tiny happy

I made some recycled tote bags for my shop update today- using some fairly disparate fabrics from my shelves including linen, corduroy, and some beautiful old printed velveteen gifted by Louana recently. 

And the public holiday saw us walking on the beach, swimming at the pool and playing music at the university (all the kids, I'm afraid- not me) and these bits of frosted glass were beach-treasures found.

Now for a spot of pizza-making and wine-drinking with family, what could be nicer? Wishing you a happy Wednesday evening- see you tomorrow. 

Tomorrow we'll observe ANZAC day here, and every year I make anzac biscuits for the kids to have in their lunchboxes throughout April. Maybe I overdid it last year, because I felt a little uninspired by my usual (plain) recipe, so for this year I invented my own. I looked at lots of different anzac recipes and sort of combined them together, (and raided the pantry for whatever I found in there) to get this combination. I like how they're pretty much an entire breakfast in a cookie (at least, in my opinion.) Happy baking!

2012 ANZAC biscuits

150 grams butter

3 Tb golden syrup

1 cup sultanas

1 3/4 cups plain flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup coconut

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1/2 cup chopped dried apricots (or any other dried fruit)

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup boiling water

Place the butter, syrup and sultanas in a saucepan over a medium heat until the butter is melted. In a large bowl, mix together all the other ingredients, except for the baking soda and hot water. Stir well.

In a small bowl, pour the hot water over the baking soda then add this to the melted butter mixture. Stir, then add to the dry ingredients. Mix well. Roll into large balls then press flat with a fork. Bake at 180 degrees celcius for about 10-15 minutes then cool on a rack.

I don't have much finished work to show you today, as I've been busy doing other things and I even noticed a spiderweb across my sewing machine this morning. Oh dear.

Today was golden and sunny, and I went into the city to do some jobs, mooch around and meet my friend Emma for lunch. She introduced me to a Hare Krishna cafe (this one) which was very good. Also pictured above is a beautiful silver-leafed plant I found on the morning walk to school, some sweet vintage embroideries kindly given by Rachelle (thanks again!) and a stack of lovely new fabrics ready to sew (cotton, linen and wools.) 

Happy Monday to you!

It's nice to be back in the city after a few days away. The colder weather back here is not too much of a shock, and it was lovely to see family and friends again, and eat as many feijoas as possible. I also did a bit of supplies-shopping while I was there and feel like lots of new ideas came to me- that hasn't happened in a while. I hope you had a great week too.

I had some scraps of this beautiful stripy linen left- so I worked some small stitches on them, inspired by a few paper clippings from my scrapbook. While I was down south I had to buy some local dried lavender at the market, so I backed the pieces of embroidery with Liberty lawn and filled up the little pockets with the dried buds. It's such an amazing scent.

While I was away I was surprised and thrilled to be included in this event again- The Handmade Olympics, this time in event 2: favourite handmade item for kids. You can go here to see the work on offer (there are some very cool things) and vote. Thank you for your support!

Happy new weekend ahead! I'll have friends visiting, a dinner party and hopefully a new knitting project to get stuck into- hooray. Enjoy yours.

I've just finished the book 'Blankets' by Craig Thompson and had to sing its praises on my blog because it was such a moving and beautiful read. It's a graphic novel written in 2003 and tells the story of the author's strict Christian upbringing and coming-of-age in the icy Midwest. He falls in love with a girl he meets at Christian camp and this part of the book is so evocative and caused my own teenage years (somewhat suppressed, I must admit) to come flooding back. I think you would love it, if you haven't read it already.

We are going back to our hometown for a few days, so I made myself a roomy case for the craft supplies I hope to use while we're down South. I might have been a bit ambitious- I made my bag from some stripy old kimono fabric and it's big enough to hold linen, threads, scissors, yarn, knitting needles and an embroidery hoop. After all, we're hoping to see friends and fmaily mostly, so I probably won't use them a bit.

I also made a winter coat for Keira from some great vintage wool with tiny squares, and lined it in a purple and grey cotton lawn. She is quite keen on it (even though you can see she was not pleased with having her photo taken), mostly because I let her choose the buttons, and she picked these old white ones with gold inlays. I think they used to belong to her great-grandmother, which I think is pretty special, but she just likes them for their sparkle.

I'll be having a blog-break while we're away, so I'll see you towards the end of next week. Have a great weekend, dear readers.

My vintage wallpaper obsession continues, and this time I have found the simplest way to use and admire it: postcards. I have made up some sets with envelopes to give away, and lots more to use myself. Because I send a lot of mail, and I like to have stationery on hand at all times. Who doesn't?

These postcards require virtually no skills whatsoever. I had some ready-made blank postcards, and cut up some more of the same size. Then I roughly cut pieces of old wallpaper to be a little larger than my postcards. I covered one side with a gluestick, pressed the wallpaper on top, then trimmed around the edges. Easy peasy.

It's raining and stormy here this afternoon- I think some licorice tea and postcard writing is called for. See you tomorrow.

The kids did a bit of artwork this morning (school holidays) and K handed me this little rose watercolour. It reminded me of this small coat that I included in my shop update this morning: I used handwoven wool in a kind of tweedy mauve shade with little flecks of cream. I only had a small piece, big enough for a coat in size 1. To line it, I used this Vita fabric in the scaled-down print. It seemed to want to be paired up with the purple wool. Fair enough. 

In other news, I came across this amazing Korean door-building today. The most beautiful and colourful piece of recycling, don't you think?

I bought a book about identifying wildflowers at the opshop today, and the elderly lady behind the counter said jealously, 'I suppose you're about to go out and look for some right now, are you?' I didn't have time this afternoon, but I will plan a trip to look for some very soon.

In the meantime I made some wildflowery things to put in my shop tomorrow, and had a wee look for wild plants in the garden at home. 

I hope you had a lovely Eastertime wherever you are.

It's been a very good Friday around these parts, starting with a no-school sleep-in, extended waffle breakfast and general lazing about. Then I got some work done, which is always a good feeling, K spent a couple of hours making flower jewellery including these lovely daisy-rings (note the chipped bright nail polish- it's the latest look amongst her friends) and some dandelion rings which are now in my jewellery box.

I also had a go at making an Easter hot cross loaf, using Lucy's recipe. While it was rising, I remembered that I didn't have a loaf tin, so the dough was just plonked down in a round cob-style shape, and it was all good, except that my cross in the middle got very big and slightly stretched-looking. It still tastes nice with butter though and has that lovely spicy soft-fruit taste that says 'Easter'.

Happy Easter to you, if you're a celebrater, and I'll be back in a few days. 

Do you ever find amazing fabric on old mattresses when you are 2nd-hand shopping? I do, because for some reason mattresses often have the best designs. Bu I never like them enough to buy the actual mattress and they are usually covered with plenty of dodgy stains (like these three above) so I just take pictures of them instead. This is something that Helen has blogged about before and that's how I got the idea to photograph them with my phone. I quite often get strange looks from shopkeepers and fellow shoppers, but that doesn't matter. It's all in the name of print and pattern.

So here are three fabric designs I saw last week while out opshopping. I will be sure to collect more in the future. Aren't those blues and greys beautiful together? And just imagine a taffeta dress from the middle one. 

See you tomorrow!