75th Post - Giveaway Time!!

Sarah and I have been incredibly lucky over the past 6 months of blogging and have won some beautiful giveaways. This week, we received some lovely goodies from Kathryn, Our Shabby Cottage - a gorgeous handbag door stop, a shabby chic starter kit, and a lovely handmade card. Kathryn has a shop filled with some great Christmas gift ideas - be sure to check it out!


We are having our own giveaway this week! If you would like to be entered in the draw to win a Passport Protector, Tissue Cover, Matryoska Keychain, and some other goodies, please leave a comment on this post before midday (WST) Saturday October 4. Sarah will draw out the winner then!

This week, I have made up some placemats and coasters using a mix of cream linen and Farmers Market fabric - perfect for our summer entertaining!

I have also made up a few tissue covers for gifts.

We have started our school holiday period here, so we are looking forward to a relaxing two week break from our usual routine. Hopefully that will include plenty of time for sewing and other crafty pursuits. Top of the list is the Sacagawea costume I need to make for Sarah, and to complete the throw quilt I started 18 months ago. Lets see how I go!

Posted by Lisa

Camp, Inventions and Belts

Last week I made a belt to go with my new shorts which I bought to wear on school camp. The design I used was simple but effective. I used a black spotted fabric from Spotlight.

This year I entered the Western Australian Inventor of the Year Schools Competition with Travel Magic. In 2007 I won my division and in 2006 I was runner up. Unfortunately this year I didn't become a finalist. Travel Magic is a folder that stores all your travel essentials. It has loops inside for travel products such as tissues, antibacterial wipes, mints, first aid kit, pen, paper etc. It then zips up so nothing can fall out. It has a separate bag for your electrical plugs.

Last Tuesday I went on camp to Point Walter. I did flying fox, high ropes - and climbed to the top, archery, rafting and other fun things. The funniest thing that happened was at the concert on the last night. My teachers and parents helpers crossed dressed. The men had wigs and make up, and the women had side burns and leather jackets!

We have received a couple of awards this week. Firstly Laura from "A World in a Pan" awarded me the "I love Your Blog Award".  Laura lives in Paris and has lots of amazing recipes on her blog - you should go and check it out!  Suzanne from Create Fun and Mess also gave us this award this week. Suzanne's blog has lots of great scrap booking projects and wonderful photography. She is a fellow West Aussie so go and say hello.

This is our 74th post and we have decided to have a give away on our next post - so check back in a few days!!

Posted by Sarah

Mixed Bag

Thanks to everyone for their get well wishes. I am pleased to report that I am well again but am counting down to two weeks leave from work in a weeks time while the kids are on school holidays.

Today I completed "Tickled Pink" a bag designed by Nicole Mallalieu that was featured in Australian Homespun No 57 Vol 9 No 2. I was having trouble sourcing the polished silver O Rings locally, so ordered them directly from Nikki - they made all the difference to the finish of the bag. I used an IKEA furnishing fabric and with the application of heavy fusible interfacing, it is able to stand up by itself -it is the perfect size for shopping!!

I received a lovely order of linen goodies this week from Matatabi. I am looking forward to putting them to good use. 

I made up a batch of butterfly cakes this week - an old fashioned favourite!

There was much excitement in the Sugar household this week when my 14 year old son found out he is  finalist in the WA Inventor of the Year Schools Competition! He will find out if he was the winner or runner up of his category at an award ceremony in October. He is going to invest his winnings into setting up a small business enterprise selling his invention - "Party Mate". I can't tell you any more at the moment until we have helped him get a patent on it - if you live in Perth, it will be on display at Scitech during the October school holidays!

Life has been pretty quiet around here....

.......literally! I have been trying to shake a cold over the past week and a few days ago it turned into laryngitis! Very frustrating not being able to speak..... thankfully my voice is on its way back and has gone from a whisper to a croak. As a result there hasn't been much craft going on around here.

My project today was to restore and preserve my Grandmothers CWA cookbook (1970 ed) which has been well used over the years, and is filled with lots of handwritten recipes nestled between the pages. Unfortunately the spine was badly damaged, so I repaired it with some book binding tape from Riot. I then made up a dust jacket out of hand made Mulberry paper using a tutorial I found here. Now it is nicely protected but you can still remove the cover to see the original book.

In the before picture it is sitting on top one of my Grandmothers cross stitched aprons.

It looks great now it has been recovered. It is resting on top of a crocheted milk jug cover that my Grandmother made for me many years ago. I would like to cover up a set of books in this way as they make a lovely display in our living room.

I have often coveted charm packs but was unconvinced of just how useful 5 inch squares of fabric would be. I recently purchased a set of Farmers Market squares and have found them useful for a range of little projects that I am making for a magazine. There were a few squares that Sarah particularly loved so I have put four of the charms to good use in making this pincushion for her which is a variation on the one found here. I am pretty sure that I have seen one like this on one of the blogs I read but can't recall which one. If it was yours feel free to let me know and I will post a link!

Lastly I wanted to thank a few people who have been kind enough to bestow awards on Sarah and I over the past couple of weeks. So sorry for the delay in acknowledging you all! If you aren't familiar with their blogs - you should make yourself a nice cup of tea and sit down and check them out!!

Vickie, 2 Sisters and Me

• "2 sisters and a Mom who like to make stuff and collect stuff" - very inspirational!

Lisa, Bon Souvenir

• "sewing and baking the way my mother taught me". Makes gorgeous clothes for herself and her daughter.

Kellie, Don't Look Now

• the best quilt eye candy around! Kellie makes the most stunning quilts for her children and is a master at planning childrens birthday parties.

Bec, Oh Sew Busy

• Sews and homeschools her 5 children. It is amazing what this lady can achieve!

Julia, Marmalade Kiss

• lots of cool sewing projects and reflections on life in "search of creativity, art, passion, and laughter"

Posted by Lisa

Sacagawea and Baking

During the week I found out that over the next term my extension group will be doing a "Night of the Notables". We have to research a notable person, write a biography on them, and set up a learning display. On the night, we have to dress up as our person and serve food from that era. I have chosen Sacagawea who helped Lewis and Clark on their expedition. I was wondering if anyone has a US dollar coin featuring Sacagawea that I could use on my display. I would be willing to send you something from Australia in return for one of these coins. 

Today we celebrate Fathers Day in Australia. This afternoon we are having all our relatives over so I have been doing some baking. I have made some Custard Shortbreads and some Chocolate Brownies. If you would like the recipe for the brownies it can be found here. This time I substituted white choc chips for the Jesey caramels.

Here is the recipe for the Custard Shortbreads:

185 g butter 
⅓ cup icing sugar 
1½ cups plain flour 
⅓ cup custard powder

Cream butter and icing sugar, add sifted flour and custard powder, and a dash of vanilla. Mix well. Form into balls and place onto greased oven trays and press with a fork to form biscuits. Bake in a moderate oven for about 15 minutes.

Posted by Sarah