LOOK MUM IM FAMOUS

Ok maybe I'm not famous, but I feel pretty gosh darn special. I recently got some of my work published in a magazine for the first time ever! It's a really big deal to me and I am ever so grateful to Vanessa and the whole team at Inked for the beautiful spread. Hopefully I'll be lucky enough to see my name and tattoos in print again, because it's pretty nice to feel proud of myself. Yay! :D

If you would like to support me or just get your hands on a great tattoo publication go pick up the latest issue of Inked Artists, it's in news stands now.

Kitty xx

HIP HIP HOORAY FOR TEMPEH!

If you happened to peruse my last blog entry you will already be familiar with my new found love of winter cooking. I am especially fond soups and stews, they are such a great way to get my 3 serves of vegetables a day and make sure no vegetable ever goes to waste in our house. So I thought that I would share one of my favourites of the season.

TEMPEH AND AUTUMN ROOT VEGETABLE STEW

ingredients

1/2 cup orange juice

1 tbsp orange zest

1 tsp tamari

2 cloves finely chopped garlic 

2 tsp fresh grated ginger

1 tsp honey

4 tbsp canola oil

1 packet of tempeh (about 300g I think) cubed

2 carrots sliced 

1 cup diced potato

1 cup diced sweet potato

1 cup diced turnip

1/2 cup diced parsnip

approx 2 cups of vegetable stock

1 can diced tomatoes 

2 whole start anise

1 cinnamon stick 

1 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 2tbsp water

salt and pepper to taste

chopped coriander

method

1. combine orange juice, zest, tamari, garlic, ginger & honey in a bowl and set aside.

2. in a massive post heat oil over medium heat, add tempeh and brown on all sides.

3. add orange juice mixture and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated.

4. add vegetables & the tomatoes with their juice and then enough stock to almost cover them.

5. add star anise and cinnamon & bring to a boil.

6. reduce heat to low & simmer, cover, until vegetables are tender, for about 30mins.

7. uncover, increase heat to high, add cornstarch-water mixture & cook for 1-2mins until stew thickens

8. season with salt, pepper and additional honey as desired

9. serve with fresh coriander.

ENJOY!

Everyone in our house seems to be getting into the spirit of winter this year. Both Mick and I have spent many a day pottering about the house fixing things up and generally making our house a home, and there is no doubt that little Peanut Butter is enjoying the extra company on the couch snuggled up amidst a sea of throw blankets. 

I'll leave you with a photo of Peanut Butter strutting her latest winter wears. My last jumper cost $4.50 from the op shop near work, Peanuts cost $50. Go figure. I love her more than me.

Kitty xx

EMOTIONAL WINTER WARMERS.

One of the biggest changes I faced moving to Melbourne was the weather. It gets cold here. Really cold. A lot. It might even be cold the majority of the time. 

I don't like the cold. Or at least I didn't. I find myself fast becoming a "Winter person". I figure that there's no point fighting it, trying to catch the odd sunshiny day and hopelessly clinging onto my summer dresses. I'm just going to embrace the cold, let it happen and I love what I can about Winter.

So this is a small list of my current winter wonderland…

• Scarves - especially my new Burberry scarf my charming man brought me back from London this week.
• Beanies - They solve so many problems. Bad hair days? Sorted. Regrowth? Sorted. Don't know anything about styling your hair and secretly think this makes you a bit rubbish at being a girl? Sorted.
• Knitted sweaters- They're comfy and comforting and makes me feel like I'm wearing a big hug and that no one can see the extra mugs of hot chocolate I've been indulging in.
• Aforementioned hot chocolate - and hot chai and hot beverages of any variety really. If anyone has a hot cider recipe, send it this way!
• Vitamin D tablets - Sunshine in a pill, I take 2 every day to help ward off any seasonal affective disorder that might be lurking in the next rainy day. I'd recommend it to everyone. Better stock up on Echinacea while you're at it.
• Reading - Obviously a favourite past time of mine at any time of year, it is especially enjoyable under a collection of snuggly blankets on our oversized couch with my favourite french bulldog hot water bottle substitute.
• Making my own soup - It makes me feel fancy and makes the house smell completely delicious. 
• Torrential rain - Yes a bit dismal but I love watching it throughout the window whilst safely inside. It feels like a vertical moat that cuts our home off from the rest of the world.
• Rationalising that wearing my pyjamas at 3.30pm is completely acceptable because it's rainy and dark outside.
• The abysmal weather allowing me not feeling guilty about spending the whole day inside cross stitching, reading, cooking, working on designs, snuggling with Peanut Butter Dearest the wonder dog and generally being a 20 something hermit nana.

Better rug up Melbourne.

Bring it on WInter, I can take it.

Kitty xx.

HOME GROUND ADVANTAGE.

So two weekends ago was the second annual Rites of Passage Tattoo Convention and the first ever tattoo convention that the boyfriend and I have worked in the same booth.

It felt strange not having to pack our gear and board a plan to get to the convention and even stranger to be going home every evening and not to a hotel. Home ground advantage did however allow us t bring extra odds and sods for our booth. So we packed up our taxidermy friends from the living room and some extra heavy fabric and got to decorate our booth a little more extravagantly than our usual weight restrictions would allow us.It was such a fun weekend and I was lucky enough to tattoo three fun tattoos on beautiful ladies over the three days.

Top of arm.

Side of thigh.

Our friends Jeff and Kim stayed with us for the week surrounding the convention which only made the even more delightful. We all enjoyed some post convention animal adventures at the safari park and the wildlife sanctuary.

I love the way that conventions bring artists together, its so amazing to have that huge reminder that you really are a part of something great.

Kitty xx

WHITE TEA BLUES.

I have contempt for life. 

Most of the time I fucking hate life.

Most of the time life is a fucking flatline existential nightmare for me and I fucking hate it and want to check out all the time.

There you go, now you know the truth, but the thing that keeps me here is knowing that life would say "haha, you wimped out, you couldn't handle me" and so what I seek to do i make life run for its life.

I want to be a pain in lifes arse.

I want life to celebrate the day I die.

I want life to get a breather once I'm dead.

-Henry Rollins

I scribbled this quote down all over my sketch pad the first time I heard it and it's stuck with me ever since. I still have the piece of paper.

I can't wait to see him in Perth in May.

Kitty xx

SHAKE, RATTLE AND STROLL.

As many of you may have already guessed, I am quite the homebody. Other than tattooing, I am generally my happiest pottering about the house with my charming boyfriend and our dog and if Im out and about I'm usually hunting for treasures to adorn our home. 

One of the most exciting things about moving house for me has been moving to a new suburb. Since we've moved in I have been using every spare second of time to unpack and have yet to explore our new neighbourhood. Each car trip has left me looking longingly out the window daydreaming of all the treasures and trinkets each new store potentially holds. Ive been ever so eager to check out all the cafes on our local strip and possibly find a new corner to read away the afternoon with a delicious treat and pot of tea.

The Penny Farthing, High St Thornbury.

So with a few hours of my own on Monday I set out to explore, with my friend Kane Berry. We put our walking shoes on (doc martins count) and hit a few local places of interest. To start our day we hit King Kahuna on Nicholson to find the perfect bean bags. Yes folks, bean bags! I've been wanting one for a while as a can't imagine a more perfect place to sit and listen to records. Our hunt took us to the factory outlet back near my old house where we both made a delightful purchase that was rather tricky to fit into the bcd of the old ford. After fits of giggle we headed to High Street and window shopped until our hungry little bellies led us to The Penny Farthing, a truly lovely cafe with some truly lovely tofu scramble.

All in all a great sunny Monday, I almost even forgive Thornbury Records for not being open. Almost.

Kitty xx

HOME SWEET CARDBOARD JUNGLE.

Goodness gracious me! What a crazy past week its been.

Mick and I have been hard out on the house hunt for the past few months with very little popping up in our price range that suits our needs. Having only found 2 houses, that clearly didn't work out, we weren't feeling too "glass half full" about the matter. So even with our friend Randy from Germany staying with us after Sydney, we had to keep looking, and against all odds we found a super nifty converted shop online that ticked almost all our boxes. Begrudgingly & without getting our hopes up we got up much too early for tattooists and battled the traffic across town to inspect our potential dream home. To our surprise and delight the house was even more lovely than its photos online, which is so rarely the case. We promptly handed our application forms and dwindling hopes to the real-estate agent and left for work to begin the waiting game. Two days later we got the phone call we had been waiting for and surprise upon surprise, we had been approved and the little converted shop was ours for the taking!

Photos from instagram...

Because I don't know the location of my camera.

This past 4 days we have packed our little victorian cottage, loaded our lives into a removal van, driven across town more than enough times, unloaded our lives into a new house, cleaned our old home to the brink of sterile and watched potential tenants walk through the house where we started our journey as a little family. 

So much has happened in our little house on Roseberry street. Two beautiful fur family members have come into our lives and one has left, we've bickered and we've snuggled, we've become a tight little team under that rickety roof and I may have shed a tiny little tear as we drove away for the last time. But we've outgrown our little 2x1 and we're moving up in the suburban world. 

Bye bye little house! Thanks for everything!

I can't wait to see what adventures our new home will hold. After we clear the cardboard jungle that is.

Kitty xx