Day to Day

Rhubarb relish recipe

Have you ever made a batch of rhubarb relish?  If not, you must.  It's delicious on all sorts of things - potatoes, silverside, in sandwiches or on anything that you would normally use relish with.  So good.

Ingredients:

500 grams rhubarb - chopped into little pieces

6 level teaspoons curry powder

150 ml brown vinegar

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2 onions - chopped finely

Method:

Put all ingredients in a large saucepan on the stove top. Boil gently and stir for 30 minutes.  Bottle, refrigerate and enjoy! 

This makes enough to fill two medium sized pasta sauce bottles.  I'm unsure of the original origin, as somebody shared the recipe with my Mum.

Project Life - week 4

Goodness, that first month went f-a-s-t! It's hard to believe that I'm already up to completing week 4 of Project Life.

I felt a little bit time poor when I put this week's pages together, so I opted for minimum embellishments and simple journaling - nothing fancy schmancy.

There were lots of happenings that I didn't have photos for this week, nothing big - just simple day to day stuff.  So, I added a photo of myself and some point journaling:

Mel's week:

:: Shopping for groceries

:: Taking Bella to osteo

:: Buying yarn at Spotlight

:: Relaxing in the hammock

:: Washing - lots of it

:: Cleaning out the craft drawer in the wardrobe

:: Reading - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society

:: Scrubbing the kitchen tiles

:: Blogging

:: Watching series 1 of Breaking Bad with Rich

In upcoming weeks I'm going to switch this around for other family members.

Well, I'm half way through cleaning up a giant mess from making rhubarb relish today, so I'd better get back to it.  Don't forget to link up your pages in the comments section, so I can pop over for a peek :)

Crocheting granny squares

Yesterday I was crocheting a new granny square pillow.  Something was bugging me about this pillow, and I just couldn't put my finger on it.  

Were the mixed bag of colours not doing it for me?  No, I don't think so.  

What was it exactly that just wasn't right?

Aha!  This morning I realised that the problem was not with the colours or yarn, but more so that I was just itching to turn this little cushion into something else wonderful.  

Yes.  Are you seeing where this is heading?  *Note the laptop in the photo above*

Yes! Yes! I am now crocheting those granny squares into a laptop sleeve.

I mean, you can't go away camping and take your laptop AND take it in a black old foam case, can you?  No, you can't.

I'm hoping to have this little gem all finished very soon - I'll share photos when I'm done!

Yours in crocheting,

P.S.  I'll catch up on my blog comments and questions tomorrow - I know I have lots of things to answer, and I will :)

Crochet-aholic

Dear blog readers,

My name is Mel and I am currently a crochet-aholic.

There are unfinished projects scattered around my house.  Bella's 4 ply blanket (above) is oh, so close to completion.  I have squares on my lounge room floor, ready to hand sew into place.

I have incomplete squares on my coffee table, waiting for their final row of edging.

There's a granny stripe blanket blanket for the van, sitting patiently in my bedroom, waiting for more stripes. 

There's a new granny square pillow on the go.  I'm crocheting this one at night, while Mr Goodsell and I watch series two of Breaking Bad.

That's my bedside table and at the moment it holds mini grannies, in a selection of colours, just waiting for extra rounds to be added.

There's a big old basket of yarn in the lounge room.

Oh, wait. Do I spy more yarn on my bedroom floor. Why, yes.  There's a crochet pillow there too - a finished project - more on that in another post.

My girl is crocheting too. She's working on a pillow for herself and today mastered the 'join as you go' method.

I'm afraid there is no cure in sight.

I am well and truly hooked.....get it?

Yours in crocheting,

Instagram

I'm addicted to instagram on my iPhone.

Here are just a few of the images that I've shared over the last couple of weeks.

Are you on instagram?  My username is one_crafty_mumma .......incase you want to follow along :)

Today we

• Went shopping for fresh fruit and veg.
• Collected our mail.

• Washed up.
• Dried up.

• Played ball with Trooper.

• Relaxed outside.
• James - had a bike ride
• Friends came to visit.

• Played battleships & Pictureka.

• Baked a cake to turn into cake pops tomorrow.

• Cooked crunchy pink slice.

• Cooked dinner with my little helper.

....and that is all.

Oh, I did squeeze in a few games of Plants vs. Zombies on the iPad.  Addicted much.

How was your day?

Camping essentials

A friend told me the other day that she doesn't like camping.  What?!  Okay, I get it...but why?  When pressed a little further I expected the answer to be all about snakes, spiders, no technology, etc... But it turns out, that she misses her cosmetics while camping.

Well, I reassured her that I always take cosmetics camping, just a few of my favourites to see me through.  Here's a peek at what I packed on our last trip.

• Revlon lipgloss - because I end up with cold sores if my lips dry out too much. This is a new favourite - a gift from a nice friend of mine.
• Jane Iredale Pommisst - another new favourite of mine! It's a hydration spray that feels beautiful and fresh. I used this continually while we were away, to rehydrate my skin from the sun and camp fire - I'm still using it now that we're home too.

• Benefit, Confessions of a Concealaholic kit - I bought this a few months ago and love it.  Actually I love all Benefit cosmetics, they're fabulous.  For camping I used the Erase Paste - a concealer for dark circles under the eyes, in a cute little tub.  I also wore the yellow coloured Lemon Aid, that you can see inside the kit.  It's a colour correcting eyelid primer, but is also nice and fresh to wear as an eye shadow.
• Garnier BB cream - The lovely Sarah and Nikki first introduced me to this miracle foundation, on our trip to Kuala Lumpur, and after a bit of a chit chat, it seemed like I was the only blogger on that trip who wasn't using BB! I rushed straight to the supermarket and picked up a tube when we returned home - yes, supermarket! It's around $12 - $14 for a tube and I've been loving it ever since.  It also contains SPF 15 - perfect for camping sunshine.  The coverage is amazing, but it looks perfectly natural on your skin and has a lovely little glow about it too.  If you're not BB-ing it yet, go and buy a tube - I promise you'll love it!
• Garnier Body conditioning lotion - I've been using this for a while, love it and it's perfect for dried out campfire legs and arms.

So, there you go - my camping cosmetic essentials. Ta-da! 

Project Life - week 3

At the beginning of Project Life, I made the decision to tweak my dates a little, meaning that each week in the album runs from Monday until Sunday.  I find this easier in my mind for photo taking - come the weekend if I haven't taken enough photos, I need to step up and get snapping on Saturday, rounding up my final photos on Sunday.

So far, I haven't been keeping any journaling notes at all.  I let the photos tell the story for me once the week is over and this approach seems to be working.  I've never really been a diary keeper (other my blog) so the thought of having to write down facts or notes throughout the week, makes it seem all too hard.  I like easy!

This week I was short on photos (gasp!) so I filled a page protector slot with an embellishment.  I also included some random facts for the week, on one of the journaling cards:

Now that there are three weeks completed in the album, my only regret is not starting this project earlier than I have.

So, there you go. Three weeks in and still enjoying the process and new way of recording our memories.  

How are you going with Project Life?  Have a link of your week 2 or 3 page to share - leave it here so I can see!

Zoku pop maker

I finally caved and bought a Zoku pop maker on Thursday.  I've been wanting one of these for a while now and discovered they were on sale at Habitat, plus I had a gift voucher for that store, so....hello Zoku!

It's really cool and fast.  You basicallly keep the main part in your freezer 24/7 and then when you feel like an ice cream or icy pole, just pour something into the mould and in 6-9 minutes your pop is ready.  No power or batteries!  

Here's our first pop recipe, incase you Zoku too.  I found it online and it's a keeper - these taste like a chocolate billabong icecream.

Nutella Pops:

1/2 cup of milk

1/6 cup of nutella.

Blend, chill (for 2 hours) and pour into the Zoku.  Makes 3 pops.

Crunchy Pink Slice

Bella and her friend baked this crunchy pink slice a couple of weeks ago.  It was delicious and easy enough for two ten year olds to cook without assistance.  

Here's the recipe:

Slice ingredients:

150 grams melted butter

1 cup self raising flour

1 cup coconut

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

Icing:

1 tablespoon butter, softened

1 1/2 cups icing sugar

1 tablespoon milk

2 drops red food colouring - I think a few extra drops were added by the young masterchefs, as the slice topping was rather bright.

1 1/2 cups of coconut - although we only used half a cup, sprinkling it lightly.

Method:

Preheat oven to 140 degrees.  Grease a slice tin.

Combine slice ingredients, pop in tin and bake for 30 minutes until golden.

Icing - Beat the butter and icing sugar.  Slowly add the milk and food colouring. Spread on top of the warm slice and sprinkle generously with coconut.  Refrigerate until cool.

We're definitely making this one again! 

Recipe source: Frankie Magazine 'afternoon tea' :: This is our most used & loved cook book, so good.