Watercolour Drippings

Watercolour Drippings by my-essence featuring leather handbags

Home baked Olive bread

This is the easiest recipe ever! I popped into our local supermarket and bought bread dough. Rolled the dough out as thin as I could and sprinkled the surface of the dough with roughly chopped Olives. I then closed the dough up randomly, cut it into even pieces with a smooth sharp knife and baked it in the oven for 35 minutes at 200 Degrees Celsius. Take them out as soon as they start browning slightly. These are so delicious, we had them Hummus and sometimes just plain cause they're just so good! This particular night we took the biggest two rolls and made chicken burgers<3

-We felt like having a "braai" (it's like barbecue) so we made marinated chicken fillets, stuffed mushrooms and a potato dish all over the open fire. It's the best!-

xxx

Outfit Love: faux fur and printed trousers

Loving these colours at the moment! Creams and ochers, black and gold... you get the idea. So a few years ago, my aunt, Leiro, gave me a bag full of this "fancy-wool". I struggled for months to try to knit something from it. It's a very difficult fiber to work with, all the hairs make it impossible to see what you are doing. So I would get half way and then realize that I had dropped a stitch or two. Needless to say I had to start over a bunch of times. When I eventually finished it, it was a very shapeless infinity scarf. While visiting with Dave's family, his mom took out this beautiful shawl that she had knitted with similar wool, only she bought hers mixed with a few different fibers intertwined into the same ball of wool. I thought to myself, "wow, what an idea!" so when we got home, I dug out that scarf, pulled it apart and knit a plain brown wool together with the furry one. Now I've got a faux fur scarf, it's so warm and furry:)

• Vintage Trench Coat - a gift from Dave's mom from way back
• Faux Fur Scarf - hand knit by me:)
• Knit Pullover- Thrifted
• Printed Trousers - Mr. Price, can't believe I found this in my size and their Viscose
• Lace Brogues - from Edgars

 -I love how soft, airy and comfy these trousers are-

xxx 

Lucky Friday Find #3

Here's what I found at Matchbox... I know, I just can't keep myself away from that little shop. I've been looking for the right tea strainer for quite some time now. So when I stepped into Matchbox to visit my friendy, this awesome retro tea strainer was just waiting to come home with me. It's perfect. You make your tea with the leaves in your pot, simply put the stainer over your cup, and the strainer catches all the leaves. My other two strainers are the type which you put the leaves inside and then put the whole thing inside your pot. The one only makes one cup and the bigger one doesn't fit into my teapots at all. I've got lots of different tealeaves, I can't wait to start brewing some real tea! These cute little frames are made of plastic with old withered printed silk flower portraits inside. They have "slide-open" backs which makes it very easy to replace the fabric. I thought of doing some embroidered art for our bedroom to put in them. I'm not yet sure whether to spray paint them or not. What do you guys think? 

 Ah, these little vintage deer were hidden away, lucky for me, I saw them just before I left Matchbox. I snatched them up and brought them home with me, aren't they pretty? 

Enjoy Your Weekend<3

xxx

Outfit Love: warm vintage browns

So...I had this bag full of off-cuts my Gran gave me a few years back and the other day I decided to go through it. Guess what I found? Rolled in a bundle and tied up was the hem of one of my Gran's vintage dresses which she probably shortened and couldn't get herself to throw the excess fabric away. So I decided to make myself a bodycon skirt.

• Thrifted Crochet Scarf - a lovely warm vintage brown scarf
• Fabric Brooch - an OddOneOut Vintage Range from R40 each
• Carved Shell Necklace - Found this beauty in Matchbox, it was only R10, I had to replace the chain, but now it's good as new.
• Knit Pullover - from Mr.Price, they have them in a variety of colours, but this one goes with almost everything<3
• Bodycon Skirt - Here it is, my one hour skirt. Yes, it was that quick and easy to make. I will doing a d.i.y. on a similar one soon.
• Leggings - also from Mr. P, love them!  

   -This gorgeous bag, my Gran made me when I was still studying, she saw me struggling with my heavy library books when I visited one day and the next time I saw here she gave this bag to me. Now isn't this necklace just something else?-

xxx

Recipe: Berry Booster Smoothy

This past month or so has been physically and emotionally draining. With having the flu for more than two weeks, my granddad being in the hospital, the geyser breaking this weekend, the market I was supposed to exhibit at being canceled... I don't think there is enough space on my blog for everything that's going on in my life at this moment. I basically have to force a blog post out even though I would much rather just get back into bed. The only thing that seems to make me feel just alittle bit better is food. Making food, eating food and even just pinning food on Pinterest. I know, it's just sad, but atleast something good is coming from this bad time in my life. I call it the Berry Booster, it is so healthy and so yummy. It can even be used as a meal replacement is so filling.

You will need:

• 6 strawberries
• half a cup of fresh blueberries
• 1 large banana
• 1 cup of low-fat Greek style yogurt 
• 1cup of 2%low-fat milk
• mint leaves to garnish

All of the above ingredients makes one large serving. Simply put everything in a blender, blend until smooth and pour into a pretty tall glass. Garnish with mint leaves as shown above. I poured our smoothies into my favourite Art Nouveau "the kiss" glasses which Dave and I had bought at Clicks when we just started going out. I never really had the opportunity to use them until now. 

Enjoy, hope yours comes out as good as mine did. When I had finish my massive glass-full I had to fetch a spoon to get it all out, every last drop. Yum!

xxx

Our week in George: Day #4

What a busy day this was! We started this day with a visit to the Hartenbos Museum. How interesting! They have all types of antique and traditional implements used by the Voortrekkers/Boere(this is what you might call the "old folk people" of South Africa, in the times before electricity). When they were still nomads they traveled in wagons we called the ossewa. When they started settling, they used peach pips to decorate they're floors(as shown in the second row, third photo). But what interested me most were the textiles of course...  

-such pretty textiles, dainty knits, fine crochet and lovely granny floral prints. Every wagon displayed in this museum was equipped with the most beautiful hand-sewn quilt. Every item in this museum is an original, all these things have been made, used, worn, by these people many years ago-

-After the museum, we went to the Sea Gypsy for lunch. It's a seafood restaurant at the Mossel Bay harbour, right on the sea! The view while you eat is amazing and so is the food-

-such beauty! We walked this Nature trail at the Mossel Bay lighthouse, we couldn't really get a picture of the lighthouse for the trail. The view of the sea while walking is unbelievable and the air is so fresh. As you walk this path, you realize every now and then that you are quite high up and the way down is scary and rocky. Then you look up and the beauty of this place overcomes you. As you stare at the swells and the waves crashing up against the rock way down below, it feels like you're about to be engulfed by this mass of deep dark blue-

-The day came to a relaxing end at home while Dave's mom performed "dances with chickens" and made her delicious cheese bread. Dave's dad braai'd (it's like barbeque only better) the chicken and the rest of us became couch potatoes till the food was ready. We chilled, we ate and the rest is history-

xxx