Ideas for this fabric

I have started my christmas crafting and dug this fabric out of my stash. I bought it at the BrisStyle Indie markets a while back and thought it would make a grab gift for my almost-1 year old nephew, I'm just not sure what I should do with it!

I don't really want to cut it up, I was thinking maybe a floor blanket with wadding but it's only about 1.5m x 70cm so pretty skinny for a mat for a littley that doesn't spend much tine sitting still anymore. 

Do any of you crafty and creative sewers have any suggestions?

Using it all up: apples

I bought a whole bunch of organic, locally-grown apples at our Wednesday markets a few weeks back and the last few were still hanging around slightly mushy. 

I decided to make a German apple cake, which sounded delish, and was left with a whole pile of apple skins and cores. After a bit of Google browsing I decided to make my own apple cider vinegar using these easy instructions. 

The cake was delicious and moist with all those apples in there; the vinegar I won't know about for approximately 2 months.

There are so many uses for apple cider vinegar, it's a bit like bicarb for household uses.

I've just made up a batch of my own rosemary hair rinse, using Christine's easy directions here on her Slow Living Essential's blog (which is a great read btw!) and have the shiniest hair I have for a long time!

Other uses for apple cider vinegar include:

• as a face toner
• weight loss / detox
• repelling fleas
• relieving sunburn
• removing stains from teeth
• reducing body odour
• treating age spots and acne
• fighting allergies
• reducing dandruff
• plus heaps of uses for cooking

On a completely separate note, the Queen decided to visit little old Brisbane recently and I had a great view form my 33rd floor office

Pity my phone camera doesn't have such a great zoom.

Hope you're having a great week

Kim :)

Meet the girls!

Sookie (yup True Blood fans)

Willow

Meet the newest members of our family! They look kinda evil in those pictures don't they haha

We are one step closer to our country, homesteading life we dream for. 

The girls came from my mum's flock and are slowly getting used to being suburban backyard chickens (as opposed to 40 acre farm chickens). 

We've had the girls for a little while and so far have only had very little eggs without any yolks (apparently called 'fart' eggs, yep really, Google it!) and we think we know why. The Doberman (!) that lives next door has apparently been jumping out of her yard, into ours and into the chicken run to 'play' with our girls! Yes I mean one of those huge, angry looking, could-eat-a-chicken-in-a-second dogs. But no harm has been done, it really appears like she has only wanted to play with them, the poor thing she is so bored during the day, but I think it might be a bit scary for our girls to have this intruder trying to play with them and I think that's why they're off the lay. We've spoken to the neighbour and we've both ramped up our fencing and so far we've had no more visits so hopefully we'll be getting some free-range, home-grown eggs soon!

My herb patch became their have hangout for a while until I discovered I was down to about half of my original herbs, just from all their scratching around, so they've been evicted from that area! Now they like to have their dust baths down the back amongst the pumpkin vines which is fine with me. 

The best part of my day is when I get home from work and they come running for me when they see me, such a welcome home! I know they're only after some tasty veggie scraps but gives me a fuzzy feeling all the same. I love watching their antics as the scuttle around the yard looking for bits and pieces to nibble on. Just the entertainment value is worth having chickens for (although eggs would be a great bonus too girls!)

Hope you're having a great week!

:) Kim

Make your own.. NAAN BREAD!

What's an indian curry without naan bread? Not as satisfying I tell ya!

So one rainy night last week when Lyndon (my personal chef!) and I decided on a curry we thought we would try our hand at making naan bread to go with it.

Why?

a) naan satisfies my carb cravings ;)
b) it goes oh-so-well with curries, and
c) IT'S SO DAMN EASY TO MAKE!

So after a quick google search on my phone (how much has our lives changed since the invention of google, and internet on your phone!) I had a recipe in hand - one that didn't include eggs (watch out for my next post on a funny story about why!)

With my phone propped up against the microwave I proceeded to make yummy, authentic-looking naan

Easy Peasy Naan Bread 

from here

Ingredients:

2 cups plain flour

1/2 cup warm milk

1/2 cup yoghurt - thank you Rhonda for the recipe to make my own!

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

pinch baking soda

chopped herbs/garlic/sultanas - anything else you want to put in your naan

butter for frying

Directions:

The directions on that website above are very particular, but here is what I did and it turned out great - 

Mix the dry ingredients together then add the wet (save the butter)

Let sit for a few minutes (until the curry is about 15 minutes off being ready)

Knead the dough for a few minutes

Cut into 8 pieces and flatten each VERY thinly - you can see in the pic above how thin the uncooked ones are

Melt the butter in a pan and fry up your naan one piece at a time

You will start to see it bubbling in sections - usually after a minute or two

Flip over and brown the other side also

Warning: these are very filling!

ENJOY!

Spring sewing

There's nothing like a beautiful spring Brisbane day to start some sewing again. 

For some reason I seem to go into hibernation mode during winter (even though our winters a very mild!) and not get a lot done; I blame the short days!

I started off nice and slow by mending some clothes; sewing on buttons and redoing hems in thrifted vintage skirts. I then completed  little project I've been meaning to do for a while; a plastic bag holder. 

I needed something that was quick, easy and satisfying, oh and I was keen to use this cute fat quarter I picked up earlier in the year!

Now we have somewhere with than the back of the cupboard to put those pesky plastic bags, and as you can see by how full the bag is we had ALOT!

Now to stop collecting them......

I then started working on my christmas gift list. Early I know, but I am a planner at heart and thoroughly enjoy surfing blogs and websites for great sewn gift ideas. I have added plenty of links to my bookmarks!

You can see some of my homemade gifts from last Christmas in this post. 

I've discovered the world of fabric covered buttons and using these to make accessories. And then I found yoyo necklaces USING the fabric buttons. Oh Etsy you are amazing! Check out some Etsy inspiration here and here. 

Sooo... I started experimenting with making my own fabric buttons

I think I like the plainer patterned ones better. I guess it would probably help if I got the flowers in the middle of the button!

Have you started your gift list yet, or is that just me! 

Hope you had a great weekend

xx Kim

A weekend whip around the food garden

Lovely lavender...lavendar yoghurt cake but what more?

The first ever passionfruits in our garden.. I CAN NOT WAIT!

A forgotten tumeric root in the back of the pantry...to THIS!

Ravishing native rosella

Raspberries on weetbix is THE best start to the working week

Growing my own peanuts

Lovely productive lemons

Cool capsicums

Promising pumpkins

Hope you had a lovely weekend!

Loads of LUFFA & my first GIVEAWAY!

From this in August ...

I was so excited to grow my luffa plants. As you can see above I raised these little beauties from seed, a very rare feat in my gardening experience so far. 

I have written about my luffa's here, here and here. Can you tell I'm playing favourites!

Well this weekend it was time to harvest them!

I have harvested a few here and there to include with presents, but this time we ended up with a whole load!

... to this in April

And this isn't even half of them. These are just the ones that have been left to dry on the vine, which makes it super easy to take the exterior shell coating off and get the seeds out. There are still a whole load on the vines too, which means we'll be stocked up on luffa's until the end of the year!

Peeled and de-seeeded

When they luffa pods are as dry and brown as the picture above, it's only a matter of banging the pod against a hard surface to loosen in from the luffa and peeling off the outer shell and tipping out the seeds (for seed raising later on).

Load of LUFFA's

The next step is to soak them all in bleach to make them sparkling white.

Eventually, I'd also like to try making soaps incorporating the luffa's.

I now have SOOO many luffa seeds that I do not know what to do with, so I'm going to do a little giveaway. 

The first 10 people to leave a comment will receive a pack of 10 luffa seeds for you to grow your own. 

Please include your email address so I can email you to get your postal address. 

Hope you all had a great weekend!



AFTERTHOUGHT: Well I am new to this whole giveaway business and of course dived straight in! I don't want to be bailed up by the quarantine authorities so unfortunately I do have to limit the giveaway to those addresses in Australia, excluding WA & Tas (goodness they are strict!). Sorry about getting your hopes up if you are outside these areas, hopefully I can come up with a giveaway for everyone shortly :)