Winner!

Camarli is the winner of a Buttons By Lou Lou item of her choice! Congratulations Ali, I look forward to seeing you sporting a new accessory.

I want to thank you all for entering, I loved reading what you all would buy. And a HUGE thank you to Lou who kindly donated a gift of the winners choice. It has been a pleasure doing business with you, and I look forward to doing more business with you in the near future.

***ConfussionSoup had issues entering the competition and posting on the list, and was put in as number 1, which was a post about how I stuffed up the rules of the competition. Pin It

Happy Birthday

To my husband. He turns 28 today!

And to celebrate, his sister made him this cake (because I suck at baking, and she rocks!)

Isn't she talented! I know one 'almost-three' year old who was mighty impressed with the lollies and blue icing

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Happy Birthday Emmy!

See this spunky little thing? This is my my god-daughter, Emmy. Say hi to Emmy everyone!

Three years ago we welcomed Emmy into the world, it only seems like yesterday! She recently came for lunch at our house, and I am amazed at what a beautiful little girl she has grown up to be. I look forward to sharing the rest of her life, and seeing what an amazing woman she grows into!

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Last Chance!

Image from Getty Images

Today is the last chance to get your entries in for my little give-away!

Enter here

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Calling all fabric hunters

I was on Etsy the other day, and found a custom listing for something (might have been a quilt, can't quite remember, was late at night). In that listing was the following picture of fabrics

And now I want to know what they are.

Any suggestions?

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A look back at our garden

2005

2010

I was cleaning off my hard-drive today, and found some old photos of our house from when we moved in.

Crazy garden - gone
Ugly yellow house paint - gone
Stupid fence and gate that did nothing - gone
Plum tree - gone
Ugly looking fence behind the garden - gone.
Garden shed built - done (ok, so it doesnt have a concrete base, it just sits on the stones, but its good enough to store our bikes in).

A lot has changed in five years.
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Don't Forget

Photo from flickr

Don't forget to enter my little give-away here.

Even if you don't have kids, I highly recommend the hair ties for adults ;)

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Australia Day

Today, being Australia Day, means it is time for me to sign off the computer and go and spend it with family whilst eating a bbq and a caramello koala. I hope you are all enjoying the beautiful summer weather with loved ones.

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You Light Up My Life

After much debate about this lamp, I ended up purchasing this one from Adairs.

I should explain that I didn't come up with this awesome idea myself, I borrowed it from the awesome John and Sherry at Young House Love. I loved how they put seasonal things in theirs, and thought it was something I could do myself, with things we have around the house.

And I must say, it has come up a treat! So much so that I am going back to get a second one this week for the other side of the lounge room.

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Pretty Cushions

Zgallerie

Zgallerie

Oh how I wish ZGallerie shipped to Oz. I really want that rose cushion.
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Win Me! Win Me! Win Me!

I promised a give away, and here it is!


Remember how I blogged about ButtonsByLouLou here, here, and here? Well it seems fitting that I share the love with you all.


So here is the dealio:
♥ Tell me what your favourite item from ButtonsByLouLou etsy store, and leave a comment to enter the competition
♥ Entry is open to anyone, but you can only enter once
♥ Entries close on Thursday 28th January 2010 at 5pm (Melbourne time)
♥ The winner will be selected by that random number thingy from Google.


PS - competition closes in January, not December Pin It

Birthday Give-away

To  celebrate blog-birthday, I have a small giveaway for you. I am just finalizing the details now, so sit tight :) Details to come in coming days.

PS - Sorry, it isn't Tiffany's Pin It

Happy Birthday

Today my little blog turns one!

And what a year it has been. You have seen me contemplate renovating my bedroom, go and see P!nk life in concert, finish my renovating our bedroom, be given the worlds best present (other known as a pink burberry scarf), to change my life by having weight loss surgery, started to smash holes in my kitchen, and 8 weeks later, cook something in my new kitchen, and renovate our outdoor area.

So, thank you for sharing this journey with me, I love reading your comments, helping me learn along the way.

Now, who is for cake?

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Looking back at our back yard

2005

2010

Looking back at old photos makes me remember how many cars we have had. Not one of those cars is still in our ownership *hides* There has also been several others.

But, 5 years has brought us a side fence, gates, the removal of a garden bed, the creation of a dog run, a 3 car carport, a stone driveway, a whole heap of boring things in the shed, and a (somewhat patchy) lawn. I didn't realise we had done so much around our house, as I tend to focus on the big things and forget the little things.

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Oh. My. God

So, today I was browsing a blog (sorry blogger, I can't quite remember which blog I was reading, but it was awesome!). And they said they got a light fitting from Overstock thinking about using a shipping company.

And then it hits me. They ship to Oz! Oh. My. God.

See, here in Oz, we have to use a shipping company with most US sites. Which is kinda annoying, as generally you have to use a company that pays for the goods as well. And it means they can charge whatever they wish for postage. So if I really want the item, I pay the shipping.

Now to convince the husband we need this lamp.

I think it would look awesome in our lounge room

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Snickers bon bons with vanilla thickshake recipe - Janelle Bloom

I found this recipe via Belinda at The Happy Home, and it reminded me of what got me through my final years at school: Deep Fried Mars Bars (somewhat ironically, I was as skinny as a stick, weighing all of 60kg (130pounds).

Ingredients:

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed


2 snickers bars 


1 tsp caster sugar


Vanilla thickshake


1¼ cups milk


½ cup greek yoghurt


6 scoop vanilla icecream


1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:


1. Preheat oven and flat baking tray to 200°C fan forced.



2. Cut pastry in half. Place 1 snicker along 1 edge of the pastry and roll over to enclose the snickers. Press the edges together. Trim excess pastry. Repeat with remaining snickers and pastry. Brush the top of the pastry with a little cold water and sprinkle with caster sugar. 



3. Place a sheet of baking paper onto the hot tray and quickly top with snickers bon bons. Bake about 7-10 minutes or until pastry is golden and puffed. Allow to cool 5 minutes before eating.


4. Meanwhile, for the vanilla thickshake, combine milk, yoghurt, ice cream and vanilla in a blender and process until smooth. Pour into a tall chilled glass, and serve with snickers bon bon

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Nappy Bags

Today, as I was covering reception during lunch, I found my dream nappy bag.

Seeing as though it would be kinda wrong to buy it before I was pregnant (just like I brought the massive car 2 years ago because we *needed* a family car. I sold it after 6 months). Guess I will just save it until the time comes.



PS - just because I am posting about nappy bags does not mean I have anything to share with you all ;) Pin It

Mulberries

I love mulberries and ice-cream. However, I refuse to pay $8 a punnet.

Today was my lucky day, they were only $4 a punnet. Which I could justify, as I will pay that for strawberries. So I brought myself a punnet to indulge in.

It was then that my mum tells me that she has a mulberry tree at their town house. Doh!

Though now I no longer have to pay $4 for a small punnet.

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Mamma has a new hat

I can't beleive I live in Australia, in the middle of summer, and didn't own a hat. Bad April, Bad! It is now known as the Train Driver hat.



Check out my chins. Seems my extra 4 chins have merged and become 1 extra chin! Pin It

Baking: Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

Image from Frills in the Hills

My friend Megs sent me this recipe during the week (she got it from Frills in the Hills), and said that they are awesome. I plan to give them a whirl sometime soon. I do love a good lemon meringue!


Ingredients
200gr butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
2 1/2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup lemon or passionfruit butter
1/2 lemon
3 egg whites
3/4 cup caster sugar


Method:
Preheat oven to 160 deg (fan forced) or 180 (non fan-forced)

Method:
With a mixer, cream the butter, vanilla and 1 cup of caster sugar together

Add the eggs, one at a time - the mixture will separate - don't stress!

Take the mixture off the mixer and add 1/2 the flour and half the milk, stir with spoon, spatula and when combined well, add the other half (it's beautiful and silky at this point!)


With two spoons, fill your paper cases (I have used Robert Gordon Liberty cases - fills 20, but if you were to use small cupcake cases it would make around 24) about 1/3 of the way up (I large tablespoon)

Flatten them down as much as possible, then put in the oven for about 10-15 minutes.

When cooled for about 30 minutes, with a spoon, spoon out centres (round 20c coin size) and fill with lemon or passionfruit butter.

Whilst the cakes are cooling, wipe the inside of your mixing bowl with 1/2 lemon.  Add eggwhites and whip until you get stiff peaks.  Add caster sugar and whip for a further 1-2 minutes until meringue is glossy.

Put meringue into a ziplock bag and cut off the corner so it's about 1/2cm from bottom.

In a circular motion, ice cupcakes basically to cover all of the lemon/passionfruit butter and overlap with cake.  Doesn't need to be super professional, you can fix up any issues with a knife afterwards!

Put back in the oven for about 5 minutes until slightly browned on top.

Hmmm, maybe I will make them now actually ;)

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Office Storage

After moving into the office, I realised there was a few things that didn't have homes. Like the paper cutter (which hasn't been used since our wedding 2 years ago), the laminator and my laptop bag. All things that look kinda ugly out, and needed to be hidden. So I brought this Alve Storage Bench Seat from Ikea.

It does the job nicely, but the white cushion is rather uninspiring. So I have brought a couple of yards of Dandelions in Lime, from the Flora and Fauna range by Patty Young to recover the cushion with.

That should brighten it up a bit!

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The Door Saga Continues...

So remember the saga with the door?

It is still going. Over the weekend we went to my local haunt, to enquire about the door. And once again, we were told it was still on backorder.

But, just to double check, the man went out to the back shed with us to check there were no doors. He glances, and says "Nope, no doors here". The husband spies a pile of them up the back, and asks about those ones.

What do you know, there, on the pile of 20 odd doors (no idea how you could miss a giant pile of doors, it was massive!), was a door with our name on it! With a stamp saying it was received a week after we ordered it! Morons!!!

Least I have my door now. Now, if only the husband wasn't away fishing, I could have it installed! And lesson learnt, from now on, if it's not in stock I am going elsewhere, clearly their ordering system sucks!

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Wall Decals

Single Stone Studios

I am thinking of ordering this decal for our office. Our walls are a similar colour to the walls in the picture, and I am tossing up in ordering it in white, for a subtle decal, or maybe in latte. Our carpet will eventually be brown, so it should tie in.

Which color do you think would be better?

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