Parrot Salad Mix


Last week I posted the Sweet Potato Puffs that I made for my bird, Jiji, on her birthday.

I also made her a salad mix to add to her diet.



The salad is a mixture of vegetables, rice and nuts.

I used chopped red cabbage, broccoli, sweet peas, carrot, alfalfa sprouts, and chilli peppers, chopped nuts, walnuts and almonds and brown rice.

I also shredded some carrots as well, turns out my birds really like their carrot shredded.

I mixed the ingredients together then separating portions out into dish sizes before putting them into Ziploc bags.






Sweet Potato Puffs




A few days ago it was my beautiful Quaker Parrots birthday. Jiji turned 5 on the 28th of February and for her birthday I made her a few treats.




I made her a Salad mix to add a bit more variety to her diet as well as some sweet potato puffs.

I found the recipe for Sweet Potato Puffs from the quakerparrots.com forums. The recipe was posted by Majj although she did not create the recipe and she does not know exactly who did.


The recipe that she posted can be found here:
http://www.quakerparrots.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=12437



I slightly changed the recipe to replace ingredients that I couldn’t get hold of.

Here is the exact recipe that I used.



SWEET POTATO PUFFS


Ingredients  
1 Sweet potato
1 Cup of finely chopped nuts (Walnuts, Almonds,
1 Banana
1 Cup of rolled oats
Unsweetened Apple Juice
Seeds
Unsweetened coconut flakes

Method
1. Peel and boil one sweet potato until soft.
2. Mash sweet potato and mix with finely chopped nuts, banana and rolled oats.
3. Add unsweetened apple juice until sticky enough to roll into a small ball (or puff) with your hands.
4. Shake them in a bag with seeds and unsweetened coconut flakes until coated.


I packaged the ‘puffs’ into Ziploc bags and put them in the freezer. I kept a few in a bag in the fridge so they weren’t frozen when I wanted them.


To Serve: Heat for a few seconds in the microwave until warm (not hot, you don’t want to burn your bird’s tongue)


The size that you make the ‘puffs’ is completely up to you and the size of your bird. I have a Quaker parrot, Lovebird and a budgie, so I made the puffs about 2 cm (approximately 1 inch) in diameter. They are a good size for Jiji, although she does waste some, but a bit big for the lovebird and budgie but they just have half each.




The size that you make the ‘puffs’ is completely up to you and the size of your bird. I have a Quaker parrot, Lovebird and a budgie, so I made the puffs about 2 cm (approximately 1 inch) in diameter. They are a good size for Jiji, although she does waste some, but a bit big for the lovebird and budgie but they just have half each.





I will post the recipe that I used for the salad mix in the next post


16th Balloon Sculpture



I made a balloon sculpture to make a giant number 16 for my brothers 16th birthday.

Here is a short tutorial of how I made it and how you can make your own.

The number 1 is made of 72 balloons while the 6 is made from 85 balloons. 157 balloons in total.

To make the numbers I used a stand that usually use from my lighting set up. You just need a long straight pole to wrap the balloons around.



Blow up four balloons




Tie two together by their necks then the other two.





Twist the two lots of balloons together to make a bunch of four balloons.



This is one layer of the balloon sculpture.
Place the balloons to the bottom of the pole and push the pole between two of the balloons. The balloons should stay on the pole.



Build another layer of balloons in the same way. Place the next layers of balloons on the pole between the gaps of the last layer of balloons.



Continue this until you reach the top of the pole.

Now you have made a balloon column.

To make the top of the one, I simply made three layers of balloons which were threaded through a piece of string instead of the pole.  The string was then attached to the top of the pole.



To make the six, I made a balloon column first. Then I made the circle of the six out of wire and twisted the balloons around it.
I only used three balloons in the balloon layer around the sixes circle. This stoped the balloons from getting to wide, and it left a bigger hole in the middle.



Now you have a completed Balloon Number 16. If you want other numbers you will have to change it slightly to make the correct shape.





Jack's 16th Birthday




My younger brother celebrated his 16th birthday this week. I wanted to share the balloons, cake and a present that I made him this year.

I first made the number 16 from individual party balloons.
I will be posting a tutorial on how I made the balloon sculpture soon.



For the cake a made him this three layered 




And for a present, well he is always saying make it rain so I took it to the next level. He has mentioned before that he wanted a black umbrella and well who doesn’t love cash.



To make this I bought an umbrella and tied string to the spokes. I  then hot glued to a mini peg to the string. Then simple pegged the money to the end and closed the umbrella.





I also wasn’t sure whether he would open the umbrella straight away to I added am open me sign on the outside so as soon as he unwrapped it he would know there was still more to it.




And that was a few of the things we did for his birthday. I will be posting a tutorial on how I made the giant 16 balloon sculpture soon.

It's September





Its September already, the first day of spring here in Australia. It’s rainy and still a little bit cold but the weather will be warming up soon and I can’t wait.

This month I have a few events going on.
First, my brother’s birthday is this Thursday. Presents have to be bought/made, decorations to create, and cakes to cook.  I will be sharing some pictures of the decorations, cake and a present.
Also this week it is Father’s Day for us Australians. In Australia Father’s day is always on the first Sunday of September, the 6th this year.

I volunteer at a few local theatre companies in my area making props and sets, doing make up, helping with costumes and any other areas they need a hand with. This year one of the companies had been nominated for three awards in the amateur division at the states theatre guide. I will be attending the awards night gala will be held later this month.


Last but definitely not least there are now only two months until Halloween, so we better get cracking with those Halloween themed crafts.

It's Halloween!






It’s Halloween!

Well at least it's time for all of the crafters, sewers and general DIYers to get started with everything we wish to create before we get to show it all off to the world.

I'll be posting updates and tutorials of all the weird and wacky things I’m making for Halloween this year.



Well go get started, it’s time to get Spooky!!

Hallween 2015 Pinterest Board


For every event I create a board on Pinterest where I gather all the refrences, insparation and tutorials I can find.

As its easy to see I love using Pinterest. I use it for everything and I have made pleanty of boards over the years. I have posted this direct link to the Halloween 2015 board so you can easily see where I am getting the insparation for posts and tutorials, as well as the original links that I used (Without having to figure out which of my many boards the pins a located on. Seriously I have 7 boards with the word Halloween in it. I like my stuff to be organised :).
Below is a direct link to my Halloween 2015 Board.


Follow Jinx's board Halloween 2015 on Pinterest.


I also have a seperate board for food, drinks and snacks. Be warned alot of the drinks have alcohol in them, so don't make these ones for the kids. The ones that do will have '(alcoholic)' written at the begining of the comments.