Ooooh Sparkly!

I am currently in the midst of planning my wedding, and being the crafty creative soul that I am, decided everything I could possibly manage, was going to be DIY.
After finally settling on a chic modern vintage theme, (yes I do realise modern vintage is an oxymoron, but it works! Trust me!) my bridesmaids and I are in full vintage decorating swing!
Invitations are well under way, the ones for overseas relatives are made and sent, and after much playing around and perfecting, this is the final product.

Yes I hand stitched those bunting flags after I roped my *soon to be* hubby into cutting all the little triangles out for me...haha...it was 600 flags or something ridiculous.

Hand stamped initials, I originally started off with lovely silver letter stickers, but I would have had to buy dozens of sheets of silver alphabet stickers just for the H's and the D's....so we thought a stamp would be more cost effective. Not as nice looking, but still pretty cool!

The inside continues on with the cute bunting theme, and then I cut little slits inside the folds of the invitation, threaded through some organza ribbon, and attached the (hand folded) RSVP card inside it's (hand made) envelopes with the cutest little wooden peg!

Inside those cutie tootie envelopes, are the most painstakingly folded origami hearts which I printed our RSVP details onto.

Gorgeous result....but with 60+ to do....I'm beginning to think it was a terrible idea!

Phew! Pretty impressed with myself....but at the end of the day, I guess most of them will end up in someones bin after a while of sitting there looking pretty....and all that time seems kind of a waste...Buuuuut I wouldn't have it any other way! I love hand made everything!

Along with hand made invitations, I have also embarked on an eclectic vintage bottles collection journey, with which I am slowly hand decorating with gold glitter.
Oooooooh Sparkly!
 So far I am very impressed with the result of simply painting them with PVA glue and sprinkling over gold glitter...but there will be glitter EVERYWHERE....so I think I will give them another coat of the glue to seal it and see how that turns out.

Can you just imagine these filled with soft pastel Stock, Lisianthus, Roses and Dusty Miller?! *florist porn!*

I thought I would be happy with a rough wobbly *rustic* edge to where the glitter ends, so I just hand painted on the glue with no guide....but after completing a couple, I decided it really didn't look as nice like that. 

Soooo I improvised, grabbed some handy dandy cello tape, and used that as you would painting tape, then peeled off at the end which resulted in a beautiful clean edge. Woohoo!

I seriously recommend doing that, the wobbly line at the top kind of gives it a "my kids made this" look...heh...which, yah know...is cute for some things....not so cute for reception tables!

The sweet corked jar with the love hearts I did on a whim, used up some heart stickers on something else, and thought, heyyyy the remaining sticker backing could make a little stencil, so I peeled it off, stuck it to my jar, and went nuts with some gold spray paint! Took a couple of coats, and a tiny bit got under the sticker stencil but it was easily fixed with some terps on the end of a cotton bud. Few gentle wipes and it was perfect! Easy peasy, cute jar gone to cuter in 5 minutes flat. (Quick dry spray paint is a must if you are as impatient as I am!)

Vintage Pretties!

Two of my lovely bridesmaids and I are having a girls night this coming Friday! Woop! Annnnd what better way to spend girly bridesmaidy/bride time than to get another wedding project on the go??

We are going to attempt to make our own buntings with this GORGEOUS vintagey fabric we picked up on the weekend....here's hoping the wine doesn't result in terribly wobbly stitching, haha, wish us luck!

Aren't those floral prints just delicious!?

And to finish off this post, I will share with you one more DIY creation you can do to showcase your domesticated goddess within!

Home made tahini!

Yuummmmooo! So many uses for tahini, use in hummus, use in dressings, use in desserts, you could even enjoy it simply on some toast in place of peanut butter! MMmmmmmmMMM!

Now some recipes say DO NOT brown the sesame seeds...and others say, DO IT! TOAST THOSE BABY'S!  (Ok maybe not so excited, I may have embellished a little)
So not knowing which direction to take, I did a batch of each...annnnnnd they both taste identical...so I'll leave it for you to decide.

Home Made Tahini

What you need:

2C sesame seeds

aprox 50-100ml olive (or other vegetable) oil

Method:

Place all the sesame seeds on an oven tray and put on the top rack at 200C. I don't know exact times, as I just  kept an eye on them and gave them a stir every couple of minutes until lightly golden (or not, up to you)
The main thing, is they are in the oven until fragrant, because thats when they have warmed up their natual oils enough to work in your tahini.
Just make sure you WATCH THEM because they can turn from lovely light golden brown, to black within a matter of moments.

When your seeds are toasted to your desired level, throw them all in a food processor and wizz them up until a dry paste starts to form. 

Sloooooowly drizzle a little at a time, the olive oil in while its going, and with much patience, (about 15 minutes on high, with a couple of scrape downs during that time) your tahini will turn from a dry paste to a luscious shiny oozy consistency. This is what you want!

Then simply throw in a jar and keep in the fridge, from what I've read, it can keep in your fridge for several months... (as if it will last that long with me around! ;) )
This made around aboooooout 200ml.

NEVER spending $12 on a 150ml jar of tahini from the supermarket again!

Happy DIYing! 

Stay beautiful! xx

Say Cheese!

Hello again!
And a huge apology for the enormous gap since I last posted. Life with 2 tots at home seems to be a lot busier than I had anticipated, and finding the time for a proper sit down to write has gotten harder and harder!
But here I am, and I have a ridiculous backlog of things to write and share so I'll just get started!

Starting off with cheese!

Over the Christmas period, my family traveled down and stayed with us, and so my mum and I used this as a good excuse to go poking our noses around our local Palmers Garden world on Boxing Day. The two of us adore wandering round garden centres and will jump at any chance to meander around at leisure (preferably husband and child free of course! ;) ). So on this particular visit as we were having a good sticky beak in the gifty section, we came across some cheese making kits!
Randomest thing to find in a garden centre, but non the less, there it was. Both Mum and I have talked about attempting to make our own cheese at home on several occasions but never really knew where to start or got round to finding out.
So within about 3 seconds of looking at the kit, it ended up in Mums shopping basket, and home we went with it!

I was rather eager to give it a go, so as soon as we got home I was busily investigating the instruction booklet.
It was the Italian Cheese kit from Mad Millie, I forget exactly how much it was but I think it was roughly $35. Which with the equipment provided yields 6 kg's of cheese, (but you buy your own milk on top of that).
Several recipes in the booklet provided, ranging from easy to difficult and varying in time to make + aging time.
Recipes included are:
Fresh Italian Mozzarella and Bocconcini (approx 600g/batch),
Ricotta (approx 400g/batch), 
Ricotta Salata (approx 100g/batch),
Burrata
Mascarpone (approx 700g/batch).

Included in the kit is:  Small Ricotta Mould with Draining Container,Vegetarian Rennet Tablets (10), Cheese Salt, Cheese Cloth, Citric Acid, Pipette, Calcium Chloride, Steriliser, Stainless Steel Thermometer, Kit Instructions and Recipes.

 I am rather impatient at the best of times, so I ran to the supermarket, bought 4L of silver top (full cream) milk and got to work making the quickest of them all Mozzarella. No aging time required and best eaten fresh! So that was a win win for me.
Pretty simple process, and a bit of fun for an afternoon, but to be honest at the end of it all, it works out more expensive to buy a ball of mozzarella from the supermarket, buuuut not sure I would be bothered with all the faff of making it myself again haha. Bit of a novelty once, even twice...but probably not again. Keen to try out some other recipes though!

Maybe i just didnt do it properly (first attempt so quite possible) but it didn't taste allllll that amazing. I know Mozzarella is a fairly bland tasting cheese, but this was very very bland. Hubby didn't care for it raw (not that you usually eat it raw).

The batch made about 8 balls this size, which is pretty darn good value for money seeing as it can be about $10-$14 per ball at the supermarket, let alone a proper cheese shop!

Cooked a delish creamy tomato & chicken pasta bake (with left over chicken from the Christmas roast chook) that night with the fresh mozzarella all gooey, stringy and melty on top! Much more tasty once it was cooked! Yummo!

I will be back soon to catch up on other projects I've been up to, including DIY wedding invitations, healthy recipes im addicted to currently and kids wall art! But for now, it's time to catch up on my Downton Abbey addiction!

So for now, get cheeeeesy and stay beautiful! x

Well well well
Here we are in the New Year!
How was everyones Christmas and new year break?
Ours was nice, a bit hectic at times but I must say I am ready to get back into a routine and some kind of normality!

Today I'm going to touch on a few tasty things I've made over the Xmas/New Year period.

This was our delicious Christmas Day spread! Roast chooky, crispy roast spuds, beetroot & feta couscous salad, roast vege medley,  boiled new baby potatoes drizzled with melted butter, steamed baby purple carrots, smoked salmon salad and bread rolls!
Phew there was quite some time spent in the kitchen that morning let me tell you!
Worth every second though, everything turned out fab!

So I'm going to share with you my two salad recipes, starting with the Beetroot salad.

SO delicious, these baby beets were fresh out of my mums garden the morning of Christmas eve before she drove 600 kms down to my house for Christmas!

What you need

Fresh beetroot
couscous
feta
rocket leaves

knob of butter

salt and pepper to taste.
Fresh lemon juice

So start with about 8 baby beets, or 4 large beets, and boil until soft...(i.e a knife can poke all the way through them easily)
While the beets are cooking get your couscous on...best way I've found to cook it so far is equal quantities of couscous to boiling water.
So, into a large bowl place 1 cup uncooked couscous, 1 cup boiled water (mixing 1 tsp of chicken or vegetable stock into this water is great for adding flavour) straight from the kettle, throw in some salt & pepper, and a small knob of butter,  then throw a large plate ontop to cover the bowl and keep the steam in. Let it sit there for at least 5 minutes before you take the plate off. It should be done by the time the 5 minutes is up, so fluff it up with a fork and let set aside.

When the beets are cooked, drain and place in a bowl of cold water until they are cool enough to handle and peel off the skins. The skins come off really easy when they're cooked, but if you don't want gorgeous pink hands, I suggest some gloves for this little jobby!

Now you're ready to combine everything. 

Chop up your beets into chunks whatever size you like. Crumble in some feta, about 50-60g is enough, toss in a few large handfuls of rocket, add your couscous and a squeeze of lemon juice and you're done!
So colourful and summery!

Next up is the Smoked Salmon & Avocado salad....nommy nom nom

This one is super quick and easy, no mucking about cooking beets or couscous here!

What you need

200g fillet of HOT smoked salmon, not the shavings of smoked salmon in the little pouches...this has been smoked in hot smoke so its cooked in the smoke.
1x bag of mixed salad greens with herbs..or whatever salad greens you want, but the herbs really make it!
2x ripe avocados
1x punnet of ripe cherry tomatos
1/2 telegraph cucumber
fresh lemon or lime juice
salt and pepper to taste.

Chop the tommys in half if you can be bothered, slice the cucumber into rounds and then cut the rounds in half so you end up with half moons, or even quarter them whatever you fancy...I don't mind, leave them whole if you want?!?!
Open your avos, and slice while still in the skin, and scoop out the slices
Now just flake in your filet of salmon, squeeze over your lemon or lime juice, sprinkle over your salt and pepper and give it all a a thorough but gentle toss....you don't want to end up with avocado mush...
I do the tossing in a separate bowl and then gently place into a clean bowl for serving, cause im fussy on presentation haha.
But there u go, job done!
Serve this salad with some warm bread rolls and you're good to go with a quick, light summery lunch or dinner. Mmmmm mmmmm!

Now last but not least, I have just made the most divine, moist chocolate beetroot cake!
I'll admit its not the best icing job or photography ever, but it sure tastes good!

This is a Jamie Oliver recipe (I am a self confessed Jamie Oliver ADDICT and mega fan...he is my cooking hero!) As you can see....I have a bit of a collection haha...still need more! I'll never get enough of my Jamie fix!!!

 

For the cake recipe, visit his site here http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chocolate-recipes/chocolate-and-beetroot-cake.



Now my (soon to be) Hubby (yes we are FINALLY engaged after 9 years together and 2 children!!) really dislikes anything "weird" or unusual going into recipes...and a classic example of this, would be beetroot or zucchini in a cake....his line of thinking is....vegetable + sweet treat = do not mix...
Clearly he has no imagination and hasn't discovered the big wide world of culinary delights just awaiting his tastebuds!
I still have to use the trick technique like you do with kids...when you grate up the veges and hide it in patties or mash or whatever...I hide unusual ingredients in otherwise normal looking recipes and then get him to taste it without telling him...then after he tastes and goes "oooh that's nice", I go, "can you pick the secret healthy ingredient?!"
He never can....today it was beetroot...and he loved it! success!
If I'd told him before he tried it, he wouldn't have eaten it...or he would have taken a bite and gone....I don't like it...cause he is pretty much still a child when it comes to eating lol.

Annnnywaayyyy...It's about time I got back in the kitchen and got on with the mum stuff...cake dishes...start tea...dinner dishes....bed time routine...etc etc! *phew* I'm already exhausted just thinking about it, let alone getting off my chuff and actually going to do it!

For now get nommy in the kitchen and stay beautiful! x

Baileys Fudge Goodness!

So yesterday I started off a batch of Baileys White Chocolate Fudge, as a gift to the teachers at preschool.
I am happy to report it was a complete success!
Delicious, melty in the mouth, not grainy and oh so decadent...you're salivating now aren't you?

So after chilling in the fridge for 3 hours, I chopped that goodness up and covered a piece of cardboard with Christmas wrapping. Then it was a simple matter of wrapping it all up in cellophane and attaching one of our mini home made cards!

I dunno about you, but I think that looks pretty impressive for a home made gift!
To recap, I've added the recipe in again below

Baileys White Chocolate Fudge

150ml Baileys

50ml milk
30g butter
350g caster sugar
300g good quality white cooking chocolate, broken into squares
(0.126 standard drinks per piece)

Line a square 20cm cake tin or baking dish with baking paper.
Measure out 125ml of Baileys and pour into the saucepan.
Add the milk, butter and caster sugar and put the pan over a low heat. Stir occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved and the butter melted(this takes about 10 min).
Turn up the heat to medium and stir while the mixture gently simmers. You want the bubbles to be calmly breaking the surface for 10 min. Remove pan from the heat and stir in chocolate and the last 25 ml baileys**.
Keep stirring until chocolate has melted and you have a smooth consistency. If the chocolate is slow to melt, put the pan over a low heat and stir until smooth. Transfer to the tin and chill for at least two hours. Cut into small squares.

**We added all the baileys at the beginning purely because it was going to the preschool teachers, and it just didn't seem right to send along an alcoholic gift from our nearly 4 year old daughter lol!
Still works just as well, just has the alcohol cooked out this way.

Although the (700 ml) bottle of baileys will set you back about $39 (damnit! it was on special for $24 last week but I didn't get around to buying any!)
It still works out to being a pretty cheap gift, as you only use 150ml of Baileys per batch, and the rest is normal pantry/fridge staples (well for me anyway).
One batch was more than enough, I sent half of the batch along to preschool, it's very, very rich so you'd only really want maybe 2-3 pieces in a sitting. Which leaves half a batch for me to wrap up in individual little cellophane parcels to put on the dinner plates for Christmas dinner as a little sweet treat for my guests.

Leaving me with nearly a whole bottle of baileys in my liquor cabinet, waiting to make another  batch whenever I see fit....orrrr to drink in the evenings over the silly season! Im thinking it will probably be the latter haha.

So there you have it, a simple, delicious gift for the teachers, or make small ones with 3 pieces in each as a gift on the dinner plates at the Christmas table!

For now get delicious and stay beautiful! x

Pinteresting isn't it?

Today the sicky tummys seem to have gone *touch wood* and I bring to you, two Pinterest projects I pinned and actually got around to trying out! (Amazing isn't it? I thought this day would never come!)

So first up was the Baileys White Chocolate Fudge Recipe which I mentioned a couple weeks back on the 19th of November.......wait wait wait, I've just realised it's the 19th of December today....woahhhh where did that month go?! Blimey!

So anyway, I thought it would make a nice little gift to send along to Alia's Preschool teachers tomorrow on her last day for the year.

Soooo far so good, its setting in the fridge, but I guess the proof will be in the pudding (haha bad pun... ok, stop looking at me like that!) as to whether it has set with a nice silky texture and not a grainy one.
I have never attempted fudge before as I keep hearing there is a real knack to getting it right, so just avoided it and thought...'yeah one day'...well today is that day! Mmmmmm yes before you ask, I totally did lick out the remains in the pot!...Perhaps a tad on the sickly sweet side and would take cake batter over fudge remains any day but still nom nom nom all the same.

I didn't have the right size baking dish to set it in, so I had to use that old NZ initiative (we call it the number 8 fencing wire trick over here in Kiwi Land) and find a way around it....here's what I came up with:

....haha yup sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do!!

Stay tuned for the finished product!

Onto the second of my Pinterest projects to try out, was this ever so cute, DIY baby keepsake
(Instructions here http://pagingfunmums.com/2013/08/29/diy-baby-keepsake-using-homemade-clay/)

Thought, yep, that looks and sounds pretty straight forward and easy, will give that one a try and post them over to Nana over in England once we've framed them.

Sooo following the instructions very carefully, I got to my "thick mashed potato consistency" and quickly took the pot off the heat, spooned out onto my baking paper, covered with the damp tea towel and waited....
and waited....
and couldn't wait anymore...So in my excitement to get the project finished, I awoke my sleeping angel baby (I knoww terrible mother, should have left him to sleep! But if you knew my son, you'd know he is soooooo chilled out he really wouldnt mind...and he didn't!) to squish his feet into the gooey dough.... he obliged and was given a quick cuddle and returned to bed...and being the amazingly chilled out little dude he is, he went straight back to sleep! (I know, lucky aren't I? I call it Karma...I have put up with nearly 4 years of the most not chilled out daughter ever, so the good Karma has come around now and I have been blessed with the best behaved baby ever!)

Anyway...lets finish this little project story!

So I squished his feet in, popped it straight into the oven on the cookie cooling rack (as suggested in the website instructions) at 100 degrees C and left it to do its thing.

What I was greeted with after about an hour was NOT the smooth lovely keepsake I was hoping for...Really should have taken a photo of that disaster!

It was horrendous, cracked, funny discouloured bits, lumpy...just plain awful. And I put this disaster down to not waiting long enough for the dough to cool properly.

So I tried again, and this time waited until the dough was COMPLETELY COLD before doing anything with it. The result?
BEAUTIFUL! Finally a success story!They are by no means perfect but they are still pretty awesome and with a coat of cold spray paint over, they will look even better! Haha.

Good things come to those who wait, could not be a truer statement in this case.

Here was my (nearly) finished product... one pair of cutesey little Alexander feetsies,  one hand print and one toe print from Alia...Yes a toe print...I tried to do a thumb print for a christmas tree ornament, but her thumb prints are soooo teeeny tiny that it looked ridiculous....so a toe print it was!

I left this one in a wee bit long and it got a bit of a suntan and a few cracks but like I said above, nothing a bit of gold spray paint wont fix!

So that about covers it for pinterest projects I have ACTUALLY executed!

But I will leave you with the beautiful simple idea for dressing up the dining chairs for Christmas day which I intend on doing...

For now, get Pinteresting and stay beautiful! x

Lets get the kids busy!

Apologies for the gap in posts,  we've had some sick tummys in our house for the last few days. 

I bring you this post from the couch, curled up feeling sorry for myself! Both kids have been under the weather as well, hubby is the only one who's managed to avoid it, so he's home from work looking after us all this afternoon.

Onto the continuing topic of hand made Christmas cards. This will be my last post on cards, for this season, before I do it to death!

Just wanted to show a couple more designs that are super easy, and a couple of designs that the kids can help with to make extra special

As much as I love giving them free reign to let their creative flair run wild, sometimes you still want to have a particular design, BUT with the kids input as well.

For example: These two I just got out the glue, glitter and paint and let Alia go for it!

But then I wanted to do some with a particular design so we did these ones together, I gently guided her on what to do, and they turned out beautifully but still very obviously  made with her input.

The glittery silver tree is perhaps more impressive. We did this buy clipping out a flower shape from some card, and then using this as a stencil.

I held the stencil in place while she painted with the sponge dabber.

When we pulled the stencil off, she sprinkled the glitter on top...this never got old, the smile on her face watching the sparkly glitter go EVERYWHERE (and I really mean everywhere, we're going to be finding glitter in the carpet for the next 10 years I think!) was just gorgeous!

Then we cranked out the UHU glitter glue pens and I just let her go nuts dabbing colours on wherever she wanted. I added in a few bits to look like strings on tinsel and then she did the random coloured splodges to look like baubles.

Sooooo glittery, its like a fairy threw up in here!

I'll leave you with a couple more "grown up" card designs here...

These really don't need much explaining, grab some ribbon, crank out your hot glue gun and criss cross your ribbon up, gluing in place as you go.
Add some embellishments and hey presto, pretty pretty!

Unfortunately the Merry Christmas one I was trying to glue the ribbon in a hurry so its a bit messy, but you still get the idea....and maybe I'd use all capital letter stickers next time to avoid the Y and the end looking out of place. Obviously couldn't place it down in line with the rest because the ribbon is in the way.

Right back to sleep for me, for now, get glittery and stay Beautiful! (And not sick if at all possible :P )