living on the crafty side of life

mid march catch up

We've been busy here since my last post. I've actually been on a road trip and driven to Lismore and Ballina since my last post. Paul and I drove Phoebe to Lismore to compete in the Little Athletics State Multi event. We had a lot of fun, even though it was very tiring driving such a long way in such a short time. Emily didn't come with us, she had a long weekend with her nana and poppa here in Sydney which everyone enjoyed (including Hugo the dog).

Last week Phoebe coloured her hair for the World's Greatest Shave. She went with blue hair and a purple fringe.

She had a few friends around to celebrate the event and help colour the hair.

We made colour co-ordinated cupcakes for afternoon tea ...

 

Phoebe has raised over $200.00 through online and cash donations. I know a few blog readers kindly sponsored her, thank you very much.

 

She has now washed her hair, and quite a bit of the blue remains, and possibly will for some time, I think.

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Emily recently worked on a project for school. Her task was to make a photographic essay for her Connected Curriculum subject. She has been out and about on excursions taking photos of her local environment. This project was pulling all her information together. She used a Maya Road sheer tab binder album, and made this book while we wereaway in Lismore. Here's a few photos of her book.

 

 

 

 

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A quick Ribbons Galore update. I have added a few very cute bunny ribbons which are perfect for Easter projects.

   

Speaking of Easter... I have some exciting things lined up. But you'll have to check back in a few days to find out more.

That's about all. Thanks for visiting my blog.

Cheers

Fiona x

long time...no blog...

...but it is summer and school holidays.

It's been about a month since my last post. We've been enjoying the laziness of school holidays. I love having my girls home.

Christmas was nice and relaxing.

New Year was... nice and relaxing. We were at Hawks Nest for about a week... nice and relaxing. We packed a picnic and headed for Jimmy's Beach for New Years eve to watch the fireworks over at Nelson Bay. There were hundreds of people on Jimmy's Beach (busiest I've ever seen it!), many bonfires were blazing. It was a great night.

January has been nice and relaxing. Many trips to the beach, catching up with friends, movies, shopping, staying cool during our hot weather.

Here's a photo taken at Balmoral Beach. There have been several days spent sitting under the trees chatting with friends while we watch the kids enjoy themselves.

 

I have created a few projects during January. CHA-W 09 is just around the corner, and I have sent a few projects off to the US for the Maya Road stand. Here's one of the my mini albums... using a new chipboard suitcase book. You can view the new Maya Road catalog HERE.

 

I still have lots of photos on my camera which I haven't checked yet, once I have I'll post more project photos very soon.

These little cupcake cards {below} were made for the Maya Road Design Team blog. We, the design team members, are now writing posts on the blog. Every few days a new post is published over there. So far there have been lots of great ideas, so make sure you bookmark it and visit regularly.

I've used the Maya Road Cupcakes stamp set. Instructions are on the MR DT blog.

 

 

 

I LOVE this set of stamps, and I actually have ONE SPARE. So I'm going to start the new year off with a RAK. If you leave me a comment here on this post by January 31, your name will be included in the draw for this set of MAYA ROAD CUPCAKES STAMPS. I'll post anywhere in the world! edited: thanks for all your lovely comments, I now have a winner.

Good luck, have fun and thanks for visiting my blog.

Cheers

Fiona x

Maya Road "Home for the Holidays" contest

Maya Road is running a new contest. It's called "Home for the Holidays". Decorate one or more of Maya Road's chipboard houses to enter the contest.

You can read all the details on the Home for the Holidays Contest page. The great news is international entries are welcome!

Edited to add: I'm trying to compile a list of stores/online stores here in Australia that sell the Maya Road chipboard houses. So far I have found two stores. They are:

Scrapbook Central : email Ruth if you would like to place an order, info@scrapcentral.com.au

and

Scrapmoore

Earlier this week I wrote a quick step by step guide to making a simple cupcake card on the Pursuit of Craftyness blog. I coloured Maya Road chipboards with the new Maya Road Maya Mists. Here's a close up of the chipboard cupcake I created for the card.

Hope you have a great weekend. It's a long weekend for us here. Looking forward to some relaxation.

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Cheers

Fiona

cupcake pincushion and handmade bags

Last week I received a little box in the mail. Inside was this little bit of gorgeous-ness.

Lovely Kylie made this for me. I had admired Kylie's cupcake pincushion on her blog a couple of week's back. I was so excited to receive this little cupcake pincushion I took it out with me when I had coffee with some friends one morning to show it off! Thank you so much Kylie, you know I love it :-)

Last Friday was cold and rainy here, so it felt like a good day for some sewing and Kylie's pincushion was put to good use.

I started making a bag for a friend during the day, it's her birthday this week. When Phoebe arrived home from school she reminded me we'd planned on making her a bag. My friend's bag was sidelined for a while while we pulled out Phoebe's material and cut out her bag. She sat at the sewing machine quilting her fabric. Then I helped her sew the bag together. She likes sewing the straight lines, and isn't too keen on the curvy lines at the moment. Here's her finished bag, her quilting is so neat.

Saturday's weather continued to be miserable, so I finished my friend's bag. I used fabrics from Amy Butler's Midwest Modern Ohio Sky collection. This is the same bag as my pink bag I made back in July.

Last week I also received some gorgeous fabrics in the mail from the US. I'd bought some beautiful fabrics I'd been wishing for from a US store. My order arrived within a week. I'll post some photos of my new fabric stash in a few days when I've taken some photos.

Sophia sent me an award. Thanks so much Sophia.

There are so many wonderfully creative blogs out there in the blog world I find it hard to name just a few. As I come across blogs I like, I add their links to my side bar, so I hope that you might take some time to visit some of those.

One great list of creative blogs which I've discovered lately is this site:

{edited: I can't create a link from the button above, so here is the link to the big list of sewing blogs: http://www.suzical.co.uk/sewing-blogs.html }

Lots of my favourites are listed here, and I'm having fun visiting others on their list.

I've just made a big batch of cupcakes, which I need to go make the icing for now. Emily's school has a "system" (for want of a better word) where the girls take cupcakes for each other's birthday in their tutor group. At the beginning of the year a roster is worked out, and tomorrow it is Emily's turn to take cake for her partner's birthday. I love the smell of freshly baked cakes through the house.

Till next time.... thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona x

ice cream cupcakes

I had an idea to make ice cream cupcakes for Emily's birthday. Last year she enjoyed the ice cream birthday cake I made, and wanted it again. I thought it would be fun to try and make smaller ice cream cakes and came up with the idea of ice cream cupcakes.

OK, so they look a bit like homemade choc tops, but they were still well enjoyed at the birthday party.

Here's how they were made. I used both vanilla and chocolate store-bought ice cream.

STEP 1: Soften the vanilla ice cream. Place in your mixer and beat. While mixing add mini marshmallows and meringues. You need to work quickly so the ice cream doesn't melt too much.

STEP 2: Fill the ice cream cones with this mixture to the top of the cone. I like to add a "surprise" to these, so added a chocolate coated finger biscuit at this stage. Place in the freezer. I left these for 24 hours before I moved to the next stage.

STEP 3: Repeat step 1 with the chocolate ice cream, adding the meringues and marshmallows. This ice cream may need to be frozen slightly before moving onto the scooping stage. Use an ice cream scoop to scoop up the ice cream.

And place the scoop of ice cream over the top of the ice cream cone.

You will have little ice cream cupcakes like below. These need to be returned to the freezer again for about 24 hours, to make sure they are really frozen before the next step.

STEP 4: Melt chocolate. I used dark chocolate. Stand your ice cream cupcakes over a wire rack with a tray underneath (this step gets a little messy). Drizzle the melted chocolate over the ice cream cones and sprinkle with 100's and 1000's (this is a good job for an assistant if one is eagerly standing by).

 

You do need to return these to the freezer as soon as possible, as the ice cream does start to melt. I worked on about 6 ice cream cones at a time, then returned those to the freezer before starting on the next batch.

That's it. Ice cream cupcakes.

A couple of things to point out about these. Firstly they are not the type of "cake" to be made at the last minute. They do take a few days putting them together and freezing in between. Secondly, they are top-heavy and were difficult to arrange nicely. I placed them in a big bowl and handed them out from there.

I'd like to find the little plastic bowls used in the gelato stores if I were making these again, and use those instead of the ice cream cones. I think the gelato bowls would look similar to the patty papers used for cupcakes.

They were very nice and enjoyed by everyone at the party, and were something a little different from the traditional birthday cakes I usually make.

Thanks for visiting. Hope you're having a good weekend.

Cheers

Fiona x

catch up time

Life's busy as always. Everyone says the same thing.

Firstly, thank you for all the lovely comments and emails about the pouches/pencil cases/make up bags I've been making (see my previous post). I've had several inquiries about making custom pouches or cases. Yes I certainly can make these up, you can choose the ribbon from Ribbons Galore, and I'll match fabrics. Just email me, and we'll go from there.

In other news...

Emily has turned 13! I am now the mother of a teenager. She hasn't changed much in the last few days... being a teenager now, she's still as lovely as ever. She is home sick this week though, with the latest bug that seems to be going around the schools here.

She had her party last weekend. We made the invitations...

Used lots of scraps and sewing for these.

... and we made the thank you cards while we were printing and sewing and creating...

20+ girls arrived at our house last Sunday for the party. We walked to a local Thai (Bai Yok, Castlecrag) for dinner. The restaurant was great, its our favourite local for delicious Thai food. Then we walked home for Ice cream Cupcakes, which were a big hit. One of the girls at the party grabbed our camera and took this photo on the night.

On Saturday night we went to Broad at the Sydney Opera House. Five female singer/songwriters of very different genres singing, playing and chatting on stage for a couple of hours. Fantastic.

Phoebe's soccer season continues... Last weekend was Gala Day  and her team won. All the games were great and well matched. I think it was the hair ribbons the girls wore on the day that increased their enthusiasm.

This should have marked the end of the soccer season for Phoebe, but no, she's been picked to play in the under 11's girls representative team for our region, so the soccer training continues a little longer. She is so excited to be in this team, she loves her soccer.

I have a few other things to catch up on. I've been tagged by Miki (I'm getting there, Miki) and I've received an award from Sophia (very exciting). I'll work on these two in new posts very soon.

Hope you have a great week.

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona x

maya road projects for CHA-S 2008

Maya Road is making some gorgeous stamps, both in sets and single stamps (which are called singletons). You can see the stamp sets (including new CHA releases) in the Maya Road CHA-S Catalog.

A couple of my favourites have features in some of my projects which have gone to CHA.

I've used owl stamp (below) on a few little projects.

The tiny owl stamp and the 'what a hoot' have been used below, with Pink Paisley paper on the background.

The owl stamped on acetate and coloured and mounted on a round tag with Scenic Route paper:

These owls were stamped on linen fabric then embroidered:

And while I was making little fabric hanging ornaments, I used the new Maya Road cupcake singleton stamp for these:

I love cupcakes. And now Maya Road have several new cupcake themed products. There's the stamp (which I mentioned above), but also there's

• a cupcake stamp set (with six cupcake stamps plus more),
• a cupcake chipboard album,
• cupcake rubons sheets,
• a cupcake sheer ribbon,
• a cupcakes chipboard set and
• a cupcake coaster album.

Below I've used a chipboard cupcake shape from the cupcake coaster album as the base for the felt cupcake below. This book is a Maya Road sheer tab binder book, which I covered with fabric slip cover which I sewed.

And a few pages from inside my cupcake book. This book holds most of my cupcake secrets, the recipes, the frostings, the fun stuff. Being the binder style book, I'll be able to add more pages as I go along, with more fun ideas.

This book was lots of fun to make.

That's all for today, I'll gather some more photos of my Maya Road projects and post very soon.

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona x

birthday wishes

Yesterday was the big day....

Paul, my DH, turned 50. It's a big number, but he coped very well :-))

We had a busy day, lots of running around, but we managed to celebrate in between the busy parts. The girls cooked bacon and egg rolls for breaky. The carrot cupcakes were iced with a cream cheese and ricotta icing, and were really, really yummy. We fitted in a netball game and a basketball game, and a few other committments. We had drinks at friends and then we went to dinner at China Doll on Woolloomooloo Wharf.

It was a good day.

And today was Mothers' Day. A lovely day was had here with my gorgeous girls. Breakfast in bed. Watching Phoebe's fabo soccer game. Phoebe made Chocolate Kisses for afternoon tea (recipe from Better Homes and Gardens). Visiting my mum and dad. And dinner cooked by the girls Paul.

Bring on Monday so we can all have a rest!!!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mums out there.

Fiona x

Carrot Cupcakes

We have a very important birthday in our family this weekend. After subtle (and not so subtle) questions from the girls as to the type of cake that would be enjoyed by this birthday person, it was decided that carrot cake would be well received.

So here I am cooking today. We are running out of time to prepare the cakes, and tomorrow (THE birthday) is already full with sporting matches and plays, so I thought I'd make the cakes today, so the girls can decorate in the morning.

Something occurred to me this morning as I was enjoying my cooking - BY MYSELF. One of the very few negatives of having children (apart from the cost of running them) is that you create cake spoon and bowl licking competitors. I love licking the spoon, the bowl and anything else that has a dollop of uncooked cake mixture. But these days I rarely get to indulge in this pleasure. I have little people who, as soon as they hear the cake tin going into the oven, suddenly appear in the kitchen. And that's if they weren't already there, "helping" with the actual cooking.

Today I was able to enjoy a little bit of cake mixture, uncooked, by myself. And this mixture in particular was delicious and rich uncooked.

Here's the first batch out of the oven. The mixture was huge. I've made 28 muffin sized carrot cupcakes from this recipe. Looks like there'll be some left over for Mother's Day on Sunday :-))

The recipe I used is the Church Picnic Carrot Cupcakes (page 49) from the Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook. Great book, full of beautiful ideas for cupcakes.

OK, I've finished my cup of tea, better keep going, I've got a mini book to work on and some ribbon orders to pack. I'll share some photos of the finished cakes when the girls have worked their magic on them tomorrow.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Cheers

Fiona x

a pink post

I haven't shared the new love in my life. I never thought I'd be so smitten with a kitchen appliance, but I am. I love this machine. My gorgeous family bought me a KitchenAid for Christmas. The hard thing was choosing a colour. If you know about KitchenAids, you'll know their appliances are available in a fantastic range of colours.

When I went to the store to order my machine, I still hadn't decided on a colour. I had narrowed it down to either white or pink. The Gemini twins in me were having a huge tug of war in my head. The practical twin was saying get the WHITE, it'll go with everything. The other completely non-practical twin was whispering get the PINK, you really want the pink, who cares if it doesn't go with the blue kitchen! The shop assistant was on the phone ready to order the machine, asking me which colour. PINK came out of my mouth in reply, and so a pink KitchenAid was ordered.

It certainly looks best with pink icing...

Phoebe's basketball team is called the Hotcakes. We had the team BBQ a couple of weeks ago and Phoebe and I made pink Hotcakes cupcakes to take. I iced the cakes this time with a piping bag and really loved the effect.

We added a little pink surprise in the cakes before cooking them. With the cake mixture in the patty pans (with pink cupcake papers), a small amount of pink food colouring was swirled through each cake. We did this with a tooth pick dipped in the food colouring.

Make sure you swirl the tooth pick deep into the cake, and not just on the surface.

Here are the cakes cooked with their pretty pink swirls.

Once cooked, cooled and the cakes are iced, the pink swirl will only be revealed once you bite into the cake. This is a bit of a cheats way of making marble cupcakes.

Last week, the Hotcakes won their basketball gala day. Another trophy for the trophy cabinet! Another pink moment...

Hope you're all having a great week. Thanks for visiting.

Fiona

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