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]]> general http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=152 Sun, 24 Mar 2013 13:04:13 +1100 http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=151 30th birthday pinata. so with that in mind, i made her a mini variety for her 30th birthday!



it measures about 20cm, and is covered in an ombre design of fluffy tissue. it was so much fun to make!



and this is the picture of the little pinata in its new home and newly puffed up!

]]> craft http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=151 Tue, 12 Mar 2013 21:25:22 +1100 http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=149 it was only when i was around someone who was into photography and when i was taught to use a digital slr properly that i found it a bit more interesting. it is then really hard not to be drawn into the world of other types of cameras, lenses, film cameras and so on.



i was loaned a minolta xd5 - my friend bought a box of old cameras and stuff from ebay and it was in this box, along with some film. so we decided to go somewhere to try it out! we drove about 3 hours to canberra when floriade (the annual flower festival) was on. unfortunately, it was an old film and therefore only 4 pictures came out, which was a bit sad. but i am not going to give up - i'm so pleased with the ones that did come out (they have such personality and distinct characteristics that you don't get with digital) that i will buy some new film and try it again!









that, unfortunately, is it. but it will not be the last of me using the xd5! ]]> general http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=149 Tue, 6 Nov 2012 18:00:06 +1100 http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=144
my lovely and very talented cake-making friend prue dropped off my cake in the morning, then i went to get my hair all pretty, came home to a gorgeous flower arrangement that my mum had had delivered, then it was go-go-go time! so... here we go! a whole half year of preparations and this is it!









the "tablecloth" out of book pages took a good few books and well over an hour to make - though never fear, i only used reader's digest abridged versions of classics, which i didn't feel too bad about ripping apart (since, you know, it wasn't like a REAL classic). while everything was set up, i was putting on my makeup - i had this amaaaaazing costume glitter from america for eyeshadow, and these awesome falsies! then i was running around organising food...







in hindsight that came just after i had put my dress on, laying food out on the table was not the best idea in my finery. but too late now! i was already running a little late!





ok i'm just going to put the rest after the jump - please keep going, i promise i'll stop talking!











ok sorry to say but that was just the downstairs - needed to set up the upstairs as well! i had gone to various second-hand stores and picked up quite a collection of champagne saucers - champagne is so much nicer to drink out of a saucer - and had already laid them out. my brother had brought home some ice and i set out the champagne and some cake pops





right next door to this was the photo area with the tinsel curtain!





posing... of course. what's a girl in a fabulous dress to do?!



then everyone started arriving! so props were out, though unfortunately not enough posing going on! everyone kind of just... turned up! so it wasn't as easy as i'd thought to organise everyone. herding cats came to mind...











then everyone headed down to eat food, drink and be merry!







then the obligatory bday song. an embarrassing tradition!! and the cake cutting - definitely the best part of the whole thing!







this was the cake inside - an amazing four layer cake with swiss meringue icing! yummmmm



so we were all buzzing with french champagne, rolling around in sugar-induced silliness and singing along to my soundtrack of vintage music... from 1950's with a bit of 60's and 70's and culminating in the best of the 90's - since it was the decade we all grew up in. i'm happy to announce that there was a bit of spice girls dancing going on, as well as some singing along to "whoomp there it is". awesome. then it was time to go.

thanks to everyone who came and celebrated with me. and to prue, ruma, mum and dad, simon, and josh who all helped me make it an amazing night :)
xxx

]]> general http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=144 Wed, 31 Oct 2012 20:07:13 +1100 http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=141
this was no mean feat - i took time off work and cooked relentlessly until my back was aching. not being one to do things by halves, i had a menu of 9 things i wanted to make. i did fall short of this by one, but it wasn't for lack of trying - the one i missed was macarons, which sadly did not make it off the baking tray... quite literally! they got stuck!!

i had printed out the recipes and set out a time schedule. first up: meringues! i love making meringues - they are easy, tasty and last for ages. they are also so pretty-looking!







these were actually the best meringues i have made... from a laduree recipe and soooooo gooey and delicious in the middle.

next up was cheesecake brownies. these are a favourite of my brother's so i had to hide them from him until the day or they would have started "disappearing". luckily, you can freeze them and the freezer was a great place to hide them!

third on the menu was orange and passionfruit yo-yos... one of my favourites. oh the combination of orange and passionfruit in a sweet little treat is just so delectable!!





i will understand if this is making you too hungry to continue... but please, do read more! so that's 3 down, 5 to go! all the recipes i'd made so far were old favourites. this next one was something i'd never made before. i'd seen the trend online for cake pops and thought they were cute and just what i was looking for - cakes, but not a whole cake! perfect! so i made two kinds - pink champagne and red velvet. there was a lot of discussion about which one was best - i was for the pink champagne myself... it was pink for starters!

they are actually quite strange to make - it feels almost wrong... step one - bake a cake



step two - whiz it up into crumbs in the food processor. this is the wrong part... no more cake, just crumbs.

step three - mix icing into the cake crumbs



step four - make into little balls, poke sticks into them and cover in chocolate! yum!



oh and i also did the red velvet ones



the macarons were the next on the list. i had two on my menu - raspberry and white chocolate ganache and salted caramel. the raspberry ones were the big ol' failure. the salted caramel ones, however, turned out nicely, though they had my trademark cracking on the surface. i have since worked out why this happens and have been testing different techniques and almost nailed it. no photos of the macarons due to this unfortunate cracking though.. but i can assure you they were tasty (to be fair, the other ones were tasty too, i just scraped them off the baking sheet hehe).

so what am i up to now - 6 successes and 1 failure. two more to go... the last two were both french recipes from my laduree 'sucre' book. the first one i tackled was langues de chat, or 'cat tongues'. they are just basically a small, light and sweet biscuit that look like cat tongues. it's an odd recipe - you warm up the butter over a pot of boiling water then just gradually mix everything in. i've never made anything in that way before. and then you just dip them in chocolate - of course!







last but not least was the tarte aux fraises. at my birthday last year, despite us all eating our weight in coq au vin, veggies and french bread, we demolished this tarte. it was no different this year! as soon as someone cut into it, it was gone! this pastry is made the day before and chilled in the fridge. it's an almond sweet pastry that's absolutely delicious!



oh and as a quick sneak, this is what the final tarte looked like



so that was basically what i did for the week leading up to it... was definitely a tasty experience. look at all the little yummy things in boxes, all my cake stands and everything ready and waiting...



next post will be party photos i promise. i just did so much prep for this one in particular that i don't really want to let it just be forgotten, even if no one reads this far but me :)
cheers! ]]> general http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=141 Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:00:26 +1100 http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=139
the first thing that i chose to make was a giant "30" pinata. I originally wanted to hang it out the front of the house but after all the work that went into it, it was far too valuable to risk someone pinching it! i must apologise for the dodgy phone photos - i'm not very good at remembering to take progress photos... the first step was to make a cardboard 3D 3 and 0



no pictures of the 0 (again, forgetful), but it seemed a lot harder than the 3 to make out of card (winding a long piece of card between two 0 shapes was not as easy as i had anticipated). after that, i papier mache'd the joins together to make sure they stayed, then i gave the whole thing a coat of undercoat, just in case any of the newspaper used in the papier mache showed through. then began the very long process of cutting... i used a fabric paper - it was a lot tougher than tissue paper, not as annoying as crepe paper. so i cut out these long strips, folded them in half and proceeded to snip them. it took a very long time... i cannot begin to explain how looooong it took! i watched movies, tv shows, got through most of the hunger games trilogy on audio book while still cutting. then came the gluing process. at first i started at the top, then realised that that was a rookie mistake - it is easier to lay the strips on top than it is to push them up underneath. so i changed my process and it was much faster.



all the way around the 3, and then a final trim and i was done!



and, of course, the final product:



i would suggest if anyone is wanting to do something like this, maybe get a group of friends to help with the snipping, or just allow extra time for snipping and fiddling around. yes they look awesome, but it was work. luckily next year i only need to add a 1!! much easier!!

i then had an idea in my mind that i wanted to have a main central table, with other little tables and chairs dotted around. this required getting extra tables from ikea, and i got 4 of the lack tables because they are cheap and useful. not the easiest to paint, however, as i found out after another long and fairly painful process. first step, choosing an amazing colour! ohhhh which hot pink to choose?! in the end, i went with 'cheeky'



i figured a good sanding, using some good undercoat, 3 coats of paint and two coats of polyurethane would make a tough painted surface. oh, was i wrong! i went through so much paint having to fix up scrapes - the tiniest touch to the paint and it would come off. but in the end, all was right. i added little caps in gold paint to the end of the legs (next time, i think i'd paint them all gold, it was so much easier to use!!)



keep on reading for more! (things get easier, i promise!)so i did two tables in the pink paint. the other two, i covered in book pages (so much easier than paint!)



next up, i had to make cake stands. really nice and fairly inexpensive cake stands seem very hard to find so i decided to make my own. after buying some cheap plates from ikea, i had gone to vinnies and found some nice glass candlesticks after reading this article on making cake stands. all the stuff i read had used some lethal-sounding glue but i wasn't sure that i was willing to sacrifice the plates or the candlesticks. since it was a one-night event, i decided hot glue would do for staying power. this is one of the candlesticks (mod podge was not used for this!), and then the finished product!





i had seen tassel garlands on the confetti system's website, and i was dying to try my hand at these. i used some of the same fabric paper that i had used in the pinata, as well as some tissue papers. unfortunately, i could not find the shiny mylar film that the confetti system uses - the gold would have been perfect!! so i made loads of little tassels, then hot-glued them onto a long piece of jute.





i really wish i had some cool chandeliers in my house, since normal lights are just so ho-hum. with that in mind, i decided to create my own chandeliers out of board, then cover them in gold - shiny gold dots on the big one and glitter paper on two smaller ones





oh my goodness, writing this down makes me realise how much work went into this!!

the room that i wanted to throw my party in has really high ceilings with lights hanging down about 1.5m. this makes the room itself seem really big, and i wanted to create a more intimate, cosy feel. i decided to achieve this by hanging a rail from the lights, and attaching ribbon and fabric streamers from it to kind of bring the ceiling down. i originally wanted to make a rectangle out of dowel to do this, but was talked out of it with the logistics of hanging it... fair enough too, as it would have been a bit heavy. i also underestimated the amount of streamers/ribbons that would be needed for a 3m long piece of dowel - it took a lot of bits of ribbon and material to get a full-looking effect.



there is a light out at the front entryway that i thought was too bright, but i needed something on there, so it too got the ribbon treatment. i bought a very large metal wire ring from a craft supply store and tied on more bits of ribbon and material, as well as making some triangles out of board and covering them with gold dots so that they would pick up some of the light. this was attached to the light and created a lovely pinky glow



because i had a lot of pinata chopped tassel things left, i decided to extend the pinata theme and create hanging decorations in the shape of diamonds.



i made some food labels in illustrator and thought for ages about how to display them. i finally decided to use some old corks that i was given by cutting down one side to create a slit and then flattening out the other side to make a base. the food labels would then fit into the slit in the cork and could happily stand on the table.



oh and lucky last... it was the night or two before, i had this crazy idea to make a birthday logo thing out of glitter. i got out the spray adhesive and got glitter literally EVERYWHERE! it really is the herpes of craft supplies. but the end result was really kind of awesome, if not entirely practical (it kept shedding!)





ok and so i think that concludes this episode of how crazy i am. i was going to cover my cooking in this post, but once it started getting long and out of control, i thought that should probably wait til next time. i hope you enjoyed the read! ]]> general http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=139 Wed, 26 Sep 2012 19:53:19 +1000 http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=135 i am aware that i have not updated my blog in ages. to be honest, the reasons are so boring (not enough time, nothing to tell, etc).
however... all this is about to change. it was my 30th birthday this year and, like previous years, it was time to throw a bash, get crafty (and cook-y) and basically go crazy on a concoction of glue, sugar and wine!
i had seriously been planning this since january - deciding on a theme (and trying to limit myself to just one!), decorations, working out the food, guest list, my own attire, the invitations, the music and so on and on.

i would normally say "first, the invitations". but i had decided my theme (mostly) around january, and had kind of worked out what i needed in terms of furniture, some decorations and so on. i decided some trips to second hand shops and ikea were needed, as well as some (... a lot of) online purchasing. i think the postman is probably sick of delivering parcels to my house now, i ordered so much stuff! (more on this in the next post)

so with a theme finally set, and envelopes and paper having arrived from around the world, it was time to start on invitations.



the theme i ended up with was 30: a good vintage. i thought that was very fitting for my love of vintage, my desire to wear a beautiful 50s dress at least once in my life, and also the feeling of getting better as i get older. as for the invitations, i originally decided that i wanted to hand-letter the actual invite in ink, but the result was not what i was after - it was not clean enough and there were a few areas i didn't like. so i drew the same thing out in illustrator, added a few bits and pieces, and it turned out so much better.



in the frame, i combined some art deco and nouveau elements, and used a multitude of fonts in the invite itself (including one of my own) to create something a bit whimsical.

the whole invite package also came with a dress code and rsvp card which was all bundled up using a strip of vintage wallpaper



read on for the rest of the details! the second element that i made was the dress code card. while drawing the frame for the invite proper, i had drawn a few elements that didn't fit in with the theme, which i combined here to make the frame.



each invitation was accompanied by a prop - there were glasses, bow-ties, jacket pockets with kerchiefs, moustaches and blingy jewellery. unfortunately, silly me in my rush to get things done did not take a photo of the great pile of props that i painstakingly made. they were cut from mountboard (just fyi, cutting shapes by hand in mountboard is not the easiest thing in the world) and had various papers stuck to them, see below for a few examples (guess who wore the crown hehe)



lastly, i designed an rsvp card - one side was old pictures of me scanned in and arranged in a grid and the other side was rsvp details. i was going to make it a post card, then decided that i didn't want the postie seeing all these pictures of me as a kid!





all the items were wrapped up in a vintage wallpaper band and put into a2 envelopes (ordered from america - australian post preferred envelopes are such unattractive sizes!), which i lined with glitter paper liners



this is the entire invite kit:



and a little sneaky pic of the props in use



i'll cover all the party planning details next time! ]]> general http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=135 Thu, 13 Sep 2012 20:06:44 +1000 http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=134
check it out: alisonrichards.net

as promised in my previous post, there are pics of my new illustrations, including the one that's featured in ammo magazine:



]]> illustration http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=134 Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:57:33 +1100 http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=132 it wasn't a particularly nice day though, but i thought i would compile my list of my favourite things about summer in readiness for when it does arrive properly - with sunshine, blue skies and the like!



i have also recently completed a few drawings. i don't want to give too much away, as some of them are to be printed, so here's a quick look now. as soon as the magazine has been released, i'll update my website!



read on, read on!

and one i did before i went overseas... initially done for blanket magazine but the concept was pulled and i had something else in there instead!



i hope you enjoy the first days of summer... or winter. wherever you are! ]]> illustration http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=132 Thu, 1 Dec 2011 20:28:52 +1100 http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=127
jac not-so-subtly hinted that she would like a chair from me, so i decided that i would make her one for her wedding present.

i spent a very long time scouring ebay and gumtree for a chair until i finally found something suitable! it would appear that the demand for nice single vintage chairs has gone up, since they were always too expensive or just plain ugly or too new. so it did surprise me that i ended up finding one i really liked, considering what else was out there. i have a few things i look for when i'm after a chair: 1. it has to be less than $40. i don't see much point in buying a chair for $100 only to have to spend lots of time stripping it back and buying upholstery fabric/stain/other embellishments. plus, if i mess it up, i don't feel quite as bad! also, i like the idea of taking something really cheap and turning it into something beautiful. if it's $100 and already a beautiful chair, then it's not really a challenge. which leads into 2. it has to be somehow different - i like things with a bit of quirk. and 3. it has to have enough wood or upholstery to allow me to change it. this one definitely had all 3, and it satisfied point 2 by having an almost completely circular base, two different style legs (front and back) and an oddly shaped round back.

so with all that in mind, i bought this wooden chair covered in hideous thick green paint. unfortunately, however, i got too excited about the prospect of stripping the paint off that i didn't take a "before" photo. very annoyed! so instead, this is how the chair looked after stripping the seat of the horrible green paint (which covered the whole chair but was flecking off in places to reveal thick white paint).



and this is what it looked like after... well, sort of (yes, i wrapped a chair!)



see more photos, including how the chair actually looked, after the jump...it took ages to strip - i think the paint had covered the chair for a very long time, since it was stubborn and just did not want to come off, even with my industrial strength paint stripper! so it was with great patience that i finally managed to get it all off!

this is it finally stripped:



after stripping, i then had to sand off all the gunk. there was also a layer underneath all that where the wood was dark and greyed, so i got that off too. that also took a very long time - it was quite a fiddly chair to sand! but i also got to try out my new toy - a little hand-held multisander. previous chairs have all been sanded by hand because i was always a bit distrusting of electrical tools... i had visions of disaster like sanding things too much and them falling apart or just generally ruining the wood. but i was persuaded that these ideas were unfounded! and it was a treat - so much quicker than hand sanding, especially on the larger areas. after sanding, i stained the wood with one coat of walnut stain.



i had had this idea for a while of painting/staining a picture onto wood, kind of inspired by this. i didn't want to go too elaborate like that, so instead i decided on a chevron pattern, especially since the chair wasn't for me and chevron is a bit more universal!

unlike the example, instead of staining it, i had the marvellous idea of gold leafing the pattern on. yes... another one of my big ideas, followed by "it can't be that hard". honestly, i really do have to stop saying that! i had never gold leafed before and went out to the art shop in west ryde and found out all about size (gold glue), leaf, brushes and gloves, and all the other particulars of leafing. i had already bought my real gold leaf off ebay (999/1000 gold) and so, i was all ready to go.

it was a good idea to be geometric, but a little hard getting it to all line up on the chair because of the rounded nature of it. but after some time and lots of re-taping, i managed to get it looking right.



my first attempt at leafing on the chair was a bit of a failure, but it was because i had followed the directions on the size bottle to the letter and consequently left the size to dry too long. you see, the thing with leafing is that you have to paint this stuff on, wait til it gets really sticky, then you've got a little while before it dries to place the leaf. i had left the size for 45 minutes as instructed, and the gold didn't stick to it properly - it was all patchy, which thankfully didn't affect the final look at all. with trial and error, i reduced the waiting time to 20 minutes. gold leaf is really hard to use - you have to work with cotton gloves on (otherwise it sticks to your fingers), you can't feel the leaf at all, and you have to be careful with your breathing...one sneeze or a sigh and your gold leaf is fluttering around in the air! the leaf itself it is packed up in folded sheets of wax paper which are also a pain to work with, especially with the gloves on. in the end, i had a good system going - i would paint the size on one part of the design, wait 20 minutes, then work with one glove on for the leaf, one glove off for dealing with the wax paper. i laid all the little sheets on the size then tapped them into the wood grain with a soft brush.

this is a work in progress picture from my phone... see the leaf is hanging off the edges of the pattern? you are supposed to wait until the size dries before brushing it off with a soft brush.



after leafing the whole thing and fixing up the little bits where the leaf hadn't stuck, i painted a clear gloss over the gold. according to the girl in the art shop this is not necessary, but i wanted to make sure that the leaf would stay put for many years. the finishing touch was 3 layers of wax rubbed into the wood. i just love the way that wax warms up the colour of the wood and adds a little bit of a sheen to it.

so, this is the final product:







one other important thing to note is what i found out about the chair while i was restoring it. i was unable to get an exact date, but i think this chair was made in australia between 1900 and 1940. it is stamped on the underside (which i found after removing all the horrible green paint and gunk) with a stamp that reads “a6 european labour only”.



after some research, i found that this kind of stamp was added to furniture made from 1896 until the middle of the 20th century to indicate that it was constructed by white australians, and not asian australians. during that time, there was a lot of anti-asian sentiment, especially around the time of the great depression, as it was thought that asians and other immigrants were taking jobs away from white australians. also, this stamp and the information surrounding it, as well as the colour and grain of the wood, leads me to believe that the wood is australian silky oak.

so there you go. i thought that was pretty cool...

since i was taking the chair to the wedding to leave on the gift table, i thought it might be an idea to wrap it. thankfully, i have a very big roll of wrapping paper, because it took an awful lot of paper and a long time to get it right! it's very hard to wrap a chair, just in case you're ever tempted!





well, there you have it! probably the toughest bit of furniture i have tackled for a while... though the fault is completely my own!

i hope you like it jac (and merv)... but hey i don't mind having it back if you don't! ;) ]]> furniture http://blog.alisonrichards.net/index.php?itemid=127 Tue, 8 Nov 2011 19:56:52 +1100