Pretty Paintings

The Dutch have a pretty long history of amazing painters and I feel very lucky to live in a city where lots of those works are shown in lots of different musea.

However there's currently an exposition out of town where I badly want to go to.

Kees van Dongen has such a unique style of painting, the brush strokes are somehow special, but you mostly recognize him by his women. Even though they are often a bit extravagant, the paintings are always very calm.

Loads of people love his work, but I know he's not loved by everyone. I suppose, once more, this is a "love it or hate it" kind of style.

But I find his works very intriguing and I really hope I get a chance to see the exhibition.

Thankfully I've already seen some of his works in real life but I'm dying to see more. There is just something so special about seeing art "in the flesh". Computer screens and books can show images very clear, but to see the life sized thing is something else entirely.

Sometimes a painting can have a surprising effect. I remember seeing a huge Kandinsky and even though I never particularly liked his work I loved seeing it in it's true size and glory.

Have you ever have something like that happen? What was your most special "museum-experience"?

Owl Things Considered

While searching for cute owl brooches on Etsy I came across the lovely shop Ilzuks. When I noticed the pink one I just had to have it. I ordered it immediately and the package arrived today!

Isn't it adorable?! And it came in such a cute box too.

But the whole shop is filled with amazing owl brooches. In so many colors!

I love how they all have different faces too, which makes them look like they have their own little personalities. It's so cool that they're all unique. But somehow that makes it both easier and harder to pick a favorite.

Apart from owl brooches there are lots of cute felt flowers, but there's also an owl oil painting!

You can definitely tell Ilze is very fond of owls too and I'm sure that any owl lover couldn't help but fall in love with her creations.

You can check out her shop here.

Marvelous Music

Sometimes commercials feature the cutest songs. I often find myself looking up songs I heard on tv and this is one of them.

I have to admit I haven't really listened to anything else by Joy Williams, but I thought "Sunny Day" was pretty cool. I will check out the rest soon.

How about you? What artists have you discovered thanks to commercials?

Sunday Sequence

It is getting colder and colder. There's supposed to be snow next week already! I'm not much of a person for cold weather and just wanna stay indoors really. This week I caught myself wishing I could take a long hot bath on multiple occasions. Good thing we don't have one 'cause I would never ever want to leave it.

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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!