To reflect on 2019, I am sharing my top 5 favourite blog posts I have shared in 2019 and why they are my favourite.
I don't have lots of favourites this month so I'm not going to do it in my regular category style, instead I'm just going to tell you what I've liked in a bit of a random fashion. Also, apologies that
I've been to 13 countries in my life but I have never traveled alone. I've never been alone in a city, never slept alone in a ...
So you’ve made your way over to my blog and taken an interest in sketchnoting, visual notes, graphic recording – whatever you want to call it. Or you’ve read my other blog post on…
Creëer de perfecte sfeer in huis met je eigen unieke geurkaarsen. Leer hoe je gemakkelijk thuis geurkaarsen maakt met onze stap-voor-stap handleiding. Personaliseer je kaarsen en geef ze zelfs cadeau! Ontdek nu hoe je je eigen geurkaarsen maakt!
During lock down, I have seen and read some amazing content from the blogging community. I wanted to share with you my Top 20 Lockdown blog posts
A light, flaky cheese puff made with butter, flour and a dry cottage cheese...
Delicious recipes to enjoy. Most are easy or easy-ish and many of them have been tried and tested, especially the cakes! Cakes and Chocolate (19 recipes) For those indulgent moments Fruits and Vegg…
The winter season is almost around the corner, so Weleda launched their winter favourites. Read my blogpost to find out more about these amazing products!
Where to travel post-covid. Our favourite places for low season travel. Best off-season destinations to travel to in and close to Europe.
Galina is from the Ukraine but lives in Poland now with her family. While browsing on Etsy (one of my favourite things to do) I found Galina's Candles. They're no ordinary candles. You may have seen some videos of candle carvings, they are so beautiful and Galina's are a perfect example of this very old creative skill. Galina spent three years learning how to perfect the candles and finding out as much as possible about her craft but she still says she has much to learn. I love this close up image, you can see all the layers quite clearly. Here's Galina getting everything ready to start a candle. There are lots of videos on You Tube about how this is done. I won't share any here as none of them are Galina's but they're there to go and have a look at. Also on Galina's website HERE you will find step by step images. Carved candles are all started with a wax core that is then dipped between different colour waxes and cool water. The cool water just cools the outer layer the inside stays warm so that it can be carved without splintering. Galina uses 'clean' paraffin that doesn't emit smoke, without any fragrance. Stearic Acid is added to the core so that it's hardness is increased. 100% Cotton Wicks are used for Galina's candles. Then once the Candle Core is complete and hard Galina can begin dipping in the various coloured wax, I think this is the bit that I find fascinating. So while Galina is dipping the candle in the wax, she must have an idea of how it's going to look at carving, but at this point can only see the last layer of wax. I love both of the candles above but especially the rainbow one, that is just so pretty. We'll have a look at a few more then we'll meet Galina. Wedding Candles The candles are beautiful aren't they.. Galina and I had a few chats via email so let's see what Galina had to say... Hello Galina..... Please tell us a little about you.. My name is Galina and I am from Ukraine. Two last years I am living and working in Poland. I do my own business here together with my husband. I am 43 years old and have two daughter 8 and 15 years Tell us about your art now and what you do Carved candles is very old technology. It is invented by Old Middle Ages Candle Masters somewhere in Holland and their technology secrets passed down from generation to generation. That is why you will not find to many traditional carved candles creators in the world. I have been spent last three years to learn how to carve candles and I have had a lot of trials and errors before I satisfied with the result. Even now I am still continue learning some new techniques for wedding unity candles. Every half a year I am renewing my collection. So, every year - new candles in the range. What is your earliest creative memory? Maybe you will be surprised but I had never seen myself being an Artist. But everything has changed when I first saw the video about carved candles creation process and I decide to do the same at any cost. And I did it at the end of the day. I love how you've taught yourself a whole new skill and built yourself a business doing it - that's highly commendable Galina. Do you ever suffer from a creative block and if so how do you get yourself out of it? Yes, it is happening time to time, but I am lucky because my husband is helping me a lot and supporting me when I am suffering with such feeling. He actually was the one who helped me to find the best combination of colours for my favourite candles. That's lovely that he is so supportive Who inspires you? All my family and especially my husband. What is your favourite piece of work that you've created? Oh, I love all of my candles that you can see at my Etsy shop. Sometime my clients choose candles, which was not expected become Bestsellers from my point of view. So, the top rated candles are listed in my BESTSELLERS section of my online shop. What are your creative ambitions for the future? Now I am creating a new collection for Christmas time. I start in Summer time for being ready to present it for the end of September of 2015. In addition, I am following new trends of colour variation for weddings and in this regards I have several new ideas…and it is continuing… How do you silence your inner critic? Most of critic is not inner and is coming from my husband, and we are fixing this critical point together. What do you do when you're not being creative? In such situation I am looking for any creative arts …and it is doesn't matter which kind of Art…it’s helping to refresh your mind… Tell us where we can find your work and your social media sites www.facebook.com/MonnaCandle twitter.com/MonnaCandles monna-candles.com pinterest.com/monnacandles/ monnacandles.tumblr.com Thank you for allowing me to share your work Galina, your candles are beautiful. I wish you lots of success with your Etsy shop. This, to me, is what this blog is about, finding that one thing that sparks your creativity and makes you think, I'm going to do this, this is 'my thing'.
Where to travel post-covid. Our favourite places for low season travel. Best off-season destinations to travel to in and close to Europe.
Where to travel post-covid. Our favourite places for low season travel. Best off-season destinations to travel to in and close to Europe.
With the help of a massive box of craft and cleaning supplies from Viking, we had a lovely virtual crafting day making 3 easy crafts for kids at home.
One of my favourite places to browse on blogs is the sidebar - it's prime real estate and there are literally thousands of widgets out there that you could use to dress it up and maximise it's potential! So if you have a self-hosted Wordpress theme, here are a selection of my favourite sidebar widgets! SOCIAL MEDIA ICONS 1. Simple Social Icons is by far my favourite social media icons widget. It's easy to use and looks great. 2. Web Font Social Icons Widget & Shortcode is another good one, but it is also a paid option - at $8.00 though, you can't go wrong! INSTAGRAM WIDGET 3. Enjoy Instagram is a neat and tidy Instagram solution. 4. SnapWidget is my personal favourite - you generate a code and use a text widget box to display it. 5. Instagram Feed is another really great plugin that you can use on your sidebar. PINTEREST WIDGET 6. Pinterest Pinboard Widget is my favourite Pinterest widget if you choose not to use the widget builder on the Pinterest website. 7. Pinterest Master is a neat tool that you can use to display your favourite Pinterest board. 8. Pretty Pinterest Pins lets you pick which boards and pins to display. TWITTER WIDGET 9. Easy Twitter Feed Widget will add your Twitter Feed to your sidebar. 10. AccessPress Twitter Feed allows you to display a real time Twitter Feed on your website, could be really useful if you are hosting a Twitter Chat! 11. Twitter Timeline Widget by Jetpack is another great way to display your latests Tweets on your sidebar. DISPLAY SPECIAL TEXT WIDGETS 12. WP Easy News Scroller is a paid app that allows you to display announcements and news on your blog sidebar. It's a one of $16 fee. 13. Quotes Collection is a great way to display testimonials on your sidebar. 14. Black Studio TinyMCE Widget adds a little visual editor to your text widget, meaning you really don't need to know any HTML or CSS! MAILING LIST WIDGETS 15. MailChimp for Wordpress is a godsend if you use MailChimp (which I recommend) for your email subscriptions! 16. Genesis eNews Extended is perfect for sign up forms on your sidebar if you are using one of the Brand IT Girl premade Genesis themes. POST, PAGE AND TAG WIDGETS 17. Advanced Tag List Widget displays your tags in a neat list rather than the default Wordpress cloud that can often be too messy! 18. jQuery Archive List makes it easy to display archived posts, breaking them down into year and month. MISC WIDGETS 19. Remove Widget Titles does just that, making it easier for you! 20. Simple Image Widget makes it easier to display images on your sidebar, giving you options like opening in a new tab! 21. Display Widgets allows you to choose what widgets you want displayed on what page, making your sidebar a really flexible space. That's just a few of the amazing range of widgets out there that you can use to dress up your sidebar. Which are your favourites? (Photo Credit: Alex Lv)
A travel guide to the best things to do in Nuremberg, Germany. All the top tourist attractions and points of interest in one blog post!
A guide to cemeteries in Bristol: Arnos Vale, Avonview, Birdcage Walk, Brunswick, the Cathedral Graveyard, Filton, Greenbank, Holy Souls, Ridgeway Park, St. Mary, St. Paul, Barton Road.
What to see when you only have four days on Cyprus. How to see Cyprus in four days. Best places to see on Cyprus. Cyprus four-day itinerary.
The summer holidays are just around the corner and with the kids breaking up from school, it’s time to start thinking about all of the days out you could have. Whilst often you may feel
Where to travel post-covid. Our favourite places for low season travel. Best off-season destinations to travel to in and close to Europe.
Pinggan sunrise viewpoint is an incredible spot with views on the Mount Batur volcano. Read here all you need to know about Pinggan viewpoint
Where to travel post-covid. Our favourite places for low season travel. Best off-season destinations to travel to in and close to Europe.
Hello sweet people, Today’s blogpost, as you can probably comprehend from the title, is my participation in the February OCD Blog Hop! This month’s theme is Favourite Quote(s) and, seei…
Where to travel post-covid. Our favourite places for low season travel. Best off-season destinations to travel to in and close to Europe.
Where to travel post-covid. Our favourite places for low season travel. Best off-season destinations to travel to in and close to Europe.
Where to travel post-covid. Our favourite places for low season travel. Best off-season destinations to travel to in and close to Europe.
Best hikes of Madeira. Some of the best walking trails on the island. Best levadas on Madeira. Pico Areeiro to Pico Ruivo Hike.
If you're battling to happy in the successes of others, this is for you. Join me for scripture reading Jealousy and Comparison.
Affiliate Links Are you looking for the best wine farms and wine tastings in Stellenbosch? No need to look further...Read More
Win A Gigantosaurus Bundle
Where to travel post-covid. Our favourite places for low season travel. Best off-season destinations to travel to in and close to Europe.
A look at the most viewed posts of 2019 on Our favourite jar and how I am learning my niche and where my blog will go in the future
I've been to 13 countries in my life but I have never traveled alone. I've never been alone in a city, never slept alone in a ...
Where to travel post-covid. Our favourite places for low season travel. Best off-season destinations to travel to in and close to Europe.
Jedes Kunstwerk hat eine individuelle Bedeutung für die einzelnen Betrachter:innen, von rein dekorativ bis tief bewegend kann es die unterschiedlichsten Emotionen hervorrufen. Deshalb lieben wir es, neue Künstler:innen zu entdecken, denn es inspiriert uns auch, selbst kreativ zu sein und neue Ideen zu entwickeln. Und da es immer schöner ist, Dinge gemeinsam zu erleben, möchten wir einige unserer aktuellen Favoriten mit euch teilen.
Where to travel post-covid. Our favourite places for low season travel. Best off-season destinations to travel to in and close to Europe.
Best Places to see in Lebanon, your guide to the best places in Lebanon. Beirut, Pigeon Rocks, Baalbek, Cedars of God, Akoura Lakes
Delicious recipes to enjoy. Most are easy or easy-ish and many of them have been tried and tested, especially the cakes! Cakes and Chocolate (19 recipes) For those indulgent moments Fruits and Vegg…
This Quick Photographic Guide to Monopoli shows you one of the cute towns in Puglia, Italy famous for the view over town and harbour.
A guide to cemeteries in Bristol: Arnos Vale, Avonview, Birdcage Walk, Brunswick, the Cathedral Graveyard, Filton, Greenbank, Holy Souls, Ridgeway Park, St. Mary, St. Paul, Barton Road.
My favourite museum in Rome: The Museum of Psychiatry in the former mental asylum of Santa Maria della Pietà in Rome.
Birthday Parties, a concert, a hospital visit, a holiday, presents & a dancing class are some of the classic stories in The Teddy Robinson Storybook.
Some Regency period biscuits. In the foreground are millefruit biscuits, sweetmeat biscuits, filbert biscuits and rolled wafers. The round biscuits on the plate in the middle printed with the feathers emblem are Prince of Wales biscuit. In the background can be seen some spice biscuits and more rolled wafers. I made these for the dessert served after the supper in the BBC production Pride and Prejudice: Having a Ball. Other than the Prince of Wales Biscuits, these were all made from recipes in Frederick Nutt's The Complete Confectioner (London: 1789). Nowadays, we tend to eat biscuits with beverages like tea and coffee. But in the past they were an important element of the dessert course and were dipped into sweet wine. Particularly popular for this purpose were various sponge biscuits, often made in long thin shapes so they fitted easily into the narrow wineglasses of the eighteenth century. Thus the elongated form that sponge fingers, boudoirs, champagne biscuits and langue de chat continue to have to this day, though most of us have forgotten why they are this shape. Other kinds of biscuits printed with patriotic motifs were particularly popular and some were designed to commemorate a special event, such as 'Union Biscuits', which celebrated the Acts of Union of 1800. Biscuits with royal connections were particularly widespread. Prince of Wales Biscuit was a hard, unsweetened biscuit stamped with the emblem of the prince's feathers. These were made commercially by professional biscuit bakers like Werringtons of Oxford Street and a number of other city confectioners. The Yorkshire confectioner and tea dealer Joseph Bell, who claims to have worked for George, Prince of Wales, published a recipe in 1817 - Prince of Wale's Biscuit 1 lb butter, and 3lb 8ozs of flour. To be mixed the same as hollow biscuits; and to be stamped with the princes feather; they must be pricked with a fork; and baked in rather a slower oven than the others. From Joseph Bell, A Treatise of Confectionery (Newcastle upon Tyne: 1817). Prince of Wales Biscuit are listed on this late eighteenth century trade card. This fine stucco Prince of Wales Feathers adorns the space above the back entrance to the prince's kitchen wing at Brighton Pavilion. This emblem was the motif printed on the Prince of Wales biscuits. I also own a number of early nineteenth century kitchen moulds in this design used for sugar paste, butter, ice cream, jelly and flummery. The Prince of Wales was well known for his gustatory inclinations. Here he is depicted living it up in the Brighton Pavilion kitchen with his servants. The cook on the left is probably meant to be Antonin Câreme. A Prince of Wales biscuit print. In this advertisement from The Leeds Intelligencer, Tuesday 23 May 1786, Joseph Bell mentions the 'vast, large Assortment of different Kinds of Biscuits' he stocked in his newly-opened confectionery shop in Boar-Lane, Leeds. I would imagine that his Prince of Wales biscuit was among them. Biscuits were an important element of the dessert. In this plate from J. Caird, The Complete Confectioner (Edinburgh: 1809), there are two plates filled with 'biscuits various' in the corners of the table. After the second course of the meal was cleared, the table was sometimes laid out with a dessert, including biscuits for eating with dessert wine. The food items here are waiting on a sideboard to be delivered to the table. Fresh cherries and figs are garnished with myrtle. The 'dessert tree' hung with glass baskets of sweetmeats has a top glass filled with cherries in brandy. Around it set out on the salver are glasses of raspberry jelly. Pistachio and filbert prawlongs are arranged on porcelain plates with orange chips. Three boxwood biscuit dockers from the Regency period and a common biscuit docker. Every kitchen drawer once housed a docker for punching the tiny holes in biscuits to stop them being spoilt by bubbling up. Many biscuit prints, like those discussed below incorporated their own little docking nails. These little tools were used for stamping biscuits with printed motifs by hand before mechanised processes took over during the course of the nineteenth century. The biscuit in the centre has not been 'docked' correctly and has blown up into a bubble. It will therefore easily flake and fragment, making it no good for keeping. York biscuits were invented to commemorate the wedding of the Duke of York and Princess Frederica in 1790. There were also biscuits associated with two of Prince George's brothers - Prince Frederick, Duke of Albany and York (1763-1827) and Prince William, Duke of Clarence (1765-1837), who succeeded George to the throne in 1830. York biscuits, invented to commemorate the marriage of the Duke to Princess Frederica Charlotte of Prussia in 1790 continued to be made well into the twentieth century. The earliest recipe I have found dates from 1817 and again is from Joseph Bell's marvellous collection. Duchess of York's Biscuits 1lb butter, 8 oz. of sugar, 3 lb of flour. Rub the butter into the flour; then add the sugar, and mix it up into a stiff paste with milk; rolle the paste out about a quarter of an inch thick, they must be cut square and stamped with a proper stamp of the happy union and baked in a good oven. From Joseph Bell, A Treatise of Confectionery (Newcastle upon Tyne: 1817). A boxwood York biscuit print. Photo: courtesy of Gillian Riley. After the biscuit dough has been kneaded with a biscuit break, it is rolled out and cut into strips using the rolling pin as a ruler. This diagram from Frederick Vine, Saleable Shop Goods, (London: 1898) illustrates how these biscuit prints were used. A baked York biscuit. I recently acquired a boxwood print used to make a biscuit commemorating George's brother William, who succeeded him to the throne. As well as a crown and William's cipher it is decorated with an anchor, a reference to William's strong connection to the British Navy. In fact he was often known as 'Sailor Bill'. A very rare print or docker to make a biscuit commemorating King William IV. Note the six nails. In this anonymous satirical woodcut, Queen Adelaide is spanking King William IV with a birch whip. He has an anchor tatooed on his scarred backside. He is being carried by the Duke of Wellington. 1832 An uncooked biscuit printed with the docker above. Note the six nail holes. William IV in the uniform of a naval officer enjoying a glass of wine. Mezzotint by William Say after a painting by Michael Sharp. 1830. Perhaps his biscuit would have been served with wine. Another recent acquisition has been a biscuit print with a strong connection to George III, father to all three brothers - the Prince Regent, the Duke of York and the Duke of Clarence. It is carved with a royal crown and engraved with the words Royal Volunteers Biscuit. The use of the long s - rather like an f, dates this print at some time before 1810. Volunteer militias were raised throughout Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. Perhaps these were enjoyed in the officers' mess with a glass of wine, though probably not of French vintage! An extremely rare biscuit docker from the time of the Napoleonic wars. The words 'Royal Volunteers Biscuit' surround a royal crown. Note the 'long s' in 'biscuit'. An unbaked Royal Volunteers Biscuit - note again the holes made by the docking nails. King George III mounted on a horse to left, saluting marching volunteers. After R. K. Porter. 1800 Mezzotint and etching. Royal Volunteer Biscuits c. 1800 and King William Biscuits c. 1832. I have never managed to find any specific recipes in the literature for these particular biscuits. So I made them both using Bell's recipe for Duchess of York's Biscuits. Verdict - rather dry and not as sweet as modern British biscuits. Watch Ivan make Frederick Nutt's 1789 Spice Biscuits
