Step Forty Nine: Raw chocolate Christmas bonbons

Dearest Sylwi,

Happy New Year!!!! I hope 2011 is full of love and light and dreams coming true... and lots of time for creative adventures, too!

As mentioned in my last post, I had initially hoped to cook some Christmas cookies for a Step at the end of last year. However, food guilt set in over Christmas :-))) and I made a promise to myself, that instead of a holiday completely filled with refined sugars and dairy, I would teach myself to make one raw food treat.

This recipe came from a book that I was given as a Christmas present, called 'Naked Chocolate' by Shazzie and David Wolfe. It's a recipe for fudge squares, made from nuts, dates, coconut and cacao nibs. 

To make the fudge look a little more treat-like, I rolled each square into a ball and then covered it in either shredded coconut, or raw cacao powder.

They tasted very good... not "excellent", but pretty darn good for my first adventure with raw treats. I'm looking forward to improving on the recipe a little. 

My ultimate goal is to invent raw treats that will taste soooo good, that everyone will like them... even friends who don't really understand the whole raw food concept and think it's all a bit crazy! :-) I shall certainly know I've achieved that, when my husband likes them! 

Today's Step was really two creative adventures in one. Not only did I make the treats, I also persuaded a photographer friend to show me how to light my pictures. I styled these pics, with the Christmas tree behind and an old, wooden, chopping board that belonged to my Grannie... and then I ran out of props! (and began dreaming of trips to Paris, to browse flea markets for pretty ceramic plates and saucers!) 

In the end, I just made a quick origami gift box, using these instructions. In hindsight, I should probably have left it out of the shot, but I hadn't really planned the shot, it just kind of fell together... so, well, that's why there's a weird paper box in there! heeee! :-) 

I learned so much about lighting today. We played around with lighting the bonbons from the front, then the side and then from slightly behind. The pics I liked most, were lit from slightly behind. It seemed to give the bonbons much more shape.

I'm exhausted from all of the work. This was supposed to take a couple of hours and ended up taking far longer! Especially when you're trying to take the pic and a curious and hungry puppy sneaks into the background of the shot...

... so, you shoo them out of the shot, run back to the camera and take another pic, only to discover ANOTHER curious and hungry puppy, attracted by all of the noise... and then the chocolately smell wafting down off the counter, has sneaked in to the vacant space...

:-))))

Lots and lots and lots of love to you! Happy, Happy, Happy New Year, sweetpea! 

Fi

xx

Step Twenty Six: Vision Boards and The Magic of Creativity

Dearest Sylwi


It's so lovely to have you back and I'm quite lucky that you're back at all, it seems, having seen your pictures from the holiday! ha ha! ;-) 


I've only ever seen a wild bear in a book, not somewhere that I could stop and take a picture with my own camera (I don't care if you were in the car, or not, that is a bit too crazy close for me?!) :-)


This week, I've been busy with a new e-course! I know, I know! I said I had banned myself from taking any more e-courses, but this one was too good to miss! 


It's a course on raw food, run by the gorgeous and talented Karen Knowler, who is also known as The Raw Food Coach!


It's been a fascinating and challenging first week! Not for any of the reasons I thought it would be though! :-)


This week, encouraged by a fantastic set of worksheets, prompts and guidance from Karen, I've come up with my first attempt at a vision board for myself in relation to raw food. I've never created a vision board before, but always been curious about them. I've heard so many people rave about how it helps to set your intentions and then flow with the manifestation of those dreams... but somehow, I never allowed myself the luxury of sitting down to create one. It felt as if it would be wrong to spend time on something so creative and fun, when surely setting goals should be a more serious business?! :-)


Anyway, I forced myself and eventually, after quietening the voices of doubt in my mind, it was a lot of fun...

It feels so odd to have finally created one! I've run the whole gamut of emotions, from embarrassment and self-ridicule through to hope and belief! If I told you that within hours of me creating this board, one of the more difficult areas for me that I included on the board began to come true, would you believe me? I wouldn't! But it did! :-)))) (I'm not joking - I'm sort of astounded!)


I'd love to live in the sort of household where it would be cool to post this board on a wall, or as my computer desktop image. I don't really feel that comfortable with doing that (although, I feel fine about posting it to blogger and the world to see, for some reason! ha ha!) So, I decided to make my board portable and a bit more private. First, I printed it off. Then, I created an origami style folder for it. It's so simple, but I'm really pleased with the result.


First, I cut my paper into a square...

Then, folded it in half. With the same side facing up, I folded it in half the other way, so the lines divide the paper into quarters...

I opened the paper out flat and turned it over. Then, folded it diagonally in half...

If you're doing this for yourself, when you look at your paper, your quarter lines will be valley folds - the folds look like troughs. The diagonal line will be a mountain fold - this fold looks like a... er... mountain! ;-)


I glued on my vision board...

You should then be able to close the paper up, like below...

... into a neat quarter, which you can tie with string or slip into your wallet, as is.

It was great to stretch my legs creatively this week with this challenge. I ADORE paper-cutting as I'm sure you now know... ;-) but last week, I found that my index finger (where I apply most pressure when cutting) was numb after all of the work I did. I'm only just beginning to get feeling back in the tip today, a week later! Eek! :-) So, it was also nice to take a break from cutting for a week. I wonder if I need to change my cutting technique? I don't want to kill off all of the nerve endings in my finger! 

Looking forward to seeing your post today. Soooo lovely to have you home. I missed that beautiful burst of colour and soul that you bring to my life.

Lots and lots of love

Fi

xx