wips

I love the term wip (work in progress) which I first discovered in blogland, though sometimes it seems everything I do is eternally in progress and never complete (can you tell I'm having a bad week!).
Here's a peak at a wip I've been playing with for a while - my rick rack pattern in four different colour stories.
I haven't quite worked out the repeat but one day I will and then its off to spoonflower to print!
In the meantime I might post some more of my wips, it might help me get round to finishing some of them!!

love this

I just love this photo from Elisabeth Dunker who writes one of my favourite blogs finelittleday. I was so taken with this arrangement of plates on the wall of her house when she posted it on her blog. Today I saw it again on Design Sponge with some other beautiful pics of her apartment. I love the way she mixes the old and the new and her wonderful eye for colour.

Sale!

This weekend there is 25% off throughout the Flower Press shop. Runs till Sunday night.

In other news, today we met this couple, munching on cos lettuce! They are like very overstuffed vinyl couches, with whiskery mouths and smily faces.

And this is Christopher Robin (aka my little J.), dreaming about a life under the sea :-)

christmas in july sale

I'm not sure where the Christmas in July concept comes from, but here in the Southern Hemisphere we still send cards with mistletoe and snow at Christmas time - when most of us are sitting on the beach getting sunburned!

So Christmas in July fits better with the traditional images, and the people at Dust (Etsy's Down Under Street Team) have decided to celebrate with a big sale with that theme. It's on this weekend running from first thing Saturday morning through till last thing Sunday night (our time).

Heaps of wonderful Aussie stores will be holding fantastic sales and there will be giveaways running in the forums the whole time. Look for the Dust forum thread to join the fun.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do (haven't had a chance to think about it!!!!!). It's going to be good though, so keep an eye out!!! I'll try and be back here tomorrow to tell you, once I think of something :-)

Look here to see all the fabulous Dust members who will be having sales, there will be loads of great deals. Come and enjoy the irony of a sunburned Christmas with us!

winter jewels

Beautiful sunny days here.
We had a picnic on the harbour yesterday and some English tourists actually jumped in and swam next to us! It was a lovely sunny day but I bet that water was cold :-)
This morning we had a funny little visitor turn up in the garden. She was suddenly there wandering around the garden tame as a pet taking bread from our hands and talking away in magpie talk!

ginger & chocolate

For a few months now I've been making candied ginger from a recipe I got from here via The Cooking of Joy. Originally I made them for my Dad, who has always loved ginger. But then they proved very (very, very) popular around here too and every time I made a batch to send him it seemed to disappear in a few days.

This candied ginger is so very simple to make, you peel and chop the ginger into small pieces and then simmer it in a syrup that's half water and half sugar. I get slightly different results each time, and I always cook it for longer than the recipe says, they say 20 minutes, I do half an hour minimum. When they're cooked I strain them through a colander and then leave them spread out on baking paper to dry. When they're just slightly tacky I roll them in caster sugar. This last batch I made was from very fresh ginger and they are really spicy!


Something inspired me yesterday to try coating these beautiful morsels in chocolate. I bought some Lindt 85% cocoa chocolate, melted it in an aluminum bowl over a pan of water and then threw in a handful of candied ginger. I fished these out one at a time with tongs and set them to dry on more baking paper. Success! Once they'd cooled down and set these are even yummier than the plain ginger. I've put them in a jar in the kitchen, but I'm seriously thinking of hiding this one!


If you like ginger these are a great and simple thing to make. I've never chocolate coated anything and it was easy. And they make a nice gift. I put some in a little jar and gave it to my mother in law last time she was down, and I've planted out some pieces of ginger in the garden, I'm thinking that some time it would be nice to use my own homegrown, organic, ginger.

more vintage wallpaper

I know I'm not the only one who loves a bit of vintage wallpaper. Here's a site I've been meaning to post for a while, Secondhand Rose. I love the wonderful graphic and printy qualities of these and the pattern design. The collection covers a wide range of styles.

"Wallpaper in the attic of the store, represent the world's largest collection of vintage wallpaper. This impressive wallpaper collection, spanning the 1860's to 1970, has been featured on Martha Stewart and is in the collections of museums throughout the world. Kitchen, bathroom, geometric, and floral wallpaper prices range from $70 per roll (60'sq) to $1,200 per roll for original Frank Lloyd Wright designs (90'sq)"

p.s. I've added some tags so if you click the wallpaper listing at the right you can see all the other lovely examples :-)

wonderful video

You must watch this, it's amazing! via JennSki

winter garden

It's been too wet and cold here to spend much time in the garden lately but luckily constant rain and grey skies have given way to beautiful crisp, sunny winter days.
The garden is still in flower, our colder months are ahead, and I'm always quite surprised at the plants that are doing their thing in July. Of course the sasanqua camellias are always beautiful now. This white one is new and tiny but I love the simple elegance of its flowers. In contrast I always buy punnets of pansies for their colours. I'm a sucker for purple ones.
The lolly pink pompoms of the Hakea have been flowering for a month at least and bringing all the nectar eating birds and bees. The Callicarpa is doing its thing too with these totally unreal magenta berries.



The Red Hot pokers, well orange pokers in this case are a great splash of colour in the garden as is another favourite, and one that should have lost it's leaves by now, Euphorbia cotinifolia. I just love red foliage and this one catches the light beautifully.


The vegetable boxes down the side are starting to settle in and I've planted baby beetroot and peas and spinach. I was quite pleased with myself when I thought of this use for the grape vine prunings, with their little dried tendrils they make fantastic climbing posts for the peas.