Crafters work so hard, it's a constant struggle to stay on the ball. Create something unique that captures the imagination of people. They work hard, and for most of them they work hard for very little. But they do it with love, care and loads of creativity.

Yes, factory made items in China are cheaper. They're also a dime a dozen. If you want to give or have something original, support your local crafters 

Happy Holidays everyone

Evi

Birthday

15% OFF everything, from OCTOBER 3rd til OCTOBER 10th. I'm feeling generous during the last week in my 20's. Enjoy this gift from me to you!

USE COUPON CODE: "MYBDAY"

http://www.etsy.com/shop/AedanSeppe?ref=si_shop

Summer treat! Homemade Smoothies

Another heat inspired creation! Fat free, filled with tons of vitamins, liquid (cos we need it even more this season!) and oh so yummy!!

I recently started making smoothies, wanting to drink something different and refreshing. They are now a hit at our house and I make em pretty much daily.
The options for flavors are endless! It's whatever fruit you love or whatever fruit you happen to have in the house.

I've never been a fan of frozen fruit, I guess I never knew what to do with em. BUT! Now I have to have it in the house all the time for smoothies.

You'll need a blender

Ingredients:

Fruit (preferably frozen but other will work too)

Yogurt (I use fat free)

Juice (any kind really, it's up to your taste buds)

if your fruit is NOT frozen you will also need a handful of ice cubes

Here's what i used!

Frozen Strawberries and blueberries

Fat free vanilla yogurt and Strawberry banana juice

Toss in your blender, your fruit, add a dollop of yogurt and finish off with a good splash of juice. The more juice the more liquid it becomes.

Blend blend BLEND!! This is the part my toddler hates, NOISE! lol

for NON FROZEN FRUIT: toss your ice cubes in now :)

I was feeling fancy and poured it in a wine glass and finished off with a fresh (non frozen) strawberry

I find this the perfect drink after a workout. I work out in the evening and will come home feeling tired and hungry. Not wanting to pig out because it's later in the evening this is the perfect snack/drink. It fills me up, gives me energy and fixes any cravings

Enjoy!

Evi

Homemade Pizza pockets

Now I don't know how you feel about cooking in the summer, but me personally...I'm not a fan. The kitchen gets hot and I get cranky. On top, I'd rather be doing other things like play with my toddler and enjoy the outdoors.

So here's a little something I do do to have some food for a few days and a snack/small meal in the freezer.

First I make a HUGE pot of spaghetti sauce. I put lots of fresh veggies, like carrots, celery, bell peppers,.... sometimes mushrooms in mine :)

Let it cool.

Now for the pizza pockets. First, dinner rolls! I buy em frozen, prepare them according to the directions (this may include 4-5 hours of the dough rising before baking)

While these are cooling off, let's work on the filling for the pizza pockets
First your ingredients. This can be pretty much anything you like.
For these I chose

The spaghetti sauce I made beforehand





Peperoni






And grated cheese







Take a mixing bowl, add a few big scoops of your sauce.
Then take your pepperoni, slice it in thin strips and toss it in the sauce
Lastly, grab a handful of cheese and add it to the mix.
Stir everything together til it looks like this









Now for the fun part. Take your rolls, that have cooled off by now. Cut a slit in it at the top. Only at the top, be careful not to cut and open the sides or bottom. We just want a hole on top to fill it :)
It will look like this when you push it open








I have found out the a desert spoon is the perfect size to fill them up and not rip the roll. You can use it, to gently open up the roll a bit more before stuffing.
like this





Stuff them til they're full. Don't try to cram in too much, they'll rip.
When filled they'll look something like this :)






And lastly, put them in a freezer bag, I put them with the openings facing each other. It keeps everything nice and clean.
Make sure to put a date on the bag, and pop em in the freezer!








Now all you have to do when you get them out of the freezer is put them in the microwave for about a minute per pizza pocket.
You'll have a quick late night snack. Your kids will love them.
Heck you can even use them as appetizers for your next party :)



As what I did with the rest of the spaghetti sauce? We had spaghetti that night for dinner and the day after I made a home made lasagna with what was left!

YUM YUM YUM!!! Hope you liked it


Evi

Fitted Sheet tutorial

My mom taught me how to fold fitted sheets, so I wasn't aware these can be a nightmare for some. It's really not hard once you know the trick to it :)

First: clean but messy King size sheet!

Next fold it in half

and make sure to tuck the corners in

After you did that fold it in half, this time again tuck the corners in. all 4 corners will now be tucked in together

Smooth out your sheets :)

I fold my sheets in 3, this depends on the size of your sheet or however it is you want to fold em. in my case, folded it up once

Folded it up again :)

And a final fold! All clean. Quick and easy!

Hopefully this tutorial made sense to you and not only in my head LOL

Happy folding!!!

Evi

Photographing your items

Now I'm not perfect at it either, I have a fairly cheap digital camera but i try to make it work.

The things I've learned so far.

* NATURAL LIGHT! take it outside but avoid being in direct super bright sunlight

* photoshop your items to make them look like they REALLY look. A little bit of saturation and brightness. It will make ALL the difference

* when sizing your photo's I always re-size em to 800x600. It's what seems to work best for me.

* be creative in your angles, don't be afraid to try something different. These days with digital cameras it's so easy to just delete what you don't like. you have nothing to lose only awesome pictures to gain.

* backdrops, really depends on your items but a big general rule would be. Your backdrop should't take away from your item. Sometimes the backdrop is so busy and gorgeous you stop looking at what you're supposed to look at... your awesome listing! So be creative but don't go over the top.

* also when it comes to your pictures, try to make all your listings look like they "go together" somewhat. A similar backdrop is great for that, could be anything from a wall, branch, book, color, ...
For example, my shop is really eclectic in items and colors. But I try to make it consistent by using the same few back drops. In the beginning my shop looked chaotic when I didn't do this. It's a lot more crisp and dare i say professional looking.


These are the things I think of at the top of my head.
I hope you find it helpful

What are your tips?

Evi

Time for an update on life!

It has been a while since I sat down and wrote a blog....OH IRONY! My hubby just showed up behind me saying I stole the pc from him. Dangit I wanna blog nowwwwwwwwww *pouts*.

*hunches over a little and decides to ignore her husband*

Today has been a really good day! First off, I received my sons birth certificate in the mail (he's gonna be 1year old on June 16, about time huh LOL) But this means I can enroll us both together in the Belgian embassy in NY . Sounds so fancy! My paperwork will be going to the coolest, I can only dream of haha *sobs loudly*. I can also now go get him a passport so he can travel. YAY! I've been wanting to go see my family and friends for so long, if he can travel it'll finally happen ^_^

I also managed to finish a gift for somebody today. I will be able to show it as soon as I've given the gift. But I can tell you it WAY CUTE!

Thennnnnnnnnnn the lovely Stephanie from http://twolittlebluebirds.blogspot.com/ told me she was awesome enough to nominate me for "The Sunshine Award' I still have to figure out what it is but that's besides the point. It sounds happy and it also says award so it's going on my resume lol.

On top of that I'm so close to finishing a custom order of cards and have already a new custom order lined up! *rocks her bootay*

Nice day uh! If you haven't seen my latest painting in my shop go check it out cos Pumpkin is about as cute as an owl can get <3>

I need to move over for hubby now....

Thanks to everybody who made my day great...including me. Yay me! ^_^

MWAH!

Evi