How You Can Tell My Mum Sews - Part One

My clothes and toys match my quilt.

Which can make bunnies more tasty, I agree.

If I could crawl I could get away, but for now, I'm a sitting duck for her decorating whims.

Bettsy Kingston Ruffle baby pants pattern here, Kristen Doran bunny pattern here and quilt pattern from Amy Karol's Bend the Rules Sewing here. A mix of fabrics including Kaffe Fasset from here.

I've been away a while because I've been unwell. But come Friday night I just HAD to make something - and now I'm on a frilly baby pants bender! But not for too long - I'll have to give the dining table back sooner or later.

My Cake

As requested, this is a pic of Moist Coconut Cake (from a Women's Weekly recipe) a la Me.

Neither of these pics are from my most recent effort at a Christening Cake, but I have to say they are remarkably similar (right down to the cake plate - actually from Ezibuy years ago, and every time I use it it makes me smile). This incarnation above, is from my dear friend, Helen's, 40th birthday lunch. I assembled it at Jo's place, and it contains the main cake on the bottom, then a small round cake on top, drowned in passionfruit icing, then dotted with my bundt cake flowers (or flower-like lumps, see two posts ago), dusted with icing sugar and topped off with real roses from that nice rose farm up the road.


This is a very similar cake from a more aerial angle, made for my daughter's Christening (which was also her first birthday and so she actually had two cakes, the other was white chocolate decorated to match the ikea fabric table runner I had made). As you can see I couldn't get pink roses that day and these little beauties were from Coles. There was something sort of fun about cutting the heads off the roses, I have to admit.

And this is a photo that I love of Helen at her birthday, holding S, and she hates her photo being taken so I know she's going to TOTALLY FREAK OUT when she sees it - but I'm prepared to take that because I love it and she's gorgeous, and the reflection of Suzanne is really cool.

PS. this cake is delicious warm, with cream and a strawberry. Mmmmm.

PPS. Will stop cooking and start painting again soon. But we have a few ear infections on the go here and I'm off to bed now, because in all probability I'll be woken at least five times tonight - so Helen, when you ring about that photo, be kind. My head is fuzzy.

Email issues

Apologies to anyone who's emailed me lately, only to have their email bounce back. I've finally figured out that my webmail server has been keeping copies of my emails as well as sending them on to me. So please excuse me while I attempt to delete oh, about 157 953 emails (it's been a while), and we should be ok to resume normal transmission.

I have still received most emails that have been sent, but for some reason you've still been getting the bounce message. Thanks for your concerned calls!

They worked!

By following the advice of Cathie, the incredible happened. I actually managed to get these beautiful flower cakes out of their bundt cake tin - without sticking - and therefore still looking like flowers. Admittedly it wasn't rocket science, and I sprayed the tin with more cooking spray than ever before, (below) but they still tasted great and the tin (bought from Peters of Kensington - another handy online shop FYI Robbie W) will now start paying for itself.

These flowers adorned the christening cake of my new god-daughter, but alas, I have no photo. The cake is a Moist Coconut Cake from a Women's Weekly recipe - I've done this cake in my particular way about 4 times now (layered with passionfruit icing and fresh roses), so I'll try to find a photo and post it here soon.

From an art point of view, I've handpainted 4 more aprons and will photograph tomorrow and upload to the shop. I also have an idea for a handpainted cushion so will catalogue the progress of that as well. Stay tuned...

Photoshop Tip that really works!

I have to confess I often gently 'touch up' any half decent photos of me, in my quest for my kids to think that I didn't look that bad during these exhausting childbearing years. Just a little bit of teeth brightening, maybe a spot removed, perhaps a thigh slimmed - just a little... Not every photo by any means, but maybe those that are album worthy. (Geez, it sounds so vain - it's definitely not a top priority, but I have to admit it does happen. Anyone else want to confess?)

Anyway, I get a weekly email from istockphoto, and today's included this tip by Lesa Snider. If you're a photoshop user you may be interested.

And I quote:

Photoshop: Flabby chin fix

Believe it or not, you can suck the life out of a flabby chin with the Pinch filter. It sounds gross, but it makes a huge difference and only takes a few seconds. Just duplicate the original layer by pressing Command-J (Ctrl-J on a PC) and make a rough selection, the Lasso tool works well, that includes the offending flab and some of the surrounding detail.

Choose Filter > Distort > Pinch and, in the resulting dialog box, enter 20 in the Amount field, and then click OK. If you need to pinch it a little more, press Command-F (Ctrl-F on a PC) to run the filter again at the same settings. Easy, huh?

Lesa Snider, founder of GraphicReporter.com, is iStockphoto's Chief Evangelist and the author of Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual.

Unquote.

I just tried it for a side on neck and it worked! A definite improvement. But I won't post pics because my example was still a pretty unflattering shot.

OK, back to your usual programming. I have parcels to pack and aprons to paint!

My Creative Space

Once again, joining in Kootooyoo's Creative Space Thursday -

These three little ladies have just been listed in the shop and will feature in the Newsletter that I still haven't finished. Very happy with how they turned out - am experimenting with 'no necks' and simpler mouths, and the subjects have been dictated by the pages from a "Heidi" book that I've collaged in. They're painted on 16mm board and have a hole drilled in the back so they're ready to hang. The creative space that they're in is PARTICULARLY messy at the moment and I dream of having time to tidy and straighten. Until then though, I'm still feeling creative at least.

And I've finally drawn October's mailing list prize and the winner is...

Caity! Congrats Caity from www.caitymakes.com, the little magic notebook is on it's way.

If you're not on the list yet, you won't be in the next draw that will include some wonderful Golden paints and handpainted fabric... so if you're keen, just click here and opt in! I will photograph the prize tomorrow and get it up on the site.

Thanks again for reading - I've been receiving some really lovely comments lately, from near and far, and I've started really looking forward to sharing on this blog. I still plan to do the resinned coffee table project and a christmas wreath painting project before the end of the school term, so stay tuned and tutorials will be posted. In the meantime though, it's babies with snuffly noses and toddlers with bedtime denial and big boys who are scared to sleep... but this will pass.

Makeshift Funnels and Vegan Cakes

I'm working on my Shiny Happy November newsletter at the moment, so I have been making and uploading nice new things to the site. Which is very time consuming, but there were just a couple of things I really wanted to post though...

Someone (?) must have thrown out my ultra technical kitchen funnel (made from a Postpak and a staple) that I used to fill jars for Emergency Cookies, so I've been using this new, equally technical technique, called 'The Paper Bag Funnel'. It works, so if you've been doing the Emergency Cookie thing, or are planning to for Christmas, I hope this helps. I also use the 'pusher' bit from the top of my food processor to push it all down well.

And the lovely Cathie wrote a recipe for me (I'm really chuffed) that would be a healthy afternoon tea alternative - they're Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes, and they include avocado instead of butter. I made them last Friday and am delighted to report that they're delicious! Thanks Cathie. They'll definitely be a regular menu item these Summer holidays.

Cushiony Goodness

I was honoured to be asked to be Godmother to a dear friend's daughter, Maya, who was christened yesterday, and really wanted to make her something special. I claim total responsibility for turning her mother into a self confessed 'Anna Maria Horner Stalker' (in a nice way, and only over the internet, nothing too scary) so decided on this.

It's a patchwork cushion, using the last bit of my first batch of Amy Karol homemade piping, and featuring the divine fabrics of Anna Maria Horner. I used an Alicia Paulson Summerhouse Pillow pattern for making very efficient patchwork cushions and am happy to report it was so enjoyable that I am really looking forward to making another (when I recover from that rash of name dropping).

I didn't quite follow the pattern (I accidentally used 5" squares, so only needed 16 to make up a cushion for my 45cm filler) and I'm not going to reveal her secret (because I've followed her blog for ages and she's really lovely) but I'm happy to report the back is all my own. I've figured out a way to insert a zip very nicely - which may not be a new way, but it's not from a tutorial I've read, I'm sure. Would you like a cushion zip tutorial? Let me know.

I added my Shiny Happy Art tag to the back (which, to be honest, I like just as much as the front). Made it look just that bit snazzier.
And because it was ONLY 12.30am, and because I was obviously in my 'wishful thinking time traveller' mode, and because I was drunk on Anna Maria fabric goodness, I decided Saturday night would be a good time to try a bit of log cabin patching, which I've also never attempted before. But since seeing a pic of Anna Maria's baby son lying on a log cabin quilt she just whipped up (I'd add a link here, but my computer is SO SLOW at the moment), it's been in my head that I really wanted to make one for my bub. So I googled it, found a log cabin diagram, and made up my first three 30cm squares while the Wallabies played England at Twickenham. But then the rugby finished and it was really late and I displayed a tiny bit of maturity and went to bed. Finally doing a little bit of sewing meant that I could also finally use the beautiful, hand embroidered pincushion that my new blog-friend Cherry in Adelaide made me when I put it 'out there' that I really would like a new pincushion. It's so much nicer than anything I would have made and I love love love using it! Thanks Cherry!

I've got more I'd like to write about but the computer is too slow tonight. I still haven't taken the photos I need to upload some new artwork - will try again during daylight hours tomorrow.

Goodnight!