Friday, June 24, 2011

birthday wishes

Some cards my sister made after the workshop we went to since it inspired further craftiness from her :)



She dropped that orange piece under the table and I had to go retrieve it! >.<

I also picked this up around two weeks ago at Regent Place, it's one of those free publications you can get but this edition was really cool because it was about chocolate e.g. places to go to; chocolate and fashion; recipes; spa treatments; interesting facts and other non-chocolate stuff. On the front was a chocolate scratch-n-sniff panel, lol!!It's in both English and Chinese.


P.S. Please don't scratch your screen ;)

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

a. oryzae (Moyashimon)


image from wiki
 A friend of mine who was in her university's anime club really likes an anime called Moyashimon. I've watched the live Japanese drama version and it's quite cute. The first few episodes I found hilarious and it kept me watching, but by the end you could tell you really need to read the manga to get the full story and the drama was just made for the fans. The episodes themselves were only around 25 minutes long, similar to an anime episode.

The basic story is about a guy (Sawaki Tadayasu) entering an agricultural university and he has the ability to see and communicate with microbes. Always hanging around him are the cute a. oryzae who are yeast microbes fermented in his parent's yeast shop. He works in the lab of his grandfather's friend and meets some of the other characters through that lecture.

Caught by the professor!
This is how the world looks to Sawaki.
Sawaki's kouji
 The show is pretty educational too!
Sawaki interacting with microbes

My drawing of the a. oryzae
 I first drew the image with pencil and outlined it with a pen for stamps. The problem with this is that the rubber will cause the ink to streak. Not thinking properly, I also applied a water based spray to the image and ruined it as the ink began to run T_T.


Paper: Yellow is Bouquet Flowers Decor and Pink is Bouquest Words from heidi grace. The orginal Moyashimon uses paper from the grace taylor (contempo collection). Mouth is made from glimmery paper.
White rub-ons and pink rhinestones and pearls
Paper punches

The original drawing I used  the a. oryaze picture from the character list at bleachwiki. I drew it myself instead of tracing it (which is what I usually do), though it was quite an easy design XD.


Moyashimon Official Site
Moyashimon Anime is subbed by: BSSubs.net
Moyashimon Drama is subbed by: Horrible Subs

he's right at home with the miso!!! ^^

Monday, June 20, 2011

lemon meringue tarts and cinnamon cookies ^^

Did some cooking over the weekend!

First I tried to make lemon meringue tarts, I cheated a bit here and used pastry tart cases I already bought. They were popped into the oven for about 10 minutes and then I filled them with a lemon curd. I whipped up a meringue to put on top.


This is the lemon curd I received from the preserves cooking class I attended. It should be used within a month or so!


The meringue was two egg whites and almost 100g caster sugar. I had a meringue recipe which was 2 egg whites and 100g sugar and then a lemon meringue recipe which was two egg whites and 1 teaspoon of sugar, but since I measured it out already I ended up using more sugar. hough I've been informed that the higher sugar content would be for the hard meringues, besides, the lemon would probably give off some flavour anyway!

meringue in the used tart cases
When I baked the meringue by itself, they expanded like a souffle but lost their air quite quickly.

Lemon curd recipe from Taste.com.au

~~~

I also made some soft biscuits called Snickerdoodles, which according to my book Cookies Galore (Bellefontaine, J.) are "a soft traditional cookie, with a funny name, originating from 19th-century New England."

before being baked


I ended up using the recipe from BBC (Australian) Good Food (August 2010 issue) instead because it used 100g of butter which was easier to separate from the block!

Snickerdoodles:


100 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cups (150g)  caster sugar 
1 egg
1 1/2 cups (225g) plain flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

Coating:
2 tablespoons caster sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven: 200 degrees celcius or 180 degrees celcius fan
  1. Beat the flour and sugar together till light and fluffy
  2. Beat in the egg
  3. Sift in the flour, salt, baking powder and mix well
  4. Roll dough into walnut sized balls and coat in the cinnamon/sugar mix, also flatten them slightly
  5. Bake 8-10 minutes till firm, cool for 5 minutes on the tray


Might have rolled them a bit too big, as it said 'walnut-sized' but they still taste nice! It's suppposed to make around 30 though I probably made around 20!

Friday, June 17, 2011

please do not eat the cupcake!

A friend of mine just flew back home to have a break and as she would be away during her birthday I thought I'd better get a present organised before she left!


As we're both getting into the baking scene, I made her a cupcake card. This card was actually inspired by another card I made at a Stampin' Up demonstration where it was a flowerpot full of flowers.

First I made the pot by tracing it on cardboard, glued that together and used it as a template to trace the cupcake (remembering to add a little tab at the top to support the cherry button). The first cupcake didn't seem to fit right, so I cut it down and it looked worse so I remade the cupcake part! I think the problem, was that the cupcake case wasn't even on both sides and I must have slipped it in the wrong way! I ended up covering both sides of the case so I put my 'handmade by...' stamp on the back of the cupcake and squeezed in a message on the front XD





This was a pretty fun card to make so I think I'll make it again, even though I normally like to make new styles but there can be a lot of versatility with the patterns chosen!

Items:
  • Scrapbooking paper
  • Button - I bought this in a button pack from Aldi's though I've seen similar ones in Lincraft
  • Stamps - Flower stamp (no brand)
And here's some more cupcake goodness ^_^

wrapping paper from Hot Dollar
gift bag from Big W (around $2)
 I also received some books I ordered recently which is exciting ^^

Origami Jewelry
Ayako Brodek


I've wanted to get this book for a while, just because the idea of origami jewellry sounds fun XD. I have attempted paper cranes in the past with nice washi paper but didn't get to the conversion into an earring part!! The front of the book talks about how to keep the piece together, using a varnish/coat on top and also basic origami folds to get you started. Some designs inside don't look like something I'd wear like the crab and sunburst brooch but many of them are very cute and colour-coordinated pieces which I'd like to try out. A lot of them are made into a brooch and earrings. And another thing to remember is that it is usually hard to imitate books exactly without the original paper used by the author, but with so many pretty designs on the market, it's really up to you to creae your own unique twist!

Korean Cuisine

Young Sook Choi


I wanted to buy a Korean cookbook and this was the one which I decided on after going through many of the Amazon reviews, although I'm planning to get another one at a later date. After purchasing it I realised it's a few years old, printed in 2001 and you can sort of tell by the layout. I haven't made anything from it yet but there seems to be a good amount of recipes. The beginning goes through basic ingredients and sauces used in Korean cooking, my sister was browsing through it and seems like one of the sauce ingredients was a few spoons of Coca Cola, I'll have to check up on that XD. There is also a nice (yummy-looking) section on Korean BBQ! The book is actually in both English and Traditional Chinese which is pretty cool, though not sure why the Chinese is there...

~~~


I also went to see the trains for the Sydney Steam Weekend on Queen's Birthday. I didn't ride the steam train which is a shame but it was impressive to see the display train belting out steam and then chugging away back to its home in Thirlmere.

The steam train on display is maintained by the Powerhouse Museum and there were chances to visit the different carriages as well as try your hand at shovelling coal.The steam train ride is around an hour and is a round trip from Central to Clyde. I was around when the last trip of the day left and the tickets were probably sold out by half an hour beforehand from my guess.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

drums and shakers

Last week at the Powerhouse Museum, there was a African Drumming session for the kids as well as a farewell party for Zoe's House, which is closing due to the museum's incoming Love Lace exhibition as well as the current revitalisation. But looking ahead, they will have the Wiggles exhibition to look forward to at the end of September.

The session itself involved two performers that the kids could drum along with, as there were drums placed in front of each seat as well as an activity to create their own shakers to take home. With the echoes of the drums still reverberating throughout the museum, everyone headed over to the table for some cake and drinks and then over to Zoe's House to say goodbye.




Here's the shaker I made with mung beans and rice! :)




I also went to see the ice polar bear at Circular Quay I heard about on the radio.


You can donate to the cause regarding the plight of polar bears and global warming on the website.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

butterfly dancing

Craft

Made a few changes to the flower card I made a few days ago as I thought it was missing something! I realise I did actually make it incorrectly according to the instructions, you're supposed to cut strips from the card (that are next to each other) at different lengths so that the "flower garden" looks a lot fuller.

I added two butterfly stickers, these are made for cardmaking so have a clear backing and they're really nice!!

 

I added a tinkerbell sticker to the bottom, it's hard to spot!


Also found a cute quote online to add as a P.S.



Some cooking adventures!
Made some M&Ms cookies for the birthday girl. I substituted half the M&Ms with choc chips because (1) I wanted to eat the M&Ms and (2) thought I might as well finish the pack of choc chips! Tip: If you're using crispy M&Ms, the chocolates will stick to your teeth if you eat the cookies hot!

I also made some Coca Cola flavoured jelly, as Aeroplane Jelly have a new product where instead of just cold water, you use 200ml of a soft drink or fruit juice, and I had a spare mini Coke can which was just the right size! :)




Nom nom spotting for the day ^^

Cargo bar/lounge.


Azuma Pâtisserie.

 strawberry layer; chocolate mousse
 green tea latte
white hot chocolate

Ton Ton.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

flower garden card and some new craft items

Cool way to view the blog ^^ http://garmidesign.blogspot.com/view/sidebar

It's been a very long time but I finally made some cards, I made a cupcake card which I'll post about next week ^^ and I also made a flower card! The idea came from one of the new books I bought called Paper Pop Up (Dorothy Wood). This is one of the cards where the inside is the main attraction.

I really love that stamp in the top left corner!! I'm going to write the message around the edge, usually don't make cards where the inside is so elaborate!!

I have to say, I'm a bit sick of cutting out flowers at the moment, I cut out around 6 and only used 3 because the original flowers were too big and then I chose some that were too small >.<

(outside)

The card took a lot of cutting and glueing, so not sure when I'll re-attempt it, I'll see what ideas I can think of using the pop-up strips like that.

Items used:
  • Paper: Fiskars 'heidi grace designs' Garden Flowers Decor
  • Stamps: Black flourish from grace taylor 1242 fancy corner; daisy with sentiments from kaiserscrapbook CS701 Flowers; small flowers from packs from Paper Xtra and SandyLion
  • Ink: Versa Color 24 Opera Pink; Bazzinks black; Dew Drop Brilliance Pearlescent sky blue & orchid & thyme
  • Also some rhinestones and foam stickers

Craft shopping ;)

The week's just started and I've already gone shopping *sigh* but the good thing is I finished buying some birthday gifts for some upcoming events :) but onto the craftiness and cookingness!

Some more paper tape "washi tape", they still had the same designs I bought previously.


Ribbon lace - on sale from Riot!


Scrapbook paper (29c each at Riot!, and some of these were double-sided too!) The two on the right have non-straight edges.


From Big W, I bought this set of plain coloured cards, they were $5 down from $15 for a damaged box and I checked that all the cards were still there =D although some of the envelopes had little creases!


Some green string, good for tying gifts and also Chinese knotting.

Cake decorator


Nori (seaweed puncher) - I've been looking for one of these!!! ^^ although I actually only noticed this because it was on the wrong hook


And here are some bikkies that my aunt brought from Disneyland for us!~