Teacher Thank You's......

The school year is over, wow it's actually flown by. My girls are blessed to have had fantabulous teachers at school and preschool so as a wee thank you the girls and I put together some gifts. 

I had premade a few of these baubles from Attic 24 that just needed stuffing and sewing, I left off the embellishing due to lack of time (it's times like this I wish I wasn't a procrastinator extraordinaire). 

and then I made a batch of caramel slice and packaged it all together in cellophane. 

 

the recipe I use is as follows

BASE
125g butter

1cup brown sugar

1cup coconut

1cup self raising flour

Filling

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 TBSP Butter

1 TBSP golden syrup. 

Topping:

1 King size bar of chocolate

Preheat oven to 180 deg celsius

in a largish pot on a medium heat melt butter. 

When butter is melted add in sugar and mix (it doesn't dissolve completely)

Remove from heat and add coconut and stir to combine 

Finally add flour and mix all together. 

Press into a prepared slice tray using the back of a spoon (make it as smooth as you can or it will be too crumbly later). 

Bake for 10-12 mins or until top is golden. 

Remove from oven

whilst the base is cooking I start on the filling, I generally use the same pot just wipe it clean. Then add all ingredients and stir until butter is melted. (sometimes I double the recipe as I did with the teachers gifts but it's not necessary)

pour onto base and cook for 8 mins until bubbly (if you double recipe you will need to add a bit of time to it but be careful to watch it and make sure it doesn't burn). 

Remove from oven and leave to cool completely

when it is cool then melt a block of chocolate ( I do it in the microwave in short bursts) and then pour onto slice. Leave to set completely (the fridge comes in handy here). When set take out of tray and put on a solid chopping block (I have a large wooden one which is perfect). I slice the crusty chewy edges off and feed those to the husband (that's his favourite part). Then slice the rest up evenly. A big sharp knife comes in handy here. 

This is a very sweet slice so you only need a few pieces for gifts. I made 6 packages and each got 4 slices.

The Rainbow girl turns 4.....

My fellow rainbow obsesser turned 4 the other day and of course wanted a rainbow party. 

I made her a rainbow bunting using the rainbow fabric from the girls christmas decorations that we made the other day. 

I used the print pattern from Grace Designs and instead of using bias binding (I ran out of time as I made this at 2am) I made a casing and ran some thickish cotton string through it. All up I think it took about 30 mins to make.

Then I used all my (new but don't tell DH) tupperware (I'm loving all their bright range at the moment) and some helium balloons to decorate the table. 

 

We also had some Rainbow Jelly, I just made jelly up 1 colour up at a time using half the amount of water (making it set quicker), when it was set then I added the next colour and so on. This is not a day of party food, you will need to have this one started at least the day before. 

I made them in clear disposable tumblers but disposable wine goblets would look nicer (I just worked with what I had).

For her birthday cake the brief was that it had to be rainbow and chocolate, so I remember a friend of mind making an awesome cake and I blatantly stole her idea :)

 

Unfortunately it has been very hot here and there was some meltage on the way home from the supermarket, but it's how it tastes that counts right???? and it tasted DEVINE.

The cake recipe I use seems to be a no fail one, I've used it about 3 or 4 times a year for the past 4 years and never had a bad outcome. So I thought I'd share it with you

Easy Peasy Rich Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

2 large eggs

1 unsweetened yoghurt (although I've used vanilla and dairy food without any failure)

¾ cup premium quality baking cocoa powder

200g butter, softened

2 tsp baking soda

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

¼ tsp salt

3 cups self-raising flour

1 cup boiling hot coffee ( I just dissolve 1 heaped teaspoon of instant into some water)

Method:

Heat oven to 160 degrees C (375 F) and line a 30cm (12 inch) round tin

with baking paper.  Place all ingredients in the bowl of a food

processor and blitz until combined (or place ingredients in a mixing

bowl and beat with an electric beater).  Pour mixture into prepared

tin and smooth the top. Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted

into the centre comes out clean.

Cool in tin.  Place in a sealed container or freeze if not using at once.

My cake this time was made in a 20cm round tin which made a higher cake but also needed cooking for longer. Just test until it comes out clean. 

Here is the birthday girl

Christmas Crafting with the kidlets......

It's been flat out here this past few weeks with ballet recitals and school/preschool activities so when we finally had a day at home we all wanted some quiet time as a family to relax. The girls wanted to make some christmas decorations and when I was surfing late at night I found this tutorial on The Red Thread for christmas balls.

So as I had a project lined up for some of my rainbow fabric (will post about that later). I thought I'd even out my fabric and then use the strips to cut up for the girls. Our squares are about an inch square and we used 8 colours of fabric.

Here are our pretty colours

and here are my girls working on their creations

 

and the finish project on some fairy light branches since we don't put up a christmas tree until after the youngest DD's birthday. 

Rainbow Christmas

Yes I know, another rainbow inspired post. This one is for some decorations that I made for a christmas decoration swap with a few friends.


These started their life as birdies from Attic24's pattern but after making a gazillion wings and beaks I just didn't feel the love, I much preferred them as rainbows and the wings just hid alot of the beautiful brightness.


So here is my entry into the swap.

The raindrops were made with seed beads from my stash and I love the rainbow ribbon which was a score at my local emporium, I think they finish these perfectly.



Here are more pics, my gorgeous wee girls and I had fun making different patterns to photograph.

Rainbow Obsession...

Ok I admit it - I've mentioned before but I LOVE rainbows. I thought I'd show off a couple of my recent rainbow purchases as well as a couple of crafting projects I've been working on :)


My  Rainbow Piggy Bank  - he's actually quite large I need something next to him to help scale him :) He was on sale at Farmers (they have a couple of different ones) for about $20NZD (normal price is $39.95) I had to have him. He currently has pride of place on top of the bookshelf.

 

And my other recent purchase was this cushion from Freedom Furniture (about $44.95 NZD from memory)

And here are a couple of crafting things that I've had in progress for a wee while. 

This is my youngest DD's Blanket that I've been working on for a few months. It's HUGE currently about the size of a queen bed and is out of 100% wool. She loves it and is often founds snuggling at one end of it while I'm working on the other end. 

The pattern that I've been following is this Neat Ripple Pattern from Attic24 (awesome blog - check it out). She has fantastic instructions that even a newbie hooker like me can follow. 

Here's a shot of the soon to be owner of the rainbow blankie in her favourite spot at the other end of my WIP. 

And then of course my never ending stack of rainbow dishcloths. I work on this stack as my go between project. I can knit them while watching a movie or when I'm in the car on a road trip with DH and the girls. The stack is gifted and then replenished throughout the year. This current stack will probably end up with my sister for christmas :). The pattern I use is the Grandma's favourite dishcloth pattern on ravelry.

Christmas Countdown is on....

For once in forever I am actually relatively sorted for christmas, being a student along with being a mama this year my time disappeared before my eyes so I thought I'd start early with christmas (and birthdays since my two gorgeous girls have a birthday 2 weeks either side of christmas). So all our pressies are wrapped and now I'm waiting for the day we can put up our tree (which we don't put up till after the youngest wee ones birthday so her birthday doesn't get swallowed up in the christmas season). However we do have a few christmas things going on at the moment...one of them being my gorgeous knitted nativity set that I found at my local hospice (op) shop. I'm so in love with it as are my girls.

Also this year we have a new favourite christmas album - really everyone should own it.  The girls and I have been dancing and singing to it for the past 24 hours since we got it :)

Which can be bought from itunes


I've got a few other things up my sleeve but they need to be kept under wraps for a wee while longer :)