It’s felt like quite a long time since I was on here and writing a blog posts. I just wanted to let you all know that I haven’t disappeared completely – I’m still around and do intend to return too. The last few years have been a bit scrambled and busy for me but I’m hoping the next year to begin blogging a bit more again. In the meantime, I’ve become very active on Instagram again – posting about 3-4 times per week – primarily yummy healthy recipes, small crafts I’ve made and pictures of my lovely garden. If you’re on Insta, come and say hi. I’d love to meet you xx

YOU CAN FIND ME ON INSTAGRAM HERE

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I remember making tags like these all the way back when I was in Kindergarten. At the time I thought they were the cutest and cleverest of things and such a great way to use up old Christmas cards! I felt so proud of the amount I made and therefore the amount of Christmas cards I had recycled. I’m not sure what recent event sparked my memory, but earlier this week I had the impulse to dig out all my old cards again. It’s now been quite a few years since I first made them, but the experience was every bit as fun and enjoyable. Using these retro/kitsch style of cards (which I’ve probably had for over 20 years) only added to all the fond memories too. 

You will need:

Old Christmas cards, pinking shears/zigzag scissors (or regular scissors), a shape to trace around (a small glass is perfect), a pencil, a hole punch

To make:

1. Sort through old Christmas cards, finding any cute images that will fit the size of whatever tool you chose to trace with. I found the ones with simpler images and smaller details worked best. 
2. Using the tracing tool, trace around your shape. I really like using a glass so that I could see the images below, making sure that it was all lined up. I found the way the scissors cut around the shape got rid of any pen marks I made but you could definitely just press lightly or use a pencil and then rub out.
3. Now you can take the pinking shears and cut around the shape! It doesn’t really matter if you cut around it perfectly, I did most of mine pretty fast and wonky and they still looked fine. 
4. Just punch a hole in the top and you’re done!

I think these look so sweet! This truly is a great project for kids as it is not only easy and simple to do, but the results are so cute and practical. I’ve wrapped up a few gifts here to for some ideas of how they’ll look:

Brown box with raffia

Brown paper wrapping with ribbon

Sky-blue paper with ribbon and snowflake sequins.

I’d love to hear about any of your experiences in making these (or perhaps you’ve already made cards like this before?) Make sure to tag me on social media if you have any pics too, I’d love to see them.

Wishing you the very merriest, merriest of Christmases xx

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I absolutely love straw flowers. They are so cute and fun to arrange. I love the  subtle differences in their colours and shapes and how different they look when picked at different stages of their growth.  We’ve been growing many over the past summer and, when looking for something to arrange them in, I discovered this glass terrarium that I knew would be absolutely perfect! I love seeing this sitting on the table. It’s the cutest thing and so simple to make too. I love the Autumn feel to it and so happy to know it will last looking this good throughout the season. 

You will need: Glass terrarium, straw flowers or other dried flowers in varying shapes and colours, dried moss/straw/grass (I’ve used sphagnum moss here), tweezers, scissors

To arrange: Cut flowers at stems, line the terrarium with the moss and arrange the flowers on top. I found it much easier moving them about with tweezers. Dried flowers should last a long time (you won’t need to water them at all).

You could use all sorts of dried flowers in this (lavender and rose buds are ones more readily available), or pressed flowers too. Other dried things like seed/grass heads, leaves, herbs, feathers, nuts, pods, feathers, shells would be really nice too.

What sorts of plants or flowers would you use to fill a terrarium like this?

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Happy Easter Weekend! Easter completely crept up on me this year – I was sure it was at least another week away but it was a nice surprise to realise it was this week! Although I’m planning to make some easter chocolates for tomorrow, I also had the desire to make some other sweets too. This was the first time I’d made lollies like this before and it was so much fun! This is a pretty common sort of Paleo recipe, I’ve seen them made with all sorts of fruit before. I was very impressed -they taste SO good and are so much healthier than store-bought lollies too. I’m sure kids would love to both make and eat these!

Lemon and Honey Sour Gummies

2016-03-26 04:01:43

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Ingredients

1. 80ml fresh lemon juice (2 lemons approx.)
2. 1 Tbsp honey (or more according to taste)
3. 1 1/2 Tbsps powdered gelatine (unflavoured beef gelatine from grass-fed cows is best)
4. 1/4 tsp powdered tumeric (for colour/optional)
5. You will also need a silicon lolly or chocolate mould/small ice cube tray with about 20 spaces.
6. *Please note measurements are with Australian tablespoons - see note below for substitutions

Instructions

1. Place lemon juice in saucepan with honey and stir to combine. You can taste mixture at this stage and add more honey if you desire.
2. Slowly add the gelatine, bit by bit and continue stirring until completely dissolved.
3. Once combined let the mixture rest for 5mins.
4. Place pan over a medium-low heat and begin stirring until the mixture becomes smooth (it took me a bit over 5mins). Make sure not to boil though - you may need to drop the temperature if it heats up too quickly.
5. Once ready pour into the moulds and place into freezer until set. It won't take very long, about 15mins but can depend somewhat on the size.
6. Pop the set gummies out of the moulds (this bit is quite fun to do) and store in air-tight container. I've read they keep for a couple of weeks at room temperature (you can store them in the fridge too) - but I imagine you'll probably finish them before then :)

Notes

1. Makes about 20 gummies.
2. All measurements are Australian - where 1tbsp = 20ml (UK/US tbsp = 15ml). To substitute use 1 UK/US tbsp plus an extra 1 UK/US tsp.

By Amelia Madelaine

https://www.bitsquareblog.com/

I can’t wait to try these with other fruit juices! Have you ever made lollies like this before? What kinds of fruit would you use?

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Happy St Patrick’s Day everyone! I feel so happy to have put together another quick DIY together for the celebration. I had this idea of making a paper clover garland after making clover chains in the garden a few weeks back. I wrapped them around some glasses similar to this – they looked so cute but wilted so quickly so I tried to come up with a way to make them last a bit longer. I love how the paper clovers turned out and they are super simple to make too. You could use them to decorate all sorts of things but I love this idea of wrapping them round a glass of St Patrick’s Day stout.

You Will Need:

Green card-stock, heart-shaped hole punch, regular hole punch, green embroidery thread, scissors, glue-stick, tape.

How to Make:

1. Start cutting out hearts from the green card-stock with the heart-cutter. Clovers can be made from 3 or 4 hearts (although I found 3 worked much better). This garland was made up of 16 clovers so that worked out to be 48 hearts.
2. Cut little circles out with the regular hole punch, one for each clover you are making.
3. Use the glue-stick to attach three clover leaves to each of the circles. I found they stuck really well, although I had to go over a few of them afterwards where I hadn’t applied enough glue.
4. Let them dry upside for at least an hour or so.
5.  Cut some small pieces of sticky tape and use that to attach the little clovers to the embroidery thread. You can space them however you like, here I attached them about an inch apart (the garland ended up being 50cm). You may want to leave more or less thread at either end depending on how you’d like to display the garland.
6. To attach it to a glass like I’ve done here, simply double-over small pieces of sticky tape and stick on each third clover or so.

I’m sure there would be lots of other great uses for this garland, such as cake toppers, party hats or wrapped around napkins.

How are you celebrating St Patrick’s Day? What would you decorate with this garland?

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Are you looking forward to St Patrick’s Day? How are you celebrating and/or decorating for it?

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I was feeling a little inspired during the week and created this cute arrangement of petunias for the kitchen window sill. I had the idea of using this small glass trinket dish as a vase to lay the flowers in horizontally so that the light would catch it from behind. It looked so pretty! I loved it so much that I felt the need to share it here! I love how the flowers glow, almost as if they are made of stained glass. I’m feeling really excited to try more arrangements like this now. A tip if you try this though –  the water dries up really fast so it needs to be topped up often!  

Have you ever made a horizontal flower arrangement? What flowers would you use?

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I’ve been doing a bit of shopping recently and felt so excited about some of the things that I found that I felt the need to share! I always love earrings and already have way too many but here a few that I couldn’t resist. I only just realised Colette Hayman have surgical steel posts on all their stud earrings which is so awesome as my earrings are super sensitive, it’s only that and silver that I can wear (so I stocked up on heaps!)

Statement Studs from Colette Hayman

Some More Statement Studs from Colette Hayman

Large Chandeliers from Target (Australia)

The only ones I could find online were the white mini knot ones from Colette Hayman but they are all currently in store – well, at least in Hobart :) I’m so excited about all these, especially those massive chandeliers from Target! I love big earrings!

Which ones are your favourite? Have  you bought any great jewellery lately? 

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I’m in love with this rose skirt from Myer! Such a pretty design, the perfect length and shape – it really doesn’t need much as it’s so lovely in and of itself. I love it with red and with black so I’ve just stuck to that here, choosing some simple structured pieces to complement it nicely.

The last few posts like this I made an effort to find items that were affordable and available to everyone but I’m finding this takes a ridiculous amount of time and kind of takes the fun out of it for me. This time I’ve just used items that were promoted by Polyvore, mostly insanely expensive and on other side of the world so sorry about that! Hope you enjoy the styling anyway  :)

Here are the links from Polyvore just in case you are curious about anything but please note that they are not chosen as shopping picks by me: Topshop biker jacket / Leona Edmiston clothing / Uniqlo clothing / Burberry over the knee boots / Verali flat shoes / David jones handbag / Suzywan DELUXE black earrings / Topshop earrings,  / Faux fur shawl / ‘Lia’ Facetted Pod With Metal Tassel OLGA BERG  / Loop Leather Co Madison

How would you style this gorgeous skirt?

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Yay! I’m so happy I managed to get a post together in time for Valentine’s Day! I’ve had this one in mind all week and was beginning to feel worried that I wasn’t going to get a chance to post it! My original idea was to make some large pink watermelon hearts for a berry fruit salad but had to change that as I found I didn’t have a cutter. As a last minute change of plan I made some cute pastel-hued heart confetti from a super tiny heart cutter that I did have. I absolutely love how they turned out, they not only look super cute but are so yummy too.

You will need: Different sorts of fruit (I chose watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew melon but pineapple, kiwi, strawberry or pawpaw would also be great) and a mini heart cookie cutter (aff.) 

I’ve just served it with a melon slices here to be quick and easy but I was thinking that it would be lovely with coconut pancakes, strawberry sorbet, a lime cheesecake, or speckled throughout a popsicle.

What sort of dessert would you choose to decorate with these cute hearts?  Happy Valentine’s Day! xx :)

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