Jar of memories

I know its been done a million times before and like many fads i'm a bit behind......

but how cute is this Jar of shells and rocks!

Every year for the past 6/7 years we have gone to a beautiful beach on the NSW Central coast and we have a great family holiday. 

The year is so full with family and work commitments that it tends to be the only time of year we are all together.

My kids love fossicking - we let each one of them collect only a handful of shells/ rocks each trip (otherwise we would end up with the contents of the beach at our house.

So this little jar is an accumulation of 7yrs worth of holidays.

This morning at breakfast the kids had a good ole reminisce about holidays from years past - It was lovely & not at all what I expected.

Sometimes kids can be very sweet.....

Jar bought from IKEA

and here we have a bit of a look at some cushions I have been working on, a big and proper reveal of the whole collection will come soon!

I'm hoping for a lot more sewing next week, the renovation is just about over, paperwork has been done, another childs' birthday this week

 Then I need to crack the whip and make a few baby sized quilts

Xx Siobhan Rogers

not quite Nigella

I've just had a birthday!

some might think its odd that I made my own Birthday cake .....

but not those that know me well, they wouldn't blink an eye.

I love baking - I'd do it every day If I could - but alas I cant. So when a good reason comes up - like a birthday, I bake!

I wanted a huge lush knock out cake & something the kids would eat.

I have cooked Nigella Lawsons chocolate pavlova  countless times over the years - everyone loves it. 

The only tweek I add is instead of dark chocolate I use Toblerones.

I have often made it and wondered what it would be like layered almost like a Dacquoise. 

For this three layered version I double the quantities of Nigellas recipe.

Balsamic Vinegar & Toblerone

whipping up my double quantity of egg whites

uncooked

I spread the mixture out fairly flat because I wanted it to turn into a flat disc. 

cooked

for the layers I made a 

chocolate mascarpone cream

Beat one tub (250g) of Mascarpone with a beater until soft

add 100g grated dark chocolate

1tsp cocoa

add to that 300ml of whipped thickened cream and mix till combined 

The top is covered in whipped thickened cream, I always add a touch of vanilla essence & sugar to my cream

then whatever seasonal fruit is around

I used Strawberries, figs & blackberries

It was a lovely evening & lovely Cake

enjoyed by all!

and today the cake is even better

 and its today's lunch !

on other news

the painting at our house has been done, so my sewing machine can come back out!

I'm busily sewing up some cushions with fabrics I have designed on spoonflower

little sneak peak below ;)

next week is my daughters birthday, she has requested a cheese cake

I'd love to hear about your Favourite cake!

leave a link below

Xx Siobhan

If at first you don't succeed

try again.......... and maybe again

I have blogged about these or had pictures on flickr, but I have never really made a fuss about them - because they aren't perfect.

It took me two wrongs to make a right!

this being the first go

I struggled with this one because the fabrics I chose - I only had a very little amount of, It was very tricky trying to work out the angle/ squaring off & cutting with out wasting too much of the precious fabric.

So although pretty and a nice colour combination - a big fail on the angles

 attempt two

I had plenty of fabric this time! I had learnt my lesson. But this time instead of trying the same size I upsized to a single bed. 

The issue this time was trying to square off the large segments - and again I got the angle wrong!!!!

It seemed so simple to achieve - yet it eluded me yet again.

I do kind of like this one - Its currently on My older boys bed, but every time I look at it I see how it could be so much better.

by now you would think I'd be over it and give up? 

nope

I persevered. 

Third attempt

and finally got it right!

This one is mega king size

Its still not perfect ;) but good enough!

have you made any Union Jack things?

post a link if you have 

Xx Siobhan

Trash or Treasure

Recently our area had a household rubbish collection, We had a huge purge of all sorts that had been stashed in cupboards/garage & shed for far too long.

I've also been reorganising the kids rooms, some of their furniture had been with them for a while and was showing signs of "use" - one of our children who will not be named ;) had a penchant a few years back for writing her name - everywhere!

This table was destined for the throw out pile.

I then felt a bit guilty, Throwing out a perfectly good table just because it was a colour I no longer liked and had some 4yr old graffiti on it - That didn't seem a good enough excuse. 

Especially since I was looking at replacing it

The plan was to sand it back a bit - find some paint in the shed & voila new table!

The plan changed ever so slightly after a trip to Murobond paints where I spied some chalk paint, $38 later......

so my old awful table has turned into a pretty cool chalk table top with white legs

now all the kids want one......

what else can I paint..........

Xx Siobhan

Liberty Strips - Part two

A few days later and here we have the finished baby quilt

Here is the original post where I talk about how & why I made this quilt.

The general gist is that I had some liberty fabric strips from a previous project and I wanted to make a baby quilt, this is what I came up with.

I wanted to do something different for the quilting, I'm really enjoying the look of circular quilting and I felt that it would make it just a little bit more interesting than straight lines.

I was also seeing a lot of love hearts everywhere!

apparently valentines day is soon....

so a heart shape it was!

I started with my heart shape in the middle, I then echoed around the heart in a 1/4 inch distance until I came to the edge of the basted quilt. 

for the binding I had some pre made liberty of london bias binding which I bought in London last September when I was at the Liberty of London store. It was really nice to sew on.

Here we have the complete front and back!

the back is also a piece of Liberty of London tana lawn. 

I love how the heart echo's out

It took a while to machine quilt the heart echo, but well worth the effort.

all ready to swaddle the baby to be

Xx Siobhan Rogers