Saturday 21 June 2014

A Simple Living Morning


This morning our Simple Living Toowoomba group had a soap making workshop as well as our monthly morning tea and swap. It was a great time of chatting, swapping ideas as well as handmade items and homegrown produce over morning tea. This was followed by a soap making demonstration by  Mandy from The Old Dairy and her friend Helen.

As usual we had a variety of items to choose from for our swap including...




...bottles of Pickled Onion which I believe were made by David, our co-ordinator Margy's hubby...

 ...Mandarin Curd made by Annette who gave me great ideas of how to use up some of our mandarins which are almost ripe.


Shiralee from Vintage Papery turned ordinary boxes into these exquisite vintage solar light holders.


 

You can see part of the process on this page on her blog. She is very creative especially in the way she repurposes bits and pieces others would throw in the bin.


Margaret brought along a couple some of her handiwork items to show us including this crocheted bag which used up only one skein....


...and a knitted dishcloth.

After our swap we settled down to watch Helen make goat's milk soap which she made to look so simple so obviously she is not as paranoid as I am when making soap. :-)



Mandy then made a basic soap to which she added some essential oil and both soaps were made so quickly that the workshop ended early. 


Mandy had made some soap yesterday so she turned it out of the mould today, cut it up and gave each of us some to take home. It smells just heavenly so I think I will have to invest in some essential oils and experiment with them. They are available from Aussie Soap Supplies where I bought some moulds from when I first started making soap.

It was a great morning and, if you live in the region, why not join us for one of our workshops. Our next one will be held on the 26th July and will be a pasta making workshop + sauces to add to the pasta. The workshop will be run by Joshua, the son of Ron and Jennylyn from our cheese making workshop, so it is a good opportunity to invite any young people you  know who might like to learn the skill of pasta making. Margy will have the workshop on the Simple Living Toowoomba website soon and you can book into the workshop by clicking here. The recipes from the cheese making workshop plus one for Italian Baked Ricotta Tarts are now available here. I can't wait to make some ricotta and try some.

Don't forget the Australian wildlife book giveaway closes on the 30th June and you can click here  to enter. It is open to both Aussie and overseas readers. Email me at nannachel@gmail.com if you have trouble entering. Everyone is welcome to enter.



16 comments:

  1. Sound's like a great Morning Chel. My morning was good but not as fun as yours I had the LETS market so took alone some Amish sugar cookies & lemon curd I made yesterday. Essential oils are wonderful I use them in my oil burner each day & ad them to my laundry liquid & been making a lovely lavender linen spray it makes my bedroom & towels smell divine. You can do so much with essential oils :) The mandarin curd sounds interesting I was looking at recipes yesterday for orange & passion fruit curd. I was gifted 2 full shopping bags of oranges & lemons through Ripe Near Me, making jams & curds is a wonderful way to use up excess fruit

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    1. You are doing well with Ripe Near Me, Sarah. I haven't made curd before so it looks like another learning curve coming up. It certainly tastes nice I must say!

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    2. Making Curd is very easy much more simple than jam, the only thing I have found is curd has a short shelf life I think this must be due to the eggs & butter & needs to be kept in the fridge. There is a microwave recipe on the forum I used it last year when I made it for the first time

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    3. Yes I was thinking that it is probably not a good idea to make too much at once seeing as it will have to be put into the fridge, Sarah.

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  2. What an awesome workshop and so creative. Great opportunity to learn and socialise with like minded people. I wish i was closer. Mandarin curd sounds so yummy.

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    1. Lynda, it is a great group. None of us are experts but we share our ideas and those who have more experience in certain areas, e.g. soap making, are more than willing to help others who are just starting out.

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  3. Nanna! This sounds like a great time! I wish I lived near you. Someday I hope I can start or be a part of something like this. Thanks for sharing your morning!

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  4. Joyful, I hope you can start up a group in your area. We have a great time.

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  5. What a wonderful way to spend a morning! Your blog is really great Chel.

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  6. Thanks Wendy. It's all a bit of trial and error and I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning. Some of the blogging stuff is still a mystery but I don't get involved in too much techy stuff.

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  7. The workshop looked great Chel, I'm sorry to have missed it. The delights of painting had me in its thrall ha! but we are making progress with the first bedroom. Hopefully once the house is on the market and I will be at the farm more, I'll be more regular in attendance!

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  8. Yes that will be great when you are closer to town, Barb. It was a fun morning.

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  9. Oh it does sound like fun and curds are something I've been wanting to try - I love a good lemon curd! Didn't even know you could make an orange curd!

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    1. I had never heard or it either, Kathy. I might give it a try as we have a tree full of mandarins. We do have oranges too but they are often fairly tart.

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  10. Nanna Chel,
    It was a great workshop. Seeing the process in action took a lot of fears I did have about it so I'll be giving it a go when I have some 'quiet' time to myself.
    -Shiralee.

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  11. Oh hello Mandy :)

    I would definitely go along to one of these workshops if I lived nearby. I am going to research that mandarin curd, my tree is overflowing with fruit.

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