Happy New Year!

The last few days has brought on lots of reflection, 10 years ago on New Years Eve we celebrated a very different night to the quite night in (with hopefully sleeping babies) we face tonight. So much has changed in our lives over the past few years, the biggest being we are now parents to two amazing little boys.

DH and I have been talking a lot over the last few days about what the upcoming year will hold for us. I am not one for resolutions although I would like to try and get a bit fitter and maybe loose some of those baby pounds in 2010 ;) and as a family hopefully we can all learn to relax a little more and enjoy life

Something that does bring a smile to my face is baking for the ones closest to me and I received a very beautiful cupcake, cheesecake and cookie book from a very dear friend for Christmas and have delighted in making a few recipes come to life in the last few days (not something to help with the resolution but all in moderation I reckon ;). One of which being these amazing Passionfruit Short breads... Yum!
What does the new year mean for you? What ever you are doing tonight have a great one, be safe and hug those closest to you

Love Bel ♥

All wrapped up

Well I finished wrapping the last of the Christmas pressies last night and I would love to say the majority of them are handmade but this year I am sad to say that not many are. The boys (both mine and Em's) do have a little robot and matching T-shirt from the panel of fabric I brought from the girls at Selvedge House but that is about it.

Luckily my brother came to the rescue and sent the boys these cool stockings he made to filled by Santa ;)
And I did make a little handmade gift this week, a good friend of ours gave birth to a beautiful little girl Jorja Sophia so I quickly appliqued some singlets to add to her pressie. I am pretty happy with how they came out (just don't look to closely at the heart ;)
Hope you are enjoying the silly season, we are counting down till DH finishes work at lunchtime tomorrow for Christmas Holidays

Bel x

Where do the days go?

This seems to be the question I keep asking myself lately, there just never seems to be enough hours in the day to get all the things done that I would like to do. I know I say it every year but maybe 2010 will be better? What do you think?

We have had a fun week though. Last weekend we meet up with some friends who have a little boy the same age as Sax (he is just 1 day older!) and we took the boys bowling. A great night was had by all, although one game really is long enough for a two nearly three year old's attention span ;)
We also had my husbands nieces birthday party, and being a true girly girl and a bit of a shopaholic I made her a shoe cupcake tower and some cute little butterfly mini cupcakes for the kids. The butterfly's are printed on rice paper with edible ink and were SO effective. I cant wait to try out the blue ones I have as well. You can find the Butterflies for sale here
We also started Xav on solids this week. He LOVES his rice cereal, but isn't too keen on having anything added to it and Watermelon and Rockmelon have also been big hits in this hot weather
Well another day has disappeared before my eyes so I better go and get some sleep so I can do it all again tomorrow

Cant wait until Christmas when we can spend some time at home hanging out doing nothing

Have a great week, Bel x

The day that was...

Well as I said in my previous post, Em and I had an amazing day at last weekends BrisStyle Indie Designers Market. The crowds were huge, the stalls fantastic and the company perfect and even our littlest boys were on their best behaviors (if only we had of charged a 'baby veiwing fee' we would have been rich ;)
I was a bit concerned our stall was a bit over the top with too many different products (this is what happens as we both have such short attention spans we like to make a million different things each market) but all the comments we got were so supportive and I think this was one of the reasons we did so well on Saturday. As usual though our Pony tail holders, headbands and bobby pins proved to be popular, they are just such good stocking fillers
The grounds and hall of St Augustine's proved to once again be an amazing showplace for the talented BrisStyle Crew
We were keep busy most of the day and only had time to make super quick trips around to admire all the other stalls, hopefully next time we will be a bit more organised and get to go and have a good look at everyone's wares
If you are a Brisbane local make sure you stay tuned for next year's dates, if not we will be re-opening our ETSY store next week with lots of new stock ;)

Cheers, Bel xx

p.s All the pics are used courtesy of Kish Photography & Design. To checkout more of Darren's work check out his face book page http://www.facebook.com/#/pages/Brisbane-Australia/Kish-Photography-Design/45968786645?ref=ts

and to view more pics of the market you can go here http://www.flickr.com/photos/chicuffbydaneve/sets/72157622839859881/

Tomatoes Galore...

Well our vegie patch certainly has been very productive and at the moment we are inundated with Tomatoes! Beautiful sweet yummy red tomatoes. SO if anyone has any reciepes, suggestions, ideas etc on what to do with bowls of big and small (we have cherries and Grosse lisses) please send me an email or leave me a comment :)
This week it has been so nice to just hang out with the boys after such a hectic lead up to the amazing BrisStyle Indie Market Last weekend. Em and I had a fantastic day, was planning on posting a wrap up now but have decided to go have some ice cream and relax for a bit before bed but I will be back tomorrow, promise ;)
Take Care, Bel x

Hoo Hooo is going to be at the BiDM on Saturday?

Hi everyone,

just thought I would share a quick sneak peek of some of my friends that will be joining me at BiDM on Saturday

Ooly Owls

Peg Angels

And gift tins, these are great if you are giving someone money or a gift card, pop it in through the bottom and seal and then when they receive the gift they open the tin with the ring pull :-)

hope to see everyone at the market on Saturday, OMG only 2 more non-sleeps!!

Em x

Boutique Gift Market - Dec 3rd & 4th

Work in the city? Pop in to the Boutique Gift Market and say hi to the BrisStyle gals on Thursday and Friday at the BrisStyle co-op stall. Rebecca from Edward and Lilly will be there on Thursday and Sam and Katie will be there on Friday. Plus there's loads of other Brisbane talents to buy handmade wares from including our very own EmBelISH Push Pins.

Boutique Gift Market
@ Bleeding Hearts Gallery
166 Ann Street
Brisbane
Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th December
10am - 3pm

Happy Shopping, Bel x

A productive day...

Well I to say it really is all starting to come together . Yesterday I had a really a productive day, the kids actually co-operated for a change with the little one having a marathon sleep and the big one actually doing what I ask for a change

In the morning I sorted the last of the fabric for some pony tail holders. I have to say I think this is my favorite part of the process, going through my stash and picking what I think are the best combination's.Then when DH got home he went off to make some more display stuff and I managed to just about finish up all the pony tail holders. Here are some of my favorites, I just LOVE the shoe fabric ;) Anyway better get back to making

cheers, Bel xx