Tuesday 18 December 2012

Cupcake cookie goodness

Last Friday was my daughter Scarlett's first birthday. I had grand plans for homemade decorations, cupcake shaped cookies as party favours and a 3D Care Bear cake. I did make some decorations and the cookies but due to some major humidity issues the cake was a massive fail!

Anywho, I thought I would post a tutorial for the cookies as they were a major hit :)

It is just a basic biscuit recipe which you can change the flavouring/colours to suit your tastes or event. I bought my cookie cutter for $2.99 from House, it's only a tiny one, and I do plan to get a bigger one probably online.

Basic Changeable Biscuit

125g softened butter
1/2 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 cup plain flour
1 cup self-raising flour
1 egg
Splash of milk

Preheat oven to 180C

Mix the butter and sugar until you get a soft creamy mixture.

Add the salt and mix: add the egg and mix.

Add the flour 1/2 cup at a time, mix with each addition. (I alternate the plain and self raising cups)

Add the splash of milk if needed and mix.

Knead the dough until it is not messy, then roll out until about 5mm or so thick. The thickness doesn't really matter. The biscuit will expand a bit.

Cut using a cookie cutter to suit yourself.

Bake for 8-10 minutes - For a soft biscuit cook for the shorter time. For a harder biscuit check them closer to the 10 minutes


Royal Icing Recipe

1 1/2 cups pure icing sugar, sifted
1 egg white
1/2 tsp lemon juice
Gel food colouring if desired

Lightly whisk eggwhite and lemon juice together in a bowl.

If adding colouring do so while mixing.

Gradually add icing sugar, whisking until smooth and combined.



I did my decorating over a couple nights as I had to work around bubba and my job. Ideally I would have liked to have done it all the night before, but I have found that these cookies have a pretty good life (if they even last the day!)

Happy Baking! 😊













Friday 14 December 2012

Xmas and birthday crafts and cookies

It's my daughter's 1st birthday today and tomorrow is her party!! I'm making some decorations using black and white photos of her from the past year. They are all wearing jellybean party hats :)

I also made cupcake cookies <3

The extra pic is just a double bow made out of paper as a decoration on one of the MANY Xmas presents I'm in the process of wrapping.



Saturday 8 December 2012

Christmas craft

Here are two things I have made using ideas from Pinterest.

The first is a bauble with my brother-in-laws wedding invite inside it and ribbon which matches the bridesmaid dresses. The second is a bow made from Christmas gift wrap. Both are pretty easy but a lot of fun to do.

I have a major Pinterest hoarding problem! So many ideas so little time/money 🎄🎅🎁




Saturday 24 November 2012

Jelly Shot Madness

Each year for the past 2 (so far...) I have held what we call "International Jelly Shot Day" at our house. As far as I'm aware we not actually "international", yet... but it sounds much better than just "Jelly Shot Day", lol!
We have averaged about 110shots downed between 10-12 ppl both years. It can get messy, and ends up with some artistic creations, like the below "Easter Jelly Bunny" and "Giant Fruchoc in a Pond".

Also below is the aftermath, a collection of the empties ready to be washed, and put away for the next time that the desire for jelly shots arises!





Here are some of the flavour combos that I've made for "International Jelly Shot Day". I have also made Redskin, Toffee Apple, Pinktricity Nerd and Warheads. Plus Vodka Gummy Bears, they were sticky but delicious!

(The "recipes" are set out like this because I plan to make a little Jelly Shot book for myself with photos of each one, fun to have and add to later on)

P.S. if you love Jelly Shots too, feel free to join the fun on Facebook International Jelly Shot Day. Choose whatever day you want for your own International Jelly Shot day!

Thursday 22 November 2012

Xmas is coming...

Christmas is just around the corner. Scary, I know! And just to prove it to us, we got a large delivery of catalogs yesterday. Check 'em out! The stack will only get bigger each week leading into Christmas.

Saturday 17 November 2012

Supanova Adelaide 2012 (Day One)

Yes that's me with Nelsan Ellis (Lafayette from True Blood)!! So excited to meet him but it was pretty much "Hi!" (Photo taken) "Thanks!" and out the door again.

















Thursday 15 November 2012

Supanova Adelaide 2012

The first Adelaide Supanova Expo starts with the preview tonight!! Sooo excited! We are heading down tonight to buy photo/autograph tokens.

Nelsan Ellis (Lafayatte from True Blood), I'm very excited to be meeting you tomorrow! With True Blood in mind, I did a very quick test of dripping blood nail polish this morning.

Friday 9 November 2012

Heart shape friendship bracelet

So I found a tutorial through Pinterest for a knotted friendship bracelet with a heart pattern. As soon as I saw it, I knew I HAD to make one!

Luckily, I had some cotton in my crafty supplies. I set to work on it yesterday. It is tricky! You have to knot from both sides and join in the centre. There is lots of changing directions and can get confusing!

It's even harder, having an overactive 11mth old lil girl who has recently decided to start opening and pulling everything out of the cupboards!

Depending on how this works out I, hope to post a tutorial for this in a few days.

Below is what I have done so far...

Monday 5 November 2012

Sleepy and stormy nights

Wow the heavens are having a party tonight! Lightning, thunder, rain, wind. It's got it all!!

Sadly though it means lots of noise at random moments which are very inconvenient when trying to put your baby to bed! Tonight, I was fighting what seemed to be a losing battle against bubba and the thunder. I had just started to accept the idea that Scarlett was going to be sleeping in with us when out of nowhere, silence.

Her monitor went quiet, instantly! After popping my head into her room I relaxed knowing she had just managed to fall asleep in spite of the theatrics happening in the skies outside. Hopefully it is going to be a good sleep tonight like the other good nights we are slowly getting used to.

After almost 11 months of life, our beautiful little girl has started "sleeping through". For this I am very grateful! I don't know what we did exactly or if she just worked it out by herself. Whatever it is I hope to keep it going.

It may take a little while for my body to adjust to it though! I'm so used to getting up and just generally getting very little sleep that getting a full night really knocks me for six. I'm sure I can get used to it fairly quickly though!

Hopefully the weather outside doesn't affect it tonight!

Sunday 21 October 2012

Photoaday for November

Fatmumslim posted the instagram photoaday challenge list for November today! If you haven't done it before definitely give it a shot. It's a lot of fun!

Wednesday 10 October 2012

FatMumSlim's Photoaday Challenge

I love Instagram!

I think I probably use it more than Facebook these days. I just love the instant photo sharing and being able to connect with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc.

Blogger FatMumSlim puts out a monthly list photo challenge. It's a list of words, sayings etc that you then take a photo to correspond with the days challenge. I don't always succeed in completing the whole month but I definitely try my hardest.

I would definitely recommend checking it out if you use Instagram!

Below are a selection of mine for October so far.

Shadow

Light


Emotion


Red


Where You Stood

Tuesday 9 October 2012

Halloween

Every year, I wish we celebrated Halloween in Australia.

Yes, there is more and more stuff being stocked in shops each year for it, but there are still very few people who have Halloween parties or have lollies for kids who want to go trick or treating.

We always try to remember to have something on hand for the kids who come to our house on Halloween. What I really want to do though is decorate the front door area and verandah. Make it all nice and spooky. There are so many great ideas online of things to make to decorate for Halloween, glitter pumpkins, Halloween candles etc.

I saw this on Buzzfeed and I HAVE to make them! My husband LOVES TMNT and watermelons are so much easier to get than pumpkins in Australia. How cool are these?!

Happy Trick or Treating to anyone who is planning to go out this year!

Monday 8 October 2012

Monday 1 October 2012

Baby Bullet Bliss

This morning, I went to pick up my beautiful little girl from my parents place after she had a sleep over last night.

When I arrived my mum pointed to a large box in black plastic wrap and says "That's for you". No description, just to open it. I said thank you for whatever was inside because I didn't even care what was in it, I was just grateful to have a present!

I eagerly tore off the plastic and inside was a Baby Bullet! Yay!! I have really wanted one of these!! I got it home opened it, gave everything a quick wash and dry, then it was time for dinner!

Purée apple and carrot for Scarlett for dinner tonight courtesy of my new toy. She loved it, mouth opening and closing waiting for more.

I can't wait to play around with different combos of flavours and meals. Does anyone else have one of these? If you do what is your little ones favourite meal?

Monday 24 September 2012

Fatmumslim's Photoaday for October

I try to make a solid effort to do the photoaday each month. I haven't been successful every month, but I'm on my way to completing a second full month.

These photoaday challenges are a lot of fun. For those using Instagram definitely look up fatmumslim and give it a go!

Friday 21 September 2012

Flower Headband *Update*

I finished the headband today. Yay! Pretty happy with it actually. My gorgeous little munchkin modeled it for me and it's definitely going to look gorgeous on her at an upcoming wedding that we are going to!!