// A little trip I took.

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Viet Nam 2012, a set on Flickr.

In May 2008 I finally returned from my 4.5month trip to South East Asia, 11 months later. You see, when I got to Viet Nam, I got hooked. I loved it. I had no job to go home to, I was offered a job with the organisation I worked with, my boyfriend was his usual amazing self and supported me fully, and I decided to stay.

In March this year, I finally went back! It was amazing. Three whole weeks that really felt more like 2 months. I got up early every morning and went to bed late every night. Some days I napped, mostly I didn’t. In my heart, I’d been half afraid to go back because I really didn’t know what I would do or what it would be like but happily for me it was better than I could have ever imagined. I have more friends there than I remembered and I met so many new and beautiful people. I took so many beautiful photographs too, so without further ado, I give you the beginnings of my photo set.

Via Flickr:
The long awaited return trip to my second homeland…After 3 long years!


// the endless task

I seem to be getting nowhere fast with trying to sort out the endless chaos that is my life…! I try, I do, and then I end up back to square one.

This image is from a Design*Sponge sneak peek I checked out today. It’s so simple and colourful and beautiful. I feel inspired!

 

I’m still 365ing - http://36firechild.tumblr.com/


// I’m still here…

I’m still here but I’m spending some time thinking about what I’m doing here in my online world.

In the meantime, I’m Project365-ing and watching Twin Peaks on Netflix while trying to sort my studio space out…

 


// making: sweet things

for Christmas I wanted to make some gluten free treats for some family members but I wanted them to be quick and easy too. so I thought what better than some coconut macaroons.

Coconut can get boring after a while and this recipe is quite sweet so I wanted to make the macaroons big enough to enjoy with a coffee but small enough not to make anyone sick of them! I thought it might work well to dip them in dark chocolate to balance out the sweetness too. I think it worked.

I took the recipe from All Recipes but I’ll relay it here for the sake of handiness.

  • 5 1/2 cups flaked coconut (for me, that was 2 bags)
  • 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
I mixed the essences into the milk in the bowl first and then added the coconut. Be prepared, it takes quite a bit of stirring to get it well mixed!
Following the advice of a comment on that page, I left the mixture in the fridge overnight to set before baking – it just makes the mixture less flaky.

Baking at 350′F takes 8-10 minutes, I tried a batch at 325′F for a little longer but I think I left them a bit too long……so yeah, it’s up to you really.

After cooling and swatting many snatchy hands away from the little balls of coconutty goodness, I melted a bar of dark chocolate in a beautiful double saucepan that belonged to my boyfriend’s grandmother. I found it under the stairs, washed the years of dust off and it was perfect! I found out the next day that it hadn’t been used since WWII….and that was to cook vegetables! Can you imagine? I love the history that surrounds me in this house.

When dipped and cooled (in the fridge so the chocolate stays glossy) I wrapped the bites in squares of greaseproof paper – it made them feel a little more special and keeps them from damaging each other in the jar.

So there you have it, chocolate dipped coconut macaroons. Not suitable for the vegans in your life but I’ll have a recipe for them coming up soon.
Thanks for reading,
éad
PS- I got a beautiful new flash for Christmas and this was my first shoot with it…not so bad, I’m still learning a lot though.

// on keeping it up….

I’m letting go of this again and hoping to reign it back in…I’ve done this before you know; started a blog and then just let it go. But this time, I’m going to keep going. So I lagged, so what, right?

I’ve set up my Project 365 Tumblr and I’m hoping to keep that going too, here’s to a success! Follow me if you’re into it.

 

And here’s a nice picture of my family’s Christmas tree – we put it up while watching ‘A Christmas Story’ on December 23rd, we thought it was time enough!


// Tiny Desk Concerts

Have you ever listened? I just listened to Gabriel Kahane and felt the need to tell you that you’ve got to listen.

The series is brilliant, the first I ever heard of it was when Adele (above) sang her own Tiny Desk Concert and I just fell in love with the idea straight away. Genius!

Click the picture to get to the website, sit back and enjoy!


// more photographs

DSC_0323 by helloFirechild
DSC_0323, a photo by helloFirechild on Flickr.

This is a shot from a live gig I shot a few weeks ago in Kilkenny, Ireland.
I just had to share it, I mean, look at that little mush!

The eyes! Oh!

You can hear the band, Syllian Rayle, here.


// winter warmer soup

I don’t really follow recipes…….I like to check them quickly to see what ingredients do what and then I tend to make it up as I go along. So that’s what happened here and rather than give you measurements, I’m just going to give you a rough guide!

Ingredients:
*  2 onions
* 4 cloves of garlic
*4 carrots
* 2 parsnips
* 5 sticks of celery
* a medium piece of ginger (ahem, see measurement unit below.)
* 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
* 1 stock cube
* a kettle-full of boiled water (a pint or two)
* 3 bay leaves
* 1 tin of mixed bean salad

Firstly just fry off some onions and garlic in a bit of butter (or oil if you’re vegan) – let them soften right down and go clear over a low heat. While that’s going on and making the place smell great already get peeling with the veg. I kept this simple so I used carrots, parsnips and celery. As you chop just throw them in the pot and keep the heat low.

When all the veg are in take a large chunk of fresh root ginger – maybe two curled fingers worth. (Is that a unit of measurement? You get it though, right?) When that’s in, throw in a can of chopped tomatoes and the stock cube (crumbled).

The next part, I have no measurement for at all…The veg need water to boil in and they need just about enough to cover them. You can always add a little more water later if you want but right now, enough for the veg to boil in. After that, two bay leaves and leave to simmer until the vegetables are soft.

When the veg are cooked you need to take the bay leaves out and leave the soup to cool. It should look a little like this:


(By the way, it doesn’t need to be cold but when you ‘whizz’ the soup you don’t want it to be boiling or you’ll scald yourself if you splash it – source:  first hand experience…)

When the soup is smoothened to your liking just take a can of mixed beans and throw them in and ta daaaaaaaaa! Beautiful winter warmer soup.
To serve sprinkle some toasted pumpkin seeds and a little seasoning and there you have it.
Enjoy!


// Burlesque Powderpuffs

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A dear friend of mine is a wonderful burlesque performer and she asked me to make some powderpuffs for her for a new routine she recently created and I wanted to share with you how I did it.

We chose the cushion pads online (18″) and some amazing sherpa fleece fabric from a local fabric shop.

Because this is my first tutorial the photos are very sparse and almost irrelevant., I’m sorry. You’ll just have to forgive me and use your imagination a little for this one!

Step one – The cushion pads had a small gusset seam around the edges so I took a measurement from the centre of the cushion to the centre line of the gusset. Next I took some tracing paper and taking a square a little bigger than I needed, I drew a threaded needle up through the centre of the paper.

I marked the diameter of the cushion (half the width of the circle) on the thread and used that to draw myself a circle, marking the paper as I went with my chalk. NOTE – I included a 1″ seam allowance on my measurement.
As I was making a pair, I cut 4 of these circles and laid them in pairs, wrong side together.

Step 2 – Because these aren’t cushions, I chose not to put a zip on the covers and simply stitch them shut so after pinning the pieces and checking how big the opening had to be I sewed the pieces wrong side together.

*When you’re sewing thick fleece like this fabric you need to reduce the pressure on the foot and also the stitch tension – it’s a good idea to do a few careful test runs first. I reduced the tension a lot and used a zig zag stitch.
After I’d sewed the pieces I nicked the seams to allow the fabric to curve without big lumps of fabric ruining the seam.

Step three – I rolled the cushion pad up to fit it into the opening left on the covers, turned the covers right side out and watched my powderpuff take shape! Then I handstitched the opening – remembering to keep the curve of the cushion!! (in the second one anyway….)

Step four – Admire the beautiful softness!!

I hope you enjoyed my first attempt at a tutorial, next time I’ll remember to take photos!

I’ll leave you with one more picture: Ginger Rogers performing her powderpuff piece


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