buns

Hello all,

Since my last post my motivational ideas seem to have diminished somewhat. However, I have upped my consumption of Swedish culture, mostly of their food! My grandfather lives in Finland (he is not Finnish, he is English, but that's another story..) and I remember when I visited about ten years ago we ate these really nice sweet buns that were flavoured with some sort of spice. Yum!

Anyways, so while researching Swedish food to get we into the swedish-learning mood (yes I am a poet..) I found these Swedish Cardamom and Cinnamon buns, cousins to the Finnish buns which are called Pulla. I have actually tried to make the Pulla before but it failed miserably so I was a bit scared to try it!

So I had a bit of a one-person baking party a few days ago and made them, with the yeast and everything! It was very exciting because I have never cooked using yeast before.. But it was so good! I felt like a real proper baker because there was actually a chance that things could go wrong, unlike with my normal biscuits and cakes where pretty much the only that can go wrong is that they have too much/not enough sugar..

I did actually take heaps of nice photos, which also showed off my sweeeet new dessert stand that I got from the Salvo's the other week, but you will have to wait a couple of days for them as I am a bit lazy with the uploading at the moment.

But because of my laziness what you do get is a couple of photobooth pics of my recent purchases (because I know you care!): my super-duper yellow tights and some new additions to my owl collection, which now looks quite sizable and needs a bit more shelf space I think!


Banana legs!
In a way they just make my legs look a little bit diseased but I like them anyway!


So many owls...

In more shop-related news I have actually added a few new items including a beautiful vintage typewriter and a spotless glomesh bag (which I really love but really I think four glomesh bags is enough for my personal collection!)

So I hope you have learnt something about Swedish cooking or maybe more about my laziness here today!

xx Elly

P.S. While researching Swedish food I found this picture of a Swedish Crayfish Party!
How crazy !! (Plus aren't lobsters kind of expensive?? Swedish people must have too much money..)

insecurities

Hey there lovelies,

Now I am not normally the sort of person who really gets into the whole "motivational" thing, I tend to zone out and just think about how unlikely it is that I am actually going to "take time out to de-stress" or "repeat my positive mantra five times a day" etc etc.. But when I came across this article today called insecurity doesn't pay the bills, and as a completely over-analytic anxiety wreck (i'll wager that I could beat most of you in a crazy-off) who aspires to be a "proper designer" one day this completely spoke to me.

So I suppose I have to be a better person now and blog more regularly!

Hope you're feeling just a little bit inspired :)

xx Elly

type

Today is the type of day that I haven't had in ages.

I got up, didn't get dressed until midday, sat on the sofa under a blanket and got some of my silly uni work done. It was so nice when I woke up, the kind of cold and rainy day where it is so nice to just sit inside.

I've really been loving the cold weather despite being sickly because I am a half-english, cold-loving kind of girl. My plans for the future are to move to Melbourne where they have proper winters, and then in the more distant future to move to Sweden where they have really proper winters. The type of winters where you can legitimately wear coats and smoke cigarettes in a sophisticated-european-black-and-white-film kind of way. This is what I am envisioning for my life. I just have to train my lungs to not die the day after I decide to smoke a single cigarette..

In other news, while procrastinating from my work AGAIN (this is a very common theme in my life) I found the most gorgeous little blog called we make words and am now absolutely obsessed.

Being the design-student typography-obsessive girl that I am, this is my idea of heaven, especially as cutesy real-life type is actually my favourite thing ever. Well one of them at least! And I love that the materials are unrelated to the words that are written.

Beautiful work girls I am totally jealous inspired!

xx Elly

sickly

Oh dearrr,
Being the sickly girl that I always have been, for the past week or so I have felt even worse and as such have been completely unproductive and unmotivated to do anything.

As such, all useful activities have fallen by the wayside in favour of falling asleep under snuggly blankets, drinking hot chocolates and crying to ease the pain (literal pain not emo pain, for once..)

One of the main problems with this is that this week and next week are the two weeks before my uni break and are the two weeks in which a bunchload of my work is due. ISSUES ARISE.

Anyway, apart from my many woes, if you are feeling a bit down lately like me I have a sure-fire cure for you, and that cure is baking. Baking solves everything (except obesity I hear..) Try out this amazing chocolate torte from design sponge, trust me it is easy as pie (ha?)

Seriously though, a certain silly friend once grilled my mix instead of baking it and it still came out delicious, though I think it might be hard to go wrong with a melting pot of chocolate and butter.

(photo from design sponge, my one wasn't quite as beautiful!)

Take care,

xx Elly

movies

I don't go to the movies very often, but whenever I do I really hate it when I get there a bit late and miss all the trailers! Trailers are awesome. If it's for a good movie then I sit there gasping and pointing and poking whoever is next to me, and if it is for some silly action movie I sit there laughing and counting how many explosions they can possibly fit into one trailer.

I should be doing something more useful (uni readings, sewing, looking for a job!) but I came across this hilarious video regarding movie trailers and thought I need to show this to every single person ever...

from britanick

I feel like this is something I shouldn't find so funny, but pretty much every part is hilariously accurate (except it probably could have done without the bit in the middle about the latin teenager, avatar references etc..)

xx Elly

animated

Ever since the beginning of high school where I was forced into makingspeeches to the class, I have had a love for powerpoint presentations. My favourite part about them was adding in a load of animated gifs to distract everyone from my lack of knowledge (very successful by the way).

I now keep a file on my computer chock full of every random animated gif I come across in case I ever need it for presentation embellishment again, and looking through it brings me hours of amusement.

Today I found a completely amazing site filed with fancy animations that are somewhat design-related (which bodes well for my presentation relevance!) with various stationery and technology objects in action, a pencil being snapped for example, all in lovely bright colours.

Despite this, my current fave is one of a boy getting punched in the face and bleeding paper blood. I can't get enough of things that use paper as other objects, definitely appeals to my rather large crafty side.

in addition, more amazingness in the form of a claymation video from the same site. I love the well-choreographed dance break in the middle.

Wooork from Elisava on Vimeo.

That is all the coolness I can handle for today folks

xx Elly

baking

Gosh I have been so hot for the past few days. I really think that I should never have been born in this country as I really prefer cold weather to hot times a million billion. Plus, the weather keeps tricking me into thinking its getting colder but then it always goes back to baking me alive!

But that is not the point.

The point is actually just that  wanted to show off some of the sweet cupcakes I baked the other day.

They are supposed to be reindeer, in case like my father you thought they were "bug-men," whatever they might be.. but nothing will stop me from being proud of my cake decorating prowess!

In fact maybe i'll show you some previous attempts that are a bit more impressive so as not to seem so hopeless..

cupcake buns with brownie burgers! yummm...

special valentines biscuits for alice, my makeshift boyfriend/reciever of obsessive gifts..

Along with todays ironing and sewing efforts, I am beginning to believe that I am subconsciously training myself to be a 1950's housewife. Actually maybe it's not so subconcious. Now all I need is a dashingly debonair husband! (feel free to pass on any volunteers!)

Well there is one slight flaw in that theory, in that I am so lazy I have still not posted up the lovely clothings onto Etsy yet.. This will not do! Maybe I will offer a free cupcake to those who buy things, although you might have to live nearby because I don't think I can send them through the post..

 

xx Elly

P.S. I am meaning to sign up to this as soon as I figure out how to properly word my application (I tend to stress about these things!)

It's a lovely idea called the package project which aims to connect bloggers to other bloggers by having them send packages of crafty goodies to one another! I find things like this amazingly sweet and have always wanted to participate so I had better get over my anxieties quickly!

P.P.S. You might see the results of todays sewing endeavors up here soon!