New Stuff!

Big Cartel & Etsy ---------------------------------------------------------->

And more coming soon!

Gosh. I am so tired!

Goodnight!

B, x.

Recipe Monday

Carbonnade of Beef, aka Beer Stew

I've been eating this recipe my whole life because it comes from one of my Mum's favourite cookbooks, she gave me the recipe a couple of years ago and its become a staple winter fave around here... 

Serves: 6

Cooking time: 2 hours

Ingredients:

1 kg of steak: chuck, round or blade (I think blade is best!)

2 tbs butter

2 large onions, sliced

2 garlic cloves, crushed

2 tbs plain flour

1 cup of beer*

1/4 cup hot water

2 bay leaves

1 1/2 tsp salt

freshly ground black pepper

pinch of nutmeg

3 tbs brown sugar

finely chopped parsley for garnish

Instructions:

Wipe and trim beef. Cut into cubes and brown in butter; remove to a plate. Reduce heat and saute onion until soft, add garlic and cook a little longer. Stir in flour and cook for 2 minutes. Return beef to the pan and pour in beer and water; stir constantly until mixture thickens and just begins to bubble. Add remaining ingredients, cover and simmer for one and a half hours, until beef is tender. Remove bay leaves, season and sprinkle with parsley.

- I add some parboiled baby potatoes to the pan about hour before eating, and I also throw in frozen peas just before it's ready.

* The beer you use matters! I always use VB (Victorian Bitter), which is generally a horribly bitter tasting beer that I don't like, but when mixed with the ingredients, such as brown sugar, it works perfectly. I've tried a lot of different kinds, it seems the fancier you get, the more you have to add later to correct the taste!

Try it!

More recipes at and via amityville boronia.

B.

New bugs and the printing continues...

Just a glimpse of what I've been absorbed in the last little while. I have about 30 new bugs finished, and the house was covered with screen printed fabric panels drying on newspaper on Friday night when I had the place to myself... I got inspired and churned out several pieces of fabric. I feel like I'm starting to understand the process a little better. Thanks for the advice people gave me last week. I've been using permaset, but I think I was using too much, and I think I'll try and thin it out a bit. Lena Corwin refers to printing inks as opposed to paints, in her book and on her blog, but I think I'll have to wait until I go to Sydney next before acquiring it... but things are getting better... I think!

B.

Feeling super dooper inspired...

I've been feeling REALLY inspired the last couple of days. I've found some new blogs to drool over, and to push me forward with what I'm doing. I was starting to feel like I must be the most boring person ever, that I make bugs and talk about bugs, and write about bugs, and am always thinking about my silly bugs... and people must be like "what's with her, what's with the freaking bugs all the time?". But so what, that's what I do. I have a bunch of other half finished projects which are awaiting my attention, and which are not bugs, but for now, bugs are what are occupying me, and I'll go where the creative process takes me.

Anyway, I'll share these awesome finds with you incase you haven't yet stumbled upon them yourself. They are:

Jane Foster, which I found through her Etsy Shop. This is her blog, but she also has a really fantastic website, with the sweetest graphics. Oh, and this is her Big Cartel Shop!

This is what she does, screen prints and fabric things, I love these cats.

They are adorable.

A Little Hut is another blog which I'm loving. It's full of simple and beautiful paper products. She has just written a book and I'm busting to have a look at her projects.

This is some wrapping paper she made with her children using markers and crayons on butcher's paper.

I've also been reading the new Lotta Jansdotter book Simple Sewing for Baby, which might sound strange since I have no baby, but the designs are really inspiring and seriously simple, and the printing and fabric are amazing. I'm loving the way that she has used attractive, simple patterns that aren't too gender specific, and I'm rethinking me designs based on this. I'm thinking about the way most of my toys are girls, and how that goes against what I believe in in many ways, I think it's wrong to be getting into serious gender stereotypes with little kids and their objects, and although I love my little creations, I'm going to try and be a little less girly with them if I can.

And Lena Corwin's Printing By Hand has become like my bible. I'm reading it before bed and making little doodles in my notebook in the middle of the night when I wake up with an idea in my head. I'm learning about screen printing, and it's working well with my addiction to Illustrator... I'm not if I'm mentioned it, but I have the capacity to sit and draw new designs and illustrations for hours on end if left unchecked, and now that Joe and I figuring out how to use photo emulsion, well it's all coming along quite well.

Hope these sites/books inspire you too!

B.

Something new!

I call her Crystabelle and I love her, and her fabric which I bought yesterday... but I've run out of polyfil this afternoon, so she will have to wait for until tomorrow to gain some shape... I couldn't resist sharing her right now though!

Hope you like her too!

B. x.

Winter blues...

Oh my goodness. Winter is here. It has been soooooooo cold the past 3 days that I've had the heater on during the day, I've had all the doors in the flat closed up to retain any small amount of heat and I've been eating soup, and drinking loads of coffee and tea to try and keep warm, its truly miserable... but somehow sunny, that biting, chilly, windy kind of sunny. Times like these prove yet again that its awesome to have a sweet little cat to cuddle up to, he sleeps on my feet at night and nestles up to me during the day. I think we're soulmates!

B.

My Creative Space

I'm back! I forgot about this fun post last week... which is a shame, cause it's one of my favourites... I like snooping around and looking at everyone's pictures, and everyone had hearts hidden in their theirs last week... I would have liked to join in on that!

Ok, so this is what's happening around here this week, or today at least! This is my ironing board, and it's the centre of the bug production process right now... I make the bodies, the heads, the faces, the hands then the antennae, and then I piece them all together and give them a back piece. I'm up to the most exciting and tantalising part of the game, which is piecing them, then sewing them, then pulling them out the right way, and seeing a new little bug come to life... I get all ahead of myself here, and go from controlled adherer to a simple production line, to a giddy person who throws order out the window, and has some bugs stuffed and tagged, whilst others wait patiently for their peripheral organs or limbs...

I've also just finished sewing and stuffing a batch of small toys all made from the pattern I used to make Gordon. This little mouse is amongst my favourites from this June batch, as they've become known.

And the chronicle of the printing continues... we're fumbling around with photo emulsion, and whilst things still aren't perfect, they seem to be getting better with every attempt. We're looking for some better fabric paint, our local art store only stocks one brand, and we think it's a little gluggy... any suggestions from printing enthusiasts would be seriously listened to and appreciated... so please pretty please... ANY ADVICE? or even links to good sites/tutorials and I'll love you forever and forever!

And, yes, all my creations are very much into the Eels (the band), they are bliss!

All this plus the entire first season of Mad Men on DVD are going to be making for a seriously intense creative space over the next couple of days!

More spaces at Kootoyoo.

Cheers,

B.