Treehugger

Have i mentioned my slight obsession with trees? Well I definitely have one. Maybe i am actually just a treehugger but is caring for the environment really a bad thing? Anyhoo, here is a picture of one of my favourite trees that I have drawn.

The abstract thing before it is just a doodle i did which was my thought process for the tree. I am considering creating a stencil print of the tree because it already looks kind of stencily (add it to your dictionary people, I am making it a real word) but i am not really sure how easy/hard it will be so if it never arises I probably just haven't succeeded.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering why I have posted twice today it is because the TV is showing nothing but diamond jubilee coverage and since I am against having a monarchy I am having to avoid the television today.

Ipad artwork

So...... I know that this is incredibly late since the exhibition i will shortly refer to finished ages ago but just bear with.

David Hockney recently (sort of) had an exhibition at the Royal Academy called "The bigger picture" and many of his works were executed through the medium of ipads. I would like to say he inspired me but these pictures were done way before the exhibition, I guess he just inspired me to show them. So here they are, my ipad pics:

Hipster robots

Meet my two hipster robots, they are very fashionable because they are wearing drainpipes (geddit? because drainpipes are a type of skinny jeans - ha! I amuse myself!) You may not be able to see them too well because i had difficulty with my scanner but the first one has a tie and his body is a paint can. He has a pot and a frying pan for his head and upon it is a jauntily placed bin lid hat. The second is his boyfriend - they are very much in love you know - and he has a cabinet for a body and a bell for a head. Each of his hairs are little nails and he wears a bow tie.

up-cycling for the arty folk

Above is my silly abstract artwork made from the foil wrappers of the many, many chocolates I ate yesterday - which was Easter for those not in the know. It is titled 'Up-cycling for the arty folk' (I thought it was about time I started naming my artworks but 'Ted' didn't really suit it...)

My SuperYummyChocaMochaHazelnuttyButtercreamyBrownie cake

So this is the cake i made for my mum's birthday. I couldn't decide what kind of cake to make so the bottom layer is brownie and the top is mocha, which sounds nice. Unfortunately I forgot to put baking paper in the tin with the brownie and so i sort of crumbled it to pieces trying to get it out. Also I didn't put enough coffee in the mocha. Oh yeah, and then there is the whole incident with me trying to make a chocolate hazelnut layer :  i didn't realise there weren't enough eggs until after i had ground up the chocolate, hazelnut, flour mixture;  tried to think of something useful to do with a useless mixture; melted it with even more chocolate; placed it on a sheet of baking paper to set in the fridge; finally acknowledged that the chocolate-to-hazelnut ratio was way out of whack, and thus it wasn't going to set; was left with a peculiar, useless piece of half solid... stuff (for lack of a better word). 

Luckily, I was able to glue the brownie layer together with icing, which was coffee butter-cream to make up for the minimum amount of coffee in the mocha layer. And as for the peculiar, useless piece of half solid stuff - i used it as a topping for the cake which added a welcome layer of crunch. It actually ended up as something frankly delicious and i intend to make it again one day.

Gi Gi

                                                              

 Good eve, and merry belated Christmas. Or Hanukkah. Or the winter solstice. Or whatever strange holiday you celebrate. Just happy winter, because folks, let's face it, winter is a bloody depressing season so happiness now is very muchly needed.

This christmas i have been rawther busy in the kitchen. Well okay, that's a lie. Other than the gingerbread house pictured left, i have done no cooking. But do not be fooled, gingerbread houses are no mean feat!

I know i posted this really late, and Gi Gi (the name my sister christened it with) is no longer standing, but here are some pictures of it in its full glory.

 Next time i make a gingerbread house I've decided i'm gonna hide something inside it, how could i resist this sight?:

If anyone has any great ideas for things to hide inside it, please tell me in a comment bellow!

Mock en bouche

Before you ask, no, mock en bouche is not a real thing. Did that stop me from making it? Of course not!

You may or may not remember me saying that it was my life long dream to make the perfect croche en bouche (see 'my caramel fiasco'). Well yesterday, along with the help of my wonderful su chef, mum, i did a practice run. It wasn't a real croche en bouche because we didn't have a mold so the pyramid was well wonky, and anyway i was just messing around with putting it together bit because we weren't sure what to do with the caramel after (rather miraculously) we had made it.

Below are some pictures of the rise and fall of my mock en bouche.

Check out how cool the caramel looks on top! 

It wont be soon till i have made the perfect croche en bouche now! And besides, this may not have looked that great but it tasted A-MAZ-ING!!! (Sorry you couldn't have any but they 'aven't invented teleportation yet, *sigh*.)