So, last week my blue shoes were chosen to feature in this Pounce! Treasury on Etsy which promotes great shops before their first sale. Thanks, fellow Etsyers!
Also, this week I have set up a Facebook page for the other half of the three bees business, where I make cakes and desserts and such. It's all quite pretty and I'm a bit proud of it. Go! Look! Like!
(summer berry cheesecake)
(chocolate orange tarts)
(persian spice cupcakes, ready for delivery)
It feels good to be getting busy with these things again, channeling my creativity into something I can use. I still think I'll need someone outside to work through the marketing and promotion side of things as I find that stuff really difficult (as this link-heavy post will attest!), but it's all a work in process. And the family don't seem to mind being guineapigs for new flavours....
So get on board. You can say you were there when the three bees empire all began.
It's come around again - in the everlasting hope that I might possibly be able turn a profit from this w.a.h.m. thing, or at least make it into something other than a money-haemorrhaging exercise, I have reopened my Etsy shop.
I'm making wee slippers in a kimono style, in lovely fabrics like velvet, georgette, and brocade. Here are some of the pretties:
(as was my own early-childhood mangling of the phrase "as snug as a bug in a rug")
Before my son was born I went a little bit mad, preparing and acquiring all the stuff a wee baby might need. In amongst the mountain of fluffy white nappies and eleventyseven hand-stitched bunnyrugs and tiny tiny tiny growsuits was a cozy new papoose, just like the one my daughter had loved and used almost every day of her first year. I assumed he'd be the same, and that would be how I'd carry him around most of the time.
Wrong. He hated it.
I'd also bought a pram (although I really dislike them), a big blue behemoth of a thing with three fat all-terrain wheels and a removable bassinet and so many unexplained clips and hooks and levers I thought it might've been designed for James Bond. So... we tried that instead. Wrapped him in soft blankets and laid him on the mattress of the pram and wheeled away to enjoy the day...
Wrong. He hated it.
OK, to be fair, he didn't hate it, but he didn't like it that much either. This is a baby that wants to be held all the time. Which is lovely, it is, but I really do have to use my hands for other things quite a lot of the time. How about a sling, then? You'd like a sling, wouldn't you, baby?
Wrong. He hated it.
Running out of options, I thought (without a lot of hope) I may as well try a simple wrap. I found a video tute on YouTube showing how to tie one, that seemed straightforward enough:
and I made one. It's just a vasty length of fabric - around 4 or 5 metres - about half a metre wide - and I tapered the ends for ease of tying. I made one from jersey to begin with but it tended to stretch and sag too much after half an hour or so of wearing so I made another, this time of stretch sateen in a 97% cotton/3% lycra blend, and it seems about right.
I added the brocade panel for a couple of reasons: one, it indicates the centre of the wrap quicker and easier than gathering the whole thing up and folding it in half; and two, it strengthens and reinforces the area that holds most of his weight, as the brocade doesn't stretch.
He's big on holding his head up and stretching his neck a lot at the moment, but the top rail of the wrap can be pulled up and over his head for extra support (and privacy too, if I'm breastfeeding while he's in it).
Happy birthday to me, Happy birthday to me, Happy birthday dear threebeescakes, Happy birthday to meeeee!
It was my birthday last week, so I made myself a cake. Tragic? Is not. Shut up! You are! I need this!
ahem.
So, the cake: caramel cheesecake with chocolate cashew brittle. I hadn't made it before and I kind of chucked it together so I'm not sure of some of the quantities, but here's the recipe.
100g or so of Scotch Finger biscuits 75g or so of butter, melted 1 Tbsp or so of cocoa 1 cup or so of caster sugar 1/3 cup or so of water 1 cup or so of salted cashews 300 ml or so of cream 1/4 cup or so of dark brown sugar 1/4 cup of golden syrup 1/2 cup or so of caster sugar, extra 395g tin of condensed milk (I know, I know. Shhh.) 75g or so of butter, extra 250g of cream cheese 1 tsp of gelatine 1 Tbsp or so of water, extra, boiled 1/2 cup or so of chocolate 1/4 cup or so of butter, extra
Smoosh up the biscuits into little crumbs - it's a good way to relieve frustration, not that I ever have any, of course - and mix with the cocoa and melted butter. Press the mixture into a springform tin base with a pestle or the back of a spoon. Set aside.
Boil the sugar and water without stirring until it reaches a pale golden colour, then pour over the salted cashews spread out in a single layer. Set aside.
Whip the cream with the brown sugar. Set aside.
(noticing a pattern?)
Melt together the golden syrup, sugar, condensed milk and butter over a low heat until golden brown. Pour half of the mixture over the crumb base and spread out to the sides; pour the other half into a bowl with the cream cheese. Beat it all together until creamy, then mix in the gelatine dissolved in boiling water.
Fold in the whipped cream and pour it all onto the biscuit and caramel base. Whack it in the fridge to set for a few hours.
Break up the cashew brittle into little-ish pieces. Crush some to a powder in a mortar and pestle and sprinkle over the top of the cake, and chuck the rest on top of that (but, y'know, artful-like). Melt the chocolate and butter and drizzle of the top of it all.
It's not that I haven't done anything, (remember that whole newborn + burgeoning teen thing?) but as far as getting my craft on, there's nothing new that I've finished and taken pretty pictures of. There's a LOT on the go though, that I'm excited about - watch this space!
So instead let me point you in the direction of another of my favourite craftie blogs; the charming (and terribly pretty) SparklePanda Designs. Miss Panda's blog is actually the one that inspired me to start cataloguing my own stuff again, after sadly allowing my previous blog to lie fallow for far too long.
However in the interests of honesty I must admit to the tiniest twinge of professional envy that her w.a.h.m. business is so much more successful than mine ever was. Hmmph.
Also, I found this fabric at my local craft store recently, it's a gorgeous strong homespun cotton and just the most adorable print ever for a girl like me.
It was quite expensive so I only got a little bit, 100 x 115cm. What should I make from it?
I posted in my entry to Meet Me At Mike's Envelope Project today.
Meet Me At Mike's is (among other things!) one of my favourite crafty, nannaly blogs, and the Envelope Project is such a gorgeous idea. Read all about it here, or for a more condensed overview, read all about it... er... here.
Running until July 26 (which, incidentally, was my own dear nanna's birthday), you can send into Meet Me At Mike's an envelope filled with... anything. Anything sweet and little and easily postable will do. I sent in a selection of origami animals I made from yuzen chiyogami washi.
Then... and here's the fabulous bit... they will send to one lucky poster ALL the stuff that's been sent. Can you imagine?! I think it's the most delightful idea.
At half way through the six week period they've received 280 envelopes of stuff already (281 now, including mine!), so get on board! Send your stuff to
Meet Me At Mike's 63 Brunswick St. Fitzroy VIC., 3065
and remember to put your name and address on the back, 'cause maybe you'll be the one to win it all! Yay.
As the mother of a newborn and a burgeoning teenager, with no paid employment nor income to speak of, I don't have as many opportunities to get my craft on as I used to.
But I can pretty much always make up a plate of cookies. These ones are nice.
PEANUT BUTTER AND CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
1/2 cup or so of butter 1/2 cup or so of caster sugar 1/2 cup or so of dark brown sugar 1/2 cup or so of peanut butter 1 egg 1 cup or so of chopped up chocolate 1 cup or so of peanuts 1 cup or so of self raising flour
I like recipes like this, where the quantities are pretty adaptable to whatever you've got left in the fridge and the pantry. They're very forgiving. So, to the making!
First of all, I use salted butter and salted peanuts if they're around, 'cause I really enjoy the combined sweet-salty taste, but it's up to you (obviously). When it's at room temperature, cream it with the sugars - or if you don't feel like waiting for it to warm up, you can melt it and mix the sugars in then. It seems to make the finished product slightly more crumbly and brittle, is all.
Mix in the peanut butter and the egg, then the chocolate and peanuts. Whack in the flour and mix it all up, then spoon out little blips on a baking tray. MY oven is a horrible liar and I'm never sure exactly what temperature we're really at, but at a guess I'd say I bake these cookies at around 210 degrees Celsius for six minutes or so, then let them cool (a little bit, 'cause I can't leave these alone for long) on the tray. The reason I cook them for a short time at a high heat is because I love cookies that are crispy and crumbly outside, then smoodgy* and melty inside. If you'd like them a bit more evenly crunchy throughout, just lower the temperature and cook for longer. I don't know how long. It's not exact. It's up to you.
If you're like me, you'll have nibbled away at about half of the mixture before it ever comes to baking. Otherwise, this quantity makes about 3 dozen or so cookies, which is never enough.
*Those who know me AT ALL know that my pedantry for correct spelling, punctuation, syntax and grammar coexists happily with my predilection for making up new words to suit my purposes. I choose to see this not as a contradiction, but as an adorably quirky complexity of my character. So there.
(summer berry cheesecake)
(chocolate orange tarts)
(persian spice cupcakes, ready for delivery)
