Honestly Anna.

What a busy week!

I've been pottering away at some handmade projects while writing reports this week, and I have a couple of things ready to share with you once my school work is all done!

In the mean time, I'd like to share a link to the online version of a magazine I contribute to each month. I write a n article each month about things that inspire me, and the June edition came out on Tuesday.

You can browse through the whole magazine here and find back issues here. One of my blogger buddies Roy is also featured in this months Aurora.

Stay tuned for some more creative goodness in the next few days!

Anna.

Photo Finish.

Almost two years ago, I bought a Canon EOS Rebel XS DSLR camera on eBay. I was very curious about photography, especially how to take better photos of my husband's band, Broadway Mile. When I first got my camera, I was reading lots of photography blogs and websites, and chatting with some professional photographers getting around local gigs to learn about taking clear, crisp photos in low light.

I took my camera to lots of gigs and shot literally hundreds of photos at each one, then spent hours the following day flicking through all the pics, choosing the best ones to pass on to the band and post on Facebook. 

I'd take my camera to other events - family get-togethers, parties, day trips around the local area - but it is quite big and bulky, and sometimes the effort seemed too great, or I'd worry about it getting damaged or lost. I found myself wishing I had it with me if I'd decided to leave it at home and then other times I'd bring it with me and not open the case because I was embarrassed to drag it out. I both loved and resented my camera, and still wanted to improve my photography skills.

I stumbled across a way I could make better  use of my fancy camera when I read about a few people participating in Project 365, where a person takes and shares one photo every day for a whole year. Some people have themes - gratitude, landscapes, sunsets, self portraits - but others leave it more open, simply snapping and sharing anything that crosses their path in a day.

I decided to document 2012 in picture form, one day at a time, and started a Tumblr blog to share my view of the world each day. I try to capture something that seems to be a theme running through my day, and I try hard to use my camera, but some days I end up capturing a moment of my day on my phone if my camera is not handy.

Want to see some of my favourite pictures so far?

May 28

May 22

May 19

May 11

May 3

Apr 30

Apr 22

Apr 16

Apr 8

Apr 6

Apr 5

Mar 22

Feb 19

Feb 18

Feb 4

Jan 27

Give it a try for a week or a month, and see how much beauty you can find in your life every day!

Anna.

Cupcake Love.

While I love baking all kinds of warm, sweet goodies, my favourite thing to make, and signature 'dish' would have to be cupcakes. Smaller, less messy and more easily transported than a full-sized cake, cupcakes are a sweet, versatile treat with limitless flavour and presentation possibilities. Perfect for a kiddy birthday party or a grown up afternoon tea, we pretty much always have some cupcakes on hand to take to work for a morning snack or to accompany an afternoon cup of tea.

This book by Martha Swift and Lisa Thomas from Primrose Bakery in London is my cupcake bible.

And it's these two basic recipes that I use most often. They are delicious as they are, and very easy to adapt to create different flavours, textures and combinations

Here's what the vanilla cupcake mixture looks like all ready to spoon into the cupcake trays. Yum!

For this batch which I made on Thursday afternoon, I turned the basic vanilla cupcakes into four different flavours - Nutella Swirl, Peanut Butter and Honey, Blueberry Cheesecake and Raspberry and White Chocolate - by adding a couple of extra ingredients straight into each individual cupcake just before they went into the oven.

For the Nutella Swirl cakes, I added about half a teaspoon of Nutella straight from the jar and used a toothpick to swirl it through the top of the cake batter.

To make the Peanut Butter and Honey cakes, I used two teaspoons to roll about half a teaspoon of peanut butter into a ball and dropped in on top of the cake, then used a toothpick to roll some of the batter over the top of the ball.

To make Blueberry Cheesecake cupcakes, I pressed two frozen blueberries and a little chunk of nice strong Danish cream cheese down into the batter so they were half-submerged in the cake mix.

And finally, for the Raspberry and White Chocolate cakes, I pressed two or three frozen raspberries and three white chocolate chips into the batter.

All of these went into the oven for 20 minutes, and viola!

Gorgeous, golden brown cupcakes, four ways.

Next step: icing.

I made a batch of vanilla butter cream as the recipe instructs, then divided it evenly into four different bowls.

For the Blueberry Cheesecake cupcakes, I stirred a tablespoon of cream cheese through one bowl of the divided-up butter cream, and popped a single frozen blueberry on each cake. 

To finish the Raspberry and White Chocolate cakes, I stirred about a tablespoon of melted white chooclate through the butter cream, and topped each one with a frozen raspberry.

The Nutella Swirl cupcakes need only one thing to make them even more amazing than they are on their own - more Nutella! So I added a couple of teaspoons of Nutella to the butter cream and stirred it through. If I'd had some hazelnuts I'd have put either a whole nut or some crushed nuts on top of the butter cream for some extra crunch.

And to add the honey element to the Peanut Butter and Honey cakes, I stirred a nice big tablespoon full of some locally produced organic honey through the butter cream and then dribbled a little extra on top. This flavour is my husband's favourite. 

There are plenty of other amazing recipes in this book that I keep coming back to, and I'll let yopu know about them another time. 

Do you have a favourite cake recipe that I should try out?

Anna.

Market Value.

My crafty friend Smee and I have been talking about selling our creations for some time now. Our dream is to one day have a cafe and shop where we can bake, crochet and craft with our friends and sell the beautiful things we make. In three weeks we are taking our first step into the world of sales and having a market stall in the Raymond Terrace Community Markets in Riverside Park on the 16th June! Yay! While it is a humble beginning, we are very excited to be unleashing our hand-made, heart-felt creations into the world!

Want to see some of the things we'll be selling?

Stay tuned for more market goodies as the day draws nearer!

Anna.

Bread and Butter.

I have become a bit obsessed with this season of Masterchef Australia. I've never really gotten into it before this year, but I am LOVING it in 2012! I especially enjoy the master class episodes, where expert chefs teach the contestants how to make one of their signature dishes, and THEN the recipes are posted on the Masterchef website. So when I watched Phillippa Grogan of Phillippa's bakery in Melbourne share her bread-baking expertise, then found the recipe for the amazing-looking fig and walnut loaf she made for the contestants, I became totally consumed by the idea of baking my own bread.

I re-watched Phillippa's segment online a couple more times to familiarise myself with the techniques and processes, convinced myself that it looked pretty easy, and then on Tuesday afternoon, a bit before 4pm, I began the bread baking process.

Phillippa used figs and walnuts in her bread. I don't care for walnuts and I don't adore figs, so I decided to use almonds and dried cranberries. I soaked the cranberries in warm water while I measured out the other ingredients - yeast, plain flour, wholemeal flour, salt and my almonds - then drained the cranberries, and decided to use the cranberry water in the bread.

I then combined the flour, salt and yeast in a big mixing bowl, poured the water in and mixed it together with my hands.

The next step was kneading. Phillippa had a very specific kneading method, stretching the dough out, rolling it up, turning it 90 degrees, and repeating 3-6 times. Once that's happened, you press the dough out into a rectangle, sprinkle the fruit and nuts onto the dough, roll it us and knead it again until the fruit and nuts are bursting out. 

Next: proving. This is where you leave the dough to rise. It needs to sit for an hour, but it needs to be 'knocked back' - ie, kneaded the same way as before - at 20 minute intervals during the hour. So the dough went under the Pyrex dome, and the timer went on for 20 minutes.

Once that hour was over, it was time for the final knead, and to shape the loaf. Using the same stretching, rolling and turning method, I kneaded and shaped my dough. This is how it looked:

Now that it had been kneaded and shaped, it had to prove for another hour. This time, the recipe recommended to make a little protected atmosphere inside a big plastic bag for the final prove, so I peeled a new garbage bag off the roll, slipped the bread board and dough inside and tucked the end under to seal the air inside, and set the timer for another hour.

This was the time to pre-heat the oven to 250 degrees. 250! I've never had to make the oven so hot for anything I've ever cooked! Anyhow, I was so impatient by this stage. I just wanted to cook and eat my bread!

FINALLY the hour was up, the timer went off and it was time to bake! I made some slits on the top of the dough before it went into the oven, which not only makes the bread look pretty, it helps steam to escape the baking bread. Here's how it looked just before it went in the oven:

I'd had a tray heating in the oven for the whole hour, so I slipped the loaf onto some baking paper, opened the oven door and practically threw the loaf onto the tray because it was so HOT! Phillippa's next trick came into play here - have a second tray under the oven rack the bread will cook on, and just as you put the bread into the oven, throw a small bowl of ice onto the lower tray. This helps give the bread a really crunchy crust. Once the bread and ice were in the oven, I turned the heat down to 200 degrees and set the timer for 25 minutes. Once THAT timer went off, I stuck the handle of a wooden spoon into the door of the oven to let some of the excess steam out for five more minutes.

At this point, I was pacing the kitchen, constantly checking the timer to see if it was nearly done! As the final minutes ticked down, my excitement grew! I'd made bread! I couldn't wait to taste it! And then ... IT WAS TIME TO TAKE IT OUT OF THE OVEN!!! 

I managed to restrain myself for a while to let it cool a bit before I took to it with a bread knife! But when that moment finally came, I was not disappointed.

It was delicious! I toasted a couple of slices this morning for breakfast - still amazing!

I'll make this recipe again for sure. It was easy enough, though a bit time consuming, but the end product is totally worth the time and effort. Next time I might leave out the nuts and just use two different fruits, maybe cranberries and apricots.

Next post I'll tell you all about something exciting happening for me soon.

Anna.

Blanket Statement.

Starting a new crochet project is always exciting. I love the planning process - looking at patterns, thinking about colours, sketching ideas, looking at and agonising over yarn,  then finally buying yarn and beginning work.  Some projects begin without an owner in mind, some are destined to become gifts, some will work up quickly, and some require huge investments of time and patience. Blankets are examples of long-term commitment projects. They take forever, eat up a whole lot of yarn, I tend to get sick of working on the one thing for weeks at a time, but the satisfaction I feel when I'm finally looking at the finished product is worth the time and effort.

Last post, I shared a picture of a blanket I made as a special gift for my mother-in-law. Since then I have completed two blankets and I've got a couple more on the go.

This one was my Christmas holiday project. The pattern is commonly known as a chevron or ripple pattern. I looked at this pattern to learn the stitches, then collected all the green, white, blue and cream yarn I had lying around the house, arranged it all in different combinations and orders, then got to it. Amazingly, around the same time I was making this beauty, Alice over at Crochet With Raymond was making her own blue and green ripple blanket. I watched our two blankets progress throughout January - hers more quickly than mine! This blankey now lives on the back of a lounge at my place, and is good to throw over my knees now the nights are getting cooler.

This is a 7 Point Star Throw made with 100% wool I purchased online from this eBay store. This pattern is based on similar principals to a straight chevron/ripple pattern, with increases and decreases at particular places. This blanket is amazingly warm! I was a little unsure about buying yarn without seeing and feeling it, but I was so happy with the quality of the product and the way my blanket turned out. Jessie likes it too. She  was helping me take photos.

This box of squares has to be my longest running project. This will one day become a blanket for my husband Justin, who was inspired by all the patchwork fields he saw during his trip to Ireland about, oh, I don't know ... six years ago? Whoops! All the squares were knitted using about 40 different kids of green yarn. All that's left is to join them together ... the most boring part of the blanket making process!

And finally, this is a gift for my friend Bromwyn, who is having a baby next month. This particular blanket was inspired by Lucy over at Attic 24. It has about 13 different colours in it, AND you join the hexagon tiles together as you go, thus avoiding the long, laborious process of stitching endless tiles together once the crocheting is over!

Next post, I'll share some of my non-yarny making adventures with you all. 

Thanks again for dropping by!

Anna.

Anna Begins.

And so it begins.

This blog has been discussed at length, well thought out, pre-planned and much anticipated - by me, anyway!

I'm looking forward to sharing my life and loves with you, especially my adventures in crochet, baking and photography.

I'm hoping to turn my creative ventures into something more than a hobby in the next little while, and I have a couple of friends who are looking forward to coming along for the ride.

To start with, I thought I'd share some of my past creations with you.

This is an Angry Birds beanie I made upon request for a friend. I made this without a pattern, just some second-hand yarn, basic stitches and imagination.

This blanket was a Mother's Day gift for my mother in law. At the time, she was undergoing chemotherapy and spending a lot of time bed. She has since passed away, and the blanket is back with me, but I'm really glad that she had some use of it for a while. This was an adaptation of a pattern I found somewhere in cyberspace, if I stumble across it again one day, I'll let you know.

Thanks for dropping by, next post I'll share a couple of my favourite patterns.

Anna.