How To Make Floating Banana Photo Trick (Photoshop / Lightroom)

22 November, 2015 | Digital Photography School | 5 seen

I created this simple floating banana image using a tripod, camera and Adobe Ligtrooms + A little retouching in Adobe Photoshop. I wanted to make the image look even better so I did a HDR image.

Floating Banana Photography Trick

I did this image for my 365 day photo challenge project and submitted it as day 49 picture. I really feel proud of my self - like on day 1 I barely knew how to take a decent exposure using Manual mode, while on day 49 I'm photographing floating bananas already. I can't wait to see what will I submit at day 365.

Now back to the floating banana... Actually it is very easy trick. I was taking two separate images - one with a banana and background, while second just with background. I used tripod to have a fixed position for both of my pictures.

Now this is the tricky part - HDR images is done using a bracketing technique, which means instead of taking just one image you are taking at least 3 images (underexposed, overexposed and normal) and then sticking them together in Photomatix (there are other HDR processing tools as well). I wanted to make super cool HDR floating banana picture, so I had to take 6 pictures (3 with banana and 3 with background). Unfortunately the lightening scene didn't matched for final HDR images, and I ended up with using spot removal tool just in one picture (the one with banana)

Regarding picture with banana, all secret is to slice it and stick it together (I used tooth sticks)

Banana photography

I fixed banana on two toothpicks so it looks like it actually floats above the ground, so did I stacked the sliced pieces together. No magic here. 

At the end I finished this image in Adobe Lightroom using spot removal tool, and fine tuned above image in Adobe Photoshop.

Restaurant Dzveli Gelati near Motsameta

21 November, 2015 | Restaurant reviews | 12 seen

Restaurant Dzveli Gelati (Old Gelati in English) is located outside of Kutaisi in small village Motsameta. I had a chance to have a dinner here during a short one day tour around Kutaisi (Bagrati Cathedral, Gelati monastery and of course Motsameta monastery).

Dzveli Gelati restaurant serves a traditional Georgian cuisine, prices seemed somehow above average for me, but meal was just excellent. By the way this was on of the rare places in Georgia were vinegar is added to salads.

A large banquet hall in Dzveli Gelati restaurant

Restaurant Dzveli Gelati near Kutaisi

View from Dzveli Gelati restaurant

We asked to have a separate coupe room

Traditional Georgian tomatoes & cucumber salad

Ostri - Traditional Georgian meal

A cup of Turkish coffee at Dzveli Gelati

Pork barbecue 

The Bottom Line

Dzveli Gelati restaurant is located in a good place (next to the road heading to Gelati Monastery) it has a spacious rooms, while the price is above the average. If you are traveling a large group this place for sure can host you a tasty meal.

Masterclass in Asian Cuisine

20 November, 2015 | Food blogger | 7 seen

At the start of November 2015 I took a master class in Asian Cuisine. The master class happened in a lovely Georgian restaurant Sareckela in Tbilisi and was led by a gourmet chef from Russia Natalia Chvileva. You can follow Natalia on her Facebook page: Touch to Food

The reason that made me to take participation in such master class was simple - I love to cook, I enjoy Asian cuisine and I have a food blogger section on my blog. Being a food blogger means just one - I'm always learning new things and I'm happy to share my knowledge with my readers (you). This master class was not only good for learning new things in Asian cuisine but also a good practice for my digital photography school project, so I took a tripod and camera and was ready to learn new things.

And I learnt a lot.

Ingredients for Asian Cuisine master class

You can see there are a lot of sauces and actually sauces are one of the main ingredients in Asian cuisine. Also we were using soybean noodles instead of rice noodles, and we were using corn starch, I believe those were my first two discoveries in this master class. Prior to that I knew just regular noodles made from flour and egg. Yeah and in fact I didn't know there are various starches, like I knew there is a regular starch made from potatoes, but that there are actually a corn and rice starch I didn't know.

Shredded pork

Different spices for Asian Cuisine

Wangzhihe sauce

Tofu cheese

Fried chicken filet 

Asian noodle soup

Kitchen at restaurant Sareckela

Truffle flavored honey

We were not using this ingredient but visitors at restaurant Sareckela can get such precious flavor at restaurant Sareckela

Asian Cuisine - Rice noodles, fried vegetables and a squid

I submitted above picture as my entry picture of day 45 for my 365 photo challenge on Flickr.

The Bottom Line

Master classes are fun way to learn new things and socialize with like minded people, I will definitely take participation in other master classes in future. 

You can learn more about master classes in Tbilisi by visiting Touch To Food Facebook account ir read my review of restaurant Sareckela.

October 2015 Blog Traffic and Income Report 39,928 Users / $549.49

19 November, 2015 | Blogging | 6 seen

Today we are celebrating this blog's #22 traffic and income report. Unbelievable how fast times goes by. It seems just yesterday I sat at my laptop's monitor, installed Drupal on Linode VPS, registered a domain in Godaddy and started to explore is there a way I can get some traffic (back then I was not thinking about making actual money out of it) to my blog. 

On October 10, 2015 this blog celebrated its second anniversary - just wow. 2 years passed like a flicker. 

I was doing separate reviews both for traffic and income until last September, I just understood - how time consuming it is to provide 2 similar articles on related topic. Traffic and Income for any website goes hand to hand. The reason for publishing such reports and revealing secrets beyond the scenes are simple - Transparency matters. I hope my success or failures can give some ideas to you as well. On the other hand there are times when I'm planing to stop write reviews about traffic and income at all, well most probably I will do that once 100 000 user milestone will be (if) cracked. But you never know.

Back to the numbers.

Last October almost cracked 40,000 user milestone and almost generated the same traffic in one month as it did for a whole 2014

Blog Traffic October 2015 Data source: Google Analytics

October attracted 39,928 unique users what is a modest growth of %8.89 if compared to September. It was third month in the row making more than 30,000 users. On average in October I had 1,288 unique users per day. 

I was so eager to crack 40,000 user milestone that I boosted an article on Facebook (more on that bellow) unfortunately it was not enough to reach my goal.

About Income and Expenses in October

A quick note: Some of the links below are affiliate links.By clicking on them I might end up earning some income from that.

• Google AdSense: $59.08
• Amazon Associates*: $500.89
• Sovrn: $7.02
• Booking: $0
• Bluehost: $65.00
• ThemeSnap: $0

*Amazon Associates includes Amazon CPM

Total income: $631.99

Expenses:

• Linode VPS: $62.50
• Facebook Ads: $5.00
• Domain renewal: $15.00

Total expense: $82.50

Net profit: $549.59

Thoughts on Income

Frankly speaking I was excepting to see even a greater decrease (In September and August income averaged just a little bit bellow $1,000) for October, but gladly I was wrong. The biggest drop happened for earning from Amazon Associates program, I already experienced this last October, and then I found following to explain it:

Obliviously I started to wonder - why does income this month is lower - and if honest I didn't find a good explanation. I have just one assumption - October was a slow month for retail sales, why? Have no idea! Maybe in October people have less money to spend?

See - there is nothing wrong with traffic to my blog, it even increased for 42% in month of October, so I cannot explain this with lost traffic. Even clicks to Amazon increased sharply, but conversation rates decreased from about 5% in September to 2.4% in October (more than by half).

The same words (just other numbers) I can use to describe happenings for last October.

On the other hand - earnings from Google AdSense and Bluehost leveled up my total earnings. I'm surprised seeing earrings from Google AdSense steadily growing month over month. In fact I added third Google AdSense block and it contributes a few extra dollars to total AdSense profit. 

Bluehost is just a lovely affiliate marketing program paying out a very lucrative commissions for attracted customers - $65.00 If you are into hosting you can make way more than I do by promoting just Bluehost alone.

ThemeSnap is a new affiliate partner on my list  - I decided to experiment with selling Drupal Premium Themes - thus I didn't made anything last month here - I see there is some potential.

Now about expenses - Linode is my trusted hosting partners for some 4 years already, I have a total freedom on it (I'm running a VPS). I believe my expenses will go here even higher with time, one of the things I'm looking to spend is a managed hosting on Linode which comes about $100 per month. I should probably upgrade to managed hosting once I will break $1,000 income milestone, for now additional $100 seems kind a high price.

About spending on Facebook ads - there are times when I spend small amount of money on Facebook just to drive traffic back to my blog, this month I created a post with Top 44 hotels in Georgia and boosted it to local Georgian audience. Although it didn't generated me any direct income, it helped (as I believe) to build my name as a brand for selected audience (A few hotel owners contacted me back, and many other hotel owners just re-posted/shared that article on their business and personal pages, being proud listed as one of the best)

Things on Blog

I did two major things on blog last month - first I finally created a decent footer section (removed a lot from header)

Footer section

I did some other small user interface improvements on blog as well.

Second, and a huge thing - imported more than 2600 Georgian hotels. You might wonder - why I would do this - does it is a blog or what? I agree on that, I still haven't figured what is it what I'm building. For now I would love to call this as an extended Blog.

The reason to import Georgian hotels in my blog is simple. First of all - I have been Booking affiliate partner for a couple of years already (haven't made much, but cannot complain either). Second I'm building geospatial blog, what means that every tourist attraction, restaurant or hotel I review I put on map (using decimal latitude and longitude values), so I can provide related places and location using this data (this is achieved with help of Drupal which is my favorite CMS and I have been building sites on it for years). I have more than 20 Tbilisi restaurants, some 100 tourist sights and a few hotels already listed on my blog. By importing additional 2600 hotels I can now provide better information for my readers and probably I can earn some additional income from that. I would call this a win-win situation. I'm not looking to generate tremendous booking sales (I would lie if say - that haven't thought about it), frankly speaking if this import will help me earn additional $537 (EUR 500) in next 12 months I will call this a right decision. 

Beyond the blog

In October my mom visited me in Georgia for 12 days, and I took her on some remote parts of Georgia (we traveled a lot across the country). I did a lot of photography, speaking of what, since September I have been doing 365 days photo challenge of taking a photo every day. See my photo of the month for October.  Also you can see/follow my photo challenge on Flickr. 

I started another interesting project - cost of Living in Georgia, were for the month of October I counted my daily expenses to see for myself, is it cheap or not to live in Georgia, results are quite fascinating, but latter (in future blog posts) about that.

As you can see October was pretty busy month with a lot of projects and not many time for blog writing, but thanks to my strategy of writing at least one post per day and using a scheduler it worked out pretty well.

Look in the Future

Now speaking of forecasts for November - I'm willing to crack 40,000 user milestone this month. Income? Hard to tell.. Would be great to reach at least $750.

Restaurant Sareckela in Tbilisi

18 November, 2015 | Restaurant reviews | 11 seen

Restaurant Sarackela is located in Tbilisi on A.Tsereteli Avenue 72, it serves both European and Georgian cuisine, and has one of the most passionate chefs in the town - Natalia Chivileva. One of the nice features this restaurant offers - are master classes for kids and adults on Sundays.

This is the reason I got to this place actually, I took a master class of preparing Asian food at start of November 2015.

Restaurant Sareckela in Tbilisi

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Interior at Sareckela restaurant in Tbilisi

Restaurant Sareckela in Tbilisi

Working hours for restaurant Sareckela

​The Bottom Line

Although I didn't ordered here any meal as I took a master class (for which I paid 35 Lari) and didn't see actually the menu, the one is for sure - the food here will be tasty and delicious thanks to it's great chef Natalia, she is found of seasoning and left me with an impression that she is a super gourmet - so did must be her dishes.

You can follow restaurant Sareckela on Facebook to learn more about special offers or master classes. 

Prometheus Cave near Kutaisi (Georgia)

17 November, 2015 | Tourism objects | 39 seen

Prometheus cave is one of the interesting places I have visited lately in Georgia. In fact that's the second cave I have visited here. The first one is called Sataplia Cave. In case you are into caves and speleology I recommend to visit both of them.

Prometheus cave is located some 20km from Kutaisi in village Kumistavi (Tskaltubo Municipality), and if you are arriving to this lovely city  - I can only recommend include Prometheus cave in your itinerary while being in these parts of Georgia.

And that's how it actually happened last time I were here - my mom arrived to visit me in Georgia through Kutasi international airport, and I immediately took here to the Prometheus cave. If you don't have a friend to pick you up in Georgia, take a look on these Kutaisi hotels to book your stay and arrange a tour guide from your hotel (It's ridiculously easy to arrange tours in Georgia, ask any taxi and he will take you there for some 20 lari, or you can even get there by minibus for some 1 GEL)

Prometheus cave visitor centre 

You can buy your tickets here. Price for a regular walk in group accompanied by guide - 7 GEL, you can pay extra 7 GEL and end your tour by sailing in the boat in underground lake (river). 

The total length of tourist trail inside the cave is about 1060 meters which you can choose to be accompanied by English or Russian/Georgian speaking guide. 

Light decorated limestones inside Prometheus cave

I wish I would knew more about speleology so I could better explain what you can actually expect at Prometheus cave. Limestone? I don't know where I got such word from. Anyway it's lovely lightened inside the cave, so you will at least find lovely light patterns playing on the rocks.

Speaking of inside photography, I was hoping to use tripod, but it's forbidden to use a tripod inside cave (it's narrow, and somebody, perhaps can break your neck, because it's pretty dark inside), no flashlights as well (as I was informed by our tour guide). I switched my DSLR camera to manual mode, enter auto ISO, and started to photography, honestly speaking I'm surprised of seeing how good the results is. Who said Higher ISO is bad? (Ok, I actually know one huy who said this to me). Lear more about my photography experiments: Digital Photography school

Stalactites inside Prometheus cave

A stalactite is an icicle-shaped formation that hangs from the ceiling of a cave, and is produced by precipitation of minerals from water dripping through the cave ceiling.

Stalactites inside Prometheus cave near Kutaisi

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Stalactites inside Prometheus Cave

Amazing light patterns

Prometheus cave in Kumtivisi (near Kutaisi)

I made a HDR photography from this, take a look on it on my Flickr account

Now if you have bought additional ticket for another 7 GEL, you can take a short (280 meter) boat sail in underground river of Prometheus cave

Boat dock at Prometheus cave

From here you will be taken with a minibus to the start of your journey (Visitor center building)

The Bottom Line

Prometheus cave in Kumtavisi village (close to Kutaisi) is just another superb tourist attraction place in Georgia. Make sure you don't miss it.

More about Prometheus Cave

Info from http://kutaisi.gov.ge/eng/news/id/98

 Location – Sub-horizontal,

•  general direction – South West
•  Number of Halls – more than 15
•  Length of Tourist route in the cave – 1060 m.
•  Maximum height – 21 m. Air temperature – 15-17
•  Water temperature 13-14

“Prometheus” cave is one of the richest caves of Europe. It is characterized by the variety of underground rivers and beautiful landscapes. Golden Fleece cave meets all needs of international tourism level. Walking route for tourists is 1060 m. Also tourist will sail by boats in underground lake (280m) In nearby territories where there are other caves speleological tours can be organized. The total length of these caves is 15 555 m.

• Tours for those who are interested in extreme tours and can be organized.
• One day route on foot/by horses can be organized (6 km). Tourists can walk in forests, visit complex of caves.
• Tourist camps can be organized on the territory

Painting Floor - Adding Base Layer of Paint

16 November, 2015 | Home Remodeling | 11 seen

After we cleaned up our space from junk, I painted walls and ceilings in white using just a water based paint. Both our future temporary bedroom and kitchen started look decent. Then my father helped me with electrical wiring and installed a few new power outlets. Now was the right time for painting floors. I started with our bedroom. Bought the most cheapest paint available on market (brown) and started to paint.

I was hoping that for temporary solution it should be enough just with one paint layer, but I turned wrong - floor looked screwed. But that's not a big issue, because you can always add second layer of paint after the first one has dried up.

Bedroom prepared for floor painting

This is the same room I painted both walls and ceilings with water based paint. 

Adding base layer of paint

As you can see the surface of this floor is made from some plywood and the last time it has seen some paint job probably is some 30 years ago. Most probably we will change flooring for this room in future, but for now - all it asked was just a fresh paint.

Painting doors

In parallel we painted our bedroom doors as well. Bought some discount paint and chose blue color just to give some contrast and give some accent to overall interior.

Painting floor

Base paint layer added 

As you can see it's far from perfect, and that's why it's always a good idea to add at least 2 paint layers for floor. Make sure you check my home remodeling post series and soon you will see how the floor looked when I applied second paint layer.

My Outdoor Working Place During Last Summer (2015)

15 November, 2015 | Home Remodeling | 4 seen

Owning an old rural house is nice, and it's even nicer if you can both live and work from there. Since I'm into a thing called a digital nomad (place doesn't matter as long as there is an internet connection), during last summer I had setup my working place in different corners both inside and outside of our country house.

I remember how back in 2014 we used Turtle lake for our working place in Tbilisi. 

Prior of having a basic outdoor working place there are three main important things you will need - an internet connection, a laptop and of course an electricity, speaking of the internet - in rural areas most probably you will stick with a mobile (3G/4G), you should have a phone with a built in Wi-Fi router to connect your laptop. I had both the phone, internet on it and laptop, but it took some 2 months before electricity was connected to our house.

So I'm sharing how it actually looked alike:

Laptop on the desk

Seems that in that particular moment I have been just finished an article about Andorra La Vella hotels. Andorra is among my favorite tourist destination points. Read more: my Spain and Andorra Travel guide.

I actually delivered few Drupal projects from this working environment

The bucket with meat and barbecue in background? That's right, being a digital nomad has many advantages.

Preparing a grill for barbeque

That's right, after the hard work man needs to eat his meat. Read more about how we set many barbecue parties this summer. Read: First Barbecue Festival in Our Newly Inherited House

View to our veggie garden

Some have great views from their office buildings to Manhattan towers, I had a lovely view to cucumbers, parsley and other veggies grown in boxes. Read how we created our veggie garden: Our First Veggie Garden: Planting Plants in Boxes

Author of this blog captured in action

The Bottom Line

Most probably I will plan to build a separate cabinet inside the house for my work needs in future, but for this summer, this was just the best working conditions I have faced like ever, seriously!

To make it sound more serious and important we came up with a new name for our activities from our rural house - Bakuzi development group.

Replacing Electrical Wiring and Installing Outlets

14 November, 2015 | Home Remodeling | 47 seen

On June 25th electricity was connected to our old rural house, and that was the next big issue to fix soon. The old electrical wiring was done like some 30-40 years ago and it just wasn't safe. Luckily I'm familiar with the best electrician, and he is my dad. So I called him and asked for both advice and assistance.

Dad seemed excited and soon he was on site, with a lot of wires, cables, screwdrivers, different unknown for me electrical measurement devices and the wiring replace works started.

Old wiring

We agreed to disconnect all the old wiring and install a new cable connecting it directly to electrical distributing point. We had to drill a few holes. In above image - white wire - the new one, black - old.

Dad in action

Preparing a safety box for electrical switches

The new wires goes through the old walls

Electrical distribution point

Next year we are planing to pull down these walls and build new ones instead for building a bathroom latter in this space. Most probably the replaced wiring will be changed at least one more time.

Electrical switches box being installed

The Bottom Line

Electricity is crucial. By now we have fixed 1 out of 3 major issues, the left are: changing leaky roof, digging a well and providing a water supply to the house. Both the wiring was changed and new power outlets were installed.

Well electricity is very crucial for any further success of home remodeling. There is one thing I'm very afraid and that for sure is an electricity, so I'm glad I had my dad to help me out with this.

Homemade Noodles in Spicy Sauce

13 November, 2015 | Food blogger | 6 seen

November started with a huge goal - not to spend a tetri eating outside, instead we decided to cook good food at home. Today I will show how to prepare a really fresh egg pasta noodles in spicy sauce. 

I really love to make noodle pasta by my own - and actually it's very easy, thus a hand strength is required if you are not using some dough mixer machine. 

My recipe for noodle pasta is simple - one egg for every 100 grams flour. Today I took 7 eggs and 700 grams flour. Add a little bit salt (1 tbs) and sugar (2 tbs). 

Directions for preparing fresh egg pasta

• Add Flour to a bowl (make a small cavity to put eggs in)
• Add eggs to the flour
• Knead your pasta
• Today I spent 20 minutes of kneading this egg pasta, it required a lot of muscle strength and patience. 
• Once you have finished your pasta kneading, make a ball shape of it and put it in fridge for some 30 minutes (at least)

Preparing fresh egg pasta

Making noodles using macaroni machine

We bought our macaroni machine here in Georgia some years ago already, if you don't have one, take your chances and browse on amazon.com

[amazon:B0009U5OSO:full]

Using pasta machine to create noodles

Fresh egg pasta noodles

To avoid noodles becoming sticky sprinkle flour over noodles

Boiling noodles and making sauce

Now add your freshly made noodles to the bowl and boil up to 3 minutes. Remove noodles from bowl. 

Now prepare your spicy sauce for noodles.

Preparing spicy sauce for noodles

Just the usual - onions, chopped beef, grated carrots and your preferred seasoning for sauce

Now mix noodles with sauce and serve

Noodles served in spicy sauce

Abandoned Armenian Church in Tbilisi (Surb Nshan / St. Nikoghayos)

12 November, 2015 | Churches and Monasteries | 109 seen

Tbilisi never ends to surprise (at least me). I thought I'm quite familiar with all the places in Tbilisi's Old Town, but turned out - I was wrong. It was a Halloween eve and we decided to head to Shardeni (Tbilisi Old Town) to photograph some Halloween pictures.

Prior to that we went to lovely noodles place called Fire Wok on Shalva Dadiani street, and then just to randomize our route we decided to take a slight right turn on Lermontovs street, our first discoveries started already here, so I find a lovely Boutique art shop - Estia. 

After Estia we continued to wander through narrow Old Town's street when suddenly we ended in some yard which featured a really majestic building - as I learnt latter - Surb Nshan Armenian Church.

Abandoned Surb Nshan Armenian Church in Tbilisi

Luckily I took a tripod and I had already mastered some skills of taking night photography. See: Digital Photography school

Outside altar at Surb Nshan Armenian Church

To get a decent night exposition here I used light painting technology from a flashlight built in my phone. See how I light painted a complete darkness during Summer Solstice.

Crypt near Surb Nshan churh

It looks so surreal - I mean this church is in some dwelling house's backyard. All that hung linen... crypt and linen... Looks way 'too surreal to me, not to say more

​

Crypt near church

Info plate back from Soviet days

According to written on this plate: Surb Nshan 1701 - is an architecture monument, guarded by state (Georgian SSR), any damage done to monument is punished by law.

Surb Nshan church tower shot from nearby street

I felt pretty surprised after seeing such architecture treasure left perish.

About Surb Nshan

The church is situated not far from Erekle II Square, at the crossroads of Akopyan and Serebryanaya streets. The exact date of the church foundation is unknown. But the available evidence suggests that it has existed before the 17th century. Evidence of this is a record in a Memory diary created in 1624. 

The inscriptions telling about the construction and restoration of the dome (1780), the door (1781), a new door, the chapel (considering the threshold of the southern entrance, 1861), etc. are valuable.

The records covering the construction process that had developed in the 17th century are especially detailed.

In 1868 the restoration work has also been conducted. The work, requiring 1020 rubles expenditure, included the restoration of the cross (300 rub.), whitewashing of the inner walls (500 rub.) and etc

The need for regular maintenance work was already felt in 1894.

In Soviet times, the church building was adapted for different purposes: During World War II the church was turned into a warehouse of pasta. Later it became a book depository of the National Library (mainly the Armenian periodicals were kept here)

Desolated and abandoned for decades Surb Nshan Church, left without any repair, in the end of 1990s’ has already been in a disastrous state. In September 1998 several employees of Monument protection of Georgia, concerned about the fate of the church, declared to the Armenians living in the neighborhood that if they within a month didn’t start repair jobs, the church would be given to the Georgian Patriarchy.

Read more: Surb Nshan (St. Nikoghayos) Church in Tbilisi

Estia Handmade Art Boutique Shop & Masterclasses in Tbilisi

11 November, 2015 | Shopping Venues | 22 seen

It was a late October evening (It actually happened on Halloween night) when after having a delicious noodles at Fire Wok we decided to take some other route for heading into Tbilisi's Old Town. And suddenly on Lerrmontov street 3 we noticed a small boutique shop with interesting name - Estia, at first I thought maybe it's somehow related to Estonia. The sign at outdoors informed they serve a coffee here as well.

You can't buy happiness but you can buy coffee

This statement turned out to be just a half true - you can buy a coffee here, but that's actually not a coffee, but an instant coffee for 2.5 GEL - takeaway only. I was hoping for some coffee latte or Americano at least.

Instead of having a cup of coffee here I spent some time talking to the personnel of this art shop, asked different questions, like are they somehow related to Estonia? In fact they are not anyhow related to Estonia, but with some ancient Greek goddess Estia. I didn't knew of such goddess.

Estia Art Boutique shop in Tbilisi

In short you can buy here handmade painted teapots, pads, cutting boards and other stylish items.

Ashtray Tbilisi

This might be a good gift from Tbilisi if you are a smoker. I actually like such things. The above seen ashtray costs about 18 GEL.

Teapot painted with pomegranates 

Hand painted ceramics at Estia shop

Wall decor - painted cutting board

Master classes at Estia shop

I learned that you can take participation in master classes for 20 GEL and they usually takes some 2 hours, during your master class you will be provided with some ceramics to paint on, after master class you can keep your work.

At Estia handmade art boutique shop in Tbilisi

At Estia handmade art boutique shop in Tbilisi

Estia handmade art boutique shop in Tbilisi

​If you are looking for some interesting souvenirs from Georgia and Tbilisi, Estia Handmade Art Boutique shop might be very good choice, you can not only buy items here, but you can even take a participation in some of the master classes and create your own special items

Visit Estia Facebook page.

Our First Veggie Garden: Planting Plants in Boxes

10 November, 2015 | Home Remodeling | 7 seen

What would be a real country house without a garden? Right it would be a garden less country house. Although we have some old apple orchard and a few cherry trees there was one thing missing - some small veggie garden for our needs. 

There was one another major obstacle we didn't have any water supply at our rural country house. Read more: Home Remodeling - How It All Starts

So we opted for a small veggie garden to be planted into boxes, call it a mini sustainable agriculture if you prefer. We saved a lot of water at least, thus we were carrying about 50 liters in 5 litter bottles each day just to water our garden. Water is crucial and during this summer I actually understood the real value of water. Well for the next year we are planing to dug a well in our rural property and hopefully things will change for good. But for now we were left with what we had.

Luckily we didn't burn all the junk during our Summer Solstice celebrations, we kept a few old wooden boxes and reused them by planting some seedlings into them. Seedlings we got at Riga Central Market.

Old Wooden boxes reused for veggie garden

Cucumber (and other) seedlings

Humus substance

Humate Green OK has a bio-stimulating effect. It activates all life processes in plants and is recommended for all crops. Humic substances are the most common organic matters in the nature. Concentration of both humic substances and microorganisms characterizes soil fertility.

Old boxes reused for growing veggies

Turf for better growing conditions

We mixed soil with turf so plants have better growing conditions, and sprayed the soil with humus substance a little bit

Seedlings planted into box

The bottom line

Planting plants and seedlings into boxes for a small veggie garden is a fun way to handle things. Although for the next year I'm planing to build some more serious glass house for raising some tomatoes and cucumbers, those boxes did they work best, we raised here cucumbers, basil, thyme, pumkins and other goodies.

The Tiger Lillies Concert Review in Tbilisi

9 November, 2015 | Living in Georgia | 5 seen

The Tiger Lillies performed on Tbilisi Concert Hall on November 8, 2015. I must admit I had no clue what this band is all about, but had heard that The Tiger Lillies are must have. And I'm glad I agreed to visit their show in Tbilisi.

This was the second show in a row (previous one was Diana Krall's concert at the end of October 2015) I visited in Tbilisi concert hall.

First surprise arrived when we noticed that our seats was just behind tuner control

Tuner control in Tbilisi Concert Hall

What seemed an issue at start turned out to be a good place to photograph from and see in action how tuner guy works. I would say I had an option to see two shows for price of one.

Local Georgian TV Iberia taking interviews before show has started

A lot of cameras, a lot of photographer's. Speaking of photographers seems Canon EOS700d is the king of Georgian photographer's - saw a lot of them during this show. On the other hand my Canon 1200d were not far behind those expensive ones.

Ah, and yes - the beards have taken over. So many beards at one place.

The Tiger Lillies live on Tbilisi stage

The Tiger Lillies live on Tbilisi stage

It was not only tuner guy who made the overall atmosphere, the illuminator did his work as well

The Tiger Lillies playing on the saw

Illuminator control 

The Drummer

The Tiger Lillies

The Bottom Line

Although the genre performed by The Tiger Lillies is not on my daily music collection, it was a fun and alternative musical experience. I wouldn't mind to attend some other concert of them again.

About The Tiger Lillies

The Tiger Lillies are a cult British musical trio formed in 1989 by singer-songwriter Martyn Jacques. Often described as the forefathers of Brechtian Punk Cabare the Tiger Lillies are well known for their unique sound and style which merges the macabre magic of pre-war Berlin with the savage edge of punk.

The Independent has described The Tiger Lillies as "a provocative and avant- garde three-piece band that combines cabaret, vaudeville, music-hall and street theatre", while Tim Arthur of Time Out has given a more imaginative description: "Imagine Kurt Weill conjuring up images of prewar Berlin while a falsetto vocalist screams, squeaks and squawks his way through every number like some rambling madman, and you've got the picture". Notorious for singing controversial songs involving bestiality, prostitution, blasphemy and all other vice imaginable, The Tiger Lillies are undoubtedly not for the easily offended,. Their musical style is mainly influenced by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's masterpiece The Threepenny Opera and pre-war Berlin cabaret but other influences such as gypsy and circus music, French chanson and British music hall tunes are also evident,.

Visit www.tigerlillies.com to learn more

How to Patch and Plaster Walls in Your Old Rural House

9 November, 2015 | Home Remodeling | 9 seen

It's one of the construction works I really enjoy - to patch and plaster walls - it doesn't requires a lot of skills and it's a really cheap way to get things done fast.

Today I will show you how I patched our rural country house's kitchen walls with a plaster mix for less than $10. Prior to that I removed all the junk from the room (kitchen) and applied a base paint both for walls and ceilings. Read: Removing Junk And Adding First Layer of Paint (Kitchen Works)

Tools you will need - and old bucket (I prefer used plastic bucket leftover after paint job), a trowel and some good mix of plaster mixture. In those parts of world I'm living and plaster mixtures I'm familiar with - I prefer Rotband.

Dry plaster mixture

Our rural country house doesn't have a water (yet) so I brought some extra water to add for plaster mixture

Walls waiting to be plastered

As you can see - I have applied a base paint job already. Read more: Removing Junk And Adding First Layer of Paint (Kitchen Works)

A really damaged walls

Well, some might argue that I should probably add here a drywall, well I believe an old rural house with a drywall is not anymore an old rural house, right? 

More damages

You think this looks bad? Take a look how this house looked when we first got it: Read: Home Remodeling - How It All Starts

Plaster mixture applied

And holes are gone

Author of this blog captured in action - plastering walls

It's always good to have lovely flowers to accompany when doing such messy work as plastering walls.

Almost done there

To make it even more romantic you can prepare a coffee on furnace

Plastered walls

Can you see candles on the window sill? I have no clue why they are there, apparently left from our Summer Solstice celebrations

Plastering walls with plaster mixture

The bottom line

Plastering walls with a plaster mixture is an easy and cheap way how to done things fast. I believe plaster mixture is the great alternative for the drywall in old rural house.