Sea star Kusudama

I thought I had made a post about this one on my blog, but guess what?? I just forgot to do so (blame it on some level of laziness :-p). Well, now it's time to make up for it, so may I present: the sea star kusudama! :-D

I guess I don't have to explain why this kusudama is named after a sea star. I particularly like mine not only because I had a heck of a time to assemble this ball (will I ever learn not to use the tiniest seize paper?!) but because the yellow star makes such a nice contrast with the two colors blue. It reminds me of a star in a perfectly blue sea. So nature like! :-D

A family of Sonobes

I consider the sonobe to be the most easiest modular origami to make. The units are easy to fold and the assembling is not that hard comparing to, well.. uhm.. some other modular origami, like the five intersecting tetrahedra. ;-)

My very first sonobe is the big yellow/orange/purple one, consisting of 30 units made out of paper seize 5 by 5 cm. For the smaller y/o/p sonobe and the largest colorful one I needed only 16 units, therefor it has less spikes.

All the other sonobes in the pictures are made with paper seize 2,5 by 2,5 cm. I started the red series with a 30 unit-model, the next one has 16 units, followed by one with 4 units (as you can see that makes a square) and the tiniest one has only 3 units. Don't they make a cute family together? :-)

A whole plate of Piroshki's!

When I'm baking something, at least I'm smart enough to take some pictures of the result immediately after it comes out of the oven. Unfortunately the same can not be said about immediately including the pictures on my blog. So now I have these pictures of piroshki's I've made somewhere in april of this year. I came upon them when I was sorting out pictures on my computer.

All I can remember is that they looked far better than they tasted (though surely they were not that bad!!). That's partly due to the filling I've used (some minced pork mixed with the usual ingredients) and partly because the dough somehow didn't work out quite well like the first time.

And maybe I should have used less dough and some more filling, because the balance between dough and filling tipped in favor of the dough. Even I wondered what had happened to the filling after trying one of them! Well, at least I know what to do different next time! And there will definitely be a next time, because when prepared well... ... well... once you pop, you can't stop! :-D

Cookies and more cookies! :-D

My elder sister and I are two totally different persons, although some would say they can actually see some similarities in our appearances which make me think: yeah.. right ;-). But there is one thing we sure have in common: our love for cookbooks, mine preferably pastry cookbooks. Every once in a while I expand my cookbook collection with yet another purchase. And every once in a while my sister contributes to my collection too :-)

For my birthday she gave me two pastry books: one about making muffins, the other with recipes for cookies. Haven't tried the muffin recipes yet, but one day in the near future I think I will surprise my colleagues with a bunch of muffins to sample yet another one of my bakings. (As if they mind!) :-D

Anyway, I've been looking for ages for the perfect recipe to make edible cookies. The cookies based on the recipes I've used so far turned out stone hard when they've cooled down. I'm not kidding, but you could seriously break some teeth on them. Just ask my victi... oops, pardon me: my sisters :-p

Because of my experiences with other cookies recipes I didn't expect much of the recipes in the book my sister gave me. But I thought it couldn't hurt to try it anyway. Not only is the basic recipe very easy to follow, but you can also add a lot of your own additions to it. Last week I tried to make two colored cookies: vanilla with chocolate. They turned out pretty tasteful and, most important: they stayed crunchy instead of turning into painful jawbreakers :-D

Quite happy with this outcome I decided to sacrifice my Sunday afternoon to make another bunch of cookies. This time I made almond covered vanilla biscuits and lime-flavored cookies. I took the cookies to work and shared them with my colleagues. Well... think I've made some new friends now ;-)

Currants

I love the bright red color of currants! I only don't like the sour taste of them. Even when they have reached the ripe stage.

There are two currant bushes in the vegetable garden of my in-laws. They both carried a lot of currants. It took me and my brother-in-law at least an hour and some cramp in the arms to pick all the currants of only one bush! But all the hard works have resulted in quite a few jars of deliciously red currant jelly :-)

Lovely sweet cherries

Have you ever tasted cherries so good, so sweet, so juicy you don't want to stop eating?? Well, I have. And best part is: it's all from the vegetable garden my in-laws keep :-)

Unfortunately we had to share most of the cherries with the birds, but those we could 'rescue' we enjoyed thoroughly :-)

From seed till corn

I just let the pictures tell the story this time :-)

Mom's B-day present

For my mom's 50th birthday I gave her an orchid. Not a real one though, but a stitched one (duh!). It took me over a year to finish this work, but I'm very happy with the result. As is my mom. :-)

Blue Kusudama with a touch of fuchsia

When my sister saw the yellow kusudama, she wanted one herself.
As requested, I made a blue one for her. But I didn't like an all blue one, so I 'sneaked' in two fuchsia-colored flowers :-) Luckily she liked this variation (as if she had any choice! :- D)

Butterfly Kusudama

Own design! The beads, that is! :-p

This is a butterfly Kusudama. The paper I used has red edges with a white heart and a touch of black between. I cut the paper in four so I got both red and white edges. Half of the kusudama is made with the red edge as the outer corner and the other half with the white as the dominant color. Instead of a standard tassel made of threads, I made mine of beads. This way I can design my own tassels so none of my Kusudamas are alike. I love Kusudamas! I plan to make a lot more of them! :-D
This one I donated to one of my sisters by the way ;-)