Author: Marina

Carrot cake

Got a fantastic carrot cake’s recipe from my mum’s cousin….she actually baked one for me to taste before giving away all the secrets! it was so good….

I’m not good at baking cakes, but I’m planning on getting better at it, so I’ve decided I will start recording all my attempts, bad and good ones, to see if I can improve a bit. 
I might start a baking project once we come back home from the summer holidays, maybe one baking attempt every week, if I can keep up with it!
Here’s the recipe:

Cross stitch fan…not!

We started to receive baby gifts from family and friends! G’s auntie gave us a yellow baby bib with some plain Aida fabric on the front. Since I realised I don’t particularly like proper baby motifs, I chose a stylised tree instead. I initially picked yellow and blue anchor threads, but didn’t like the finished stitch effect (too messy!), so I swapped it for some embroidery thread which was easier to use. After stitching the middle tree I decided to add two other colours to make it less boring and picked some olive green and a lighter blue. Did like the overall results, although I don’t think I like cross stitching very much…….

Summer sketches – Part 2





Here is another batch of sketches done in Pescina (L’Aquila). It has been very hot during the past week, and was almost impossible to stay outside during the day because of the heat….got sunburnt one morning at 10am while sketching under the sun! Best time was in the evening around 8pm when the sun was setting behing the mountains, the colours were magnificent…not very well captured in the sketches above 🙁

Summer sketches – Part 1



We are finally off to Italy for a well deserved summer break! First stop is Pescina, up on the mountains of Abruzzo, in central Italy, to visit my partner’s family.
The town is in the middle of what used to be a lake, il Fucino, drained in 1875. Nowadays it’s a patchwork of cultivated land surrounded by the Sirente-Velino and Vallelonga mountains.

Pyracantha coccinea – Step by step

The Pyracantha coccinea is ashrub which produces masses of white flowers in May that turn into red berries in late autumn. There is plenty of those where I live; I picked a small branch on my way home from work about a month ago. First thing I did was to draw the branch on tracing paper; I then marked the outline with a Staedler fineliner.

I transferred the picture on Fabriano Accademia watercolour paper and masked the whole of the drawing.

I used a bright orange for the background to match the orange theme in my living room. Did two washes as the first one was too pale after drying.

I then removed the masking fluid and re-applied it only on the flowers and stems in front of the leaves.
I painted the leaves with three different shades of green, then removed the masking and painted the stems. The outline of the drawing was however not very precise as the tool used for applying the masking fluid had a large tip. So I decided to outline the edges with a black pen, and this is the final result.