It’s time again for the wonderful challenge The Changing Seasons hosted by my dear friend Su from Zimmerbitch!
Looking back, I’m astonished how much I got done this month! The photos I’m about to share with you now, only show a small part of it, because I thought you might get drowsy after 30+ pictures (well, you might get drowsy anyway, but at least I tried and now you’re warned 😉 ).
I’ve found that in these strange times I long for new experiences and tastes even more than before.
Having read a lovely post about the “Golden Milk” recipe by my dear friend over at A Wonderful Sheep in late March, I knew that this was something I wanted to try out for myself. (Please visit her beautiful and super-creative blog to find out more about the recipe and all the other wonderful things she’s doing!)
Luckily all ingredients were still available in the nearest supermarket. 😉
Making the Golden Paste was a bit of a mess, and if you want to do it, I can only advise to wear some gloves!
She also inspired me to sew my own face masks! Have a look here to learn more about how to make your own disposable masks even if you don’t have a sewing machine.
Which one of my reusable cotton masks do you like best?
Even though I got a lot done this month, I also spend a lot of time on my mum’s lovely red couch reading a book, in this case, a cooking book that inspired me to try my luck and bake something I’ve never tried before…
And what was it, you may ask, that I did bake?
Well, I call it the supreme discipline of baking: French croissants!
Let me tell you it was an arduous task, and the whole process, what with having to roll out and fold the dough a million times or so, took 6 1/2 hours (!!!).
Was it worth it?
The answer is: YES!!! 😀
They might not look as perfect as the ones you can buy in your favorite bakery, but oh, the taste! Let me put it like this: if you put half a pound of butter into a pound of flour the result is just awesome. 😉
I actually planned to use these for a little photo shoot for my friend Su’s Virtual Tea Party this month, but as soon as they were out of the oven, the croissants were devoured by me and my mum. I was lucky to get these shots before all that was left were tiny crumbs! 😂
Of course, if you’re on the lookout for perfect spirals, your simply have to look at some unfurling ferns these days…
And because yellow flowers always cheer me up…
If you would like to join in, here are the challenge guidelines:
The Changing Seasons Version One (photographic):
- Each month, post 5-20 photos in a gallery that you feel represent your month
- Don’t use photos from your archive. Only new shots.
- Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons so that others can find them
The Changing Seasons Version Two (you choose the format):
- Each month, post a photo, recipe, painting, drawing, video, whatever that you feel says something about your month
- Don’t use archive stuff. Only new material!
- Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons so others can find them.
If you do a ping-back to Su’s original post, she can update hers with links to all of yours.
Hope you enjoyed this month’s “The Changing Seasons”!
Take care and stay safe!
Art Expedition 
Not nearly enough photos, Sarah. 🙂 What a huge month you’ve had. Glad you got to see your mum.
Super, fashionable masks. At least you managed to get a photo of your croissants. That is a achievement given how tasty they look. Happy May, Sarah.
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Thank you, Tracy! I’m spending the lockdown with my mum ever since I knew it would be in place. It’s a bit crammed but that’s okay, we get along really well. 🙂
I was so proud baking these, but even prouder I managed to take pictures before they were all gone! 😉 That was the hardest bit by far! Wishing you a Happy and creative May!
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I will, Sarah. All the best.
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As I read through your comments, I was tickled at how many focused on the food. 🙂 We are a hungry lot, us humans, I don’t have the back for baking or cooking anything complex anymore. But I have never thought of making my own croissants. They do look good. I did not get inspired to make masks…yet. How did you find something for the nose part? You did get a lot done in the month. It’s been an interesting one, certainly. I’ve been feeling quite zen this month. Not pushing myself and just flowing. I will miss April a lot. Are you getting more drawing done too? Reading a whole book is so decadent that I couldn’t even admit I had done it. 😉 Good for you. Hope your mom got to read one too. Hugs.
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Yes, I noticed that too, the focusing on the food in the comments! 😀 I don’t blame, eating’s one of our guilty pleasures. 😉
I think I’d never have found the time for baking my own croissants under normal circumstances.
Since it’s quite impossible to buy masks here, I thought it better to make my own than to go without. For the nose part I use these little wire clips you get with freezer bags. I simply tape them on with medical tape and so far it works quite good, you can even use them more than once.
So lovely to hear you’ve been feeling zen this past month – I think my borderline activity was a feeble attempt to distract myself a little from what goes on in the world…
My mum and I are both avid readers, and now more than ever! Have a lovely weekend! Hugs!
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Wow, you have been busy, Sarah! I’ll be right over for a croissant! But do you have a treadmill for after? Your masks are beautiful and you look wonderful in them, and the flowers are just gorgeous. I’ve reveled in the spring blooms this year. They look so hopeful and inspiring and hope and inspiration are what we need to keep on moving forward. I love your mom’s red sofa and the combination of sofa and book are a must. Lovely post and wishing you a great weekend.
~Lauren ❤🌼
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Thank you so much, Lauren! No, sadly I don’t have a treadmill but there’s a lovely park nearby, we could go there and walk off our calories. 😉
I agree, all these spring flowers are lifting my mood and are a pleasure to behold. Wishing you a wonderful weekend too! xxx
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A walk in the park with you would be lovely. 🥰
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🙂 ❤
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I’m drooling over your croissants! Your masks all look great – you’re such a cutie. And who doesn’t like a book on a couch, yellow flowers, and unfurling ferns! Beautiful photos, Sarah!
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Thanks so much, Lani!! Wish I could have shared the croissants with you! 😍
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Yes, one day. I’ll take rain check 😉
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😉
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Those croissants do look delicious, but I don’t think I could deal with the six and a half hour production time. In Germany, do you call young ferns “fiddleheads” the way we do in the US?
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Thank you, Liz! It was a lot of work but very worth it. 😀
No, we don’t call them that but I completely get why you do!!
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🙂
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Wow! I’m impressed with all you’re doing, Sarah. The masks look super and the crescents do too! Take care and stay safe, my friend.
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Thank you so much, Bette! I think it’s just a method to distract myself but as long as it works, I don’t care. 😉 And as long as it tastes good I care even less!! 😀 Have a lovely weekend, my friend! Take care and stay safe! xoxo
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Sarah, I am impressed with your baking, croissants are not easy to create. I should be an expert on having eaten so many over the last decade 🙂 There is a lovely bakery at Mount Maunganui who bakes croissants and yes I have brought one or was it two 🙂 I usually avoid blogs that mention the virus etc. though I do like your selfies!
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Thank you so much for your lovely comment, Suzanne! And how wonderful to know another croissant lover! They belong to my all-time favourite bakes goodies! 😀
I try to do the same about avoiding blogs that mention the virus, even didn’t watch the news for three consecutive weeks, but it’s not easy since it affects all of us. I try not talk about it too often myself, but I was so proud of making these masks, I had to include them – lol! Wishing you a wonderful weekend! Take care!
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A half pound of butter rolled into a pound of flour? I’ll be right over!
About 8 weeks ago I tossed $10 worth of California wild flowers into some of the bare patches of my yard, and water faithfully every day. Finally, after a very wet March and April, I have 6 blooming flowers. Not the whole strip, not 60 or 6 dozen, just 6 flowers. And just so you don’t get any fancy ideas, bake about as well as I garden.
Now you know why it would be easier for me to come to your house to eat your croissants than it would be for me to try my hand at this feat.
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Hehe! 😉 Oh, how much I’d love this to come true – you coming over to feast on croissants with me, Shari! Or I could come to you – you’ll let me use your kitchen, wouldn’t you? I promise to clean up afterwards! 😀
Oh no! That’s so frustrating when that happens. But don’t worry, you’re not alone with this! I’ve been trying to grow these very large red poppy flowers for years now but even if I can make them grow, they never ever produce a single flower. 😦 This year most of my seeds behave really badly, although they get an abundance of sunlight and water. Maybe I should start using croissants as fertilizer instead of eating them myself? They let my belly grow sideways, so maybe it would work?! 😉
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Croissants as fertilizer – what could it hurt? I’m laughing as I write this – what an image!
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😀
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What a beautifully interesting post and you look so pretty in your face mask! Hope all is well with you and your family. K x
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Thanks so much, Kerry! Yes, all is well here – well, apart from the idiots that still run aroud wearing no masks at all and trying to infect all the other… Hope you and Teddy are well too? So sorry for my long absences in blogland, I’ll try to catch up with your blog soon! Take care! ❤
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We have some of those too… K x
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You accomplished a lot this month! I love the masks! They are so cute 💗 Those croissants look delicious. Great post!! 💗🌱
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Thanks so much, Lisa! I still can’t believe myself how busy I was – and that I actually baked croissants!! Must be the lockdown stress syndrome or something. 😉 Have a lovely weekend! ❤
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A fun post, Sarah. You’re the only person I know who looks beautiful in a mask. Ha ha. And those croissants! All that butter! No wonder they barely lasted until you got a photo. I hope May is as wonderfully creative as April was. Be safe as Germany starts to open. Take care, my friend. ❤
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Aww – thank you, Diana! 😀 It’s funny, I see a lot of masks in the internet and presented in little tailor shops around here, but most people still don’t wear them, although they’ve become mandatory around here, at least in shops and public services. Or they wear them completely wrong, like under their chins!! (Maybe they’ve got gills?!)
Isn’t butter just wonderful?! 😀 Of course, I wouldn’t eat like that every day, but every once in a while is okay, I think. 🙂
Wishing you a lovely weekend and May! Take care, dear friend! ❤
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I notice about 1/2 of the people here wear masks. I find them hot and uncomfortable, and soggy after a half day of being out (ugh), but I wear them. It’s nice to have a bunch that I can just toss in the laundry. 🙂 Happy May.
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Yes, they’re not very comfy, and I had trouble adjusting to them at first. But then I thought of all the Chinese that were wearing them for so much longer already than us, so I shut my mouth and put the mask on. I just wonder how it will be when the thermometer hits 30 degrees Celsius?!
Wishing you a lovely weekend and a Happy May too! ❤
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🙂 Summer in a mask. Yikes. 🙂
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What a wonderfully balanced month. So glad you were able to make both the golden milk and masks! All the masks look great–such fun patterns you chose. And the croissants… oh my mouth is watering as we speak! Also! I learned the name of the Kerria flowers over here too. There were two varieties on my mountain — the ones like yours with rows of petals and ones that were just a few petals. I feel more connected to know we appreciated the same flowers, halfway around the world♡
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Thank you very much! And also for inspiring me this past month in so many ways!! ❤ And what fun that we learned and appreciated the same flowers half a world apart at the same time! Looking forward to read all about your month too! Take care! ❤
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You sure were determined to make those croissants, Sarah! Six hours of rolling…yikes. Obviously, the payoff was worth it. They look delicious! You certainly have been busy. Like you, I’ve found myself much more productive during this quarantine. I love the masks. You look terrific wearing them. Take care! ❤
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Hehe! Thank you, Jill! Although I do have to admit that a lot of the time was also spend waiting for the dough to cool in the fridge between tours. 😉 But it still took much longer than just taking frozen ones out of the fridge! 😀 So glad to hear that you know how to keep busy to and find that your productivity has even grown during this time. Keep it up! Take care! ❤
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You did a bunch!! The croissants look wonderful, Sarah. Homemade is always so much better. One bite and you just know it didn’t come from a store. I cannot find masks anywhere so husband and I are wearing bandanas. We walk into a store looking like the road show from the wild, wild West, but oh well. We may look wild, but we are protected! 😀
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Thanks so much, Lois! Oh yes, the difference is so easy to tell when you take a bite! Mine were a bit more dense than those bought in a store, but they also had more taste. I always wonder what’s all put into bread and cakes these days, lots of things to prolong its shelve-life supposedly, but are they good for us? I don’t really think so. And anyway, why should croissants have a long shelf-life? They’re eaten in minutes! 😀 😉
Hope you can find some masks soon as it seems this ciris will take longer than we were all thinking (or hoping). Bandanas are a good idea though. Here, lots of tiny tailor shops are selling handmade masks now, some look very fancy. I even saw masks that were made of bra cups!!! There’s no end to creativity it seems. 😀
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I like all your masks, well done! Cheers your creativity, I’m impressed.👍🏻😊
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Thanks a lot, Dina! Wishing you a beautiful weekend! 😀
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Your croissants look utterly delicious!!!
I’m glad you have had a productive month — and had time to slow down and read. I’m wondering even more now what exactly I’ve done with myself.
Thank you for sharing your gorgeous photos — especially the face-mask selfies!!!
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Thank you very much, Su! I was hoping you would like the croissants. 😀
It’s funny, even though I’m quite busy these days, I also get a lot of reading done. The downside of this, of course is, that I have only a limited supply of books! 😂
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It was a productive month. Those croissants look amazing. Your growing season is definitely ahead of ours, Sarah. Cheers!
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Thank you, Chris! It was much more busy than I had anticipated what with the lockdown. Hope your growing season will soon catch up with ours! Cheers!
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I want croissants now…..I might even have a go. Nice masks too.A lovely post Sarah 🙂 I had a good time in your last month 🙂
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Hehe! Croissant do have that effect, don’t they? 😉 Glad you enjoyed this post, Brian. 🙂 And please let me know if/when you’re having a go at croissant baking yourself!
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Will do Sarah 🙂
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