Announcing the second terrarium workshop!

I've had a great response to Mr Sparrow's Summer Workshops, so I've decided to run a second Make Your Own Terrarium workshop on Sunday, 5th February. If you're interested, please sign up on the website or email me at info[at]mrsparrow.com.au. The first workshop is fully booked, so this is your only chance to sign up for the terrarium workshops.

There are still a few places left in the Make Your Own Kokedama workshop on 29th January, too. I know these aren't as popular as terrariums at the moment, but there's actually a little more skill involved in making them so they're a bit special.

All the details are on the website, but don't hesitate to send me an email if you have any questions!

Although the store is closed until January 9th, I will send out vouchers for the workshops immediately so there's no need to wait to sign up!

The taste of summer

Every year at around this time I start looking for passionfruit recipes to use the glut of fruit we have from our vine. This year I stumbled across a recipe I had cut out from a magazine years ago and stored away in my recipe folder but never used. It was for passionfruit cordial and since it sounded incredibly easy and totally delicious I thought I'd give it a go! Sorry, I have no idea of my source for this one but here it is:

Passionfruit Cordial

• 4 cups caster sugar
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup passionfruit pulp
• 1 teaspoon citric acid

Place sugar, water, passionfruit pulp and citric acid in a medium saucepan over medium heat and stir until sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil, remove from the heat and allow to cool. Store in the fridge for up to 4 weeks.

Use it like regular cordial and top up with iced water, or sparkling or soda water for a delicious day-time drink (we use our SodaStream to make almost-free sparkling water, which we drink on its own and mix with just about everything!). For an evening twist, add a shot of white rum - we served this up to our friends Denis and Laura the other night and they declared it the pefect summer drink! I imagine gin or vodka would also work well, and I'd like to try adding a shot of the cordial to a glass of sparkling wine, too - yum!

If you don't grow your own passionfruit you could also make this using store-bought fruit or even the passionfruit pulp you can buy in a jar. The fruit you buy are much larger than the home-grown version, though - I used about 15-20 passionfruit from our vine for this recipe but you would probably only need 4 or 5 store-sized fruit.

I promise if you give this recipe a go you'll be declaring it the taste of summer before long!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from all (two!) of us at Mr Sparrow!

We're taking a little break and will be closed for two weeks, re-opening on 9th January 2012.

Thanks so much for all your support this year, and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas break!

I'll be popping in and out of the blog over the next couple of weeks so hopefully I'll see you here :)

Christmas crackers

One of my Christmas traditions since I was very small is to make Christmas crackers for my family every year. If you've never made your own crackers, why not give it a go this year? It's really very easy (definitely achievable on Christmas Eve!) and the result is so much nicer than any of the crackers you can buy. Here's a quick and easy DIY!

You will need:

• toilet rolls (one for each person, plus two extra)
• cracker snaps (to give you that satisfying sound! You can find these at craft shops and most newsagents these days)
• sweet treats to go inside
• jokes to go inside
• small gifts or novelties to go inside
• one sheet of paper per cracker, measuring 30cm x 15cm (you can use any paper you like, even old Christmas wrapping, as long as it's strong enough not to tear when you tie the ends but not too strong so it won't rip when you pull the crackers - I used ordinary kraft paper this year)
• string or ribbon
• anything else you like to decorate your crackers!

1. Prepare all the special little things to go inside your crackers!

• for my sweet treats this year, I used this idea and rewrapped mini mentos in cute stripey paper
• for my small gifts, I made mini personalised magnets by using a pastry cutter to cut circles out of this fantastic air dried clay (available at art supply shops and some newsagents), then using alphabet stamps and other cute stamps to personalise them. When they were dry I glued a plain magnet to the back (from office supply shops).
• I went for classic corny Christmas jokes this year, but other years I've included quotes, fortunes or fun facts instead (last year they were all New York themed facts!)

2. Put all your bits inside a toilet roll, making sure not to forget the snap! It can be fun to also sprinkle a bit of glitter or confetti inside your crackers to make it extra fun when they burst open...as long as you don't mind cleaning up afterwards! If you've personalised your crackers, write the name of the person on the outside of the toilet roll so you don't lose track of them.

3. Place the two extra toilet rolls at each end of the main one (over the ends of the snap), leaving a gap of about half a centimetre. Wrap your paper around the toilet rolls and secure with sticky tape in the middle.

4. With your fingers, find the little gaps between the toilet rolls and scrunch them in a bit (this makes it easier to tie without ripping the paper). Take your string or ribbon and tie it around the scrunched area, making sure all the goodies are still inside the main toilet roll (they have a tendency to slip out if you're not careful!). Having an extra toilet roll in each of the end sections helps to give them a nice shape. Tape down one end of the snap to the paper so that it doesn't slip out. After wrapping up each one, write the name (or just a letter) in pencil inside one of the ends so you can keep track of which is which. You can rub this out later.

5. Decorate your crackers! Keeping with my sparkly theme this year, I used shards of paper covered with red glitter and I stamped the names using cute mini alphabet stamps from Remedy. I used red and white twisted twine (from Mr Sparrow) to tie the ends.

6. Give them to family and friends and watch their faces light up!

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas!

Happy Friday...and a tune for your weekend!

Happy last Friday before Christmas! In true festive spirit, this week I have a Christmas wreath for you! Remember how I said I wanted to try making a living wreath? Well, yesterday I got my chance. My sister has been visiting from London for the last week or so and last night we had a bit of a pre-Christmas party for her (because she is leaving today so won't be here for the real thing). Mum asked what I wanted to do for decorations and I immediately thought of a centrepiece-style wreath. I bought a couple of peach branches, a couple of bunches of viburnum berries, a bunch of leucadendron nuts and a bunch of the most amazing fuschia-coloured peonies and basically just had a play around! I used the sturdy peach branches to form the basic wreath shape first, and held it together with a few pieces of wire, then I added in the bushy viburnum berries, then the leucadendron and finally the peonies. I discovered the trick to keeping it a nice shape is laying all the branches in the same direction, and making sure there are no gaps. I popped the ends of the peonies in tiny bottles of water that fit snugly around their stems, so that they would last the night and it seemed to do the trick!

I also made this strawberry cream pie for dessert from this recipe. It was pretty easy to make and totally delicious and fresh-tasting!

Now for the final Christmas tune for your weekend! I thought I'd finish off with a song that always leaves me with a good feeling, Merry Christmas, Baby, by Otis Redding. I hope you enjoy it!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, filled with all the good things that Christmas brings!

I have one final Christmas-themed post so will be back with that before long...

Wrapping ideas

If you're stuck for wrapping ideas, a few lovely creative people have posted DIYs for some simple but effective wrapping ideas! Check these out...

• stitched packages from shimtokk (there are lots more ideas for stitched packages on their blog, and free downloadable pdfs!)
• snowglobe gift wrap from Present & Correct on Design*Sponge
• wallpaper gift bags from Oh Happy Day
• pastel and pop coloured giftwrap from hello sandwich on Martha Stewart

Still stuck? Why not try one of these easy ideas for jazzing up plain kraft paper?

• paint your paper with blackboard paint (or just a strip across each present) and write a message in chalk. It doesn't have to be black, either - we have tins of TMOD chalkboard paint in lots of fun colours!
• go crazy with mt tape (lots of ideas here)
• make cute mini bunting from foil wrappers, alfoil, paper or mt tape
• wrap a paper snowflake garland around your package

Happy wrapping!

Bright, shiny packages

With Christmas only a few days away, hopefully all you have left to do is wrap your presents!

My wrapping this year sort of came about by accident. I had a completely different idea planned, involving white paint and a mini roller brush, but when I tried it out it just didn't look how I had imagined. So I decided to ditch it and go for something completely different! I looked around our study to see what crafty supplies I had and this gold glitter caught my eye - it's a particularly nice, chunky glitter I bought to use in the kitschy baubles. I had gold on the brain a bit, having just been ogling this.

I traced around the lid of a jar to get a circle, then cut out about 20 of them from plain white paper. Then I spread a layer of the glitter over a large sheet of paper and spread glue over the surface of one circle at a time, then pressed it into the glitter - this gave a nice, even coverage. I wrapped each of my presents in brown paper and once the glitter circles were dry I glued one onto each package. On smaller packages I wrapped a circle around an edge, so it ended up looking like a semi-circle. Then I grouped together the presents for each person and tied them up with natural twine. I really like the unexpected combination of glitzy gold and subdued kraft paper and natural twine.

Although it's a bit more time-consuming, I like wrapping each present individually, and then tying them together if you have more than one per person. It makes the unwrapping process much more exciting! I had a customer a few months ago who bought about 10 small presents for a friend's birthday and asked for them all to be individually wrapped. She said the birthday girl had so much fun unwrapping each package and seeing what surprises were inside!

I always try to link my Christmas cards and wrapping, so this year I decided to use some leftover glitter circles to make my cards. I was inspired by Lillian's beautiful mt tape wreath cards, so I decided to cut up my glitter circles into little shards and shape them to form a sort of wreath or starburst. It was quite fiddly glueing each of the little shards on but I was happy with the result! I stamped the "merry christmas" message using some super cute alphabet stamps I picked up at Remedy.

I'll be sharing some other wrapping ideas later today so if you haven't got Christmas all wrapped up yet, I hope this provides a bit of inspiration!

A handmade Christmas

This year I'm trying to make as many presents as possible, because it saves a bit of money and because there's no better time of year to bust out all those creative projects I've been wanting to try! So I had an industrious weekend dyeing, painting and baking.

These are a few of the handmade presents I'm giving this year:

• gingerbread biscuits (I'm also turning some of these into gingerbread ice cream - yum!)
• dip-dyed pillowcases in a range of pretty hues (I just can't get enough of dip-dyeing)
• fluro yellow screenprinted pillowcases (discovering fluro fabric paint changed my life!)
• my traditional fruit mince pies
• bottles of chilli and garlic flavoured oil (not pictured)

I've also started doing my wrapping and making my cards and crackers so I'll be showing you Christmassy things all week!

Christmas at our place

 

Our Christmas decorations are a mix of old ones handed down years ago by my grandmother, handmade ones from my childhood and a variety of ones given to us over the years by family and friends. While putting these up on Friday night I commented to James that a Christmas ornament is actually a really nice gift to give or receive because you'll remember that person every year as you decorate your tree. I have one that I was given by a boy I kissed when I was sixteen (!) and at the time I thought it was a really bizarre gift but I still have it and it's kind of a fun memory now! Of course, we also have Daikon Man on the top of the tree (bought in Japan a few years ago), which is kinda crazy but just the way we like it!

As well as the tree, we have a cute little wooden nativity scene, which was a gift from my sister from Canada some years ago, the lovely vintage nutcracker from Elizabeth, a few kitcshy deers and - my favourite bit - my snowdome collection!

I'm also sticking with the new tradition I started a couple of years ago of buying a new ornament each year (thanks, Louise!), and this year I couldn't resist these pretty bone china wings from Have You Met Miss Jones.

Happy Friday...and a tune for your weekend!

Happy Friday! Keeping in the Christmas spirit this week, this is my annual pointsettia. It always feels like Christmas once I have this splash of bright red on the kitchen table!

We bought our tree this week as well (we always get a real one), but haven't had time to deck it out yet so tonight I plan to put on some Christmas tunes, decorate the tree and whip up my traditional fruit mince pies!

Speaking of Christmas tunes, I'm keeping to the Christmas theme for the last couple of tunes for your weekend for 2011. This track, Christmas in Hollis by RUN-D.M.C. is always part of my Christmas mix and something a bit fun when you're getting tired of the usual Christmas fare!

Enjoy!

Just a reminder, you've only got a couple of hours left to place your orders online if you choose regular post and want guaranteed delivery by Christmas eve! If you choose Express Post, you still have until next Tuesday.

Have a great weekend!

A Mr Sparrow Christmas

I'm sorry it's been a bit quiet on the blog this week! Consider it the result of it being the opposite of quiet at Mr Sparrow...aka Christmas madness!!

While we're on the subject, I suppose it's no surprise that I could quite happily have a whole Christmas of only Mr Sparrow gifts! Despite owning a fair few goodies from here already, there are still quite a few things I wouldn't mind finding under my tree!

• a beautiful brass trivet by Oji Masanori
• a cute cloud bread board by snug
• any of the amazing planters by Pull + Push to keep this one company
• a new pendant by Lila Rice to add to my collection!
• some polka dot towels by Yoshii
• some magnetic sticks by Daniel:Emma
• a macrame plant hanger by Stämpel
• all of the fantastic new stamps by Kia Hing Fay! Especially the Happy Birthday ones so I can make fabulous cake toppers like these. (Sorry, new ones are not online yet, but you can find some others here.)

...and that's just the start :)

You can make your own Mr Sparrow wishlist by viewing any product in the online store and clicking "add to wishlist". All the details are here.

P.S. The terrarium workhop is now fully booked! If you're interested in the workshop but missed out on a spot, let me know via email {info[at]mrsparrow.com.au} - if there's enough interest I'll run a second one! There are still a few spots left in the kokedama workshop, so sign up on the website or via email. Thanks for all the interest!

*Image #1 from Oji & Design, #2 from snug., #3 from Pull + Push, #4 from Lila Rice, #6 from Daniel:Emma, #7 from Stämpel, #8 from Kia Hing Fay.