Garden Harvest
Fresh, totally organic and straight from the garden, just beautiful! Gardening has been such a tough slog here, trying to grow things in a drought with water restrictions and horrible, horrible clay soil. But we have our small victories and these are one of them. Husband has just put in a plum and a persimmon tree as well as a couple of climbing roses. Planting anything is a gamble here without the free use of water (even with our own water tank, its uselss without rain to fill it!)
We have so many plans for gardening and growing when we get our “dream” acreage, and for the time being we live in hope that the drought will finally break.
Garden fairy and soap
One of my nieces (did I ever mention that I have 29 nieces and nephews?!) sent me a lovely handmade card for the baby so I decided to send her something in return (she is 5 years old).
Being a lover of all things pretty and girly, I thought a little 4 inch garden fairy would be just the thing. I was happy to get these light filled shots of the said fairy as it was a gloriously warm and sunny winter’s morn.
I made some goats milk and vanilla bean soap for a gift. It smelled gorgeous in the pot, almost exactly like panna cotta. Speaking of panna cotta, have you ever made it? You must, you must, its simply wonderful and easy too! Here’s a recipe for you:
Err, if you’re on a diet or watching your weight you may have to develop temporary amnesia before you down this cool delight!
Vanilla Panna Cotta
Serves 6
3 cups cream
1 cup milk
the seeds from a lovely moist vanilla bean (you can use vanilla extract, but it ain’t the same!)
3/4 cup sugar
4 tsp gelatine
Bring the milk, cream, vanilla and sugar slowly to the boil. Remove from heat. Dissolve the gelatine in a little warm water just before stirring in to the cream mixture. Allow to cool to warm before pouring into moulds or some sort of container (I just use a plastic rectangular dish with tall sides) Cover with plastic wrap and set in the fridge overnight.
We have only eaten it plain, but next time husband suggested doing some fruit soaked in liquer as an accompaniment. I quite agree!
Wow! Lucky me!
I love to get beautiful surprises in the mail, so I was thrilled to get a parcel from Marie from my second favourite country, New Zealand (Australia is my first pick of course!) I had mentioned to her that I’m interested in learning needle felting and she offered to send me some wool samples.
Her samples are extremely generous and will see me off to a very good start!
She also sent this cute little bird that she needle felted. There was an audible gasp from 2 year old daughter when she spied this, wool being her toy of preference.
Marie even included a hand written card with a picture of one of her lovely needle felted maidens. What a kind and generous soul! Have a look at her wonderful Etsy shop, there is a lot to love in there!
Spring is not too far away…
The first daffodil.
Gifts
These gifts are all finished and ready to send tomorrow. A cute tote and a tea towel.
Some beaded jewellery and assorted hair clips. I love giving hand made gifts.
Husband has made a solitary journey to Mass this morning as 3 of the 4 children are sick, the baby is not one of them, thank God. There are a lot of sick people around at the moment, mid winter in a cool region.
We had the little one’s baptism yesterday. It was a simple affair (just how we like it!) with only a few people and a very old and wonderful priest.
Have a lovely and relaxing Sunday.
Some of my favourite dolls…
Some of my favourite dolls…
I’ve lost count of how many dolls I’ve made and sold now.
I do have my favourites though.
Most are now scattered across the United States.
They’re all different and I loved making each and every one. Some people ask me if its hard to sell them, to let them go. No. I love the thought that someone loves what I do enough to buy one.
I love the thought of a little person getting around with one of my dolls tucked under their arm or into their bed.
This one is still for sale in my Etsy shop, the rest have been sold. I enjoy the challenge of custom orders too, you can purchase directly from the shop or contact me from here.
I hope your day brings you happiness, craftiness and contentment!
THANK YOU!
I thought I’d just pop in to say a big thanks to all of who have left your kind comments, well wishes and lovely emails over the past few weeks, its been really heart warming.
I hope you can bear with me through this “settling in” period and keep visiting even though there isn’t so much to see right now.
I’m sorely afflicted with the crafter’s/ artist’s (is “craftist” a word?!) bane – my brain is constantly swamped with inspirations but there is no time to bring them to fruition. The ideas haven’t stopped, even if the hands can’t keep up. And I’m about to embark on a graphic design course.
Multi tasking has taken on a new meaning!
God bless you all, have a great day.
Saturday.
As you can imagine, most of my time lately has been spent “just being a Mum” and squeezing in a little crafting time wherever possible. Juggling feeds, nappies, baths, toddlers (and their often unruly behaviour), meals and all my duties doesn’t leave much time for anything else, but despite all this, I really feel happy and grateful. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do and I’m pretty good at it most of the time!
So, I thought today I should bring you a little eye candy lest you grow tired of my rambling text.
This is a shot of the wee bairny (now all of 12 days old!) in the Hugabub I previously mentioned.
Note the small observer to the side.
I managed to fit in some baking time yesterday using the dough hooks on the new mixmaster.
The bread rolls became garlic bread to accompany the anchovy, zucchini and onion creamy pasta we had lastnight.
The loaf is a lovely fruit loaf, for which I will give the recipe for you to try. Although it ages quickly, it makes a great next day toast. We toasted slices for morning tea with melted butter and strawberry cream tea from T2tea (delicious served hot or cold).
FRUIT LOAF.
First stage of dough:
100g plain flour
7g sachet dry yeast
1 tsp muscovado or brown sugar
250 ml warm milk
2nd stage of dough:
350g plain flour
half tspn salt
50g butter
1 tspn mixed spice
50g muscovado or brown sugar
225g mixed, dried fruit
1 beaten egg
Method:
1. First stage ingredients.
Mix flour, yeast and sugar, beat in the milk slowly. Cover with cling wrap for 20 minutes or until frothy.
2. Second stage ingredients.
Put flour and salt in a bowl and rub in butter. Stir in the spice, sugar and fruit. Add egg to first stage dough, then add flour mixture. I did this with the dough hooks, then continued to allow the machine to knead the dough. If kneading by hand, do so for about 10 minutes. Cover dough and leave to rise for about an hour.
3. Grease a loaf tin. Give risen dough a quick knead. Cut into 3 pieces and shape each into an oval to fit across the width of the tin. Leave to rise again for about 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 200 degrees (C). Bake loaf for 20 minutes, then loosely cover with foil and bake for another 15 – 20 minutes until the base sounds hollow when tapped.
Enjoy!