Back again!

I've been travelling!

I've just spent two weeks in Dubai, where I had a wonderful time staying with my daughter Louisa!

Louisa is getting married to her partner Matt in November this year and the purpose of my visit was to get down to the very serious business of wedding shopping with her and to discuss the myriad of details that go into organising this special event. We visited bridal boutiques and viewed the venues. We discussed colour schemes and table decorations, flowers, bridesmaids' dresses, hair and makeup, invitations, menus and cakes and much more!

photos http://www.upscaleandposh.com/wedding/

You may have gathered that the wedding will have a beach theme! Dubai will be perfect with its white sandy beaches and lovely weather at that time of the year. The wedding ceremony will take in the Marina Garden at this fabulous location

Burj Al Arab Hotel - (designed to resemble a billowing sail)

and will be followed by a reception at the nearby Jumeirah Beach Hotel.

Jumeirah Beach Hotel - (designed as a breaking wave)

Villa Beach Restaurant

all photos Jumeirah Hotels

So, the venues are sorted, the colour scheme chosen and 'the' dress has been ordered! Lots of details have been decided but there's still lot to do - thankfully, there's still 5 months to go! I did manage to buy my dress too - just the small matter of losing a few pounds so that it fits less snugly!!

Whilst over in Dubai I also managed to spend a few days catching up with my talented artist friend Judy Roberts. Judy paints in oils and acrylics, she etches and creates digital images, is a whizz with coloured pencils and a camera and as if that's not enough, she's a crafter extraodinaire! This wonderful image of a falcon of hers is one of my favourites.

Falcon ©Judy Roberts


And isn't this Saluki gorgeous?

Saluki ©Judy Roberts

You can view more of Judy's work here and over at 2RGalleries, the site she shares with her equally talented husband, Colin, who as well as expertly carving sandstone also makes super woodens items. These include coasters, walking sticks, bottle stoppers and handy little handbag/purse hangers (to keep your bag safe at the table when in a restaurant or bar!) featuring special coins and United States military emblems (see below).

Handmade Bottle Stopper featuring old coin ©Colin Roberts

Handbag holders featuring US military emblems ©Colin Roberts

Together Judy and Colin run an original gifts company with many of the items handmade by the pair - be sure to pay them a visit at 2RGalleries!

P.S. I lost my camera in Dubai :( so unfortunately have none of my own photos to share this time.

Illustration Friday - Fearless

'Fearless ' - watercolour pencil & collage

Watch out little birdie!

It's been several weeks since I participated in Illustration Friday and as I haven't had time this week to create something new, here's a little something I made a few months ago for an ATC swap with my blogging friend Mônica. I think this little bird looks quite fearless up there on his high branch with Tia eyeing him from below.

I've been cooking!

I've been neglecting my blog a little... I've been cooking. Cooking up a website! Well, more to the point I've been revising my notes from the website building courses I did a while back! I started to build my website before leaving Hong Kong 20 months ago but really didn't get very far - what with the move to KL and starting the blog ... you know, excuses, excuses!! Well, I decided it was high time to take myself in hand and complete the task. Only to find that I couldn't really remember how to use all that HTML and CSS that I had learnt! So, over the past week I've been delving into my course files and books and revisiting all kinds of code. It's been quite a task, but I think that I may have cracked it and am starting to make sense of it all! So, hopefully, within the next week or so, I will be able to unveil my website... watch this space!!





At the same time, I've been cooking up a scumptious desert! Do you like Rhubarb? I LOVE it and couldn't resist the delicious pink stalks I spotted on the supermarket shelves this week. I made a Rhubarb and Sour Cream Cake and served it with the remaining rhubarb simmered gently with freshly squeezed orange juice, a little sugar and some grated fresh ginger. This moist cake is so moreish with its spicy, crunchy-nut topping and simply heavenly with a cup of


Marsala Chai to accompany it. Just steep a teaspoon or two of black tea leaves with 4 or 5 cardamom pods, two star anise, 3 whole cloves and a small stick of cinnamon for a few minutes. Strain and serve. Mmmm... delicious!

Herewith, the recipe for the cake - I'm not exactly sure where I found this, so if the author is reading this - thank you very much! I've adjusted the original slightly!

Sour Cream Rhubarb Cake

100g butter, softened
50g golden caster sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
100g of mixed nuts, roughly chopped (I used a mix of brazils, flaked almonds, pecans, & hazelnuts)
200g soft brown sugar (I mixed light and dark sugars)
1 egg
225g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
300ml light soured cream
150g rhubarb, chopped into 1cm piece
Grated rind of 1 orange

1) Melt 15g of the butter then stir in caster sugar, cinnamon and nuts. Set aside while you make the cake batter.

2) Preheat the oven to 180°C, then line a 33x23x5cm baking tin. Cream together the remaining butter with the soft dark brown sugar and egg. Then fold in flour, bicarb, soured cream, rhubarb and grated orange rind. Pour into tin.

3) Sprinkle the cake with the spicy nut mix. Bake for 35 min. Cool in tin. Serves 6 greedy or 12 normal portions, if you must share!

Etsy Treasury East

If you're familiar with Etsy you will have come across the Treasury,an ever-changing member-curated shopping gallery. Here you get to choose your favourite items on Etsy and colour coordinate a page of these goodies for display - Etsy's front page is often chosen from these lists. For those of you who've tried making these fun galleries you'll also know the frustrations of nabbing a spot to publish your finds - they're hard to come by - I understand that some people even set their alarm clocks just to be sure of being there at the right time! Well, you can now get all the beauty sleep you need, as all that rising with the lark or burning the midnight oil to get a slot, should be a thing of the past with the new all improved Treasury EAST! I checked it out and made a page with a birdie theme featuring some of my favourite items. Click the screenshot (or here), to get a better look at the goodies and investigate the shops.

Illustration Friday - Ahead

Here's a little collage and watercolour postcard I prepared a few weeks ago for the Global Greetings group I joined. I thought it would fit this week's Illustration Friday theme of 'Ahead'! If you scroll down you will see that I have put together a presentation of all 10 cards I made for this project, plus a few others too. If you like, you can click on 'notes' (bottom right of the slide show)for a description of the card and/or click on 'link' to view a larger image. Hope you enjoy browsing!

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Last Travelling Book

It's been a while since I posted something for the ArtySoulSisters Travelling Book project. This is a page I've made for Laurel's book which I believe is the last to be wending its way around the world. Laurel's theme is Journies and I've taken the Robert Frost poem, 'The Road Not Taken' as my inspiration for this piece. The painting is watercolour on gessoed mountboard - my current favourite technique!

Positive /negative

'Keep your face to sun and you'll never see the shadows' - Helen Keller

Thankyou to everyone who has left me a comment on my previous 'Missing' post - I really appreciated hearing from you all and I'm well on the road to recovery now - must be all those positive healing thoughts beamed my way!


The painting above is a watercolour on gessoed board that I made a couple of weeks ago. I painted this building layers with negative painting. Negative painting is a process of finding shapes by painting the surrounding area. I like the quotation by Helen Keller - it helps me stay positive.



Beautiful Charlie - sadly still at large - that's negative. However, I like to think he's found himself some new family or perhaps a vast supply of juicy mice somewhere. I'm thinking positive !



Poor disgruntled Bob - definitely feeling negative! His eye hasn't completely healed after his operation. One more stitch left, so hopefully it won't be long now before he's back to normal. He's thoroughly fed up with his plastic plant pot on his head and driving us mad with his constant yowling. He needs to get outside - that'll be a positive improvement for everybody concerned!





Talking of outside - there was a terrific storm last Friday afternoon. These are a couple of photos I took from the sitting room looking out onto the garden. The heavens opened and in just a few quick minutes so much rain fell that the storm drains couldn't cope, the swimming pool almost overflowed and the water rose several inches, threatening to come into the house. Anxious moments!! Thankfully, the storm abated before the flood advanced further - we kept our feet dry but could have used an umbrella inside as the rain sneaked in after all via the roof - I wasn't best pleased to find the sofa receiving a dousing!

On the positive side we wouldn't have such a fabulous garden without the rain!