January 2012 desktop calendar

I've enjoyed doing the calendars this year, so have carried on with the first for 2012.

i hope you enjoy it.

and i hope you bring in the new year with style + fun.

I'll doing it with food, drinks + sparklers!

tara louise.

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my week in photos

i made a wreath. had the work christmas party - and drank half a yummy cocktail (i was driver). donated some tops to the smith family for zumba. made dairy free brandy custard from scratch. had christmas lunch (and then christmas dinner). skyped with hannah jean and my little boy. waited for everything to open at the boxing day sales. checked out the surf at snapper and came home looking at a beautiful sunset. yesterday was more shopping, sleeping and reading.

i was crazy busy this week - being it was mainly the week before christmas. getting up at 5am every morning to space out my cooking requirements and recipes and finish making my gifts or wrapping them etc. the last coiuple of days i feel like i have caught up on my sleep a  bit and am starting to feel normal again. hip hip hooray.

tara louise.

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a post christmas post

hopefully you've had a lovely christmas weekend that was full of love, happiness, giving (+ recieving!), food, sleeping and well it wouldn't be christmas without someone cracking the shits (not in our family anyway - that person was me this year). i had a lovely couple of days off and now back to work for me until next weekend.

i'm still kind of in denial that Christmas has been and gone. i just can't believe it!

have a lovely day.

tara louise.

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a yummy drink

If you, like me have been deprived of chocolate thickshakes/milky drinks for awhile now, you understand the need to drink a milky drink occassionally. i've had HUGE cravings for milkshakes lately. i purchased myself some full fat zymil milk and created this little drink (i couldn't and wouldn't call it a recipe) yesterday morning. so simple and easy and tasty! it's a bit like a caramely tasting drink.


you'll need:

about 2 tbspns of brown sugar (depending on how sweet you want it)

a splash of vanilla.

some lactose free milk (i don't like the taste of caramel with soy/rice milk which is why i've gone the lactose free milk - it still tastes like real milk. bonus!)

pop the sugar into the bottom of your cup. add a wee bit of hot water and a splash of vanilla essence. mix it together so the sugar starts to dissolve a bit.

then pour in your milk and you are done!

to normal people (and by normal i mean those who have the gift of being able to consume dairy with no problems whatsoever) this probably tastes like crap, but to me, who hasn't been able to drink anything like this in a few years, thinks it tastes bloody amazing!

i hope you do too!

tara louise.

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Last minute speedy WREATH TUTORIAL

i've been researching my wreath for this year for quite a while now. i finally settled on a design a while ago and finally got around to doing it last week - because well i tend to leave everything to the last minute. and well it's sat there since because i don't really love it. it needed something extra and i couldn't work out what - and well with christmas rapidly approaching, i dont really have time to sit and wait for inspiration to come.

i sat this afternoon looking around my sewing room for inspiration and this is what i came up with...

(a dead give away i live in qld is the fly screen.....not very pretty, but practical and necessary)

follow on for the super easy tutorial...

so you can see what i started with.....i planned on incorporating this into the wreath.

you'll need all the things in the photo on the right + sticky tape, mt tape/other pretty tape/fabric and a sewing machine.

pretty simple this step....just keep sewing and place the triangles into the sewing foot as you go.

wrap the length of triangles around the edges of the embroidery hoop taping as you go to hold them in place.

on the left was my original vision...but it looked like crap. so i ditched the leaves/feathers idea.

instead i just covered the ugly tape with the mt tape. you could also wrap fabric around it to cover the tape. i'd probably still use both too for added support and strength.

i tied mine onto the flyscreen with bakers twine. but fabric would work too or any string really.

and that's husband in the background.

i love that it's not traditional, but the circular hoop means wreath to me.

if you re-make this or are inspired by this (because you, like me also leave everything to the last minute and haven't organised a wreath yet), i'd love to see your version.

please put it on facebook and be sure to tag tara louise designs.

tara louise.

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My past few weeks in photos...

my poor blog has been a bit neglected lately. i've been pretty busy - hence the neglectful nature.

this is what i've been up to....

i've been catching up with friends. drinking delicious lemon and mint mocktails at the gorgeous point break in burleigh for our zumba christmas lunch. having brekky with the husband. creating the gift guide for the handmade markets christmas market. spending waaaaaaay too much time on photoshop as a result of that. we bought ourselves an xbox kinnect for christmas - husbands not great at keeping things wrapped up until the day. eating fresh cherries at work - straight off a clients tree. drinking delicious coffee with mumsy at gov's.

then that afternoon we had the handmade market which was moved into the office due to the annoyingly unpredictable weather #resultedinashitmoodandstressedme. went to watch foo fighters that night = best concert ever. really. i've been printing my own wrapping paper. making soy candles. eating this biccies that taste just like maccas cookies but i can eat them! working working working. and we've just been to the sunshine coast for the weekend and spent time drinking cocktails, lazing in the sauna and soaking up the 5star lifestyle. and doing lots of driving. because i have a great husband who is a fab bargain hunter and thinks to book things like that for us!

and well, now it's christmas day this weekend and i'm freaking out slightly.

i have oodles to do. oodles to make and working every day this week + saturday does not help me one little bit!

tara louise.

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my little gift guide

i would like to share with you a gift guide i created the past couple of weeks for the handmade market i have.

this was an absolute labour of love and i hated it yesterday morning.

it's not perfect and more pixelated than i intended it on being, but i was determined to get it finished yesterday before i went to work. i was late, but the gift guide was published.

if you are in the area on saturday afternoon, please come down and check our little market out.

tara louise.  

check it out thegift guide below....

Open publication - Free publishing - More christmas

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december desktop wallpaper

well, this one almost got away from me. i've had this to do on my to-do list for a week or so and then woke up this morning and went, "far out, it's december!". so here it is....

completely blank:

and with a few of the important dates:

this is what my calendar is looking like so far....and i'm sure there are more things to be done during the week!



oh, so thats the last one for this year.

I will continue these next year (at this stage).

tara louise.

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