Friday D.I.Y.

How are you all? Hope you've all had a great week!

I've had another bonkers busy shoot week, so lots of post production work as well. To take a bit of a breather from the computer, I decided to recover a lamp I've had for ages.

I started off by rolling the lampshade across a large piece of paper, tracing along as I rolled. I then pinned the paper template to the fabric, and cut out. I left about 1/2" on either end, then wrapped the fabric around the shade (wrong side out) and pinned. I then sewed the ends together, and slipped it over the shade. I've done this before with an even larger shade and it works really well. This is a lot less messy and toxic than using spray glue to attach fabric.
Thanks to Lili at The Spool of Thread, for suggesting I make my own binding and showing me how. I used white glue to attach the binding to the top and bottom rims of the shade. The whole process took about an hour.

I love these tiny air plants. I picked them up at The Hach, here in Vancouver. All they need is bright light, and a spritz of water.

Have a great weekend! Back soon.
janis
x

Baked

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you had a great weekend.

I really love baking bread (a great stress reliever!), but I'm finding it does take heaps of practice. I'm trying to make bread that has a little less white flour, so this weekend I attempted Kamut baguettes. This is the third go, and I'm finally starting to get the hang of it. Kamut flour dough takes a little longer to rise, and is a bit more dense than a white flour bread. This recipe is a mix of Kamut and regular flour. They are not a perfect shape, but they do taste good. For some more info on Kamut, click here.

Kamut Baguettes - makes four small baguettes (so they fit in my oven!)

The night before baking:
150 g all purpose flour
150 ml of warm water
1 teaspoon instant yeast

Mix all of the above together in a medium bowl, then knead for a few minutes. Cover bowl with a towel and let sit for one hour. Punch down dough, then cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate over night.

The next day:
200ml of warm water
1 teaspoon salt
100g of all purpose flour
260g of Kamut flour
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon sugar

Take the refrigerated dough out, and add a little of the 200 ml of warm water to it. This will activate the yeast. Let stand for 10 minutes. In a large bowl, mix together the salt, yeast, all purpose flour, kamut flour, sugar and the remaining warm water. Add the refrigerated yeast mixture and combine. Knead dough for about 5 minutes. Place dough in a bowl with a little oil in it, and roll dough to slightly coat. Let stand for one hour, or until dough doubles in bulk.

Divide dough into 4 equal pieces (mine worked out to about 200g each). At this point, I'll direct you to this site for a little baguette shaping lesson. It's really helpful! We might be here all day if I tried to shoot each step ;) This video is based on a regular flour recipe, so don't let it throw you off. Just be concerned with the shaping and scoring.

Once you've shaped and scored your baguettes, place them on a pan with a little cornmeal on the baking sheet, cover with a clean tea towel, and let stand for another 45 minutes. Bake in a 375f oven for about 23-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Enjoy immediately!

If you have any bread baking tips, feel free to pass them on to me ;) Back on Wednesday!
janis

Sunday Observations

Another long weekend comes to a close. It's been so nice. Hope you've all had a nice weekend!

A few things I spotted today....

Museum of Anthropology is located at U.B.C. This beautiful building was designed by the late 

Arthur Erickson. 

Check out their shop online, where you can find this fabulous blanket and heaps more.

Well, that was my world today. What did you do? To those of you in the U.S. I hope you have a fantastic, firework filled, 4th of July!

Back soon.

janis

Canada

I hope you're all having a fantastic day! If you're in Vancouver, quick, head outside, I see a ray of sun ;)

Have a great weekend everyone! Back soon.
janis

City Living

I'm so happy it's a long weekend here. I don't even care if the weather continues to bite!

I thought I'd share another small space with you. I shot it for the lovely people at the Cross.  Have you been to the Cross? If you live in the Vancouver area, I have no doubt you have. ;)

This space is pretty tiny, but it manages to feel roomy. I quite liked the red chair (very comfy) and the bed side sconces. What do you think about this space? Could you live in it? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

I'll be back tomorrow for a little Canada Day post. Have a great day!
janis

Baked

Did you have a good weekend? Hope so! If you are in the Vancouver area, did you thoroughly enjoy our little blip of summer? I'm sure there is more to come ;)

I baked some healthy muffins over the weekend. I just call them "Morning Muffins", as I don't want to call them Raspberry, Brown Rice, Almond, and Orange muffins. When I first tried these out, I thought they might have a have real rice flavour, which I didn't want, but they don't. The orange flavour comes through the most - they're really delicious, especially warm.

Morning Muffins - makes one dozen

1 cup cake and pastry flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup toasted, finely ground almonds
1 cup short grain brown rice
1 1/2 tablespoons orange zest
1 cup plain yogurt, at room temperature
1 egg, at room temperature
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup raspberries, fresh or frozen

Preheat oven to 375f.
Whisk together the ground almonds, flours, baking powder, baking soda, rice, salt and orange zest. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, egg, butter, sugar and vanilla. Pour over the dry ingredients, and stir just to combine. Do not over mix. Fold in raspberries.

Line a 12 hole cupcake tin with paper cups, and fill to 3/4 full with batter. Bake in centre of oven for 15-18 minutes, or until golden on top and a skewer, inserted in centre, comes out clean.
Transfer muffins to a wire rack and serve warm.

Sunday Observations

Oh Sunday, you always seem to appear out of nowhere. We had a bit of summer today, so we took advantage of it. It was a great day! These are a few of my observations for today...

VanDusen Botanical Garden has been around since the 70's, but is now in the middle of a huge rejuvenation project. The image at bottom left, is a model of the new Visitor Centre. Apparently it will be 

Canada's first certified "living building". It's quite an amazing project. Click here, for more info.   

The Found and The Freed, is a fantastic "pop-up" shop here in Vancouver. It's in Gastown, and will be there until July 16th. If you're in the area, I highly recommend it! Lots of great stuff. I found a really well used, "hovis" bread tin so, naturally, I had to buy it. They've sold heaps, but will be adding more great "found and freed" stuff over the next week. See you there?

At the end of the day, we popped by our favourite neighbourhood shop, Walrus, to visit with our friends, 

Caroline and Daniel. Couldn't go empty handed, so we shared a bottle of Prosecco with them. Nice way to wrap up the weekend! While there, I noticed they have a great selection of "plants in a bag, bottle or box". Love the hydroponic herbs (top right), in a recycled wine bottle, and would love the "gingko tree-to-be". Any of these would make a perfect hostess gift...or any kind of gift for that matter ;)

One last thing: I did a post for Poppytalk today. A little long weekend travel inspiration for this summer. Check it out, if you have a moment. Have you been to Tofino BC? Let me know!

It was so nice to just hang out this weekend and relax. What did you guys get up to? Fill me in!

Back soon!

Janis