Get your crochet on!

It's been a while, so I decided it was time to dust off my crochet needle, find me some good wool and just sit and meditate while working. It's unbelievable how relaxing this is, aside from the finger cramps after a while.

My new eReader inspired me to make a pretty protective sleeve for it. I didn't have the right colors to match my own eReader, so this one's up for sale at Stoffer + Blik. Just bouhgt a whole bunch of new pretty yarn, so I will be making one for myself soon!

Hello Yellow

Ok, it has been warm and sunny here too. But in general Holland doesn't have as many sunny days as the countries a little more south of us. So we must be clever and surround ourselves with a sunny summer in a different way.

It won't give you the vitamin D, but these sunny shades of yellow will give you an instant boost of happiness. It doesn't get more summer than this. Bright, bold & happy.

The illustration of the lemon is my 'Hello Sourpuss' postcard. You can get it here.

Cookie Monster

If I see a recipe of something sweet & simple and I have everything I need right there in my cupboard...oh I can't resist. That's what happened today. I was flipping through the magazine of our local supermarket and there they were, mocking me. Make me, bake me, eat me!

So yeah, that happens quite often. And yeah, I also tend to eat 'm all...even if they don't turn out as delicious as I had expected. But these on the other hand....these taste like heaven on a plate. I should have known when I started on the batter and I couldn't stop.

Ok, I will no longer keep you wondering what these beauties are made of. It's real simple. This should make about 12 to 15 cookies, depending on how much batter you have been eating...

• 150 grams of unsalted butter
• 20 grams of icing sugar
• pinch of salt
• pinch of cinnamon powder
• 30 grams of milk
• 70 grams of sugar
• 200 grams of all purpose flour

You have that in your cupboard, don't you? So what are you waiting for?

Preheat the oven at 160 degrees. Mix the butter, icing sugar, salt, cinnamon, milk and sugar to a creamy batter. Then mix the flour into the batter and fill a piping bag (make sure the opening is big enough, because it's a thick batter). Figure out the shape you want and squeeze the batter on a tray lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle some sugar mixed with cinnamon powder on top before baking for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

And if you want to go all fancy, you can dip half of the cookies in melted dark chocolate (wait for the cookies to cool off before dipping them in the chocolate). Obviously I couldn't do this, since chocolate never lasts longer than a day here...

Enjoy!

Thanks to 24Kitchen @ Hallo Jumbo magazine. 
(These photos are my own and my cookies look nothing like the ones in the magazine...)

Postcard Poll & Giveaway!

Let me know which of these postcards you like best and I might send it to you. As a big thank you for your opinion! 

I will put all your names in a big bowl and randomly pick one of the contestants who wins their favorite postcard. Since it's all kind of new here, you probably have a very good chance of actually winning this! 

So don't make me wait any longer and let me know which one's your favorite! You can tell me in the comments below or email me. Don't forget to mention the card poll and the letter of your favorite card.

(Make sure I can reach you to ask for your address if you have won. So leave your email address in de comments or send me an email if you want to keep it private!) 

This poll & giveaway will end at the 12th of August, 2013. At the end of that day the winner will be announced here and on twitter. The card will be on its way as soon as I know where to send it! (anywhere in the world!)

You didn't win? See them up close? Curious what else I've got? Or you want all of them? You can get them here. 

Thanks so much for letting me know what you think!

The story of the Nepalese teapot

This teapot is the start of my postcard collection. It gave me the confidence to keep drawing until I had enough designs to get them professionally printed and put them up for sale.

Years ago I bought a beautiful heavy metallic teapot from Turkey. Not the kind of tourist crap you see on every street corner, but a real one. Back home it stood there being pretty on a small table all by itself. It needed company. A few years later in Maroc I found another beautiful teapot with a completely different shape, but the same metallic. The perfect match for my Turkish teapot.

The two were just happy together, until I went to Nepal and the most gorgeous handmade little teapot caught my eye. I bargained and I begged and I almost walked away, but I couldn't leave without it. I gave the man the rupees he had asked for.

Now the three of them make a tiny collection and I have every intention of making it a big happy family, all different shapes, sizes and most important: nationalities.


Back to the postcard. One day I walked past that little table and smiled at the sight of them standing there. I took a good look at the Nepalese one, all the fine details. I felt like drawing it. I sat down with a piece of paper and a pencil and just began. It took a while to get every detail there, but I completely lost track of time. I then tracked the pencil drawing with brown ink and a dip pen. I scanned and edited it on the computer. Et voila.

I added some color in the form of blue drops and there it was: the first approved design.
If you like it, you can buy yours here.

There's more inspiration that came from my trip to India & Nepal. You will find the outcome of that in a little while at the Stoffer + Blik webshop.

Teal & Turquoise

Teal & Turquoise. I love love love these colors. 

It doesn't even matter what the product is, if it's this blue-greenish summer color I am looking at it and kind of want to take it home too. Just because it's so pretty.

Teal gets its name from the common teal, a type of duck with this color around its eyes. So if anytime soon I have a new pet duck, you know what happened...

The leather bracelet in the middle on the right is for sale at Stoffer + Blik. You can get it here. 

Do you have a favorite color? Let me know in the comments below and I'll make a collage of it soon. 

You need this...

...cookbook. Really, you do.

I have bought my fair share of cookbooks I hardly use. I am a sucker for good design and beautiful books just make me a little weak in the knees. So does good food.

But a beautiful cookbook isn't always a good cookbook. Some of them make you spend your entire weekly grocery budget on just one or two recipes. Or make you go to a tiny tropical store that you can never find. Okay, I live in a big city, so if I tried I could probably get it. But I am also a bit lazy. Others promise mouthwatering dishes that look like heaven, but they turn out to be way to sour, too salty, too - you name it -. And they never, I mean never, come out looking like that gorgeous photograph.

And then I bought Veg! Yes, it was the sucker for beauty in me that picked it up. Then I felt that deliciously heavy matte paper. I almost immediately decided right then and there that this beauty was mine, but before running happily to the counter I could get myself to take a look at the lists of ingredients first. Nothing too long or too strange. But you never really know until you start using it.

Of course I bought it. And I am so happy I did. This is my all time favorite cookbook. I flip the pages and see something delicious on every page and it actually looks like it's really quite simple. And it is! If you are used to cooking with fresh ingredients, you really don't need to get that much for a recipe.

It's over 400 pages, 200 recipes, it's all veggies and it's all good.

One of my favorites is the fresh flat bread (you can really use for everything and is so simple & delicious) with spicy pumpkin (page 189 / Dutch version). I have made recipes from this book for friends many times and it's always a success. I find myself using this book almost everyday.

Dutch: Veg! Het River Cottage boek met groenten in de hoofdrol - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
English: River Cottage Veg - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

When time is on your side...

I have been working on Stoffer + Blik for about a year now. Trying to figure out what I wanted to make, what I cán make (yes there have been quite a few failed experiments), what looks & feels right and how it could all come together as one brand.

It all just calmly progressed. My 'to sell' pile became a little bigger every month, even though many things were dismissed as 'not good enough' or 'too much work'. I started thinking about the branding and designed a logo and a website. This all gradually happened without any pressure. And then all of a sudden there was time. That was all I needed to make this really happen. I needed to just start somewhere, sit down and get the complicated stuff over with. Because waiting for perfection is not getting anyone anywhere.

The last couple of months I have spent all my time setting up my Etsy shop & creating my website. I spent hours and hours on getting my postcards professionally printed, product photography, descriptions and so on. And then there is social media, newsletters and obsessively looking at your Etsy stats. That last one is a waste of time, I know. And hopefully that urge will fade over time.

But for now I can say I have worked really hard on Stoffer + Blik and I am extremely proud of it. It will need my constant attention and the road to perfection is a long one. But I'm up for it. Let's see what happens from here.

Did you start your own shop or are you thinking about it? I would love to hear about your experiences with these things.

You can read my very first newsletter here. You can subscribe if you don't want to miss any new products or the giveaway that I have been thinking about... www.stofferblik.nl