the best is yet to come

November 14, 2012.Reading time 2 minutes.

Of course. All that Christmas stuff has been lying around in stores for weeks now and it’s pretty annoying to be steamrolled by Christmas jingles and gingerbread from September on.
But now, since it’s November already, it’s fairly bearable.

Last week the festive season officially started in London with the Christmas lights switch-on on the big shopping streets (as pretty and impressive as last year’s) and – with it come the Christmas window displays.
I love window shopping. Especially during Christmas season when everything is nicely decorated with fairy lights and stuff. But then I saw this:

I mean… seriously? It’s hard to believe there are actually people that not only buy pink glitter skull ornaments, but also decorate their Christmas tree with it. Sad enough that most people don’t even know what Christmas is about, but this is just painful for the eyes.

Anyway, I decided to keep it a little more moderate and actually started making most of my Christmas decoration myself. Low budget, of course. Here’s a bit of an impression:

I’ll post some instructions/tutorials on how I did it soon. I love how paper and oranges make it look old-fashioned and it’s very inexpensive and doesn’t require much storage space later on, because you can just throw it away if you want.

By the way, “the best is yet to come” is not only a good Sinatra song, it’s also the inscription on his gravestone. How cool is that?

to whom the fat rolls…

November 13, 2012.Reading time 3 minutes.

I just very randomly stumbled upon the following book title:

“Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist’s Quest To Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, Or Why Pie is Not The Answer” (by Jen Lancaster)

Not only that I’m reading “On narcissism” (S.Freud) at the moment, but I was actually waiting for an opportunity to share one of my favorite pie recipes…

“To whom the fat rolls…I’m tired of books where a self-loathing heroine is teased to the point where she starves herself skinny in hopes of a fabulous new life. And I hate the message that women can’t possibly be happy until we all fit into our skinny jeans. I don’t find these stories uplifting; they make me want to hug these women and take them out for fizzy champagne drinks and cheesecake and explain to them that until they figure out their insides, their outsides don’t matter. Unfortunately, being overweight isn’t simply a societal issue that can be fixed with a dose healthy of positive self-esteem. It’s a health matter, and here on the eve of my fortieth year, I’ve learned I have to make changes so I don’t, you know, die. Because what good is finally being able to afford a pedicure if I lose a foot to adult onset diabetes?”

– Jen Lancaster

The cake in the picture above is an ordinary pound/ sponge cake with apple slices & raisins and sugar coating with caramelised walnuts on top I made a few weeks ago – it was pretty delicous.

To make a good sponge cake doesn’t really require a special recipe. I did another one (which is more typical german) for a friend – my favorite recipe. But unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures. Anyhow, here’s the recipe. For those of you that aren’t talented with yeast cake, just used ordinary sponge mixture instead of the dough used below. Use a baking sheet instead of a cake-tin (comes in more handy with the all the topping).

Apfelkuchen mit Streuseln – Apple cake with crumbles

It’s made with leavened dough and crumbles. Yummy!

For the dough:

500gr flour
250ml lukewarm milk
75gr unsalted butter
75gr sugar
dried yeast for 500g flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs

5-7 apples, sliced
raisins

For the crumbles:

275gr flour
150gr sugar
175gr unsalted butter
1 sachet vanilla sugar

For the topping:

200gr walnuts + 150-200gr (brown) sugar for caramelising (best to prepare beforehand. Put on cake before sugar coating firms up)
icing sugar, lemon juice for sugar coating (just a bit for putting on the crumbles, don’t overdo, otherwise it might be too sweet)

come dance with me

November 12, 2012.Reading time 1 minute.

I did it.

After a weekend of listening to Sinatra and being covered over and over in tulle I managed to make my own Petticoat. Here it is:

I wanted to do that for years and had the fabric and tulle lying around since last year. It took quite a lot of time (all that fabric gathering is very tiring and costs a lot of time and nerves…) but good ol’ Frank (and some glasses of red wine) helped me not to lose it.

This one turned out like I wanted – not too puffy (I made it for my christmas dress I’m working on at the moment). But I’m planning on doing a second one that’s fuller and has more layers (for my upcoming 50’s dresses – yay!). I’ll probably do a tutorial on Petticoat sewing as well, but don’t be disappointed if that doesn’t happen in the next few weeks. I’ll probably have to buy a few more Sinatra records before…

i want to meet a guy named Art…

November 12, 2012.Reading time 4 minutes.

…I’d take him to a museum, hang him on the wall, criticize him, and leave.
– Jarod Kintz

If you live in London or you’re staying here at the moment and don’t hate going to museums too much, here are some wonderful current exhibitons that are mostly free!

I am planning to go to all of them over the next few weeks/months and I will keep you posted, if they were as good as they sound!

#1 Marilyn Monroe: A British Love Affair – It’s free!!
National Portrait Gallery – Room 33 (Trafalgar Square)
29 September 2012 – 24 March 2013

http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/display/2012/marilyn-monroe-a-british-love-affair.php

I LOVE the Portrait and the National Gallery and go there regularly. ~~I really can’t believe that I didn’t manage to go see the beautiful Marilyn yet!~~ (My obsession strikes once again..!)

Update: I went there last week and have to admit I was a little disappointed. I know the gallery well and expected it to be a small exhibition of max. 2 rooms, but actually this time it was only one single wall of no more than 20-30 pictures. But the pictures were beautiful (mostly magazine covers).

#2 Hollywood Costume Exhibition
Victoria and Albert Museum
20 October 2012 – 27 January 2012

“…explores the central role costume design plays in cinema storytelling. Bringing together over 100 of the most iconic movie costumes from across a century of film-making, it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the clothes worn by unforgettable and beloved characters such as Dorothy Gale, Indiana Jones, Scarlett O’Hara, Jack Sparrow, Holly Golightly and Darth Vader.”

Doesn’t that sound amazing? Lord Vader, Captain Jack and Holly Golightly totally got me hooked! It’s fairly expensive (about ₤40) and you have to book a ticket (November weekends already sold out).

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/exhibition-hollywood-costume/

I found a rather nice review by someone who already went and saw the exhibition.

Update: I got the tickets for that exhibition for Christmas (yay!). We spent about two hours in the 3 rooms/halls. It was amazing! I can only recommend it. The only really important movie costumes I missed there were the one from Lord of the Rings.

Highlights: Darth Vader, Jack Sparrow, the Black Swan, Anna Karenina, Holly Golightly, Sugar Cane, and many many more!

#3 Landscape Photographer Of The Year – It’s free!!
Lyttelton Foyer of the National Theatre
12 November 2012 – 12 January 2013

Just look at the pics preview. ~~I have to go there!~~

Update: I’ve been there yesterday and it was awesome. About a hundred really great pictures I all wanted to take home!

http://londonist.com/2012/11/art-preview-landscape-photographer-of-the-year-national-theatre.php

#4 Museum Of Curiosity – It’s free!
15 Bateman St, W1D 3AQ
only until Christmas!

“…This exhibition harks back to those days with taxidermied albino cobras and the heads of a two-headed calf on display. And that’s just the beginning as the surreal and disturbing artworks of well known artists such as Nancy Fouts, Tessa Farmer and Candice Tripp add to the creepy oeuvre…”

http://londonist.com/2012/11/exhibition-review-museum-of-curiosity-black-rat-projects.php?showpage=3#gallery-1

And I just stumbled upon this:

“Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering – because you can’t take it in all at once.”

— Audrey Hepburn

Refashion It! The Old Mirror [sort of tutorial]

November 10, 2012.Reading time 3 minutes.

I’m a girl. And I adore jewelry. Of course.

I love buying it, wearing it and making it myself. The only thing that annoyed me for years was not knowing how to store it.

I have a really nice jewelry stand for necklaces, but nothing for earrings – one of the reasons why I often wear the same earrings for weeks, because I don’t think of all the others stored in little boxes somewhere.

I found some really nice earing holders in a cute shop in Covent Garden, but too expensive for my taste. Nevertheless, they did inspire me to make my own.

Since I love how everything’s reflecting in the mirrors in jewelry shops and therefore looks so much nicer, I came up with the idea of upcycling an old mirror that has been waiting in a corner for months. (So old that it has an “made in GDR” stamp on the back cover).

It was rather easy to do, but it took some time and creativity to decorate it.

If you got an unneeded mirror and an old wooden frame, some wire and some bells and whistles for decorating, it’s easy to copy.

Here are some pictures of the crafting process:

The mirror’s original colour was red. Before painting it and adding wire and decoration, I removed the back cover and the glass panel.

First I sandpapered then painted the frame. (I did not only use plain white paint, but also light browns, ivory and grey to make it look more vintage). I used some old florist’s wire and shaped it with help of a pencil. I attached it to the frame by wrapping the ends around small nails (1”) .

Decorating is definitely the best part, but it takes a lot of time to find things that go well together and I tried a lot of different ideas until I came up with this:

I printed pictures on book pages and cloth, wrapped satin ribbon around the wire and found some pretty postcards to glue on the mirror.

Finally, all my little treasures have their own display.

We haven’t found a way to nail stuff onto the wall yet, since we don’t have wallpaper in our new flat (the plastering starts crumbling immediately 🙁 ). But it doesn’t look too bad sitting on the dresser.