The one with the things I liked this week (140)

I spotted these shoes over two months ago on Instagram, and I finally managed to get myself a pair of these shiny sneakers!

 Seen on a walk to the mailbox

Christmas is getting closer, the first sign of it

Since a while we are selling Tony's Chocolonely in the brick and mortar shop. It's a Dutch brand that uses slave-free cocao beans in their bars. The are well known for their not so usual flavours (a limited edition's out now with popcorn and discodip). Every once in a while I need to check what it is I am selling, right? This one is with orange and rosemary. 

Talking business, I started another Instagram account, where I show what I do on weekdays, during the day. My other account (which consists of lots of doors and windows, quirky things I see on the streets that made me smile, and the occasional vintage car is here). 

Enjoy your sunday!

The one with the things I liked this week (97)

The week started of with something I didn't like: a trip to the dentist,

but I did spot this lovely fall scene on my way back to work

Lately I've been spotting all these awesome number signs on houses

City Hall at night

Receiving this surprise DaWanda DIY kit, from Eva

And look at the pretty box it came in

And receiving something else I liked a lot....

Hope you had a pretty good week too, cheers to the weekend!

The one with the things I liked this week (88)

Some random photo's from last week. And yes, I do realise most of them involve food :-)

Discovering a new brand of icecream. It's vegan and there are lots of other exciting flavours, like basil & lime, and strawberry & red pepper. 

We received a paper edition of DaWanda's winter Lovebook. The online version can be found over here. So far, I could only find the German edition.

On wednesday my aunt surprised us around lunchtime with cheese with fenugreek from a local cheesefarm. I can't believe I've never been there. Although I can imagine it would be quite a dangerous place for me.... 

Adding some colour to our workspace with some plants, hopefully they are resilient little guys!

If you're already in the mood to do some holiday shopping, or to treat yourself to a little something, Society6 offers free shipping today and tomorrow through this link. Also, in our DaWanda shop you'll receive a 15% discount on everything, until next thursday. Cheers to the weekend, hope you'll have a good one. See you next week!

The one with the easter bunny

Easter is quite a bit of time ago, I know. Back then my mom gave me this chocolate Easter bunny. If you ever get the chance to get your hands on Lindt chocolate: take it! It's one of my favourite brands of chocolate (when we were in Rome, there was A WHOLE LINDT STORE full of these heavenly treats), and I think it's not a bad thing it's not widely available over here. That would be too much temptation for me to resist. 

Anyway, I have a little confession to make: I am a bit quirky when it comes to food. The order in which things should be eaten, the way it should be cut (slices of cheese DO taste better than cubes) and more crazy stuff like that. Another one: I do not like eating food that is shaped like animals. I just don't have the heart to eat it. Well, almost. This bunny had been sitting on a shelf for months. Until my sweet tooth started begging me to eat The Bunny. I started looking for other treats in cupboard, to save bunny's life. But none were there, so I obliged.... Poor thing! Do you have any food related quirks?

The one with the things I liked this week (74)

How has your week been? Mine was pretty ok. I still get surprised by some of the amazing architecture in my home city that I discover on after work or weekend walks. This week I started watching 'the Following', which is pretty scary. It's like Criminal Minds, the kind of show I know I shouldn't be watching. Alone. At night.

The sun created some pretty awesome shadows, so I really needed to take a selfie. Shadow selfies are the kind of selfies I feel comfortable taking.

We're still in the race towards becoming (I can't help but reading this in Tyra Banks' voice) World Champion. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed tomorrow!

This awesome gift was given to me by my friends R+L+J. It's a shoe AND it's chocolate! Does it get any better than that?

Other than that, I treated myself to concert tickets for Dutch singer Dotan. I went thrift shopping yesterday and found the photo frames I have been eyeing for a while now. Only those were new and 5 times the price. And these are even prettier. Once they're cleaned up a bit, I might show them over here. I think they deserve to be seen :-)

My friend Mandy sent me a text message yesterday, if I wanted to go to Amsterdam this saturday. She won a workshop/photoshoot, that lasts all day. We also get to take pictures ourselves. It lasts pretty much all day (it involves food too!). I'm pretty anxious, because I hate having my pictures taken, but sometimes it's a good thing getting out of that comfort zone. And saying 'yes' to more things was one of my resolutions at the beginning of the year.

What are your plans? Anything special planned, or will you go with the flow and see where the weekend takes you? Whatever it is you'll be doing, have fun!

The one with the things I liked this week (65)

Did I ever tell you that I like chocolate?

Detail on the outside of a bakery

Beautiful tiles on a decayed building

A new month

Struggling with a King's Day treat (photo borrowed from my mom's blog)

Making some armcandy for summer

Adding a new notebook to the shop

The one with the things I liked this week (60)

Some random photos of this week. I've had the idea of adding some new notebooks to my Etsy shop for a while. I thought it might look cool to make covers out of photo's I've taken and I've experimented with different kinds of paper and machine settings. One of my moms cats offered a bit of help :-)

My friend Mandy brought over a box of very delicious chocolates, thanks sweetie! Other than that, I've started Postcrossing again some time ago. This week I received four cards, from Finland, Germany and the United States. I always feel like it's my birthday when I get home after work, open my mailbox, and find something good in there! The last picture is proof that I sometimes do eat other things than cheese, chocolate and cake. You might have gotten the wrong impression from this blog....

The one with chocolate and oranges

I wanted to make a little something over the holidays to take with me on my visit to my granny. I decided it needed to be sweet and easy to make. We both enjoy a nice piece of chocolate, so I made these chocolate covered oranges to accompany our Christmas coffee.

What you'll need:

• 160 grams of orange peel
• 200 grams of dark chocolate
• optional: sea salt

What you'll need to do:

Melt the chocolate in a bain marie

Dip the oranges in the melted chocolate

Oops...

I added a bit of sea salt to half of the oranges and 

let them harden on a sheet of baking paper.

The one with peanutbutter and chocolate squares (that aren't squares)

You might have seen the result of this cooking adventure in a previous post (one of the ones with the things I liked). I've made this recipe by Nigella a couple of times, and changed the original recipe a bit. I prefer dark chocolate over milk chocolate, so I switched to amounts of those, I added a bit of honey and I stopped trying to make the perfect little squares that Nigella makes. I love how easy they are to make and that no baking is required. Oh, and they taste pretty good too!

What you´ll need for Nigella's peanutbutter and chocolate squares:

• mini muffin liners

For the base

• 50 grams of caster sugar
• 200 grams of icing sugar
• 50 grams of butter
• 200 grams of peanutbutter (the smooth kind)

For the topping

• 200 grams of dark chocolate
• 100 grams of milk chocolate
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 1 tablespoon of honey

What you'll need to do:
Stir the ingredients for the base together with a wooden spoon. Fill each mini muffin liner with a small ball of this mixture. Slowly melt the chocolate and stir in the honey and the butter. Top each one of the liners with a spoon of the melted chocolate mixture. Put them in the fridge and leave them there for an hour.

This is what Nigella's perfect little squares look like. I gave up

hope to ever accomplish to make them look like that.