The trick to auctions is patience, and a little luck ofcourse, but mostly patience. I have been waiting for a year for the right verandah table to pop up and finally it did. I ended up paying a little more than I planned but it is solid oak and a perfect fit, and I love the greyed off colour of the wood. It looks all kinds of gorgeous against the black shadowclad walls. 
I bought the seagrass basket as a gift for a friend but I couldn't resist having it on the table for an afternoon. These lovely baskets are from Pond, I may have to pop back and get one for just me. 
All images by Eva of Build House HomeI love auctions, something I inherited from my grandfather apparently, and I love a bargain. I am still bemoaning the ice glass chandelier that got away last year, but this time luck was in my corner. Now all we need is for the right benches to come up too.
Now that Miss J is two its almost time for her to move from her cot to a big girl bed, and perhaps its time to change her room up a little too. I want to keep the white on white neutral base and maybe change up the colour with some art. Love these pieces, not to sweet, not to pink, just right for a small size girl.Star map by Stellavie, available in both Northern & Southern Hemisphere and in black & gold, or white & gold. Lovely. Vintage safari inspired poster prints from Pottery Barn, unfortunately not available at the moment, hopefully they will come back in. I may have a go at making that giraffe myself.
Aren't they all lovely!
Did you notice the little changes in my layout? They are subtle but I like the new look, let me know what you think of it. See if you can spot the differences below.
I just discovered a new blog, Plateful of Love, and I am slightly obsessed with this image of their lounge. Love the little knitted pillow!! And the chairs too.You know I can't resist skulls and horns, and I like the way this table is positioned in the center of the room and used for display. Would love to see the rest of the space.
Plateful of Love | Horn vignette | Table display by Steven Gambrel
Seriously - you can also be the rainbow cake queen. If I can ice that thing believe me you can too. I can bake, a little, Green's cake mix is my fave (oops the secret is out), but icing has always been beyond me. I was determined to do better for Miss J's 2nd birthday rainbow party and the look on her face made all the effort worth it!! Scroll down to get the skinny.
You need lots of time but its not difficult - this cake took me all day to complete
The cakeThis is the easy part. All you need is:- your best sponge cake recipe, or in my case three boxes of Greens Lemon Cake mix- food colouring- cake tins with cutter bar (see this one)
You are going to make three cakes. Split each cake batter in two and add colour.If you have enough cake tins you can make them all at once. I only have two so I have to do three batches.Tips:- make sure the cake tin is well buttered, you want the layers to come out easily.- let the layers cool completely before you try and remove them from the tin.- once cool use a bread knife to trim the top of the cakes so they are reasonably flat. Mine are always a little rounded in the middle.
The assembly and icing techniqueI have always battled with putting the layers together, I needed skewers to stop the layers sliding off each other and my icing always let me down.This time I followed this icing recipe and assembly technique by Rachael from Made from Scratch. I used her butter cream icing and her technique and the results were seriously impressive. One of the nicest icings I have ever made too.
As Rachael says it is all about patience and allowing each layer to cool and set before you use it.It seems like a lot of effort but adding a crumb coat layer by layer, and setting in the fridge in between, creates a really sturdy cake and a brilliant base for your icing. No skewers required!
- I added a little lemon to my icing and left off the poppy seed step.- for this 6 layer cake I needed two batches of icing, it was a huge cake!
OK rainbow cake queens, have fun and let me know how you go. The collective oohing and aahing is going to make all your effort worth while.
Images by Eva of Build House Home
I am having one of those clear out days that usually means I am about to get a cold. I don't know why, my body seems to go into clean over drive just before I get sick. Well at least the house gets a tidy. I have been sorting through the pantry and getting rid of everything that is stale and past its sell date. There is a satisfying row of clean glass storage jars as proof that something has been achieved.
I have also been inspired by the Monday Morning Cooking Club demo to get my recipes in order. Earlier this year I made a family kitchen note book with Blurb, its been a huge success and we have added quite a few new family favourites for the year. Now I am going to copy all the recipes scribbles that I had been storing in a rather sticky plastic folder, sticky because it had stock spilled on it one evening as I looked for a recipe. I have been rediscovering some old favourites like: Norma Flannagan's baked lemon pudding, Laura's famous baklava, Heather's fabulous creme brulee, and my granny's pecan nut ball biscuits. Watch this space you may see some of them featured right here.
We picked our first olive harvest and are finally getting to use our lovely ceramic olive jar from Bendigo Pottery that we were given several years ago. I have never pickled olives before, we will see how it goes. So as usual its busy busy busy at our house, hope you are happy and busy too, have a lovely weekend.
