German Fresh Plum Pastry

Hello there!

It is fall, 

though the trees are not yet changing in my yard yet.

I am in the fall baking mood, 

which happens to me every fall!

Not so much the rest of the year, however, I am

trying to turn over a new leaf

and document the things that I am doing

each day.

Maybe this is mostly for me,

but for sure I want to do this and write.

I created a pastry today that is a knock off of one my

mother baked when she was alive, but she 

baked it in a large baking sheet and not

in individual little pastries.

I made this by using a very simple recipe.  

I love the recipe "5 Minute Bread" which is found easily

on line under that title.

I mixed up the bread recipe and let it rise.

Then I took small pieces of the dough about half the size

of a golf ball,  rolled the dough in sugar.

Then after rolling it in sugar I flatten the sugared dough in

a round disk shape and put it on my baking stone.

(on the stone is white cornmeal)

Then I used purple plums from my plum tree in my yard.

Cut the plums in half and place 2 or 3 plums on 

the flattened sugared bread.

When we were touring in Europe in the fall, I remember seeing these

in the bakeries, though I never ordered one, only took

pictures of the beautiful pastries, they looked divine.

After the plums are placed on the bread, I sprinkle cinnamon

and sugar mixture over the top of the plums and bread.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, 

and they turn out just like this!

They are so scrumptious!

I look forward to them every year.

One of the things always on my fall bucket list.

They are so fun and easy!

Enjoy.

Ciao,

Robin

Inspiration

It’s time again to share another

project.  Oh, my mind is always filled with so many

projects!  

I will be better at sharing the projects I am doing.

I recently was reading my Bella Grace magazine and in it

was a quote from Mother Teresa

“We know only too well that what we are doing is 

nothing more than a drop in the ocean.

But if the drop were not there, the ocean would

be missing something.”

So all these things that we do are drops of something out there,

and it is even better when we are sharing our drops 

with others to inspire.

My projects this summer have been vast, and even with the feeling that

I wonder if they will all get completed.  I will now share

and hope in some way can be an inspiration to others.

I have been watercoloring some more, with the hopes that I will get
really good at this.  This learning to watercolor
flowers is an amazing journey that I want to continue for as
long as my fingers and my eyes will allow me.

Here are my tulips I have been practicing.  I now have 2 of the

same and one other.  These really make me happy 

to look at!

I have been inspired by so very much, and will keep on going.

My projects around the house are coming next!

Ciao,

Robin

Back again

I decided It is time to start sharing some of my talents again.  

It has been a long time since I have posted,

but I haven’t stopped creating! 

My two newest loves have been Bible/ Book of Mormon journaling 

and Watercolour painting botanicals.

Here is my latest watercolor painting

It’s coming up tulips in my studio!

I have been taking online lessons from Billy Showell,

an artist in the UK.  

These are my practice tulips from her tutorials.

I will continue to share more.

What do you think?

Robin 

Flipping Houses

There are certainly different seasons in our lives when

 we decide to do something different.

Right now this is what I have been doing.

Since August last year we have been discussing 

new plans with our son Jeremiah, of working on buying and selling 

houses.  So I started looking for cheap houses in our area to

purchase and flip.  It is a very difficult market where we live,

we even had several homes we put offers in on,

But things just were not working out for us in our home state.

Jeremiah started looking for houses in other areas of the U.S., 

and alas, our partnership formulated and we started buying 

Houses together.  

We have finished our first house, put it on the market, 

And 2 weeks later accepted an offer and we are up and ready 

to finish our first flip, and let the new owner take over.

It has been a challenge but at the same time very enjoyable.
I love to decorate, but I also love to work.

Some days we work so hard I get back to the house and crash
Not even thinking there could be anything else to do but stop!
But as a whole we are enjoying this new chapter in our lives.

Here are picture of our first house.

This house originally had green shudders and pink pillars!
We also added the arch over the front window.

The living area didn't have the arch window or the open doorways,
even though there were doorways there, they were much smaller,
the floors were vinyl, and the kitchen and living area
had 2 separate types of vinyl.
This room turned out awesome, love the floors, and we also had
a contractor come in and scrape the popcorn ceilings and paint for us.

This kitchen looks so awesome now!  It originally was completely wallpapered

in floral/fruit wall paper, as were both bathrooms, laundry room, and closets wallpapered too, but in

different wallpapers.  I spent 3 days just stripping wallpaper!

We used mindful grey from Sherwin Williams to paint the walls in the house,

We also had all new cupboard doors made for the kitchen and 

new drawer pulls and knobs for the entire kitchen.

New granite countertops, and a subway tile backsplash were added

to the kitchen as well.

The house flows really well with the laminate flooring that flows

from the front door through the living room to the kitchen and

all the way to the back door.

We also added the island to the kitchen with granite.

Both bathrooms got new vanity tops and fixtures.

I love how the house turned out.

I will see if I can find some original photos of the inside of the house.

Our first house is a great success!

Enjoy!

Robin

Recycled Boxes

Hello there!

Today I wanted to do something a little different.

I have been saving these old boxes forever,
and today I covered them with paper.
Sorry I didn't take pictures of the old boxes.
they were pretty dated!

I chose black, white, and grey.

I love how the new papers go with the old papers.

These are the 3 cardstock papers I used,

Smoky Chevron, Black on White Damask, and Silver on Black Paisley

I traced the boxes, and covered the boxes with elmers glue.

Then glued the papers right on the box.

I then stacked the boxes and tied them with a sheer black ribbon 

with gold fleur de lis.  

Attached an "O" for O'Crowley.

This was simple and pretty easy,

I was done in a few hours.

And now I have cute, updated boxes to use in my house.

Have a great day!

If you click on the papers they will link you to the web site

where you can purchase these papers.

www.robinsnest-scrap.com

Have a great day!

Ciao,

                                                                             Robin

OCrowley Hobbits

Nothing more fun than a few Hobbits

Robin posting today.

These are my grandsons, they have the elfin cloaks like the

Hobbits wore throughout the Lord of the Rings Movies.

I used the Lodge Collection, Forrest Collection and a few other

things to complete these layouts.

The feathers are from Gina's Designs.

I love her chipboard designs, and use them a lot in my layouts.

The layout background of this layout is the clover CS.

Oval sticker, and tear and dew drops.

The lower layout is the Getaway Glitter CS, and 

I used the Lodge line and Forrest line with this layout as well.

I also used the Tree Straws, Tear drops and dew drops.

This was part of our photo shoot with the boys.

They dressed up as Hobbits. Their mom made the elfin cloaks for them

for Halloween the year before.  The cloaks are awesome.

Any young man who love Lord of the Rings would love to

have one of these.  Thanks Mom!

You can find these products on our website

www.robinsnest-scrap.com

I hope you enjoy your day,

Tell me what you think of these layouts,

I love your comments.

Ciao,

Robin

Beautiful Italian Recipe Holder

Welcome to the Robin's Nest Blog Hop!

Today is our Bi-annual Blog Hop!

Our theme this Blog Hop is Recipes. 

I admittedly am not really a cook. so when I read that 

the theme was recipes, I gasped!

What am I going to do?

I thought and thought,

Should I make a recipe book?

Should I show my favorite recipe?

Should I bough out?

Really, that was the best option.

But, I went in the scrapbook room, 

and started working on other projects, trying to get

myself motivated to make this post,

and I remembered Gina's Designs, an easel

type thing that I have been saving for a special project.

This is IT!!!!

So, just as we have finished new counter tops and backsplash

for our kitchen, the new papers were produced

a few months ago, and it all became real,

and my recipe holder is now finished, and I 

love it!

I hope you do too.

I started with Gina's Designs Easel.

 I then painted the scroll work,

and glued the back of Saffron Honey Linen CS

on the face of the easel.

Then after that I used another sheet of  Saffron Honey and

cut out the larger designs from the paper individually.

I popped them with pot dots and glue dots.

It is hard to see here all the elements that are 3 dimensional.

But in the next few pictures hopefully you will be able to see

the dimensions in the holder.

Here is one of the cut out pieces from the Saffron Honey Linen CS.

On the other side of the recipe holder, is Recipes (spelled wrong)

I found out when I was posting!  I will fix that.

And a few elements just made with papers from the new

Saffron Sunrise product line.

Here you can see the pop out of the "fountain".

More of the holder, papers, dew drops, and Eiffel tower over

in the corner from one of our stickers. 

I made a little twirly with Black Diamond drops, 

and a gold dew drop.

The gold and black dew drops, with the black glitzy strawy ribbon

 come from a embellishment pack called Saffron Straw.

Just a few more shots of the recipe holder

The rose is cut from the Saffron Honey Linen paper too,

I love how the linen show on the rose,

and I love how the linen paper feels!

Here again is the finished recipe holder,

next to it is a recipe book that Rachel made for 

each member of our family a few years ago,

It has recipes in it from all members of the family,

and all ages,

Some fun memories in this book,
how to kill a moose and made dinner,
marshmallow sandwiches,
and much more,
the little kids had such fun ideas,
and it is such a fun recipe book.

I hope that you have a great day,
that you have found lots of ideas on recipe ideas,
and have enjoyed this post.

I love to hear your comments!
Follow me,
there is so much more to come!

You can find these products on
The Robin's Nest website
www.robinsnest-scrap.com

Ciao,

Robin