Christmas is just around the corner girls!

And the baking continues...boiled up all my fruit/butter/sugar yesterday while I was on a mission with the wedding cakes...and left overnight. This morning I got up and mixed up the batch of Christmas cakes...five in total (mind you 3 are tiny individual ones for gifts!)..but still!! Don't they look divine in the oven cooking...a stole a peek in order to photograph them! All wrapped up in good old newspaper to stop the outsides drying out...mums tip...I usually use brown paper and newspaper, but didn't have any brown paper, so all newprint it is!! I like to cover the top of my christmas cakes with blanched almonds as they toast beautifully while the cake bakes and are deliciously nutty to eat...I don't ice my cakes as I don't like icing and only one of my children likes fruit cake at all so I get to do it my way! Hubby doesn't like fruitcake either..:(...so my visitors over the Christmas season get to indulge with me!!

Almonds ready to stud the tops of the cake with....
The proof of the hand mixing!! It was all I could do not to scrape the remains off the bowl and eat them...aghh...as I write I realise I didn't put the golden syrup in...a minor ingredient but will be missed just the same...ah well...

The cute vintage tobacco tin that is my string tin...used to day to tie the newspaper around my tins..

And there they are baking away in my oven...two large ones on top, three littlies underneath (can't really see 'em)...can just see the edge of one. Those are baked in tiny springform tins that I'll leave them in and give the whole thing as a Christmas gift...so the recipient gets a gorgeous cake, in a brand new tin, and they get to use the tin again themselves...forever!!

Well that's it for now...we're off to find shirts and shoes...for my darling hubby for the wedding. Now that I changed my dress the shirt he had does'nt match! (oops! :( )...ah well...hoping we'll find something today...

have a great weekend fellow blogerettes!!

ciao for now

luv jessie xx

Wake up and smell the...BAKING!

Ahhh...the smell of baking in the house! I personally never get to wake up to it...but other members of my lovely family do...cos I like to get up and bake!! Mind you...I have a very good excuse right now...with Evan's (my son's) wedding next weekend, I really do need to be making cakes!! They're having a multi tiered cake with Raspberry Mudcake as main cake, and another tier being Lemon Syrup Cake...which I'll make just two days before as it won't keep like the mudcakes do....but man! they look good on my counter...and smelt divine cooking! So there's several tiers there...plus a dozen Mud Muffins with the 'leftovers'...was a HUGE mix!! lol...

Yum...if I wasn't restricting my intake of BAD, BAD (BUT TO DIE FOR! NOT TO MENTION DIVINE!)FOOD (just up until the wedding , you understand! lol)...I'd whip up some chocolate frosting RIGHT NOW and have one of these delectable choc berry mud muffins with a nice latte...

This will be the bottom tier...

And these will be the other tiers...but with a lemon cake inbetween...

And the other ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS smell around the house this week has been the russian fudge for the wedding...not to be confused with what we kiwis call Fudgecake (but I think the USofA's call it simply Fudge - made with crushed biscuits (cookies), butter, cocoa etc...??) Fudge in NZ is a confection...butter,sugar,milk,vanilla,glucose,conensed milk - all boiled up till setting temperature met...and whipped and poured to set....m..mmmmm!!!! two batches down, one to go (180 pieces done...) It is my sisters DIVINE Caramel Fudge recipe...to die for!! Smooth, soft to the bite (no hard sugary fudge here thankyou!!)...and keeps for months...but it never lasts that long!!

mm..mmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!

so that was the start of my baking week...continued in next blog!...

ciao bellas!

luv jessie xx

Mother of the Groom's dress....:)

This is a close up of the layered fabric...patterned cotton underneath with pink organza layered on top...

Close up of the bodice/midriff...

And this is the final result...hem looks uneven there but its not 'in the flesh'! On my poor old patched mannequin...haha

Back view...obviously the manny has a wider back than me cos couldn't do up!

Nice side view...ahhh

Sooo...here is the dress I've made for my son Evan's wedding in two weeks...TWO WEEKS!!! EEEK!!! ....breathe Jessie :)....I'd bought a pretty awesome dress when away in Auckland in September, but each time I tried it on (in my quest to lose a few kilos/pounds before the big day...had to check on progress by fit)...well...it just didn't look right...something wasn't right, you know? Like...my 51 year old knees really shouldn't be on display! Well, not 'right' at hem length...just below is way more flattering!! (when I'm in shorts they look fine...but just below the hem of a beautiful dress?? ah, no!)...and the fit at the back (which i couldn't see well when I bought it)...well, it just wasn't sitting right...and so I began a new search for plan B...another dress. But we are a small city...only a few shops to choose from for this type of event....and sad to say, I found nothing...sigh.

So! There was nothing for it but to make one...and then began my quest for 'the' perfect pattern...having had such dramas with Beth's Balldress (see posts in September)...I was a little nervous! But as luck would have it (or as I prefer to thing, divine intervention! ;))...I found a great pattern...well, two - a mix of two - bodice of one, skirt of another. I'd spied the most gorgeous fabric - a cotton mix, white background with big dark pink roses all over it...and to make it more dressy I bought pink organza to overlay it with...and I began! Four days later...VOILA! it is done...and I'm SO SO happy with it. My girls think it's beautiful...Emma(23) said..."oh mum, you look like the pretty doll you'd put on top of a cake"!! haha...a compliment, I think!! hehe...how cute. Must admit I do feel very 'pretty' in it...it's a very girly dress...fitted bodice with full circle skirt - ah I shouldv'e been an adult in the 50's! All that whirling on the dance floor!!

Anyways...will post a pic of me in it after the day! Now...how to have my hair...and will I make some organza flowers to put on the dress...shall I make a gorgeous flowery fabric cuff or have a traditional 'real' flower wrist corsage...and what jewellery...and I haven't even STARTED on about shoes!!! hehe...

Ahh Italia...be still my heart :)

So this is the book I told you about in my earlier blog today...which inspired me to go seek out some pics of some of the regions they travelled to. Oh my, why WOULDN'T you want to go explore this country?? Be still my heart...

Tropea

Tropea


Puglia


Porta Portese, Roma

Otranto

How amazing...New Zealand has NO history like this...maybe that's why I'm drawn to these places...just LOOOVE the history of places, things, etc...which is why I love vintage ANYTHING! Because it's had a life and has a story to tell...even when you don't know the story, you imagine what it might have been like.
That's what Europe represents to me...a great big story to tell...CAN'T WAIT!!
CIAO BELLAS!
luv jessie xx

A Walk on the Beach..

Being cooped up inside for the past week finally got the better of me...it's one thing to CHOOSE to stay home and indoors all week when you're in the throes of wonderful crafts and cooking...but ENFORCED indoor time due to sickness is never fun....AND I JUST NEEDED FRESH AIR! So I suggested to Steve that we take a walk on our local beach at Tahunanui...just a few minutes drive from home - as we live on the hills I'm not quite up to the walk TO the beach but the walk ON it beckoned...which turned out to be covered in hundreds of washed up jellyfish...not very inviting for swimmers, of which there were few anyway, being the end of winter after all...and still snow on the mountains! Fresh snow at that...

We had a lovely time strolling, dreaming of Italy, refurbished pleasure boats and (future)grandchildren, kids visiting us..(in Italy :)) Talked about upcoming son's wedding, budgeting to enable Italy to morph from a dream to a reality by 2012 and and the reality of our baby (16) no longer being our 'little' girl, but a beautiful young woman (who is still our 'little' girl!!) Ah time waits for no man...or woman ;)

Amazing how time just flies by...
anyways...off to read more of my wonderful book found in a cafe/bookstore whilst in Paddington in Sydney a few weeks ago...a gorgeous thing called "Salute!...food, wine and travel in Southern Italy"..by Gail and Kevin Donovan, Simon Griffiths and Robert Castellani. It's a wonderfully illustrated book about the friends travels thru southern italy - the stories, food, place, people, steep country drives, fabulous blue Adriatic waters, mosquitos, pizzas, wines and more...FABULOUS photography fills it's pages...stories of the locals in each region, the places they stayed, etc...just so hard to put down. It's my first book into researching the beautiful place Italy is...readying us for our aforementioned travels. :)
off to my book I go
ciao bellas!! (now you know why I often sign off like that ;))
jessie xx

More of the dress

Ahh...sweet Beth. How beautiful is she? :) (and yes, not forgetting her handsome escort, Jono!)

Here's a few more pics from the night of Beth's boyfriends ball...I finally finished it ON THE DAY! What a mission it turned out to be! But worth it in the end...don't you agree she looked beautiful? We were going to put straps on as I'm not that keen on my daughters wearing strapless gowns...just doesn't seem so modest as with straps...I know, even those tiny thin spaghetti straps somehow add modesty in my mind!!)...but with all the sequin trim etc it was too much - we were going to use the sequins for straps...but still, in the end she just looked beautiful.

Here she's 'doing a mum'...for some unknown reason, when you look at photos taken of Steve and myself, you can almost guarantee in 90% of them, I've got my hand on his stomach!! Who knows??? So she did this as a laugh...but a good shot of the dress showing the train on the left. I wanted to spread it out for a pic but there was no time as they were running late...when I can get her to put the dress on again, I'll take a pick like the Vogue pattern one, and put them both on for comparison!! ;)

thanks for looking

ciao bellas

xx

Victorian Cuff Swap...WOW LISA!!!

WOW!!!! I received my victorian cuff this week from my partner Lisa ...oh my goodness it is gorgeous!! My pics aren't the clearest but am putting on what I can take at the moment with my webcam as my camera is broken :( (the light truly doesn't do the colours justice...gorgeous peachy tones!) It's a beautiful cuff, with a truly gorgeous porcelain dolls face, vintage pearl necklace,ribbon rose all lying on tulle and lace upon a vintage millinery flower, secured onto a pleated ribbon cuff, with lace and sparkling crystals...so, so beautiful! THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU LISA!! I hope you like mine as much as I like yours...sorry you had to wait longer!! I would put pics of Lisa's one on here, but that might give the show away if she reads my blog! So will post after she's got it.

If you've never tried swapping...where you get to make and receive gifts from fellow artful bloggers...I encourage you to DO IT...JUST DO IT!!! (thanks Nike! lol)...I truly love it. It's wonderful making something for someone else (truly is better to give than receive...hmm..altho...this cuff!!!!!!) and then you get the beautiful surprise in the mail (don't you JUST LOVE real mail??!!)...and you begin friendships with other likeminded women around the world. Try it out...check out swap-bot.com or swapdex...both great swapsites.

ok...off to bed...coming out of this flu now, praise God...it's been horrid. But onwards and upwards! And the sun was shining today...for a bit! So spring really is here ..yay! Daylight saving starts tomorrow night downunder...springing forward!
night night fellow bloggers...
blessings...jessie xx

THE DRESS!!

Ok..the lovely couple ready for the ball...Beth and Jono...and THE DRESS!!(of course, he looked handsome too...but sorry, it's all about...THE DRESS!!) Finally! Not the best to show it off as camera not working to take more beforehand...grrr...but here's a couple of shots to show it from two angles...she really did look beautiful so I think all the heartache and drama was worth it!! lol

Will try and put another couple up when i've managed to get them from Jonos' mum...all in all...quite dreamy :) Haha...looking around the room in this pic...was I still handstiching the sequin trim on, ON THE DAY?? Yes I was!! (scissors and thread on coffee table)...did I use the hairdryer to quickly dry a sponged off 'spot' off the fabric? Yes I did! (hairdryer on couch by Emma!)lol...was really focusing on getting some shots of the dress and really should have looked around before taking them! Never mind...a little mess never mattered. And there's my water bottle...was I SICK on the day of the ball? Yes I was!! Drinking copious amounts of water to help stave off the wicked virus I got...terrible throat...and Saturday was probably the second to worst day...and I'd spent 4 hours at our church helping set up for the Wonderland fashion show that i'd made table decorations for...couldn't have picked a worse time to be sick. Ah well...evrything turned out good in the end...except I was too sick to go to the Fashion show so don't know how it all looked in the night light...but sure everyone would have had a very enjoyable evening. Ok..enough now...more another time. Must go cook dinner! some things must be done, sickness or not!

ciao bellas! xx