sunny day!

Hello! Thank you all so much for your kind comments, emails and thoughts after my last post - I really appreciate it :)

Today I've been having a nice day in the sunshine. I went for a walk to post some letters, and wandered home a long way, looking at everyone's nice Spring-time gardens. My cousin Alice and her adorbs baby Lucy came for a visit - hooray babies!

I washed some fabric for more softies, as a big box-full are currently winging their way to a lovely shop in Perth.

My mum gave me some organisational tools - surely the 'Someday' clips will be most often used?

I made an apple cake! I might pop the recipe up, it's pretty yummy. I think I need a cake detox soon, since Thursday I've eaten enough cake for at least a month?

It is nectarine and peach season! Hooray! And I ate a mango (not pictured, as is already in my tummy). My friend Debbie was aghast that I hadn't had a mango yet this season, so I had to rectify the situation.

Happy purse! Big 'thank you heaps!' to Michi Girl and The Design Files for featuring it!

Okay! Hope you're all having super nice days too.

from the weekend...

Daffodils from the St Kilda Farmer's Market - beautiful!

This weekend has been a combination of relaxing in a bake-y / flowers-y style, and sitting at my computer editing css and html and trying to fix my shop. I love hosting my own online store, yes I do, but this week I broke the fundamental rule of editing stuff online - understand what you're doing before you do it. I really like experimenting and not following instructions - you can get away with this when you're baking a cake or assembling some Ikea, but sometimes not so much with websites.

Fortunately, all of the data in my shop is safe & backed up. Unfortunately, the shop is now in a semi-online, moved state, and will take a few days to get back!

To make myself feel better (and also to create gifts) I made a batch of oatmeal chocolate raisin coconut cookies. Yesterday at the Farmer's Market, lovely Phillippa's Bakery was selling a delicious chocolate oatmeal slice. Delicious, but very buttery & sugary.

I found a recipe in my beloved Veganomicon cookbook and adapted away to make my own yummy, healthier & vegan cookies - I'll post the recipe next time I make them!

This recipe made a large amount of little cookies - thankfully I have lots of people to give them to!

More little fabric squares! But it's not a quilt.

Hope you're all having lovely weekends!

bike envy: papillionaire

You know those awesome, vintage style bicycles that keep popping up in fashion editorials and design blogs?

Now you can buy your own pretty bike from a new Melbourne based group - Papillionaire. I would love my very own dusty blue bike, but will have to settle for the occasional test ride (one of my friends is co-owner of the biz, I'm sure he won't mind!)



I think I'd also need to get over my fear of driving anywhere near tram tracks - these are city bikes!

Visit Papillionaire here.

my weekend

I couldn't think of what else to name this post! Last weekend was my Auntie and Grandma's birthdays - such a lovely gift, for your daughter to be born on your birthday! We had a big family lunch, and I took some food along - a lovely big plate of cupcakes! Banana & fig in the middle, and mini caramelised apple & white chocolate on either side. They were so good! I actually took twice this many cupcakes, as there were lots of us there. This was the plate we lit birthday candles on.

I'm really into these little stars lately, they're made of nori (seaweed sheets for making sushi), I just wet the pastry and squished them on. The little sausage rolls contain pumpkin, leek & silverbeet - even my Grandf'ther (we don't pronounce the 'a', it's a Scottish thing?), who thinks vegetarianism is one of the silliest things ever, thought they were delicious.

Edited to add: to make the little rolls, just roast some pumpkin with salt, pepper & oil for say 40 mins, add some chopped leek and roast for 5 more mins, add a teensy bit of silverbeet or spinach and roast for 3 more minutes, then take out of the oven and let it cool. Then, wrap in puff pastry & bake!

Shannon & I went to visit Magnolia Square Market last week and I bought this beautiful brooch for my Auntie from lovely Lauren of Okt-ober-dee. Beautiful! I've loved Okt-ober-dee for a long time so I was delighted to find that Lauren was such a lovely, friendly person. Hooray!

tropical vacation

I was here, on lovely warm Hamilton Island, drinking cocktails in the pool-bar. Nice. It's shallow enough that you can stand up, so it doesn't really matter so much how inebriated you become. Now I am back in cold Melbourne.

We were there for Chris's brothers wedding- I didn't actually go on those little yacht things, nor did I do anything resembling activity, it was just hours and hours of lazing in the pool. Very much needed.

The wedding was lovely, and whilst I had a great time I'm kind of glad to be back to reality. Shall I say that I don't think I'm really the resort-getaway type of person!!

Now I just have to catch up on work & emails, oops!

let's have a birthday!

It was my birthday at the weekend! I got flowers from my mum.

A visit to Little Cupcakes with Chris. Yum. We also went for dinner at Wood Spoon Kitchen - go there!

I ate the first strawberry from the garden (there have been so many other first strawberries, but the birds & the possums have formed an alliance against me - it's called Eat the Strawberries Before Penny Can.)

And delicious chocolate cupcakes (the little paper patty pans are from Cake Deco!) The recipe for the cupcakes is here.

I got lots of other gifts, but I'm too embarassed to show them because you'll think I'm spoilt.

holiday entertainment

I was pretty happy with my Christmas gifts this year. Amongst them were these gems - Infinite Jest from my parents, 2 seasons of Arrested Development from my brother (nice one!), People of the Book from Chris's parents, and the sweetest little cup & saucer that Chris found at Bob Boutique. Little Red Riding Hood!!! It's little, but a good size for me given the amount of half finished mugs of tea I leave scattered around the house.

Tea, gingerbread, books & dvds. Perfect.

time to relax

Phew! Christmas is over for this year, and it's time to take a little breather. I'm using the next couple of weeks to get organised, rested and inspired for next year. Lots of time to spend on the couch drinking tea (and pink champagne), reading and relaxing.

I received these pretty cushions from my cousin Alice for Christmas... beautiful, right? The rainbow floral ones are from Oxfam, made in India and Fair Trade.

The beautiful wool cushions Alice made herself. I was so pleased when I opened the wrapping paper because they are amazing, and so so so impressed when she told me she made them for me! (Especially given that she's just had a baby, who is gorgeous!) They're made of wool jumpers from op shops, which she felted, and then she hand stitched them.

I especially love the pockets on the white one. Chris thinks they're a good place for a handy chocolate stash, I am not so sure!

Thank you, Alice!

beach mini-break

Chris and I managed to get away to lovely Mornington Peninsula for a little mini-break this week. Hooray! I'm not a good relaxer, especially just before Christmas - there was a bit of work done (a new fabric design, yay!) and many calls to my brother to check things on the Internet. I did read the new Peppermint, hooray! Love it!

We did have a great time, much food was eaten, and we braved the rather cold water - this is the surf beach, we didn't swim there!

Now, back to work I go!

let's chillax

Frankie, World Sweet World, Oddfellows by theblackapple and afghan cookies - let's do this every Sunday!

daylesford mini break

Chris and I headed off over the weekend for a much needed little holiday! Hooray! So exciting, as we've both been working, working, working lately. We camped at gorgeous Mount Franklin which is about 8kms outside of Daylesford... it was just exactly how I imagined the perfect campsite (and there is a toilet)! It was so beautiful when we arrived, warm & sunny, so we just chillaxed at the campsite for the evening.

Mount Franklin on Google Maps
Mount Franklin on Parks Victoria (camping info)

When we woke up on Sunday it was chilly! I opted us out of a breakfast around the camping stove, so we scooched in to Daylesford... we had a quick look around the railway market, then breakfast at Himalaya Bakery.

Then... we went to Lark! So exciting. I've been wanting to visit since the shop opened a month or so ago... it's so cute! You can see how cold the day was from the look of those clouds! You can see photos of the shop on the Lark website... it's like a little candy store of handmade goodies!

I was tempted by lots of things, but managed to limit myself... Viking Card by Herzensart, and a copy of World Sweet World.

Hooray for Daylesford mini breaks!