Victorian Chocolate Sponge Cake

A few weeks ago I cooked this lovely Victorian Chocolate Sponge cake from a recipe I found in the latest The Simple Things magazine.



 

It was so easy in that all the cake ingredients were just thrown in a bowl and mixed, then thrown in the oven. The icing was a little fiddly (used 2 saucepans!) and perhaps not completely necessary, but looks nice in pics, so I suppose that's important :)

It is a recipe I will have to make again soon. In fact, it's Lyn's birthday next week and he loved it, so it might make a good birthday cake.

As you can see, I had a bit of fun styling these photos  a la "What Katie Ate" style and I'm pleased with the results. I quite like this 'styling' caper, it's a lot of fun.

Hmm, not sure I can wait a whole week until I eat this cake again...

I hope your week is going well.

xx

Pretty gifts from a blog friend

I was very lucky a few weeks ago to meet up with the lovely Pam from Petals and Vintage, who was in Hobart as part of her huge trip from Queensland, right down to the bottom of Tasmania and then home again.

 



We met up with Jane from Life on Planet Baby for a morning cuppa down on the waterfront in Hobart. It is so funny meeting someone you "know" but have never met. We all had a lovely time (and time just flew).



 

But just look at these beautiful goodies Pam gifted to me! A gorgeous lavender-filled mini cushion made from a vintage tablecloth, along with a couple of her pretty magnets. I love them all! Isn't she clever?

It was lovely to meet you Pam. Hopefully I can get up your way some day.

 

Well, it's drizzly here in Hobart this morning. The garden is thankful but to me, as much as we need the rain, it feels like the end of summer. Not happy about that!

I hope you are all having a nice week.

xx



New jewellery creations

I just wanted to share with you my most recent jewellery creations. I made these for the market I attended and will either pop the the leftovers on etsy or take some into the gallery I supply now that the market is over.

Above are some little pins I made from vintage brooch fittings and tiny optometrist test lenses.

Above are simple mild steel chains with freshwater pearls.

A few pendants made from mild steel chain, made by me, vintage optometrist lenses with images from my collections of antique French postcards and freshwater pearls. I quite fancy the close up image of the Eiffel Tower.

Above are some chains and a bracelet made from mild steel and antique shoe buttons.

And above is a brooch made from silk dupion, a 1940's German glass heart button and a faux pearl drop. These were a bit of a hit so I will definitely be making more.

There you have it!

I have some new scarves too that I will show you next time :)

Have a good day!

xx

My Parisian pouches

Thank you for all of your  supportive comments about my Parisian Scarves the other day.

It makes me feel I am on the right track. Only 2 days to go until it's market day for me so I thought I'd share more goodies with you.

Here are my Postcard Pouches.

Handmade by me from digitally printed organic cotton sateen I had printed by Spoonflower.

It's a lovely fabric. The designs have come from my postcard collection and the pouches show the front and the reverse of the postcards, with a zipper and simple calico lining.

"Red Stamp"

"Eiffel Scene"

"Bois de Boulogne"

"L'arc de Triomphe"

What do you think? I'm pretty happy with them.

I have my jewellery to show you as well, but that might happen after the market. I still have a few things to do and am still avoiding the pricing.

Below is the details of the market. It's a good one and hopefully a few of you can drop by to say hello.

Well, thank goodness for Friday. It was been so warm! Today is another warm day but might end in a bit of a storm, so that will bring us some relief.

Also, a friendly reminder that if you wish to join in on the Christmas Good Mail Club, sign up ends on Sunday night. Info here.

xx

Designed by me... Parisian Scarves!

Silk chiffon scarf approx 1x2 metres.

I am really thrilled to be sharing my new creations with you. I have been working on these for what seems like a year and finally it has happened!

I present my Parisian Scarves! Using digitally printed images from my antique Parisian postcard collection, I have created a range of scarves. The fabrics I have chosen are silk chiffon (it's a nice, weighty one), a simple cotton voile and a very soft 85%wool/%15 silk blend stole. There's also a modal fabric stole that I am currently waiting on.
 

So why has it taken so long and what and I going to do with them?

Well, I have been trying to source a printer for such a long time. Spoonflower in the US is great, but the fabrics do not print through to the reverse, making them unsuitable for scarves. There's a printer in Australia but when I investigated with them, they did not print on scarf fabrics, plus their higher costs would have made it very difficult for me to make a dollar from selling them (though I would have loved to have sourced locally). I found another in the UK whose fabrics looked good, but the costs were just beyond my means. Then, earlier in the year I spoke with a scarf designer at the Finder's Keepers Market in Melbourne and she suggested India as a place to look. So, tonnes of emails to different companies later, I found one (a family business) with reasonable pricing, good communication who could offer a range of fabrics that I desired. Yay!! I took the plunge, sent off my massive image files and waited for my parcel to be couriered to me just a week later!

Cotton voile approx 1x2 metres

Cotton voile approx 1x1 metres - more of a necktie style

And I'm really happy. I had a couple of samples of the wool/silk stole printed, though as these are ready-made they are much more costly, I think they're worth it. The other fabric I had printed in lengths that I have cut into a couple of different sizes and hemmed the edges myself.

Sorry about the creases! This is my (almost) square Eiffel scene in cotton voile.

I am going to present these at a local design market this coming Sunday, but have to admit, I'm rather shy to put these new goodies out there. What if no-one likes them? How do I price them so they are affordable, but make me a little money (so I can get more designs printed)? When I look at stores in the city, like Country Road that sells their scarves for around $60 or more, I think that a similar price for my scarves must be reasonable as they're much more exclusive! I'd like to get them up on Etsy as well, but I'll wait until after the market.

As usual, I'd love your thoughts and feedback here :)

xx

Bits and bobs... francais

Like many of you, I have a bit of a 'thing' for all thing French, so for this Bits and bobs I am going francais.

What do we spy here?
 Some gorgeous old faded tricoleur ribbon, vintage blue lace, very old postcards featuring the Arc du Triomphe, an old perfume bottle that once held a concentrate of violets, a blue sparkly ring by Jacqueline Singh that my very good friend brought back from Paris for me on my 40th last year, a tiny bottle of the classic Chanel no.5, my very special Chanel brooch that I recently acquired (I finally spent my 40th birthday money after 11 months of thinking about it) and one of my handmade Paris pendants featuring an image from another of my vintage postcards.

Anything take your fancy? What is it about France? I don't know, just "something".
Can I admit to you that when I visited Paris for the first and only time (so far) in 1997 that I signed my name on the hand railing at the top of the Eiffel Tower? Call it graffiti if you will, but I think of it as my calling card and a promise that I will return :)

xx

ps sorry I have been so slack with the blog, I have been very under the weather. Feeling on the mend now though.

Also, Good Mail Club friends, I will be emailing you today!

Bits and bobs...vintage sewing

It's the start of a new week and I hope it's a good one for all of us. That also means that today is Bits and bobs day and this photo's theme is all about vintage sewing.

To be more specific, all these little bits came from an old, brown tupperware container that belonged to my dear Great Auntie Ila. She gave it to me a year or so before she passed away.

Ila was from the era of mend and make do, so she kept little buttons and bits that could have been used later on. Clothing was fixed, not replaced. Anyway, I love these bits and bobs.

We have an old thimble, threads, buttons, measuring tape, nappy pin, fasteners, a needle threader, fine thread for fixing stockings and some unusual needles (not sure of their use?).

xx

* pop over and visit Penny from Paisley Summer who has posted a beautiful floral Bits and bobs!
x

Bits and bobs... vintage florals

Time for a new Bits and bobs and this time it's a little collection of vintage floral bits.

What have we got here? There are some old seed packet labels, millinery flowers, velvet leaves,

German glass stamens and some French beaded flowers. All so pretty I think :)

I hope you all have a lovely week. I have been busy sight-seeing with my friend but today is a relaxed, pottering day I think.

xx

ps I was forgetful and didn't remind you guys I was putting together a Bits and bobs for today. I would love it if you would like to join in though. Just leave me a comment. I promise to do it again in two weeks :)

Bits and bobs... sparkle

It's Bits and bobs day and today I have gone with the theme "sparkle".

It's such a grey, rainy Monday that I thought some sparkle would be nice.

I love sparkly things and here we have some swarovski crystals, large clear sequins, vintage mini pastry cases, two lots of vintage buttons (love those heart ones), my special Chanel necklace and the most stunning length of handbeaded trim that I have had for years and haven't had a project special enough to use it.

And speaking of special, here's another photo of my baby niece Hannah who was born last Friday. This photo was taken yesterday. Look at all that hair!

I'd love to see a few of you join in with Bits and bobs but I fear I am too disorganised with my planning. Hopefully some of you can, no rush, just leave me a comment here and I'll add you in.

Thanks for dropping by.

* Please drop by Penny at Paisley Summer who has posted a great gardening Bits and bobs!

xx

Bits and bobs... optical

Hello friends! I'm glad to say I survived my manic week at work and now have a couple of days off. So, it's time for Bits and bobs!

This time I have photographed my collection of vintage optical pieces. If  I had to guess, I'd say most of these bits date from around the 1940's. The majority came from a set I purchased a couple of years ago and came from USA, complete with photos of the optometrist and all the charts. A nice piece of history.

Well, I hope some of you can join in this week. I was so pleased to see that last time you popped around and visited each others' blogs. I for one am really looking forward to seeing some of your Bits and bobs!

xx

 

*Penny from Plaits and Paisley has photographed a beautiful collection of vintage lace :)

Furrniture Friday... to paint or not to paint?

After 3 years of living without a wardrobe we hit the jackpot at the start of this week.

Behold the wardrobe!

It's solid Blackwood (a Tasmanian native hardwood), probably from around the 1920's. Found on good ol' Gumtree website. How good is Gumtree?

It has some nice details but most importantly, it fits a whole heap of clothes.

Inside, the right door conceals shelves and drawers and the left-hand door and behind the mirror is hanging space with a handy shelf above.

Mirrored door strategically placed to hide the messiest of all bedside tables :)

Getting this puppy inside was no easy job. Thankfully, we were able to borrow a big truck from Lyn's work and perhaps even more thankfully, the wardrobe came apart into 4 sections - hanging section, drawer section, base and top pelmet thingamy.

Boy oh boy were we pooped!

The big question now is... to paint or not to paint?

A lot of people would think it terrible to consider painting over solid timber, but I suppose it could always be stripped. I am considering milk paint, but more so I think I need to paint that awful purple feature wall a nice clean white and then see how I feel about it. The room doesn't get tonnes of sun so I'd like to create a light feel I think.

Of course now that I feel slightly more enthused about this room and how we could decorate it (another post on that to come), the boy decides that maybe the hallway should be next to attack. Whatevs Lyndon :)

More on that later no doubt...

Above is the crappiest pic you have ever seen me take, but I had to share it. Here is the little girl being the total life of the party last weekend. She was festooned in streamers and chased and popped as many balloons as she could. A real party animal that Mollsie girl. It made me feel really happy just to watch her have so much fun.

As you can see I have been playing with camera apps.

I love my furry girl just sooooo much. Way too much.

I know I have posted the image above before, but it I've re-fiddled with the filters and thought I'd post it again. We always need some flowers on Friday, after all.

Yay for the weekend. Anything good planned? We are off to an antique auction tomorrow.

Looks like being rainy so keep warm and dry my friends (and enjoy the summer those of you in the northern hemisphere)

Love to you all xx

Bits and bobs... wood

This is hopefully the start of a mini series for me, a way to get a bit of bloggy mojo happening when there's not much else going on during winter.

As many of you will know, I love collecting little treasures, vintage bits and pieces as well as memories. I love those vintage-inspired specimen photos you see around the traps and so here's my first - a small collection of wood items from around the house.

Twigs, old cotton reels, letterpress letters and a beautiful children's shoe form (I adore this!).

I hope you might enjoy this and future photos.
Is it cold where you are? Boy, it's becoming a struggle to get out of bed in the morning. Brrrr!!!

xx

a little pressie pour moi

Some pretty aqua Mason jars have been on my wish list for ages.

So, I decided to treat myself with some of my recent market stall earnings.

Here they are in my old bathroom with some white hydrangeas from the backyard.

I have to recommend Tanya, the Etsy seller I bought them off, she was so kind. You might like to check her store out - Jestti's Treasures (no more aqua jars there at the moment unfortunately).

I'm just so happy with my jars - they're beautiful!

Have a lovely week my friends!

xx

Vintage bits

Warning: image overload.

I acquired a few new old vintage pieces lately.

I bought this old chemical bottle from a little store called Rust and Co.

I printed out and attached a vintage label to make it look a little more interesting.

This cute Australian silver plated milk jug was too cute to leave at the tip shop at a mere $3.50.

I know, how could I not bring it home? I like its simplicity and it makes a nice vessel for some pretty iceberg roses.

I think my birdies approve.

My last acquisition was given to me by Mum and Dad. It's a great little old camera, owned and presumably used by one of my relatives many years ago.

I love the detailing.

So, some nice bits to add to the collection.
By the way, thank you for your comments about the market. I will be giving more details soon. I have so much to do!
Keep warm xx

A mantel update - nice and neutral

I recently made fresh display for the mantelpiece in the loungeroom.

This time I went all neutral which is a little unlike me ( I love my colour), but I am liking this display.

My lace tealight holder has had babies, or rather, I smashed it and glued it back together in such a dodgy fashion that I decided I had better invest in two more. Isn't it funny the week it happened I looked up the artist to discover she was having a stall at the craft market that is held where I work. So easy!

I love old printing blocks.

A little bit of mercury glass doesn't go astray either :)

I did have a nice hurricane lamp full of pinecones up there as well, but the ants found it very appealing, so it had to go. Pesky ants...

Thanks for looking!

xx