Gocco workshop

Recently I had the good fortune of being invited to do a Gocco printing workshop by Emma and John at The Sweets Workshop along with my buddy Lamina from Do A Bit. We spent a lovely Sunday morning learning about and playing with this iconic little machine.

Emma and John were great teachers, very patient and helpful. And you can see the current exhibition 'Home' by Beth Taylor on at The Sweets Workshop there behind John and I - such a lovely backdrop!

I printed cards in my 'coffee boy' design. It was fun to see it on lots of different card colours and finishes. I'm working on some screen printed items using the coffe boy design so it was fun to see it in a different format

It's been ages since I've printed on anything apart from fabric so it was nice to have a change. I can see how one of these little machines would come in really handy when you're wanting to print invitations in particular. I'd love to have one tucked away for those times. Sadly I hear they're not being made anymore but I live in hope of stumbling across one in a charity shop one day!

Later this month Emma and John are hosting an exhibition of Gocco prints which Lamina and I will be part of. I'll keep you posted :-)

 

Posted with Blogsy

Girls weekend away

Last weekend I went away for my first girls weekend away since having kids. It was a short distance away, the beautiful (but cold!) NSW Southern Highlands but it felt like worlds away - no little people asking for snacks every second, fighting with their siblings, complaining of phantom tummy aches etc. You know, just ordinary stuff but the stuff that means you can't enjoy a quiet coffee, go to the bathroom alone or have a full conversation. Well, there were plenty of long conversations on our girls weekend, some while relaxing in the hotel's huge spa, ahh!!

We enjoyed the beautiful weather, drank lots of coffees...

Talked books and more books (I started this one, recommended by this enthusiastic reader and fellow weekend goer ;-) ...

Went to a great retro shop that, in their own words, "Sells really cool stuff"...

Visited a fantastic local gallery and fell in love with the chicken and rooster portraits in the Birds of a Feather exhibition...


Wandered around a small town market and bought this beautiful skein of wool, with a view to making a little boy's beanie. I can feel a winter addiction coming on ;-) ...

 And lastly, on my way home, I stopped in at a handmade shop called Made by Others. Wow, I thought we were spoiled for this type of thing in Sydney, but this has the best collection I've seen. I couldn't resist buying an amazing pair of hand screen printed tights (how do you screen print tights??). It was very inspirational to meet the 2 owners and chat about the business. Whilst I'm sure there are stresses to the business I would love to have something like this - to be surrounded by all that creativity all the time would be amazing. I left inspired and vowed I'd go back.

Sadly there won't be much crafting going on here this week - having a night away from home has made me realise how bad the quality of our sleep has become with a 2 year old and a four year old in our bed night after night (not our choice, their habits). So if I am to try to change the habits and convince them to stay in their own beds I must go to bed early myself and be prepared for the possibility of wakeful nights returning them to their beds. Wishing you a restful week!

Coffee sack art

Inspired by all the coffee sack craft I've noticed around the blogs lately, like this lovely footstool from Kootoyou, I thought I'd show you something I made with them a while ago.

When we renovated our kitchen a few years ago we had a wall that could do with some decoration and I wanted to make something to hang on it. I decided to do a homage to coffee. As the Mr works with coffee, we both like drinking it and a sizable proportion of the new bench space would be taken up with the machine and accessories, I thought this was a fair call!



So I came up with the idea of painting on coffee sacks. I bought them for about $2 each from a great local place called Reverse Garbage who take in donations of packaging and materials from local businesses that are no longer needed and sell them to the public as art materials of whatever. Then I bought a couple of cheap canvases from a local $2 shop, stretched a single layer of coffee sack material ('hessian' or 'burlap') over the front surface and used a staple gun to secure it at the back.



Next I used acrylic paints in shades of green, beige and white (to work in with the kitchen colours) and with a small foam roller I rolled out random geometric shapes until I was happy with the design. The hessian turned out to be a nice surface to paint on, though it's so coarse that I don't think I'd try and intricate design as it would be hard to get much detail in.



I left some of the bare coffee sack showing so that you could still tell what it was, and mounted the canvases side by side. It was a fun project to do and I've enjoyed them, but 3 years on I'm a bit tired of the design so I think I'll paint something over the top, maybe trying some different colours this time.

Latest cooking obsession - Biscotti

We love our coffee in this house. Some mornings it's essential to my ability to function and we definitely have a less cranky mummy if I've had my morning coffee (and a less cranky mummy is better for everyone, right?).

As an accompaniment to the beloved coffee I've been trying lots of biscotti recipes lately and I think I've come up with the ultimate one (to my taste - hope it's to yours too if you give it a try). It's not too sweet (so won't overpower the coffee), has a hint of citrus, lots of crunchy almonds and is very thinly sliced so that even if you don't dip a piece into your coffee (though you really should) you won't break your teeth! They are also lovely with some good vanilla icecream.

Biscotti

3 egg whites
pinch of salt
150g caster sugar (or ordinary if you don't have caster)
180g plain flour
140g whole almonds
1 tsp orange zest, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 180c. Line a loaf tin with non-stick baking paper (I love that stuff!).

Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites and salt until stiff peaks form. Then gradually add the sugar and beat for another 30 seconds. Fold in the flour, nuts and orange zest. I do this with the mixer, on low speed.

Spoon into the loaf tin and flatten the top with a spatula a bit (I like to leave it a bit rough to get interesting biscuit shapes). This makes your 'log' which you later cut slices from - see pic. Bake for about 30 minutes. It will be starting to brown on the top and look set.




Once cool, refrigerate for a couple of hours at least (or until you're ready for the final bake). This will ensure it cuts well and doesn't crumble.

Preheat oven to 140c. Using a serrated knife cut the log into very thin slices. I use a small Victorinox knife - I think it's a 'steak knife'.



Put the slices onto baking sheets lined with non-stick paper (they do stick to the sheet if you don't use it!) and bake for about 5 minutes, then turn over and bake for another 5 minutes. They should be dry all the way through and crunchy, but not really brown. Allow them to cool on trays then transfer to an airtight container. They'll keep for about a week.

Makes about 60 pieces