Happy Easter...

...from The Girl and her rabbits (there's a rabbit to the right, if you look very closely)

An Easter House Party...

Looking through last year's April issue of Country Living (no, I don't live in the country, yes I dream of country houses I can't afford and beautiful lifestyles I couldn't maintain) I found these beautiful pictures of an Easter celebration.....

Being a non-religious type, for me Easter is about celebrating Spring and the end of the long, dark, cold Scottish winter....

And what better way to celebrate than with food.....

Although I love chocolate I don't really go in for Easter eggs. Novelty chocolate doesn't really do it for me...

Baked goods do though. Oh how I love baked goods!


Happy Easter everyone!

Elsita...

Elsa Mora is a woman who makes dreams out of paper. And metal and petals and pencils and ink.

Elsita moved to America from Cuba, taking with her a unique talent for creating tiny worlds within objects. Whether a dress or a bumble bee sculpted from paper, an illustration infused with magic and romance or a necklace that seems to tell a story.

Her blog too is a magical place, a place where small children and family mingle with art and sculpture. A place where the unreal world of Hollywood becomes familiar and friendly.

Here are some of Elsa Mora's exquisite creations, pieces that I can't believe were made by human hands. Surely they were crafted by fairies and pixies and magical creatures of the woods...

I love these flower people, inspired by Elsita's young, and oh so adorable son Diego. Diego loves plants and flowers and leaves and Elsita made these little folk from elements of the plants he loves the most.

How can such narrative fit in a simple necklace? All of Elsita's work is filled with story, with character and place and time. I may not know what the story is but the whispers of it that I hear from this necklace make me smile.



Healing Heart. A print from Elsita's Etsy shop. So sweet, so sad, so simple, so perfect. A print for every girl who has ever had her heart broken and who has found the strength to pick herself up and try to heal. A print that reminds me of a girl I know, a girl with long dark hair and red shoes, a brave and strong girl who is doing remarkable things to heal her heart....

Can you believe that these sculptures were made with human hands? With the same sort of fingers and thumbs that rest at the end of your very own arms? Do you feel as I do, that no matter what time and patience and practise you put into it, your hands would never be capable of such a thing?




The Jungle, a necklace made for a night at the Oscars, a night at the Oscars for Elsita and her husband, for her husband is a very talented man...






Another piece of magic, inspired by and created with Elsita's children. Elsita and her mother are making a book, a beautiful book filled with love and stories, filled with art and family. A book that will be given to Elsa's daughter Natalie.

Read, you will surely agree that a mother and a grandmother could not make a gift more meaningful, more destined to be treasured forever...

(all images from Elsita.typepad.com)

Toast for the home...

This is the home I want, filled with beautiful vintagey things in warm, neutral tones and touch-me textures with small splashes of jewel colours. Sigh....

(all images from Toast)

The first sparkles of Spring...

Oh sweet mirror ball, how many months it has been since you cast small fragments of light dancing across the walls. How I have missed you. Perhaps the summer sun shall shine once again....

A wet day at the farmer's market....

Every fortnight the Farmer's Market comes to our local park. This is no ordinary park, it is an beautiful Victorian creation with sweeping views of the city and grand stone stairways leading to a wide and elegant oak lined pathway. It is on this pathway that local butchers, bakers and pakora makers gather to sell their wares.

Things we came home with this week-

One organic sprouting broccoli, all dark green leaves and rich purple heads
Four organic parsnips, encrusted in mud with roots tapering to threads
Two indecently large and delicious muddy organic carrots, mistaken for sweet potatoes
One large organic batard, so soft and fresh we ate it within hours
One obscenely heavenly chocolate brownie, the best chocolate brownie in all of the world I would be willing to bet
One freshly barbecued ostrich burger, in a brown roll and smothered in tomato sauce (The Boy's breakfast, I'm a vegetarian)
Six large organic eggs, a small downy feather nestled in the box
Two freshly smoked mackerels, from a man with a sweet smile
A bulb of garlic that tastes as garlic should
10g of kalamata olives, small purple bruises in a clear plastic tub
One fruit scone, crumbling in a brown paper bag as it is nibbled on the way home.

Things that made my eyes wide and my mouth water, things I wish we'd bought before the purse ran empty -

A bunch of yellow daffodils, whispering that spring might be around the corner
A freshly baked flatbread, dotted with red peppers and roasted garlic
Fresh pesto, ladled into a tub by the woman who always gives you too much
Organic bread, of every variety
A small tub of vegetarian mousaka, from the Greek man with the delicious home made meals
Vegetable pakoras, from Tastes of the East, oil staining the brown paper bag see through
Organic bagels, oniony and delicious.

More brownies.
Fruit tarts, tiny and bite sized with glazed strawberries, such a treat in winter
Handmade soaps, dotted with lavender heads and smelling so fresh and clean

Scottish crannachan; fresh raspberries, toasted oats and thick thick double cream dolloped generously on top. Have the Scots created anything more delicious?

All of the flowers
of all the tomorrows
are in the seeds of today.

(a little philosophy with your fresh, local produce.)