Inspired by Elderly Ladies!

Recently I had the pleasure of attending the Craft Expo with my mum!

We had such a packed full busy day, it went too quickly!

One of the first things i did was to make this little guy.

I saw so many things that I'm interested in trying my hand at, but sadly - I can't allocate any more house-space to art stuff. I have almost an entire cupboard full and that doesn't include all my sewing stuff!

Also, (very exciting) on that note - I just bought a new sewing machine. One of my very own. Brand new. And HALF PRICE! I saved $150 on it! Very happy with that. Now to find time to use it!

Back to the Craft Expo! I think that I may have been the youngest person there by choice. I saw some very bored looking 11 year old girls following their mum, kicking the floor and telling her that, quote: "We're bored, can we pleeeease go to Maccas now!? ...Muuuum! We've already looked at eighteeeen scrapbooking stores!!"

I am happy to report that I was very well behaved all day.

Not only did I refrain from buying everything that I wanted, I didn't ask for Maccas once!

Though, by the end of the day, I did agree with the kids' sentiments on the high number of scrapbooking stalls. It's obviously the 'in' thing.

I did get myself a beautiful purple dyed quartz pendant and some beautiful fat quarters for my upcoming softies!

There were loads of stalls selling and demonstrating as many things as you can think of...

They had "Discovery Desks" where you can just watch a quick demonstration on how to make something simple. They had "Make & Take" areas where you can book in and pay a small amount to have a go at making different items. On the list, among other things, were: Tunisian Crochet Scarf, Felt Brooches and a Timeless Turquoise Necklace. We didnt have time for any of these as we were shopping till we dropped.

I also decided that I needed to start something new. Meaning I needed to buy all of the appropriate materials and tools for it too. Hello Broke Street for the rest of the month. It'd better be worth it!

Now, unfortunately I have to keep my new 'thing' a secret for a little while - until my lovely friend receives a package from me. Which is part of a lovely email 'chain letter' that I have received. Obviously, like most people, I normally delete chain letter type emails because I don't believe that "if I don't forward it on to my 6 best gal pals that I'll have bad luck with men for the rest of my life..."

This email chain letter was of a different style though. It is a lovely idea but in theory it doesn't seem to work as well is it would in my happy little world. It's called Art Exchange.

Basically when you receive the email, it has 2 names and addresses on it. The person in the #2 spot is the person who sent it to you and the #1 spot is the person who sent it to them.

Your job is to send something arty/crafty/one-off to the person in the #1 spot then forward the email on to 6 of your friends who you think will participate, deleting the current #1 person, moving #2 into #1 and putting your name and address in the now vacant #2 spot (if that makes ANY sense at all).

I have made the main part of my gift but the bit that goes with it is made with my new toys hehe. I hope she loves both things. Now, friends - I would love to receive something more than a highlighter drawing. Which is all I have gotten so far. And although its a GREAT drawing, I would love some other stuff too - so, hint hint friends!

Some of my other recents are here:

I got a bunny! We built his cage...Here it is, almost finished.

This is Jet! :)

And these are my raspberry and cinnamon muffins - delish!

I can't wait to show off what I've made for my Art Exchange!

Next time... Stay tuned!

Girls Night In - Fancy Style!

A proper 'girls night in' usually consists of the following: wine, chat, dinner (usually pizza or Thai food) and maybe a DVD.

Ours consisted of all of these things, but we were a little more spoiled by our hostess in the food department.

Firstly we were treated to some French Champagne. Then some delectable canapes of peppered crisp bread, King Island brie and sundried tomatoes. Next on the list was salt and pepper squid and aioli.

We then stood around the bench watching Missus Amazing Cook construct our main course of duck salad. I couldn't believe my taste buds. Yes thank you!

For dessert I offered to make brandy snaps and vanilla cream.

They turned out great!

Here is the basic recipe I used.

Ingredients:

50g butter

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup golden syrup

1/3 plain flour (though, i had only self raising in the cupboard and it was fine)

1 tsp ground ginger (optional)

Vanilla essence and caster sugar whipped with cream to fill them

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.

Combine your sugar, golden syrup and butter over a medium heat until your butter dissolves.

Making sure to stir it. It will look all separated at this stage.

I kept stirring till it came together and looked like a darker golden syrup.

Once its all come together, take it off the heat and let the mixture cool for about 5 minutes.

Add the flour and ginger to the mixture and combine. Try to get rid of any flour puffs...

Mixture should be a light caramelly colour now.

Line a tray with baking paper

1 brandy snap=1 teaspoon of mixture. I put 4 on to start with but found that although i have a large tray, 4 was one too many.

They all stuck to each other and didn't cook right. 3 worked well. Be sure to space them well apart, they spread a lot.

Bake them for around 5 or 6 minutes. I like to watch them bubble then when they almost stop bubbling i'll take them out.

When you take them out of the oven, you need to work quickly because as soon as they cool down, they are no longer malleable. I like to wrap a wooden spoon handle in baking paper for this job. You need to use the wooden spoon and wrap the brandy snap around it to make your tube.

Alternately you can make baskets by draping your brandy snap over the bottom of a glass. Another alternative I like to do is to let them cool in discs and smash them up. You can serve it almost like nachos with the cream or you can have it over ice cream.

Thats it! Now all you have to do is whip your cream, pipe it into the snaps and DEVOUR them!

Thank you lovely ladies for a wonderful night!

x