All bags belong to the Temi brand (which in turn belongs to the Italian Braccialini) – and more of them can be browsed here. Enjoy!
And I’m back to admiring handbags ;-) This time a series of exceptional ones inspired by nature – they all have animal or plant shapes, all are sewn with an almost inhuman attention to detail and all off them have the potential to make a really “ big entrance” if you take them out for a stroll to show them off ;-) Obviously, they’re also incredibly expensive… I absolutely love the one shaped as an owl – and which one is your favourite? All bags belong to the Temi brand (which in turn belongs to the Italian Braccialini) – and more of them can be browsed here. Enjoy!
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There are undoubtedly some areas of life where creativity is not really recommended (e.g. accounting…) but in my opinion, they’re just few. And one field in which much more creativity should be applied is, definitely, advertising. I’m pretty sure you’d agree that too many ads just repeat well-known ideas that lost their claim to originality decades ago.
So I decided that from time to time, when I come across a creative ad, I’ll put it on my blog. And here is the first one – a series of posters advertising a range of coffee-filled chocolate of an Italian company called Zaini – original, isn’t it? ;-) Those of us who follow my blog more or less regularly know that I have a weakness for unusual bags. After all, a great handbag can add glamour and style to practically every outfit, serve as a perfect finishing touch to what you wear and simply make you feel better when you pick it up. Not to mention that an eye-catching bag does not care if you are short or tall or have too wide hips – it can look good on each and every one of us! Still, the bags I’ve come across this time are, unfortunately, not for every one. They are indeed taken straight out of a fairy tale and can make you feel like a princess, but you also need a princess’s wardrobe allowance to but these – the prices start at 1000 EUR… But it doesn’t hurt to look, does it? ;-) So imagine you’re going to a party, dressed in a classic mini-black-dress, sky-high heels and wearing a fairy-tale, Cinderella-like coach as your handbag… Beautiful, isn’t it? You can say just from looking at it that it has been made with meticulous attention to detail: Next bag, and another kind of story – this time an amazing gingerbread house, one that I’m sure no respectable fairy tale witch would be ashamed to live in! And back to Cinderella again – this is how the fairy tale coach looked like before it has been turned into a real one by the fairy godmother ;-) In any other case I’d tell you that a pumpkin-shaped bag is definitely not a good idea, but here I’ll make en exception…
The idea of combining dark chocolate with chilli may not be a new one – apparently it goes back to the times of ancient Mayans – but it definitely is an original one. Used by Lindt in two of its chocolates, it contributed to the creation of the biggest chocolate temptation ever! The first one is a plain dark chocolate bar with some chilli added – not too spicy, but you can definitely feel the hot aftertaste on your tongue. But my absolute favourite is the other one – dark chocolate from the Lindt Creations series. The outer layer of delicate dark chocolate covers two hidden layers of pure delight – dark chocolate mousse and cherry, both with just enough chilli to stimulate your taste buds… The way in which the hotness of chilli is set against the delicate sweetness of the cherry layer is compelling… I am honestly not a huge chocolate fun, but to this bar of chocolate delight, I can never say no… The Mayans surely knew what they were doing! A perfect gift with a hint of spice ;-) Today in Poland is the Mother’s Day. For some reason almost every country has a different date for this celebration, but every country does celebrate it – and rightly so! There’s nothing better than our Mums, so to all the Mums out there (but of course especially to mine) – all the best wishes of happiness, health, laughter and – most importantly – let your children be a constant source of delight to you! The Summer is coming and the warm temperatures outside mean that it’s high time to switch to summer wardrobe. And it’s a perfect time to add some colour, carelessness and imagination to what you wear! One interesting suggestion is the Summer collection by Rosalita McGee, a Spanish designer who specialises in fantastic dresses. Take a look at the photos below, showing some of her collections from the last two years – her fashion creations are vibrant, optimistic and very feminine. I have a special weakness for the red dress with a Chinese doll shown on the photo on the right – cute, isn’t it? ;-) You can see more on Rosalita’s website if you click here. Enjoy! When it comes to party cakes, Poland is rather traditional. It’s still the taste which matters most, nothing beats chocolate flavour and colours which we normally don’t associate with cakes – such as blue or green – are regarded as extravagant oddities (meaning: not edible). Other countries –and especially US and UK – tend to be more creative in this regard; the best proof are the amazing wedding cakes I blogged about last week. But there is one alternative to a party cake which is quite popular in the States and not so much this side of the Ocean – cupcakes. At a first glance they resemble muffins, but their texture is much more feathery and light, and they always have a thick layer of special icing on top. And there are special cupcakes stands out there which can be used to build creative cupcake pyramids – the final result can compete even with elaborate multi-tired cakes! I wasn’t exactly planning on baking these anytime soon, but two things happened – I came across a special cupcake stand on sale and couldn’t say no to it, and my husband mentioned he’d like to try some. To my surprise my 5 overloaded shelves of cookbooks did not include anything on cupcakes, so I browsed the net and found this recipe for White chocolate cupcakes with raspberry frosting. I chose it because basically you cannot go wrong by marrying white chocolate with raspberries. But I have to admit I was not very happy with the result – the cakes were nothing ordinary, and the icing tasted too much of butter… The cupcake stand, on the other hand, played it’s role really well – see the pictures. So next time I’m just going to use it for muffins – it can be a really creative centrepiece for a party table ;-) Apparently Mother Nature has decided that his Spring is definitely NOT the time to spoil us with good weather… Since I came to Warsaw almost two weeks ago now, it’s been pouring buckets…Well, not all the time – sometimes it’s just raining… So one evening I decided to add some colour to our lives and disregard the awful weather outside by organizing a quick Mexican evening. It’s not really the difficult – I put together a cheerfully decorated table and made some Quesadillas – the easiest Mexican dish ever (just take two tortillas, sprinkle the first one generously with some grated cheese, cover with the other one and put for a few minutes into the warmed oven until the cheese melts). But the real star of the evening was one of my favourite drinks ever – frozen strawberry margarita!!! I’ve never really had time nor the ingredients to mix cocktails at home, but we’ve got some professional cocktail equipment and beautiful Martini glasses as a wedding gift from my best friend. So I decided to give them a try and searched the web for a professional recipe; I wanted a margarita which really is a frozen one, not just a normal ones with ice cubes thrown in. I decided to use the recipe from The Blender Bible by Andrew Chase and Nicole Young. It goes like this: Ingredients: 1 ice cube 10 frozen strawberries 2 tbsp (25 mL) strawberry syrup 1 tbsp (15 mL) freshly squeezed lime juice 2 tsp (10 mL) freshly squeezed lemon juice 2 oz (50 mL) Silver Tequila (I used a bit less, I’m not a huge tequila fan actually...) 1/2 oz (15 mL) orange liqueur (I used Cointreau – apparently it’s the best choice in this case) coarse salt, for rimming (I used sugar) I basically dumped all the ingredients into my blender (starting with the ice cube and strawberries) and mixed everything up. The effect was amazing! Look at the photos – I promise you they taste even better that the look! The ingredients above are for one portion only, so you definitely need to multiply them by…well, that’s up to you. Enjoy! I was walking up the stairs in my building yesterday, and it struck me that Polish halls in blocks of flats tend do be very dull. There’s always just the greyish stairs, yellowish walls and empty windowsills. And I thought that one idea to cheer them up would be if everyone invested in a cheerful doormat :-) So I checked on the web what creative doormats are out there, and found quite a few eye-catching ones at www.cocomatsnmore.com. There are so many options to choose from that I'm sure everyone would find something they like, whether it's Winnie the Pooh or English rose patterns. Here are the ones I like most; the first one proves that I have indeed lived for quite some time in the Netherlands and acquired the very Dutch weakness towards everything with a cow motif ;-) The next two reflect my weakness towards cats and moose: And the last two I chose fall into the “ funny doormats” category – the first one is simply ingenious, and the other one, even if a bit crude, is funny - in the doormat sort of way ;-)
This time it was the white empty wall in our corridor which finally stopped being so empty. But in this case some creative inspiration struck and I got the idea of combining a square wall canvas showing red tulips with the remains of a tulip wall sticker I had left from our previous apartment. Here are the two things I decided to mix: And with a bit of inspiration and creativity we get a “canvas without limitations” ;-) How do you like it? It actually looks better in real life than it does on a photo, since this wall is in a narrow passage and I had to take the photo at a slightly akward angle - but it conveys the idea well enough ;-)
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August 2012
AuthorA fiery red head, a writer and a photographer in love with beautiful design and all things creative |