Valentine's bakes and cake love!

Valentine's day is just a couple of days away, so I thought it would provide an opportunity to try out some cake love.

Cake love must never be underestimated!

Cake is a powerful weapon when it comes to melting the heart of your loved one.

These are heart shaped chocolate cakes topped with chocolate fudge icing and a sugar rose.

Spread the love with cake I say, spread the love!

These are vanilla cupcakes covered in fondant (ready to roll) icing flowers and letters stamped from fondant too, with a sprinkle of edible glitter.

And whilst we're on the subject of cakes, there's always room for love cookies.

These ones are cinnamon shortbread. You can use whatever cookie recipe you like and use a heart shaped cutter. Very quick and easy!

 

Whatever you do, and however you do it, enjoy the luurve!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Much love.

xxx

Colour finds us.

It's funny how colour finds us.

I was watching a film a few days ago called 'Cloud Atlas', I still have no clue what on earth it was about but anyway, there's a scene where this futuristic girl is wearing the most beautiful purple shawl and she kneels next to a green wall. I can't remember why she did that but the point is that I so enjoyed seeing the purple next to that shade of green! .. I guess the film was worth it just for that.

So since then I've been obsessed with green and purple combinations. I walk past a shop everyday which for some reason has a big square lime green block as part of its window display, and each day after I've walked past it, I imagine what I'd do if I could paint on it.

So I decided to give it a go in real life, albeit on a much smaller scale.

Here are my adventures in green and purple!

I've taken up weaving! My dear friend Zoe organised a lesson for my birthday present. I tell you, it's very good for the soul. I don't mind the monotony of it, it's really very good for being grounded in the present.

And guess what colours I'm using for my project? I chose the purple and my teacher suggested the green purely by chance! So there we are. I've only just begun, but I'm super excited to share just how beautifully and lovingly the purple and the green are celebrating their love for each other, constantly intertwining.

To end, here are a couple of photos my daughter Kezia took last week on a rare sunny day with my camera. These beautiful flowers are already making an appearance in February!

Green and purple love is all around!

Much love.
xxx

For Beauty

This is a recent piece from my art journal.

It is based on a blessing from Benedictus, by John O' Donoghue, called "For Beauty".

My friend Elle sent me this quote this morning, and to end I shall share it.

"Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing” -Camille Pissarro.

So here's to beauty, to celebrating it and to being expressions of it, in all that we are.

Much love.

xxxx

Birds, birds, beautiful birds.

A new bird painting this week..

Been thinking this week about birds. I shared some of my birdie artwork last year in this post. I still love to incorporate birds into my art work. I find them so beautiful and a wonderful inspiration to live by. 

Birds are meant to fly, not to be kept in cages, or enclosed within shells or hidden behind closed doors.

They are very beautiful with fragile hearts.

Birds sing beautiful melodies whenever the mood takes them and they sing to welcome each new morning.

They are fiercely protective of their young and work tirelessly to feed them.

They fly miles and miles to get to a new destination with the changing of the season.

Birds wear their beauty, in the colours of their feathers and in the patterns on their wings.

They are not afraid to have their voices heard.

So fly!

And sing out, because your song is beautiful.

Much love, and have a great weekend!

xxx

Art Journalings

(I have repurposed an old book which I found in the recycling bin. I sewed some pages together, then primed with gesso before adding layers of paint and collage.)

Rose Garden...

 Know, Trust, Believe...

Much love.

xxx

Hope Rising

(There's a song that goes with this post. Click here to hear it.

It came to me whilst I was sitting at my piano last week...)

I can feel it, 

the changing of the seasons,

 a lightness in the air, 

a quickening of the senses

As hope rises from despair...

This year feels like the turning of the tide for me. I turned 40 right at the beginning of the year and as they say life begins..

But it really does begin, whatever age you are, because life begins afresh each day, with the rising of each new dawn.

I had the most wonderful start to the year with amazing birthday celebrations, first with my tea party for the ladies and then the most wonderful family gathering last weekend for which my sister surprised me and my twin brother with an impromptu visit from America for less than 24 hours to wish us a Happy Birthday and join us for dinner. So amazing!

My health is stable, my consultant said last week I have every reason to be optimistic about the future. Isn't that wonderful? 

The thing about love, (like the love that has been lavished on me recently), is that it lifts you, and carries you to a place where anything is possible, and the horizon becomes a clarion call for all the hopes and dreams of your life rather than an impossible destination. 

Hope does that too. It changes perspective.

Here are some of the horizons I gazed at last year, with the song of my heart ringing in my ears.

So here's to the new horizons that each day brings. May they call you to the promise of all that you are.
Much love.

xxx