Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Off to Sydney we go

Although I am beginning to believe that someone doesn't want me to get to Sydney, we are jetting off tomorrow to set up for the Baby and Toddler Show. Hopefully!
It has been a really interesting experience preparing for something so large. It was impossible to bring all the clothes with us so we are bringing what we can and you can order the other items on the day and we will ship them to you for free! All of our dresses and overalls we are making to your measurements as we know little ones don't always fit into nice 1, 2, 3 size brackets! As we are so new to this process, we hope we can answer all your questions and requests but please be patient with us as we find our way. We are just so excited to be coming and visiting some of our Sydney fans! Please be sure to come and let us know if you already know who we are. We will be having a competition running for the 4 days to win a $150 voucher to spend in our online store. All you need to do is visit us at the stall, fill in your name and email address and you go in the draw. How easy is that! The winner will be drawn at random when we finish the show and return to Brissy.
If you would like to come and visit us at the stall here is some money you can bring with you! simply print out this post and bring it along with you to receive $10 off for the day. Only one voucher per customer per day.
We look forward to meeting you all there!

Monday, August 23, 2010

Vege Garden Update

My blog has been so poorly tendered the last couple of months. I must admit that trying to tend to all other areas of life has meant it has been sadly neglected. Thankfully not the same can be said for the vege garden! It has been loving the rainy, cold then hot, sunny weather and everything is thriving.There is nothing quite like eating veges that have just been picked and are still covered in morning dew. My favourite at the moment has to be the sugar snap peas. Miss S does love to pick the peas out of the middle and carry them around but the crunch is sensational. Yum.

The big news though........... Our chicken have started laying. A discovery in the back corner of the garden of three eggs was a welcome find after months of an egg famine. We initially thought it might have been all three laying but it was sadly only the one. After threatening them with the dinner table and placing them under house arrest for a couple of days, the others have finally come to the party. Although they are not consistent yet, we will take as many wonderfully vibrant yokes as we can get.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Are you wondering what to do on the weekend?



Why not come and see us at one of these fabulous markets on the weekend.

On Saturday we will be at the BrisStyle Eco Markets.

This is our first market with BrisStyle and we are really excited to meet all the wonderful retailers that will be trading their EcoWares on the weekend.


On Sunday we will be at the

Boutique Markets

at Portside Wharf in Hamilton. They have lots of new retailers this month so we are looking forward to checking out what they have to offer.


We will be launching our new Summer Range very shortly so stay tuned for more information.

If you are our mystery shopper who left their shopping at Mathilda's Market in June - We have you bag and would love to give it back to you. Just send us an email with what you bought and we will talk about how to get it back to you.

Look forward to seeing you on the weekend!

Web Shop Facebook

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Big Market Weekend

As the mushrooms continue to grow - 60kg so far, we have been preparing for a very busy time ahead. This weekend we will be attending two markets. On Saturday we will be going a group of really inspired Eco Friendly independent designers for the BrisStyle Eco market. Reading all the blog posts about their really exciting and passionate crafts has got me thinking about trying to reduce wastage in everything that we produce. Our lovely Eco Elles provide us with wonderful pieces of woollen blanket, too cute to waste but most too small to use. Sitting on the couch this afternoon in the cold and overcast weather, and really not wanting to tackle cleaning the sewing room, I got to thinking........ and this is what came of that. Our new hair clips. These will be debuting at the market on Saturday and then on Sunday when we are at the Boutique markets at Portside. Unfortunately that means its time to go and keep cleaning. Next job on the agenda - pattern sorting. :(

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Textile Show Brisbane




I had such a fantastic time at the Textile Art Festival in Brisbane. Not only was it a wonderful chance to do something just for me, but I learnt such fantastic techniques in the classes I attended. On Saturday I attended Screen Printing with Procion Dyes by Louise Snook. She was a wonderful presenter and had such fabulous things to show us. I came away all inspired to incorporate some procion dye screen printing in our next range.


Sunday was the immensely talented Ken Smith for Machine Embroidery. Never having done any before I was a little apprehensive but had such a fantastic time. Although a time consuming venture, I can't wait to try out a few sections on our next range of clothes.

A very brief chance passing of Jacinta Leishman's demonstration of felting also inspired the desire to try out some felting.

A big thank-you to all the presenters for being so patient with me and the lovely people who sat next to me and helped me out.

Now I just need some time to put all these wonderful new skills into practice!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Mushroom Mania

I just realised how long it has been since my last blog. Unfortunately with a house full of sick people the blog has been quite neglected. Not so for the vege garden though. After the initial build, we filled it up with mushroom compost, found for the fabulous price of 60c a bag on the Sunshine Coast.

After the mushroom compost rested for a couple of days it was time to go shopping for vegetables. My love of leeks and onions meant a punnet of each of these. Also beans, peas, zucchini's, eggplant, carrots, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and many more. YUM!

The real winner so far has been the mushroom compost. After the initial 710grm mushroom we pulled out. The compost has yielded 20kilograms of mushrooms and still going strong.


This makes Mushrooms our vegetable of the month by a long shot and trying to find new recipes and ways to cook them has become a challenge but here is my favourite so far.

Tarragon Chicken and Mushroom Pie

800g of mushrooms sliced(you could decrease the quantity but we had sooo many yummy mushies)
4 chicken thigh fillets diced
a bunch of fresh tarragon
a bunch of fresh lemon thyme
one red onion finely diced
100g butter
50g plain flour
100ml milk
2 cups water
olive oil
salt and pepper
3 sheets of puff pastry ( you may need less depending on the pie dish you use but mine was particularly deep and I needed two for the bottom)

  • Brown the mushrooms and onions in a large fry pan using butter and olive oil. You only need a small amount of olive oil to stop the butter from burning. Once they have browned slightly, place them in a large cooking pot.
  • In a mortar and pestle, grind the tarragon, lemon thyme, a good amount of olive oil and salt and pepper into a smooth paste.
  • Brown the chicken in your fry pan. Once browned, add the tarragon paste and coat the chicken thoroughly. Add the chicken to the mushrooms in the large pot.
  • Make a rou using 50g butter and 50g plain flour by wisking the two together in the fry pan until they have a creamy texture. Add 100ml of milk slowly.
  • Once all the milk is added to the flour and butter, add this to the chicken and mushrooms in the pot.
  • Add a 2 cups of water and cook until the sauce thickens to a gravy consistency.
  • Add salt and pepper to taste.
  • Grease a large pie dish and line with puff pastry.
  • Once the mixture has cooled slightly, add it to the pie dish and top with puff pastry. I weaved my pastry but you could just put a plain top on.
  • Cook in the oven at 180degrees for approximately 30 minutes or until the pastry is golden.
  • Eat and Enjoy!

Monday, May 24, 2010

New Truffle Monkeys Photos

We had a lovely time in the park this afternoon taking pictures of more of the Truffle Monkey range. Here are some of my favourite shots.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

The Great Vege Garden Upgrade

BEFORE

Our home vege garden is getting a massive makeover. Please keep in mind that we are not professional gardeners but just trying to share some of our thoughts with you. We are creating a 'No Dig' garden which simply means we are building up the beds rather than digging them in,

Organic Gardening Tip #1 Preparing your 'No Dig' Garden. If you are building your garden over existing lawn you need to kill the grass. The easiest way is to mow or slash it, cover it with blood and bone and water it in and then cover the grass with something to help it rot. Thick damp newspaper overlapped for light weeds; something like old carpet for more persistent grasses. You can use plastics but they eventually break down into the soil. If you are 'No Dig' gardening over something hard like concrete, put down something to help the air circulate, like dry branches.

The first stage has been to set up the area for the 'No Dig' Garden. My biggest tip for this - don't expect your husband to build this in a weekend. It is certainly slow progress with a little one and no-one left to help hold the beams. We both somehow managed to miscount the number of sleepers we needed. Twice. But all things considered, it is coming along very nicely. Now just to get to Bunnings to get the last 6 or should that be 7, maybe we'll get 8 just to make sure, sleepers.

Friday, April 30, 2010

Website changes

We are making some changes to our website to hopefully make it easier and quicker to find our products. Lets face it, anybody with a child under the age of 5 needs to be able to shop quickly and not get lost in our site. I am trying to achieve that this weekend, between ear infections and other toddler related interruptions, so fingers crossed.


We have also just joined the BrisStyle team and will hopefully be appearing at their markets and events soon.

Have a lovely long weekend.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Facebook grrrr

I am constantly bamboozled by the amount of things you can do with Facebook. It seems just as I figure out how to do something, they change it all over again. I must say I am not a fan of the new like button. I know they think it will put less pressure on people to like your page but it just doesn't feel right to say "Welcome to all our new likers." Never mind.... I'm sure it will change again next month.

I have just added a My Etsy page to my facebook personal account. Although my brother in IT may not be too excited about my achievement, I am quite proud of myself. The next Facebook challenge is to try and set up a welcome page. I must first battle photoshop and dreamweaver before I attempt that though. I have also apparently put a site feed onto the My Etsy page from my blog. I am not entirely sure how that works or what it looks like, or as a matter of fact whether it will work, but it will just be another fun thing to play with!

I have finally taken a photo of all the colours that the Eco Elles come in. So here it is.....

Monday, April 19, 2010

Thankyou all

I big thank you to all the wonderful people who came to visit us at Mathilda's Market on Saturday. The chaos in the week leading up to the day made it seem impossible to even make it there, but after creeping away from a sick child at 2am, throwing additional boxes in the car in the morning, crossing our fingers to ensure it started and madly setting up we were off. It was so wonderful to meet people who had found us on Facebook and be able to show them our clothes up close and personal. My husband's clothes stand he made for us was just magnificent and the day could not have been better.

Now begins the fun of filling customer orders, investigating possible wholesale opportunities and of course sewing up the winter line. Perhaps there might be some sleep involved too!

Here are some pictures from the day.


Thursday, April 15, 2010

Cargo cords and tigers


It has been a crazy night of cutting in preparation for the sewing marathon tomorrow. On the agenda: overalls, skirts, dying, screen-printing, lounge pants, cargos, onesies and a tiger. Not to mention endless cuddles and blowing of kisses from the little one! Oh how I love those kisses.

Don't forget to come and see all our hard work on Saturday.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Early to bed Early to rise


I am determined not to have an after midnight night tonight. Both our wholesale orders are now completed and hopefully at their destinations. It is so exciting to see you brand listed in another shop!

Now with those orders out of the way it is back to the grindstone to make sure our Mathilda's Market items are ready. My husband, who has not stayed up past midnight with me, although I am sure he is there is spirit, asked me the other day how I just keep going. I am not sure whether it is the hormonal changes after having a child, the ensuing insanity or just that my body is so used to sleep deprivation that it's the new 8 hours! Not tonight though. Only one more ball of wool, another victim of the little one's desire to feed everything to the dog, to clean up before a blissful 8 hours. I hope.......


Don't forget to come to Mathilda's Market to check out our latest range (and not the bags under my eyes)!

Friday, April 9, 2010


Thank you to all those who entered our Easter Egg Hunt competition. Congratulations to our winner, Cathy, we can't wait to see what you choose from our online store.

All those of you who live in Brisbane, don't forget to come and check us out at Mathida's Market next Saturday. There will be special market day discounts so we would love to see you there.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Lets go hunting!

The next egg has been hidden but you will need to get to know us a little better if you want to find it!

Here is a sneak peek of our winter collection Truffle Monkeys. Everything is hand crocheted, hand sewn and then worn by a very cheeky monkey!












Thursday, April 1, 2010

We have been featured!


We are so excited to see our story on Handmade Kids. It is such a wonderful site for finding all things beautiful and handmade. I love scrolling through their site and finding an excuse to spend more money on my little one! Please head on over and check out all the wonderful handmade businesses they support.

Oh - did someone say Wholesale!


We are very excited to announce that we are preparing our first wholesale order for our Evergreen Owls collection. Our products are going to be stocked by a wonderful online shop opening very soon called

logo small

sales@stylishbubs.com.au

www.stylishbubs.com.au

Here are just some of the items they are going to be stocking online.