Wall Art and Laura Amiss

Hey guys, I thought I'd introduce you guys to one of my favourite etsy artists, Laura Amiss.  She works as a freelance designer and textiles artist and happens to currently live in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.  My family took a holliday several years back to Liden (nearby Amsterdam) and LOVED it!  Such a beautiful place.  A good bit of her art is inspired by Amsterdam and the Netherlands as well as other major cities in the world.  Two of her city canvases are featured below.  London and San Fran.

I'd favourited her stuff before on Etsy but was reminded of her amazing art while searching for prints to possibly decorate my room with.

So far I've settled on painting the walls a duck egg blue, something a little like this and I would love to have a bunch of bright, quirky and eclectic art prints in different sizes on the walls.

Maybe even a little art wall like this?

I'm still not sure yet though.  All I have so far is a LOT of ideas.

Anyways here are some of my favourite finds from Laura Amiss...

This one is listed as, Hill houses - San Francisco inspired, Textiles Canvas print

 Although she doesn't just do city prints those are mostly my favourites of hers.  This fun textured piece is a incorporation of both hand embroidery using felt and appliqué as well as print on canvas.  I'm not sure I've seen anything quite like it. 

Here is another textile canvas print, this time of London...

And now I have two of her prints for you...

The first one being called Scattered Showers and the second being called simply Teapots, which I think would look great in a kitchen against a brightly coloured wall.

Anyway all her prints and canvases are beautiful!  Have a nosy at her shop! Laura Amiss

Cookbooks, Tea and Lentil Soup

Hola!  I am loving every moment of Spring break.  It makes for plenty of time to blog.  Anyway right I'm just lazing about sipping tea and eating a nice little hot cross bun (It is almost Easter!) while browsing through some old cookbooks.  

I love my parents little red teapot.  It's definitely well used.  I like my tea.  There's plenty of burnt marks on it due to a camping incident a couple summers back when it was accidentally burned. :)

I've decided to make my own last vegetarian meal for lent and of course serve it to the rest of the family.  

To be honest I don't think the rest of my siblings will be too thrilled because the majority of them aren't big veg fans.  I've always been the least picky out of the kids in my family, except when it comes to the matter of anything that once lived underwater.  I'm not a big seafood fan!  

I've settled on my main so far.  Lentil soup because it's seems easy enough to make.  I picked it out of one of my favourite cookbooks.  Apples for Jam.

Unfortunately the title is a little hard to make out in this pic.  It's written by Tessa Kiros.  A woman who is currently living in Tuscany and has multiple cookery books out.

 It's not only packed with great recipes but also has the odd childhood story or photograph thrown in.  I love looking through it.

The recipes in her book are simple tried and tested recipes that always produce a good result.  Personally I love making her oat cookies because they're great with a mug of tea yet aren't overly sugary.

Unfortunately I haven't settled on a side yet but I'm thinking about making a bread if I feel up to it. 

I'm also recipe hunting for something to make before Saturday morning.  I'm doing a bake sale with my youth group to pay for a bus to take the lot of us down to camp next summer (Which I'm way excited for!).  

Right now I'm thinking maybe red velvet cupcakes?  If I get the ingredients that is.  I'm still not sure on that one but I have quite a few baking books to look through before Saturday morning! 

 I'm a bit of a baking book collector.  Here is a snapshot of a few of mine I took a while back.

My two faves so far are Hummingbird Bakery 'Cake Days' and The Primrose Bakery's 'The Primrose Bakery Book'.  Both are bakeries in London with a semi-similar style in sweet treats.  I would LOVE to go to London on a "Bakery Tour" and just check out all the local Bakery spots.  

The Hummingbird Bakery book is the one with the recipe for killer red velvet cupcakes.  They focus on American inspired recipes, whereas The Primrose Bakery is heavily inspired by places all over the world.  Wow. I'm such a baking geek! (If that even exists?) 

I was thinking of making brownies but that's kind of my sister's specialities (along with Crepes) and mine usually aren't quite up to par with hers.  Hopefully I'll decide on some decent recipes before Saturday.

Time to say goodbye.  My tea is gone along with my hot cross bun (sigh) and I've got my work cut out for me leisurely looking through cookbooks and surfing the net while listening to the Civil Wars on grooveshark.  Aufwiedersehen!