Color My World 2

The past few days saw me reviving my passion again in coloring. I was not feeling it for almost 2 weeks but when color inspiration came, I was able to color 3 pages from my 3 sets of coloring books.

I must admit I tried to find ways in improving my coloring skills and it is only recently that I am applying some things  I have learned.

Anyway, here are 2 of the Art Noveau Fashion pages that I colored:

A. The Lady in the Jungle. I titled it as so because it is full of greens... I debated on coloring leaves as pink and red ones. Heheheh. I started with the image below deciding to have a pink blouse instead of pink leaves.  

And this is  my finished project... I struggled with this because I got tired of the green color.. and I don't know if the cold, wet weather we experienced for days affected the texture of some of  the Faber Castell watercolor pencils I am using, Some of the leaves look rough even the purple skirt! :(

B. Lady in Pink Roses and Green. I got tired of the green colors from the first one I colored so I decided to make the twines brown even if it looks a bit dry. Hah! I enjoyed using light colors on this one. Again, some of the Faber Castell watercolor pencils look rough when I applied them on the flowers. I cannot "remedy" the damage done anymore. Coloring this was a breeze. It took me a few hours only.

I got tired with the ladies :p so I sorted my Coloring Fan set and decided to do this:

C. Fan with pastel-colored blooms

Since some of my Faber Castell Watercolor pencils got "cold" and rough :p I decided to use the lighter Crayola colored pencils I had. I only have 24 colors compared to the Faber Castell which is 48 +.

Before, I favored using the darker Faber Castell Watercolor pencils because I wanted bolder colors but the Crayola colored pencils allowed me to control the depth of the color better through lighter strokes and just by sharpening them.

I would say this is my best work yet because of the shading.. I hope to improve more as days go by and when coloring inspiration strikes.

Yesterday, i started working with a butterfly design but I stopped it since I need to finish my cross stitch project that my mom has to bring with her next week. 

Wood Nymph 1

My hubby and I love Korean food and the best restaurant for us that serves K-food here in Baguio is Woodnymph.

They have 3 branches here in Baguio but the one I am featuring right now are the foods we ate and we always order at their SM Baguio Branch. 

Introduced by my cousin, Sarah who taught Korean students before, are my favorites since then until today. These are: 

Jeeyukbukom

It's made of thinly sliced pork belly, cabbage and carrots and some other vegetables cooked with Korean spices and sugar (it's kinda sweet). I love eating this.

I captured the elegant carrot flower they made as a decoration to the plate. 

And we usually have jeeyukbukom with: 

Sundobuchigee. It is a seafood soup with shells and clams with soft tofu and soft soft egg with spicy broth,.. as in Whoooooo spicy.. My hubby and I can't get enough of this even if our nose runs because of the heat

Aside from these two of course are the side dishes. We especially love the "honeyed" marble potatoes and kim chi. I love also the sweet and cool sprouts because it balances out the heat and spiciness of the foods.

Best to drink water with these viands and usually get a dessert of cool Melona ice cream bar. :) Yum! 

Grumpy Joe 2

We've been to Grumpy Joe quite a few times and I am happy to see that I have pics on the last time we ate there months ago with my hubby and cousin which I haven't posted.

I love their pasta there and so the three of us decided to get their marinara pasta:

Perper was delighted with the serving and the no. of seafoods in the pasta. It was tasty.

I ordered a cheeseburger to be shared with the three of us. This was our first time to try their burger and we were not disappointed. It isn't really that special but it's good compared to others. There was a side dish of coleslaw and ketchup and mayonnaise as condiments. It was served in a circular wooden board for that rustic appearance.

And, we had their Mexican pizza! There was ranch dressing on top of the nacho chips. It was good. Although I love their signature Grumpy Joe pizza or the pepperoni with jalapenos  better than this. See related post.

And for refreshments, we got: water! Served in mason jar.

We needed water because of this toxic waste! Hot! Toxic indeed ;)

It was a nice experience since we have bonded with a cousin but I loved the first one compared to this in terms of the food we chose to eat.

Color My World 1

I am very lucky that during my birthday last month, my loving and thoughtful friend, Roselle, gifted me three sets of Creative Haven adult coloring books:

I have been looking for adult coloring books in local Baguio bookstores including National Bookstore but I was unsuccessful just like a colleague and a friend so receiving these made me ecstatic!

What I loved about these sets is that the pages have perforation lines which makes it easy to remove a page. I started with the Butterfly Designs and "progressed" with the Vintage Hand Fans and then, the Art Noveau Fashions.

I used the watercolor colored pencil of Faber Castell and Crayola. So far, these are my outputs:

A. Butterfly set
This is the fist set I worked with because I assumed it was the easiest.. I didn't know that sharpening the colored pencils would help me make the colors darker and I have plenty of smudges here

B. Art Noveau Fashion Set

I wasn't too keen with clothes at first, because it looked complicated but I enjoyed coloring this set. So far, I only colored one page as of yet:

C. Fan Set
 I started with this page and  I regret putting the orange background color but what's done is done.

I started with this  2 weeks ago 

and finished it today

I do not color everyday, only when color inspiration hits me...

I tried coloring apps in my mobile such as Colorfy but paper and colored pencils are for me. I was bored with tapping my phone and I do traditional coloring for radiation break from my PC and mobile phone. 

I really hope to improve more in my coloring skills while relaxing... I hope I can learn blending and other more complicated stuff..most of the time, I just grab the pencils and color anyway  I want :) 

Mi Amor - Quesadillas!

Because I was inspired by the cookout I had with my colleagues, I prepared quesadillas during the send off party for a cousin.

I placed  green bell peppers and onions with cheese as the filling for the pita bread heating on top of a non stick pan. For the salsa, I grilled a bellpepper, peeled, sliced and cooked it on a saucepan with diced fresh tomatoes, basil (from the rooftop garden) and some seasonings.

The extra cheese I grated I added to the salsa.

Cutting it up in 4 pieces:

 Finished product:

Bonding Time over Food :)

According to the famed cook, Julia Child, 

"People who love to eat, are the best people"

And I need to add, ".. People who love to cook, are my bestfriends."

My colleagues and I  have a unique bond between us. It might be because we are almost of the same age and we have been together for 5 years or more. So, it's no surprise that our cooking adventure last July was both fun and entertaining. 

First off, a colleague had an idea of creating designs out of fruits inspired from the Internet. These fruits will be later served with vanilla ice cream which was spectacular,  I am proud to say that this was my creation with Trina, a colleague's young daughter:

Nice, yeah? Here are some of the other fruit designs:

This is an upside down tree on an upside down island

When we ran out of ideas, we just made the fruits look like this:

My friends already had their own menu to cook so Vanessa and I were their sous-chef (alalay :p in Tagalog). Cut, chop vegetables, wash dishes, wipe dishes, mix dips etc.

Here are some of what my friends prepared:

Baked Ziti,... so creamy and yummy :)

Baked chicken ala buffalo wings. The ranch dressing made by my colleague was so creamy and it fits the buffalo chicken... Don't mind the Hershey's chocolate syrup-- it's not involved in the dish.

We also had grilled liempo. We mixed in calamansi juice, onions and cayenne pepper. It was a hit!

And then there's the quesadilla of Meynard:

which turned out like this when it was sliced. There were 2 dips: guacamole and tomatoes and the ranch dressing of the buffalo wings. I preferred the salsa because the quesadillas already have cheese.. too much dairy!:

And finally, the centerpiece... Lani's lobsters which were boiled in water:

We were all very full, happy and content with this bonding moment..
See the evidence?

I learned a lot. In less than a week, I also tried cooking the quesadilla for a family gathering which was a hit..which I will blog later on.

Anyway, looking forward to another cook off. home :)

Stargazers

I love stargazers or as my Canadian cousin calls them , tiger lilies... not only because of their beauty but also the scent it imparts to the room when the flowers bloom. I am lucky to have been this plant by a friend on my birthday:

This was taken at the office. As you can see the flower buds did not bloom yet. And so I brought it home with me. After 5 days, i had this:

 Our room smelled amazing. And there were still 3 buds about to bloom. After 3 more days, the other buds bloomed and so I have this. Only one more left to open.

 Finally, all are open!

 

Right now, there's only one blossom left. The petals of the first flowers started falling when the last flower bloomed. I plan to keep the plant alive all throughout the years and I am researching how. I hope it would be a success.

These flowers reflect how loved I am by my friend and by God.