Tag Archives: Australia

Blueberry Ice Candy

11 Monday Feb 2013

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Made by Love Notes Restyle Studio

Blueberry Ice Candy

In the Philippines, ice candy is a popular dessert. Best way to describe it is that it is a homemade creamy icy pole.

Buko Ice Candy from Busog! Sarap!

Buko Ice Candy from Busog! Sarap!

Normally it is made with milk, sugar and some sort of fruit – mangoes, coconut, avocados – anything! Today’s version I made especially for my niece, Mischa. Mischa has a few allergies so this version was made with this in mind.

What you need?

The Process

The Process

What you do?

  • Put a small saucepan onto a medium heat – add the blueberries and the raw sugar
  • Cook until the sugar has dissolved – the blueberries will start to release it’s water
  • Keep cooking until the syrup thickens up a little
  • Set aside to cool
  • Add in the rice milk
  • Pour into ice candy plastic bags – or any type of icy pole moulds
  • Freeze until solid
  • Enjoy – nom nom nom!

Mischa was my little helper for this project – she particularly loved it when we were cooking down the blueberries because I used the wooden spoon to apply the blueberry syrup as lipstick on her lips – hehehe!

Do you have any special icy pole recipes that you could share with us? It’s super HOT here in Australia – so any excuse to help us cool down would be great!

Take care, until next time…keep restyling!

Amour xx

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Where’s my iPod? It’s roadtrip time!

27 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by in I (heart) tunes

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Last weekend I set off on a road trip to Orange (3.5 hours drive from Sydney). I love road trips!

The road ahead...

The road ahead…

Growing up in Alice Springs, we had to go on a huge road trip just to get to the next town. As an only child, I was lucky because I got the whole back seat to myself, well, I shared it with the esky, the thermos, the Tupperware box full of crockery and cutlery, the pillows, blankets, akubras and Dad’s rifle. My dad was a pilot and didn’t like flying if he wasn’t in control of the air plane so all our family holidays involved days and days of driving.

I’ve pretty much seen all of Australia, which is something I’m very grateful for now I’m an adult. As a child though, it was boring because you couldn’t play eye spy (R for red dirt and D for dead animal got old pretty quickly). So I would put on my Walkman and lose myself in my favourite songs.

My favourite part of a road trip now (some 25 years later) is still the music. These days I always go on road trips by myself. I think the only person I could possibly share a car with for hours on end would be Amour, mainly because she is the only person I know with taste in music as unpredictable as mine.

Five iPods

Five iPods (Photo credit: mcwetboy)

Here’s what was on my iPod for my last trip:

As you can see it’s a pretty eclectic mix – What’s your must have music for a road trip? Please share it with us…

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Mango Pandan

26 Saturday Jan 2013

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Made by Love Notes Restyle Studio

Mango Pandan

Today is Australia Day here in the land of the green and gold Oz.

English: Australian rules football jumper, gre...

English: Australian rules football jumper, green and gold with mudlarks logo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To celebrate we decided to do an Aussie twist to the Filipino dessert Buko Pandan. Buko Pandan is a creamy dessert with fresh coconut, condensed milk and flavoured with Pandan. What is pandan? I guess you could say it’s Asia’s version of vanilla.

Our Aussified version of this Filipino dessert classic is the Mango Pandan – basically we substitute the fresh coconut with juicy sweet Australian mangoes! Aussie Aussie Aussie oi oi oi!!!

Ingredients:
– 1 x can Asian green jelly grated (see picture below)
– 1 x tub Philadelphia dessert cream (alternatively some thickened cream will do the same thing)
– 1 x tablespoon condensed milk
– 1 x teaspoon Pandan (see picture below)
– 2 x large mangoes diced

Green Jelly and Pandan

Green Jelly and Pandan

Method:
– Gently mix jelly, cream and mangoes together
– Add condensed milk
– Add pandan
– Gently combine to distribute the green colour of the pandan
– Adjust amount of condensed milk and pandan to your taste

Be warned this is a very sweet dessert to be had in small doses. But geez it’s a delicious ‘sometimes’ food 🙂

Enjoy! Happy Australia Day!

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Paper Rock Scissors – a craft store in Davao City

09 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by in Trash or treasure

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It’s my last full day in Davao City, Philippines – tomorrow I fly back home to Sydney, Australia.

During my time in Davao I checked out a stationery store called Paper Rock Scissors. I first found out about them from Aicha of The Late Bloomer Blog. When I read her post I thought to myself – well I’m in Davao soon so I better check them out. Boy am I glad I did!

I found out that they make custom rubber stamps – so we got some made! Here they are:

Love Notes Stamp Collection

Love Notes Stamp Collection made by Paper Rock Scissors

Along with that we got a variety of ink pads:

Stamp Ink

Stamp Ink

Here’s a list of the inks we purchased:

  • Color Box Cats Eye Pigment Brush Pad in Silver
  • Brilliance Dew Drop in Pearlescent Crimson
  • Brilliance Dew Drop in Starlite Black
  • Whispers Ink Pad in Fresh Eggplant
  • Jenni Bowlin Ink Pad in Brown Sugar
  • American Crafts Brand Ink Pad in Black
  • American Crafts Brand Ink Pad in Silver

But wait! Here’s more of what else I got 🙂

More things from Paper Rock Scissors

More things from Paper Rock Scissors

Check out Aicha’s post for photos of the store. I was in a super hurry at the time so I didn’t get to take any pictures. So not only do they sell a variety of stationery but they offer lots of different services. I’ve already told you about the custom rubber stamps – along with that they do business cards, book binding, shape-cutting and much much more.

At the moment I’m working closely with Lilibeth at Paper Rock Scissors to get some custom clothing labels made so that our restyles can look more finished. It will also be the last step before we open up our Etsy store…excited much! Yes I am!

So if you are ever in Davao City, Philippines – give these guys a visit. They are super friendly and you can spend hours lost in their supplies!

Take care, until next time…keep restyling!

Love Notes Restyle Studio

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Baby and Kids Market – Kellyville NSW Australia

14 Wednesday Nov 2012

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Hi it’s just Amour again for this post. Last Sunday my little sister (Jade), my niece (Jasmine) and I went to the Baby & Kids Market. This is a market where you can buy new and pre-loved baby goods. This one was held in Kellyville NSW. These markets are held all over Australia so check out their website to see where their next market will be near you. That’s if you are an Aussie 🙂

So here are the pix of the market itself…

Baby & Kids Market - Kellyville NSW Australia

Baby & Kids Market – Kellyville NSW Australia

Look at all the pretty items at the JasmineJayde stall – they aren’t handmade but still so pretty and they have definitely inspired me for some future projects.

JasmineJayde Stall

JasmineJayde Stall

And look at this gorgeous dress – wish it came in my size!

Pretty Dress!

I wonder if I could make my version of this…

Now here’s the part we all love…the treasures purchased 🙂

The treasures!!!

My niece Jasmine will continue to be the best dressed baby in town!

Later this week I’m off to the Philippines for work and to see my hubby! It’s been 4 months since we last saw each other  While I’m there I’ll also be checking out some of the local ukay ukay. Ukay ukay is the Filipino Flea Market or Charity Store or Trash and Treasure or Op shop or whatever it is that you call it in your neck of the woods – basically I CAN’T WAIT!!! 🙂

Take care, until next time…keep restyling!

Amour xx

Melbourne Cup Day in Australia

07 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by in In our studio

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Hi it’s Amour here. As promised in last Monday (Inspire Me Monday – Brooch Restyle Project) here are some action shots of my sister-in-law Michelle and her friends having a ball on Melbourne Cup Day.

Michelle with the fascinator we made…

Close up time…

How beautiful is Michelle – she makes the fascinator look extra special!

Fun with the girls (Michelle, Anne and Jenny)

Take care, until next time…keep restyling!

Amour xx

 

 

 

Garage Sale Hopping

28 Sunday Oct 2012

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Hi it’s just Amour here for this post – I went “garage sale hopping” with my little sister Jade. What is that you ask? Well we do a little online research and find a cluster of garage sales to hop around to. We plan our day, pack our wallets with small change and arm ourselves with bottles of water. Then we’re off!

Garage Sale Hopping

So today’s adventures took us to Epping, Turramurra and Wahroonga. All of these suburbs are in NSW Australia where we live. We had two to go to in Turramurra and one in each of the other suburbs.

Now here they are in pictures – Grab a cuppa, this post is picture heavy! We don’t have a picture of the first one in Epping – we were there for less than 5 minutes and didn’t get a thing aka it kinda sucked – the rest were great 🙂

Hop #2

Hop #3

Hop #4

Now for the fun stuff – my purchases…

Pretty pink metal coasters…

Teacup set…

Gorgeous yellow purse…

Lots of singlets/tank tops…

Pretty plate sets…

Chinese red pajama set…

Nude flats…

Brand new bag organiser…

Orange tweed shift dress…

I also got a book on sewing and a styrofoam head. All in all I spent $12 for all of it – I think that’s great! What do you think?

My favourite buy today was the yellow purse. Jade is a freak for anything yellow, so I’m going to restyle it into something unique and just for her.

Tomorrow morning we are going to the Blacktown Markets – It is on every Sunday at the drive-in theatre. We used to go there heaps as kids and this will be our first time back as adults. We are super excited!!!

On that note – I better get to bed – gotta get up in a few hours and hopefully find me some more treasures 🙂

 

 

 

Op Shopping – Salvation Army Family Store Seven Hills

27 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by in Trash or treasure

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This post is a little late – but here goes!

Last Sunday we stocked up on some supplies at our local Salvos. We got there 5 minutes before the store opened and sat in the car eagerly waiting for the doors to open. We were so excited to see what was on offer and it ended up taking us about 15 minutes to walk through the doors – there was so much fun stuff to look at!

First things first – here’s their location – 183 Prospect Highway, Seven Hills NSW Australia. This place is huge, after 2 hours, we didn’t get through the whole store!

We were so stuck with our noses in different things that we forgot to take photos of the store so that we could share them with you…so instead…Here are some of our purchases…

Op-shopping Funess

more purchases…

We can’t wait to make lots of fun and exciting stuff with our stash – so we’ll keep you posted. Tomorrow is garage sale hopping day for Amour and her little sis Jade. We’ll take lots of photos so we can virtually take you with us!

Take care, until next time…keep restyling!