Backtrack : A new post series + some Sydney city gallivanting

New post series? Not really.. but kind of. Let me explain...

So on a trip to the city with some friends from my youth group we all started talking about our uni-student-on-holidays life. It just so happens that the four of us all had our own blogs (because we're all hip and blog and stuff).

And so began our little chat about our non-productiveness on the blog front. in terms of our blogs. We all have differing levels of disengagement with our blogs, from a week, to a few weeks to a few months (in my case - I've posted what, twice? in the last 6 months?)

Anyway.. someone suggested we need to make a pact to all post more and so our little blogging productive challenge was born! (I just made that name up just then) This challenge pretty much just requires us to post SOMETHING (anything?) onto one of our blogs by midnight on Monday-Tuesday. And I guess this post will count as mine. YAY! (I will link all their blog posts at the bottom so you people that read this can check it out.)

I know that I have a lot of worth while things sitting in my drafts and thought I really should post these on here. And my new "Backtrack" post series is born! HUZZAH! So for the next few weeks I will be posting some things that have been sitting in my drafts for months, years even! I can't guarantee that it will be done in chronological order but we'll see how we go. These are all events, though there are a few things that aren't, which I can get away with not being in this series (as they don't refer to some specific times/dates).

I will hopefully be posting the first Backtrack post next week some time. In the mean time here are some photos of what we did get up to in the city. Enjoy!

 We went to customs house.

And the State Library of NSW.

 

  My friend's dad shouted us lunch! We had Thai. It was yummy. 

(Yay for instagram!)

Then we strolled through Hyde Park,

jumped in front of St Mary's Cathedral

and wondered through the Royal Botanical gardens.

We took some photos on the way up to Mrs Macquaries Point.

Then watched the sun set over the harbour.

 Walking back to the station we found this sign. We accepted the invitation by walking on grass and hugging a nearby tree.

On the way back we bought some cake and other baked goods for the train ride back home. We had been talking about red velvet cake on the trip into the city and were craving some. So we managed to find some but alas! It was a very deceiving super sweet, pink, vanilla cake or sugar cake or something. There was NO CHOCOLATE. 

THE CAKE IS A LIE!! 

(Woo! References from games I don't even play)

All in all a pretty good day, despite this "red-velvet" cake. And and at the end of it a new post!

Also here are links to my friend's posts for our challenge!

Trip Tide

Brendon the Smiling Chef

A Piece of Shortcake

Culinary Exploration: Strawberry Shortcake

So, thought I might start a monthly/weekly(?) Cooking thing. Gee I'm great at English.

Anyway, I like to bake and it's something I don't do often. Would also like to cook a bit more too so now I hope to try and get my self in the kitchen as often as possible and post it up online. Take some WIP photos and the end result (because I just like taking photos of food :)

ANYWAY! Last week I decided to bake Strawberry Shortcake, the recipe of which I found on the Sorted Food (these guys are awesome, follow them on Youtube!) website.

I was hoping to make some easy mini quiches but my mum didn't buy the puff pastry I requested the day before so I couldn't. I also couldn't be bothered walking down to the shops to buy some. SO I thought I would bake something else.

Mum just bought two big punnets of strawberries and wanted to use them somehow and decided on this shortbread recipe as it seemed quick and easy.

I didn't have enough butter so I just halved the recipe.

Cute little heart-shaped tin from DAISO! Only $2.80 #winning.

and into the oven

 it took FOREVER to cool down

TA DA!

Yay for fresh strawberries!

Also made a little cupcake sized one with the left over dough and packaged it all up for my boyfriend because I'm awesome.

Also made some choc chip cookies and some brownies for my friends fundraiser. The guys from my Industrial Design course who are graduating this year are trying to raise some money so they can put on their end of year design exhibition and had a stall at my university's open day on Saturday. Unfortunately I totally forgot to take proper photos. This is all I got.

 Hope you enjoyed the post. If there are any recipes you want me to try let me know.

Till next time,

Julie

Illustration assignments

one of my finals for this semesters. Will add more details after I finish these 3 other assignments... Kill me now (not really)

- Julie

Painting Gems

As much as I love Industrial Design, it's always fun to go and explore other things. Which is probably why I like to choose a bunch of different things for electives at uni as opposed to using those elective units to sub-major in something.

This semester I am taking Illustration 1 (click for a subject description). Our first assignment has a bit of a live brief in that we have an ACTUAL CLIENT! Whether our work goes to print is up to them. But yes we are illustrating for 2ser. Here are some photos of how that's going.

Need to do some illustrations for this local radio station literally just outside uni.

Workspace 1

Painting scans

Rearrangement on Photoshop

Workspace 2

So as you can see, the concept I'm working from is 'the gems of radio'. Still need to do a lot more painting. Have 2 other iterations of this concept to paint up. Mostly just playing with rendering techniques at the moment. Using ink and watercolour!

All in all I am quite loving this subject. So relieving and relaxing compared to everything else I have to do (which I haven't really posted about but might later). Can't believe I can sit and paint for hours and call it work. SO much fun! :)

Will probably update on how it's going sometime next week. Just over a week left to work on it! Till then!

Ciao!

Food & Photography

Two of my favourite things and they go beautifully together!

So my mum has been baking a lot the past month or so (probably because Better Crocker mixes were on sale). She does the baking and more often than not I am resident cake decorator. And so after each masterpiece (not really) I take photos and post them on facebook to make my friends jealous.

I just felt like collating all the photos and posting them up so I can share them all here.

Enjoy!

(from most recent to oldest)

Leche Flan (creme caramel)

Pavlova

Devil's food cake

Pavlova

Chocolate Fudge cake w/ cream

Mum's birthday pan CAKE

Chocolate cake or some kind w/ sprinkles!

- Julie

NEW URL

Also for those of you who are yet to notice..

My blog has a new URL!

juliesdesignadventures.blogspot.com

I thought it would be a bit more appropriate for the purpose of this blog being a design blog. Hope to be able to show more projects and process on here for a more professional... thing (biggest mind blank)

Anyway have a GREAT Easter everyone! Here is an origami rabbit I prepared earlier :)

- Julie.

Setting up shop

So I don't know if you know but I've been crafting since forever and have always wanted to be able to make and sell my own stuff (and hey presto! I do a design course, go figure).

Anyway I've always made little things out of felt (images below) for friends and family back in high school half because it cost less to make birthday gifts and I could cram it the night before (like my assignments!). I've always been pretty pleased with what I've come up with. In saying that, I've never made anything more than once.

After seeing so many of my friends and people I know go into business for themselves selling their own things over the years I keep asking myself "Why aren't I doing that yet?". And to be honest I have no real excuse. I mean I am quite involved around and my non-uni project list is greater than my study workload (6 external projects vs. 4 uni assignments). Sometimes I wonder if I'm procrastinating this small business venture of my own  by doing all these other things?

I think it's because I've never had anyone actually hold me to account for getting it done. On the one hand its a big time commitment and I'm not even sure it will fall through so I guess I don't bother? All these other projects have immediate response sort of thing, generally because they are for other people. The most annoying thing is that I know I can do it and that I have the potential. People have been telling my that for YEARS but I haven't really lived up to it or at least to what I believe I am capable of. Maybe I should start planning to get back into it?

Anyway I leave you with some of my little felt creations.. If you think I could/should do something with it I would love to hear/see some support. I do have a small break in my semester coming up, might be a good time to start something!

The owls I actually have made twice but as you can see they turned out completely different. 

And then there's all the paper craft I do too! Geez, I wish I could only do one thing sometimes so that that would be all I do and I could just focus on those things.

Eugh, anyway I need to go back to working on this assignment for my Masters application..

Julie.