Calendar 2015 in Progress; Upcoming Winter Craft Fairs in November and December 2014

I have been working on the next year's calendar of relief printing.

Choosing 12 plants for all year round is always hard.  I would like to find the most beautiful one for each month.  For the summer months there are so many options, then the spring, the autumn and I have to look around intensively for the winter months.

This time I'm making a little bit bigger relief prints, which means I can give each image with more expression.  Hopefully I will have finished the Calendar 2015 by November.

There are some exciting winter Christmas craft fairs  in November and December.  I will have a stall there.

PADLT Christmas Craft Sale

Saturday 29th November 2014

10am - 12pm

Stanwell Baptist Church Hall, Penarth

(on the left side, next to the Paget Rooms)

PADLT (Penarth and District Lesotho Trust) is a fundraising organisation for children in Lesotho) 

nus nus Winter Fairs Part 1
Sunday 30th November 2014
10am - 5pm
Cardiff Made (on Face Book, or visit Cardiff Made Web)
41 Lochaber Street, Roath, Cardiff CF24 3LS

nus nus Winter Fairs Part 2
Saturday 6th December 2014
St.Catherine's Church Hall
Kings Road, Pontcanna, Cardiff CF11 9DE

nus nus is an artisan market for beautiful craft art.
Cardiff Made provides a platform to showcase the work of Cardiff based artist and craft makers.  They run a cafe too.

Making Berry sirup, or Jelly?!

We were too late.

Birds enjoyed most of the juicy elder berries, while we were doing other than picking the berries up.  But we could still collect a handful berries for the sirup.

Our children love cordials.  My youngest son made aromatic elderflower sirup this early summer.  I made brilliant red strawberry sirup from the excessive not very nice looking strawberries from our garden.  These sirups are nice on warm days in the summer.

Elderberry sirup is nice on cold days in the winter with hot water (though my children drink cold.)

The berries were carefully removed from stems.  This picture below is the berries cooked with water, sugar and citric acid in a deep pan.  Then the berries were strained through a sieve.  The juice was put back into the pan, added more water and sugar, and cooked thoroughly.

This time we produced only a few jars of elderberries......

An idea came in my mind.  Brambles!  It shouldn't be too late.  I took my youngest son to the place where we usually collect the black berries.  There we found plenty of them.  The shiny fat black berries were still waiting for us to be harvested.

My bowl was soon full.

We had around 2 kg berries all together.  Didn't have a recipe for bramble berry sirup, I simply followed the elderberry sirup.  I though it worked quite the same.

Here!  I made 4 bottles and 3 jars of bramble berry cordial!  Hurray!  So did I think, so far in the evening....

Next morning I saw the liquid in the bottles and jars, which should remain liquid, turned into jelly!  I tried to think why the cordial transformed to jelly.  Maybe because I cooked the liquid too long.  I didn't know that bramble berries contained much more pectin than elderberries.  Shocked but we didn't waste the effort and the sirup.  Children scooped the first clod.  Then my eldest son shook the bottle many times.  Eventually the jelly turned back to thick liquid.  I poured a little bit of sirup in a glass and filled with sparkling water, tasted the bramble berry cordial.  Umm,  it was not so bad!

My Online Shop is now open!

At last!

I have opened the online shop at Etsy, which is one of the most popular worldwide art and craft online marketplaces.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TreeLeaFlower

As a start, I put 2 listings of my latest screen prints, My Summer Garden and Summer Meadow (pictured below).

I still need to improve the visibility of my listings and maintain my shop step by step.  Anyway Please have a look!

Summer Greeting and Agenda, and Hazel Nuts

I've been too lazy for writing on my blog, but have enjoyed this hot dry summer.  What I was really pleased was that I was able to wear short sleeves almost every day.  We have had a wet winter, so we deserve this fine summer.

I feel I need declare my agenda for this summer (by the end of August) so that I complete my tasks.

I've been working out to open an online shop at one of the most popular art and craft selling sites but very soon, hopefully finish setting up this weekend.  Alongside I'd like to finish the next paper cut art for the Autumn, and also finish the next year's calendar of the plants in the UK.

Anyway, the autumn is approaching now.  While raspberry bush in our garden has been producing still red sweet aromatic berries, though, strawberry runners are growing endlessly and the hazel nuts are fattening day by day.  Why not the squirrel's family in the neighbour's bushy garden find the fresh nuts for their dinner!  

I got two young hazel about 7, 8 years ago, and planted in our back garden.  They had only 2 nuts last year for the ever first time.  This year, at last, they got plenty of nuts.  But the naughty squirrels have eaten the most of them lavishly.  I decided to crop some nuts for us before all the nuts were gone.  We haven't tried green nuts.  But cob nuts ( a sort of hazel nuts) are now in vegetable shops and some supermarkets.  

My children helped to crack the shells.  The nuts are moist and a bit soft.  I could slice them easily.

The sliced nuts were eaten with salad leaves, sprincled balsamic vinegar and virgin olive oil.  They tasted nutty but very subtle and green?,  how I can describe, green crispy vegetable rather than nuts.  I prefer, to be honest, ripe nutty fatty ones.  Yet they were not so bad anyway.

Illustration: Bento

This was the second time to display cabinets in the Cardiff Central Library (See on Facebook, Photos; Cardiff is the capital city of Wales, UK) for the Japan Day to raise awareness of Japanese Culture.  This years Japan Day took place on Saturday 31st May.

I used to display cabinets in department stores and individual shops when I worked for a confectionary and cake company in Japan years ago.  It was a sort of work, but 10 display cabinets at once!  But my friends came to help me to do a lot on the day of display.

Many other friends supported for the display not only on the day of display, by such as creating Japanese calligraphy (amazing!), making origami art (amazing!) and lending invaluable personal belongings.

By the way, this time I drew some illustrations to decorate a couple of empty lunch boxes.

(Please see in Portfolio: Illustration)

Bento, lunch box in Japanese, is a kind of food art, or a treasure box, filled with colourful foods.  I cut the illustrations into the right sizes, fits to each lunch box.

Nowadays in the UK, you can get a lot of Japanese ingredients in supermarkets, but I still miss the traditional lunch box which my mum used to make for her children every morning!

Elderflower Cordial Season

It was a few week ago now.  I took my youngest son as a company for elderflower hunting one warm dry evening after very wet week.  He is a great fun of elderflower cordial.  So was he very delighted to come along with me.

Here and there were the bushes with full of creamy white elderflower.  We cut them just as much as we needed, leave the rest for the bees and the others who might want to make cordials or wine (or champagne).  As the berries ripen in the Autumn, we need leave the flowers for birds and for us making berry cordial.

I like the sweet smell.  We cut the flower from the stems, ready for making cordial.

The flowers are put in a large bowl, together with lemon and orange peels, which add a zesty touch, and left overnight to infuse.

Next day the liquid is carefully strain with a muslin bag.  Sugar, lemon juice citric acid are pour into the liquid and boiled.

Bottled cordial is ready for this summer!

Saturday 17th May 2014, PADLT Plant and Craft Fair, Mobile Prints

Last November the Penarth And District Lesotho Trust (PADLT) was held their first Christmas Craft Fair.  I had a stall for my art pieces.  Although the fair was for the first time and only for 2 hours in the morning, a lot of people came in.  The atmosphere was warm and friendly for all ages.  So, I said yes to have another stall at their first Pant and Craft Fair when having been asked.

Being sold various plants for the summer made me think what kind of new stuff I should bring into the fair.  This is not like the Christmas fair, on which people tend to look for Christmas presents.

Self-making paper hanging mobile of Field Maple sets for the fair are what I am going to raise money for the PADLT.

There are 2 different colour options.  The sheet size is A5, not large.  A thread with beads is included and double-sided tape was attached on the back of the sheet.  

The instruction is simple.  Young children can make with a help of an adult.  Each colour version is sold separately, but it will be a nice hanging mobile with 2 sets.

Apart from this special sale, I am going to bring some new screen prints and greeting cards as well.  (They will be shown in the next dairy.)