Cupcakes for Charity 2011 - February

February

This month I made Blueberry Vanilla Cupcakes to raise money for The Australian Marine Wildlife Research and Rescue Organisation. I used my stock standard Magnolia Bakery vanilla cupcake recipe, and added in dried blueberries. The frosting was vanilla butter cream, and the cakes were topped with a fish shaped lolly and rainbow sprinkles.

Australian Marine Wildlife Research & Rescue Organisation (AMWRRO) provide marine wildlife services to South Australian sea and estuary waters. They work to save sea birds, dolphins, seals, turtles amongst many animals. I love being a fan of them on Facebook as they update with happy rescue stories now and then.

Trip to Melbourne - Instagram Pics

Here is a small snapshot of my time in Melbourne in Instagram pictures. I wish I lived there, Melbourne is full of awesome...

We're going on a trip!

Isn't he cute in this pic? He is really a very mischievous cat, our toes and hands are covered with scratches and bite marks. Loki likes to attack us through the gaps in the stairs. All good fun really, but I do think owning a new kitten is preparing us for children, it is a lot of work. You can really see the long hair on the tips of his ears in this photo, Darren says they are like devil horns! He is growing really fast, and has a ravenous appetite.

I am pretty excited at the moment, because this week I am off to Melbourne with this crazy bunch - Kelly, Joel, and my Darren- to see Iron Maiden!
Hehe, I love these photos so much! Kelly had a Puri Kura themed Birthday last weekend, and did an awesome job of making her own photo booth for the occasion.

I am looking forward to going to Melbourne, because it is an awesome city to explore, with plenty to see and do, much more than Adelaide anyway. I really love the Queen Victoria markets for the awesome foods, especially breakfast pizzas! nom nom nom.

I'll be sure to blog about it when I get back, and will blog about February's Cupcakes for Charity too. Hope you all have a great week.

P.s sorry for the weird look of the blog at the moment, playing around with design and getting photos bigger etc. Hopefully it will look prettier soon!

Happy Walentines Day!

Darren and I are not a particularly romantic couple. We really don't "do" Valentines Day. That being said, I don't mind the holiday for its lovely colour scheme, I have had a thing for the pink and red colour combo for years. We didn't grow up with Valentines Day as a popular holiday like it is now. I first learnt about it in Primary school, when I read an American book with characters that were dinosaurs who went to school, and a triceratops girl was giving handmade Valentines Day cards out to her classmates... yeah...

So anyway, I participated in a Valentines Day swap hosted by Beck from Strumpets Crumpets and Amber from Hoot-n-Annie.

I haven't received my parcel yet, and my partner - Alexandra from Russia hasn't received hers yet, but I thought I would share what I made despite our non-arrivals! I emailed Alexandra not to look at my blog yet!

I had been scouring the internet for some inspirado for my craft, and came across this cute tutorial on Make It Do. I didn't really follow the tutorial as such, winging my own version of it. I had lots of fun making pom poms, something I haven't done for years! I made the heart so it could be worn as a brooch, or hung like an ornament.

Tonight, I whipped up a quick Valentines garland, Darren bought us salt and pepper squid which we ate while watching Fantasia (a childhood favourite of mine), which was really sweet of him! So I guess we did "do" Valentines day this year!

Lastly I'll leave you with a video that I saw recently that melted my heart, I mean it has cake in it! If you haven't already seen it, please do watch it, I promise you will smile!

diy valentine's cakes from tiger in a jar on Vimeo.

Go look at Google!

Today is Jules Vernes Birthday. Google is honouring him by making the Google Banner a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea inspired interactive feature for the day. Go check it out, I spent at about 1/2 hour playing with it, and it totally made my day!

Today is also my friend Kimmy's Birthday. Happy Birthday Kimmy! <3 xox

I've also discovered Pinterest, I can see it's going to be a big time waster, but might be a good way for me to 'bookmark' pages that inspire me! Add me if you are on it too!

My Swap with Holly

Last year I organised to do a crafty swap with a girl whos blog I have admired and followed for a long time, Holly, from Hollyrocks. She is a very sweet genuine, down to earth girl, who is also very talented with making beautiful things. I have admired all the things in her Etsy store, wishing to buy everything.

Our packages both arrived just in time on Christmas Eve, which was such a nice early Christmas surprise for both of us. I had so much fun opening up the box Holly sent me, there was just so much inside!

Everything Holly made me was very personalised, she used my favourite colours, and I loved her designs for me. This earring and clip set has been worn so much since I got it, everyone compliments me when I wear them. They are so well made too, not even the slightest fingerprint is left on the clay, which just amazes me.

I had been wanting some cupcake ornaments from Holly for such a long time, to put on my little pink Christmas tree, and really, hanging these cute little cupcakes on my tree on Christmas eve, it felt like it was finally complete, and made the day really special.
In the package I was also sent a San Fransisco Oven mitt, pink polymer clay buttons, some shells from Mexico for my sister (so thoughtful!), and some peppermint candy, which I gobbled up it was so tasty!

I made Holly a personalised tote bag, amongst other things, head over to her blog post about our swap to check out what I sent to her.
Go check out her Etsy store too, so many awesome things in there!



Thank you Holly for being such an awesome swap partner!

My latest Hero.

This is my latest hero. Jules Verne.

When I was locked away in my sewing room for a solid week of mad making of presents the week before Christmas I listened to a lot of music and I also listened to audiobooks. I like listening to stories while creating, it just seems to go really well together.

I had been wanting to try out audiobooks for ages, but never really wanted to pay for them, total stinge I know. One night when mucking around on iTunes on my iphone I discovered iTunesU, under literature there were tonnes of classic literature, under 'Lit2Go', for FREE!!!

After visiting Tokyo DisneySea I had really wanted to read Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, as they were the two main rides of the park, and were SO cool.

I listened to Journey to the Centre of the Earth first, and wow, I was enraptured by every single word, the whole adventure was extremely thrilling, I think it helped that the narrator was very good at what he does, he really brought the characters to life, and was really good at building suspense and excitement.

I am now listening to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and it is equally as wonderful. Next in line, Around the World in 80 Days! Jules Verne really knew how to create an adventure and I love all the science and nature entwined in the tales. I liked him even more when I discovered he was a cat lover.

I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through. ~Jules Verne

When I was doing research on Jules Verne, I came across works by artist Jim Tierney who for his thesis in illustration designed covers for 4 classic Jules Verne Novels...

Seriously, how cool are they!? Each book has interactive covers, which you can discover more about here, there is an awesome video on how the books work. Sadly, these books are a one off, which really makes me dismayed as I would dearly love to own this set, the design, right down to the print is impeccable.

When I did a big order of Threadless T-shirts in their mega sale before Christmas, I got this t-shirt, as it reminded me of the adventurous stories I had been lost in recently:

It seriously is the best t-shirt, I wear it all the time. I also got Darren Zombie t-shirts, this one, and this one. And a couple of cool designs for my sister, here and here. I really could spend loads of money on Threadless, the t-shirts are such good quality too, the fabric feels so nice.