Three or more cat paintings

Today, my big boy, Jack, the first Maine Coon I ever bought is celebrating his 10th birthday. He is the kind of cat you don't want. He sprays, even after being castrated for 9 years of his life and he is not the cuddle type that sits on your lap.But never the less (and only other catlovers can understand) I love him dearly.
So, to celebrate this birthday I show you my collection of cat pictures that I collected over the years. This is the cat picture wall, situated in the cat room. As a catbreeder I needed a room for the cats for when they are sick or pregnant or for when I have kittens. So when the children left the house a small bedroom was rearrangd to accomodate the cats.

This and the picture below are the work of Elie Harper. Her husband is very famous in the US and I love these funny catpictures that hang in our living room.

On the above a cat is looking at the snow outside, peeping from under the blinds

This second one from Elie Harper is a cat looking trough a fish bowl.

The work of this lady is totally different. On the cat picture wall I have two other small painting of her. She works a lot in green and depicts a lot of cats. Her name is Sarah Kiser. The other two pictures are on the top left in the cat room. You see immediatly the likeness to these two pictures.

This could be a painting of Jack but it is not. When I saw this one on Ebay I absolutely wanted it. All these pictures come from the USA and are all bought trough Ebay.

A very small painting only as big as a postcard.

This one, also from Ebay, also reminded me of Jack somehow and it was given to me for my birthday by my daughter.

Jack, darling, I love you and I wish you a very happy birthday. Tonight before bedtime we will celebrate with a few cans of tuna. Together with your 10 other friend we will make a party!

Tree or more Tuesday Bird bronzes

Last week I told you about a beautiful bronze statue of a bird on a wheat ear that was hidden in the last birdcage of that blog.

My husband and I where trilled about this silver wedding anniversary gift from our family.

The bronze is from the well know French artist André Vincent Becquerel.
We came across his bird bronzes by accident. A few years before this gift was made to us, my mother and I where at an antiques fair and all of the sudden we saw a bronze statue of a branch with 4 birds on. Its black base lay beside it. We where both immediatly atracted by it.

The base was signed by the letters AV Becquerel. We never heard of this artist before but since the bronze was not too expensive I advised my mother to buy it. Since that day it stands proudly on her coffee table and everybody loves it.
My younger brother, the man he is, wanted to know more about that Becquerel.
He surched and surched the internet but there is not much to be found. We see his work regulary at auctions and on Ebay and so, but he seems not to be a major artist.

There are two versions of his day of birth. Sometimes you see the date 1880 to 1940. On other websites you see 1893 t0 1981. Much of his work has influences of the Art Deco period so I would personaly rather go for the latter date. He has exhibited in Paris in the period between 1914 and 1922. That then again suggests rather the earlyer birthday since he only would have been 21 years old when he exhibited in 1914... I stays a mystery.

We have discoverd some other beautiful other sculptures of him, like leaping fish, deer, lioness and his famous panthers. He also made some bird booksupports and some radiator caps depictings dogs and hares. All these sculptures are much more Art Deco in style then the birds. But we mainly love his bird sculptures.

My brother was so fasinated by the bird bronze of my mother that he looked out for them and managed to find and buy some more. He knew I loved the one my mom bought and one day he found the one with the bird on the wheat ear in a small antique shop. First he offered me to buy it from him and I accepted that offer. Then when I wanted to give him the money he refused to sell it to me. I was very disappointed in him but afterwords of cause we found out that in the mean time the family had decided to gift it to us for our silver wedding anniversary.

So this one became the first I owned.

Of course I wanted some more... Trough Ebay I found the other once. The second one in the house where the seagulls on the waves...It is a common subject for Becquerel since I know of at least two other sculptures with gulls.

After a few years I saw this small one on the French Ebay site and bought it after asking my brother if he was also going to bid on it. We tell each other if there is another Becquerel on Ebay and we decide amoung us who is going to bid for it. We never bid against each other. Last september I found this big one with the whole flock of birds on a branch and managed to buy it. I weights a ton. But I love it so much.
A month agoo I found the last one. This is a sweety too. Look how graceful the grass bows and see the little snail that is crawling up the stem?

The birdies are just fledgelings.They look so young with hardly any feathers, huddled together looking at the snail that is crawling up to them. This bronze is more Art Deco in style than the other ones.
After I maneged to buy this one I said, now I have enough sculptures.I have no more place to put them...but I know I at least have my eye on two more. My mothers sculpture and the one with the birds picking cherry's that I managed to lose on Ebay. So I am saving up again for the next upportunity....

Foody Friday family barbeque

Two years agoo, my father died of Alzheimer disease just like my father in law did last week...
Since the dead of my father we try to come together with the family around the date that dad was born and have a get together in his memory. We had started having these Birthday BBQ a few years before Dad died and mom tought it would be a good idea to keep doing them and so remembering Dad's birthday by.
This gathering took place last sunday.We where lucky with the weather and
like always we had a good day with lots of food and drinks and with lots of laughs.
Of course I had to make something too and I invented a summer vegetable salad that I named:

Victorine kitchen garden salad.

Victorine is my fathers mother and she was a farmers wife. They had a fabulous kitchen garden of witch I have fond memory's of. See the september topic of red apples from last year.

So in honour of her and her kitchen garden I made this salad.
It contains masses of fresh veg and a rather special dressing.

Combine steamed of parboiled pieces of carrot, green beans, snowpeas, cauliflower, white Belgian Asparagues together with raw pieces of celary, zucchini and tiny tomatoes.
I cook all my vegetables separate because they all need different cooking times. I leave them crunchy as well. You af course can take other vegeatbles also.

Then I created this dressing

Creamy sour cream and lemon dressing

Combine one small tub of sour cream with two heaped TS of good mayo.
Put 4 tablespoons of white wine vinigair in ( mine was flavered with minth), salt, pepper, some dryed salad herbs and the grated rind of a washed and untreaded lemon. It gives you a thick creamy dressing. Make it fairly acid at this time since. The salad needs this.

Toss together an hour before serving. The vegatables wil dilute the saladdressing a bit.

As always my younger brother was the barbeque master.

Here we are still on the appetizersGuacamole and a spicy cold mango soup and spicy meatballs with tzaziki.

After the appetizers there chicken drumsticks, pork tenderloin, small steaks, lam cutlets, sausages and all different kind of salads to go with it. For desert I made my mini cupcakes. Mom said, not to much and to big since I just want a little nibble to go with the coffee. I said of course,Mom and brought 60 tiny cupcakes.....Lemon cupcakes with lemoncurd buttercream and blueberry topping.And the all time favorite chocolade cupcakes with pink buttercream and raspberry topping. Of course there where way to many as there was way to much food anyway but I did not hear complains when they where asked to take the leftovers home. I heard the last cc 's where eaten yesterday and they where as nice as they where on sunday! I am still looking for insets for the cakeboxes for mini cupcakes. Can find them anywhere in Europe and the American shops won't send them because I do not want 1000 or so and posting is so expensive! If anyone can help it would be most apreciated.

It was a very nice family day and the star of the day was of course.....the latest addition to our family, our little granddaughter, Anne-Fleur!

Three or more birdcages...and a babygirls room

Once again it is Tree or more Tuesday hosted by http://gypsycorner.blogspot.com/

Today I showcase the birdcages I have collected in the last few years.

These little vintage birdcages are all the rage in Belgium and Holland for the moment. Everyone thinks they are so decorative. I was charmed by them too so I started my little colletion with the white one on the bottom right. It once was black and is a cage for exhibiting birds in on bird shows. You see them quite often on fleamarkets and so and they are still inexpensive to buy.
The very small one on the bottom was my latest find. I bought it at an brocante fair last year and painted it white to fit the baby room.
The blue one is my favorite. This one I got from a forum friend who also has a small antiques shop. I love this one very much.
First all these little cages where in a corner of my livingroom together with the little nest and the oil painting of the doves. But then I found this light garland with the birds at Ikea and I knew I had to incorporate these with the birdcages to go in the baby's room. I makes a nice feature at night for my granddaughter.

I finally finished my granddaughters room. It took a bit longer then I had planned but I is ready now. It could do with some more finishing touches but it is almost there.
Next to the bird cage wall is the bookcase. I am sad I did not have a vintage bookcase to put here but I had 4 of these Billie bookcases from Ikea in this room before it became Anne-Fleur's room so I had to use at least one of them. For years I have been collecting Pop-Up books and now there is finally a little girl who will for sure enjoy them in the coming years.

Next to the bookcase is a little vintage desk and the chair from my grandmothers kitchen. I still see her sitting on that chair peeling potatoes and so. I also have her kitchen table but that one was to big for this room. I want to paint the little table white I think. This is one of the things I still need to do. If you then turn to your right you then will see the bed my parents bought for me to sleep in when I was a little baby. I painted it a aqua kind of blue and matched it with a quilt that I made myself and some lace Ikea curtains. The old red chair is to be recovered. That is the second thing I still want to do but I am hessitating to do it myself because it is a difficult but beautiful shape. This is one of my better vintage finds. I only paid about 35 dollars for it.To your left under the window, stands this also vintage and very small baby's highchair. I bougth it many years agoo to display the replica porcelain doll's in that I made some 20 years agoo. This one sitting in the chair is the very first and one I made and the only once I made handmade clothes for. The doll sits on one my very first babyquilt. It is more then 20 years old.This delightful metal flowering walllight I bougt from the same lady where I bought the blue birdcage from. It was just perfect for this room.Anne-Fleur's daddy made this drawing when he was 5 or 6 years old. I found it last year when we where clearing our attic out. It fits the room perfectly. Anne-Fleur's room was her daddy's room for almost 25 years !I you turn again, you see the dresser and the shelving unit. The dresser was bought when our daughter was a baby and I will now use it as a changing station. On the shelving unit sit a very special toy. My very special Cotton Rabbit all dressed out in pink with white kitty's on her skirt!

I love her!! Next to the dresser this beautiful hook with a glass flower. I found these last year in a German Ebay store. The thing still missing in this room are my two oilpaintings of my fifties girls. I especially wanted to be in this room but they are nowhere to be found. The lays for years at the same place in my closet and when I wanted to put them up I could not find them anymore.

This is my last birdcage. I think I will move it to the baby's room too. I now resides in the bathroom. This is a very special birdcage for me. My husband and I got it for our silver wedding anniversary. Whe where surprised by this gift until we remover the paper inside the cage. Out came a beautiful bronze statue of two birds on a branch by the famous French animalier sculpter André Vincent Becquerel. I will show it to you next week.

Hope you enjoyed my birdcage and babyroom story's. Until next week and thanks for visiting.

Foody Friday Pasta dish

It's tomato time again in the garden and like every year we have some heirloom tomatoes too.

Here you can see a selection of them. Dark, old Mennonite tomatoes, white Coeur de boeuf, meaty pink old Belgian tomatoes and tiny marble size tomatoes.
So it is time to toss them is a friday leftovers pasta dish.

I brown some mince meat and spice it up with black pepper, salt, sweet paprika and then I add all kind of diced tomatoes. Ad a bit of tomato paste and let it stew for a few minutes. Then add a few torn fresh basil leaves.

Add some small pieces of zucchine and put the whole in a baking dish.
Top with some breadcrumbs and some grated parmezan cheese and bake until golden.

Serve with some garlic bread or some crackers or french baguette.

Enjoy!

Three or more Hydrangea's

Since my earliest years we had hydrangea's in our garden. The garden where I grew up with was very small but from what I remember it had one big pink hydrangea bush in it and one lilac tree.
It was the same variety as shown below.
A big pink tub filled with an enormous plant of pink hydrangea's. A parting gift from my quilting lady's.


When I married we had no hydrangea's in our garden for a good many years.
Since rearanging our garden we have lots in lots of types and colours.

A new variety for me. The flowers are a kind of purple/red and it has big heads of flowers. I think they will dry up most beautiful in autumm.

I can't keep blue hydrangea's very well. They all turn pink or lilac. These where support to be blue mopheads.The purest white. I planted these in big tubs too. Don't know if that is a good idea when it gets cold.I don't like lacecaps as much als mopheads but these are kind of niceThe Annabelle's are enormous this year. Flowerheads as big as 30 cm / 12 " across. But when it rains the stems break because of the heavynes of the flowerheads. So sad. But up to now we have been lucky and there has not been to much damage.I love this variety. The softest pink and something between a mophead and a lacecap.
There are tree varieties missing. A very pale blue one that is supposed to flower all summer and a very special one with very dark leaves and white flowers trimmed with pink/orange. But these have not done so well. We have had a very warm June and I planted them in sunny place. It was a place that is too hot for them. I need to find another spot.

We also have a lot of blue lacecaps,I think they are calles Blue Moon, but they have not done eather this year and I don't like them at all. Hydrangea's should be blowsy and fat and this variety is nothing like that.

See you next week for the next Tree or more.