more baprons

I made some of these baprons for a friend's baby shower a little while ago, and they are just so cute, and the pattern is so clever, that when I needed another baby pressie this week it was the first pattern I thought of!


The tutorial, including the free pattern, is from Craftyness is not Optional.

I think I might have to make some Christmassy ones next.

xo

bun bo xao

Vietnamese 'bun' (vermicelli noodle salad) is one of my favourite meals - I go to my favourite Vietnamese cafe at least twice a week for a lunch time hit.
With the cool noodles, and loads of fresh herbs, it's just the kind of refreshing dish that is perfect for summertime dinner.
Tonight I finally got around to trying my hand at whipping it up at home.



I used this recipe, which Luke Nguyen shared on SBS' Food Safari.

It was DELICIOUS!

We'll use the leftovers for making rice paper rolls tomorrow.
mmmmm

xo

i heart gingerbread!

There's been a lot of gingerbreading around these parts lately, and the latest recipe I tried out was a cracker so I had to share!

I've got LOADS of recipes squirrelled away to try out - the key criteria when I was picking one out last weekend was that it had to be melt and mix since my hand mixers are out of action (!) so there was no chance of a proper butter/sugar creaming.

The recipe is based on this one, but I changed it up a bit with spices and molasses (which I found tricky to get my hands on, but SO worth it!).

The biscuits are lovely and crisp, and taste a lot like traditional Danish brunkager (which makes sense, since now I look at the brunkager recipe they are really very similar.)

Here's the recipe =)

1. Set your oven to 170C

2. In a saucepan melt:

• 125g unsalted butter
• 100g dark brown sugar
• 4 tbsp molasses

3. In a largish bowl mix together:

• 325g plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
• 1/2 tsp salt

And maybe a teeny sprinkling of allspice and nutmeg, just if it's handy - (I should be more careful to write down what I do when I'm sprinkling willy-nilly!)

4. Let the butter/sugar/molasses mix cool, then add to the dry ingredients and mix into a dough. I found the dough quite oily - maybe the butter and molasses didn't mix or something?


5. Roll thinish (don't worry too much - mine varied between probably about 3mm and 6mm, and all of them worked out fine - just roll them as thinly as you think you'd like) and cut out.

6. Bake, in batches, for 9-10 minutes until light golden brown.


7. Enjoy! =)

xo

sunday crafternoon

It was a lovely rainy cool day here - perfect for

pinning


sewing


and a spot of embroidery/hand quilting

Hi blogger - why so sideways?

My Country Time quilt is now really ever so very close to being finished!

creative space :: brown owls prep

This week I've been practising in preparation for this month's Brown Owls meeting - we're making Christmassy decos - including

paper stars (sometimes called german or moravian stars)


And woven paper hearts (flettede julehjerter)


These are so simple and pretty (and scandi!) - I can't wait for Brown Owls on Saturday - I hope all my Canberra Owls friends will be able to make it!! =)

Check out more creative spaces here!

xo

creative spaces :: this and that

Trying to squeeze as much craftyness as I can out of November, so I have a couple of things on the go this week!
Like more of this


And these - for reals this time (I know, I've said it before - this time I really mean it!!)


More of this week's creative spaces over here!

In November I am reading...

A bus trip to Sydney is the perfect opportunity to get some serious reading done, so you can imagine how impressed I was on Saturday morning to discover I had left my current novel on my desk at work! Whilst we seem to have about eleventy billion books here it was super hard find something to take in it's place - it had to be soft cover, long enough to last the trip in both directions, not too long so I can get back to my other book soon, not scary, and so on.



Eventually, under the advice of the guy, I decided on Truth - a crime novel set in Melbourne by Australian author Peter Temple. I'm finding it fairly blokey, but compelling - I'll definitely be reading it all the way through, and probably checking out some of Temple's other books too!


***


What are you reading this month? Let us know in the comments, or leave a link if you post on your blog, to let every one know what you're up to and join our bloggy book club for November!!

Enjoy your reading!

xo

Sydney weekender

We went on a little road trip to Sydney on the weekend to see An Ideal Husband at the Genesian Theatre.

We had lovely weather - and Sydney was beautifully purple with Jacaranda trees in full flower - like this one outside Town Hall (or go here for a much better picture than the one I took on my iPhone while crossing the road!!!)



It was a quick trip (we caught the bus there on Saturday arvo, and home Sunday lunchtime), but as well as the play we did manage to squeeze in a few things - like shopping at Kinokuniya, and onion rings at I'm Angus at Cockle Bay Wharf (the food, and the service, were fabulous!).



We had excellent eggs for breakfast at the cafe in our hotel this morning, and since we were staying on Pitt Street it would have been rude not to pick up some take-aways from Cupcakes on Pitt to bring home on the bus - cupcakes AND macarons!! =)


For the record, I didn't think the macarons were quite as good as the ones I got in the Royal Arcade when I was in Melbourne, but the packaging is super lovely.

This was my third trip for the week (after a day trip to IKEA last Saturday, and an overnight to Melbourne for work on Monday) - so I'm looking forward to taking it easy at home this week, and maybe even getting some crafty things going!

x

pony week

You know I love an excuse for a theme-y outfit, and with last month's Brown Owls having well and truly re-awakened my freezer paper stencil love affair, I could resist whipping up this outfit for one of my favourite little girls to wear on Melbourne Cup Day.



The t-shirt came from Target (those puffy sleeves are so cute!),and the pony stencil I found somewhere on the internet (I think I just googled horse stencil?)



The skirt is a super simple elastic waisted one - I roughly followed this tutorial by Dana at Made. I had the fabric, and just exactly the right shade of purple ric rac in my stash =)