Flatlays

I often post flat-lay pictures on my Instagram account, it's so much fun with endless possibilities and it is somehow relaxing to make them. Sometimes I just "throw" some items together and am pleased with the result almost just at ones, but more often you find me sitting on the floor adding, changing, rearranging and strolling through my house and garden for items. 

It all starts by choosing your backdrop. I mostly use a bright one, in this case a white tablecloth, but it can also be the floor, a table top or, very clever, some sticking plastic. You can find it in all sorts of prints, my personal favourite is the white marble. 

After harvesting a great deal of hazelnuts from my garden I thought it would be fun to use them in a not so obvious way and decided to make a hazelnut ice-cream.

I always start with placing the main subject. Rather dull just like this because the colour of the cone and the nuts is very similar so it needs some contrast colour to spice it up don't you agree?

For me green always works, I've got plenty of it around me. I just take my scissors to cut some off in my garden or from one of the plants I have inside.  Oh, and often there is coffee. Don't ask me why, there just is and it is always freshly made. Afterwards I get to drink it as a reward, so maybe that's the reason :)

 I thought this was a bit to much though, and a bit out of  balance, so I removed some again. 

Exit fern! 

And this goes on until I'm totally satisfied, in this case I just had to wrinkle the cloth somewhat to make it look a bit messy which makes it more exciting to look at. 

The final touch is done by editing the picture.

ét voila 

You should try it sometimes.
Let me know when you do, I would love to share some on my Instagram stories.

♥

ice cream

As soon as temperature rises and it is finding it's way above 25 degrees Celsius, by my standard it's time for ice cream. Normally I buy them at the supermarket, but some time ago I got the idea to try and make it myself. The biggest hurdle was to find the right Popsicle form. I wanted a rather particular one which was hard to find, but I finally succeeded at Amazon Germany.

I started the most easy way there is, making a Water Popsicle

They also turned out very photogenic if you ask me. These one were made with water (I added a tiny bit of sugar to sweeten it somewhat)  and some pomegranate seeds. I like the way you can see the seeds through the ice. It turned out to be a colorful one

For the next one I used water with some lemon juice and added a slice of lemon into the mall.

As for the taste ...I have to be honest. They both were very refreshing but didn't have the wow factor, or gave the urge for more. But as I tried these and liked the looks of them so much I couldn't help myself starting playing with this a bit. I decided to make a very special one. 

Not for consuming at all but just for it to be pretty pretty.

My Lilly of the Valley Special

Wanting to take this a bit further and to try and make some serious ice cream I stumbled upon the Instagram  account @ShareLoveNotSecrets and discovered that Marleen has written a book about making ice cream called "altijd ijs" (always ice) You can read more about it here and while reading it it sounded not that hard at all. Uhm maybe I should try one of her recipes first and let you know how that went (me and my big mouth)

For now I just pay attention to the way it looks.

♥