Some drawings

                                                                

Balsa wood leaf earrings

I made these earrings a while ago as a thank you present. I cut out the shapes of the leaves and then used a wood burning tool to darken the veins, sides and back of the earrings.
Also sorry for not posting at all, I’ve just been busy with summer and all!

Summer!

Well, at last, finally, we have summer.
I am now officially the happiest person in the world.
It has been 19c since last Saturday.
There is not a cloud in the sky.
I have eaten icecream for the last three days for the first time in five years. (I know, I’m mildly lactose intolerant, but seriously, that stuff tastes so good that I can put up with the sore throat. And my intolerance is getting better. Now I sometimes only get a cough for a day)
For the last few days, all I have done is lain in the garden on the hammock and read all day.

Yesterday, I went for a walk early in the morning up Three Rock/Two Rock mountains. This, before I went to school, was my daily marching ground, and so I know the place about as well as my garden. And I know my garden pretty damn well.
It was so beautiful. All the leaves were out and green, the sky was clear, the air was warm, the sea was sparkling…
Here are some photos.

Green Circles Tie Dye

I made this yesterday using an awesome washing machine dye. I up about eight rubber bands on to make the rings in the centre. 🙂 Sorry about the rubbish photo!

Easiest earring upcycling ever!

Basically, you get an old flat stud earring, twirl a spiral out of copper wire, and hot glue it on!

Because I am prone to ear piercing infections even through sterling silver earrings, I stuck these on to plastic posted earrings which are really hypoallergenic and every time my ears get sore I just pop these in and within days they get better again.

More drawings

I usually do these sort of ones with a black gel pen. For the eye I used a 0.05 fineliner.

 

The Ukulele

This here is the dear ukulele I play all day.
It is not of great quality, the frets are placed slightly off so there are some chords that never can be in tune, it is tinny, but I still love it.
Because this is the most amazing little instrument I have come across in a while.

To start off with, it sounds great and makes everyone happy, including the player of it. There is something about the sound of it that fills everyone around with joy. Every time someone sees my ukulele they instantly love me. It’s really weird. It has some sort of happiness vibe emanating from it.

It is incredibly easy to learn. All I had to do was print out a chord sheet, figure out how to read the chord sheet, and within two weeks of on and off fiddling by myself I had a pretty good knowledge of the chords and switching between them. By now, I can play every chord that doesn’t have some sort of number added, and a few of them too. I have worked out the pickings of a few songs I love.

Also, they are generally pretty cheap. For the most basic you could pay 10, although it would sound rubbish, the one I have now cost about 80, and for a pretty good one you would pay maybe 150 quid. All in all, for what you get, it is priceless.

So why not learn? Pick up a rubbish one, find some lessons, be amazing and awesome in a few days, have a wonderful, portable instrument to play.
You can only get happiness from it.

Chain and jewel headband

This is pretty easy to make. I just measured a few bits of chain, attached them at the centre point at the forehead and put a turquoise jewel on. Not really something I’d wear myself every day but still nice.

Chocolate orange ganache cheesecake tart

Yes.

Oops, I just accidentally posted this post without noticing. So for the next 5-10 minutes, people will come onto my blog and just see a picture of tart and just ‘Yes.’ written at the top of it. But in all fairness I have actually done that before when I was just too lazy to write anything or bother putting in a recipe. I’m nearly considering doing that now, as I have a kitchen to clean, instruments long overdue (on the cello side of things) for practice, a ukulele to play, an Ancient Greek book to study, a room to tidy… But ah well. Here goes.
Oh and sorry for not posting much, you know, summer and class trips and laziness… But I have a whole bunch of posts all lined up now. Don’t worry. Although nobody probably even cares…

This is the weirdest yet wonderfulest baking catastrophe/triumph I have made in the last while. Just don’t use any weird flavoured chocolate like I did. I swear. I didn’t see the aniseed labelled on the packet. But all in all, it still tastes amazing.
The cheesecake layer was pretty amazing too…
Ingredients:
(sorry, I didn’t really measure. That’s the way I like to cook…)
200g Dark chocolate
Juice of two mandarins, or one orange
Enough almond milk to mix with the orange juice to make it reach 150 mls… If you understand that…
70g sugar
About 100g cream cheese
some more sugar…
another mandarin orange. Or small orange. It doesn’t really matter.
some flour, cocoa powder, sugar and butter. About enough to fill the bottom of your pan a centimeter thick…

Ok… this is a stupid idea to even try to explain. But…
So boil the juice of the two oranges with the almond milk in a pan. Let it cool a bit once boiled.
Break the chocolate into little pieces and throw them in a bowl.
Pour the milk/orange mixture into this, letting the heat from the liquid melt the chocolate.
Stir well until the chocolate is fully melted and incorporated.
Throw a bundle of the last list of ingredients together. Less butter, sugar and cocoa than the flour. Mix it all together to form fine crumbs and then mix with water to make a dough. Spread this out and put it in the oven for a while until soft but firm on top.
Mix the cream cheese with the juice of one of the oranges and some sugar.
Take the base out of the oven, then spread the cheesecake mixture on top of that evenly, then pour the chocolate mixture on that.
Chill for a few hours and then go crazy. It’s pretty good.