Free Postage on ART BAGS

I made original, handpainted ART BAGS for over 4 years.

They were hugely labour intensive, and I'm taking a break from making them right now, while my girls are small.

I painted and sewed over 500 bags - and there are now only 21 left.


As a special Easter offer there is FREE POSTAGE on any ART BAG until the end of the Easter holidays - that's 8.30am on Tuesday 13th April, 2010.

Just use the code EASTERART at the checkout.


The smaller 'Freedom' Bags are all $66, and the larger 'All Day Totes' are $110.


Perhaps yours is there right now. Waiting patiently. Hope so!

Five Faves

It's been a pretty productive and 'familyish' weekend at home, so thought I'd join in with Pip's Five Faves this week.

1. Sewing Cushions for me - I bought this craft panel from Aunty Cookie last week and just had to make it up (trying another easy zip method from this Design Sponge tutorial) into this denim backed number. I love it alongside my Anna Maria Horner homemade cushions.

 

2. Making Cushions for my kids - they get so excited, and honestly, there were no sewing mountains climbed here.

Firstly, this one from a Canteen bandanna for my boy who loves yellow (and I'd promised it for his October birthday, last year!).

Then these two Dora cushions made from the cover on the old kids fold out lounge. The foam had had it, but the cover was the real favourite. I just stuffed them like toys and she was ecstatic.

 

And this one for my boy who loves typical-boy-bottom-humor - and I got to recycle some of his old jeans. It was a big hit.

3. Baking - tried the very 'American sounding' recipe for Graham crackers today from this recipe here - liked making them, and am sure my attachment to trying them is because I've always heard of 'smores' and I think that's what they're used for - but they're not quite it for me (I'm happy to say that the kids still liked them and there's just enough left to send some to school tomorrow).

4. Little 'Lemonade' Stands - where a jug of water and a few cups mean hours of imaginative fun.

5. Handmedown toys from the boys to the girls - this dolls house was originally built by my father-in-law for my step daughter - who is now 22, and when it was passed down to the boys I painted the rooms and painted on some furniture ('real' furniture always got in the way of the dinosaurs). Today we got it out and cleaned it up for the girls, and I'm looking forward to seeing the next incarnation of play. It's been a huge success with S already.

And as an extra bonus I even went and saw Avatar this weekend, which I did enjoy, which was a pleasant surprise because I'm not a sci fi sort of person. And it was a lovely 3 hours of by-myself time, hidden behind 3D glasses. No complaints there.

Hope you had a lovely weekend!

Lemon Cake to make while babies are sleeping

Made this yummy lemon cake from kootooyoo's recipe this afternoon.

Can't say enough good things.

You don't even have to use the beaters - perfect when the little ones are asleep, and then it's eaten by the big kids home from school, warm from the oven.

Thanks Kirsty!

My Creative Space

Today I received the handy photo scanner that I ordered from here.

On Tuesday, during procrastinations about doing housework, I noticed a small photo album of my trip to the US in 1994 was falling apart, so I decided to take all the photos out and find a photo shop downtown that would scan them for me (as it's a pretty underwhelming job to do on my flatbed scanner at home, and let's face it, I may not get around to it).

Lo and behold about 2 hours later I saw a tv ad (whilst feeding the baby that rarely sleeps) for a photo scanner that would do exactly what I needed. And it looked fast, and easy, and if I had my own, well! The sky's the limit! I could scan so many of my other photos from before digital and make photobooks like I've always wanted! (OK, so that's a lot of exclamation marks. I don't get out much. This is really exciting for me.)

So I ordered it on Tues night and it arrived today, and whilst feeding B her lunch I managed to scan the whole pile, then after taking J to get his mouthguard this afternoon I corrected the images in photoshop (they are pretty ordinary photos - more 'memories' than 'photography') and set them to upload onto snapfish while we went to Mum's for dinner. Then after getting home and putting the kids to bed I've gone and made the book and sent off my order.

Can't believe it.

Honestly, I've been planning to make a photobook for SO LONG and now I've done my first one and I'm much happier than doing the housework would have made me. By far.

And because the planets all aligned, I was seriously inspired by seeing a book my visiting aunt made about her trip to NY last year with her daughter. I saw Patsy and her fabulous book this morning, and when I came home the scanner was sitting here, waiting for me. I couldn't have planned it better.

And wouldn't you know it - the housework is still all here, waiting for me. Perhaps tomorrow...

For more creative spaces, be sure to visit kootooyoo.

How many times should you reboil water?

I understand that you're supposed to boil fresh water for the perfect cup of tea (and probably not use a teabag I guess), but if I boiled fresh water every time I'd be personally responsible for our water crisis.

I think I've boiled the kettle intending to have a cup of tea at least 6 times this morning. I'm happy to report that I've finally poured the water into the cup - so that's a step forward.

Now, I'm going to share a couple of handy family recipes that I find useful. My focus on recipes at the moment is because I'm learning web design and have decided my first 'code only' project is going to be a simple recipe site, so I need so take some photos and figure out some links.

These first biccies are Sultana Bran cookies and I got the recipe (that was originally from the Kelloggs website) from Jane Kennedy's blog. I just added a bit of leftover chocolate icing to distract my kids from the fact that there are sultanas in there.


My second recipe is for Chocolate Slice and was originally from a Burkes Backyard mag (I think - I've cut it out and pasted it in my recipe file, and can't remember!). Anyway, I've made it marginally healthier (if that's possible when you start with 200 g of butter) and have drawn out the recipe for you (inspired by a terrific illustrated recipe site called recipe look - thanks Cathie!). Just click on the image to see it bigger.

I use it as a very quick to make lunchbox treat, and when choc slice is needed for tuckshop. You can of course use plain flour and sugar, but hey, if you've got the brown stuff, it still tastes great.

Oh, my tea is now cold. Might just refill the kettle...

Painting LIVE

My Creative Macarons

This is what good 'parisian' macarons should look like.

Tartelette is one of my favourite 'food' blogs and her talent with the macaron (and macaron photography) is second to none. Check these beauties out...

via tartelettevia tartelette

via tartelette

Ah, mouthwatering.

via mimiofparis

Now, I'd admired these macarons, and seen them on quite a few blogs and today I attempted my own - without reading anything except the recipe in the Women's Weekly Bake book, and without a decent piping bag (I used a glad bag).

And they were not perfect (and they were really pointy on top!), but they were yummy.

And I made them to use the egg whites leftover from an ice cream attempt. So they'll be made again, and next time I hope to get a little closer to the Tartlette ideal! So I'll make sure I read her instructions here.

There have been paintings finished this week, but I'm too tired to post them now.

For more creative spaces, head over to Kirsty at kootooyoo...