The thing is...

my friends Kathryn and Henar stopping by to keep me company

So here's the thing... as you know, I did my first craft fair this Saturday at the Kinokuniya bookshop in the city. To be perfectly honest, it was kind of disappointing. It just wasn't really what I was expecting, and I left feeling a bit down. That being said, I'm really glad I did it because I learned a lot, from how to set up a table quickly, to which products catch people's eye. All useful things. I also had lots of sweet friends and family come to visit me, keep me company and bring me treats. I was also lucky enough to have a family member offer to help me when my husband had to work. She went with me, helped me set up and take down, and spent the whole day with me sitting at my booth. I'm so thankful that she was there! I'm sharing this because as much as I want my blog to be a positive space, I also want to be real and not gloss over things and pretend everything is perfect. I'm sure that other crafters out there have had disappointing experiences either online, or at fairs, but the important thing is to be resilient. And in a strange way, I'm even more inspired after this weekend. I have so many ideas for things I want to make, and I'm hoping to have my etsy shop up this week. So now I want to hear from you guys, how do you get over disappointment and keep on trying to reach your goals?

Sydney love: the zoo!

Nessa and the roo

When you first come to Sydney, everyone will tell you to do 3 things: see the Opera House, go to Bondi Beach, and spend the day at Taronga Zoo. So when my friend and I found ourselves in Sydney for the summer (our summer, Sydney's winter), that's just what we did. Even though these photos are from a while back, I'm so excited to share them as they're some of my favourite Sydney photos to date, especially that first one of my friend with the kangaroo. Next time I go back to the zoo, I want it to be for the Roar & Snore, my husband's been wanting to do it for ages!

photo by Nessa

My creative space

a new design I'm working on

Tuesday I went over to my friend's house and we worked on this bunting together. I also cuddled her baby any chance I got. Thanks for the help Cazzie!

This week my creative space is sprawled all over the house. I don't have a space devoted to my crafting, so when I want to make something I move between the spare room where I store odds and ends, the hall where I store my fabric, the bedroom where my sewing machine is (for now anyway), the living room floor where I do most of my cutting, the coffee table where I glue things, and the dining room table where I watch Mad Men and hand sew. It's kind of ridiculous. Normally I clean up after my projects, but in the hustle and bustle of getting ready for the craft fair this week, I'm just letting it all hang out. I have been pretty productive though, even if I feel like my to do list will never be all ticked off. This week I made more fascinators, got business cards, and made bunting, which I've never done before. Two more days until the fair, wish me luck!

Some yummy links

I have no recipes of my own to share today - too busy getting ready for market - but how about if I share some tasty links? I'm hoping to try all of these soon...

• This recipe combines 2 of my favourite things in life: chocolate and peanut butter. To be more specific, it's a recipe for hot cocoa with peanut butter whipped cream!
• A thrifty tutorial for making quiche. Great way to use up older veggies!
• I love samosas but I've never tried making them before.
• I think having to read Proust in French turned me off the idea of Madeleines, but I'm willing to give them a shot.
• A recipe for white bean dip that would've been perfect when I was doing a cleanse a few weeks ago.
• I have a recipe for making homemade tortillas, but I'd like to give these a go.
• Chocolate crinkle cookies, enough said.
• Homemade peppermint oreos. These last 2 recipes are from Emma, who always posts the most wonderful looking sweet treats.

If you try any of these, be sure to let me know!

Seasonal coasters

I seem to have a love/hate relationship with embroidery. I taught myself to do it about a year ago with an embroidery kit from Sublime Stitching. But since then, I've only completed a few projects, and I still have a half finished embroidery hiding in my closet. I do enjoy the process, but it just takes sooooooo long! When I feel the itch to embroider, I think it's best to stick with something small, which is why when I saw these coasters that SouleMama made, I decided to make something similar. They didn't take me all that long, and they used up some little scraps. I just free-embroidered (can you even say that?) the tree shapes and then sewed a small scrap to the top, and then sewed that to the backing fabric leaving a hole to pull through. Then I whipstitched that hole shut, and done! Now I act all protective when husband tries to stick a glass onto them because he might pull out the French knots... But the coasters without French knots are totally useful, I swear.

A birthday weekend

First of all, thank you so much for your kind words of encouragement on my last post, they mean the world to me! I'm a busy girl this week, trying to get everything ready for the craft fair, but this weekend I let it all go and celebrated my husband's birthday instead. His birthday was yesterday and he was quite clear that he just wanted to relax. He also woke up at 5 a.m. to go on a 2 hour bike ride, so I'm not quite sure how one could consider that relaxing, but my husband is kind of nuts. Once he got home though, we were both too hot to move and we did indeed relax for the rest of the day.

We happened to be dog sitting our favourite beagle, so we spent lots of time playing with him in the garden and taking him for walks. Since we can't have our own dog, we're always thrilled to take care of other people's dogs!

photo by husband

Husband requested the honey cake from Tessa Kiros' brilliant cookbook, Apples for Jam. He's not a big fan of sweets, so this cake suits him perfectly as it's not too intense. And it has rosemary in it, isn't that cool?

photo by husband

photo by husband

I got husband a couple of shirts as a present, and here he is wearing one to his birthday dinner.

At the end of the day we went over to husband's mum and step-dad's place and had a wonderful dinner of prawns, oysters and salad. It was a small group, but it was just what he wanted. In fact, husband's only other request aside from relaxing, was to eat prawns and oysters for dinner. He was a happy guy.

On craft fairs and secret dreams

For the last little while I've been dropping hints (here, here and here) about a project that I've been working on. And now that I have photos, I'm excited to finally be able to share just what that project is. When I wrote about doing yoga teacher training this year, I said that it had long been a secret dream of mine to become a yoga teacher. Well, another secret dream of mine is to open an etsy shop and participate in craft fairs. And guess what? I'm doing my first craft fair ever next Saturday! I'll be selling my handmade fascinators and hair accessories Saturday February 26 at the Kinokuniya craft fair here in Sydney. If you're free, and you live in Sydney, come on down. I'd love to see you! I'm also hoping to open an etsy shop asap, and tick off another goal. I'm telling you, 2011, it's the year of secret dreams.

Last weekend I got together with my mother in law, Julia, and two of my gorgeous friends, Alexandra and Kathryn, to take some photos of my wares. Julia was the brilliant photographer, and Alexandra, Kathryn and I modeled. I'm so pleased with how all of the photos turned out, and grateful to everyone for helping me. Take a peak...

Alexandra

Kathryn on the left, me on the right

My creative space

I don't really have anything finished to show you for my creative space this week. It's been a busy one, filled with lots of making, yoga and preparations for husband's birthday. I also started a part time job at the studio where I'll be doing my yoga teacher training. Yesterday was my first day, and it went really well. Even though there was lots of work to be done, the environment was relaxed and supportive, just as a yoga studio should be. I've also been practicing yoga every day this week, which feels so good. Yesterday after working in the office, my body was feeling tight and achy and my wrist problems were flaring up, so after a quick trip home I ended up heading all the way back to the studio for a restorative class. I'm glad I did though because it was just what I needed.

But back to my creative space, the top photo is what my space looks like. I am elbow deep in lace, fabric and feathers at the moment. Tomorrow I'll be sharing more so make sure to come back! But here's a sneak peak of something I've been working on...

Don't forget to check out kootoyoo for more creative spaces!

Homemade breakfast

I try really hard to be mindful about the food that I buy, cook and eat. I'm not perfect by any means, and I have a major sweet tooth, but most of the time I try to eat healthy, home cooked meals because it's better for us and it's better for our wallets. Groceries are really expensive in Australia, and I find that breakfast staples are especially pricey. Making things from scratch is usually so much cheaper than store bought versions, and for a while now I've been hoping to replace my organic store bought yoghurt with homemade. While my mom was out here in November she gave me some pointers, and I successfully made yoghurt a couple of times but then couldn't get it right again. So I turned to the internet and found SouleMama's awesome tutorial on how she makes yoghurt. Coupled with my mother in law's yoghurt making thermos, I've been successfully making yoghurt for the last few weeks. Yahtzee!

While perusing SouleMama's tutorials, I also found a recipe for granola that looked yummy. I gave it a go last week and have been eating it for breakfast ever since. It's so yummy and much easier than I thought. Double yahtzee! So if you're wanting to save a few bucks, and make more from scratch you should definitely check out SouleMama's tutorials. Making yoghurt is seriously easy, and it feels so good to know that you've made all of your food from scratch. Do you guys have any yummy breakfast recipes to share? Or any tips for saving money at the grocery store?

Heating the milk over low heat,

then you add in your starter yoghurt,

and plop it in some sort of heating device, this thermos worked perfectly.

chopping almonds for granola

turning the granola during cooking time