Lots of golden goodies arrived in the mail yesterday!
Gold heart stickers, gold twine and a gold glitter cake knife - so pretty!!

for the love of pie



Every three or four months, I pop on over to this blog and am always captivated by the tasty looking food, beautful photography and styling.
This 'For the Love of Pie' series is making my taste buds tingle – who can go past a finger licking, lip smacking good pie? I sure as hell can. Yum!

Timber tiles? Well thats a first!
Bonnie & Neil have launched this new product as a decorative alternative to wallpaper, and I think its fab!
Im loving the idea - timber tiles!! - the colours and the handpainted mexican inspired patterns.

well stamped


I designed this rubber stamp for my upcoming wedding and spent last night stamping 100 postcards for my guest book. It was such a satisfying job!


Australian ceramicists MUD have created a beautiful range of hand made teawares for T2 Tea.
The items are the perfect accompaniment to your morning or afternoon cuppa. 

'The teawares MUD have made are everything you’d expect from the talented ceramicists – stylish, thoughtful and crazy beautiful, with their trademarked shiny glazed interiors and raw stone-like exterior. And the colours? Orange (of course), slate, baby blue and pale pink. Stunning. And completely impossible to choose between.


so fine...

There is nothing more appealing than finely packaged goods - especially when those finely packaged goods are food!
The appeal level goes up another notch when one discovers that the food is made in NZ, the branding has been designed in NZ, and a touch of good ole kiwi humor has been thrown in the mix. A job well done guys!



sure to rise / mousetraps


The Edmonds recipe challenge #4 - Mousetraps

When I was a kid, mousetraps were marmite & cheese cooked under the grill. The Edmonds mousetraps are a fancy version of this with cheese, chutney and finely diced onion - no marmite in sight (which is a good thing since you can't buy it anyway) The result was delicious!! The perfect rainy Sunday lunch.

I was googling the address of our wedding venue, and randomly found these photos of a wedding held at the exact same location as ours - Whangateau Hall.



bling!


I just purchased this glitter twine from Knot & Bow. My wedding invitations arrived back from the printer yesterday (exciting!!) and this is going to be the perfect finishing touch when I bundle everything up.


The results when fairy tales, paper cut art & food meet.
Beautiful.
See more photos here.

karen barbe


Lots of beautiful embroidery, patterns and photography on this blog

Saben never fails to impress.
Check out the mysterious and elegant Gala, and the equally beautiful Ada.

sure to rise / louise cake


The Edmonds Recipe Challenge #2 - Louise Cake

I thought I had had another fail, but the girls at work loved it - yay!!
I didn't quite beat the eggs whites for long enough and as I added the sugar & coconut I knew I was being a bit premature, but by then it was too late! The meringue mixture should have been more robust, but ended up looking a little bit sad, oh well! :(

I love louise cake. Especially the coconut meringue topping (when its done right!). Next time Im going to beat the eggs for longer plus double the meringue recipe, and then it will be perfect.

a sweet surprise



Created by Oh Joy!

Handmade details from the wedding of Australian couple Alex & Nika, as featured on Etsy Weddings - a great source of inspiration.


gorman


I hooked myself up with some super fun Gorman socks yesterday thanks to their 20% off sale! It would have been soooo easy to spends hundreds of dollars but I was very, very controlled and walked away with a guilt free purchase. Yes!!



Check out more photos of stylist Anna Church's beautiful Waiheke home right here.



I cant believe I have only just seen this - where have I been hiding?? Im going to blame it on my trip to Greece.

sure to rise / the afghan



The Edmonds Challenge Recipe #2 - Afghans.

I've never made these before and to be perfectly honest I'm not sure I did a good job - biscuits are hard to make! Give me a cake any day, but biscuits...I guess I'll be honing my skills over the next year as there are a lot of biscuit recipes in Edmonds. 

Anyhow, The most important thing is that they taste like Afghans so that's good, but I think they could be improved. Can you over mix biscuits like you can muffins? Anyone out there with some tips?

On another note, there is a lot of butter in afghans - 200gms - and a fair bit of sugar. I wonder if I could make a healthier version of these? I might experiment.
I have had a picture of Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, Germany pinned onto my OE wishlist for a year, and finally had the opportunity to go see it. Oh my goodness it was sooooo cool. One of the most beautiful castles I have ever visited and definitely the place where you would expect fairytales to come true.

I was also lucky enough to witness the farmers in the Bavarian Alps collect their cattle down from the mountains before winter sets in. The cows are decorated with flowers and wear bells around their necks. The villagers come out to celebrate and spend the day drinking beer and eating bratwurst - yum!

Photos: All taken by me. The photo of Neuschwanstein castle is a photo of the postcard I bought as the castle was partially wrapped in plastic for repair work.


whittaker's pink chocolate



What a great idea - students these days are so clever!
Yum!!

Easy DIY


I labelled my preserving jars the other night with a liquid chalk pen from Smiggle. It was an easy DIY and a quick fix until I have some extra money to by these.



There is nothing more exciting then receiving a package in the mail, even when you instantly know what it is.
My Wit & Whistle 'Please Deliver To' stamp arrived yesterday, way ahead of schedule for stamping my wedding invite envelopes :)

Im guessing the whole Halloween thing must be really fun, but I'm not that sad NZers aren't big on it… until I saw this 'Field of Flowers' costume. It's not particularly scary, in fact it's not scary at all, but it's the coolest, and prettiest, costume I've seen in a long, long time!!
This would be my Halloween costume if ever I needed one.



sure to rise / edmonds cookbook challenge


I just bought an Edmonds Cookbook - Can you believe I didn't have one?? What sort of kiwi girl am I??
We always had an Edmonds cookbook growing up and it was the source of all my baking attempts whilst a kid - I don't know how many times I baked a Madeira cake.
I was flipping through this current edition and noted all my childhood favs plus the new additions, and have decided to set myself a challenge. I am going to cook my way through the Edmonds cookbook. One recipe* a week, starting with the Gingerbread Loaf - yum! I love ginger and this is quite a goodie. With oats & raisins it feels like a slightly healthier version of your usual ginger loaf. I think next time I might add a touch more ginger and maybe substitute the golden syrup for treacle.

Ill post photos of all the recipes I make on the blog. And let me know if you would like the actual recipe as well.
Note to self: I think I might need to improve my food styling skills.

* I have decided that I wont include make the recipes which use offal or pre-mixed cake / pancake / pikelets mixes.