Updates and Ponderings.....

Making a recycled ribbon bow for presents

2012-02-11T17:39:00.001+10:00

With left over ribbon from party presents make this cute present topper.

Simply cut the ribbon into equal ish lengths. Ties them all together in the middle of the ribbon. Curl the ribbon strand by strand by pulling the ribbon over the blade of a pair of scissors. Be care to pull it the way it is currently curling. Don't cut yourself. Split the ribbons in half and voila. Staple to a small piece of cardboard. Put some double sided tape on the back and you are ready to pretty up a present.

Plastic Facts

2012-02-07T23:18:00.003+10:00

This week we started our first sustainability challenge. It seems like an easy one; No new plastic bags. I say no new bags because if you currently have plastic bags, throwing them away only creates more waste. Did you know we are the second highest waste producing country in the world? Reusing them is much more energy efficient than recycling them!

http://tribalenergies.com.au/blog/what-do-plastic-bags-really-do

We know plastic bags are bad. There has been a lot of media, campaigning and discouraging of plastic bag usage. Why? Here are some of the nasty little facts.....

1.8.7 plastic checkout bags contain enough embodied petroleum energy to drive a car 1 kilometre.
2. It is estimated world wide that 1 trillion bags are used and discarded every year.
3.Australians use 3.92 billion plastic bags a year, that's over 10 million new bags being used every day.
4.Australians dump 7,150 recyclable plastic bags into landfills every minute or 429,000 bags every hour. 50 million per year!
5.If 50 million plastic bags were made into a single plastic sheet, it would be big enough to cover the Melbourne CBD.

Information taken from http://www.cleanup.org.au/au/Campaigns/plastic-bag-facts.html

I did my weekly grocery shop today with 3month old in tow. I went armed with my Eco bags but I had made a poor miscalculation. Vege bags! I normally try and put larger veges on their own and watch the checkout assistants cast a disapproving eye at the little particles of vegetable that now litter their conveyor belt. Today however, I needed to buy some products that don't lend themselves to naked conveyor belt surfing. The only alternative was plastic bags. I know I have seen other alternatives and I will attempt to find them and link to them later in the week. Please feel free to comment with any you know of underneath.

So day 2 I must say has been a fail on my part.
;(

Home Made Tomato Paste

2011-10-28T06:19:00.007+10:00

I am lucky enough to be part of a wonderful family who were always crafty and into making things. Lucky for me I married a chef and that craftiness has now extended into the kitchen as we often have lots of left over veges or excess from our little sustainable vege garden.

This time though, it was gifts from two other family members that resulted in 4kg of tomatoes! I like tomatoes but not enough to eat 4kg in time. We always save all our glass jars for such an occasion and made homemade tomato paste. We have made other variations including tomato ketchup, a nice tomato pasta sauce but yesterday was just about a base tomato paste recipe.

We usually add garlic and onion when we are cooking with tomato paste so we added it to the tomato paste recipe but you could leave it out if you wanted. To 4kg of tomatoes I added 4 finely diced pickling brown onions( the small ones or you could add 2 larger ones if you like) and 1/3 bulb of garlic which I crushed.

Put the onion and garlic in a pot and sweat on a low heat. This takes the bite out of the onion and garlic and leaves a nice flavour. Be careful not to brown or burn the onion or garlic.

Add the 4kg of tomatoes which I cut into quarters. They were Roma tomatoes so I didn't chop them too small.

Add 2 cups of water and bring to the boil.

Let it simmer, making sure you stir it regularly so it doesn't burn on the bottom, until the water and tomatoes have cooked down into a nice consistency. This may take a few hours.

You could add herbs or salt and pepper but I prefer to add these later when cooking.

Prepare your jars while you are waiting for it to boil down.
I usually scrub mine to make sure all the food is gone, put them through the dishwasher and then put them in a pot of boiling water.

Once you are happy with the consistency you need to blend your tomato paste. We have a stick blender and blended it while it was hot. Mainly because I don't like having to wait and it is easier to jar later, but you can wait for it to cool down and blend it in a bench blender.

If you have a hot mixture, you can put the hot mix straight into the jars (obviously tipping out any excess water), put the lid on and then turn them upside down for 10minutes. When ten minutes is up, turn them right way up again and they vacuum seal themselves!

If you elected for cold mixture, when you have added it to the jars you need to put the jars back into the pot with the water and heat them up until the vacuum seal button in the top doesn't pop back up again when you push on it.

If you are like me and burn yourself accidentally when you are doing anything involving hot things, take extra care once you have blended the hot mix, use a funnel to get it into the jars and handle the jars with tongs. It doesn't hurt to have a bowl of cold water, ice pack or other responsible adult around either!

Our mix filled 4 jam size jars. Make sure you label the jars with the date you made it so you know how old it is in the cupboard. You can make pretty labels and put some check fabric and string around the top and they may great Christmas Presents.

2011-10-04T06:14:00.005+10:00

It's hard to imagine that it has been almost a month since the last blog. Time is certainly flying by at the moment. With just under 4 weeks to go before the arrival of the second sprout our little Nan's Garden family, things are starting to get a little hectic. That being said it is certainly time to do some planting and not neglect the garden so we have lots of yummy things to eat. At the moment we have been munching on Bok Choy, broccoli and the yummiest fresh asparagus.

What to plant in the Cool and Temperate Areas:

Seedlings

brussel sprouts
Chinese cabbage
Cauliflower
leek
globe artichoke
cabbage
capsicum
okra

Seeds

climbing beans
dwarf beans
french beans
beetroot
carrot
celery
cucumber
eggplant
lettuce
marrow
melon
parsnip
pea
pumpkin
radish
silverbeet
spinach
sweetcorn
tomato
zucchini

In the Subtropical and Tropical Zones
Seedlings

broccoli
Chinese cabbage
tomato
cabbage
capsicum
okra
silverbeet

Seeds

climbing beans
french beans
broad beans
beetroot
carrot
cucumber
eggplant
lettuce
marrow
melon
okra
pumpkin
radish
sweetcorn
zucchini

This is the time that all your veges love a hit of liquid fertiliser once a fortnight. We use our worm juice as a liquid fertiliser but you can get commercially available things like Seasol.

Happy Planting!

Spring has sprung

2011-09-07T08:14:00.004+10:00

Don't forget to check out our competition below. You still have until Monday morning to enter. Special clues this weekend!

Time for a Green Thumb Update though.

What to plant in the Cool and Temperate Areas:

Seedlings

brussel sprouts
Chinese cabbage
onion
globe artichoke
cabbage
capsicum
okra
silverbeet
tomato

Seeds

climbing beans
dwarf beans
beetroot
carrot
celery
cucumber
eggplant
lettuce
marrow
melon
parsnip
pea
pumpkin
radish
spinach
sweetcorn
zucchini

In the Subtropical and Tropical Zones
Seedlings

broccoli
Chinese cabbage
onion
spinach
cabbage
capsicum
silverbeet
tomato

Seeds

climbing beans
french beans
broad beans
beetroot
carrot
cucumber
eggplant
lettuce
marrow
melon
okra
seed potatoes
pumpkin
radish
sweetcorn
zucchini

Don't forget all those wonderful Spring flowers that help with the butterflies and bees!

2011-08-31T09:52:00.005+10:00

Flowers for Nan's Birthday Competition

It's Nan's Birthday today and to celebrate I thought we would give her some flowers and one lucky follower an Blanket Buddie Owl of their choice! All you need to do is correctly identify these 12 flowers that are currently blooming in Nan's Garden. I will give you a few clues to help you along the way.

All you need to do is send us an email at info@nansgarden.com.au with your 12 answers and we can choose a winner.

Competition will close 9am September 12th.

If more than one person correctly identifies the flowers, we will choose the winner from those entries using random number generator.
All correct entries will receive a little something though!Photo 1: A type of berry

Photo 2: A type of vegetable although most think of it as more of a herb.

Photo 3: A herb

Photo 4: A herb with a citrus twist!

Photo 5: A herb

Photo 6: A stone fruit

Photo 7: A type of berry

Photo 8: A type of vegetable

Photo 9: A type of Berry

Photo 10: a Citrus

Photo 11: A vegetable commonly used in Asian cooking

Photo 12: What happens when you leave a certain white vegetable too long!

Soaking Saturday!

2011-08-27T16:21:00.003+10:00

What to do on a wet Saturday. Start with a bit of Egg Drawing. Hubby's effort on the left and the finished product by little miss S! I was particularly impressed with the eyebrashes (eyebrows) and facial hair - he even had ears.

Then a lovely day at the 5th Ave Markets - Thanks ladies for a wonderful day.

Popcorn and a Peebo and Dagwood Dvd.

And who can beat jumping in Muddy puddles in a new raincoat. (Poor hubby is out shoveling dirt!)

2011-08-19T08:23:00.002+10:00

A walk in Nan's Garden this morning. Spring is certainly getting ready to bloom!

2011-07-06T18:06:00.003+10:00

Things have been sadly neglected in Nan's Garden lately. This past week or so we have been trying hard to update the website but I forgot how being pregnant slows you down! Just a little reminder to let you know we are still here. Here are some of the things growing in Nan's Garden at the moment.

2011-06-08T08:52:00.005+10:00

The garden, just like our blog has been a little neglected lately. As some of you may already know, one half of the Nan's garden team is expecting (not nan...... I don't think she or I could cope with that eventuality!) so I have been a little slack with updates. But it is the start of June and time to plant all those wintery goodies.
Suptropical and Tropical gardens love.......
Seedlings into the garden.
Chinese cabbage
cauliflower
celery
chives
asparagus

Seeds into the garden
broad beans
climbing beans
dwarf beans
beetroot
carrot
cucumber
garlic
lettuce
melon
peas
seed potatoes
pumpkin
radish
rhubarb crowns
shallots
sweet potato
zucchini

Cooler places love.....
Seedlings into the garden.
cauliflower
celery
leek
silverbeet
artichoke
asparagus

Seeds into the garden
broad beans
lettuce
melon
peas
seed potatoes
rhubarb crowns

Its also time to plant deciduous tress and prune existing trees.

Time to refresh

2011-01-08T14:42:00.005+10:00

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year break. This year our tradition Christmas had a small face-lift; still spent with wonderful family but in slightly different locations. A bit more travel but nice for a change. This year we continued our tradition of baking a Christmas goody basket for the adults in our family group. Thanks to the ladies at Details Details for the packaging!

It is also time to refresh the garden. With all the rain and more rain and more rain, most things in the vege garden are looking a little tired or at worst rotten. This morning, before the rain, we spent time pulling out celery, trimming rhubarb, picking eggplant and planting the heads of our seeded lettuces. It is now time to choose some new things to plant in the garden for the coming months. If you are in the subtropical and tropical areas, some great things to plant in the garden are
SEEDLINGS
broccoli - YUM
brussel sprouts - Nan's favourite ( although I'm not sure why - each to their own Nan)
cabbage
artichoke - but don't talk to me about it as ours hasn't flowered in 2 1/2 years!

SEEDS
climbing beans
cucumber
lettuce - check
sweetcorn
sweet potato - remind me to tell you a great way to cook this which is soooooooo easy and we learnt in China.

This year we would like to make some changes in Nan's Garden too. We would love to bring you products that you have been searching for or dreaming about. We would love to hear your product ideas. What you want, what you love and even what you don't like! Please comment below, on facebook or email us at info@nansgarden.com. One lucky person will even receive their product suggestion for free!

Off to Sydney we go

2010-09-29T11:45:00.002+10:00

Although I am beginning to believe that someone doesn't want me to get to Sydney, we are jetting off tomorrow to set up for the Baby and Toddler Show. Hopefully!
It has been a really interesting experience preparing for something so large. It was impossible to bring all the clothes with us so we are bringing what we can and you can order the other items on the day and we will ship them to you for free! All of our dresses and overalls we are making to your measurements as we know little ones don't always fit into nice 1, 2, 3 size brackets! As we are so new to this process, we hope we can answer all your questions and requests but please be patient with us as we find our way. We are just so excited to be coming and visiting some of our Sydney fans! Please be sure to come and let us know if you already know who we are. We will be having a competition running for the 4 days to win a $150 voucher to spend in our online store. All you need to do is visit us at the stall, fill in your name and email address and you go in the draw. How easy is that! The winner will be drawn at random when we finish the show and return to Brissy.

If you would like to come and visit us at the stall here is some money you can bring with you! simply print out this post and bring it along with you to receive $10 off for the day. Only one voucher per customer per day.

We look forward to meeting you all there!

Vege Garden Update

2010-08-23T22:18:00.006+10:00

My blog has been so poorly tendered the last couple of months. I must admit that trying to tend to all other areas of life has meant it has been sadly neglected. Thankfully not the same can be said for the vege garden! It has been loving the rainy, cold then hot, sunny weather and everything is thriving.There is nothing quite like eating veges that have just been picked and are still covered in morning dew. My favourite at the moment has to be the sugar snap peas. Miss S does love to pick the peas out of the middle and carry them around but the crunch is sensational. Yum.

The big news though........... Our chicken have started laying. A discovery in the back corner of the garden of three eggs was a welcome find after months of an egg famine. We initially thought it might have been all three laying but it was sadly only the one. After threatening them with the dinner table and placing them under house arrest for a couple of days, the others have finally come to the party. Although they are not consistent yet, we will take as many wonderfully vibrant yokes as we can get.

Are you wondering what to do on the weekend?

2010-07-09T21:24:00.004+10:00

Why not come and see us at one of these fabulous markets on the weekend.

On Saturday we will be at the BrisStyle Eco Markets.

This is our first market with BrisStyle and we are really excited to meet all the wonderful retailers that will be trading their EcoWares on the weekend.

On Sunday we will be at the

Boutique Markets

at Portside Wharf in Hamilton. They have lots of new retailers this month so we are looking forward to checking out what they have to offer.

We will be launching our new Summer Range very shortly so stay tuned for more information.

If you are our mystery shopper who left their shopping at Mathilda's Market in June - We have you bag and would love to give it back to you. Just send us an email with what you bought and we will talk about how to get it back to you.

Look forward to seeing you on the weekend!

Web Shop Facebook

Big Market Weekend

2010-07-07T21:28:00.006+10:00

As the mushrooms continue to grow - 60kg so far, we have been preparing for a very busy time ahead. This weekend we will be attending two markets. On Saturday we will be going a group of really inspired Eco Friendly independent designers for the BrisStyle Eco market. Reading all the blog posts about their really exciting and passionate crafts has got me thinking about trying to reduce wastage in everything that we produce. Our lovely Eco Elles provide us with wonderful pieces of woollen blanket, too cute to waste but most too small to use. Sitting on the couch this afternoon in the cold and overcast weather, and really not wanting to tackle cleaning the sewing room, I got to thinking........ and this is what came of that. Our new hair clips. These will be debuting at the market on Saturday and then on Sunday when we are at the Boutique markets at Portside. Unfortunately that means its time to go and keep cleaning. Next job on the agenda - pattern sorting. :(

Textile Show Brisbane

2010-06-29T09:01:00.006+10:00

I had such a fantastic time at the Textile Art Festival in Brisbane. Not only was it a wonderful chance to do something just for me, but I learnt such fantastic techniques in the classes I attended. On Saturday I attended Screen Printing with Procion Dyes by Louise Snook. She was a wonderful presenter and had such fabulous things to show us. I came away all inspired to incorporate some procion dye screen printing in our next range.

Sunday was the immensely talented Ken Smith for Machine Embroidery. Never having done any before I was a little apprehensive but had such a fantastic time. Although a time consuming venture, I can't wait to try out a few sections on our next range of clothes.

A very brief chance passing of Jacinta Leishman's demonstration of felting also inspired the desire to try out some felting.

A big thank-you to all the presenters for being so patient with me and the lovely people who sat next to me and helped me out.

Now I just need some time to put all these wonderful new skills into practice!

Mushroom Mania

2010-06-23T11:11:00.009+10:00

I just realised how long it has been since my last blog. Unfortunately with a house full of sick people the blog has been quite neglected. Not so for the vege garden though. After the initial build, we filled it up with mushroom compost, found for the fabulous price of 60c a bag on the Sunshine Coast.

After the mushroom compost rested for a couple of days it was time to go shopping for vegetables. My love of leeks and onions meant a punnet of each of these. Also beans, peas, zucchini's, eggplant, carrots, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and many more. YUM!

The real winner so far has been the mushroom compost. After the initial 710grm mushroom we pulled out. The compost has yielded 20kilograms of mushrooms and still going strong.

This makes Mushrooms our vegetable of the month by a long shot and trying to find new recipes and ways to cook them has become a challenge but here is my favourite so far.

Tarragon Chicken and Mushroom Pie

800g of mushrooms sliced(you could decrease the quantity but we had sooo many yummy mushies)
4 chicken thigh fillets diced
a bunch of fresh tarragon
a bunch of fresh lemon thyme
one red onion finely diced
100g butter
50g plain flour
100ml milk
2 cups water
olive oil
salt and pepper
3 sheets of puff pastry ( you may need less depending on the pie dish you use but mine was particularly deep and I needed two for the bottom)

Brown the mushrooms and onions in a large fry pan using butter and olive oil. You only need a small amount of olive oil to stop the butter from burning. Once they have browned slightly, place them in a large cooking pot.
In a mortar and pestle, grind the tarragon, lemon thyme, a good amount of olive oil and salt and pepper into a smooth paste.
Brown the chicken in your fry pan. Once browned, add the tarragon paste and coat the chicken thoroughly. Add the chicken to the mushrooms in the large pot.
Make a rou using 50g butter and 50g plain flour by wisking the two together in the fry pan until they have a creamy texture. Add 100ml of milk slowly.
Once all the milk is added to the flour and butter, add this to the chicken and mushrooms in the pot.
Add a 2 cups of water and cook until the sauce thickens to a gravy consistency.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Grease a large pie dish and line with puff pastry.
Once the mixture has cooled slightly, add it to the pie dish and top with puff pastry. I weaved my pastry but you could just put a plain top on.
Cook in the oven at 180degrees for approximately 30 minutes or until the pastry is golden.
Eat and Enjoy!

New Truffle Monkeys Photos

2010-05-24T21:26:00.006+10:00

We had a lovely time in the park this afternoon taking pictures of more of the Truffle Monkey range. Here are some of my favourite shots.

The Great Vege Garden Upgrade

2010-05-19T20:23:00.006+10:00

BEFORE

Our home vege garden is getting a massive makeover. Please keep in mind that we are not professional gardeners but just trying to share some of our thoughts with you. We are creating a 'No Dig' garden which simply means we are building up the beds rather than digging them in,

Organic Gardening Tip #1 Preparing your 'No Dig' Garden. If you are building your garden over existing lawn you need to kill the grass. The easiest way is to mow or slash it, cover it with blood and bone and water it in and then cover the grass with something to help it rot. Thick damp newspaper overlapped for light weeds; something like old carpet for more persistent grasses. You can use plastics but they eventually break down into the soil. If you are 'No Dig' gardening over something hard like concrete, put down something to help the air circulate, like dry branches.

The first stage has been to set up the area for the 'No Dig' Garden. My biggest tip for this - don't expect your husband to build this in a weekend. It is certainly slow progress with a little one and no-one left to help hold the beams. We both somehow managed to miscount the number of sleepers we needed. Twice. But all things considered, it is coming along very nicely. Now just to get to Bunnings to get the last 6 or should that be 7, maybe we'll get 8 just to make sure, sleepers.

Website changes

2010-04-30T22:42:00.004+10:00

We are making some changes to our website to hopefully make it easier and quicker to find our products. Lets face it, anybody with a child under the age of 5 needs to be able to shop quickly and not get lost in our site. I am trying to achieve that this weekend, between ear infections and other toddler related interruptions, so fingers crossed.

We have also just joined the BrisStyle team and will hopefully be appearing at their markets and events soon.

Have a lovely long weekend.

Facebook grrrr

2010-04-24T09:06:00.003+10:00

I am constantly bamboozled by the amount of things you can do with Facebook. It seems just as I figure out how to do something, they change it all over again. I must say I am not a fan of the new like button. I know they think it will put less pressure on people to like your page but it just doesn't feel right to say "Welcome to all our new likers." Never mind.... I'm sure it will change again next month.

I have just added a My Etsy page to my facebook personal account. Although my brother in IT may not be too excited about my achievement, I am quite proud of myself. The next Facebook challenge is to try and set up a welcome page. I must first battle photoshop and dreamweaver before I attempt that though. I have also apparently put a site feed onto the My Etsy page from my blog. I am not entirely sure how that works or what it looks like, or as a matter of fact whether it will work, but it will just be another fun thing to play with!

I have finally taken a photo of all the colours that the Eco Elles come in. So here it is.....

Thankyou all

2010-04-19T20:17:00.006+10:00

I big thank you to all the wonderful people who came to visit us at Mathilda's Market on Saturday. The chaos in the week leading up to the day made it seem impossible to even make it there, but after creeping away from a sick child at 2am, throwing additional boxes in the car in the morning, crossing our fingers to ensure it started and madly setting up we were off. It was so wonderful to meet people who had found us on Facebook and be able to show them our clothes up close and personal. My husband's clothes stand he made for us was just magnificent and the day could not have been better.

Now begins the fun of filling customer orders, investigating possible wholesale opportunities and of course sewing up the winter line. Perhaps there might be some sleep involved too!

Here are some pictures from the day.

Cargo cords and tigers

2010-04-15T00:26:00.002+10:00

It has been a crazy night of cutting in preparation for the sewing marathon tomorrow. On the agenda: overalls, skirts, dying, screen-printing, lounge pants, cargos, onesies and a tiger. Not to mention endless cuddles and blowing of kisses from the little one! Oh how I love those kisses.

Don't forget to come and see all our hard work on Saturday.

Early to bed Early to rise

2010-04-13T22:15:00.003+10:00

I am determined not to have an after midnight night tonight. Both our wholesale orders are now completed and hopefully at their destinations. It is so exciting to see you brand listed in another shop!

Now with those orders out of the way it is back to the grindstone to make sure our Mathilda's Market items are ready. My husband, who has not stayed up past midnight with me, although I am sure he is there is spirit, asked me the other day how I just keep going. I am not sure whether it is the hormonal changes after having a child, the ensuing insanity or just that my body is so used to sleep deprivation that it's the new 8 hours! Not tonight though. Only one more ball of wool, another victim of the little one's desire to feed everything to the dog, to clean up before a blissful 8 hours. I hope.......

Don't forget to come to Mathilda's Market to check out our latest range (and not the bags under my eyes)!

2010-04-09T23:29:00.003+10:00

Thank you to all those who entered our Easter Egg Hunt competition. Congratulations to our winner, Cathy, we can't wait to see what you choose from our online store.

All those of you who live in Brisbane, don't forget to come and check us out at Mathida's Market next Saturday. There will be special market day discounts so we would love to see you there.

Lets go hunting!

2010-04-02T01:08:00.003+10:00

The next egg has been hidden but you will need to get to know us a little better if you want to find it!

Here is a sneak peek of our winter collection Truffle Monkeys. Everything is hand crocheted, hand sewn and then worn by a very cheeky monkey!

We have been featured!

2010-04-01T19:08:00.000+10:00

We are so excited to see our story on Handmade Kids. It is such a wonderful site for finding all things beautiful and handmade. I love scrolling through their site and finding an excuse to spend more money on my little one! Please head on over and check out all the wonderful handmade businesses they support.

Oh - did someone say Wholesale!

2010-04-01T00:06:00.000+10:00

Our Easter Egg hunt continues. Check out the w ebsite for the next clue.

We are very excited to announce that we are preparing our first wholesale order for our Evergreen Owls collection. Our products are going to be stocked by a wonderful online shop opening very soon called

sales@stylishbubs.com.au

www.stylishbubs.com.au

Here are just some of the items they are going to be stocking online.

2010-03-31T01:06:00.000+10:00

Our Easter Egg Hunt Begins!
Full Terms and Conditions are on our website at www.nansgarden.com

A nice reason for slow progress

2010-02-23T21:04:00.000+10:00

Our progress has been a little halted with a new addition to the family. "Aggie" was rescued from a building site at 4weeks and has joined our happy bunch. This gorgeous black and white ball of fluff tries to help me sew but is more of a good excuse to sit down and relax. All we need is for it to survive the clutches of my daughter and we will be fine!

Mathilda's Market

2010-02-21T22:05:00.000+10:00

We had a lovely day at Mathilda's Market on Saturday. We met lots of really wonderful stall holders and customers. Thankyou to everyone who visited our stall on Saturday. Here are some photos of our stall from the day. The day got so busy I forgot to take a wide shot of the stall - Oh well.

YUDU is here!

2010-02-15T23:17:00.000+10:00

Finally our YUDU arrived from the US. I should mention that it actually arrived a week ago. In my excitement we unpacked the machine and set it up. Being a typical male my husband plugged it into the wall and after an almighty pop, and a slight panic attack, we realised that he blew one of the fuses. In his infinite wisdom he mentioned that he did think it was probably 110v not 240v but thought the adapter would fix it. No. It doesn't! My reaction and subsequent cooling off period must have jolted him into action; feeling very guilty he found someone to fix the machine and we were set to go.

Never having screen printed before, I managed to make the necessary rookie mistakes. I destroyed two emulsion sheets and went through a bottle of emulsion remover before finally - a successful screen. Yeah!

I have had some great success and some items that are best placed in the seconds pile, but I think we are almost on top of it. The back of our Tshirts and onesies are looking good. Now all I need is about 15 more days before Mathilda's Market ( or 15 more people to help!).

Hope to see you there!

2010-02-13T22:12:00.000+10:00

We’re so excited! On Saturday 20 February, Nan's Garden will be showcasing our wares at Mathilda's Market. This is a fabulous niche market that offers unique, stylish and affordable baby & kids goods that are lovingly handmade or of limited production.

The retailers are hand pick to ensure an exciting product range. It's a kid's shopping heaven. Better yet, most of the retailers do not have a shop front, so you know you'll find something special, not available anywhere else.

Please come and see our stand for Nan's Garden Clothing at Mathilda’s Market from 9am to 4pm at the Brisbane Racecourse at Eagle Farm, Ascot. Entry and parking is free. All the stalls are held INSIDE (in the stunning St Leger & The Tote), so come rain, hail or shine, Mathilda’s Market will proceed. With almost 80 retailers, gourmet food, plenty of kids entertainment Mathilda’s Market is becoming one of Brisbane’s best shopping destinations for the little ones.

For a sneak preview, have a look at the website (www.mathildasmarket.com.au) and enjoy a browse through the photos of all participants. We look forward to seeing you there!

new to the world of blogging

2010-02-02T21:47:00.000+10:00

Our very first launch into the world of blogging and I'm lost for words! Welcome to the very first posting for Nan's Garden. Hopefully you will be able to come on a journey with us as we create new outfits and environmentally conscious cuddly toys.

Happy wearing, cuddling and planting!