Pen pal day

June first is apparently international pen pal day. I've been writing letters on and off for years and they are more than often a lot different to how I write up a post for a blog. I love sending long 'chatty' letters and often include little sketches in the lines to make them fun. The letters I receive are always interesting to read. I have a long time pal from Mexico and most of the letters I receive internationally are from America. I love reading about how folks live across the pond and having a peek in their lives, it is so different from blogging.

It is said letter writing is a lost art, but there are still many who keep the art alive and well. Here are a few groups to find pals that I also use:

Postal society Facebook

Sendsomething.net 

I'm always open for more pals so you can email me at vintagepapery@gmail.com to exchange snail mail addresses.

Yes mailing can be expensive but if you keep your letter flat and 'letter' size you won't be charged parcel rate.  In australia letters are about $1.00 and over seas mail is up to $3. For less than five dollars you can find out what another person is doing with their life and cheer up someone when you send them something. There's not many places these days where you can have a lot of fun for less than $5. I'm planning to use June to write a letter a day, I should start with the mail I have to do some catching up.

Get writing and have fun! 

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Sunlight & shadows

 We had frost on the ground this morning but the day is fair and if you can find a place to sit in the sun, it is a nice day. All the windows are open and we're airing the house out while the good day is warm enough to do so. It's still cool enough in the wind though not as cold as it has been. Our winter has really arrived.

A while back, our lady hairdresser who works from her home gifted us mandarins. This bowl has been brightening up the kitchen and they are really nice tasting. 

I've saved a few of the seeds to see if they will grow and I'll plant them out after winter. I also been saving the citrus skins of the mandarines, oranges, and lemons for potpourri. I dried out orange and lemon rings too to decorate potpourri.

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Classic Shepherd’s Pie

Classic  Shepherd’s Pie

Ingredients:

Olive oil

Onion halved and finely chopped

Carrot peeled and finely chopped

Celery sticks trimmed and finely chopped

Beef stock

Beef mince

Plain flour

(we also add a frozen mix packet of carrot, peas and corn)

Method:

Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat add onion, carrot and celery. Cook stirring until soft. Add mince and cook, stirring to break up any lumps.

Add flour with beef stock and cook mixture until combined. Bring to boil then reduce heat to low and cook. Stir occasionally or until mixture thickens.

Cook potato in saucepan and boil until tender. Drain well. Add butter and milk and mash until smooth.

Preheat oven to 200 C. Spoon mixture into ovenproof baking dish and top with mashed potato. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until mashed potato is golden brown. 

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Little Things

Winter has arrived and the days have been cold, wet, and windy. It is a good time to stay indoors when possible. My garden is loving the rain. 

Meanwhile I have been doing some mix media painting. I'm on a Folk Art style at the moment and using up scrap supplies. I used up alphabet letters I have and had to cut some down and rearrange the letters to make the letters I didn't have. The word 'little' uses L's for T's and F's for the E. 

The video below shows how I go about creating the art.

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

House keeping

I've  been doing  house keeping on my blog. I cleaned up links and added links that needed to be updated. I made the blog look more simple and cleaner. It's not perfect but it'll do. This will hopefully motivate me to post a little more often and comment around again too. 

Here is a recipe for Citrus and Rose-Scented Potpourri

Dried Scented Rose petals

Lavender

Lemon Balm

Dried grated rind of 2 large lemons

1 tsp ground allspice

1 tsp ground orris root

1 container

Method:

Mix the flowers and herbs together in an airtight container add the lemon rind and leave for 2-3 days. Add spices and orris root, stir well and leave for 6 weeks stirring occasionally.

Lavender and Lemon Balm are good insect repellents, so this will also be useful in sachets among linen. 

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Winter Winds

Winter has arrived with a cold blast. We had heavy rain the last couple of days and it has cleared up with winds to keep the temperatures down. Just before May ended we took a brief trip up to Hervey Bay and on the way back we had breakfast at the Rusty Ute Cafe in Woolooga. The cafe has a vintage retro vibe and it's well worth the stop if you are passing through.

With Winter about the trusty slow cooker is out making nice comfort food to keep warm.  Nothing is as easy to do as stew in the slow cooker. There is really not much you have to do with a slow cooker and it is worth the investment.

While my plants are enjoying the rain, not so much the cold, I am in doors working on a few projects it's a good time to work on them.

I hope everyone is warm and dry. We are going to have a wet winter I think.

Have a good day or evening where ever you are.

Winter signs

We had some really lovely weather, and the change of the season into winter had to come with heavy rains. It's a very over cast, grey day at the moment all the signs that autumn is ending to bring in winter. Looks like we are going to have a wet and windy winter.

With the rain and cold coming in it's good time to start pursuing some new skills. I attended the Toowoomba simple living workshop on Tunisian Crochet, or Afghan Crochet. It makes a very simple stitch and works up quickly. Our worship co-ordinator, Margy's husband made the hooks for us to buy. 

 

I've also been out and about, driving. My first trip was out to Bunnings for the garden. I won't talk about how I got lost....but at least I managed to park the car fairly straight in the carpark.

At home, I've been doing a few crafts. I brought some very cheap face washers to add some crochet edging to. Cheap face washers usually don't feel nice at first but they wash up okay. I'm thinking of adding a crochet one to make them a little more fancier gift. I'm also still working on the baby quilt, more to come about that soon. 

Meanwhile I'm on another learning curve with a new computer given to me by my sister. It's an Apple Mac and very different to Windows.  The hard part is figuring out the new way to edit photos and making movies as everything is so different. I'll figure it out eventually. I'm sure my posted photos will look a bit weird until I get the hang of things.

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Autumn Orange

It was a cooler morning this morning and still slightly over cast. I've been painting of late but the truth is I'm not feeling it. I'm in a bit of a artist block and it doesn't help I can't seem to find a subject and style I like. I'll paint through the block and hopefully something will come of it. I did an art journal page cutting up a piece of art I did at art class and rearranged the image then added in a scripture quote I thought fitted. 

As you can see I was inspired by my pot marigolds. This is mixed media on paper. The scripture is Isaiah 40:8 - The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. 

At home, I've also been cutting up and using some pumpkins Dad grew in his garden. I'm saving the seeds to start my own. If you have this Queensland blue pumpkin type growing at home and using it for mash Mum told me to add some sugar into it before you mash to sweeten the taste of it. 

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Marigolds, Mint, and Petunias

My favorite season has arrived...Autumn. The mornings have been starting off very foggy but the fog soon lifts for a nice crisp, clear day. The nights have been a bit chilly yet still warm. At home, I've been pottering around fixing up my small garden. 

Dad gave me some herb cuttings from his garden and my aunt who lives across the road gave me a lot of pots to work with. I now have a beginnings of my own garden. Hopefully I can keep every thing alive, I don't have the best talent with gardening. As always you will know I'll keep my garden frugal too and will share ideas.

My favorite place now is garden places and Bunnings garden section. My aunt and I went for a drive out to Bunnings after Mother's Day and they did have some plants on sale. I came home with Marigolds and Petunias. 

I also started off some late flowering seeds of a cottage mix variety. I'll see how they will go, I may have planted them out too late. The back of the pack did say Autumn and they are growing so with a bit of luck I might have a few pretty flowers to show later. 

Another thing I have been doing is I reopened my Youtube channel: My Channel 

at some point I will rename it to match my blog. There will be a few different kinds of videos to match the content of my blog: Art, Sewing, Craft, Gardening, Snail Mail, Simple living, and so on. I'll post video's here too from the channel to save going in to look at the channel.. I'll be doing a mix of voice and music videos. I don't have the best quality voice for speaking, add painfully shy into the mix and hearing me is just hard for everyone including me, but I'm going to give it a try. 

Hopefully my voice is not too painful to listen too.

On this Youtube video I'm talking about the baby quilt I'm making. 

The technique is using Crayon Tinting. And the Images come from Q is for Quilter I used the links from her children's book category. The book is favourite paint book - Little girls

More about Crayon Tinting. 

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Home Life

The weather has turned and you can tell Autumn is in the air. Although we have been having some warm days and it's nice to sit in the sun. I've been painting too, I attend an art society and it's a nice social gathering to go to and talk about art.

At home I've been pottering around. Shepherds pie was made and roast dinners too. I'll give a recipe for the Shepherds pie soon enough. I've also been working on another baby quilt to give There will be some instructions for that as well. I was sitting outside enjoying the sun while embroidering the squares for the quilt. As you know, I like frugal so these quilt squares are done on an old sheet and the sweet children images are printed off the web. The embroidery thread is about 60c each and this goes far when you are using one strand of thread. It'll cost me nothing much to make, just a little time to do. These type of things are slow as you know.

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Baked Rice Pudding

Baked Rice Pudding

Ingredients 

2 cups milk

300 ml cream

½ cup of grain rice

1 cinnamon stick

1 vanilla bean split, seeds scraped

Pinch of ground nutmeg to sprinkle on top

2 egg yolks.

Method

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Combine milk, cream, rice, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla bean and seeds, nutmeg in medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes or until it reaches a simmer. Remove from heat and set aside for 15 minutes to infuse.

Remove and discard the cinnamon stick and vanilla bean. Add egg yolks and stir to combine.

                           

Pre-cook rice mixture by boiling until the rice is done. Drain well.

Pour rice mixture into 4 cup capacity ovenproof dish. Sprinkle with extra nutmeg. Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes until brown on top and the ‘custard’ is well set. Remove from oven and set aside for 10 minutes before serving warm.

We serve ours up with hot custard and cooked prunes.

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Scented box

Scented fabric lined box

Materials:

Craft box or recycled box of choice.

Fabric.

Potpourri of choice.

Thin cardboard. Use recycled board from cereal boxes.

Thin fabric batting. Old tea towel or dishcloth will work for batting. I used an old flannel blanket.

Craft glue suitable for material.

Optional: Memento Ink color of choice.

Method:

To begin trace the box shape inside onto paper for your template.

From the template cut one from thin cardboard. 

Using the template trace around on batting and fabric leaving enough to turn in the fabric around the cardboard.

Glue your batting to the cardboard. Snip in around the edges to smooth out the turning if your box is shaped. If it is square or rectangle simple turn in the edges paying attention to miter the corners without bulk. (Cut across the corner and turn in the edges to give a mired look).

Take your fabric and with wrong side facing the batting, glue into place, first add a a thin line of glue to the batting and then glue the fabric to the back by turning the edges of the fabric towards the back of the thin cardboard. Be sure to leave a gap to fill with potpourri.

To fill the shape, a bowl and spoon will be helpful. A funnel will also help but I didn't end up using mine. Spoon in the potpourri to fill the shape. Don’t over stuff. Keep the filling thin but padded. Fold over the opening towards the back of the cardboard and glue into place.

If preferred you can ink the edges of the fabric. I used Memento Ink in Lady Bug.

Cover the back of the thin cardboard with glue and glue into place. Press down around the edges and in the center to make sure the cardboard adheres well to the bottom of the box.

Your scented box is now ready to hold any items you like. 

Useful Links: 

Introduction to Potpourri. 

Cottage Potpourri.

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

out and about

We've been having some really lovely weather of late with the turn of Autumn here at home. The nights are cooler and so are the days. There's been some rain too. It's the type of weather to be pulling out the slow cooker for stews. 

I've been out and about of late. I recently joined up as a member of the Toowoomba Art Society and I go with my niece. We do two days a week attending life drawing and 'come and paint day'.

I attended their 45 x 45 exhibition with an Aunt and my niece. It was nice to get back into the art scene so to speak.

I've also been over at mum and dad's, seeing to them as well. They recently got a upright piano...it's a good thing they are empty nesters and we don't have to listen to learners practicing.

At home we've had lots of people coming and going. A few of the mob, On the couch: My youngest sister, her daughter, my niece, my aunt and Simba. In the single chairs, my aunt who I live with. My second oldest sister standing, she's now living with us too. Mum covering her face sitting, my nephew at the end.

There's also been puttering around in the kitchen, using up what we have. These zucchini's went far into baked zucchini slice. It's always nice cold the next day. The baked sliced is a little different to the Zucchini slice I posted here . It's a good frugal meal because you only use Zucchinis and tomatoes and cheese on top. I'll post up the recipe at a later date.

I've also been embroidering. I have another baby quilt commission and I hope to show that soon. This crazy quilt is going slowly now with the cooler days I hope to do more.

Perhaps the most exciting thing about being out and about is I passed my driving test. I've never driven before and had to learn from scratch. It's a big achievement for me. Soon I'll be doing 'Sunday Drive' posts. I'm still a little nervous about driving, but excited I CAN drive too. If you had told me I would have got my licence at 47 years old even 12 months ago I would have laughed and not believed you. 

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.