lacethread

take a break - tasmania

In lieu of the summer trips, here’s a quick Tasmania round up. 

Found here.

Found here.

Found here.

[Note: In no ways are these photographs mine, nor do I claim credit for them (: I try my best to source out its owner and link them with rightful credits. In cases where I don’t, please do let me know and I’ll edit them accordingly. In the meantime, enjoy!]

freebies {printables} - groceries made easy!

I thought I’d share with you the menu planner and grocery shopping list that I’m currently using. For about a year now, we’ve been using a miserable self-designed piece of A4 paper to plan out our meals and grocery shopping. But after I found these lovely printables offered by a print a day and Ez of Creature Comforts, I never looked back since. 

This even comes with a matching grocery shopping list!

I’d use the lace menu and list as a set, but I just can’t resist these adorable lists that can be found here. They’re just a perfect size to fit in my wallet (: 

So anyway, I hope they benefit you as much as they did me. There are a lot of handy, and not to mention pretty, printables available on both sites, so don’t forget to go have a look (:

feature this - mae

With the renovations now done, I’ve been thinking about how to do up my new room. I’ve always been really interested in getting a wall decal of sorts but have been bored by the typical plain black vinyl designs, till I visited 1001 Things For Baby @ 430 Rathdowne St (Carlton North) and found mae.

mae is the lovely brainchild of three lovely ladies from Stokers Siding, NSW. Their products are made to endure whatever disasters children create and the best part is that they’re made from pretty patterned fabric! To top it all off, this local darling goes the extra mile with eco-friendly supplies. Oh and did I mention, these whimsical pieces are washable and reusable too.

Now, mae is available for purchase on bigcartel but if you’re an etsy user, find mae’s wall decals here and stickers for small spaces at minimae. And to find out more, click here (:

be styled - perfect platforms

Since spring is supposedly here down under, I thought I’d give a little look at the amazing shoes up for sale. Look at all the amazing platforms! I’m so in love with them that I’ve even kept the pair from Steve Madden for myself (: 

Find them @ Tony Bianco, Kate Spade and Steve Madden respectively (:

inspire me - pretty packaging

Remember the brown paper that your art teacher made you bring to school to line the tables with? Look at all these amazing goodies that are transformed by the humble brown paper.

All these off here (:

kitchen finds - lovely cookbooks (:

As recently pointed out by a really close friend, I get rather territorial about my kitchen - I don’t like to share it, neither do I like to use someone else’s. I was never a good cook. In fact, not too long ago, I had absolutely no clue as to how the kettle operates. Yet in a short span of 3 years, the joy I get out of spending quality time in the kitchen has increased immensely. Today (after a long long hiatus), I’d like to share something that has contributed so much to developing my love for food - both eating and cooking. Here’s to two amazing cookbooks that would be an amazing addition to my collection (:

Ikea’s Homemade is best is an amazing collection of pretty minimalistic photography that allows the food (and not the recipe) to do the talking. Perfect way not to get hung up over the small details and to enjoy the product. 

Sadly though, it is entirely in Swedish. So until then, this would probably make do as a coffee table book. (Oh, and there’s the iPhone App too!)

Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals was a treasure I stumbled across whilst browsing Borders this afternoon. Packed full of easy-peasy heartwarming entertaining recipes, it’ll hopefully help solve all the oh-no-what-to-cook-people-are-coming-over moments (: - of course assuming first that I own the book.

kitchen finds {recipe time} - cream of chicken soup

A couple weeks back, my Bible study group was on supper duty and we made a wonderful pot of cream of chicken soup on a cold wintery night. It was really heartwarming that we had such a good response towards it, so much so that I’m scheduled for supper duty again for an event in a couple of weeks. I figured that since I was going to email the recipe off to the few who asked for it, I might as well get a head start and post it up here instead.

Also, if you’re going all out rustic style, you might as well attempt your own chicken stock and croutons, both of which really take up no effort at all. I’m not going to post the stock recipe just yet, merely because its almost midnight on a Sunday, but really the croutons are so easy theres not much of a hard and fast recipe to follow. Simply cut stale white bread into tiny bite-sized pieces, spread them out in a single layer on a lined baking tray, generously spray them in olive oil and then leave them to crisp in a pre-heated oven for 10 minutes. A temperature of around 180C would do the trick. And if you’re feeling particularly excited, try sprinkling a handful of thyme over before baking the croutons. Even garlic infused oil sounds like a tempting venture (:

Cream of Chicken Soup

4 cups of chicken stock
1 1/2 cups of warm water
2 pieces of bone-in chicken maryland pieces
1 large brown onion, sliced into large chunks
2 pieces of celery stalks, roughly chopped
1 leek, washed, trimmed and roughly chopped
50g of butter
1/3 cup of plain flour
1/2 cup of pure cream
1/4 cup of finely chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves

• Combine warm water, chicken stock, chicken pieces, onion, celery and leek in a large saucepan and bring it to a boil. You can choose to sweat the vegetables first before boiling them off, but thats really up to you (: To save on washing dishes, I’ve been lazy and left that bit out.
• Once boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer and leave it there for an hour or so to fully infuse.
• An hour later, remove the chicken pieces and shred it up once it has been cooled. Following that, strain the stock mixture into a large bowl or pot. You don’t need the solids anymore, so you can discard those.
• Melt butter in the now empty pot that you used to boil the stock in. Once the butter has fully melted, add in the flour and keep stirring till its been cooked off. 
• Cup by cup, add in the strained stock mixture. In between in addition, make sure the lumps of flour are whisked out completely. 
• Once all the stock has been added, stir in the cream. When the soup comes to a boil, stir in the parsley and shredded chicken bits, leaving to simmer for a further 5 or so minutes.
• You are now ready to enjoy a nice warm bowl of comfort. Serve it topped with sprigs of parsley leaves, oven baked croutons and cracked black pepper if you wish (: 

Yes, I know, there’s no pretty photo here to entice you to make yourself this lovely pot of wintery goodness, but trust me, its well worth the stab in the dark. Plus, its really not as hard as it seems. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, this ratio of ingredients would make a regular family of four extremely happy. 

On a separate note, here’s to a reminder that I’m lacking in Saturday breakfast sessions (:

freebies {giveaway} - yay stamps!

There’s this amazing giveaway by ohhellofriend which I stumbled across this morning. Been following her blog for quite awhile now, and I absolutely love the finds and inspirations that are featured on her blog. Been considering doing a post about the freebies she has on it, but that’ll have to wait till later.

So, this week’s giveaway comes from Paper Pastries and involves a custom hand lettered address stamp! Take a look at it here. I absolutely love LOVE stamps. Stamps of all kinds! In fact, I’m slowly building up my stamp collection (a miserable 3 so far), and I’m so excited about it. My theory is that with amazing stamps and die cuts, you can create lovely homemade embellishments and then, you save so much more as compared to buying one time off pre-made embellishments from the store. Much more personalised that way too. But anyway, I digress.

Paper Pastries have some amazing stationery finds that I would love to get my hands on! And as you can guess, my favourites from the store includes the Yellow Owl Workshop Paris Rubber Stamp Kit and the Yellow Owl Workship London Stamp Kit. Can’t wait for the end of the giveaway just to see who gets the pretty address stamp (:

feature this - monday blues no more.

The past couple of months was spent liaising with Singapore based so called designers that weren’t really adequate in conceptualising the ideas I had in mind. If you didn’t already know, my parents are doing up their new place back in Singapore whilst I’m still based in Australia. With the designer only proficient in speaking dialect and lacking in emailing skills, it was really frustrating trying to communicate a sort of softness amidst the cold, modern take on interior design that Singaporeans so love to use. So anyway, I’ve come to terms with the fact that the room that I’ll be going back to won’t be exactly as I’ve pictured. And till I get there one day, here’s leaving with some really amazing etsy finds from Frippelous (: