Enchantment :Ruche-A Melodic Daydream

Enchanted with Ruche's lookbook: http://bit.ly/y0qdcW

I adore Ruche clothes!
Their new lookbook is filled with gorgeous Spring clothes.

I have to say that this is my favorite one

Sigh....

PS love those fabric kites! Go here for a gorgeous desktop background using this!

weekend l Shop Update

The weekend was rather uneventful, but relaxing and enjoyable.
The light this time of year changing, taking on a peaceful, light and autumn feel.

We enjoyed spending time outside-swimming, working in the garden, having a picnic on the grass under the shade of the trees.

Nothing like a slice of homemade carrot cake and a cup of tea.

Little one reading out loud to me "The Witches" by Roald Dhal.

The cat joining us on our picnic...

Later, walking the neighborhood while the kids rode their bikes and I took photo's of interest.

Enjoying the sunset, catching some unique bokeh, trees and light!

And checking up on our bunnies...

Working hard to get my shop updated. FULL of new products

Hair accessories

Paper garlands

Mini Journals

Brooches and clips

Vintage inspired scrapbooking kits

Pretties and cool things

Hello!
I decided my blog needed a new, fresh and updated look for 2012! What do you think?

I just wanted to share something pretty and cool for today.
First up is Ruche. I love Ruche!
Their new look book is stunning. Here are some images from it.
Which I couldn't help but use some cool digital washi tape I found here.

Don't you just love those huge flowers!

Plus a color combo I made using this awesome color bar action from the coffeeshopblog, from a photo I took of some flowers.

I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and happy , looking at all those yummy springy and summery colors!

Thank you / request

Thank you for your kind words on the loss of my friend.

I am doing a bit better.

I have been thinking about what I can do to help in a practical way and I can see what a great joy the scrap book I made together with the help of a friend of mine, has made. When the dad came to fetch it, he thanked me and I could see how much it meant it to him. I know he will enjoy showing his family and her family.

This brings me to what I what I wanted to say today...

I am going to continue making scrap pages as the baby grows, for him to slot into his album.
I thought about all the ways I could help and to me, memory keeping is a very important part of life. It's about where you have come from and all the many people that will enter this little boy's life.

So, if you would like to contribute in any way to this ongoing project, please email me at bouncingbonbon{at}gmail{dot}com. If you have any embellishments, 12 x 12 papers, card stock or even left over boyish pieces of paper from your own personal projects or even make a 12x12 page, with a area he could stick a 4x6" photo onto. I would be happy to use them.

If you are a scrapper, you know how precious memories are and this dad needs a record of memories as his baby grows, for him and his son and their families.

Thank you. xxx

A heavy heart...

I don't really know how to put this all into words, so please bear with me as I try...

It's been a very rough few days since last week Wednesday when it all started.
But I wanted to say why I have been so quiet and that I just need time and will be back in blog land when I feel I am ready.

A friend of mine, who I gave her baby shower for on the 16th Jan, passed away on the 9 Feb.
She had her baby on the 8th Feb, but there were complications and she developed a condition known as pre-eclampsia as well as HELLP.
So many treatments were given her, but her condition was too severe and early Thursday morning on the 9th Feb, she passed away.

She was only married for just short of 3 years. This was their first baby. She was only 31.
A beautiful, soft-spoken, kind, friendly and amazingly strong person...I will miss her terribly.

So now we have all pitched in to help this poor man with his baby. He has been amazing and coping so well. So bittersweet. He is so happy and proud to be a new dad and so tender with his newborn son, kissing his soft little cheeks and yet you can see the sorrow etched in his eyes for the loss of his dear wife and child's mother.

Yesterday afternoon from 3:30 until 10pm I sat, along with a friend of mine, and make a scrap book album of her baby shower and of baby's first few days for him to take to his/her family who he is going to go and see as they live far away.I didn't know it was going to be so hard but I am so grateful that I could do something that I know will last a long time and bring him good memories as his son grows...

see you all soon....

♥Nutmeg and Granadilla Cheesecake♥

Hello!

Food again? I know...I just can't help it!
This picture is making me so hungry right now!

I took an average everyday cheesecake recipe and put my own little spin on it and I ♥LOVE♥
how it came out!!

You can use just about any cheesecake recipe you have, all I did differently was to add a few shakes of nutmeg into the biscuit base! (about half a teaspoon roughly). It just gave it this amazing zing, together with the granadilla pulp on top..

Hmm Hmm mmmm.....

Basil pesto and summer salad/vinaigrette recipes

Hello friends
The weekend was pretty much uneventful, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Lately I am really into cooking new recipes. I think it's a combination of being utterly sick to death of the same-old, same-old recipes and also a bit of an addiction to cooking programs like Masterchef and 5 ingredient fix. I just love watching cooking programs!
Which is rather odd since I don't have a particular affinity for cooking!

However, saying that, the more I discover new recipes and the more I actually understand food, what flavors and textures work together and what doesn't, the more I want to experiment and just make new things.

So this past weekend I tried to make my own salad dressing/vinaigrette.
It is lovely! Tangy and a bit sweet and just so easy too. The nice thing is that the more I learn how to make things from scratch, the more I am cutting out on preservatives and all that yucky gunk we put into our bodies.

Then I made pasta with homemade basil pesto.

Again, who would of thought pesto would be so easy to make? In fact it is so easy, I thought I would share the recipe here:

(click on recipe to view larger or to download)

The ingredients:

Step one

step two

2) Basic Salad Vinaigrette And Salad recipe.

I sort of threw this salad together over the weekend and just loved the flavor combinations it produced, so I am now officially calling it my summer salad! I am sure others have used the exact same combinations before, but I haven't had a salad like this before and I just loved it!

I also made my own salad vinaigrette, which I am including for you.

I hope you give it a try and let me know how it went!
xx

Cherries

Hi friends
Remember I told you we went cherry picking again last year?

I promised to share the photo's of the "fruits" of my labor.

Here is the delicious Cherry crumble I made....

Cherries are really yum but the part I hate is the De-stoning or De-piping, {what do you call it?}
It's a pain! I counted I had done over 1000 cherries....can you believe it? My hands were stained red for a while...

I made Cherry ice-cream and a cherry crumble and then froze the rest.



I'm still enjoying them as I use a few every morning in my breakfast which is a yogurt and fruit smoothie. Delicious! And the nice thing about frozen cherries {or any frozen fruit} is that it makes the smoothie icy cold which by 7 or 8am here, is much needed considering it's so hot already!

Would anybody like the recipes for the cherry ice cream or cherry crumble?Just shout and I will be sure to share.