Cabinet Restoration

During the Easter break Toby and I picked up this Cabinet from one of my favourite shops "The things i Love" (she just got facebook like her page, Sandra updates pictures of new stock) for a steal of $80. This is what it looked like when we got it.... in pretty good condition

I liked the idea of painting it and after alot of thought we went for a pale blue colour. We had to sand it back, undercoat it (we used spray paint to undercoat that was fun). And then give it a few coats of paint. I ordered the handles from Anthropologie (they nearly cost as much as the cabinet with postage but i think they finish it nicely) 

What do you think? 

Wedding Wednesday

Yes its Thursday but yesterday (Wednesday) I went out and paid a deposit for our wedding venue! so its all really happening now here's a picture that I took from the car (yes i did pull over)

It's at a hall out in the Vineyards! We've set a date, the 29th June, 2013 so less than a year now! (It feels like its 100 years away though) Now I need to start booking all the other stuff.... photographer, celebrant... and I dunno what ever else you need for a wedding haha! I'm welcome to suggestions please. Dress shopping with all my bridesmaids and mum Saturday too!

Blair's Birthday Cake

I mentioned back here that June is crazy busy for Birthdays it ends with Little Blair's birthday on the 30th. This year she turned 2. She had a lovely party at her house with lots of deliscious food, a jumping castle and heaps of little kiddies! My contribution to her party was her birthday cake, some cupcakes and cake pops (her favourite). I was inspired by my engagement cake made by my dear friend casey you can see it here. But i didnt want it to be exactly the same soI decided to do different shades of pink. I found a recipe on "Call me cupcake" and followed it (except for the icing). I made two batches, so 8 layers in total.

And here's the gorgeous birthday girl

Vanilla cakefour 20 cm layers

•1/2 cup (113 grams) butter
•2 cups white sugar
•3 1/2 cups flour
•1 teaspoon salt
•3 teaspoons baking powder
•1 1/2 cups ice water
•1 teaspoon vanilla
•4 egg whites beaten stiff


Add sugar to the butter and beat until light. Sift dry ingredients and add alternately with ice water and flavourings, beating thoroughly after each addition. Fold in the beaten egg whites. Pour into greased layer pans and bake at 175 degrees C for about 30 minutes. (it was a bit less for me) I weighed out each layer and they were approx 340grams

Wedding Wednesday

Today I want to share a wedding that was recently featured on Etsy . It is the wedding of a Melbourne couple Emily and Louis. I wrote about Emily's gorgeous necklaces a few weeks ago here. Emiy made herself and her bridesmaid one of her beautiful necklaces which all matched each girls different dress.

Isn't Emily' dress unique! I like that it is not traditional at all!

Emily had her friends help her create the decorations by hosting a working be (bridesmaids be prepared for this ;), they made all sorts of wonderful things including this paper chandelier that i'm INLOVE with! 

head over to Etsy for more details on the wedding or go to Emily's blog! its such a nice, creative wedding!

Strawberry, Apple and Vanilla Jam

It's school holidays yay! and I've had a list (mentally) for ages of what I wanted to do over these holidays (actually last holidays but they were filled with fixing the floors so all my plans went out the window) so Today I crossed one off the list and that was to make Jam. My friend Kirra made this Jam last year and said it was easy and I should give it a go. It was in Frankie magazine september last year. 

this is what you will need

Ingredients

500g strawberries

200g peeled and grated green apples (final weight not whole apple weight)

2 lemons juiced, seeds saved separately 

500g caster sugar

1 vanilla pod

Equipment

a 5L stainless steel saucepan with lid

wooden spoon

sugar thermometer (i didn't use this)

several glass jars with screw on lids

small piece of muslin

length of string

clean tea towel

tongs

jam funnel (i didn't use this)

1. wash, hull and cut strawberries in half (i cut them a bit smaller than this)

2. prepare apples, peel and grate, add them to the saucepan at a low heat for 10-15 minutes to soften

3. toss in the strawberries and sugar, mix thoroughly so everything has an even coat, you just want to warm the fruit at this stage.

4.add juiced lemon to the mix and muslin bag with vanilla and lemon seeds (i didn't add the seeds as i read on mamatribe that the seeds made the jam more lemony and i didn't want that)

5. raise the temperature to a boil, this is when you use the sugar thermometer (which i didn't have) you are meant to let it get to 105 degrees, you MUST keep stirring the jam at this stage, i kept covering it for a bit then stirred for a bit etc and you can kinda tell when it turns to jam.

6. prepare your jars, there is lots of different ways to do this i used this method

7. remove the muslin bag, and fill the jars. This recipe only made 2 Jars of jam. 

8. Label and eat. I used the jam stickers from that issue of Frankie magazine. The jam is rather delicious! 

Wedding Wednesday

Today I thought I'd share a beautiful vintage inspired wedding I found over at green wedding shoes. It is the wedding of Australian couple Amy and Julian.

Amy's dress is vintage! isn't it stunning! I love her flowers as well and how they are pulled together with twine.

I think their bridal party looks great in all different mismatched outfits!

I love how the reception is set up with the plants hanging from the beams. They remind me of plants mum used to have hanging in our dining room and bathroom back in the 90's. 

All photo's from Dan O'Day

June is for Birthdays

What a crazy busy few week's we've had! June is getting more hectic every year. Especially over the last few years when people very close to us have decided to pop out June babies. The birthday week started on the 11th with Willow Bebe's 1st birthday. We went to visit the little poppet on the Monday but her proper party was last Saturday. I then had Toby's birthday on the 12th, my Dad's birthday on the 13th and our dear friends welcomed a beautiful baby girl Gracee into the world the same day. And then my mum's birthday on the 16th which fell on Willow's party. It was a crazy few days!

We gave Willow a mini Teepee for her birthday but I also wanted to make her something. I got out the old paints for the first time in ages and created her a Ben Quilty inspired portrait. Here is the finished product.....

And here's a pic of the two of us on the jumping castle.

Jessica and Dean put on a great party for the little princess. It was styled beautifully, alot of effort was put into the food and decorations and a great time was had by all!

Now only another week before Blairs birthday!