Project #6 - Blueberry Chocolate Muffins

My grandmother used to bake cakes.

My mother used to bake little cakes in paper cups which she called "Haselnusstörtchen" (German).

Ten years ago I used to bake small cakes in paper cups too, and I callled them Muffins.

Nowadays everybody in in cupcakes.

What´s the big difference? I know there is a difference between muffins and cupcakes, more than just the fancy name. But when I read recipes on the net I don´t get it, just from simple reading you can´t tell.

The recipe beneath is on of my favourites, I´ve done it uncountable times. I love it because it is just the basic recipe, you can add whatever you want or have at home. Today I used blueberry and some chocolate I still had at home from christmas. Feel free to try something else and tell me.

Ingredients: (for 12 pieces)
260g flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsps spices (I used vanilla sugar, but you can add cinamon or something else too)
60g chipped nuts (haselnuts, almonds,...)
1 egg
140g sugar
80ml neutral oil (or 125g soft butter)
280g milk (it also works fine with joghurt or cream, I use what I have at home, you can also mix)

1/2 cup blueberrys (frozen)
1/2 cup chipped chocolate

Prehead your oven to 180°C.
Mix all your ingredients (except the blueberrys and chocolate). Start with the dry ones and add the others.
Stir well until well combined and smooth.
Put the blueberrys in, but don´t use the mixer anymore, you don´t want to damage the blueberrys completly. Be careful.
Spoon the mixture into 12 paper cups.
Bake for 20-25 minutes.

You can add any frosting, I simply put some powder sugar on the cakes for the photo, normally they are completly naked :)
Don´t be frightend  if your cakes look a little grey or violett, that are the blueberrys.

Enjoy!

Project #5 - Coffee Capsule Jewellery

This is big around here.

You can see it a lot. Especially at may college, where it seems everybody is into handicrafting.

Since I am big in drinking coffee and always looking for something new to try out, I thought to give it a try.

This ring is my fourth coffee capsule jewellery piece, and I has to say I like this one the most.

Here is the instruction:

I used:
2 capsules in violett (one for the base and one cut into pieces)
1 ring base (as seen in the picture)
some pearls and beads I had around

First I had to hammer the capsules down. (There are many good instructions in the internet)
After that I cut one capsule in halves and formed them a little with a pincer. I glued these pieces on the base capsule.
Then I added the pearls. For glueing I used my hot glue gun and superglue (You have to decide for yourself what works best for you, I like the hot glue gun for bigger parts and the superglue for the small pieces).
At last I glued all to the ring base. Tadaaa! Done.
Easy 15 minutes project.
Enjoy!

Project #4 - Beautiful string

My little cousine has fallen in love with a guy from Vorarlberg and will probably move there in afew months.
Since it was her birthday the other week I was again able to try something from my pintest-list.
Here are some beautiful projects with string which inspired my work:
Elise Blaha's blog
A Beautiful Mess
Vintagerevivals
Jenloveskev.com

1. My wood board is size 20x20cm. I printed out the outline of Vorarlberg and a heart and transferd it to my wood.
2. First I thought it would be got to mark where my nails should go, but while hammering I realized this is not useful because most of the nails went where the wanted anyway.
3. After the hammering I spraypainted the whole thing with white paint and let it dry for one day.
4. Then it was stringing time! I wraped the string around the nails and back, with no real system or pattern. I started with the white string and after that went on with the red one.
5. Before finishing I wrapped both outlines on more time. I thing this way the whole thing looks better.
6. The ends of the string were knotted and then were fixed with glue to give them this extra security.

I absolutely love this on and am a little bit disappointed I had to give it away, even though my cousine liked it too.
I want to do one for my home aswell, wonder how it will look like...

Enjoy!

Project #3 - Big Script Art

Most of the Time I see something on pinterest, and repin or like it.
That stuff is on my list for things I want to try.

This project was somethimg like above. I have seen this at Elise Blahas Blog and also here on A Beautiful Mess.



I used these lyrics from Nat King Cole's 'L-O-V-E'. I know they are a little bit cheesy, but I love this song, and whenmI look at my finished artpiece I always have his voice in my mind.

I got three of this sized canvases ages ago while on sale. Since I am not that great at painting I never knew what to use them for, but I am very happy with the result now.

I primed the canvas with white wallpaint one evening to get a more even finish, and then wrote on it the other evening.
I wrote freehand with a large paintbrush and acrylic paint. I had to do it two times to get a satisfying finish.

Not the whole verse was possible, but I'm quite fine with what went on their.
Now I simply have to find a place to but it, the kitchen counter in front of the window is not really perfect.

Now, have a try and...
Enjoy!

Project #2 - Transfer photos on canvas

For the birthday of my father I wanted to give him something handmade.

I´ve seen some pretty pictures on pinterest, and I´ve seen an interesting instruction on how to transfer a photo on canvas on A beautiful mess, so I thought this was the time to give it a try.

The instructions on A beautiful mess are really great, so I will tell the whole story here, just read Elsie´s and Emma´s blog (and fall totally in love with it, like I have).

But here are some pictures from my production. I have choosen a picture my father really likes, and I worked really fine. With this technique the result will not look perfect, but I think it works really great with my chosen photo.

Still a white film - rubb, rubb, rubb

Done!

The most importent part is to use only laser-copied photos, if you only have a inkjet printer at home, copy your photo at a copy shop.
Second, it will not work with Mod Podge, tried it - fail. I used the Gel Medium from Liquidex, and it worked really well for me.
I sealed my canvas in the end with Mod Podge, this worked fine.

So...
Enjoy!

(PS: I have also tried this technique in fabric and wood, I will soon upload a tutorial for this)

Project #1 - Lemon 'Get what you want' Cake

My first "real" post, man, I am more than exicted!

I got the recipe from the book "Meet me at the Cupcake Café" by Jenny Colgan.
I really loved the book, and because I was looking for a good lemon cake for quite some time a had a try... And I´m lovin it :)

I changed the recipe a little bit, mostly because it is imperial and since I am living in austria I am used to metric.

So here it is:

For the cake:
115g flour
2 tsps baking powder
115g softend butter
115g caster sugar
2 large eggs
zest of one lemon
juice of one lemon (Since not every lemon has an exact size feel free to tast your mixture and maybe add a little zest or juice)

For the icing:
55g icing sugar
2 tsps water
1 tsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 165°C.
Mix the flour with the baking powder. Then add all the other ingredients and beat well.
Spoon into a greased loaf tin.
Bake for about 20 minutes. The cake should still be yellow, not brown, but there should not be dough on your stick if you but it inside.
For the icing mix all the ingredients together and apply to your cake while it´s still warm. This way the icing will ooze into the cake and it will taste even better.
Enjoy!

Lemon 'Get what you want' Cake

Project 2013

If´ve read a lot of stuff about blogging.
About how to blog, what to blog about, how to get frequent readers an so on...

I would love if somebody, anybody would read my blog. But that is not my first intent.
I want to spread my life, like a journal or something like that, and I want to see the stuff that I produce on the internet, ... click, click, click ... "Wow, something I have made is on the net! Everbody can see it!! Yieppieh!!!"
That is my main intent behind this :)

So I wondered how I wanted to present all I am doing.
Some people make lists, they try to do one project per day (365 projects a year), or every week (52 projects) or other stuff like that.

Because my main aim is to present my product, and I know how happy I will be if a look at this blog by the end of this year and think "Woh, look what I´ve done all over the year, how much stuff, I´m really proud of myself!", I was thinking about numbering each blog entry and see how many I am able to do over the year. So that´s it. And I am already proud of myself!

I will upload some of the stuff if allready produced this year, since we have allready the 23th.
Some days I will post more than one thing, sometimes there will be a few days without even one post (especially since I´m supposed to write my bachelor thesis till march).

And now...
Lets start to count...

So let´s start...

So this is my first blog-entry.

My first entry in my first blog ever.

I´ve been thinking about trying this blogging stuff for quite a long time.

Especially since I´m addicted to pinterst. I´ve always pinned someone else´s stuff, simply repined things or seen on other web pages. But it was never something I have produced by myself. And that even though I am a great producer. I´m doing a lot of stuff, cooking, knitting, crocheting, sewing, painting, hammering, and so on, and so on.

Because of that by now I know I want my own blog, I need my own blog.

To present my stuff to the world. Even if perhaps nobody will read it.

So here it is...