Collection of all things pretty
Dont fret – yes, the seasons are changing and yes, the idea of fluffy socks, wood fires and hot chocolate is looking more and more apprealing, but it’s not all that bad. You can still enjoy a little spring magic with the latest in floral spring trends.
Ruven Afanador took these magical photos for the latest edition of Town and Country, featuring outfits from Dior, Carolina Herrera, Oscar de la Renta and more. So pretty.
Spotted on Trendland (thanks Megan for introducing me to this fab site)
“Polka Popes” is a crazy cool installation by German artist, Miriam Jonas. Miriam has meticulously sculpted the busts of various Popes (out of kiddies play dough), placed them in old fish tin cans and arranged them on a stark white wall.
But why? I hear you ask. Well this does come at a time when the Catholic Church is welcoming a new Pope and embracing a new era, perhaps Miriam is trying to make light of these heavy proceedings. Could she be hinting at the “fishy” habits of previous clerics? Who knows.
Originally found here
Have you visited the Poppytalk Handmade Website? It’s a monthly online arts and crafts market curated by POPPYTALK (one of my favourite design blogs).
I was browsing through all the gorgeous goodies and stumbled upon these fabulous illustrations by Portland based Michele Maule.
I love them all.
See more of Michele Maule’s work here
Visit Michele’s Blog here
It’s that time of the year again – the smell of toasted hot cross buns is common place around tea time and the idea of a chocolate induced comma is not that far off. Easter – I love you!
What are your family traditions? Do they involve egg hunts and wearing silly bunny ears? Or are you just going to relax with family and friends and enjoy the last bits of our glorious summer?
What ever you plan to do, have a glorious weekend.
PS. J’aime le Lapin de Pâques is French for I love the Easter Bunny (cute hey?)
Source:
1 – Bunny Cat
2 – Gold Bunny Earings
3 – Gold Bunny Shoes
4 – White Rabbit Lamp
5 – Honey Bunny Coat
Finally my Starlet Pins have made a debut in my Hello Pretty Store. Now both Hero and Starlet grosgrain pins available (for the girls and the boys).
Each pin is priced at R120 (ex postage) and makes a really special and unique lapel decoration for that special occasion – or just because.
Amongst the Starlets featured are Twiggy, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe.
Visit Hello Pretty to see more.
18 March 2013 – If you are interested in having custom cameos made, please drop me a line. I would love to collaborate to create the perfect pin for you.
Living on the foot of Table Mountain is such a blessing (except for when the South Easter blows through our little house and drives me insane). As you may know, Table Mountain is covered in its own floral kingdom, a unique and very special natural wonder that we are all very proud of. So naturally when the opportunity to bring home a bunch of fynbos came up I couldn’t resist. Of course, I didn’t pick this bunch myself (you can get a whopping fine if you try) but thanks to Woolies we can all have a stunning bunch of our natural heritage at home. Proteas and fynbos make very resiliant cut flowers and last quite a long time.
It wasn’t until I popped the Ollo Clip on my iPhone that I realised just how hairy these stunning plants are. Guess it must be to trap all the moisture they can in the early morning. Isn’t nature so clever?
Well here is the sixth installment in My Year Of Flowers – Cape Fynbos
(All photos taken with my trusty iPhone and Ollo Clip – not bad hey?)
Yesterday morning I was desperate for something delicious to have with my tea, so I turned to the ever trusty Pinterest to see if I could find the perfect, quick and easy treat to whip up before elevenses.
Thanks to a Redfly Creations pin, I stumbled upon this amazing recipe for Amish Cinnamon bread (cheats version). Apparently the real deal is made with yeast and takes a while to prepare, so this less fussy version suited me perfectly.
I was not disappointed. As soon as this gem went into the oven I knew it was going to be amazing – quickly the house filled with the delicious smell of cinnamon and before you knew it I was scoffing a second huge wedge of it smothered in butter – divine!
(NB – If you click through to the original recipe you will see that I halved the quantity as I didn’t have enough sugar to make two loaves. The recipe below is for one average size loaf)
Amish Cinnamon Bread
Batter
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk or 1 cup milk plus 1 tablespoons vinegar or lemon juice
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Cinnamon & sugar mixture:
2/3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Preheat your oven to 180C. Grease a loaf tin and set aside.
Cream together the butter, sugar. Once light and fluffy add in the egg. Sift together the flour and baking powder. Slowly add a third of the flour to the butter mixture and then a third of the milk mixture, continue alternating between the milk and flour until the batter is smooth. Don’t over beat it.
Pour half the batter into your loaf tin and then sprinkle half the cinnamon & sugar mixture over the top. Take a knife and swirl the cinnamon & sugar through the batter. Pour the rest of the batter on top and sprinkle the rest of the cinnamon & sugar on the very top (don’t swirl this time)
Pop your loaf in the oven and bake for 45-50 minutes (or until a skew tester comes out clean).
Keep your eye on this precious bread – you don’t want the sugar to brown too much. If it starts looking too dark, pop some tinfoil over the top.
Now for the hardest part – leave the loaf in the tin to cool for 20 minutes before turning it out onto a wire rack. Trust me here, if you turn it out to quickly it will fall apart.
Now cut yourself an enormous hunk, spread with loads of butter and enjoy.
Original recipe from here
Just stumbled across this awesome poster on Friends of Type and thought I would share it with you. “Don’t Worry Baby” was created by Erik Marinovich who it a typographer with some serious skills – do your self a favor and check out his portfolio of insanely awesome work.
Happy Thursday everyone (only one more sleep till the weekend).
Mint and Tangerine – the makings of a delicious cocktail? No, instead the beginnings of a new Blog Makeover for a client – exciting stuff indeed.
I have just started working on a very exciting makeover for the loveliest graphic designer (can’t tell you any more than that at this stage). As part of my Blog Makeover process I usually put together a mood board for each full makeover I do.
This is such a fun process, I get to collect photos, illustrations, typography, colours and styles and pop them all together in one big mood board. This step, in my little creative process, is so therapeutic – kind of like design meditation and being the magpie/bowerbird that I am I have no problem getting lost in Pinterest for hours on end.
Well, my client’s new identity and colour palette are so cheerful and inspiring that I couldn’t resist sharing just a tiny portion of the imagery I have collected to put in her new Blog’s mood board. Okay, I haven’t included all the colours in the new palette, I just picked out two of my favorites – a fresh mint and tangerine splash – so gorgeous!
Ironically these are two colours that keep coming up in designs I am asked to work on, not surprising as they are so lovely.
Photo credits:
Church | Rose | Pencils | Frenchie | Chevron Plates
In my quest to find the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever, I found this delicious version on the Australian Cadbury website. It’s a really easy recipe with just the right amount of chewiness and firmness needed in a choc chip cookie. In fact, it was so good that even Alexis (who is NOT a biscuit fan) was caught with his paws in the cookie jar around tea time.
I haven’t adapted the recipe at all from the original, except to subsitute normal flour and baking powder (we never have self raising flour at home). Oh, and I also added in more chocolate chips (why not?)
Chocolate Chip Cookies
All you will need:
125g butter, softened
½ cup light brown sugar
⅓ cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ cups of all purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
½ cup cocoa powder
1 cup white chocolate chips
Here’s how:
1 – Preheat your oven to 160°C.
2 – Cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar until light and fluffy.
3 – Mix in the egg and vanilla extract.
4 – Sift together the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. While the mixer is going slowly add this to your wet batter.
5 – Finally mix in the chocolate chips. You should have a fairly stiff mixture.
6 – Roll little balls of the dough and place them onto a greased baking tray. Gently press each ball down with the back of a dessert spoon.
7 – Pop in the oven and bake for 13 minutes. Keep an eye on these lovelies as you don’t want them to burn. The chocolate batter is fairly dark & you may not notice them getting too brown.
8 – Cool on a wire rack.
Enjoy with a huge glass of ice cold milk.
This past weekend was extra double special, not only was it our 5th wedding anniversary, but it was also my birthday. What better way to celebrate than with flowers. Here is my fifth installment in my year of flowers – gorgeous soft purple roses. Aren’t they just so romantic and special? Perfect!
It’s Design Indaba time of the year again. Sadly this has come to mean (since becoming a freelance designer) that I now resent the lucky folk who’s agencies readily hand out the enormous sum it costs to attend the three day conference.
However, this year I managed to secure a ticket to the Young Designers Simulcast (yeeees, I am no longer officialy a “young” designer, but they do also sell the tickets to older folks).
So next week I am off to the great halls of the CTICC to be inspired by some incredible minds. Okay, so I wont be hanging with all the “uber cool” design folks in the main auditorium (please note extreme hint of sarcasm there), yes possibly I may have to bring my own little packed lunch – but who cares? It’s going to be amazing!
There are so many incredible people talking this year that I am sure to be wondering around with a crazed person’s grin for most of next week. If I have to pick my two favourite speaker though, I would have to chose Marian Bantjes and Jessica Hische.
I have seen Marian speak before at the Indaba and cannot wait to see her again. Both her and Jessica are super impressive typographers (okay, I have a soft spot for typo peeps), flipping talented designers and amazing thinkers – what more could a gal want?
Marian has a very sweet tradition of sending amazing Valentine’s Day cards. Because she travels a lot, last year she decided to repurpose old postcards from all over the world as her Valentine’s tribute. She collected and sent out 480 cards dating back as far as 1901. They where all overprinted in silver with her unique design, which said “From me wherever I am / To you wherever you are.” So fantastic!
See more of Marian’s work here
Jessica Hische’s work is simply divine. She has had the opportunity to work on so many amazing projects including a poster for Florence and The Machine, the title sequence to Moonrise Kingdom (imagine how cool that must have been), she was even asked to work on the cover for Beck’s new album Song Reader. This stunning cover was then made into an amazing cut paper piece by an artist called Ham. Please take some time to watch the amazing making of this paper cut (video at end of post) (again more amazingness).
Paper Cut art created by Hambeck.
See more of Jessica’s work here
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