Chelsea, Flowers, Gardens & Pots.

For those in the UK you may well be aware that Chelsea Flower Show has recently finished. I've never actually been, but I watched it every evening on the BBC. The gardens looked spectacular as always, although I tend to be won over by the cottage style rather than the more industrial creations. But whatever your preference it's always an inspiration to get out and get gardening. This year we're attempting to grow several vegetables, pumpkins, courgettes, lettuces, tomatoes and more. I'm not optimistic about the french beans, they've grown and climbed but their leaves look rather sad and I suspect a neighbourhood slug or snail may be to blame. I don't think they'll be worthy of Chelsea, but if by the end of the season we have anything remotely edible I'll be one proud gardener. If you want to take a look at real award winning veg take a look at www.medwynsofanglesey.co.uk who won Gold this year for their amazing display.

As for the rest of the garden, I like to arrange things as I would in the house, using old objects like pans or watering cans. Most of my plants have been grown from tiny cuttings, the soil is heavy clay which can be a challenge but on the whole most things have grown well.

I would love to have more flowers and slowly I intend to add more. One that seems to enjoy clay soils and is multiplying without any help from me is this aquilegia or granny's bonnet.

I am hoping to go to Tatton Park on July 21-25. I doubt I'll buy any plants as they'll probably be very expensive but I will enjoy all the beautiful gardens and I hope to come home with some inspiration. For anyone living further south there is Hampton Court July 6-11.

In honour of gardening we've created some garden inspired jewellery. Please share your favourite gardening stories or jewellery, we'd love to hear about them.

A Venetian Paper Dream

I've just come back from a short break in Venice, I've been before and the draw of the beautiful artwork, amazing architecture and to die for paper called me back. This time I stayed in a small town called Treviso, it has it's own city walls and canals, and even though it is not technically in Venice, it's beautiful in it's own right.



Once again I couldn't resist the many paper creations. In an earlier post I showed you how I used this to renovate some pine furniture. My favourite shop was hidden down one of the smaller canals, where the window is full with all manner of items made with this stunning paper.



I had to remind myself to rein in the spending though, as prices in Venice seem to have leapt since I last visited and this paper was now 9 Euros a sheet!



My latest project involving this indulgence was turning an old box file into a wall cupboard. It was an ebay purchase and thankfully made of wood. After sanding and treating the front and sides much like I had previous projects I glued on an old wooden ruler, two old keys, a paint brush and some buttons. It sounds a bit odd but I love the finished product and it is now proudly hung upon the wall.





Finally inspired by the key I hung on the cupboard I thought I would hunt you all out some of my favourite key inspired jewellery.

The first necklace is called The Bus Ride by Counting Stiches and can be bought on Etsy.


Next is called Peep Show and is sold by Secret Jewellz also on Etsy.



Finally a couple of our own creations which embrace our love of keys

Reuse, Recycle and Enjoy!

I was recently given two old pieces of furniture from Ikea. The owner was going to take them to the tip but I like to try and recycle things when I can and this furniture fitted into my house just not with it's present look. They had been unfinished bare wood treated with a clear wax, although they still felt quite rough to the touch. I would love to show you the before pics but unfortunately I didn't remember to take any.

I sanded them and then finished the tops with a darker briwax. I painted the bases white with paint tester pots. Finally came the fun stage where I got to play about with designs. I have accumulated quite a lot of decorative paper when in Italy and decided to finally put it to use, it always seemed too special for wrapping presents and then being thrown away. For the first cupboard I decided to cut out really simple house shapes from a variety of Venetian papers. I arranged the pieces in a design I liked and this is the end result.

For the second cupboard I cut out street scenes from paper bought in Florence. Each side had a different scene upon it.

The pictures were stuck on with PVA glue and then varnished afterwards with a quick drying matt varnish. Once this was dry I sanded it with very fine paper. I washed off the dust and varnished again. I did this process another four times until I could hardly feel where the paper pieces were.

These are now two very useful items that cost hardly anything to refurbish, mainly some time.

We Love Wheat Free!!

I've recently decided to put my diet under the micropscope and make some changes to try and improve my health. As wheat free diets seem to be 'in vogue' it seemed like a reasonable place to start, however it presented me with one very big problem..... cakes! Now I appreciate that a health kick and cakes and biscuits for that matter might seem contradictory, but I am looking for a lifestyle change not a quick fix. So I think it would be unreasonable to expect I might not want the odd treat. So with this in mind I hunted out a wheat and gluten free cake recipe and I'm very pleased with the results. I thought I would share this recipe if any of you fancy giving it a go. I've also taste tested it with Abi and her son and there were smiles all round, so it gets a big thumbs up from all of us here.
From this


To this


Gluten Free Banana Loaf

Ingredients

110g/4oz sultanas
110g/4oz butter, softened
110g/4oz caster sugar
2 large eggs, preferably free range
3 large ripe bananas
175g/6oz fine rice flour
50g/2oz cornflour
2 tsp gluten-free baking power
1/2 tsp salt
1kg/2lb loaf tin, lined with baking parchment

Method

1.Preheat the oven 180C/350F/Gas 4
2.Cream the butter and sugar together until pale, light and soft. Add the eggs, one by one, and beat well.
3.Mash the bananas and add to the creamed mixture.
4.Sift the rice flour, cornflour, baking power, and salt together and fold carefully into the banana mixture. Very gently stir in the sultanas.
5.Put the mixture into the greased & lined loaf tin and bake in the oven for about 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 hours until golden on top and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
6.Remove the loaf from the tin and cool on a wire rack.

A Little Less Silver & A Little More Sugar

We've had a change of pace here at Angel Eden, we downed the jewellery tools and reached for the rolling pin. With a party fast approaching we were thrown into full throttle preparation and I thought it would be a lovely idea to share some of our discoveries with you all.

Of course there was the obligatory cake, with a woodland theme we decided a mushroom shaped cake was really the thing required.

This was made from a medeira cake spread with buttercream and then covered in fondant icing.

One tip I have here is the buttercream, if like me you thought buttercream always consisted of just icing sugar and butter, then you'd be wrong. The buttercream here is the best I've ever made, here's the recipe:

4oz Butter
12oz icing sugar
1 tbsp milk (yes milk!)

it gives the perfect consistency and tastes delicious!

After the cake came biscuits. I've always loved the idea of beautiful biscuits, but icing always runs, or stays too tacky leaving it fragile and easily squashed. I looked to the internet and discovered run sugar. This is essentially royal icing but with more water. It therefore dries hard and is very easy to work with. The recipe came from america and includes an item called meringue powder, if you've never heard of this it's wonderful stuff. Thankfully my local cake shop sold it, but it is also widely available to order online. Let us know if you try any of these ideas out and have fun!

Here's the recipe:

1 lb + small 1/4 cup icing sugar
5 Tbsp meringue powder
1/2 cup cool water
A few drops of paste food coloring

The results: