Small improvement in the garden

Has anyone ever painted the garden's floor? Because we had last weekend! Since moving in [last year] we always wanted to change the dark corner with the concrete floor at the back of the house into something brighter. We do not get much sun there either so we are trying to cheat. We already brought some flowers into it with very practical and light "wooden garden" which we made few weeks ago. But last Saturday J was up for some DIY action and... here it is...

I must add that before painting it all was washed and scrubbed from the old dirt and moss. Also just before J vacuumed it!!! I did not take any picture of already finished job, because it started raining on Sunday and somehow there was never a good moment to take a picture. But it looks like a carpet [or snow, as J says, but I do not like to use the word "snow" in summer; it gives me shivers!]. I promise to take some photo of the whole lot on some sunny day :-)
Now we are thinking of changing the colour of the house. Currently is a bit creamy...

Here through sunflower from the "wooden garden".
And as I could not get enough of our "tiny" sunflowers [they supposed to be only around 40 cm high. Right now the tallest is 132 cm and still growing! Our pride ;-) ] here is more of them:

Also the rest of the garden seems to be quite happy...

And as J was painting - I was cooking, and then we were eating, and after that I was cooking... and so on! There is always plenty of cooking and eating on our weekends!
All of it in Rise and Apples :-)

Glasses case

I always get my sunglasses scratched and smashed in my bag :-( . I also drop them a lot, but that a different matter. On Sunday, watching Olympics, I had just enough time to make myself a cosy case for sunglasses to sit in it :-). And as my "Grey Mouse" design continue a simple design came to my head... and I also needed to use these cute dotty tiny buttons!

And as the Olympics on telly continue I made few more for my Etsy shop :-)

Hurrah! An Etsy shop!

So it finally was a gorgeous sunny weekend :-). And I think the sun made me brave enough to start my Etsy shop!!! Yay! Not sure how it all will be going but I had to try. Otherwise I would always regret. First there are crochet pillowcases.

Since having the house we have been looking for something to decorate it. I like handmade products, but they also need to have soul and be well made.
I have been making clothes, decorations, presents since I remember so I decided, that despite lack of time, I would do it myself. I knew what I wanted. It needed to be delicate and romantic, but simple and modern. Our house is tiny, so I did not want to clutter it with colour [although I LOVE colour and I will add some colourful designs to my shop in the future... just need some time... ].
Grays, beige, cream and whites seems to be the perfect solution.
I got so into it, that made few more...

Sunflower - the round pillow. I loved the pattern and needed to try it. I saw it for the first time at beautiful  Attic24. I must admit that the the pattern under that post [there was a link to this vintage 1936 (?) pattern, can not find it now...] though did not work for me. I had to customise it make it work for my yarn.

I also made my first labels...

 here at the back of one of the pillows... and wooden buttons - cute!

Few days later...

I know, I know, the weekend was two days ago, but did not get the chance to update my diary.
Very busy and very messy weekend. We decided to make our bathroom prettier. We though it would be over by Friday night. The plan for Saturday and Sunday was to finish it off by painting the walls and some other bits. The planning was pointless, because there were still people working on tiles and taps.
But, because of that, I was busying myself and got stuck in the kitchen and J was bored and stuck on the couch!
Back to the kitchen!
Saturday was miserable - cold and rainy, so I cooked some heavy food, more wintery I would say.

1. Shortcrust pastry, plum jam and meringue cake, because there is no weekend without something sweet!

2. Golabki [this is the Polish name, although here wrongly written as I do not have Polish signs here... or maybe I do, but do not know how to execute them?! ].
Anyway Golabki are simply cabbage parcels filled with some rice & mince meat mixture [recipe here]. I thought about them for a while, but I always think, beforehand, that they take ages to make. And always, after they are ready, I think how quick and easy it was!. Plus I made quite a few so we could feed ourselves for couple of days when I do not have too much time for cooking. Also they are great for freezing. So, try them and love them!

3. White Borscht [as the opposite of Red Borscht which is made of beetroot]. 
It also is a Polish speciality but I think it is popular in any Central or Eastern European countries.
It is a sour soup with plenty of character. The base for it is a fermented mixture of rye flour and water [I get mine from the shop, I know, lazy, but also because of the unpredictable English weather. Basically the mixture needs even temperature conditions throughout the fermenting process.
I tried to do once mine, but one night it got really cold, and the whole thing got rotten instead of fermented. I think bacterias got killed by cold!].

The floating things it is a white sausage! Yum!

And on Sunday we got some sunshine! Finally marigolds looked happier

and I could dry some mint:

PS. I had a better picture of my mint - with some socks, because of course I was doing some washing that day too, but J told me not to use it! Maybe I should not listen to him next time ;-)

Have a sunny [!]  rest of the week!

Orange Lilies

Just wanted to show you what a difference a week makes. Rain this year makes slugs and snails breed like rabbits! It's millions [hundreds for sure!] of them in our tiny garden. Different colours and sizes. I will not post a picture of them here as that would be gross but here is my orange lily a week ago:

and today!

completely vanished!

Rainy days and a carrot cake... or muffins

So it has been raining...

Garden in the rain...

In theory I should have more time for craft but that was not the case this weekend - too much Wimbledon and unexpected guests :-). I did not even have time to check my latest copy of Country Living! But at least I managed to help a friend of mine to set up her Etsy shop, called greendorothy, with beautifully painted butterflies.
Luckily with rain comes the rainbow...

And as a special treat I baked a carrot cake and carrot muffins - different shapes but the same dough! Muffins for myself and the cake for J ;-). For some reason he does not like the shape of muffins?!

Edible garden and started projects

The weather is mostly miserable so, to match it I am in the mood for grey.
I have some started projects which I am aiming to finish soon... This was also the idea behind my blog - if I write about something it will be like a memo for myself and I will need to finish it... at some point. Otherwise it will end up in the cupboard with many [!] other unfinished projects...

Crocheted flower, which possibly will end up as a pillow?! We'll see...

and a linen pillow case with crocheted flowers applique...

For a change, there is more colour in the garden 
I can't wait for my own tomatoes! I hope they will ripen despite this year's rainy weather...

my herb corner:

Just starting

Not sure how this will work or how often I will update this site, but decided to make one of my own instead of only visiting other beautiful blogs ;-)... And the sunny weekend [or rather parts of it] was the perfect nudge to start! Flowers in the garden were happy and... 

 

  ...I baked some Halva Cookies... yum!