it. The first time I tried it I didn't particularly like it , but when a friend of mine mentioned her songs, I tried again and am now loving it!

When I was little I always wanted to play the harp. Then one day my grandma bought me a guitar, so I took lessons only to find out years later that that guitar was rusty and useless.

Don't get me wrong I love guitars and I love playing them, but there's still that fascination with harps. Oh well, never too late, right?

Speaking of guitars and Joanna Newsom, you can actually play her songs on guitar, I tried it today. If anyone's interested, you should take a look here.

On a final note: look at her shirt, it has owls on it!

Etsy shop tip and my first Etsy Trade

It is not uncommon for Etsy sellers to trade items with each other. I'd had a few offers, but it usually was something I already had or didn't need at that time.

However when Jean from the beautiful shop Write Owl messaged me there was no way I could resist.

She makes the most wonderful journals but is also very interested in pottery and sells a selection of that too.

A lot of her work is custom and so was the journal she made me. After asking me what color I wanted I had no idea if the colors I had in mind were doable, sky blueish turqoise with light and dark peach, but she said it was no problem at all. And when it arrived it was even prettier than I imagined.

It even had her cute little owl logo in the back of the book!

But: the more owls the better! So I drew my little blog owl in the front as sort of an "ex libris" with my name under it.

Her shop really has something for everyone. Whether you are searching for the perfect gift, just want to spoil yourself or want a book block to put your own cover on, this is the place to be.

Her color combinations are always lovely and even her shop page is so pleasing to the eye.

Here's a little selection of items that can be found in her shop.

She also has a blog in which she writes about her items, other Etsians and currently her "National Novel Writing Month"- endeavor. So if you want to learn more about this seller or maybe want to support her writing for NaNoWriMo you should definitely hop on over there.

1 Year Anniversary: International Giveaway

CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED

Exactly one year ago I wrote my very first blog post. I admit that I posted, and soon after that deleted, one or two blog posts before that, but after that it felt really natural and I always knew what I wanted to write about next. Somehow I never really pondered over the question:"What do I want this blog to be about?".

A lot has happened though: the layout's been changed completely, some topics have changed, disappeared or been added and I'm sure a lot more will change this year.

To kickstart this next year and to thank you all for reading and commenting and some of you for having wonderful blogs yourself, I arranged this giveaway.

The lovely Lily from my favorite Etsy shop Chouettes has been kind enough to offer a few owl goodies to give to one of you.

You get to pick one of these seven items below. Go on take a look!

1. Lovely Yellow Ring

2. Daisy Owl Earrings

3. Yellow Rhinestone Earrings

4. Creme Rhinestone Earrings

5. Lucite Berry Earrings

6. Yellow Lucite Earrings

7. Cute Cameo Hairpin

And the winner will also receive this amazing owl necklace.

So that's 1 adorable necklace and 1 matching item of your choice!

This is an international giveaway

so everyone can join:)

All you need to do is comment with the number of the item you'd love to win along with the necklace.

But there are lots of extra entries to be earned:

+ 2 if you're a follower

+ 2 if you heart Lily's shop Chouettes

+ 1 (each) if you tweet about this, friend me on facebook and/or like me on facebook

+ 3 if you blog about this giveaway

+ 3 (each) if you grab one or more of my banners, I made a whole bunch of new ones. Check 'em out here or click the link in the right sidebar.

To make this easier on you and me please leave all entries in ONE comment in which you state how many extra entries you've earned and how.

And don't forget to leave a way for me to find you if you're the winner;)

Winner will be announced on Saterday the 13th of November.

Good luck and thanks for joining!

Owl Things Considered

As we all know owls are pretty amazing creatures. However it wasn't until today I found out they had this special ability.

The video is a bit long maybe, but I urge you to go see the two tricks this little guy has up his sleeve, or wing I suppose. Especially the second ability came so unexpected.

If you didn't have the patience, or maybe you just wanna see more, here's a shorter clip of the shrinking owl. Because you I just don't want you to miss out on it;)

Did you guys know about this? Or were you as surprised as I was?

Just a Little Update

I have a few little announcements to make:

• I have listed lots of Christmas items today.
• There's a SALE on my Etsy till this Saterday. Buy 2 or more items, get 10% off.
• Tomorrow's my 1 year blogging anniversary!
• ...which will be celebrated by an amazing giveaway:) Here's a tiny little spoiler for you:

Marvelous Music ...and a Giveaway Winner!

Given the fact that I have never ever been so obsessed about anything as much as CocoRosie, it might be weird that I haven't done a post on them yet.

However the reason for this is very simple. CocoRosie isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea.

But If you can handle the moustaches, weird lyrics and animal noises, this might just be the thing for you too.

Anyway I'm going to a show of theirs tonight, the 4th time I will see them live!

Their amazing beatboxer is now their official show opener, I haven't heard anything from his cd yet, but the last time I saw him perform he was great.

I'll hopefully come back with some pictures.

Giveaway Winner

Now onto the winner of the owl decal giveaway.

The random number generator picked....

The lovely Jean from Write Owl (Etsy, blog).

Congrats!

Thank you all very much for joining! I am happy to announce the next special giveaway will be held the day after tomorrow.