Lyre Antlers and Horns - My Signature Feature

Today I am posting a collection of landscape paintings featuring deer with lyre antlers and other animals with lyres - my signature feature. I love poetry, both reading and writing and as the lyre is the symbol of poetry, I wanted to incorporate it into my paintings somehow. The landscapes are loosely based on my childhood memories of Brazi where I grew up, surrounded by green hills and high mountains in Romania and by the Devon surroundings and cottages as a homage to my adoptive place for over ten years. I hope you like this collection. More to be added soon.

Autumn Cottage by Teodora Totorean

Tuesday Inspiration - Rusty & Grey, The Colours of Rustic

Open the door and enter a realm of vintage:

Dining Table Makeover

Ever since I acquired a new old dining table (new because I wanted a smaller rectangular one to replace the huge oval I had and old because I bought it second hand and revamped it myself) I wanted to paint the chairs (I kept the chairs from the other one) in different colours as follows: one - left as it is; one - sanded; one - painted in white and one - painted in green. I waited for the right weather to be able to work outside and for the right mood to get sanding. The perfect day finally arrived this Thursday, taking advantage of the half term break and the sunshine.

The Joy of Selling on Folksy

It has been a year since I have been featured by Folksy and although at the time I preferred to simply share their interview, a year later I thought I could write a post about what it means to be a seller on Folksy.

1. Featured seller

When I was asked if I wanted to be a featured seller, I haven't hesitated: I said 'Yes' straight away. I thought that all my efforts to improve the overall look of my shop paid off. I had been learning to take my own photos and slowly I have changed the appearance of my shop, including the banner, the descriptions and the titles. For a week, the views went through the roof, I made a few sales and I gained a few followers on all social media channels.

Go on, it's healthy - May cooking inspiration

In May, I decided to make a change from my usual low-calories and no-baking cakes (with one exception) and post some of the healthy foods I cooked this month, mainly inspired by one of the latest cooking books I bought. Although I don't enjoy cooking much, I do like good food that is healthy and easy to prepare plus I am always willing to try new ingredients like kale, quinoa and lychees for example.

No-bake Strawberry Cake

Ingredients 

✽ 600g low-fat Mascarpone cheese 

✽ 300g low fat reach tea biscuits - crushed into small pieces

✽ dried apricots to taste - cut into small pieces

✽ approx 1 dark chocolate - small pieces 

✽ strawberries to taste halved 

✽ 1 gelatine + 1 berry fruits jelly

DIY - Dried Flowers Arrangements

I love flowers and I always have fresh flowers in my vases, but they eventually dry out. There was a time when I never had flowers in my home, precisely for this reason. Slowly, I started to buy fresh flowers because I needed them as props for my product photography. Then I kind of got used to how my home looks like with flowers so I made sure my vases were full all the time.

WIP - Floral Handpainted Trinket Box

Hand painted trinket box + inspiration: original meadow painting and hanging decoration by Teodora Totorean

In today's post, I will show you how I painted my latest trinket box. I have chosen my usual floral meadow pattern that I use in some of my paintings and in my hanging decorations as seen in the above photo collage. Here are step by step photos, from the plain box to the finished product. Enjoy!

April No-bake Cakes

The making of carrot cake - photos Teodora Totorean

April is a festive month in our household as we celebrate my husband's birthday and name day (George), Easter as well as my birthday - not always in this order 😊. This month I wanted to continue with my low-calorie no-bake cakes knowing that my husband enjoys them too. The kiwi cheesecake was a lucky failure as the top layer was supposed to be a mixture of fresh kiwi, sweetener and gelatine but as I was trying to prepare it, I hated the smell of the gelatine so I decided to use kiwi jam instead and it tasted divine! What I like is that as I become more experienced with these kinds of cakes, I can play with quantities and ingredients, making my own versions, according to my taste and to what I have in my ingredients stash. So here are this month's cakes; feel free to try them and share.