Monthly Archives: October 2016

Pituitary Gland

This Pituitary Gland in a jar has been in and out of my Etsy store for quite some time. Years ago it was in there with the original photos and just hung around, and then it was out of my store for a while waiting to have new photos taken and lazy me never did. I’ve only ever sold one.

I remember making the Pituitary because I got a “convo” (the Etsy speak for a message within Etsy) asking me to make one. In the early days I would make anything and everything people suggest without taking an order or getting them to pay as it was a great way to get ideas for new pieces. (This is also why a thymus is sitting my shop.)

What I love about the way I have made the pituitary is the red and blue threads. I’ve almost always used the same shades of blue and red, I’d sometimes pick up a different shade but also return to my same favourite DMC colours.

Anyhooters, after finding this guy again I’ve also decided to make a brooch. I find myself getting back into making and experimenting with anatomy again after going on a bit of a journey off my path. Not that taking a detour here and there isn’t useful!

Stamps

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Stamps!

I love carving them and stamping paper. It’s like a trip back in time to childhood.

My favourite to carve is the Intestine, below, as it has such nice curvy lines which are the best when carving.

Large Intestine Stamp

Large Intestine Stamp

Homemade Taiwan Style Soup

My partner and I absolutely love the Taiwan Style Beef Soup from Yang’s Cuisine (Pinelands road, Sunnybank Hills). The soup is unbelievably delicious and I’ve wanted to know how to make it for long a while. Recently I spotted the Campbells Soup bases (the tetra packs, like the stock) which include a Chinese base. I grabbed one while they were on special and set about making my own Taiwan Style Soup and oh my was it delicious!

Ingredients
Soup Base (Chinese)
Beef Chuck
Dumplings (we got some frozen ones from woolies, pork ones)
Noodles (I used dried Udon)
Carrots
Bean Sprouts
Chilli Flakes
Beef Stock Cube
Ginger
Garlic

Method
I slow cooked the Beef Chuck in about 200ml of the soup base plus a beef stock cube and extra water (enough water to come up the sides of the beef but not submerge it). To this I add fresh ginger and garlic roughly chopped and chilli flakes (to taste!) This cooks for about 7 hours.

In the last hour I chopped a carrot and popped this in. The Yang’s soup has one wedge of barely cooked carrot but I added quite a lot to this and they were well cooked. Cunning Fellow pointed out my error.

In the last 30 minutes I started to boil the rest of the soup. I par boiled the dumplings and the noodles in plain water before plunging them, and the beef and carrot and the liquid from the slow cooker (I strained this liquid) into the soup. I allowed all of this to boil away until the dumplings and noodles were done. Throughout this I checked flavours and did add extra chilli and a bit of extra water.

Too delicious!

The left overs were lunch (with mushrooms added).

Shrinky Dinks

I’ve been playing around with Shrinky Dinks for about 4 years now after learning about them in a Hands On Brisbane class. Hands On Brisbane is my “day job” and one of the perks is learning all sorts of crafts (I have to be able to assist the facilitators).

I started making Your Organ Grinder pieces from Shrinkies soon after. I use an old refurbished Canon printer at the moment. Oh and FYI, you can’t use the ink that is made for archival printing, or the high quality art printing. Just the regular printing ink.

If you want to learn how to make your own Shrinkies you can check out the process I use for shrinking and adding doming resin in my instructable here. If you are in Brisbane I sometimes teach Shrinkie Dinks workshops and Resin workshops at Hands On Brisbane so join our mailing list, here.

Images above are Uterus Earrings, Dodo Earrings, Tapeworm Brooches and Dodo Brooches all made using the shrinky dink with doming resin technique.