I've grown rosellas before simply because they are a lovely looking plant, but last year I decided to grow enough so I could make some jam.
Last month it was finally time to pick them and try making jam for the first time and it turned out great! It tastes good, set well and so far everyone who has tried has liked it. I used this recipe but skipped the butter and just scooped the bubbly scum off the top. I bought the seeds from there as well.
Now my only problem is that I have a bucket of rosellas in my freezer waiting for me to separate them to make more jam.
Rosellas can also be used to make syrup or tea so I dehydrated some for mum, I keep opening the jar because they smell amazing!
As for these bushes, they don't seem to be stopping production so this bucket is likely to be filled again as soon as it is empty. I planted three seedlings so maybe just one will been enough next time...
Last year, before life threw us many lemons, I got the chance to do a collaboration with Steve from nativebeehives.com who makes beautiful cypress native bee hives. H trusted me enough to decorate some of them with pyrography, along with one of his ukuleles.
I have wanted one of Steve's hexagon hives since we first learnt about native stingless bees. Now I think it is too lovely to put outside in the weather and it sits proudly on display, safely inside. One day I'll find the perfect spot to keep it protected from the elements and where I can see it through the window.
Steve gave me an octagon hive and in exchange I got to burn on two of his other hives for him and he also let me do a burn on one of the ukuleles he makes. These are by far the nicest woodworking pieces I've ever burnt on, I was so excited and but also a little terrified that I might make a mistake on such beautifully made hives. Luckily I didn't mess them up, and I'm really happy with how they turned out.
The only thing that needs to be condsidered when doing pyrography on native beehives is if you want to split them later on - the top two levels will be separated from the bottom level so the design can't continue through the levels.
Steve makes a lot of creative and fun native bee hives that are incredibly high quality so please check out his website - he also has an online store if you're interested in buying your own hive. And if you'd like to read the article he wrote about my pyrography you can check that out here.
My sister in law made beautiful terrariums as Christmas gifts one year and I tried so hard (and then replanted it twice) but I just could not keep it alive. So I filled the jar with a layer of white gravel then a nice thick layer of black gravel. Then went to Ikea and bought cute little plastic succulents in pots. I broke them out of the pots and poked them down in the gravel, added the ornaments from the original terrarium plus some cute mini ones.
It looks alright, I much preferred the beautiful fittonia and fern - I just could not get them to survive, so fake succulents will have to do. It would be great if I could keep indoor plants alive - I'm working on it, my fish tank is turning into a plant stand and so far I've got a few survivors!
We got a big air conditioner for the living area a couple of years ago and I've been wanting to make a cover for it as it is just so ugly! The thing that kicked me into gear was that I got sick of seeing the cage I put around all the pipes to stop the puppies chewing them, that and all their toys getting stuck underneath it.
Now I could have easily bought one, but where is the fun in that? I used hardwood garden stakes for the frame and fence palings to cover the sides, and smaller stakes to cover the top. I also made it bigger than I needed as it is a great place to put pot plants and trays of cuttings, safely out of reach of a certain puppy!
The other bonus of the air con screen is that it is just sitting there without needing to be attached to the house as there is a piece of garden stake sitting down behind the air con so it can't tip forward - this piece also had to sit between the air con unit and the pipes attached to the house wall.
Since I'm terrible at taking progress shots (and before shots) here is the model I made in SketchUp so you can see how simple it is. Oh and please ignore those beautiful mitered corners, as you can see when it came to all that wood cutting I took the lazy route!
For Christmas 2015 I decided that I'd etch sets of glasses for everyone. I chose trees as my theme so everyone got a different tree for their set just to make them all slightly different.
This year I forced my poor husband to help since these were the gifts for his side of the family and after all, they're from him too! He got the job of washing off the cream and removing the stencils, it was great as it went so much faster :)
They all look pretty similar so I won't bore you with photos of each set. And as you can see, I still haven't had much luck photographing the glasses, maybe one day I'll figure it out!
