little gifties

An excellent stash was achieved at Christmas - these beauties from my cousin who lives in Japan... thankyou thankyou!!

Shinzi Katoh bag - 'Have a Pleasant Time!' Cracks me up.

Monkey toe socks - I also got some mitten socks where only the big toe is separate.

Shinzi Katoh linen trimmings - adorable.

How cute is this pencil case? Very.

Little Shinzi Katoh waterbottle - 'Attention, please! Whose shoe is this? What happened?' Love it!!

It all makes me want to go to Japan sooo much. I do have a trip planned for sometime in 2008, but to where?? Perhaps planned is the wrong word.

manpurses

These are a couple of new money pouches I have made, in response to people's reactions at my market stall. Coinpurse size is popular, but many people didn't want something quite so cute as my little appliqued creatures. In particular some people wanted something for the fellas, therefore:

Available in my etsy store in about 5 mins...

It's so hot in Melbs today, I'm wilting.

merry christmas!

It's been a long few days of eating, drinking and merriment, but now's it's over again! Had a lovely time, received and gave some lovely pressies. Scored some excellent Shinzi Katoh things, yay! Pics soon, but for now:



New to etsy, with more of Lara's fabric.




These chocolates are yummy dark chocolate truffles, and are to be taken seriously.

Melt 80g chopped unsalted butter with 1/2 cup thick cream (I used the King Island one) until the butter is melted and the cream is just bubbling. Add 300g (I used Lindt 70%) of chopped chocolate and stir till the chocolate has just melted. Leave to cool (in the fridge if you like) and stir once in a while so the butter doesn't rise to the top). When it's fairly solid, you can start rolling it into little balls and then rolling in cocoa. Done!


Am off for dinner with some friends tonight, then tomorrow will collapse in heap and eat all chocolates I received.

Christmas is yum

I went on a mad dash yesterday to do some shopping, which happened to coincide with a ridiculously huge rainstorm. Managed to avoid getting too wet by having a coffee in Macro Wholefoods with my aunt - lots of people had the same idea, it was packed in there! In Macro I picked up some nice organic butter, cream and chocolate for some rich dark chocolate truffles.

I went to Phillipas Bakery (yum yum) and picked up these fruit mince pies to take to my boyfriends parents for the beginning of our Christmas family trek & eating bonanza.

I also got some ingredients for making these chocolate/coconut/biscuit balls to give to all the relatives (I have no idea what they're actually called), as well as some stuff to make little mushroom & leek tarts to take to my Grandmas for phase 2 of family/eating bonanza.

Ingredients:

1 packet of Marie or other plain sweet biscuits (250g pkt)

1 tin of sweetened condensed milk (360 or 395g tin - you prob won't use it all)

2 tablespoons of cocoa

1/4 cup of dessicated coconut

extra coconut for rolling in

Instructions:

Crush biscuits in a food processor till they're bread crumb-like

Add in cocoa, 1/4 cup coconut & about half the tin of condensed milk.

Stir it all up - keep adding extra condensed milk until it's like a hard dough

Pick up little blobs of the mix, roll into balls, roll in the coconut and voila!!

So yum. Makes about 50 little balls (depends how big you make them!)

I bought some cute little tubs to put some of these and some of the dark chocolate truffles in as gifts.

Just added to etsy in time for Christmas - Wobbly Jellyfish coinpurse.

Am almost completely ready for 3 day Xmas bonanza - just need to get some wine, finish the chocs and get a couple of last minute gifts... might wait till it stops raining. Must prevent myself from eating all the chocolate balls too.

Patchworky Warmth

I really like my appliqued animal coinpurses, but I wanted some coinpurses that were a little different. Voila! I make these of scraps of material which I like doing as I'm not using something new, and I try to line them with recycled fabric. These were quite popular at the Perry Street Festival I think, so there will be many more to come.

They're not kind of 'true' patchwork technique, but I think they look pretty good!

You can see the brown one here and the green one here, at etsy of course.

It's been such a funny, rainy, thundery day in Melbourne, hopefully it doesn't rain during my last minute Christmas shopping, eek!

a corky delivery

Just a quickie to let you Melbournians know there's new stock in Corky Saint Clair... have taken Chris some clutches, mini tote bags and coinpurses. Good for Christmas!!

long days...

My stall today at the Perry Street Festival went really well, I think. I always entertain hopes of selling out (haha) and obviously this did not happen, but I did sell a lot of things - most popular seemed to be the coinpurses and the felt badges. I met lots of nice people, lots from Friends of the Earth, I also met Sooz (I have only read her stuff in Mix Tape so it was nice to meet her!!)

(Above is the view from where my stall was). It's always excellent to do stalls to get instant feedback from people about what they like and don't like. Sometimes peoples comments can be pretty funny (like someone who wanted a really emo coinpurse for a friend - I couldn't help...) It is great to see what's popular and what's not. I wasn't really sure about my new giant tote bags so I only took a couple - they sold straight away though so I guess I'm onto something. Need to get sewing! Most popular fabrics were some Japanese prints, some vintage floral prints and Lara's fabric, of course.

Unfortunately yesterday I managed to break 2 sewing machine needles in the space of 5 minutes and am down to my last one... I think the sewing god is trying to tell me to take a break. Will list some more in my etsy store in the new couple of days!

A few friends and my parents came along for support (thanks!!!). One of my mates Debbie is an actor and I went to see her in Short & Sweet yesterday. For those of you who don't know, when you go to see Short & Sweet you're actually seeing 10 seperate plays, each approx 10 mins long. Debbie's play was awesome. Short & Sweet is running another week so check it out! This is a reason we're lucky live in Melbourne.

new & nintendo

I've been so busy and in such a sewing frenzy the past few days, and I think it caught up with my last night to the effect I slept for about 11 hours... I went to bed at about 9pm. Oh dear.

Anyway these two cutie little coinpurses are new to etsy (before I steal them away for my stall on Sunday). I really like the new seahorse.

I'm looking forward to the stall on Sunday, but the weather forecast says it will rain!! However it hasn't rained on any of the other days they've said it will for the past 2 weeks, so hopefully it won't again. Maybe rain on Monday instead or something. Few showers isn't as bad as storms I suppose. I still haven't made tags for all my bags yet... I better get working. What am I doing instead of working though? Bidding on Nintendo 64s on Ebay... who knows why. I just got a letter from Aus Post that there is a package waiting for me at the Post Office... I think it is my 200 zips from ebay, yay!!

Perry Street Festival take 2

More info on the Perry Street Festival at Sarah from the FoE Bookshop's blog.

At the Festival you can find a huge array of eco-friendly and socially responsible Xmas gifts, home-made cakes, fantastic vegetarian food, fresh organic juices, organic fruit and veg, environmental and political information stalls, a massive bargain jumble sale and a huge lineup and variety of local music. Yay!

little seahorse

Love the little seahorse... am very pleased this this. I like both the seahorse design and the size and shape of the clutch. After SO many bad clutch experiments it's about time.

Sadly it's waiting for my market stall... will make some available on etsy after the market.

This grumpy little rabbit is available now in etsy... it's made from mostly recycled fabrics which I'm pleased with. It's quite easy just to go to the fabric store and buy new fabric, as good vintage and recycled fabrics are often quite expensive and hard to find. But I've set myself a little challenge of using at least one recycled thing in each purse I make, whether it be a fabric offcut, recycled zip, etc.

perry street festival

Just a quickie with details for the Perry Street Festival, where I'm doing a stall...

Perry Street Festival
Date: Sunday 16th Dec
Time: 9am - 7pmish (apparently it starts to quieten at 4pm)
Where: Cnr Perry and Smith Streets (next to Friends of the Earth) in Collingwood
Info: call FoE on 9417 4382

The festival is run by Friends of the Earth Melbourne, and alongside the crafty stalls there will be music, yummy food, performances, kids activities and lots of info on environmentally sustainable initiatives & info on living a greener life. Excellent!

My stall will contain clutches, coinpurses, tote bags and homefully some plushies, made with new & recycled materials.

Visit the FoE Melb website here.

hot stuff

Phew - hot start to Summer here in Melbourne! I've got quite a lot done this weekend... have cut out enough fabric to make about 1 million coinpurses...

This is a cute new cat coinpurse (I like the smug kittens on polka dots).

Have also come up with a couple of new designs - one of them is a giant tote bag, yay! It uses SUCH a lot of fabric though, I am going to need to stock up. Again.

It's so hot in my little oven-y house, I think I might take a break. I wish I had a nintendo or something. It really is a bit of a Super Mario Cart kind of day.