Things that make me smile

My neighbour recently gave me this gorgeous book and I am absolutely in love with it. It's the 1955 Good Housekeeping's Cookery Compendium. It has been so well looked after - it looks brand new which is incredible.

I love the outside of the book just as much as the inside and now have it on my new kitchen shelf (my handy hubby put it up last weekend).

The pictures throughout are gorgeous. You probably can't quite make it out in this picture but her apron matches her curtains!! The perfectly manicured housewife, whipping up some sweet treats for afternoon tea. Now I might always be manicured but by heck my kitchen never looks like that!

The presentation of all the cooking and baking is just wonderful. A bit more fussy than we normally see these days but I love it. I would really, really love to have some friends around for a dinner party and to cook all the courses using recipes from this wonderful book. Dressing in 1950's garb would be essential too. I had considered doing it earlier in the year for my 40th but decided I didn't want to spend my birthday in the kitchen. So I'm thinking a mid-Winter dinner would be perfect! I am going to have to hit the op shops looking for gorgeous 50's clothing. It really is a fabulous decade fashion-wise isn't it.

So this morning I channelled my inner 1950's housewife, and made a batch of gingernut biscuits. I had to adjust the recipe slightly as I only have butter and not margerine so I can't claim that they are authentic.

It is very funny to see the recipe require you to mix the dry ingredients with the 'fat'. The evil three let word you are not so likely to see actually written in a recipe these days! Hilarious.

Mine didn't spread as much as the recipe picture above, probably due to the butter thing, but they are absolutely delicious. Really light and quite dainty if that's an appropriate baking description! I'm certain my small folk will love them as an after school treat.

I have been doing lots of crochet this week but not a lot to show you as most of it is black and it didn't photograph very nicely. I have made myself a lovely winter beanie, similar to this little one, and am in the middle of finishing a matching scarf. In my mission to get more colour in my life I realised that there is still room for good old black!!

This little pink hat is for a friend of mine who has just had a lovely wee baby girl. The hat looked so very tiny, but in fact it probably won't fit her for a few more months. You really do forget just how little they are don't you.

I know I'm waffling on a bit today but I'm only doing one post a week at the moment so I have a few things to squeeze in! These are just a few of the things that are making me really happy at the moment and I thought I'd share them.

This flour container was $1 (boy I love a bargain) at my local op shop. It was lid-less and has a tiny, tiny crack in it but it looks lovely on my kitchen shelf and will make a fabulous vase.

And another lid-less treasure (again $1) that I bought a while ago, but is now sitting on the same shelf. This is really quite old I think and it is so gorgeous. I don't care if these op shop finds have a wee crack or chip here and there, they still have lots of life left in them, you just have to be creative in what you do with them!

Making my whole family happy this week was the appearance of a single lonely little feijoa on one of our trees! We planted these trees over 3 years ago and every year the small folk get so excited that we might have their favourite feijoas growing in the garden. Year after year there has been nothing but last week suddenly this gorgeous little one appeared. It will be eaten for breakfast tomorrow - about half a teaspoon per child - but they will be in heaven because we grew it!!

This is just a silly pic but it has made me smile. I love, love, love red shoes and have wanted some like this for ages. When I spotted them last week (and on sale too) I grabbed them. Happy, happy feet.

Now I have to apologise for being a bit slack. I want to give a big thank you to Jane from Hook and Yarn for giving me two lovely blog awards - Versatile Blogger and Liebster Blog - you made my day. If you haven't visited her gorgeous blog yet, then make a cuppa and sit down to have a good look around. It is full of fabulous colourful crochet and always a pleasure to visit!

Have a fabulous week!