So this time I have a little project you can make with you kids. We ended up making whales just out of blue and white paper.
So this is what I needed:
And then it was just time to cut,glue and draw. Just by looking at the next picture you get a good idea of what I did with the kids.
And that’s it. Fun and easy.
-Alina
This pie was just wonderful. The main idea is the quark, yogurt and the fresh berries. I won’t start blabbering. Just try it.
Recipe
150g butter
1dl muscovado sugar
3dl plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking power
Filling:
2dl cream
1/2 vanilla pod
200g quark
1dl sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 dl turkish yogurt
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
Decoration:
berrries, cookies, fruits etc.
Enjoy!
-Alina
I have quite a lot of papers for crafts in the girls room and I’ve been working on clearing the shelves a bit. I had bought a couple of magazine files from Ikea that were just made out of white cardboard. I decided to bring some color to them by using my wash tapes.
I covered the ends of the files with washi tapes and then used colorful paper to cover the sides.
That was it but I do like how it brought some color to the all ready very colorful room. I was thinking that next time I’d like to cover the magazine files with some beautiful fabric if possible. Also if you do feel that the these are too colorful you can always just pick e.g. two washi tapes only to use.
I hope to write soon. Just started working at a new place and that always takes a lot of your energy up. Pretty much in the evenings I’m only ready for bed. So hopefully I can get back to you readers soon.
-Alina
This post is so late that is does not even matter at all. Let it be an inspiration to you all who like to tank your teachers during christmas and spring time.
I’ve been on a holiday for the past weeks and during that time I suddenly realized that winter is here soon and there are always a few things I automatically start planning like my daugther’s birthday, christmas presents and Christmas thanks yous to the teachers.
So just to let you know what I made for the teacher’s last spring. This is of course a thank you that you can recreate into Christmas colors easily.
I decided to give something sweet and small to the teachers. I made pastel colored meringues that I put into little plastic bags for which I created small tags. See the pictures to get an idea.
So first you make the meringues. Then you can go all crazy with what colors you have. If you want little stripes in the meringues then just don’t mix the food color into the mixture too much.
Into the oven. Note that these little treats do not need a long time but make sure that the oven isn’t too hot since then they tend to turn more brownish then the actually lovely color you were planning for. I had my oven on 90 Celsius and the meringues were in the oven for about 1.5 hours.
How did I know when they were ready? Well the best way was just to try!
I put the meringues into the plastic bags. The bags I found on Ebay and they were handy due to the little tape strips at I could use to seal the bags.
What was left…
The tags I made using colorful papers. I stamped a picture of flowers and thank you sign.
I like to give the girls a basket from where they can hand them out from. I just can’t bare to put gift bags into plastic bags. Makes the whole time worthless. It has to be tip top till the end and I think the girls also like the basket rather then just a plastic bag.
So in the end I made some more meringues. I played around a bit more but I could not resist putting them into one of my mother’s fancy crystal bowls. They just fit.
If you haven’t tried to make meringues, do ahead. It isn’t as hard as some make it sounds.
-Alina
Blueberries remind me of my childhood and  mornings at my grandmother’s place. Sometimes in the morning we got fresh blueberries in milk and a little bit of sugar on top. The simplicity of this treat is clear but it is delicious. A perfect little morning treat to eat during Saturday mornings.
So if you still have blueberries left after the morning why note bake a pie. Some of you might have the read the post on the rhubarb just a few weeks back. That’s when I shared a recipe for this wonderful rhubarb pie that I had baked. I decided to try the pie with some blueberries. The feedback I was getting from my family was that the pie is the best with blueberries so I do encourage you to try this. You can the link here to the rhubarb pie post with the recipe.
This pie is perfect for the Saturday coffee time. Have a wonderful weekend everyone.
-Alina
There are two ways to use rhubarb at least. The first way is to eat it but also when you want to give a useful bouquet.
We were going to visit out dear friend and I had nothing to bring her. I knew she would be pleased to receive something that she could use so I decided to go for this unique bouquet. A kale and rhubarb bouquet straight from our garden.
Underneath are the supplies I used to create this oh so very simple bouquet. Not much as you can see.
To make the kraft paper have more age to it, which I myself prefer, is to crumble it into a ball and open it up. This way you get that nice texture to the paper.
Then just open up the kraft paper and wrap it around the rhubarb and kale and add some string.
I also attached a rhubarb pie recipe to the string. At least according to me I think it is the best rhubarb pie I’ve eaten and therefore I thought it was a fun little thing to add to the bouquet and share.
This is from the summer when I first made this rhubarb pie and fell in love with it. You can use the same pie ingredients with other e.g. berry.
The best rhubarb recipe
28 cm large dish
2 eggs
2 dl sugar
1 dl milk
1 dl cream
150g butter
1 1/2 dl baking powder
3 1/2 dl flour
Filling:
1/2 liters peeled and chopped rhubarb
50g soft butter
1 dl sugar
1 dl flour
Preheat the oven to 200 celcius. Grease the round dish. Mix the eggs and sugar well. Add the milk, cream and melted butter. Mix the flour with the baking flour and add the mixture to the egg and sugar mixture. Mix so that the dough is smooth.
Pour the mixture into the dish. Spread the chopped rhubarb pieces onto the mixture. Pick the butter, sugar and flour into a crumble like mixture and sprinkle on top of the rhubarbs. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes.
You can serve the pie with ice cream, whipped cream or vanilla sauce.
Enjoy as I always say.
– Alina
Here some pictures of the jewelry that I sold last week Sunday at the fair. I had all sorts of jewelry but these ones that you’ll see here are the multi strand or one strand stone bracelets.
4mm red coral bracelet
4mm red coral bracelet
Amazonite with swarovski bracelet
Amazonite with swarovski bracelet
Labradorite stone necklace
Labradorite stone bracelet
Different jades and wood bead bracelet
Different jades and wood bead bracelet
Different jades and wood bead bracelet
Wooden bead bracelet
Wooden bead bracelet
Agate, amazonite, crystal quartz and turqoise bracelet
Crystal quartz and jade bracelet
Carnelian and crystal quartz bracelet
Fire agate stone bracelet
Fire agate stone bracelet
Freshwater pearl bracelet
Freshwater pearl bracelet
Agate and swarovski bracelet
Agate and swarovski bracelet
Fire agate stone bracelet
Fire agate stone bracelet
Jade, agate, wood and citrine bracelet
Jade, agate, wood and citrine bracelet
4mm pink dyed jade bracelet
4mm pink dyed jade bracelet
That’s it. I’ve got loads more but this would have just turn into a too long post. I’ll get the rest posted soon for you. I hope you have a lovey day!.
-Alina
I attended a small fair last weekend in the country side to sell some of my jewelry. I tend to think a lot about how I display them and what else do I need then just a table, exchange money and the jewelry. Before I have ordered some business cards from Thailand but this year I noticed I was out of these cards.
Of course, I had no time to order any from anywhere and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to pay the price they ask here in Finland for them so I decided why not make them myself.
I gave my daughter some water color paper and told her to just go crazy with colors. First we wet the paper pieces and then colored them with watercolors. If you do this make sure that the paper is thick enough and don’t worry about the paper going all wavy. After the papers had dried I put them under a pile of books for a few days to straighten them out.
After the papers had straightened out I cut the papers into business card size. I used these parameters:Â 86 mm x 54 mm.
The edges of the cards were a bit rough which did not matter to me. This was due to my cutter being a bit old but I actually did want some edge to the cards. It made them more interesting. 
After the cards were all cut out I went through my stamps to see if I had anything I could us. I ended picking out a rough circle that I thought went quite well with my logo here in the blog. I did a few tests first to see what I exactly wanted and I just ended up writing my name in the middle of the card. Note, I had to test several black pens that I had to see what worked best with the watercolor paper.
Then the cards were ready. I also wrote in the back my blog’s address as well as my email if somebody wanted to contact me. Then the cards were ready to be slipped into the organza bags I had for the jewelry.
I just love the outcome and I do feel the represent me and my jewelry. This was an easy and quick way to get cheap but nice looking business cards.
-Alina
This is the first time in five years that I’m on my summer holiday. Before that I was just home with the kids but this year is different and I’m so much aware of the kids and how much they need time off without tight schedules and routines.
On thing that I have been concentrating on is my garden at the cottage. I have peas salads, spinach, dill, parsley, thyme, turnips, black root, beans, zucchinis and cucumbers etc. growing. I’m actually quite proud of it this year since I’ve been able to keep it clean from weeds.
My husband also built be some garden boxes into the city so I could have some fresh salad on the table everyday.
Otherwise it has been just blueberry and strawberry picking, summer evenings and nights, rain, driving around Finland, swimming, boat trips and laughing with friends. It was a wonderful holiday without any schedules and just spending time with my family. I added some picture from the summer to give you a glimps.
Looking at these picture I did notice that I think we mainly concentrated on food. But how can you not, since it is the time of the year we get fresh ingredients straight from the ground. When you live in a country where you are at the mercy of the cold weather you do start appreciating what you can get during the summer.
I’ve got some fun things coming up tomorrow. Have a great Friday everyone
-Alina
So I took a break from the blog….I was on my summer holiday and I decided to concentrate on it more then the screen of my computer. Work started this week after four wonderful holiday weeks and now the computers open again.
Eating good things during the summer is the best. Of course I mostly did munch on all things green that I have been able to find from my garden but occasionally I got a bit carried away and concentrated on the sweet side.
This lovely cake was the under dog or how do you say it. I was so surpirsed how good it was and I was told multiple times that it was one of the best cakes that I had made. I love the idea of it since it is actually a Swiss role but turned upside down and the surpirse comes when you cut into it. The layers are all flipped.
I used blueberries and blackberries that I had bought from the store as well as rhubarb from my garden. I cut the rhubarb approx. into 1- 2 cm pieces and boiled them in sugar water just enough for them to get soft. The rhubarb stems were young stem which means that you do not need to peel them and this way I was able to keep the redish color on them. I love the color combo going on. It suited the party we wee at since it was a cake for adults and not children. The dark blues, yellows and reds and the deep dark chocolate color do remind me of sophistication.
Here you can see the layers going vertically and horizontally. How fun is that!
Swiss Role tipped recipe
CRUST
8 eggs
2 dl sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
1 1/2 dl dark cacao powder
1 dl cornstarch
1 dl white flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
IN ADDITION
approx. 1/2 dl sugar
FILLING
300 g room warm butter
4,5 dl powdered sugar
6 room warm egg yolks
1,5 tablespoons vanilla sugar
1 tablespoon lemon zest
2 tablespoons lemon juice
FROSTING
0,5 dl whipped cream
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
DECORATION
anything you want e.g. berries, fruits, candy etc.
1. Whip the eggs and the sugar into a light and airy foam (approx. 5 mins with mixer). Mix the dry ingredients and add them to the foam through a sieve. Mix quickly with a wooden fork.
2. Spread the dough on to two baking trays which have been covered with baking paper. Bake each individually for approx. 7 minutes.
3. Sprinkle sugar on two clean baking sheets. Flip the baked crusts on the sugar sprinkled sheets and remove the baking sheets that were in the oven. Spread towels (preferable light cotton towels) on top of the crusts and roll the lightly to cool down.
4. Make the filling. Mix the butter and the powdered sugar into a flexible mixture. add the egg yolks and the vanilla sugar. Mix into a fluffy and light mixture. Flavor the mixture with the lemon zest and the juice.
5. Open the crusts and clean the edges. Cut the two crust into even sizes.
6. Spread the filling on top of the crusts. Put all the cut out crust in one long line and start rolling. Do not worry about the crust being uneven or if it cracks.
7. Wrap the cake first tighly with baking paper and then in foil. Turn the roll on it’s side so that it looks like a cake now. Put it into the fridge to settle for at least an hour beforing serving.
8. Whip the cream and flavor with powdered sugar. Spread the cream on top of the cake. Decorate just before serving.
Enjoy!
I’ve got another version coming up of this cake soon. I can’t wait to start decorating it and to see how it turns out. And trust me this isn’t the only treat I got coming.
– Alina
Alina 
