Picturesque Month ~ 01'16

~ The New Year started out very chillaxed. It was just the two of us watching the british quiz show The Big Fat Quiz of 2015 and turning in at 2am.
~ I was so excited for the new Sherlock Episode that aired on New Years Day and it didn't disappoint! I especially liked that most of it was in Sherlock's head, so the fat Mycroft is how Sherlock thinks of his brother, hence the Jabba in the picture ;)
~ Cold Winter Windows

~ Yummy homemade Star Wars peanut butter cups <3
~ Almost bought this beautiful/ugly vintage cardigan at the thrift store, but it was a little too expensive,
~ I love thinking back on our girl's vacation to London from last September, good times!

~ Found this wonderful ship's steering wheel clock at the fleamarket for a friend's nursery. Congratulations, it's a sailor!
~ David Bowie sadly passed away this month and it made me think of our wedding, because "Let's Dance" was part of our first dance as a married couple.
~ The lovely Lu from Luloveshandmade sent me a beautiful New Years card <3

~ I was so sad to hear that Alan Rickman passed away as well, he was one of my favorite british actors! I had to watch the last Harry Potter movie on the same day to properly say Good Bye to him.
~ The good thing about british tv shows is that they go straight to DVD/Blu Ray after airing, so we got to see the Sherlock Special again in HD right away.
~ I invited a couple of friends for this occasion and made these Moriar-Tea teabag cookies.

~ The first concert of 2016 was the Frank Turner concert at Huxleys. This was also the first time in forever that I saw an opening act at a concert. And they were really good! Maybe I should go see opening bands more often... 5/5 Bazooka Points for Skinny Lister for rocking the stage before FT.
~ This was my first Frank Turner concert and I was with some very enthusiastic fans. I definitely know now what all the fuss is about, because that man is a machine on stage. So much fun! 5/5 Bazooka Points for a show I didn't want to end!
~ The other concert I went to was a special showcase of Get Well Soon at Dussmann, the "culture department store". 4/5 Bazooka Points for a very nice, but also very short show. We stood in line longer than the show was.

~ I rediscovered one of my favorite games from my childhood: Toonstruck! It's so kooky and funny, I love it! The bad thing is that I still know it almost by heart and so it took me only two days to play all the way through...
~ Vegan french toast love <3
~ So scary! The top floor of one of the building across our street was on fire. There were so many firemen and police, I hope everyone was okay.

~ Made my first pair of underwear! So proud of myself, the sewing was really quick and easy, but making the pattern took ages. But now that I have it I can make a bunch!
~ Went to the Berlin Zoo (Tierpark Friedrichsfelde) for free, because the city of Berlin was thanking all the citizens for helping out in any way with the refugees. Of course there were many people who probably didn't even donate a stinking sock, but great cause anyways!
~ I never knew there was a cemetary at the zoo! We were expecting a pet cemetary, but it was the cemetary of a royal family from Berlin. One of the distant relatives name was von Kotze which means von Vomit :P

Tea Bag Cookies for my Sherlock Special Viewing-Party

The Sherlock Special was finally screened on New Years Day, two years after the last season. I watched the Special on that day and got the Blu Ray to weeks later to watch it again. I invited a couple of my friends to watch with me and thought about what I coulb make as a treat. Tea was obvious, thought about making crumpets, because they are pretty british. But while I was searching Pinterest for ideas I found these awesome tea bag cookies with a Sherlock themed tea label.


So I downloaded the tea label image and copied it into a word document about 40 times in the size of a normal tea label.

Then I went on to make the cookies. Here's the recipe ( slightly altered version of the Batman cookie recipe):
250g flour (I used spelt wholewheat flour)
1 tbs baking powder
100g sugar (I used raw sugar)
100g margarine
100g apple sauce (as the egg substitute)
Zested skin of 2 lemons

Just mix up the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients seperately (margarine needs to be melted) and then mix the wet into the dry. Wrap into plastic foil and let rest in the fridge for one hour.
Roll out and cut the cookies. Bake for about 10 minutes at 200°. Definitely check up on them before that, because every stove is different!

Here's how I did the tea bag shapes:




After baking the cookies I attached them to the tea bag label with a string and the help of a hot glue gun, because I didn't have any liquid craft glue.

The next day I prepared a vegan chocolate frosting and dipped the cookies halway into the chocolate.

It was a bit of an effort to make these cookies, but it was definitely worth the reactions from my guests. I'm a sucker for puns myself, but the husband said it's not that funny... Moriar-Tea! Hah, everyone thought it was hilarious, well maybe not hilarious, but still funny.


We definitely had a blast at this viewing party and the Special is just superb! Moffat and Gatiss have really outdone themselves with this episode in my opinion. What did you think?

PS: Check out all these funky geeky crafts at the Nerd'n'Geek Linkparty <3

Picturesque Month ~ 12'15

~ Trying to get back into healthy eating and one reason for me to eat unhealthy is because I often skip breakfast. So I got myself a bunch of Joylent, a nutrient shake that will provide you with everything you need. This will substitute a meal, so when there's no time to prepare a healthy meal I can just shake one up instead of turning to fast food!
~ The shake takes getting used to, but I kindof like it now! It's really good if you mix it with warm water, this way it's like a porridge shake. So far, I like the banana flavour best!
~ I bought 2 books written by Youtubers this month. The first one was Rosanna Pansino's Nerdy Nummies Book and the second one was mr.kate's DIY Book. Love them both!

~ Of course this month was all about Star Wars! We rewatched the old trilogy before watching the new film. Such great movies<3
~ No, I am your father!
~ Visited the lovely Claudi from Pixeltrash 3000 in Halle before Christmas for her birthday. Made friends with her plushie Watto <3

~ Received the best Christmas card ever from Claudi. <3 Duckula
~ We revisited our Pixel Christmas Tree from 2 years ago. Additionally we put up our miniature toilet paper tree from last year as our christmas decoration. I don't think we're ever going to have a real christmas tree. I just don't see the point of cutting off a tree just to put it into your livingroom for 2 weeks.
~ We spent Christmas Eve with my mom and Christmas day with my dad, still getting used to these seperate christmases... both days we played boardgames to pass the time and mostly to avoid awkwardness. Love my Duckula boardgame I founnd on ebay a couple of years ago.

~ Watching Love Actually is probably my most consistent christmas tradition. I just love that movie!
~ Spent the time between christmas and New Years meeting friends and eating good food. One of my best friends made these cool green macarons for our brunch and they reminded me of Yoda, obviously.
~ Time to get back into shape! I've not been very nice to my body in the past couple of months. I want to really pay attention to what I consume and get back into an excercise routine and feel comfortable in my own skin again.

~Finally found a Banh Mi (Vietnamese Sandwiches) restaurant in Berlin. It wasn't really as good as the one we went to in Seattle, but it'll do... Actually, scratch that, the husband made Banh Mi's the other day and it was delicious, so we'll probably just homemake them in the future.
~ Made a yummy vegan no-bake cake with jogurt and berries. The husband ate it all!
~ The only concert I went to in December was Florence and the Machine. Florence has a lot of energy up on stage, but all in all I wasn't too entertained. 3/5 Bazooka Points for an overly hyped concert experience.

Star Wars melting perler/hama beads Decoration ~ R2D2, Jabba & more

With all the Star Wars excitement going on I wanted to get a little crafty with the beloved characters mostly from the old trilogy. And the easiest way to do that was with melting beads. I found some awesome patterns via Pinterest and started with this 3D R2D2.

Had to tweak the pattern a little because the small square was not tall enough to fit all the beads required. It was also a little tricky to attach the round head to the body. I ironed both pieces lightly, detached them from the pegboard and layed them together in the right spot on the table and ironed again to melt them together.

One of my favorite characters from the old movies is Jabba the Hutt. You just can't really take him seriously as an alien mafia boss being the huge slug he is. One of me and my husband's insider joke is talking like him when we're super lazy. E chu ta Solo. Ah hah hah. Yoka to bantha poodoo.
That's not weird at all!

And then I made some of the iconic images like Darth Vader's helmet and the Death Star as coasters that were intended for my Star Wars marathon party before the new movie came out. But sadly I got sick, so we had to cancel...


And here's all of the melted goodness front and back. Some images look better from one side or the other with melted beads, sometimes I iron the images from both sides, but you don't really have to. They make for really good coasters or you can just put them on your shelf for decoration.
You can see some pictures of the decoration in our tetris shelves in the livingroom below. We almost have to make new additions to the tetris shelves because they are getting really full. Some rows of games and DVD's have stuff behind them as well. Well, we like stuff!


        

May the Geek-Force be with you!

PS: Check out all these funky geeky crafts at the Nerd'n'Geek Linkparty <3