Thursday, November 17, 2011

Pinterest picks of the week....

 I am a totally food driven person, I love to look at it, I love to read about it, I love to cook it and I most certainly LOVE to eat it....





1. Dole Pineapple Whip.  We don't have them here in Australia, we do have Dole pineapple but I have never seen this delicious cold treat and I used to live 5 minutes drive from the Big Pineapple.  Anyways it has been scary hot here this spring so I foresee many of these in my future.

2. Red Velvet Cheesecake, its a cheesecake with a red velvet cake on top and coated in icing, what is there not to love...

3. Broccoli Cheddar soup.  Creamy cheese soups are not really that popular in Australia but I love cheese anything and Broccoli just happens to be in my top three veg so I think this is a must try.

4. Coconut Banana Cream Pie.  Dear lordy again what is there not to love?


1.  Painting from Anthropologie, we don't have them here and I certainly would not be paying the asking price but I am certainly going to make my own version after we move.

2. Peg Advent Calender.  I have some wood, I have an abundance of wooden pegs, I believe that I have found what I am making next.

3. Lace Doily Bowl.  So easy, can't wait to make one

4. Record cake stand.  Seriously how cool is that, next theme party I am so making this.  

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Kaiser Outlet, Brisbane

Quite some time ago I had to venture out to the other side of Brisbane to collect some stuff that I had bought from a warehouse and it just so happened that it was in the same area as the Kaiser Craft outlet and a Spotlight, double bonus I say.

I wont even vent about the fact that it took me over an hour to get there, I had to pay for four tolls in total and that it took me like an hour to find the Kaiser shop which I had passed all but about twenty times but when I finally found the place it was a bitter sweet moment.  Yes it was full of Kaiser products and yes some of them were deliciously cheap but I am not the biggest consumer of Kaiser products to begin with and I actually expected to be walking out of that place with bags upon bags and instead I spent a measly $32, give or take.


The purchase of the day was the brads and the rhinestones, they were all very, very cheap and in big bins I also figured that the epoxy brads could have the sticker pulled off and I could put on my own image of choice.  Some of the paper was cheap and the rest of it was full price, in fact I don't think I even bought any of the reduced paper.

I would loved to have got some cheap stamps but the newer ones were full price and the ones that they did have reduced I could get for cheaper on e-bay and I did not like them.  The other cheap options that were all in bins were mainly Kaiser wood products, ink pads, paint and wood backed stamps and I don't use Kaiser ink, I hate off the page/altered projects, I have enough paint and I don't want anymore wooden stamps so that option was out.

All in all if you love Kaiser stuff and searching through bins for that elusive item than by all means the Kaiser shop might be for you, I however will not be going back unless I am in the area as it is so far for me to travel and Kasier although I totally get the appeal is just not my favourite paper manufacturer, was good to see what all the fuss was about though :)

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Wrapping paper

I love wrapping presents and I love all the little bits and pieces that you can buy to make presents look beautiful, ribbons, doilies, bows and tags and the shinier the better.  As a rule I always have a box of supplies that I keep on hand for present wrapping and an assortment of wrapping paper for all occasions but sometimes you just don't have that perfect wrapping paper or as in today's case you run out and I have no intentions of taking my two rambunctious children anywhere near a shop today so what do you do?

DIY wrapping paper, that's what.


(Stamps: Fiskers- Kids Birthday, Fiskers Ink by Steph- Skin And Bones)
(Ink: Versa Color- Cardinal, Fiskers- High Density Blue)

Kinda cool huh, I will be honest this totally works better with smaller presents or if you have bigger stamps but seeing as this paper is for a 6 year old pirate loving boy I hardly doubt he will be looking at anything more than the fact that he has a present and it has skulls on it.

I always have a roll of brown paper and white/cream kids painting paper on hand just for this reason and you know what it really is the simplest of tasks and tasks under 5 minutes to make your very own personalised wrapping paper.

 I decided to do up an example of just how easy it really is, all I used for this paper was one set of stamps, a couple of different ink colours, an acrylic block and paper it really is that easy.
It does not matter what order you stamp in or how straight you stamp, with a random pattern like this you can get as messy as you like.  I also like to tape the corners down on the surface that I am making the paper on, when paper has been stored in a roll it tends to curl up and it just means that I can use both hands rather than using one hand to keep the paper flat where I stamp. 
There you go all you need is a small piece of ribbon which I usually pick up from Spotlight for 70c for 3 metres, curling ribbon or raffia and a bow, I buy my bows at Christmas time in big bags, they only have a few colours in the mix but a bag will last all year and they are usually under $4 and come is so many different sizes.