La fete

I simply love this short animation by Malcolm Sutherland.

I LollyLoves these clothes!

Brainchild of Lauren Forman, lollyloves.com is an online store stocking the clothes of up and coming South African designers. To win a voucher worth R500 visit luckypony.co.za.

Take a look below at some of the pieces you can buy if you're the lucky winner!

tupp-a-lamp

Such innovative lamps designed by Frank Cricsione! He reuses vintage tupperware as light fixtures.

He describes himself: Seeking challenge and excitement every day, I am a creative and dedicated designer with an experienced work ethic and a talent for developing simple and elegant solutions to interesting problems.

A5 Owl Journal

A month ago I was asked to design and make a journal as a present for a lovely lady's boyfriend. She wanted it to be A5 in size and have an embroidered owl underneath the flap, so the owl would be a surprise. I enjoyed making this journal so much and was very glad to hear she liked it too!

I welcome orders that are unique so please feel free to let me know what your preferences are! I do everything by hand so please allow 3-4 days after placing the order for delivery.

Domino cookies.....yes, its real!

Dominoe cookies...say what?! I would test the domino effect by building a row of them which ends in my mouth. So cool.
from Chris Court Photography

My second commissioned portrait sketch

I just completed my second commissioned portrait sketch (1st picture). It was quite hard to see all the details on the photo as it was blurred but I'm happy with how it looked in the end. The second picture (guy with scarf)was the first one I did and that I also blogged about it a while back.

Both are pencil on paper.

Vintage pictures from my gran's crochet file

Some vintage pictures from my gran's crochet file containing pictures and crochet instructions which dates back to the 1950's. cool hey?

Red velvety cupcakes

I made red velvet cupcakes for the first time the other day and it came out full of red awesomeness! This recipe is quite easy to follow if you want to try it out too. Unfortunately my icing thingamajig broke so I had to apply the icing with a knife. I don't think it came out too bad. The best part is, it makes your whole mouth red, inside and out!

Red Velvet Cupcakes: (makes 24 cupcakes)

2 large eggs

375ml (1 1/2 cups) castor sugar

250ml (1 cup) buttermilk

375ml (1 1/2cups) oil

30ml (2T) red food colouring

5ml (1t) white vinegar

5ml (1t) vanilla essence

687ml (2 3/4 cups) cake flour

10ml (2t) cocoa

5ml (1t) baking soda

1ml salt

Icing:

125g (1/4 butter)

750ml (3 cups) icing sugar, sifted

5ml (1t) vanilla essence

a little milk

Set oven to 180 C. Beat eggs and castor sugar until light yellow.

Add buttermilk, oil, food colouring, white vinegar and vanilla and beat together well.

Sift cake flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt two times.

Mix flour-mixture with egg-mixture until well blended.

Place 24 cupcake wrappers in muffin pans and divide batter between them. Only fill each holder until 3/4 full.

Bake cupcakes for 15-17min. or until done (determine this by inserting a toothpick into the centre, when it comes out clean (not wet) the cupcakes are done!)

Remove cupcakes from pans and let them cool on a wire shelf.

For the icing:

Cream butter until light yellow. Add icing sugar and vanilla essence. Beat until creamy.

Add a little milk if needed. Ice the cupcakes and enjoy!

Ze French corner - Franschhoek

I recently visited Franschhoek again after 8 years and almost couldn't believe my eyes. It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. Even more magnificent than I remember. It felt like I was dreaming the whole time (and it wasn't the wine). The streets are so clean and the houses well-kept, the town is surrounded by mountains and vineyards and when driving over the Franschhoek Pass I felt like I wanted to fly across the valley to take in all the beauty.

I visited the Chocalaterie (Huguenot Fine Chocolates) and bought 3 truffels. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of those as they were gobbled up too quickly. For lunch I had pancakes with mince and banana and a glass of Porcupine Sauvignon Blanc at Essence Restaurant and Coffee Bar. Oh it was so nice.

Franschhoek saturates the senses.

The Present Project

presents from me to Giselle

presents from Giselle to me

Hello dear blogreaders (all 5 of you).... it's been about a month since I last blogged and I'm so glad to be at it again! I want to show you the pretty presents I received form Giselle from http://www.lavenderbluebeauty.blogspot.com/

Both of us, along with many others, took part in Angie's Present Project. We were teamed up and everyone had to send each other gifts. It was lots of fun getting to know each other and deciding on what to send. I sent Giselle a handmade leatherbound journal, a crocheted winter bracelet and buttons! She LOVES buttons so I snatched some vintage one's from my grandma's tin...heehee. I also made her a bunny card for Easter.

Giselle sent me some of her lovely handmade jewellery, including a button necklace, button earrings and bracelet. She also made me a very fancy card and wrapped my presents in pretty pink polka-dot paper 

(wow lots of P's!). That's me in the bottom pictures adorned with my new jewellery and wearing my mother's 80's lace top.

My heart wanders

WoW.

What I have seen regarding this book takes my breath away. It is so beautiful. And dreamy.

It inspires me to dream in detail and believe more in the possibility of my dreams actually happening.

I so enjoy finding good things in this world.

And this book is certainly one of them! 

View more pictures here:

http://www.piajanebijkerk.com/my-heart-wanders/

A perfect day

Today was a perfect day. I delivered some stock, got paid, walked around in the city, took photos and found two treasures in the form of second hand books. Plus they were really cheap! The first one is called "Diana+: True Tales & Short Stories" and the other one "A Little Gallery of Hoppner". I have no idea who Hoppner is but it is full of really pretty illustrations. And then there's the Diana+ book, what more can I say. So cool. It tells you everything about the Diana cameras and has a wide variety of lomographic examples. Total cost = 30 bucks.

I smile :)

Vintage button journals

I decided to use pretty vintage buttons on some of the journals I recently made. I found them in a tin given to me by my grandmother. It belonged to her mother so its definitely vintage!

Let's go sailing

background picture by carolynshope

Lets go sailing.

Let's get a bite to eat.

Let's talk about movies.

Let's go to sleep.

lyrics by the moldy peaches "jorge regula"

Oh sweet valentine!

I love this journal. Its sweet and says "I love you" and it has a little heart on the inside to prove it. The perfect gift for a sweet valentine! Let me know if you want to place an order!

xoxo

Journal making and beachy times

These past 3 weeks I've been busy with my biggest journal order to date. I'm finally finished now and have come up with revolutionary new binding methods. I went to the beach on supermoon- night and it was cool. There was smoke in the air because of a fire in the area and it gave the evening sky a beautiful orangey glow as the sun was setting.

Before and After: Chest of Drawers

I bought this chest of drawers a few months ago and finally got around to giving it a makeover. I drew inspiration from the beautiful pieces sold by Vamp Furniture as well as Saks Corner, both in Woodstock, Cape Town. The knobs on the drawers are from Poetry.

It took a lot of hard work that included sanding, painting, glueing and clamping, but I must say, I am very happy with the end result. I also learned a lot and have a good tip: if the drawers run on timber, rub a candle over the pieces on the sides of each drawer as well as on the parts that enable the them to slide. It really works wonders!

Join in the fun!

Hey everyone, if you'd like to be part of a music video animation go to http://www.drawingthislove.com/ and sign up. You can download a frame and colour it by hand and at the end, its put together to create a very cool music video.

Have fun!