Tuesday, December 28, 2010

A CHOCOLATE BOMB

Triple chocolate chunk muffins! Yes, you heard that right - triple chocolate chunk muffins. I don't care how many calories these have, they are amazing. Now that's what I call delicious! The recipe for these beauties is from the same cookbook that has the Nutella Cinnamon Almond Cake. It's an awesome book, full of decadent desserts...
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Thursday, December 23, 2010

RED AND BLUE CHRISTMAS

Here are some more ideas for decorating your Christmas tree, this time in blue, silver, and red. This is not a combination you will see often, but I think it looks nice. Back in the day when I was really obsessed with blue, I used to decorate the tree in my parents' house only in blue and silver, but as the years passed, we decided to add some red and make the decorations look warmer.
Here they are in order from top to bottom, left to right:
- an ornament we bought from a Christmas shop in Bar Harbor, Maine, USA, where I took my parents after my college graduation
- Christmas fairy on a laundry pin - it's so cute
- a green fairy godmother, which was a gift from a friend of ours, who knows where you can get the coolest things ever
- a snowman carrying a stack of snowballs, which I bought years ago
- a "sugar apple"
- a disco ball, so that our tree is a party tree...haha
- Christmas bells (notice my reflection there)
- a blue ball (again, notice my reflection because I think it turned out pretty cool...my camera looks huge from the distortion)
- a big red glittery ball that is just gorgeous

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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

CHRISTMAS CARD

I am quite proud of myself.
Before you ask why that is, I'll let you know, and I'll do it in a very smug, self-satisfied sort of way (hihi): I made an animated Christmas card all on my own! Yey me!
Of course, I only did the animation; the drawings were free vectors I found online, and while the audio choice was mine, the sound was edited by 4040. The card is nothing special in terms of effects, but I think that it is really quite funny in a crazy ad agency sort of way. Of course, the firm where I work is a crazy ad agency, so its' all good :)


Sunday, December 12, 2010

CHRISTMAS DECOR

The holiday season is upon us, and I've been decorating like crazy. Since I might be moving soon, I bought a Christmas tree and for my new place and set out to make it pretty. At first, I was thinking of going with the traditional red and gold theme, but since my living room is in the white-beige-chocolate brown theme, I decided that red would be too gaudy. Then, I went to the other extreme by thinking about having a tree decorated entirely in white, but I decided that it would look to plain. Finally, I settled on a gold-silver-white color scheme, which would be Christmasy enough, while still stylish and elegant.
I bought a bunch of sparkly decorations: golden and silver balls, silver hearts, golden bells, white icicles, and fluffy white balls that look very much like snowballs. I wanted to have an angel on top of the tree, and after an extensive search, my mom actually found a suitable porcelain angel that is just adorable. She got me a bunch of smaller angels for the tree and the house, and I also got several golden angels who play different musical instruments. Instead of garlands, I decided to get a bunch of Christmas ribbons; this turned out to be a great idea because they made the tree look really classy. As a finishing touch to the decorations of the living room, I put a bunch of pine cones that I had gathered in the fall in big glass vases.

Here are some photos of my tree and my decorations:

Saturday, December 11, 2010

MAGGIE STIEFVATER IN SOFIA

As you already know (from several of my previous posts about books), I enjoy Maggie Stiefvater's writing very much. Her book Shiver is one of my favorites, both in terms of writing and in terms of the design. Shiver makes even the cold winter season seem magical, providing a wonderful backdrop for the story of the boy/wolf/poet/songwriter Sam and smart and practical, yet fascinated by the mystery of the wolves, Grace. The covers of the three books from the series are all designed by Christopher Stengel, and the text in every book is in a color that matches the respective cover: Shiver is blue, Linger is green, and Forever will be red.

Today I was very happy to have the chance of meeting Maggie Stiefvater here in Sofia during a book signing in Pingvinite bookstore near the Sofia University. There was a good turnout of people, mostly girls, of course, but also a bunch of guys.

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Maggie was great, and I was very excited to get all my books signed, here in Sofia of all places. It's really great that the publishing houses in Bulgaria have started inviting authors. Her visit was also a part of the winter book fair, which is going on right now in the National Palace of Culture (where I purchased a big stack of books yesterday). Check out the photos from the book signing:

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Monday, November 15, 2010

WINTER HOLIDAY JEWELRY COLLECTION

The new WINTER HOLIDAY Collection of hand-made jewelry is out! Dazzle the night away and feel extra special wearing these magnificent metallics!
Price: 15 lv
For orders: kostadina.nacheva@gmail.com


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Sunday, November 14, 2010

SOME FLOWERS ARE STILL BLOOMING

We've had a relatively warm fall this year, and it's great to see that there are many flowers still in bloom, just like these beauties that I've photographed. I took a ton of photos of them last year, too; they are so pretty that they are hard to resist. They are called Calluna Vulgaris and they bloom pretty much all year because they are mountain flowers that are used to colder temperatures.

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Monday, November 8, 2010

FALL, FALL, FALL

Since I've had no time and also no energy whatsoever to take self-portraits (something that I must remedy soon), I have resorted to taking the occasional photo of the gorgeous foliage and plant life around me. Fall is a beautiful season, and this year we've had quite the colorful one.
Here are some photos of a plant/bush/tree (?) that grows next to my building:


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Sunday, October 31, 2010

A PLAY ON WORDS

To be honest, I feel terrible right now. I've had a brutal week and a half, and what is worse is that I'm not really sure when things are going to get better. I haven't taken a single self-portrait in something like a month, which makes me feel terrible. I mean, photography is one of my favorite things right now, but stress in my real life has sort of left me without any inspiration or time to spend on my Flickr photostream.

Whenever things get rough, though, I have a trusted escape route - reading. My salvation, my door to new worlds, my way to let my imagination run wild.

I find that there is a lot of beauty in the written word, literally and figuratively.
The words belong to Maggie Stiefvater and her beautiful novel Shiver. The vision belongs to me, my gloomy mood, and my inner romantic.

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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

MORE FALL PHOTOS

Since lately I've been ridiculously busy, and hence crazy tired, I decided to do the easy thing and upload a few more of my fall photos. A short post, but a sweet one:) Check them out below:

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Sunday, October 10, 2010

FALL COLORS

It was a beautiful day yesterday, so I headed to the park to take some photos of the colorful foliage. Last year I kind of missed the fall season and didn't take any photos, so I was really happy that I had a chance to catch up this year:) It's a pity that we don't have those gorgeous New England maples to add some of that vibrant red to the landscape. Still, everything looked beautifully golden!

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