Acorn Cap Craft

Pin cushions, some with pin sharpening properties, in velvet and wool felt. The perfect size for handbag carried craft projects; if the fairies don't steal them for cushions first!

Project taken from Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Craft. Caps collected by Claudine. Velvet op-shopped.

Literally a little bit of winter crafting; my contribution to the Matariki winter craft project. Do come and join in!

to catch and eat a wild mushroom

proper parks, as in with copses of trees as well as play areas and lawns are our prefered place of play, especially this time of year. leaf piles, acorns, sticks. puddles, worms, mud. we take claud for a run in the park like you might a dog, laughing as she goes feral, liberating her pent-up sitstillonthematuseyourindoor voiceputthatdown kid wildness. on our most recent trip out as claud hared off shrieking, poking her stick at anything pokable we saw a man, lurking in the trees ahead.

terry, having never met a person he could resist talking to strode over. on hearing "...looking for mushrooms" as i approached, i briefly fantasised about the whistle trained obedience of dogs and von trapp children, knowing claud in her just released-into-the-wild state wasn't going to come to heel  willingly come hold my hand to prevent her messing with 'shrooms. as the guy turned to me though i relaxed, recognizing him as an ex-colleague. after a slightly uncomfortable reacquaintance; me (overcompensating?)-"wow, so great to see you" (hug). him-"erm, what's your name again?" he, and his partner who subsequently emerged from the bushes generously instructed us in the gentle art of mushroom hunting.

for it is porcini season people! in christchurch! who would have thought it? probably not the colonists who shipped over the now mature english trees which harboured the spores in the roots, and certainly not me. as soon as the couple left bearing a teeshirt bowlful each, we started to search. the porcini are very difficult to spot being the same colour as the leaf litter. or maybe they were just cowering from the sudden onset of decibels in their quiet corner of the wood. but ten minutes in, shuffling and scanning by eye and by foot we scored us our first, giving us a high, a special foragers high not available when buying the dried version down the deli (or indeed, ingesting mushrooms of the naughty kind).

back home i dug out my david mellor mushroom brush, pleased to have a tool of wild mushroom worship. it must have been modelled on a porcini mustn't it?! but, cute as a button (mushroom) it may be on the bench, it is in the field a mushroom brush is required (along with a basket) as the dirt soon dries and resists the brush off. mud scraped and sliced they are a thing of beauty. the mature, mustard-gilled ones made me want to sue orla kiely for ripping off nature. the ones alive with worms on the inside made me want to shower in bleach.

we set aside the smallest, tastiest porcini and dried the rest, taking the edge off my sense of store cupboard deprivation (we're not preserving this year due to the demands of newborndom).  then after dribilating (deciding between equally drool inducing recipes) over my silver spoon, in the end we settled on fresh porcini risotto, which is reportedly a traditional italian autumn dish. terry then unwhetted his appetite by pouring over multiple porcini identification guides on the net while i stirred, 'just to make sure'. though we have it on good authority that there are no poisonous mushrooms in NZ that resemble a porcini, worry is his way.  but in the end the aroma which won him over from his 'you eat it first so i can look after the kids if you die' wild mushroom position.

we lived to tell the tale, and it was a delicious one.

an easter op-shop show off; 26th March, 2013

i found these two Tolo toys separately at op-shops over the past few weeks, both immaculate, both rabbity and therefore cute, if slightly early developmentally easter presents for the boy baby Findlay. i don't like his chances of fending off Claudine who is rabbit-mad, bigger and currently slightly regressed in her choice of toy play. she though has her sights set on a dora-and-diego easter special dvd and has asked princess ballerina to have a word with the easter bunny (they're cousins you know) on her behalf, so no op-shopped gift for her this time around. i'm also having a go at this easter bunny russian doll cross stitch-i won the pattern from cupcakecutie. not a chance it will be completed by eater, but ah-well, it's bunnys all year round around here anyway!

what are your easter plans? any easter specific baking, crafting or outings?
we're off to the Cheviot Domain for an autumnal easter egg hunt in the leaf litter and a stroll among the english woodlands there on easter sunday, weather permitting, and i shall cook up a batch of bonfire toffee at some stage too. but mainly i'll be catching up on sleep, precious sleep!

and, what kind of chocolate egg are you hoping for?
I'm a loyal cadburys creme egg girl myself-best eaten sun warmed and gloopy in my opinion!



here's what we did in our prior easter hols

easter 2011

easter 2012

yes, two years blogging. crikey!



are you an Op-Shop Show-Off? or more modest about your superior second hand shopping abilities? 

do you like to linky?

it’s charitable, green, cheap, exciting, fun, nostalgia inducing, potentially lucrative and often just plain necessary. whatever your reason for second hand shopping we’d love it if you joined us on Tuesdays here at blackbirdhasspoken.blogspot.com for Op-Shop Show-Off, a linky open to all, all week, to link up a blog post about any aspect of your second-hand shopping life. tell us your op-shopping philosophy, or divulge your secret hunting techniques. let us know about your wants, or skite (English translation= “show-off “) about your amazing finds. review the best op-shopping spots in your town, or request or give information on your fascinating finds, you’ll always be talking to an appreciative audience here.

 How to link up?
1. post your second hand shopping related blog post.

2. link to Op-Shop Show-Off in your blog post, so your blog readers can come over and peruse or post in the linky too.

 3. scroll to the bottom of my latest Tuesday Op-Shop Show-Off post and click on the linky tool, then follow the three easy steps.

 4. don't forget to leave me a comment to let me know you linked up.

 5. have a look at some of the other linkers posts/blogs, they're all people after your own heart!

 6. grab the Op-Shop Show-Off Button from my sidebar to decorate yours (paste the code into a HTML gadget under the 'add a gadget' part of the layout section in blogger and save).

Autumn=Pumpkin

Growing up in the North of England it was unheard of to ever eat a pumpkin. They were to be scooped and lit once a year, that is all. I recall having the vague idea they were poisonous, at least until English telly became saturated with American shows and I learned of pumpkin pie.

Philistine!

A combination of moving to New Zealand and establishing a veggie garden have turned me into a pumpkin fanatic. Autumn=pumpkin. The kiwis are mad on pumpkin. Despite the fact we’ve eaten pumpkin in some guise nearly everyday this week (Penne a la Zucca, pumpkin Arancini di Riso; pumpkin risotto, pumpkin and potato pancakes etc) Mr Blackbirdhasspoken was really reluctant to put the knife into the butternuts for anything but eating purposes.

The lack of winter festivities is one of the very few difficulties of living in New Zealand. Reading ‘Celebrating the Southern Seasons’ by Juliet Batten (here, she blogs too, hurrah!) gave me confidence to institute some round our place. In recent years I’ve held a midwinter Christmas, with a secret santa and a big dinner in the middle of the day featuring a turkey, chestnuts and all the trimmings (sprouts!). As most of the invited kiwi’s had eaten neither turkey nor chestnuts, I think I’m excused on the initial pumpkin avoidance front.

A slightly pumpkin stained wee ghostie

This year with Juliet’s inspiration again and especially for THE little pumpkin entertainment purposes, we’ve also introduced a mini pumpkin fest. Pumpkin lanterns last night, and Pumpkin Moonshine for Claudine’s bedtime book this week, a classic tale from 1936. And more pumpkin eating.

We’ve also been taking Claudine outside at night, now it’s dark before her bedtime, to do some star gazing. She can say both ‘star’ and ‘moon’ now. Beautiful stuff.

                                                                  Two little pumkins

I have white chysathamums all over the house. There the only flower left in bloom fit for a vase, before the onset of winter. Making the most of it until my daffodils come back in spring.

The leaves are alomost all down, its cold, and grey, time to start LAYERING-YAHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!