What a gorgeous round up for all things pastel in Real Living, including our white Flag Necklace.

Spoil your mum with some Polli jewellery this Mothers’ Day Sunday 12 May - shop our gift guide. Just enter MOTHERSDAY (in your order comments) for free gift wrapping and a free gift card. To avoid last minute stress we‘ll also upgrade all orders over $100 to FREE express shipping til Wednesday 8 May.

For quality time with your mum our picks of activities this month include; brunch at Bread & Circus in Alexandria, checking out some of the Sydney Writers Festival events, taking a leisurely stroll through this year’s Archibald together at the Art Gallery of NSW or why not get your craft on with your mum and take her to Beattie Lanser’s doily light shade making workshop at The School.

Yay, it's May and that means that the Sydney Writers' Festival isn't far away. We are now in our second year of supporting the Sydney Writers’ Festival and what a stellar event it is this year with their gorgeous new creative director Jemma Birrell.

This year Polli has collaborated with the talented illustrator Terry Whidborne to create a limited edition family of brooches which will be used as gifts for visiting authors and long standing volunteers. Terry’s work is amazing and whimsical and we’ve been so delighted at how he’s developed these four Australiana characters for the brooches. The designs are based on his original hand drawings which he then hand painted with watercolour. We’re so happy with the results of reproducing these illustrations on locally grown hoop pine ply. What an amazing illustrator and total delight to work with  - you can see Terry as part of the SWF at this children’s event.

 

First off I came up with a theme called ‘ink’. As writers and artists both use this medium, it was a nice choice. Then Polli mentioned Australian and my head went into another direction. I threw away ‘ink’ and came up with – DREAM  CREATE  INDULGE.
We DREAM up ideas
We CREATE the content
We INDULGE in the creation.

Terry Whidborne

We love the peaceful, dream like state of these little characters. The parrot with it’s exotic headdress and warm tones, the fruit bat snuggled in her green cloak, the koala girl perched in the tree and the platypus with her green leaves and beautiful coat. Stay tuned for a Facebook competition to win one of these beautiful limited edition brooches.  

Have you got plans to see an event at this year's festival?

What a great thrill to see our our Hex Brooch (Plum) in a round up of Monet inspiration in the current issue of House&Garden Magazine.

Polli are really proud to make all our products right here in Australia. Being Australian made supports local industry, ensures we can retain any reusable off cuts, means we can work closely with our suppliers, we have fast turn around on designs and we reduce any omissions in import freight. It can have it's limitations with what you can produce but then you find a supplier who is AMAZING and its a dream come true. We've been working with the guys at Modelcraft for several years now. Aside from being only a few suburbs away they're clever, and quick and they've just designed a great new website for their laser cutting services. The only confusing thing about working with them is that they're all called Matt!

In preparation for Anzac Day tomorrow we tested out these gluten free ANZAC cookies. Thanks Simone for being head chef.

Ingredients
1 cup gluten free rolled oats
1/2 cup white rice flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup organic shredded coconut
1 cup organic coconut sugar
125 gms organic butter
4 Tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp boiling water

Method
In the large mixing bowl or mixer combine oats, sifted flour, coconut sugar and coconut.
In a small saucepan, combine the butter and maple syrup, and stir over a gentle heat until melted.
Mix the baking soda with the boiling water in small bowl and add it into the melted butter mixture.
Stir the butter mixture into the dry ingredients.
Lightly grease two oven trays.
Place tablespoons of the mixture onto the oven trays; allowing room for spreading.
Cook in a slow oven for 20 minutes at 150 C / 300 F
Loosen while warm then cool on racks

Makes 30

Our friend Caroline from Dandi has the most amazing collection of Sea Urchins, their dimpled texture, delicate egg shell thinness and pastel tones make them such a sea side treasure. Here are some sea urchin inspired designs, clockwise from top left; sea urchin candles via How Do I Love These, gorgeous sea urchin photo via Pinterest, knitted sea urchins by Patricia Brown, hand painted sea urchins by Jessica Turnbow via Etsy, sea urchin floor cushions by Studio Taschide, sea urchin bud vases and our new sea urchin earrings and pendants.

For your chance to win 1 of 5 sets of Polli finch earrings check out Holidays with Kids magazine. The magazine has so many great travel tips (including how to pack), pet friendly get aways (for the whole family), local camping to international adventures!