Yep. Life is a changin'...

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there! And especially to Jacob, my awesome husband and soon to be dad! Yep. That's right! Our little family is growing with the addition of two boys! Yep, twins! They'll debut around Christmas time! Looking forward to the madness!! xx

Happy Winter Solstice!

Today is the shortest day of the year. And the longest night. (Well, at least down here in the southern hemisphere.)

I'm secretly wishing for more snow this year and any reason to cuddle up with J and my two lovely dog boys.

Some winter inspiration for today...

silvia ava

Style Blueprint

Keep warm and enjoy your creature comforts!

x

Art History via the childhood...

When I was rather young, maybe about 5 or 6 years old, I went with my family to the Brooklyn Fair. We went every year, and usually multiple times through out the fair. The rides and the games, the people selling trippy black light posters and so called Native American fashion aka feathers with a clip to attach to your braids or hats, or rather for other things that I won't mention here.. Most years I would enter something in the Art competition for my age group and my sister would enter in something in the agriculture department, like a giant zucchini or something. Or a rabbit or a chicken. There was always cool things like that. 

One year, in an attempt to win a mirror with a print of a unicorn for one of the many games I'd play with my purchased tickets, but the vendor gave me something else. It was a poster print of a girl. Being 6 or so, I thought it was strange. It was a portrait of a girl with what I saw to be a fish pinned in her hair. Huh? Yeah exactly, little kid brain.

Just recently, I saw the image again. It is truly beautiful. 

I'm thankful that some carny gave this to me as a kid. It's always the oddballs like that make those weird ever-lasting impressions. 

Getting rid of stock!

Almost all of my old stock is now in our Garage Sale section on Etsy!  

Blue and Floral Fabric Covered Buttons

Vintage Floral Buttons

Vintage Australian Map Buttons

Go check it out! 

x

Fill in the Blank Friday!

And...here we go! 

1. This week I am pooped. I've been doing so much more art and future project research. Which is fantastic and I feel super motivated, but I also feel majorly pooped. I think the cold weather is sinking in. Hello Winter!

2. Misfits returns. Yes. So we are completely addicted to the show Misfits. I thought Heroes was great but this blows it out of the water... Brilliant! Today I rented the third season from the video shop and I'm sure we'll completely spoil it and watch it all within two days! I'm can't wait!

3. It's all about new plans at the moment. I've been researching heaps of things this week. Getting my Etsy shop back up and running. Seeking out new printing companies here in Welly. Doing a lot of drawing, a bit of painting... Good stuff!

4. I wish I could spend more time in the sun. Yeah, again. Winter. This last week has been mostly sunny and fine, but it never lasts long enough...

5. I demand quiet in the morning, apple slices in the evening after dinner, and a bit of notice on all activities.

6. This new path, it's filled with art and imagination.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to chillaxing, tomorrow my plans include seeing family and Sunday, I want to catch up on Rugby and sleep!

Have an awesome weekend everyone!!!

xx

Some Friday Tunes...

Righto.

The weekend is upon us. Bring it!

Enjoy!

xx

Remember that table?

So now for a little while, we've been using this amazing amazing table...

All built my the amazing Jacob. Part recycled gymnasium floor with the free-throw line, part rimu posts from someone's old decking, lots of glue and lots of nails and a whole lot of sanding!

Putting the top together, and hand carved-planed posts magically turn into legs!

Timmy, give us a size reference. Thanks!

Sanding and planing the top. 

Framed and looking quite posh!

So proud of this guy! (sigh-love!)

Ok Bruce. Your turn.

The legs going on!!! Woooh!

A few more coats of varnish to go!

Done and looking completely amazing!

The table seats eight, but a Chili-Cook-Off with about a dozen rad peeps, no problems!

Not bad for Jacob's first major wood-working project, huh?! It looks so amazing! The amount of work that went into this, I feel like I'll never quite know, but I know he worked his cute butt off. Seriously. Work of art. And mostly from recycled timber and such!

I'm still so impressed! 

Classic Pumpkin Bread

I cannot explain into words how much I love pumpkin in dessert form. Seriously. Pumpkin Pie. *Drool* I know it's probably the good ol' American in me. But I can never pass up a slice of Pumpkin Pie. NEVER! 

(Even though I was HUGELY disappointed with a slice I had over the weekend at one of my favourite places which shall remain nameless for the moment)


But with that, I was happy to know I could come home and dive into some super yummy pumpkin bread! The recipe I found was lovely, but needed a few minor tweaks to make it suitable for metric conversion and for the fact that Canned Pumpkin is something that we can't get here. And BTW, why use canned when making it fresh is SO easy! Seriously!

First off, remove the skin from the pumpkin and cut into small pieces, about 1 cm chunks. Boil in water until tender. Drain the pumpkin and put in a food processor until all the pieces are a lovely puree. See. Easy.

Ingredients : 
425 g pureed pumpkin
4 eggs
235 ml vegetable oil
160 ml water
600 g white sugar
440 g all-purpose flour
9 g baking soda
9 g salt
2 g ground cinnamon
3 g ground nutmeg
1 g ground cloves
0.4 g ground ginger


(I know .4 and 1g of things looks weird. But I use a digital scale when I bake now, and it's spot on! One of the handiest tools in the kitchen! I highly recommend having one.)

Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans. I used one 7x3 and a few mini bundt muffin tins. 

In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.

Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

And devour.

Ginger - Part 2!

Ahhh Part Deux. Never as good as the original. But the second part of my gingery findings lead me to what was to be Crystallised Ginger, but turned out to be more of a Hard Ginger Caramel. Which BTW is still pretty darn good! In an attempt to use the still good ginger from my Ginger Cordial, I decided to give it a go.

There are heaps of recipes online, but I used the recipe from James Wong. (Next time, James, I promise I will use fresh ginger and not murder your recipe!) You can get his books online and they are well worth it! 

I keep the ginger in a handy jar that I throw in my bag for car trips if I'm not driving. Winding New Zealand roads and my almost-always car sickness don't go together well. 

As of lately..

Some road trips around New Zealand.

Cape Palliser. 250 steps to the top and back again.

Practise makes Perfect!!

And our 'Canes FINALLY won at home! Wooooooooh!

Ginger! Part 1!

I completely love ginger. I love the smell of it. I love the taste of it, and even the way it feels on my skin. (Ginger infused oil in a creme... Heaven.)

A couple weeks ago I made my first batch of fantastic Ginger Cordial! It was actually very simple to make. And even though it will last about 3 months in the fridge, it only lasted less than 3 weeks. (recipe via Valentine Warner)

Ingredients:

• 200g fresh root ginger
• 1 lemon
• 600g caster sugar
• 1.5 litres of water
• 15g citric acid

Break 200g of the ginger into large pieces and peel. Cut into thin slices and put in a medium saucepan. Peel the lemon into wide strips and add to the pan along with its juice. Cover with 1.5 litres water. Stir in the sugar and cook over a low heat for 3-4 minutes until the sugar has dissolved.

Bring to the boil and boil for approximately forty minutes or until the ginger is very soft and the liquid has reduced to a thin syrup.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the citric acid. Strain through a funnel lined with clean muslin into a sterilized bottle. Stand for 30 minutes then seal tightly and label. Store in the fridge and use within 3 months. 

Glowing Ginger Goodness!

I love it with a hot water especially now that it's getting quite a bit colder here in Welly. But it's soooooo refreshing with some bubbled water from the Soda Stream!

Some Jamaican Inspiration - for cooking..

Last week, I had a craving.

BBQ Jerk Chicken.

Sadly, I have never been to Jamaica. But it looks amazing. 

Jerk Chicken. Rice and Beans (without the bean as I didn't have any in the pantry). And Creamed Silverbeet.

Step 1 : Cheat. 

While I know there are heaps of recipes for Jerk Chicken, this just happened to be tucked away just waiting to be used. And it is gooooood! Sometimes, it's good to cheat. 

Step 2 : Rice and Beans. 

I used this lovely recipe found here. It's easy as! Since I didn't have any kidney beans, I just threw everything in our trusty rice cooker and let it go. What did I learn from this recipe? It will be amazing with beans, and it'll be getting made more often. 

Step 3 : Creamed Silverbeet.

You can use any creamed spinach recipe for this and substitute silverbeet.

Yep. Easy as. 

More Tin Ceilings!

It is finally - FINISHED!

It all looks seriously amazing! Such a difference compared to the 1980's wood panelled Swiss Chalet look! Here are some progress photos!

Quite a difference!

Dining Room Done!

Templates for crown moulding - the saviour pieces.

Done and done!

Repainted the dining room lighting - Really done!

Sunlight reflecting through the room! Love!

The living room was tackled a little bit differently than the dining room. We decided to primer all of the panels first, instead of after they were tacked to the ceiling. It was so much easier. So instead of 3 coats of primer/paint and throwing out our shoulders and necks, we only had to do one. 

We are so happy with the way everything turned out! The tin really fits into our 1900's home. It really looks amazing and opens the rooms up in a different way. The patterns have worked out nicely and I love the simplicity of it. 

I will say as well, Jean from Heritage Ceilings was so amazing and helpful! Check out her site! She has worked on some really great projects that will inspired you!

Thanks from Jacob and I to Jean, Hamish and Paul for all of your help - and loan of tools to finish the job!!

Much Love !

x