Time to announce winners of the last few giveaways.
BIG CONGRATULATIONS GOES TO…
Thanks ladies, I’ll send you an email 🙂
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Not sure where this crush started – I think the grey/white doona cover below may have had something to do with it. I’m going to follow Bec’s Quilt 101 tutorials and create my own for the bed. We’ve been thinking about our new house, I want to include some chevron somewhere…Love love love the zig-zag…
You like?
(All image sources – and more chevron images – can be found on my Chevron Pinterest Board.)
I know that you are going to LOVE this week’s Cool Shop – Vegie Smugglers…
Wendy Blume is the extremely talented author of Vegie Smugglers – a self-published cookbook aimed toward busy families who still want to eat a healthy, balanced diet. Like most Aussie Mums, Wendy found it a daily struggle in the kitchen trying to come up with healthy meals that would satisfy her two fussy eaters. Out of her desperation – and I’m sure after hearing many other Mothers complaining about the same problem – Vegie Smugglers was born.
Not only did Wendy come up with 60 + delicious recipes to feed your family, she was also responsible for the photography and graphic design of this beautifully presented book. What a clever Mum! Vegie Smugglers is bright and colourful, filled with gorgeous mouth-watering photographs – in this case, self-published does not mean tacky. The book is top quality.
I own a heap of cookbooks, but for the majority of them there are only a handful of recipes that I might actually cook. When I first received a copy of Vegie Smugglers I flicked through it and gave pretty much every recipe the “thumbs up” – not just for me, but I also thought that I could coax my children into trying most of them too. (In our house, the “trying” part is always the hardest, once they’ve had a taste usually they like it!)
Vegie Smugglers is broken up into convenient sections from quick dinner fixes to freezable meals to sweet treats.
The introduction of the book includes handy information about the nutritional components of vegetables (see picture below) and essential kitchen tools and skills.
I love the thoughtful details that Wendy has incorporated into her book – a “Rate It” and “Comments” section for you to jot down your thoughts or perhaps variations for next time. She also includes a “For the Adults” variation for each recipe – a simple extra addition to make the meal a little more special for the adults you are feeding. I have friends who cook two dinners a night – one for the kids and one for the parents, a waste of time and energy to me, so it’s good to have recipes on hand that will please everyone.
In short, this book gets the big tick of approval from me! We have tried a few recipes so far (although none of them have been photographed because I never seem to have time to pull out the camera during that busy evening meal time!) and they have all been delicious. Next up, I’m looking foward to trying the Beetroot Tzatziki – it looks delicious and I have some fresh beetroot waiting to be used up. Vegie Smugglers retails at $24.95 and can be purchased here. (Word on the street is that Vegie Smugglers 2 is in the making – go Wendy!)
Wendy is genrously giving one lucky Make It Perfect reader a chance to win a free copy of Vegie Smugglers! Simply “like” Vegie Smugglers on Facebook and leave a comment on this post.
(Winner will be randomly chosen on Sunday 12th June.)
Important Vegie Smugglers Links:
Back in the day, before I was consumed with my sewing hobby, I dabbled a bit in scrapbooking. I remember looking at double sided papers back then and thinking to myself that it was such a silly idea, because you would only see one side of the paper in a scrapbook layout anyway. My thoughts about double-sided paper have since subsided, now I think they rock.
Presenting last night’s work of art – Pinwheel Canvas…
Double-sided paper was awesome because it meant that I didn’t have to worry about sticking two single-sided pieces together, making for a very quick and easy Saturday night craft 🙂
It was fun. I bought a massive canvas last year, wanting to make an art display similar to this for a blank wall in the kids bedroom. I still love the idea and want to do it sometime, but pinwheels have been calling my name for quite awhile now and after being inspired by Sam’s Butterfly Canvas I could picture a bright and colour pinwheel wall art being made in a similar way.
I really love how it turned out, even more so the next morning (things always look/seem better the next day, don’t they?!) and it will definitley inject a bright punch of colour into their bedroom.
A few specifications for people who want to make something similar themselves…
Making pinwheels is really, really easy – just google for a tutorial if you aren’t sure. If you use double-sided paper, it is much faster. You can stick two pieces of printed paper back to back using some glue or spray adhesive if you want to though.
I cut my squares for the pinwheels at 11cm x 11cm. My canvas size was 90cm x 60cm. I made 28 pinwheels.
I used a random selection of brads from my old scrapbooking supplies for the center of each pinwheel then arranged them on the canvas and stuck them down with a hot glue gun. (Make sure they are in the correct position before sticking them down, it is really hard to pull them off once the glue is set and makes a mess of your canvas…ask me how I know…)
In hindsight, I’m wondering if it may have looked better if all of the pinwheels were sitting in random directions rather than all uniformly lined up like mine are – I did pull a couple off and play around with the direction but it lifted the white coating off the canvas and was going to be very messy so I stopped (- now you know how I know…)
Anyway, I’m loving it and it was a nice change from the crazy sewing of samples that I have been making of late to take to the Craft and Quilt Fair in Sydney. I think making a similar canvas using all the one colour or even all of the one paper would look striking too – how many pinwheel canvases can one house have?!
P.S. The market in Ulverstone on Friday night was great – such an impressive turn out, lovely to meet lots of new faces and although I was there with Citrus Pop, it was fun to talk sewing for a lot of the night too!
A heads up for the Northern Tassie folk out there…
My lovely friend Aimee from Greentree Goods let me know of a handmade market being held tomorrow (Friday) night in Ulverstone.
I made a last minute decision to take my Citrus Pop products along and set up a stall, so if you are looking for something fun to fill your evening with, come along and have a look – markets are fun, I wish there were more around here 🙂
(P.S. Because I don’t have to worry about selling fees, most of my products will be selling for cheaper than they are online!)
