Ok, after this dear blog has bought me so much joy, I finally got the courage to comment
Just voted for a wonderful blog…yes Sarah, that is you! Now the first comment is official, it is time to out the camera and share some beach cottage love from sunny Queensland, Wellington Point. Hope to share with all the beach lovers, a little bit of joy and join this wonderful community!
Okay, it’s taken me way too long to commit to this most excellent idea (mainly because it’s the Saturday Club which means technically the missions should be carried out on, obviously, Saturday, and that day just doesn’t work for me). But if it’s okay to join in on Sunday, I’d love to be an official member, and share the love on my own blog as well!
I would love to join your Saturday club! It actually seems like the life I already live here in Sydney! My husband and I moved here in January and we are loving our weekends strolling through the markets and down by the harbor grabbing coffees and macaroons from small shops along the way!
When we return home to the US after a few years here we plan to decorate our home in seaglass and coastal colors, whether they be tropical or Pacific Northwest USA.
We honeymooned in Tofino, British Columbia Canada and love all things beach.
Sarah, you are truly a kindred spirit…I love all things ‘beach’ and everything on your list, even though I am located smack dab in the middle of Canada! I am definitely in!
Hi Sarah, love your blog and would like to join your BC Saturday Club. I am located near Melbourne in the burbs, have a beach nearby although not quite the beaches along the Great Ocean Road that I crave.
I LOVE this blog. It’s inspired me to get my own house in order. I would love to join your Saturday Club. My husband and I did the 1st one where we went to an Italian coffee shop and indulged on cappuccino and decadent Italian cakes and then I had a gelato for good measure! Lovely!
Hi Sarah! I LOVE your blog… I can’t remmeber if I have responded or not to this, but just to make sure I am included, if indeed a girl who would LOVE to have a BC but alas is stuck in the middle of the USA (Illinois) can be included, then I’m in.. but also, I would have to do the missions after the four letter word (work) on Saturday or Sunday or Monday, which are my days off… o.k.. enough of a run-on sentence… Am looking forward to learning more from your blog! Love your pictures and your writings..
I would love to join in with your saturday club ,i am from Canada and heading into a long cold winter, brrr , so ur visuals for saurday
And looking at ur beautiful australian beach will be a lovely reminder of those warm summer days to come !
Thank you for a great blog , so enjoy it , ur like a friend
Could you consider me for the Sat club Sarah? Summer is my passion and my beach house, a wondrous constant in my every changing life. The only place I go ‘aaah’ as soon as I walk in the door.
A
Oh please add me to your BC Saturday Club. What a fantastic idea it is. Sometimes all we need is a little push to indulge ourselves even just a little bit. Sign me up, sign me up!!! ps. I love your cottage – very jealous!!
As its Saturday and I’ve done my morning chores, settled my screaming 20 month old son as I’m weaning him off his bottle today, helped my hubby at our surf shop with fresh coffee and brunch, I thought I’ll take a visit to your blog for some well deserved reading time. I’d love to join the saturday club, if you check my blog out you’ll see we are on the same page…..with the love of the beach, all things vintage and finding the time to blog. Your blogging course sounds fab! Im in the process of writing a beach lifestyle book, like you, I just need a couple of hrs more to myself each week and it will be ready for the publishers by the end of this year!
I look forward to reading more of your inspirational adventures. Your cottage is dreamy, you have such talent in interior design, keep up the good work
Bye for now
Tan x
Hey Sarah. Love your blog. Love your ideas. Love your enthusiam for life and all things beachy, vintage, cosy, tastey and relaxing! I work shift work so I make the most of all of the above when I can. How good are our aussie beachy wonderlands?! I’d love to join your Saturday Club….I’v been reading your blog for a while now and have got some great ideas from you. Keep up the inspiring fun x
Hi Sarah, I just love your blog. I only discovered it a week ago, and it’s just gorgeous and so delightful. I would love also to be part of the Saturday club…on a Sunday!
Love Helen
Sarah…Please oh please add me to the list. I thought I had already joined this delightful club of yours at the beginning dear friend. I always have so much fun with the list!!
Add me please oh add me to the list!!! Love….Sally
G'day! I'm Sarah, I live in a tatty old cottage, near the sea in Australia with a battered old deck & a big old fig tree out the back...stripped wooden floors, old sash windows & a jumble of vintage furniture. [Read More …]
Beach Cottage ladies, we have some vintage linen and some wood/twig washed up on the beach today here in Beach Cottage Land….don’t say I don’t keep you entertained now will you . Come on in. So, yep I have posted about colanders on this blog, about things sourced from the side of the road, about [...]
G'day ladies, let's have a Too Easy Beach Cottage recipe yeah? The original place for Too Easy Recipes on the web ;-)
So, after my last salad went down a storm in my inbox, that's here if you missed it, I had to do this one seeing as I make it most weeks.
There is a problem with this salad and kiddos though...it looks, well, it looks, kinda yucky...but once they try it, they'll ask if and when they are next having it....at least that's what happens in this ratty old cottage...but I must interject here that my kiddos are 'good eaters'? ...they didn't get a choice in that ;-)
Now, stop, don't start running and hitting that next on your blog reading list, pulses are your best friend in the Too Easy Dump & Go kitchen for the busy mum, or busy anyone for that matter...that reminds me I must blog the garlic canneloni Go To for when you forgot to do dinner, feel like a bath but have three ravenous young Beach Cottage Kiddos on your hands...another day.
I am almost embarrassed to tell you how easy this is, we have it so much that I always have a couple, make that six, cans of lentils around and a jar of goat's cheese in the fridge...the great thing about this is that it's all too easy to get ready in just a few minutes, but it looks, tastes and seems like you did oh so very much more than that.
You can obviously too change it up a bit depending on what you have to hand in your kitchen, and I must say that is how I settled on this version...because one day when I made it I didn't have enough Parsley in the garden and so I chucked in some basil too, and liked the Summer feel it added.
I think of this as being a rather posh salad, not sure why, because it couldn't really be further from the truth...the great thing is that it works so well for an average run of the mill day, (when I did this for this blog post, it was a hot Sydney Sunday and I did it just simply to go with Rosemary & Garlic stuffed pork, you can see that pork here),
...but just as easily it works on a regular old Wednesday night when you have lost all enthusiasm for rustling up yet another meal, or indeed on Saturday night, when your friends are on their way over for dinner and you my friend, are in your new vintage inspired clawfoot bathtub (that's me in a few weeks time, k?) without any clothes on, a tipple and no idea what to cook for dinner...
I have a complicated and ever-changing relationship with goat's cheese...it never fails me in its performance and it never fails to impress me (you can find out a bit more on what I like in food here if you like) and I kinda collect it...because it's very easy to collect and has a fairly long fridge-life, I love trying out different ones and there's not many things I love more than goat's cheese on sourdough...but I think the best thing about it is not thinking about it exclusively in the toast/salad department...I've stuffed it in chicken and all sorts of things as a last minute and it's been fab.
But let's get down to the nitty gritty of this super salad that makes you look like an angel who has been on her knees all day scrubbing the front step when really you are in the digital world and spent most of ...
G'day Beach Cottage ladies, howdy, howdy howdy today for a Beach Cottage Too Easy recipe.
If you like cake, cream, sugar and chocolate, make this.
This is, rather than a recipe, a putting it together...as you know I am no dessert maker, but, I do make quite a few sweet things, because, somehow I have ended up with kiddos, who in their roles as offspring, believe that part of the deal, is that not only do I feed them a home-cooked meal with a few homegrown ingredients in there, yes, they also believe that dessert and not the kind that comes out of a packet is included too in this All-Inclusive Deal they call Parenthood.
So, this, for sure, is no culinary masterpiece, but if you are looking for something that is so very easy, dump-able, uses everyday ingredients and at the same time makes you look like you spent hours pulling things together plus tastes good....well, then this is for you.
Best though, you don't make this for yourself, if you have spent the most part of your week sitting on your derriere reading blogs...this my friend ain't low in the calories department...if, however, you are treating yourself to a delight in a mason jar, this is so for you.
I first had a version of this when at dinner back in Old Blighty with a girl, I once, in another life, caught the train up from our village to London with...she was a funny thing really...I am not quite sure how we got on...she was kinda prissy and a bit bothered by too much...I would run to the train flustered, having got up late, and she would have a spreadsheet on the train times, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, a few years later when we both had bambinos, I bumped into her again and we met up for playdates and dinner sometimes....this particular night, after a lovely meal she served up little bowls of creamy, cakey fruity stuff topped off with chocolate flake...it was delicious!
She didn't serve hers in little jars like this, hers were in a champagne glass and not quite so layered as these ones, plus she used tinned fruit not fresh or frozen.
Years later when said offspring kept requesting dessert, one day I wangled together somehow these from what was around in the fridge and they've been with us ever since.
Most likely, if you ever come here for dinner, and shock horror, you dont' bring the dessert with you, this, if you are lucky, will be what you will get.
Throw it all together, sprinkle a lil bit of chocolate on the top and the blog reading past-time you so rudely left in order to make this, is my friend, your oyster.
Beach Cottage Too Easy Layered Raspberry, Cream & Sponge Dessert
1 small maderia or butter cake or a pack of cupcakes (or of course make your own)
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar
8 tbsp fruit
1 x chocolate Flake or chocolate bar for grating
1. beat the cream cheese until it is soft
2. whip the cream until soft peaks form
3. combine & add the sugar through
4. cut your cake into portions
& layer into the bottom of your jar
5. add a tablespoon of fruit
6. layer on top the cream combo
7. repeat
8. grate chocolate or Flake on top
*Beach Cottage Recipe Notes : this is just a guide really, you can use any cream that you have on hand...I have made this with clotted cream (don't even go there unless you want to seriously get these babies on your thighs), with double cream and I have even, in desperate times squirted in that, ...
G'day Beach Cottage ladies, well I thought it was time for some blogging tips here today, alongside a few nice flowers and shells ;-)
I was recently part of a blogger discussion group over at Kidspot and a couple of hours later had a few questions from girls who couldn't make it to the live chat, one was on my Facebook page and one via email, the Facebook one I will deal with in another Real Girl Blogging Tips post...the email one asked me what essentials do I think every blog needs?
Well I have been around here for a while now doing the blogging thing, so I should know this, yeah and I mused this on my walk by the sea this morning I thought well what do you only need?
...I think it is really very easy when blogging, whether or not you are blogging up there in the lofty heights of the Super Bloggers or you are just dipping your toe in the water, to get side-tracked by 101 million different things that are 'essential' to your blog and if you are someone like me who actually gets a thrill from reading blogging tips then you are in an even worse place because you will find yourself literally buzzing with these essential things to add/do/implement on your blog.
However, walking along, gulping down that brisk sea air today (no sunshine & clouds) I thought you actually don't need any of that professional blogging stuff to be successful...but there are a few things that are pretty much crucial ...and once I started to think about it I got it down to about 5 - these are the only things that you need to concentrate on...once you have read through take a look at some of the big girl's blogs...you'll see that actually they don't have bundles of stuff on their blogs...but they do have all of these...
So here are my top things that your blog must have
1. About Page
There are all sorts of About Pages out there, and if you search on it there are many different tips and ideas for what to have on yours
Whatever blogging platform you use, adding an About Me Page is easy, quick and simple and will do everything to grow your blog.
I like a long-ish About Page, I am inherently nosy and I like to know a bit more about the person but at the least you should have on it your name and where you are located. I also think a photo is good too...over the last year or so I think this has become more important in blogging - if you are hesitant about that as I was, you can try using sunglasses or a behind shot until you get comfortable.
There is nothing worse than stumbling upon a new blog and going to find out more to only be faced with a piddly little one liner About Me Page...well there is something worse, not having one at all!
2. Contact Page
The chances are someone, somewhere will want to contact you and you will be surprised what lands in your inbox once you put yourself out there on the world wide web with a blog.
Many bloggers also use this page to include details for PR's/brands that may want to contact them and some bloggers put their stats on there too.
A short, to the point and simple Contact Page works really well...whenever I have wanted to contact another blogger I am often very busy and have limited time so I don't want to hang around sifting through information looking for an email address, so concise and clear ...
G'day lovely Beach Cottage lovelies.
So, yeah, so on a roll people, so on a roll.
I feel kinda home accessory wired right now.
I am always telling people, if anyone ever listens, that blogging is all about passion, not that sort of passion, but about passion that makes one tick.
Things like this make me tick tick boom.
I love finding things that suit my budget and let me treat my home but look amazing too.
So without further adieu I introduce you, ladies of the beach, to the blue vintage glasses that I have been stroking for about a week or two now...
These glasses are from a little boutique I sometimes happen upon, this boutique sells also pet accessories, carpet cleaner, bras and compost...it's quite unique though.
And, thanks to my friend Marnie (she blogs over here, go take a look at her praying position, interesting), who just so happens to be one day having me over for a lil' Greek dinner, has let me in on the fact that we call Kmart....The KMart...with an accent ....as in 'I love The KMart'...just like her MIL does. Oh yeah. Love that.
So I have had my eye on reproduction vintage glass blue wine glasses and being trying to find real true vintage blue glasses for like ever.
Oh yes I have spied them in Frenchy boutiques, I have lusted after them in stores that I shouldn't even enter and I have put them back pretty quickly in those shops with the hand-written price tags. C'mon, you know the ones.
And, though all of the above have tempted me, muchly, really, even with my wardrobe stashing skills I just thought that, actually, I'd rather be saving that casherooni for our next trip overseas..
Hello The KMart.
Tick Tick Boom
Vintage style blue wine glasses.
Do not come to my old place and think you might pick up one of these and smile with pleasure at their handblown quality, their weight, and be secretly jealous that my wine glasses cost more than your car...friend, that would not happen...these do not feel like that...indeed these in a funny way reminded me of my baby girl, she was a tiny little thing, with stick legs, the tinsssssssiest ankles and wrists you ever did see, she slept sideways in her cot wedged in between rolled up blankets and would only settle attached to Mr Beach Cottage or I or a (dirty) pj top of mine scrunched up under her nose...the first few times I picked her up to cuddle, being used to Honeymoon Baby who weighed in at 9lbs at birth and has never really stopped growing, I nearly threw her little bird-cum-rat down covered body over my shoulder.
These glasses are like that...be careful or you might lose your wine down the front of your shirt.
But oh baby, we are not talking picking up here, we are not talking quality, we are not talking house accessory snobbery.
Beach Cottage ladies, we are talking aesthetics.
And this is what I need in my cottage.
Blue vintage style glass, paired with coastal / nautical / beach stuff on my deck.
It's The KMart.
Tune in tomorrow, tomorrow, I have more budget foofing for your home, or maybe it will be the dress that wraps me up in supermarket-chic and makes me feel like me again.
Good Day to you my friends, wanna come hang out on my deck, talk house accessories, The KMart and drink some wine from blue glasses?
Sarah
just add a comment, if I have missed you out sorry leave me a comment to remind me)
I would so love to join your Saturday Club, please!!
I would love to join your Saturday Club…and bring your charming-beach cottage-vintage charm to my lake-side cottage in Maine, USA!
I am so excited to start your missions!
I’m sooo in!
I would love to join as well!
Oh yes please may I join? This is exactly what I need to just get a little more inspired to do something nice and enjoy the lovliness around me.
Ok, after this dear blog has bought me so much joy, I finally got the courage to comment
Just voted for a wonderful blog…yes Sarah, that is you! Now the first comment is official, it is time to out the camera and share some beach cottage love from sunny Queensland, Wellington Point. Hope to share with all the beach lovers, a little bit of joy and join this wonderful community!
Love Clare x
welcome Clare!
you don’t need courage…being mad helps a lot
love S
x
I am new here and I am so excited to join! Yippeee!! I love white paint now… thanks to you.
reading your site made me smile and smell the ocean.
I’d love to be a part of your Saturday Club! x
Okay, it’s taken me way too long to commit to this most excellent idea (mainly because it’s the Saturday Club which means technically the missions should be carried out on, obviously, Saturday, and that day just doesn’t work for me). But if it’s okay to join in on Sunday, I’d love to be an official member, and share the love on my own blog as well!
I would love to join your Saturday Club!!! All of your photo’s and posts are exactly how I am thinking, dreaming, wishing and hoping for – thank you!
I would love to join your Saturday club! It actually seems like the life I already live here in Sydney! My husband and I moved here in January and we are loving our weekends strolling through the markets and down by the harbor grabbing coffees and macaroons from small shops along the way!
When we return home to the US after a few years here we plan to decorate our home in seaglass and coastal colors, whether they be tropical or Pacific Northwest USA.
We honeymooned in Tofino, British Columbia Canada and love all things beach.
I am ALL of the above……..and am all in for Saturdays..cant wait until your shop opens.
Yes. Please.
Love your photos, your philosophy, and your Beach Cottage.
Sarah, you are truly a kindred spirit…I love all things ‘beach’ and everything on your list, even though I am located smack dab in the middle of Canada! I am definitely in!
Sounds delightful – may I please also join your club? Renee
I have just discovered your blog and I am loving it! I would love to join the Saturday club and keep the blogs coming!
I’ll join, what comes next?
I think I found a soul mate when I stumbled across your blog! Lovely! Thank you, and please count me in!
Hi Sarah, love your blog and would like to join your BC Saturday Club. I am located near Melbourne in the burbs, have a beach nearby although not quite the beaches along the Great Ocean Road that I crave.
I would love to join – how fun
Follow your blog for a while now, just wanna say that I love it!
X
Miranda
mimilovesmimi.blogspot.com
Hi Sarah!
THIS is going to be fun!! ]
Love your blog…and I just took your e-course. It’s awesome.
Paula
I LOVE this blog. It’s inspired me to get my own house in order. I would love to join your Saturday Club. My husband and I did the 1st one where we went to an Italian coffee shop and indulged on cappuccino and decadent Italian cakes and then I had a gelato for good measure! Lovely!
LOVE YOUR BLOG!! Count me in for sure
Hi Sarah! I LOVE your blog… I can’t remmeber if I have responded or not to this, but just to make sure I am included, if indeed a girl who would LOVE to have a BC but alas is stuck in the middle of the USA (Illinois) can be included, then I’m in.. but also, I would have to do the missions after the four letter word (work) on Saturday or Sunday or Monday, which are my days off… o.k.. enough of a run-on sentence… Am looking forward to learning more from your blog! Love your pictures and your writings..
I’m in for the Sat club!!
Thanks!
Sign me up. I am a lover of beach combing and sweets
Add me! I would willing and gladly call myself a BC’er!
I would love to join in with your saturday club ,i am from Canada and heading into a long cold winter, brrr , so ur visuals for saurday
And looking at ur beautiful australian beach will be a lovely reminder of those warm summer days to come !
Thank you for a great blog , so enjoy it , ur like a friend
is it to late to join bc saturdays ? i want in on the fun : p
just purchased a teeny tiny beach cottage. your blog has alot os great ideas.
Could you consider me for the Sat club Sarah? Summer is my passion and my beach house, a wondrous constant in my every changing life. The only place I go ‘aaah’ as soon as I walk in the door.
A
Oh please add me to your BC Saturday Club. What a fantastic idea it is. Sometimes all we need is a little push to indulge ourselves even just a little bit. Sign me up, sign me up!!! ps. I love your cottage – very jealous!!
Would luv-luv to be a part of your Saturday BC Club. Count me in,..
You are so in Cathy x
I’m freezing here in not so sunny NYC- We’re in xo
Love Kate and the Pantry team
Hi
As its Saturday and I’ve done my morning chores, settled my screaming 20 month old son as I’m weaning him off his bottle today, helped my hubby at our surf shop with fresh coffee and brunch, I thought I’ll take a visit to your blog for some well deserved reading time. I’d love to join the saturday club, if you check my blog out you’ll see we are on the same page…..with the love of the beach, all things vintage and finding the time to blog. Your blogging course sounds fab! Im in the process of writing a beach lifestyle book, like you, I just need a couple of hrs more to myself each week and it will be ready for the publishers by the end of this year!
I look forward to reading more of your inspirational adventures. Your cottage is dreamy, you have such talent in interior design, keep up the good work
Bye for now
Tan x
Hey Sarah. Love your blog. Love your ideas. Love your enthusiam for life and all things beachy, vintage, cosy, tastey and relaxing! I work shift work so I make the most of all of the above when I can. How good are our aussie beachy wonderlands?! I’d love to join your Saturday Club….I’v been reading your blog for a while now and have got some great ideas from you. Keep up the inspiring fun x
Count me in
Hi! I’d love to join your BC club! Thank-you so much!
Christy
I’d love to join your BC club.
I would love to join!
Ohhh it sounds like me to a T!
Sarah I would LOVE to join your BC club!
Thanks, Narelle
welcome Narelle x
Best club requirements I have ever read. Count me in.
Tracy
I would love to join the club!!
Yes,please and thank you
Hi Sarah, I just love your blog. I only discovered it a week ago, and it’s just gorgeous and so delightful. I would love also to be part of the Saturday club…on a Sunday!
Love Helen
Sarah…Please oh please add me to the list. I thought I had already joined this delightful club of yours at the beginning dear friend. I always have so much fun with the list!!
Add me please oh add me to the list!!!
Love….Sally
Loving this brilliant idea… I am soooo in …. Look forward to Lovin Saturdays with all the Gals ….xxx
I would love to join your saturday club