Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Vomitrons Giggle and Hoot party

I wanted to host a party to celebrate the blessing bestowed upon me 12 months ago. Vomitron's 1'st birthday! It was meant to be small party, but the guest list kept increasing magically and we ended up with a 60 person party.

Giggle and Hoot is the only TV show he stops to watch. I have no idea why a blue screeching owl and a dancing lanky man are so appealing. I wanted to support as many wahm's as  could. So I began with My friend Kylie Jensen Graphic Design designed the invitations and stationary for us as a gift which were amazing!


We had a cake smash at the party. Cake was made vomitrons nanna who used fresh cream and no sugar. 

His top was a custom made gift by Little Pickers and pants by Al-Ee-Oh

We had a 'giggle gallery' arts and crafts table which was a smash hit! 


You can't have a party without a lolly buffet. The felt owls were created by Made by Y






Baked goodies from Vomitron's nanna who owns a bakery.


 The giggle and Hoot cake! The cake topper was made also as a gift by Kreative K






It was a great party, but oh so exhausting! Now back to the reality of Earthymamma and uni!

Earthymamma
xo

Wednesday, 11 April 2012

Almond Milk

As mentioned in earlier posts, Vomitron was nicknamed vomitron because of his awesome vomiting talents. everything that went in came back up until he was 6 months old and realised he might have a cows protein intolerance. So i cut down my dairy consumption as he is breastfed and stopped giving him any form of dairy for a week. Like magic the vomiting stopped! i no longer had to weigh the kid down with terry towelling bibs.

Although he can process cows protein much better now I still have to be careful. We breast feed during the day but night time feeds and when he is looked after by someone else he normally has formula. As he is a few weeks shy of approaching the big '1' i started looking into alternatives. Goats milk, rice milk and almond milk were my 3 narrowed down winners. So i began with almond milk.

Here is how i made almond milk:

soak 1 cup of almonds for 4-8 hours in water


place soaked almonds plus 3-4 cups of water (depends on how weak/strong you want it)


Whizz it all up!


Then strain the milk in a sieve or cheescloth material. If milk is to be given to a baby please use the cheese cloth to strain as the tiny bits of almond that went through the holes of the strainer will block the teat of a baby bottle. 



Ta dah! This is what you are left with 2 amazing products
To the left is Almond Pulp which i spread out on a try and toasted in the over to make almond meal
To the right is our almond milk! 1 cup of almonds and 3 cups of water made all that!


The Flavour is interesting and will take some getting used to but DS loved it! and took to it straight away!
The whole process took about 10 mins all up. 
Enjoy

Earthymamma
xoxo

Monday, 5 March 2012

To market to market...

Well the last month has been a crazy one for me.  Organising the Northern Community Market  and attending it as a stall holder, partaking as a stall holder in the Craigieburn Community festival, preparing for my return to university and running EarthyMamma has made me busy!
Sarah from Cupcakes and Tiara's kidswear 

I was asked by lots of friends and wahms to blog about my experience holding a stall at a market, and that I shall do.

#1 pack and load the car up the night before- something will happen on the morning of the market, whether it be a  baby poop explosion, sleeping in or even forgetting something, such calamities  will happen and the the last thing you need is to be playing tetris with your boxes of stock and your car.

#2 Be prepared! bring extra sticky tape, pens and paper, bring lots of stock as you never ever know how much you might need, or how popular a particular product might be. If you don't have that item right there with you, you might lose a sale.

#3 Take water/drinks and lunch. Often enough you won't have time to go and buy food unless you have someone with you. Regardless do you want to be spending your hard earned efforts of fast food?

#4 Be prepared for any type of weather situation! Before the Craigieburn Festival i checked the weather and it was meant to be sunny, no wind so i decided to save some money and rather than hire a marquee from them to bring my own. I get to the show grounds and the wind almost blew me away, let along my pesky marquee. A quick dash to Bunnings and of course they only had the most expensive marquee in stock. It snapped in half as soon as we put it up. So my neighbour allowed me to share with her- it was a huge failure no one could even see my products let alone buy anything.
My table crammed with stuff at the craigieburn festival. A BIG no no!



#5 make your stall visually appealing- colour, various heights, your branding needs to be clear and visible- you need to imprint your logo/business name in their mind.

My A1 sign printed at officeworks could be seen from a very far distance
#6 Do not cram 1000000 items on your table/space it will distract people and will make it hard to understand what exactly your selling. Put a price on everything! Some people cant be bothered asking or are shy to ask for a price. I for one don't like asking for a price as i feel like a pain.

#7 It is not all about selling and making money, network! give out your business card, speak to fellow stall holders, make friends with them exchange contact details they will be important! Speak to your customers, give them advice. Not everyone is Internet savvy so make sure you have a phone number on your business card.

#8 Lastly enjoy yourself, be proud of your business and what you have achieved, soak up the atmosphere and the weather and have a great time! Markets can be stressful but are mostly fun. Don't be deterred by low sales, attend a few markets until you find the right one for you. 

Me at the NCM Feb market

I will leave you with some pictures of other stalls at the NCM market.
my sister in laws working hard at Hothlyn Bakery's stall- everything was priced which everyone loved!
my friend Nez from personalised baby  used lots of height at her stall 


Ali from Al-Ee-OH! went for a clean look at her stall with a cute easel to display her business name