Dr Seuss, Paddington Bear, and more buntings in-store!

It's been months since I've shared about my latest bunting creations, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been working on all new designs for my lovely customers!

I've spent this summer holidays searching for new designs to create, and today I'm showing off two of them for your bookish pleasure.

The first is an expansion of our existing Paddington Bear bunting range, a range that has been so popular that I'm struggling to keep them in stock.

As a long time fan of Paddington, I just love that others love Michael Bond's stories about this quirky bear as much as I do!

This second bunting is one that I have been hoping to make for some time now - a Dr Seuss bunting!

Another of my childhood favourites, I am so thrilled to finally start stocking these whimsical stories in bunting form.

But please, feel free to comment below if you have any other childhood favourites you would love to see in-store!

Spinach and ricotta rolls

With the summer school holidays just about over, the Cheeky Monkeys and I have been baking up a storm of easy freeze meals they can defrost and throw into their lunchboxes on those days when we've all had enough of sandwiches.

Although my Cheeky Monkeys aren't vegetarians, they do love a good spinach and ricotta pie, so I put together a "sausage roll" version for easy lunchbox storage.

Here's how to make your own delicious lunches for yourself and your little ones.

Makes 12.

Ingredients

- 500g frozen, chopped spinach

- 500g ricotta

- 1-2 eggs

- 1 onion

- 3 sheets puff pastry

- 1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese

- 1/2 tsp cracked black pepper

- a pinch of sea salt

- 2 tsp dried mint

- olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 180C.  Finely chop the onion and saute in a little olive oil until softened.  Add in the chopped spinach and cook until most of the moisture has cooked off.  Leave to cool for 10 minutes.

2. In a large bowl, mix one egg with the ricotta, cheddar, pepper, salt and mint.  Add the cooled spinach mix and stir to combine well.

3. Cut each pastry sheet in half.  Place a line of spinach and ricotta filling along the long edge of pastry, leaving about 1 cm gap.  Roll the pastry to enclose the filling fully, overlapping the two long pastry edges to seal in the filling.  Repeat with remaining pastry.

4. Cut each pastry roll in half to create 12 smaller rolls.  Place the pastry rolls onto baking paper-lined trays and brush either with a milk wash or an egg wash made from the remaining egg.

5. Bake the spinach rolls for about 20 minutes, or until the pastry is puffed and beautifully browned.  Enjoy!

A little taste of summer all year round

I've been enjoying creating my vintage crystal and glass earrings range for several years now, and am especially enamoured of this range for its variety of gorgeous colours with which I get to work.

My favourite pieces in the range are those with bright colours that remind me of summer holidays and tropical resort locales, so I was thrilled to be commissioned to create a pair that feature both bright yellow and turquoise blue stones.

These dainty delights was what I came up with, and in the process I also created a fun, multicoloured necklace for myself.

This u-shaped bar necklace was created solely to highlight the sparkly vintage crystals in the necklaces centrepiece.

And I love the design so much that I'm considering adding a range of them to the store.  Please leave me comments if you would love to see this design in-store, and let me know what colours you love best!

Cheat's Chocolate and Nougat Ice Cream

As someone who grew up in southeast Asia and Australia, the concept of a white Christmas and all the traditional cold weather Christmas food is something I still struggle to get my head around.

Which is why I often look for food ideas that are more suited to a day that may reach 38 Celsius (20-25 C if you're lucky).

So this last Christmas, inspired by my love of nougat, chocolate, and ice cream, I whipped up a very easy summer dessert to spoil our loved ones at our various Christmas celebrations.

Here's how to make your own summer treat!

Ingredients

- 2 litres of good quality vanilla ice cream

- 150-200 g soft torrone nougat bar (I used Quaranta's strawberry nougat and country berries nougat)

- 100g dark chocolate bits

- 100g milk chocolate bits

1. Chop the nougat into 1cm cubes.  Open the chocolate packets, ready to pour into the ice cream.

2. Scoop the ice cream into the bowl of your stand mixer (or large mixing bowl if you are using a hand held mixer).

3. Place the empty ice cream tub back into the freezer.

4. Gently mix the vanilla ice cream until softened, then add in the nougat and chocolate pieces.

5. When thoroughly mixed, put the ice cream back into the original ice cream tub and freeze for at least 5 hours, or until ready to eat.