Love This!: Rossana Fani

I would die for one of these necklaces by Rossana Fani, the Florence based jewelry designer.  Her lengthy design career has evolved from being a window dresser, to collaborating on tableware designs, creating handbags and now to making stunning fashion jewelry.  The necklaces below are made of leather and resin beads (some cases, crystal beads).  Rossana’s necklaces have a beautiful minimalist quality to them but are textured, sculptural and interesting to look at.

Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Love This: Tokyo Jane

I am so annoyed with my camera right now.  I went to Dresden for the day on Saturday, took all these fabulous pictures of things I wanted to share with you, (did no biking as a result) and was all ready to blog about my experience.   What do I get as I go to download the files? A memory card error stating that the card is empty.  Where did my pictures go?  I know they are not lost for good as I can see some of them but for some reason they are housed elsewhere.  Urgghhhhh.

Once I get this problem remedied, I will blog about the incredible, an rather unexpected lunch I had at Bean & Beluga in Dresden as well as a new restaurant concept where your meal – essentially German tapas-  is served to you in Weck jars.  More on those spots later this week.

For now- I also discovered a cool bracelet/bangle jewelry line from Copenhagen (Nørrebro district), Denmark called Tokyo Jane.  Their bracelets and bangles are a mix of metal and leather, some have patterns, some have bling, some are colourful, and some are neutral.  The Tokyo Jane bracelets can be worn on their own or stacked all together depending on how much of a wrist statement you would like to make.  You can also see more from Tokyo Jane on their blog.  I am thinking about these as potential bridesmaid gifts…. What do you think?

I treated myself to a leather bracelet that looks like the sixth from the left (in picture below) but instead of gold the links mine is silver and instead of felt, my bracelet is made of a smooth taupe-y leather.  I love it! I think it is their 1015 bracelet.

Photo Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Love This: Pinterest Selection

Yay!!  The weekend is almost here.

I am looking forward to it.  Here is a round up of photos I am loving from Pinterest that I thought you might enjoy.  I am particularly fond of the pie chart chocolate and green tea tins.  I wish I had them both in my house now.  How adorable are they?

Love This: Braided bracelets

I love these braided bracelets that I found on Etsy!

They are fun, they are colourful, and they remind me a bit of the friendship bracelets I used to wear back in the day.  Of course the ones posted below are the “adult-way-more-stylish” version of the strings that hung around my wrist as a kid.

The first three are by Jurates Jewelry, followed by a bracelet by Rimon by Tamar, and the last one is by Bearandco.

Hope you are having a great Thursday.

Photo Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Love This: Bright + Bold for Spring

Here are some stylish, bright and bold home accessories that I found  for spring while browsing the web.  Hope you are having a great Wednesday (aka hump day).

I had too many carrots…

I opened my vegetable drawer to find out that I had too many carrots.  In my efforts to reduce my carrot supply, I set out to make a carrot cake.  Nothing like a carrot cake recipe that typically calls for 4 to 6 cups of grated carrots to burn through my stash.

I have had a page ticked down for a carrot bran brunch bunt cake from the LCBO‘s Food and Drink magazine (old issue) for weeks now and decided to do something about it.  I already went grocery shopping today and when I was assembling the ingredients, I realized I was short an egg (I had three out of four eggs).  After debating the potential baking repercussions of being short an egg in a cake, and not wanting to go back out and buy a dozen more eggs, I decided to regroup my baking initiative and look for a new recipe.  The problem is, when you look for a new recipe, you never have all the ingredients in your deviation plan, so you end up in the same spot you started out.  One egg short of a cake.

Carrots were on the brain.  Determined not to give up, I found a carrot cake recipe in the Rose Bakery (Paris) cookbook, Breakfast, Lunch, Tea,  that seemed a bit too decadent for what I was intending to bake (more healthy-brunchy-less rich carrot cake for dessert), but it was usable as a base.  I modified the recipe’s 2 cups of flour with a mixture of 1/2 cup white flour, 1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour and 1/4 cup wheat bran and added a handful of golden raisins, 1/2 a can of pineapple chunks and another handful of crushed walnuts. I also skipped the frosting and tested it out with some blueberry jam.

I think it turned out well. It is a carrot cake mutt; a hybrid of several carrot cake-bread-loaf recipes which was transformed into something that turned out moist, crumbly and delicious.  (Thankfully- the baking gods do not always smile down on me when I get creative and mix different recipes!)

If you are looking for something a little more decadent, there is a great recipe here.