Xmas Feast Recipes

Sorry to re-use a photo...

 I got most of the recipes for our Xmas Feast from my mother's old issues of Cuisine magazine -- and wouldn't you know it, they're online too!  The oysters came from the lifestyle section of the newspaper, and they are also online, you're in luck :)

Oysters, crispy bacon, avocado, and champagne vinegar (I couldn't find champagne vinegar so used a tiny bit of white wine vinegar).

Salmon and mushroom tart

Grilled asparagus, tomato, and feta bruschetta

Prawns, avocado, and pink grapefruit with rocket and dill aioli

Roasted potatoes, capsicum (bell pepper) and baby carrots with rosemary

Go forth and cook!  The best thing is that all these recipes are very easy -- I love to cook for a crowd, but I'm also kinda lazy...

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Auckland Art & Craft Fair

Yesterday was the second Auckland Art & Craft Fair, which if you follow my blog you know I was supposed to be partaking in but had to pull out of (sulk).  Anyway, I put my big girl panties on and hopped on the bus to go check out what I was missing.

I ran into a friend there and got so wrapped up in things that I of course forgot to take photos.  I did however swipe a business card from everyone that I admired.

You also probably know how broke I am, so it was somewhat torturous, although I did lay down a whole $3 for this bookmark from Honey Design:

Some of the other wonderful vendors were:

 Erupt Prints

Miss Ellie May

 Hunter Gatherer

Bird In A Bunny Suit

Dear Colleen

 I also got to meet the lovely Jessica from Foxes, at whose table I was ogling the wonderful work of Devon Smith:

It was a nice big space, plenty of room for everyone, vendors and customers alike.  I was very impressed with the quality of goods for sale!  I'll definitely be hanging onto those business cards for when I start receiving a paycheck. 

I hope it was a very successful day for everyone involved, I heard that the next fair is planned for May 2011, so maybe I will have quit sulking and figured out how to source supplies and wrangled with my other artistic crises in time for that one...

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Updated Blog Roll And Links

I just spent some time updating my favorite links to other blogs and crafty inspiration sites in the sidebar.  I added a new list for "Creative Biz Links" (blogs or sites full of inspiration for those in creative business), removed a few dead or less relevant links, and added some of my new favorites.

New additions:

Blossom Wedding Flowers -- new blog!

I have the pleasure of now working part-time with Emily of Blossom Wedding Flowers.  As I wrote about in this post, Emily and I have known each other for going on 12 years.  Emily is an incredibly talented floral designer here in Auckland (as evidenced by how busy she is this wedding season!).  She has just started a blog for Blossom Wedding Flowers and I highly recommend you take a peek at her beautiful bouquets and the other wedding and floral inspiration she is posting over there.

Craft Gawker

Craft eye candy.  Craft p0rn.  Call it what you want, it's heaven.

Creativity Is Happiness

You all know by now how much I heart Jenny Lee Wentworth by now, right?  Not only is she one of my favorite customers, I really think this girl is the sweetest thing on the planet.  Read her blog, she's adorable.

Erin Carver

Erin is a fellow Kiwi and self-taught mixed-media artist.  I love her work and her writing.  I am going to treat myself to something from her Etsy store as soon as I get a paycheck!

Indie Handmade

More eye candy, giveaways, craft book reviews, and general yumminess...

Pipi La La

Goodness me how I love Michele from Pipi La La.  Michele is another Kiwi artist-in-bloom and she is so lovely and authentic on her blog.  I adore her work and am the proud owner of one of her pieces.  I also have my eye on another piece in her Etsy store and I check it daily to make sure it hasn't sold yet ;)

I think that's it for the new additions to my links, I hope you take and look and enjoy them as much as I do!

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Etsy Favorite Finds: Baby Animals!

It's springtime here in New Zealand and it's a lovely time to live in the countryside - baby animals abound!  Here is a collection of Etsy finds inspired by the season :)

  
Top row, L-R:
Duckling Glass Tile Pendant by thelittlefox
Vintage Inspired Bird Nest Eggs Gift Tags by bljgraves
Mommy And Chicks Print by joojoo 

Bottom row, L-R:
Belle And Her Little Lamb Blank Greetings Card by belleandboo
Tiny Pig Print by acageybee
Ball Bunny Print by Thalitadol 

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Top 5 Craftypod Podcast Episodes

I love the Craftypod podcast put out by Sister Diane (nope, she's not a nun, but I wondered that too...).  Every couple of weeks, Sister Diane puts out a new podcast of 'crafty goodness' aimed at the crafty biz crowd, and often including interviews of some of the craft world movers and shakers, like Tara Gentile of Scoutie Girl and Kari Chapin, author of The Handmade Marketplace.

The back catalogue of Craftypod episodes is so vast (my iTunes has episodes dating back to 2005!) that I have yet to listen to them all.  That said, here are my Top 5 Craftypod episodes (so far) for crafty biz inspiration:

1.  Why Your Story Is Everything, with Tara Gentile

2.  Making Ideas Happen with Scott Belsky

3.  Engagement Marketing For Your Crafty Business

4.  Craft Blogging:  What Should You Write About?

5.  Why Should You Plan Your Blog Posts Ahead?

Enjoy! You can also find more crafty biz inspiration in my post of my Top 10 Craft Business Blog Posts.

If you have any other crafty podcasts you recommend, I'd love to hear them in the comments.  Now, I think I need to go and re-listen to numbers #4 and #5....

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Flying Lessons Meet Up

On Saturday I was fortunate enough to meet up with three of my classmates from Kelly Rae Roberts' Flying Lessons e-course: Kathryn, Norma, and Monica.  We spent two hours at a cafe and talked about everything creative under the sun!

Kathryn Hansen coordinated our meeting.  Kathryn is an incredible artist and is moving into photography.  You can see some of her work on her website.

Norma launched herself into the creative world by making hand-dyed, organic kids shirts. These shirts are super cute and have great messages on them (and inside them!)  Norma has a great website you can check out here.

Monica is a creative whirlwind, or as she calls herself, The Creative Beast!  Monica has lots of exciting projects going on that she blogs about here.

It was so great to meet up with these inspiring women.  Artistically, Kathryn's work just blows me away.  The way Norma got herself into the creative business world through her own hard work and figuring things out is so inspiring and motivating to me.  And Monica is a fountain of knowledge about creative people and opportunities and really puts herself out into the creative world, attributes I really admire and hope to emulate.  Thanks for the wonderful time and conversation ladies!

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Adding Facebook and Twitter Share Buttons To Your Blog

 I just did this, as you can see below each post, yay!  Here are the tutorials from Blogger Sentral where I found out how to do it if you would like to do it for your blog.  Easy peasy.

Adding a Facebook share button

Adding a Twitter share button

Enjoy!

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Top 10 Craft Business Blog Posts

I love reading blogs about the ins and outs of handmade craft businesses and lifestyle.  Here are my top 10 current favorite posts (in no particular order).  Enjoy!

1.  Disposable Culture & Our Fear of Commitment on Scoutie Girl 

2.  Growing Your Business Beyond Etsy on Crafting an MBA

3.  How to Use Etsy as a Launch Pad on Crafting an MBA

4.  Getting Paid Partially in Time on Craftypod

5.  Starting Your Own Etsy Business Part 3 on Design*Sponge

6.  Setting Big Picture Goals on Crafting an MBA

7.  Blog Comments: Part Deux on taragentile.com

8.  Starting Small, Growing Slowly on Modish Biz Tips

9.  Everything You Need to Know About Running a Giveaway on Your Blog:  Part One on Handmade Spark (and Part 2)

10.  Etsy Seller Makes $4000 at Home Art Show on Handmade Spark -- what a brilliant idea this is, I'm thinking of approaching some of my local Flying Lessons e-course classmates about trying this.

Do you have any favorite crafty biz blog posts you'd like to share? I'd love to see them!

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Flying Lessons Classmates

Follow Your Dreams by artwithallie

I have been participating in Kelly Rae Roberts' creative entrepreneurship e-course for the last four weeks. My classmates are an amazingly talented (and huge!) bunch of artists and creative women and men of all kinds from all over the globe. Here is just a snippet of some of their work.  Enjoy!

Lady Has A Heart by NatashaMay

I just want you to know who I am by Sleep and her Sisters

Hold Onto Love by Pipi-La-La

Epiphany by MiraArt

Waiting Birds by vivaphotography

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Tranquil Inspiration

 Me, Kimberly Wilson, and social media strategist Katy Tafoya

On Friday evening I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting Kimberly Wilson and hearing her talk on infusing a little tranquility into every day and her latest book, Tranquilista.  Kimberly supplied Sprinkles cupcakes and wine, mais oui!

Kimberly is an entrepreneurial spirit of many talents.  As I have mentioned in a previous post, I discovered her podcasts in 2007 (originally named Hip Tranquil Chick, now Tranquility du Jour) and have been a huge fan of her work ever since.  Kimberly founded Tranquil Space yoga studio in Washington DC (and now also Arlington, Virginia), which was named among the top 25 yoga studios in the world by Travel + Leisure, has her own line of organic bamboo clothing named TranquilitT, and founded a nonprofit, Tranquil Space Foundation.  In addition to the free podcasts, Kimberly blogs and has written two books, Tranquilista as mentioned above, and her first book, Hip Tranquil Chick.  Phew!  Not bad for a woman who has no formal business training!  My favorite thing about Kimberly is that she describes herself as an introvert at heart, which I do too, so that gives me encouragement that big things are still possible even without being a natural social butterfly.


After the talk and Q&A portion, Kimberly spent time talking to individuals, and gave me a ton of encouragement and even a new idea for my pendants.  It was such a delight to meet her and I'm so glad I had the opportunity before I leave L.A.  I highly recommend all her products (I wish I could have made it to DC to visit Tranquil Space, but alas, I don't think that's going to happen), including the lovely bamboo clothing, as modeled by yours truly below.  Best thing about bamboo -- gentle machine wash and no ironing!

The book signing was held at a wonderful store in L.A. called Happy.  I hadn't visited Happy before but it's a wonderful store full of unique gifts.  The owner gave 10% off anything in store after the event was over, and I was delighted to find this:

Photo from the Happy website

My wallet has been broken for a while so I could justify the purchase.  I am absolutely in love with it, it's so perfect I feel like someone designed it just for me.

The whole evening was absolutely inspiring and fuelled the rest of my weekend.  I spent a lot of time this weekend working on my creative biz and am looking forward to stretching all of this energy into the coming week.  If you're in need of a little inspiration of your own, I suggest you hop over to Kimberly's website, download some Tranquility du Jour podcasts on iTunes, and check out her books!

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Sewing Tutorials

One of the crafts I really want to learn is sewing.  I have taken two classes at The Urban Craft Center (where I made a pillowcase and a clutch), but I don't have my own sewing machine so haven't gotten much further.  These tutorials are so cute and look easy enough even for me!


Little Lamb Pillows from The Purl Bee

Quilted Notecards from Made: A Creative Collection

Fabric envelope tutorial (doesn't have to be a love letter!) from LucyKate Crafts

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