Some of my favourite things... friends, bubbles, shopping and dogs.

So who can believe we are into the second week of February? I for one can't! And a short month to boot...

The last couple of weeks have included a lot of my favourite things: friends, bubbles (the drinking kind), shopping and the dogs... I did start a house project but it isn't finished so more on that another time...

Friends...
Last time I wrote we were about to set off to Adelaide for the Australia Day weekend to catch up with Hugo, Amy and their six week old son, Tom, as well as many of the usual Adelaide suspects. A great weekend which (needless to say) included lots of socialising in true Adelaide style. Dave did manage to get a couple of hours to relax at the cricket but Adelaide weekends tend to leave me needing a holiday!

Bubbles...
It seems the Adelaidians are in the know about a rather lovely and faintly pink sparkling wine - Bird in Hand. It was the offering of choice wherever we went and I thoroughly recommend it. Very drinkable indeed! The website blurb is a pretty accurate description and I know Dan Murphy's stock it in Victoria :)

Shopping...
Whilst zipping around a very hot and humid Adelaide, we managed to find our rattan chairs for our veranda at a bargain basement price (a third of the cost we had seen in Victoria.) All we need now are some footstools and a small table to rest a glass of bubbles or a G&T on. Once we have rearranged the veranda furniture I will share some photos.

Dogs...
Still on my drive to use my Canon more often, Charlie and Olive landed roles as my models for the day. Below are a few "portraits" to share with you. I may be biased but Charlie is a very handsome boy and Olive a very pretty girl. They are great models and I could take pictures of them all day...

Have a good week everyone and until next time...

... take care!

Corrinne

Charlie...

Olive...

The bake and make continues!

So what did everyone get up to this weekend?

I decided to have another productive weekend and continue my focus on baking and making things. I did say I would tackle bears this weekend but... well I am easily distracted and didn't take the cover off the sewing machine.

Baking...
I am still in love with my Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook so picked another yummy recipe from that - the lemon loaf. Oh my! Delicious! Reminds me of the lemon cake Lynne used to make years ago as it has a lemony syrup that you pour over the cake as soon as it comes out of the oven. I love that extra lemony sugar hit so this one is a winner for me and will definitely be baked again it at some point.

Making...
I got a bee in my bonnet about making something of a torn sheet (a victim of Olive practising her digging skills on our bed) that I couldn't quite bring myself to throw out. I think I must be watching too much Lifestyle Channel and reading too many home focused blogs and am getting a bit thrifty!

I took inspiration from Pinterest (that's a link to my board if you are on Pinterest and want to follow me and a button at the bottom of this post) and made something of my own - a wreath. Here were my inspiration images:

French ticking Christmas wreath and the original blog is Confessions of a Plate Addict
Fabric flower tutorial and the original blog for this one is Emily's Little World

I can hear some of you asking "So what is it for?" I don't know! It's a wall decoration of sorts which as we still don't have much on our walls beyond paint is a welcome homely touch. Super easy, satisfying and cheap. I spent $9 on the contrasting flowers and tie and used an old cardboard box as the wreath structure which I wrapped with 2 inch strips from the queen size fitted sheet - it took most of the sheet as I wanted to get a padded effect.

I am really pleased to have made something of the sheet, had a lot of fun learning to use a glue gun for the first time. Also very happy to find another method for making things that doesn't involve a sewing machine. I have had challenges fixing the bows to my bears so maybe hot glue will come to the rescue... but I need to check I can use it on children's toys first.

Photos for both below as I continue to try my hand at product photography. This time I played with Picasa which is Google's photo editing program.

It is Australia Day on Thursday (think barbecues, Lammingtons, Pavlovas and icy cold beer) and so we are off to Adelaide Wednesday night for a long weekend and to catch up with friends (and I think Dave wants a day to sneak off to the cricket too) while Allie house and dogs sits for us (thank you Allie!) So no baking for me next weekend but Dave has been making great progress with painting the house so we may even be able to reveal a photo or two soon!

I hope everyone has a lovely week ahead.

Corrinne

Lemon Loaf

Yum! I definitely recommend trying this...

Home made wreath using an old bed sheet and some quilters fat quarters

If I can make this... anyone can...

A drop of creativity and a dollop of satisfaction

It's rare to have a weekend without deadlines or events and so this weekend I decided I would do three things... Three felt like a good number that I could set my mind to happily and achieve - any longer it would become a list of chores!

My list:
1) Bake (it has been a while since my Kitchen Aid has seen the light of day)
2) Dust off my Canon and get creative (these days I favour the quick snap on the iphone rather than lugging my beloved camera everywhere)
3) Push on with knitting my baby alpaca wool throw (I will finish it!)

Even better, two of the three could be combined. (No I wouldn't be knitting cupcake cases or oven gloves.)

The result? Yummy strawberry cheesecake brownies from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook snapped using my Canon and edited using Instagram a new app I have downloaded for all things "i" in our home.

I am surprisingly pleased with both the baking and the photos. Of course my attempt looks quite different to the cheesecake brownies offered at the London-based bakery because I didn't whip the cream enough. But, I think I prefer the way the cream on mine oozes over the cake :)

Who knows? I might even do this all over again next weekend but I can hear my bears calling for attention.

This last photo was taken with my iphone. A great reminder that an iphone cannot replace a Canon!

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