Sunday, April 29, 2012

Cinco de Mayo DIY no. 1

I mentioned on Saturday that if my organisational skills improved you would be seeing all things colourful on the blog this week and fingers crossed they have!

Tissue paper pom poms are HUGE at the moment (or for the last few years) I don't know where they began but my money is on Martha Stewart. I have made a few in my time some as simple flowers and others as decorations on gifts and just recently I helped make some for a local lady where my parents live for her shop window. If you haven't made them before they are INCREDIBLY simple and for Cinco de Mayo I simply used layers of different coloured tissue.

 So....
1. Gather different coloured tissue paper - I used 2 sheets of each colour (blue, red, yellow, orange and green) and cut along the folded lines (which happened to be rectangular)
2. Stack the sheets, the first one I made I stacked the colours together, the second one (pictured) I stacked the single sheets and then repeated
3. Make an accordion fold along the long side
4. Secure around the middle - I used floral wire but you can also use a paperclip, string or anything else you happen to have laying around
5. Spread out the folds as shown and very gently pull the layers of tissue paper apart
VOILA! You are done!

You can hang them with streamers bunched en masse like this or display in vase as flowers like this... variations and uses are endless... perhaps that is why they are so popular

Friday, April 27, 2012

Mother's Day

So... it happened again... I got carried away with real life and stopped blogging... I'm sorry

You see I mistakenly thought that Mother's Day was this weekend and oh no! my stuff would not make it in the post by then so I bought myself a train ticket home to deliver it myself... and then Mum said 'Mother's Day is two weeks away' oops.... but it did give me the wonderful opportunity of being spoilt rotten in love by my Mama and Papa and of course I got to see two of my wonderful sisters (one on a whirlwind visit that lasted less than 24 hours) and my two gorgeous nieces. By the way have you seen the movie Barnyard? My littlest niece spent the ENTIRE weekend singing 'I won't back down' by the character Ben (originally by Tom Petty) drove us NUTS but was very cute.

Anyho here is a little idea of what I have been up to last week...




So I re-arranged pretty much the entire shop and decorated the windows with pink paper pinwheels (my Mum loves the things) my stuff is laid out on a bay in the middle of the shop and I am hoping it will move out of the shop at a decent pace (I decided that after paying off my credit card anything I make will go into our house fund).

The pic below gives you a bit of an idea as to what is in the envelopes (which by the way I am retailing for $10 - not much when you consider simple cards cost a pretty penny these days) the greaseproof paper bag contains muesli in case you were wondering.

Also I am more than happy to take custom orders for anything you have seen on the blog or Facebook page just shoot me a message and I will get back to you ASAP. I am working on a LOT of red and white paper roses for my belle-mere's Alice in Wonderland birthday and have a few other projects in the works.  


Also it's Cinco de Mayo next Saturday so fingers crossed things will be getting a little colourful next week

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Anything Can Happen Friday

My time of 'hectic-ness' seems to have reached its rather un-climatic end. My exam now over and my self assurance still relatively intact I have now got the time to focus on my Mother's Day swag... unfortunately I have left myself just a little bit short of time and instead of posting all my pretty little creations through snail mail I am going to have to deliver them myself. But who am I kidding other than the cost it will be great to see my Mama and Papa and of course get the opportunity to set up a display myself.

In the meantime here is a little preview....


It's a mini paper flower included in my Mother's Day in an Envelope, if you are eager to check out more I have a few extra pics on my Facebook page

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Wedding Wednesdays

Super quick follow-up to my last post and like the last one this will be short and sweet - remember how I said a few weeks ago that things seem to always happen at once for me well let that all continue... I have an exam tomorrow and must have the remainder of my Mother's Day stock shipped by the end of the week... I'm nearly there!!! But as always the demons of procrastination would have me doing other things like watching catch-up episodes of Dance Academy on iview (I may not be 15 but damn it I'll watch that show).

In the meantime I would love to share with you a single picture from this Whimsical Bohemian Wedding Inspiration shoot featured on Green Wedding Shoes. Yep that's right they did all this simply for inspiration.

I'm still saying WOW

Three Nails Photography featured on Green Wedding Shoes
So until next time adieu and if you would like to see what crafty goodies I have been working on head on over to my Facebook page

On the Table

I know, I know it's not Tuesday but last night when I finally got my butt into gear to post something Blogger appeared to be down.... so after my Easter sojourn I bring you some Blueberry Pancakes, a gift from Joel's Mum for Easter.


 Not quite as good as my scratch pancakes but pre-made mixes never really are, I had blueberry dessert sauce and Joel topped his with Blueberry and Vanilla Jam


Yum.

Monday, April 9, 2012

On the Table

So it will be pretty obvious that I ran ran ran out of time last week when it came to my Easter posting and after 5 days in the wilderness with no power, no water and no phone reception it feels kinda strange to be back on the computer with lights and clean hair that may still have some remnants of smoke, ash and that general camping smell but nonetheless clean. We will be home a few hours more and then its up north  to visit the other side of the family. It sucks with just us so I can't imagine how families do it all with munchkins in tow.

There were many wonderful things we did while away but as it is Tuesday I will share some food with you. Along with the usual camping fare of sausages, bacon, eggs, porridge, baked beans etc we also enjoyed an amazing bread and butter pudding baked on the coals in a camp oven and some lovely chestnuts...roasted on an open fire....


which just proves camping food need not be boring you just have to have some imagination :)

I am not sure how consistent I will be with my posting this week so I do apologise if you read regularly, things will be back to normal soon enough.

In the meantime I hope everyone had a happy Easter!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Easter Eggs

It never rains but it pours???? I seem to go through periods of time in which everything needs doing all at once when just 2 weeks prior I had all the time in the world. I don't know how it happens but it does so I have not managed to show you how we decorated our eggs when we were children, but I can tell you.

Every Easter my mother would gather some eggs, we would make a pin prick in the top and bottom and blow the egg white/yolk out. I can't remember what would happen to the insides but we then got to decorate our eggs and stored them in our Easter baskets (see Monday's post). I remember making mine look like a human (or trying to anyway) and looking after it as you would a baby (or a doll I guess). I would feed it, tuck it in its little basket bed and try my hardest to keep it 'alive' (read: not broken) for as long as I could or let's face it until I got bored of it. It was simple but it became an important ritual.

So in my place feel free to make your own egg person or even just decorate an egg, if you are lost for ideas Martha Stewart is always full of them.

I always like the simple approach...

Courtney of Merriment for Oh Joy!
and please do share if you have painted yourself some pretty eggs!! I would LOVE to see them :)

Monday, April 2, 2012

Hot Cross Buns

I remember just after Christmas, it can't have been more than a couple of weeks, that we noticed Hot Cross Buns making a reappearance on the shelves at the supermarket. Leaving you to think wait is it Easter already?

The signal of Easter. Is there anything better than Hot Cross Buns (or even just fruit toast) slathered in butter, a clotted artery waiting to happen. But oh so good.

This is the second time we have made Hot Cross Buns and as I am no where near clever enough to come up with my own recipe I used this one here from Citrus and Candy


It might have been because I almost forgot to put the eggs in, or maybe because we baked them in a lasagne dish or perhaps because we left them in the oven about 5 mins too long but they came out very dry not the soft fluffy kind you can eat straight away. They do however satisfy when you pop them in the toaster and slather with butter.


So whether you make some yourself or buy some make sure you have a hot cross bun for me and to make things a little interesting feel free to post a photo to my Facebook wall of your delicious morsel.... or what's left of it


Sunday, April 1, 2012

Easter Baskets

I am almost ashamed to post these tutorials they are so incomplete looking but I am determined to finish things!!! at least for this month. I am procrastinating. I have SO many Mother's Day products to finish up (will furnish you with some pictures by Thursday... or maybe next Tuesday) but today I am trying to dedicate my time to doing my bit on my project management assignment. Oh God it's painful! Assignments this vague should be illegal, so I have written lists, put some washing on, thought I might read a chapter of a book...... finish that book, why not make some pancakes and hey put some choc bits in between (because I can), commiserate over how sick said chocolate pancakes made me feel, call my sister tell her about my procrastination efforts, check Facebook, check email, check Facebook again, add more to the lists, go get washing, lay head on table for several minutes, make coffee, commiserate lack of photoshop to edit horribly lit pictures, check Facebook, check other email, watch new Avengers trailer on YouTube, go on Pinterest, do some more research, post Easter baskets to blog....


1. Take A4 card and trim to 20cm wide (at the same time you can also cut to 20cm tall this was an afterthought I probably could have used) 
2.  Measure in 5cm on all sides (making for a square of 10cm in the middle) 
3. Cut out squares as shown (or alternatively don't cut squares and simply snip one line on all sides)
4. Score along the base with a heavy knife (the weight of the knife alone is enough to score)
5. Decorate sides 
6. Tape sides up (I taped the inside) if you snipped instead of cutting this part is probably a whole lot easier
7. Cut a handle out of scrap card and attach


The second basket is a little more complex but is a 1000 times cooler....

1. Using an A4 sheet of card cut 20 strips (I measured them 2cm wide) 
2. Lay 6 strips horizontally and 6 vertically and then weave them through each other as in above picture
3. Push strips tightly together and try and make all sides as even as possible 
4. At this point you can choose to glue a bottom to your basket though if you use card rather than paper it seems strong enough
5. Using hot glue, glue the corners together
6. Fold up all the edges towards the centre
7. Take 2 strips and join them together using glue or sticky-tape
8. Hot glue one end to the bottom corner of one of the sides and weave as before (I found it easier to hot glue at each corner of the basket) 
9. Repeat until you reach the top (which is two more lines or 2 sets of strips) 
10. Fold over and glue the tabs still sticking out of the top excepting 2 on 2 sides of the basket
11. Glue or tape the remaining 2 strips to these tabs joining them diagonally so they cross over
 

Now you can fill your baskets with eggs or continue to decorate and change them as you see fit!


   Now for me back to the grindstone.... or Facebook