7.30.2011

Saturday Sun


Hey!!! Sorry for the unexpected abscence!!! I got home from my holidays on Wednesday, to find that my interenet is broken :( I'm sat in Starbucks right now using their free Wi-fi!! Hopefully I'll be back properly soon, but I've scheduled a couple of posts for next week incase I don't get my internet fixed anytime soon.

My trip was great fun, we really didn't want to come home! And my brain is still in holiday mode lol

Last Tuesday, the girls and I headed down to Brighton to meet up with Beth from Deer Little Fawn Here a few photos from our day :)







If you're waiting for an email from me... I'll get back to you as soon as I can!!!

ig

7.27.2011

Guest Post: Eva from Lovers In a Dangerous Time

Hey everyone!



It's Eva from Lovers in a Dangerous Time. I wanted to share a recipe with you today, but not just any recipe... it's my all-time favourite dessert.


 The first time I made these tarts, in my home-ec class in highschool, I was in love. They had me at hello. Later, I tried to make them for my husband Nathan when we were just barely dating, but I made the filling wrong. When he bit into it, the filling dribbled out and everywhere because it was so runny, hah! Baking fail.

The tarts are very rich tasting, but so delicious and indulgent. They're also great for summer because you can top them with pieces of any fresh fruit you like. I usually use strawberries or kiwis.

Enjoy!

Shortbread Cream Cheese Tarts:

Shells
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup icing sugar
1 & 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

1.) Mix ingredients well (may have to use hands). Add a bit more flour if dough is too sticky. Don't roll, but pat into muffin tins with your fingers to form shells.
 
 
2.) Prick the bottoms with a fork and bake 20 minutes @ 300-325 F (160 C). During baking time, prick bottoms again if the shells puff up. These may be frozen to use later.


Filling
1 4oz. package of cream cheese, softened
1/2 can sweetened condensed milk
2 & 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1.) In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy.
2.) Gradually beat in condensed milk.
3.) Stir in lemon juice and vanilla.
4.) Dollop filling into cooled shortbread shell and top with fruit


7.26.2011

Guest Post: Kelly From eTa

12
Have you ever been so down in the dumps that things just keep looking like gloomy, scary storms with no chance of sunshine?

I have been recently & it seemed like no matter what my dear friends advised me to do, I just couldn't get out of the blah-humbugs. I had the worst case of the blah-days ever. But then I discovered a little secret...

Pssst...I've got a secret to share with you!

Come close.

Closer.

I think I've found just the thing to cure the blah-humbugs! The best part? It won't cost you an arm & leg. No meds. No insurance. No doctor's visits!

Creativity!

That's right. A little creativity is all your need to bring you some silver linings. Peeks at sunshine. It's the ladder to get you out of the dumps!

Now don't tell me you aren't creative! I won't buy that for a minute!

I'm a firm beliver that everyone is creative. Maybe you've just forgotten that part of yourself, or you just haven't discovered the perfect medium for your creativity. That's the problem with growing up & being an adult...you let the seriousness & responsibilities get in the way of just letting loose & being.

Next time you start to let the pressures of adulthood get to you, try this! Go find a box of crayons, pencils, pens, colored pencils (or whatever else you can find around the house) & a piece of paper. Doodle to heart's content! Don't think about the bills or other every day stressors.

Escape to your personal paradise!

If crayons aren't what you need, just find the one creative outlet you enjoy (beads, sewing, knitting, woodworking, baking, etc.) & get away from everything for just a few minutes. When you take time to let your creativity loose, you'll definitely feel like celebrating life a little more.

I tried it & now those zombie Mondays are a lot more tolerable!



7.25.2011

Guest Post: Margot from Newfoundlander at Heart

Hello to all you lovely readers of Pixie Mama! My name is Margot, and I write a little blog called Newfoundlander at Heart. I promised Polly a guest post, and I'm going to be sharing a little about a music festival I went to earlier in July. I wrote a bit of a post about over at my blog, you can see that here, but today I am going to be sharing with you some of my favourite acts from the festival weekend :)

It was a beautiful sunny weekend for the Mariposa Folk Festival, we arrived in to town late Friday night, and made our way to the festival Saturday morning. Where we exchanged our tickets for wristbands. Sparkly pink, my favourite! 


Then we settled in to enjoy some music for the day, and well into the evening. Thank goodness for the wonderful weather!


There was so much wonderful talent that weekend,  but I do have a few favourites that I am going to share with you. Most of them (I think all) are Canadian so for all of you Pixie Mama readers from other mysterious and wonderful places you will have a chance to hear some new music!

1) 3 Gars su'l Sofa (3 Guys on the Couch) - is a band (of 4 guys, hehe) from Québec, Canada and they sing happy light folk music.



2) Yukon Blonde - hails from Vancouver, BC, Canada. They classify themselves as healing and easylistening/rock. Which I think is a really good description, I quite enjoyed sitting back and tapping along with them.

3) Reid Jamieson - A singer a songwriter from Vancouver, BC, he is an amazing guitarist with a wonderful voice. Take a listen!


Thank you so much Polly for having me here today, and to you readers out there for reading about my festival weekend. I hope you had a good time, and maybe heard some new music. I look forward to chatting with anyone if you are interested, I am always looking for new blog friends! :)
xox

7.24.2011

Guest Post: Quilt Mending 101 by Gillian from Craftzilla Conquers the World

This is a quilt that my mom made me out of shirts that my grandpa wore, as well as my sundresses from when I was little. It hasn’t worn very well over time, especially certain squares. I’ve been working on patching these squares that are ripped and torn, and thought I’d share with you the quick way of mending quilts that my mom taught me. This method works best with quilts that are quilted all the way through, and that are pieced squares, and basically involves patching another square on top of a damaged square.
 
quilt quilt patch 

Here is the patch I’m going to replace—the pink fabric on the quilt is particularly shredded from washing, general wear and tear, and from my pup Jesse , who shredded a few of the squares and batting when he was in his naughty puppy phase.

square to replace 

And here’s the fabric I’ll be using for the patch –a pretty close match, yes? Thank you sale bin at Fabricland!

 fabric 

What you need: Transparent quilting ruler (I used a square one) Polyester batting Fabric to match quilt Sewing machine Iron Rotary cutter Self healing mat Start by measuring the size of the square to replace using your transparent quilting ruler.

 measure size 

In this case, the square I need to replace is 6 inches by 4 inches. (15.2 cm x 10.2 cm) Cut away any damaged bits of fabric

cut away damaged fabric 

Cut a piece of batting that is ¼ inch (0.6cm) smaller on all sides than the size of the square –in this case, 5 ½ by 3 ½ inches (14cm x 8.9cm) and place on top of the square. 

batting 

Add ¼ of an inch (0.6cm) to the size of the square to replace to determine the size of the patch to cut —this means that I need to cut a fabric square that is 6 ½ by 4 ½ inches. (16.5 cm x 11.4cm) Using your rotary cutter and self healing mat, cut this square out of the fabric you chose. Feel free to also measure and use scissors, I just can’t cut a straight line to save my life, and rely greatly on my rotary cutter and ruler!

 selvege cut out square 

Here is my square, all cut out: 

square 

 Take your iron, and press roughly ¼ of an inch (0.6cm) in on each of the four sides of the square 

iron and square ironed square 

You may want to clip the extra triangle of fabric where the corners meet

corners of square 

Take your ironed square, place over the batting, and pin the square and batting to the quilt top. 

pinned overview pinned close up 

Time to sew the square on—I had to bunch up my quilt quite a bit to be able to sew the square on the sewing machine. If you prefer, you can also hand sew it. 

sew on machine 

I sewed around the edges of the square, as well as sewing an “x” so that my patch matched all the squares on the rest of my quilt. I used a straight stitch and a fairly small stitch length.

DSCF2841 DSCF2840 

Here’s how my square turned out –one down, about fifteen to go! Thanks for sharing in the fun!

DSCF2846 

 ♥ Craftzilla

7.23.2011

Guest Post: Bakes-a-lot Lady


Hello! Bakes-a-lot-lady here...aka Pixie Mama's niece. I'm here to share one of my recipes with you. Chocolate Chip Fairy Cakes, these are perfect for the novice cook - so easy and it's very hard to go wrong!

  

What you will need:
6oz butter
5oz sugar
3 eggs
6oz self-raising flour
100g chocolate chips
100g chocolate
a little milk and icing sugar

1. Preheat your oven to 180C/gas 4 and line cake trays with brightly-coloured cake cases.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and smooth. Beat the eggs and add along with the flour. Finally stir in the chocolate chips.

3. Spoon the mixture evenly between 24 cases and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, until lightly golden on top. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

4. While the cakes are cooking make the icing. Melt 100g milk or dark chocolate (depending on your taste) in a heat-proof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Give it a stir ever so often to help it along. Add a few drops of milk and a little icing sugar until you have a nice smooth consistency. Tip: Unlike cake mixtures where the quantities are crucial, icing can be made to suit your taste, I used Green & Black's dark chocolate so the icing sugar helps sweeten it.

5. Here's the fun part! Spoon the icing over a cake and decorate it. I used glitter and some edible flowers on mine, but go crazy. Try silver balls, jelly diamonds, smarties, maltesers, hundreds & thousands... basically anything that looks pretty and is edible!!

So there you have it, simple fairy cakes. Great for taking round to a friend's house or to the office, that is if they last longer than 5 minutes... To see more recipes, and find out about my baking challenges you can see my blog here http://bakes-a-lot-lady.blogspot.com/

7.22.2011

Guest Post: Nadine-Adele

Hello everyone :) My name is Nadine and I am really happy to be doing a guest blog for Polly while she’s away! This is my first guest blog and with summer here and so much inspiration flowing, I wanted to share with you some of my tips that I follow to help my creative state of mind.

5 TIPS TO STAY CREATIVE





1. MAKE LISTS. I always make lists and review them later when I am ready to start creating. Also they are good for organisation and great for blog ideas and posts. I keep lots of notebooks so I can write down ideas for different things and so they don’t get messed up. I’m really obsessive with lists!

 2. TAKE BREAKS. It’s hard to be creative 24/7! You should never force creativity even if you really feel like creating something marvellous! If I feel like I’m stuck in a rut, I usually take a break by going for a walk, hanging out with friends or just browsing your amazing blogs!

 3. BE OPEN. Try new things, experiment – throw a bit of paint on that textile piece, glue, melt, twist, cut, arrange, freeze and if it doesn’t look right, then it doesn’t work. It’s fine! Least you tried and you know what works and what doesn’t.

4. GET FEEDBACK. It is important to know your strengths and weaknesses so you can improve. Ask friends, family, blog followers or work colleagues to look at your work/prints/doodles/drawings/crafty things and ask for their opinion. Also, Deviantart is a great website to post an online portfolio and get opinions by people who are also in the same creative field. Don’t get disheartened though when people don’t see your work how you see it. You should evaluate everything that’s been said and move on as a stronger crafter/artist.


5. DON’T GIVE UP. Everyone has a talent and you should never give up on your dream or ambition. Work hard and the benefits will flow and you will see success! I know these tips are quite vague but they have helped me in times of need – especially at university and when I have lots of deadlines on the go! I hope you enjoyed my post [short as it was] and make sure you stop by my blog to let me know what you thought :)

Have a great day!


I'm Going.....


source
 on my holidays :) The girls and I are heading down to Kent, to stay with my sister for a few days. It's my mum's birthday, so she and one of my brothers are coming too, so I'm sure we'll have lots of fun!!! I'm excited for a few days away from the normal routine!

I've lined up some fantastic guest posts for you and I'll be back next week with a tonne of photos to share!!! I may pop in briefly over the week, but I'm planning on staying as internet free as I can!!
 
Don't forget to enter the sponsor giveaway I posted yesterday - HERE and there's 20% off everything in my SHOP while I'm away with coupon summerhols (all orders will be posted on the 28th)



ig

7.21.2011

Sponsor Feature & Giveaway


 I thought I'd leave you lovely folks with a giveaway while I'm away :) Meet Margot:


Margot is a 25 year old, outdoor educator, want-to-be Newfoundlander, country living girl who spends her days baking, crafting and gardening. You can read about all of these things on her blog Newfoundlander at Heart. She recently opened an etsy shop, and is working hard to fill it with Newfoundland and Nature inspired wares. You can find all kinds of things from sewn art, to photos, and hooked rugs.





Margot is kindly offering $15 store credit to one lucky winner!


To enter you must follow me with GFC & leave a comment telling me where your dream holiday would be

For more chances to win: (leave a separate comment for each one please!)
Follow me via Bloglovin (1 entry)

Favourite Margot's  SHOP and tell me what you'd spend the credit on
Tweet about this giveaway (1 entry) - and be sure to use @pixie_polly so I can see your tweet!
Blog about this giveaway (5 entries)
Buy something from my shop (10 entries!)
Sign up for my newsletter (5 entries!)
The giveaway will run until midnigth GMT Wednesday 27th July :)
Good Luck!



ig

7.20.2011

August Sponsor Shoutout

If you have a blog or shop that you'd like to advertise (for free!) in August, now's the time!! The feature ad is already booked for August - but email me if you want to reserve it for another month. Details of ad's are below:


Stats: (updated 20th July 2011)
  • 420 GFC followers
  • 415 google reader subscribers
  • average of 250 page views/day
  • 7500+ page views/month
  • strong following on twitter/facebook
  • average of 7 posts/week


Sponsorship Options:

Feature Ad
  • only one available each month
  • solo intro post
  • option to offer a giveaway
  • optional guestpost/tutorial
  • mid-month catch up
  • featured at top of sponsors all month
  • $5/month
  •  
Contact me if you want to reserve this for a specific month :)

available for: July/August/September/October/November/December

Standard Ad
  • group intro post
  • ad's rotated weekly for maximum exposure
  • mid-month catch-up
  • FREE!!
  • All I ask is that you offer either a giveaway or a guestpost (or both if you want!)
Email me to set your ad up :)

loves, Polly x

What I Wore Wednesday

 

 


Dress - New Look
Jeans - Thrifted
Cardigan - Thrifted
Shoes - Thrifted
Necklace - This Enchanted Pixie

Yesterday was a quiet day, catching up on some jobs around the house, getting some things ready for going away on Friday, and doing a little sewing. I love these old jeans - they are so comfy :) And the pretty little scarf on my head disguises my 'in need of washing' hair lol

More of the same today, though I have a friend and her little girl visiting this afternoon which will be fun :) I'm hoping to get some more time to sew too - I can't wait to show you my new lines for the shop, and my new vision for my buisness..but it'll have to wait until I get home!

Oh... and while I was busy sewing yesterday, the girls decided to dress up too - here's what they looked like ;)


loves, Polly x