Love This: Eggs, Toms and Weekend Roundup

Hello all!  Welcome back to Monday.  Toms shoes are on my brain.  I think it is because it was warm enough this weekend to wear my pair (sparkly gold Toms), as temperatures nearly reached 20 degrees in Prague.

I continue to be impressed by Toms, my favourite social shoe company who I blogged about here.  If you are not familiar with the brand, their business model is a one to one where when you buy a pair of their shoes, they donate a pair to children in need around the world.

I am blown away by their most recent endeavour called Toms Ticket to Give, where the rewards a customer with a ticket and the opportunity to follow his or her purchase and have the experience to travel with the company and give a pair of shoes.   I just watched the video of their recent winner who will be going to Honduras to donate shoes with her mom.  What a memorable experience for the customer and a fabulous way to engage people in a meaningful way with the Tom’s brand.

You’ll notice I also posted some eggs.  I re-pinned these eggs on one of my Pinterest boards a week ago and have been saving it for a post leading up to Easter.  For some reason, the dyed eggs reminded me of the colour of Toms shoes.

Love This: Hip Shops

I am on my way downstairs to bake batch #3 of hamantashen.  Tonight I am baking a poppy seed hamantashen recipe from the Kinnereth cookbook.  I am hoping the third time is a charm and I am calamity free.  I walked back to the grocery store to buy a new bag of flour.  I actually found a bag that had an English translation on the package so I could avoid yesterday’s error of purchasing bread flour.  You’ll be able to see my hamantashen results and recipes in tomorrow’s blog post.

On to more important things: today I wanted to blog about a very cool website that I found called hip shops.  If you are an avid traveler and enjoy dabbling in and scouting out cool shops around the world like I do, you will appreciate the site: Hip Shops.

Photo via Theorii

The best way to describe this site is that its a social platform where you can browse the shops that have been curated by HipShops or share/upload/create your own list of cool shop finds on your travels. You can also email your lists to people so if you’re that type of person who likes to share and recommend things, this is a neat way to document, map and communicate your treasures!

I am totally going to make use of this.  This is my kind of site!

Love This: Black and Yellow Teapots

It’s Wednesday and I have yet to have a good cup of tea.  Unheard of for a tea drinker like me!

I had the weirdest, most disrupted sleep last night.  The wind was howling outside my window and rattling my shutters all night.  I am pooped from mother nature.

It is 11pm and I am signing off from a full day of work.  Looking at the time, I realize it is too late for a caffeinated cup of tea, so I will just dream about brewing a fresh pot tomorrow and leave you with some of my favourite black and yellow tea accessories right now.  Any one have any recommendations for a nice herbal blend?

Red for Valentine’s Day: Eating and Buying

We’re in the home stretch for Valentine’s day.  Start your engines for present time.  I am personally a fan of the homemade Valentine’s day gifts, especially homemade baked goods.  You know, something small, a token to say “I am thinking of you,” “you’re sweet,” “I love you so I slaved in the kitchen all day.” Here are some ambitious and adorable Valentine’s day baking ideas that would be perfect for next week such as Martha Stewart’s heart shaped pancakes for a V-day morning surprise or Love and Olive Oil’s Vanilla Almond Cupcakes with Blackberry Buttercream or Camille Styles Red White Strawberry Cream cake and finally Joy the Baker’s Chocolate Beet cake with Beet Frosting.  Fiance take note, I will gladly accept any of the aforementioned desserts! 🙂

On another note, it is interesting to observe how V-day crazy, some cities go around promoting gifts, sweets and chocolates for the holiday.  I have noticed a couple heart shaped items in Prague such as cookies and candies but nothing over the top.  Maybe Valentine’s day is not a big here.  Oh well, either way, on the “buying side” here are some more ideas for you all.

Love This: Metallic

I am off to Berlin on Thursday for the weekend to dine on delicious food and take in some more sights around the city.  I look forward to reporting back on my finds next week but don’t worry, still more to come this week.  The temperature has finally dropped in Prague, so I am doing my best to find reasons to hibernate and only come out for air when the sun is shining in the sky for warmth or to take a long walk.

I love the different metallic characteristics seen in the colour pallet of products below.  They remind me of winter, when everything is a bit more muted and less bright outside. The great thing about metal is its wide range of hues such as a mate metallic seen in the spoons and Nordicware baking sheet, to the shinier, bling of the Harry Winston ring, Alessi trivet and the DVF clutch!

Love This: Wedge Shaped Pie Boxes

I have to share this find with you all: Wedge shaped pie boxes!!  So you can serve or gift your pie in an individual, perfectly fitted container with a cute little wooden fork.

I read about these pie boxes on a post from Sunday Suppers (about a beautiful looking chocolate and lavender pie- see photo below) and applaud Petitmoulin aka Stephmodo, on Etsy, for creating these.  I love these things!

via etsy

via etsy

via sunday suppers

If you are looking for some fun projects, recipes or ideas this weekend here are some thoughts that I’ve been looking at:

1. A Chinese New Year themed party from Lorajean’s Magazine

2. Hanging Heart Charms in prep for Valentine’s Day from Made

3. The doughnuts in this picture from Fjellby

4. A vegan soba salad from Scandi Foodie