At ACC we are always looking to build community connections. Over the last year Jenny has been regularly touching base with local services for children, including local childcare centres and kinders, and the local maternal and child health staff in Yarra and Darebin.

And she’s also connected in with local services for women along with services for older people in our neighbourhood.

She was in the middle of discussions with Chronos Care in Alphington about residents coming over to ACC to join in community craft on a Friday morning when coronavirus derailed things. So instead she invited the residents interested in craft to knit, crochet or weave hearts from their home.

And she’s then also invited the local childcare centres to weave or draw hearts and contribute to the project too.

When we’re back on site we are looking forward to turning all the contributions into an art installation. Perhaps they could become our Christmas decorations this year … That would lovely wouldn’t it?

We’d welcome contributions from you too. Here’s some ideas and inspiration! Note that you can find a gazillion free patterns on Pinterest.

If you like craft we’d really love a little something from you!! Sew, knit, felt, crochet, collage, weave … whatever your thing is would be just perfect!

Community art is where it’s at right?!

Usually at ACC our Gardening Group comes along each Friday and tends the fruit trees in our little orchard, waters and cares for the community herb gardens, wrangles the leaves (oh the leaves), turns the community compost bins and pulls up the weeds. They keep everything looking so lovely.

Yes, we are missing them!

Everything seemed okay in winter … but then spring arrived. In the last couple of weeks our garden has gone from slightly raggedy to verging on a jungle!

Anyway, neighbours, you’ll be pleased to know that this week we started the process of getting it ship-shape again. We began by weeding along the fence, tidying up the hill and sweeping the concrete.

And we’ll keep going next week until it is all back in order.

Because actually (currently hidden in the there amongst the weeds) some pretty exciting growing has been going on. And we’d like to show off. Like the plum trees. They are full of fruit this year. It’s quite a thrill - the prospect of our first real harvest!

Fingers crossed.

We had quite a few of our Craftberry Jam kits find their way to homes yesterday. And we made some new jars as well, so next week our flavours will include:

• Origami Craftberry Jam

• Bottle top necklace Craftberry Jam

• Collage starter pack Craftberry Jam

• Spare key windchime Craftberry Jam

• Love heart bracelet Craftberry Jam

• Make a card or 2 for someone you love Craftberry Jam

Pop past on Thursday to collect yours from 10am -4pm. If you already collected a jar and completed your craft project, we’d love the jar back. Just pop it in our collection bin next to the Street Library. Or come past next Thursday and collect a new one while you are dropping it back.

And … we’d LOVE to see the creations. Post them on Instagram with the hashtag #craftberryjam.

Lots of sparkly fun in our ‘Make a card or 2 for someone you love’ Craftberry Jam kit

A jar of bright coloured pager squares accompanied by folding instructions in our ‘Origami’ Craftberry Jam kits.

Our ‘Collage starter pack ‘ Craftberry Jam kit includes some pages of old text, and interesting images of people and things … collage can provide hours of entertainment if you take some time to explore how you are going to combine the elements together ... and add in images, shapes and backgrounds from other sources. Need some inspiration? Check out the hashtag #collage or the page @thecollageclub both on Instagram. No need to stick things down straight away, moving things around and photographing them is part of the joy.

Our AGM is coming up on October 26th at 7pm. Unsurprisingly it is going to be an online affair.

Here’s a little video invitation - that also gives you a nice snapshot of what we have been up to over the last year if you can’t make it.

If you are keen to come along RSVP here and we will email you a Zoom link to join in.

Please join us at our AGM online on October 26th at 7pm. RSVP to info@alphington.org.au to receive the link.

I did mention previously that I have been getting in to K-drama this year (yes the obsession is still going … I just finished The King). And noodles are part and parcel of these shows.

At our house 2 minute noodles/instant ramen are pretty popular … but oh the plastic! It was getting me down. And the flavourings … what are they exactly? So I started making my own. I don’t think I’ll ever go back.

Here’s my simple recipe hack.

• 1 noodle block (you can buy them in bulk packs at big supermarkets without any flavourings)

• 1 stock cube

• 1-2 cups boiling water

• 1 dash soy sauce

• 1 pinch Chinese 5 spice powder

Garnish:

• dried fried onion

• dried chilli in oil

Add all the things. Cook for 2 minutes on the stove or in the microwave.

Note garnishing is the important bit! I add dried fried onions and a little dried chilli in oil to mine, both of which are available in most supermarkets in the Asian section (even the IGA has these ingredients). It gives it a bit of slightly spicy French onion soup flavour. Yum.

And then some vegetables to add some nutritional value … like diced capsicum, beanshoots, broccoli, beans … whatever you have will probably work! Boiled eggs cut in half, tofu and chicken can also all be added too, to turn your snack into a meal.

The other night I made this for our family dinner (multiplying the quantities obviously) and I upgraded to proper stock and adding chicken and prawns and loads of Chinese broccoli.

If you don’t get round to making this yourself maybe we’ll have a Korean themed community lunch … we’ll make some kimchi and Korean ramyeon (ramen) … and we could have a K-pop soundtrack! We mightn’t go as far as drinking Soju shots … but Korean Fried Chicken … yum! I’ll ask Jill for some tips - she spent quite a few years living in South Korea, hopefully she has friends who would be willing to share recipes … something to look forward to hey?