Today, however, the spammers have hit an all time low with me and I’m sorry, but I have to make a final stand that this is not okay!  Last time I checked I still had more brown hair than grey, arthritis hadn’t set in and I was still a long way in the right side of 60 and yet I received this…..

Earth to spammers although I’m no longer in the early flush of youth and no longer as svelte as I used to be at that age I’m not so fat or so old or both that I cannot walk without the aid of a mobility scooter and my finances are healthy enough that I don’t need any financial aid for one either.

Yours sincerely

An offended Wealie x

A Fine Strawberry Mess

Another recipe for those of you with a sweet tooth. This one uses my Victoria sponge cake recipe for the cake base and then a load of strawberries, some lemons, limes and clementines or tangerines for the toppings.

It’s a great recipe for using up leftover cake when you’ve made a shaped birthday or occasion cake where you’ve had to cut out the shape and have lots of off cuts.

But the best thing about this recipe is that it is really easy to make, can be made in advance and a great dessert to serve up at a dinner party when your main meal takes a long time and/or you want to spend a bit more time with your guests and out of the kitchen.

Enjoy!

Wealie x

Recipe for A Fine Strawberry Mess

Ingredients

500 g of Vanilla Sponge Cake
1 kg of Strawberries
2 Lemons
2 Limes
4 Clementines/Tangerines
4 Tablespoons of Amber Sugar

Method

1. Before you start take your strawberries out of the fridge at least 30 mins before you begin the preparation.
2. Wash and chop your strawberries into quarters.  Put the strawberries in a bowl and sprinkle the sugar on top and then toss to ensure the sugar covers the strawberries evenly.
3. Juice the two lemons, limes and the four clementines (or tangerines if clementines are not available) into a jug.
4. Pour the juice over the strawberries and mix through evenly.  Leave for one hour at room temperature.
5. Crumble 500 g of Vanilla Sponge Cake (see my Victoria sponge cake recipe) into a bowl and level out.
6. Spoon the strawberries over the Vanilla Sponge Cake Crumble mix evenly and then pour the remaining juice evenly over the entire mix.
7. 

   A Fine Strawberry Mess - Copyright R.Weal 2012

   Leave for one hour to let the juice soak through the sponge mix.

8. Serve with ice-cream, cream or custard and watch your guests salivate at the sight of this Fine Strawberry Mess!

I hope you enjoy looking at the doodles as much as I enjoyed creating them.  Why not pick up a pen and do some doodling yourselves, I promise you won’t regret it and if you read up on the meaning of doodles you might even find something out about yourself.

Happy doodling!

Wealie x

National Doodle Day Doodle - Copyright R.Weal 2012

Protect my heart - Copyright R.Weal 2012

Protean - Copyright R.Weal 2012

Doodle Design for Gemma - Copyright R.Weal 2012

When hearts collide - Copyright R.Weal 2012

Hodgepodge - Copyright R.Weal 2012

Swimming in Swirls - Copyright R.Weal 2012

Dearest Ben - Copyright R.Weal 2012

Higgledipiggledi - Copyright R.Weal 2012

Radiating Stars - Copyright R.Weal 2012

Wealie Nice Muffins

I’ve been baking muffins this evening; I find baking very therapeutic and meditative.  The fact that at the end of the process you have lovely yummy cakes to eat is an added bonus to the sense of peace and tranquillity that the act of baking brings.

Anyway I thought it would be nice to blog my recipe in case any of you would like to re-create them and maybe get a slice baking tranquillity too.

Actually this recipe is my multi-purpose sponge recipe, which is good for Muffin’s fairy cakes, Victoria sponge or a drizzle cake, so feel free to experiment .

Enjoy!

Wealie x

Wealie Nice Muffin Recipe

Ingredients

2 Med/Large Eggs (Weighed)
Self Raising Flour (Same weight as eggs)
Flora Margarine (Same weight as eggs)
Golden Caster Sugar (Same weight as eggs)
Generous teaspoon of Baking Powder
Generous desert spoon of Vanilla Essence (Preferably Mexican)
Optional – Heaped table spoon of Coca Powder to make chocolate muffins

Method

• Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees centigrade and make sure the top shelf is fairly high in the oven, but with enough room to get your muffin tray in and out.
• Weigh your eggs and then your flour, margarine and caster sugar amounts should be exactly the same.
• Whisk together your margarine and caster sugar for approximately 3-5 minutes or until the mixture is a pale yellow.
• Sieve the flour into your bowl of margarine and caster sugar.  If you are making chocolate flavour muffins sieve in your cocoa powder at the same time.
• Add in the rest of your ingredients (baking powder, vanilla essence and eggs).
• Gently whisk together the ingredient working in the contents from the edges.
• Once the flour is all mixed in increase the electric whisk to the maximum speed and work air into the mixture for approximately 3 to 5 minutes until the colour of the mixture has turned pale and the volume of the mixture has increased by about one third.
• You’ll know that the mix is ready if when you put a spoon in you can turn the spoon upside down and the mixture slowly drops off the spoon.
• Put some muffin cases into your muffin tray and spoon out a heaped spoonful of cake mix into each of the muffin cases.
• If you are making half and half (chocolate and vanilla) or marble cakes (chocolate and vanilla swirled) only spoon in half a spoon of each flavour.  To make a marble effect use a wooden skewer to lightly mix together the two flavours before you put the muffins in the oven.



• Put the muffins in the pre-heated oven (180 degrees centigrade) for 15 mins and then turn them around and give them another 5 minutes cooking.
• Lightly press the top of a muffin with your thumb to see if it springs back , if yes the cakes are ready to be turned out onto the cooling tray, if not give them another few minutes in the oven and then test again, but be careful not to over cook or check on them too often.
• Once your muffins are cooked turned them out onto the cooling rack and make sure you as baker supreme, scoff a nice hot one, it’s the muffin baking golden rule!

Wealie Muffins!

I hope you enjoy baking and of course eating your Muffins!

Wealie x

Wealie x

Inside the Lily - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Firery Lily - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Yellow Drop Blooms - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Macro pale pink and yellow lily - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Red Poppy - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Pink Lilies Emerging - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Hydranga - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Tiny Pinks - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Light red blooms - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Lovely Lily - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Orange Poppies - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Love and Kisses

Wealie x

You can purchase t-shirts, long sleeved tees and hoodies for both kids and adults and there are also baby t-shirts and one piece outfits for the little ones.  The clothing is available in a variety of designs and background colours to choose from.

The iPhone cases are available for the iPhone 4 and 4S models.

Additionally you can also order greeting cards & postcards, posters, stickers, calendars and photographic, canvas, framed, mounted, matted and laminated prints of my artwork and my best photographs.

Thanks for taking a look at the designs.

Wealie x

Here’s a few examples of what’s available:

iPhone Cases	T-shirts & Hoodies
Kids Clothing	Stickers
Calendars	Greeting & Post Cards
Posters	Framed Prints

I always work best with pen and paper and rarely doodle in any other way, but transferring those designs to a computer and retaining their detail and textures always has some drawbacks.  I scan all my doodles in as bitmap files using my scanner, but this creates a lot of noise and a large file size.  I also often use unusual inks, especially bright vibrant gel inks like metallics, glitter gel inks and Zebra Super-Marble Gel Rollerball pens, which give you three different colour inks in each pen.  The ink looks great on paper, but some of the detail gets lost in the scanning process.  You can buy a pack of 6 Zebra Super-Marble Gel Rollerball pens from Amazon for only £4.69, which I used to create many of the original doodles shown below.

In Photoshop CS5 I do my best to clean up the noise and bring up the contrast so the design is more visible, but to make a pattern that can be blown up and/or reduced in size without losing quality and retaining smooth edges requires converting the image into vectors.  To do this I use Illustrator CS5 where I have to painstakingly draw round each of the individuals curves and swirls of a doodle  and then colour the shapes.  Then I’m able to play around and make my patterns.  It probably sounds like a painstaking and time consuming affair and you’d be right, but it is also a labour of love.

For your viewing pleasure below are my original doodles scanned and tidied up in Photoshop together with the vector patterns that I created in Illustrator.

Happy doodle trails!

Wealie x

Swirlycules - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Swirlycule Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Curlicues - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Firery Curlicues Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Green Curlicues Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Swirl Dance - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Swirly Frame Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Coloured Swirl Dance Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Swirly Emblem - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Swirly Emblem Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Octoswirl - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Firery Swirls Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Swirlpool - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Swirlpool Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Primeval Swirls - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Primeval Swirls Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Why Measure?

Measuring the effectiveness of communications is not always straightforward, but is a vital element of the communication process.  There are many methods that can be employed.  As a first step you should speak with a communications professional in your company to find out what is available to you.

What Can You Measure?

Which Measurement Method Should You Use?

Once you know what you need to measure, you need to think about what method of measurement you want to use.  Here are some example methods that are regularly used by large corporate companies.

Share Your Findings, Recommendations and Take Action!

If measurement is the last thing that people think about, sharing the results is what people almost always forget! If you’ve taken the time to measure your communications you should share the findings, make recommendations and take action!

• Share your measurement feedback/findings with stakeholders and interested parties
• Celebrate your successes
• Identify need for follow up communications
• Act on the feedback –are there improvements or changes needed?
• Make improvements and change happen!
• Take responsibility for developing and improving best practice
• Look for further opportunities for engaging employees through success stories

As employee communicators we need to ensure that our employees:

• Are kept up to date with key information about the company, team, key projects, training, etc.
• Fully understand the role they play within the team, the company and delivery of strategy and plans
• Are engaged with and are actively supportive of the team and the company actions
• Are working at optimum efficiency and within company guidelines and tolerances

What are the benefits of effective communication?

• Engaged Employees – If people are communicated to regularly and in an effective manner they are much more engaged with the company/team and have a more positive attitude towards their work and their customer.
• Ensures Consistency – If everyone understands what the company/team is trying to achieve and their role within it, you will get a much more consistent approach and less tendency for people to come up with their interpretation of what they think something means.
• Promotes 2 Way Feedback – Regular and effective communications invite people to engage in discussion (communication is a dialogue after all!) and provide 2 way feedback between management and employees, departments and colleagues. This in turn promotes a culture of sharing ideas and knowledge, but also making these happen.
• Ensure Compliance with Regulatory Bodies – Effective communications and training information ensures that our employees are compliant with all regulatory requirements and aware of all the company guidelines/policies and/or where to find them.
• Ensure Common Understanding of Strategy and Goals – Employees understand how their work fits into the bigger picture and what the team/company as a whole is trying to achieve.
• Promotes a Positive Attitude Towards Change – Employees that are communicated to effectively around change respond much more positively to it. Communication can also identify champions within the company/team willing to help embed change.

How should you communicate with your people?

When communicating with employees it is important to remember that they have 6 key drivers:

1. Reward – How much I earn / financial bonus
2. Recognition – Non-monetary, recognition by peers and leaders, as well as direct manager
3. Opportunity – My opportunity for advancement / ability to experience different areas
4. Process – The way in which I work /my workload
5. Personal Pride – How I feel about the job I do / how my job makes me feel about myself
6. Working Environment – My desk / building / facilities / location of office

What should your communication take into consideration?

There are a number of key communication elements that we have to get right in order to deliver effective communications which result in the desired action being taken by the audience. These are:

• Audience – Communicating to the right people
• Timing – Communicating at the right time
• Message – Knowing exactly what it is you have to tell people and what you want them to do
• Clear – Communicating your message and call to action (i.e. what you have to tell them and what you want them to do) in a clear and simple manner
• Concise – Delivering your message and call to action succinctly (i.e. cut the waffle)
• Language – Using language and phrases that the audience understands and relates to (i.e. no unnecessary jargon or use of manageze and strategeze)
• Tone – Use a tone that reflects the brand guidelines, message and audience you are communicating to
• Channels – Using the appropriate communication channels, which fit the audience and message needs (e.g. road shows for key company information to all employees or intranet for cafeteria opening times)
• Context - Give a flavour of the bigger picture and how local activity fits with the overall company strategy

Understanding How Communication Leads to Engagement

Engagement is both emotional and rational: people act according to their short or medium-term interests and how they feel. Engagement is personal and voluntary; it can’t be guaranteed and has to be worked for.

People feel commitment to their job or profession, their team, their manager and the company in differing degrees; some people connect more to their job and ‘their customers’, others more to colleagues and so on. The manager influences all of these factors.

How do you know how well you communicated?

Measuring the effectiveness of your communication is just as important as delivering it. Measurement is key to understanding the success of your communications and an opportunity to invite feedback – Too often we just tick the box on a communication after it is delivered.

You can measure communications in many ways using informal and formal channels. A good communicator makes use of the measurement systems available within your organisation, but also uses the most powerful form of measurement – feedback. By inviting feedback you can not only measure the success of the communication, but also enter into valuable two-way dialogue, which will help to hone your future communications and engage the audience with your message and the company.