Old man reaches 80

My grandfather, (actually the grandfather of my husband) is the sweetest old man on earth, he has been the one who welcomed me to the Dutch family, with a chocolate letter for Sinterklaas  ( that's what you give children when they are young for the Dutch holiday of sinterklaas, though i was already 28 but who is counting when it comes to chocolate???). 

He also taught me that it is possible to comminucate with no language, lots of candy and some love. 

So Tomorrow he is going to be 80, and i thought it is a great ocassion to make a cake for him, a special one, from sugar dough. 

I was thinking a lot what it can be and since he spent most of his Life on THE Holland-america line cruise ship, New Amsterdam, i thoughtful to would be Nice to make a sea themes cake with The ship and the sea that he loved so dearly.

So here is how i did it:

In THE first pictures you find all THE things you need : 

- a small butter cake, you can use a basic one. 

- a kit of cake decorTing sculpturing tools

- spinkels

- Some cake pop sticks

- Some BBQ woorden sticks.

- white and torqouise rolled fondant. 

- a kit of Food ColorSync for rolled fondant, red, yellow and blue, basis colors.

- candels with nummers on them. 

- what 's not in the picture is a fondant roller, which is used to smooth the dough and thin it.

I started with making The slurfachtig if THE cake with a blue rolled fondant, with Some textures which i made with a special instrument for cake decorating, I also adder a little wave. 

Then i made the body from white fondant, and attached it with a cakepop stick.

I also mixed white fondant with one drop of blue coloring and kneeded it to make the pants/jeans texture .

For th body color, as you can see the little ball for the face, i used one drop of red and one of yellow together with Some white rolled fondant and kneeded carefully. 

 I Made a little face and a nose with anther ball of THE body colored fondant i just created...

Then adder Some ears and the face to the edge of the cakepop stick, while the other end of it Goes through the cake, i gave him a little scarf to.. Hehe...

Later on, i added Some eyes and hands:

With 2 dots of blue Food coloring i made pupils:

Made a grey coloring by mixing together blue red and yellow, and then Some more red. Then added Some grey hair and shoes.

I even gave him glasses...

Added Some gifts around him, after all, It's his birthday cake and it has to be festive...

Since opa was a sailor, i made a cool little cruise ship to Carry his 80 Years candles. 

And added The name of his cruise ship "new Amsterdam " on it with Some red Food coloring. 

And finally, i added a little dolphin to watch over his gifts, though my husband told me ot looked more like a seal. I was happy it was any nautical creature... 

 Here it is in a different angle:

So later in the evening I reminded that I did not have a greeting card for Opa, so I made one, 

I made it in a scrapbooking style, turned out great...

And this is the inside:

I hope he likes it and you did too, cheers from The Mad scientist... 

Cheese from gouda and and a balcony makeover

I like makeovers, especially when they are necessary. 

That is exactly what my balcony needed... It was boring, neglected and sad. It had a lot of dead plants, sand, some old barbecue coals and other things lying around, and it was not happy or inviting.

It was in need of a makeover indeed! 

So me and my man gave it one, and boy it was a makeover... I have added a few of the after photos so you can see how beautiful it finally became...

I got a very nice wooden rack in my favorite store, the "Action" for about 10 euros and put some plants I received and had, the heart shape plant holder I had. 

In the middle rack you see a beautiful little stand of 3 lavender plant holders ( these plants are plastic) which I got in a second hand market for 1 euro. Is that a bargain or what?

The plants in the green bucket are all fake plants which I usually use for winter, but hey in the spring in Holland it can also rain... They were from Ikea.

Ime and my husband got 2 plants that you should grow yourself from plants,  from our aunt and uncle. They are really nice, and are showing some green lately...

This wooden racks I a already had years ago and thought they can be outside in the balcony, I put all kind of nicknacks there...

A nice story over the beautiful purple plant buckets. We got them 2 years ago and they are very nice and sterdy, but one clip that held them on the bottom was broken , so we did not use them. 

My husband went online the website of the maker Elho, and asked for how he can get a new clip and added the model number. And they were so awesome that they sent him 2 clips completely free of charge... Directly to his adress. I think that is what you call good service. I will be sure to onLy buy from Elho in the future, they have great quality and amazing service. You can find their website here:

http://www.elho.com

Please be sure to visit them ,they have great things to offer...

I enjoy traveling and going on trips, and here I have recently been to Gouda twice. That is where they make the cheese, yes. 

It's a beautiful little town with typical Dutch houses, a sweet market , good food and greet people. I think it's very nice to visit there. I have added a few photos of my last visits there:

Main city hall building. Notice how nice the little red windows are...

Did I say the market has cheese? 

Look at the little houses at the back aren't they just adorable? 

The weird shaped thing at the bottom of this picture is an original stroopwafel, that is a typical Dutch waffle with caramel syrup, and they make them fresh at the market, nom nom nom...

All around the market there are little shops which sell beautiful house decor items, I love this one...

And here is me. In The middle of the square

We went into the cheese museum 

Some more cheese anyone? 

All around Gouda are little canals, typical Dutch views, I love it! 

What a lovely day...

I saw this little cupcake and bakery shop, on one of the side streets. It was lovely...

The shandaliers were made of candy, how nice is that ? 

Oh and did I say cheese? 

 

Till next time, cheers or cheese from the mad scientist! 

Game of Thrones previous acting roles and Mother of Dragons by Tula. Who says doctors are right?

So, that was a very long period before I could write. Almost 6 months... gees....

I though that for the occasion this would be an extra positive and happy post. so here goes:

I have done whatever I can, and with the help of my loyal husband, I have gone through (still am) a lot of physiotherapy and I can use my hand again.
It's not exactly like before, but I am getting there, it's gonna take some more time, but as it looks now, besides the no feeling in my fingers, it's going to be alright!

I remembered that when I had the accident the doctors said that I wouldn't be able to play music again...
well...
THEY WERE WRONG!
here is what happens when you put will power, persistence and the mad scientist tula together...
a new song, played, mixed and sung by me .

This song is dedicated to a very strong person who I was watching on TV, from Game of Thrones, the Khalissi, Daenyrys targaryan , she is the white haired strong Mother of Dragons in the show, and she inspires me all the time, since she is good but assertive, and doesn't let anyone stand in the way of what she believes is true .

http://youtu.be/1W3ewG5pT1M

Don't ever let anyone discourage you cause you can do anything if you set your mind to it;

http://youtu.be/1W3ewG5pT1M

I have had a rough couple of months, but now I am focusing on doing happy things, which make me feel good...
As you might understand from the post above, I kinda like Game of Thrones.
But what did the actors of Game of Thrones do before they were famous?
you can see in this video here.

You will be surprised what some of the characters did before they started drinking wine, fighting till blood , scheming and plotting their next move. Some of them had quite normal roles.

http://youtu.be/rct8l4_ezJs

The funniest part was finding this known song played by BRONN , Tyrion's former champion , he was singing "Pretty Woman" at a duo called Robson and Jerome (His full name is Jerome Flynn), that's pretty cool right ? oh, the times I heard that song and thought about Richard Gere are over ...

http://youtu.be/iBKyLjvrmg8

I will try to write more and remind you to always believe in yourself, hey , if I can play and sing with half a hand, and if Bronn can sing pretty woman and still become Tyrion's champion...

Everything is posssible 

Till next time, Cheers from the mad scientist Tula! 

http://9gag.com/gag/ab5Dj4v