3 things no.2! || boobies, coconuts, birth

Did you like our first 3 things?

Well then let’s not stop now. Here’s edition no.2!

3 things I learnt/realised/randomly thought about this week || no.2

#1 LITTLE KIDS ARE funny HILARIOUS

I spent the weekend on the Sunshine Coast (Queensland) visiting my 3 nieces and nephew and apart from an education in Frozen, I came away with some gold-nugget quotes that are still making me laugh.

This is perhaps my favourite – from my 4 year-old nephew who I guess has had a lesson or two at Kindy on God recently:

“God is in your heart. Your heart is in the middle of your boobies”

 Fair enough.

My nephew. Always smiling (and always happy to entertain a crowd ie. the future Hugh Jackman?)

#2 I WISH I INVESTED IN A COCONUT TREE PLANTATION 10 YEARS AGO

Actually, also a Chia Seed farm, Quinoa farm, Cacao farm… I would be a bazillionaire right now.

AND have wonderful skin.

In addition to a coconut plantation, I would also have my very own human-coconut opener. This guy I met in Fiji collects the nuts from local farms, pays them a fee, then sells them roadside for weary travellers. Makes a motza he does.

#3 AN AUSSIE BABY IS BORN EVERY 2 MINUTES

That means that in the time taken to eat my lunch, 5 brilliant women have been to hell and back. 

Just holding my sanga to my mouth is often a hard enough physical challenge for me some days. Nice work ladies.

The sorella baby. THE cutest. Her mother is lucky she didn’t get put in my handbag after shooting the catalogue to bring home with me.

And that’s a wrap for another exciting instalment of 3 things!

I would love to hear what you have learnt/realised/randomly though about this week?

~ anna x

3 things no.1! || carob, pet dressing & Elizabeth Taylor

So we are going to play a weekly game called 3 things.

3 things will be 3 things (surprised?) that I have learnt recently. Actually, “Learnt” could be a misleading term. We could say they are more like a “random thought” that’s ended up as some sort of “realisation”.

Confused? Me too but read on. These posts are going to be great (insert hopeful smile here) because – well, to be frank – it’s so time-consuming writing a full post in between designing and all the goings on in bringing you our gorgeous pieces – so this is a great cheats post. Yes, I’m calling myself out – I’m a cheat. But also because these are my honest to goodness random thoughts and I am hopeful they will sound less weird if I share them with someone (i.e., you). And then if you can relate, I will feel less like I should be the headlining act in a circus and/or seeking medical help. So do leave a comment if you can relate!

So here goes.

3 things I learnt/realised/randomly thought about this week.

#1 That carob is not chocolate. And it should be illegal to suggest it an appropriate substitution. Especially at Easter.

F off Carob.

The Banjo Carob Egg. Guilty as charged.

You want it? You got it.

While we are still only a baby of a label finding our feet, those that have found us have been devoted since their first restful night sleep in our soft organic Pjs. And they keep coming back for more.

And it’s these dedicated fans that shaped our plans this year, and will continue to do so into the future. We have already managed to fulfill one big fan-based request – to launch a mens line. So it is with a big smile and a stack of excitement that we announce the launch of the 2nd big request from our awesome customers this year….The request was clear:

“WE WANT IT IN BLACK”

So it’s with much pleasure we can now offer all your favourite pieces in beautiful black! And it’s a lovely earthy black that goes in line with our organic goodness.

Our best-selling organic singlet. Wear as sleepwear, loungewear, or out & about!

sorella & me organic singlet – wear through pregnancy as your belly grows and after as a perfect nursing top with its snap button opening ($54.95)

I confess. I find it hard to get completely nude.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you walk into the ground floors of major department stores, don’t you think?

Dazzling lights. Floor to ceiling images of photoshopped glamazons with ethereal skin staring with judgement at your dull epidermis. Their faces represent the health I crave.

I want that frigging glow dammit.

So you find yourself pulled into the beauty vortex, the assistant with her hands inappropriately all over your face.  Your phobia of abused personal space is pushed to its limits. She’s talking AT you as if you are some sort of recluse given your lack of knowledge on the importance of niacinamide and hyaluronic acid.

And you leave, feeling slightly inadequate and definitely overwhelmed, but somewhat hopeful armed with a stash of samples containing that scientific-blah-blah-skin amazaballs-technology that the assistant seemed so convinced would leave you with the skin of Cate Blanchette. (Can I get that promise in writing please?)

sneaky-peek behind the scenes! 2013 sorella & me photoshoot

It’s so exciting for us to be so close to launching a few new pieces to our much-loved sorella & me collection. After the success of the new men’s collection, we are sure you will love these new women’s and maternity pieces just as much!

To keep you salivating until they launch later this month, we’ve put together a little behind the scenes video of the shoot which we held on the Sunshine Coast. You might spot a few of these new pieces!

A big thanks to the very talented Harry Mark for putting the video together for us!

The girl has a voice

It’s not every day you get to say one of your besties is a rock star – even if in response to that title, this friend would say that’s the most ridiculous thing she has ever heard and end up in a fit of laughter. The laugh is infectious. As is the voice.

I’m sitting here in the sorella & me office listening to her EP (which our neighbours also get to hear on repeat most days), and I think if anyone has an EP on iTunes, I have paid good-hard-earned money for it, and I really really love it… then said person meets the definition of Rockstar in my book.

Meet Livi Robins.

Friends since we were 18, Livi and I lived together in Brisbane while we were at Uni where a lot of chicken chips were consumed and Bold & the Beautiful episodes watched.

She was studying something very non-rockstar-ish: Radiography. Not that there isn’t anything sexy about a fractured fibula. It’s just not really a typical career choice for a musically talented person who is destined to be a rockstar is it?

Improving Australian children’s health – 1 step at a time!

If you’ve been a follower of sorella & me for a while, you will already know we value the work of the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute.

The Murdoch Childrens Research Institute works towards “finding preventions and treatments for hundreds of common and rare childhood illnesses, so that kids everywhere can have a healthy future”.

Such critical work requires community support and donations. So we want to make sure you know all about their latest fundraiser: Step-a-thon!

New styles, photoshoots, and awards!

Hard to believe we are through half of another year isn’t it?

Time seems to be flying by, and life with sorella & me has been a big part of that. We have been super busy and have so many exciting things to share with you in the coming months – the first of which is our photoshoot next Friday…. if you think this might indicate we are adding new pieces to the current collection, you’d be right!

Stay tuned for some behind the scenes photos next week for your first look of what’s coming!

Behind the Scenes – 2012 sorella & me photoshoot

Think. Eat. Save.

It’s World Environment Day!

A stunning butterfly I found hanging out by my vegie patch

Celebrated every year on June 5th, World Environment Day is a campaign run under the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) aiming to raise awareness and bring about positive environmental action.

This year, the campaign’s theme is Think. Eat. Save – which encourages us to be more aware of our food choices, and the carbon footprint we are creating through such choices and waste.

The UNEP provides a couple of great ideas to easily get started:

“Purposefully select foods that have less of an environmental impact, such as organic foods that do not use chemicals in the production process. Choosing to buy locally can also mean that foods are not flown halfway across the world and therefore limit emissions.”   

We all know that we love organics at sorella & me! (Organic sleepwear anyone? Yes please!)

Our environment is clearly something we are all responsible for.  And every little bit helps.  On World Environment Day last year, we posted 10 really easy things you can start doing today to help the environment – check them out here.

So now to add to that list with this years theme, we are going to be more mindful about the food choices we make and what we waste more broadly – “Think before you eat and help save our environment!”.

I already try to buy organic food when possible, but I am going to try and understand more about seasonal fruits and vegetables too.  There is no point in buying a product that has been flown in from the other side of the world – even if it is organic. It’s easy to pop that item in your basket without thinking about it – but from now, let’s stop, think, and make an alternative selection if need be.

And my other goal is to finally start the compost I have been talking about doing for the past 2 years. Living in rental properties has stopped me from setting one up but it’s so important and can make such a difference. So these are my new goals.

For more ideas on greening your lifestyle, check out this great A-Z list from the UNEP.

And don’t forget to check out our friends at Sustainable Table, who have a heap of resources (and a couple of great cookbooks!) on how our food choices can impact our environment.

Do you have any green-tips you’d like to share with the sorella-hood? Perhaps you only shop locally?  Maybe you only buy seasonal fruit and vege? Whatever it is, we’d love to add it to our list!

 ~ anna

Get your velvet on – beetroot style!

Did you see Alisha’s post on the sorella & me facebook page yesterday in all its sugary goodness?

Alisha’s perfect and delicious cup cake…. jealous much?

Right at 3pm – in all our dropped blood-sugar states – she thought she’d share a photo of a delicious cupcake.

What a bi-atch.

In my opinion, not only was it rude because it was at a time when a cup cake would have gone down quite nicely (I am cranky when I am hungry), but also rude because there are many of us who are trying really really hard to convert to a sugar-free lifestyle – and succeeding or not, we don’t need a reminder of what we are missing out on!

So I hit Sarah Wilson’s latest sugar free cookbook for some inspiration to compete with my now very real and very present sweet cravings. I have unapologetically pushed my love for Sarah on you numerous times – see here and here for examples – and it’s crises like these that support my reason why.

And whoalah! I found an option I knew would come close to providing some sort of cake relief – and I just happened to have a couple of beautiful organic beets in the fridge ready for the taking. Now…. be open minded to a vegetable based cake. No one likes a vege-ist.  And anyway, you like carrot cake right?

I present:

Beetroot Red Velvet Cupcakes – from Sarah Wilson’s I Quit Sugar – Chocolate Cookbook

(And double bonus – they can also be gluten and dairy free if you need…..)

Ingredients (all organic where possible peeps!)

• 2 large beetroot – grated
• 1 & 1/2 cups almond meal
• 4 tablespoons raw cacao powder*
• 3 tablespoons of coconut oil
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla powder**
• 1/4 cup rice malt syrup***
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (Gluten free)
• Pinch of Salt

For the icing – if you aren’t sugar free, you could do a normal icing.  If you aren’t dairy free you could do a philly cream cheese icing (aka banana or carrot cake).  If you are sugar and dairy free you could do a coconut cream or cashew cream icing (these recipes are also in Sarah’s book).

My variations:*

* You can never have enough chocolatey goodness – Call me crazy but I added an extra couple of tablespoons of cacao.  This meant I also needed to up the wet ingredients so added a touch more oil

** I can’t justify having vanilla powder in my cupboard – but open to invest in the future as many of Sarah’s recipes include it. So in this instance, it was a teaspoon of vanilla extract for me.

*** Taste the batter before you commit to the oven! If it’s not sweet enough add some more rice malt syrup. Everyone’s tastebuds are different and especially with the earthiness of the beets, you might want to up the sweet stuff to more easily convince friends afraid of a sugarless lifestyle and wary of your vegetables moonlighting as cup cakes.

The super pretty redness of the beetroot make this cake mix look more like a science experiment… but a delicious one.

Method:

Preheat oven to 170degs and grease a 12 cupcake tin. Blend together in a blender (or go crazy with a stick-blender, thermomix, food-processer…. whatever floats your boat), until nice and smooth.  Divide between the 12 cake tin and pop into the oven.

Sarah suggests baking for 40 mins (my non-fan-forced oven meant 160degs for me for just 25 minutes. BAM! That’s chocolate goodness in less time than an episode of Bold and the Beautiful…. I can’t believe Liam didn’t choose Hope by the way. Idiot.)

My little baby in all its red-guilt-free-glory:Enjoy!

~ anna