January Happy Things

Pink Tulips

Cake Sprinkles - bought from Jars just like Sweeties!

Butternut Squash

Candles in the Snow

Coffee Cupcakes

Beautiful Ceramic Birds for our Fireplace

Beautiful silhouette trees in the winter light

Making our Snowman, Gilbert

Cat Sitting for Friends

A giant Snow frosted Strawberry

Putting up a Christmas present from my Husband

Coldness!

Glittery Snow - oh I do love it so

New Bag

Snow, snow and more snow

Things around here

So far January has been a good month. We've been eating lots of warming winter food like roasted Root vegetables and we've been enjoying plenty of Snow. Norfolk has been undercover of a blanket of white for coming up to two weeks now and I've loved every moment of it. I've also been making a lot of Soup; it's good January food. This time round it was just a simple Leek and Potato. Talking of the snow, I've found it to be a great way of keep drinks cold - it;s most convenient. Gosh I do love the Snow. We've also been experimenting with drinks, this we've made a Strawberry and Banana Smoothies, Lime and Strawberry Soda and Pomegranate Cordial. We've also received a very cute hand painted card from a rather delightful two year old. We've found a great new Farm Shop in Mulbarton for us to do the weekly shop. It's so much more of a relaxed affair than a supermarket. Finally I thought I'd give Graze a go and so far so good. I hope the last few days of January are just as good.

Prettifying Time

We've had a slightly boring Silver Clock in our kitchen for an absolute age, years in fact. I decided that was quite simply was not pretty enough. It still worked fine and I didn't have the heart to just throw it away. So out came my Button box, Burlap, Embroidery Thread, Glue, Scissors, Gold Enamel Paint, an Embroidery Hoop and our Dremel. It was time to make it prettier.

I took apart our Clock and attacked it with power tools to make it fit within the Embroidery Hoop. Then there was some painting, gluing and sewing. There was quite a bit of drying time too. I was so pleased it still worked and that I hadn't broken it pulling it apart. It was also nice to use a some of the Buttons that I had collected over time that were just to precious to use. Pretty Mother or Pearl, textured Shell and Flower Buttons as well as some more simple ones. I just went ahead and used them as we'll keep it for a long time. It's so much prettier than our old clock.

My very favourite Weather

Snow really is my favourite Weather. I get very excited when the flakes start a falling from the sky - giddy excited. I could wax lyrical for an absolute age about my joy and love for Snow, but on this occasion, I'll just post some photos I've taken this week.

Gilbert

I'd like to introduce you to Gilbert the Snowman. We've had so much snow here in Norfolk that it would have been rude not to go outside and enjoy the weather. I get proper giddy excited when it Snows. Gilbert is in fact very very tall - about 8ft. It was still snowing whilst we made him and it was so quiet despite being at our Friends house who lives close to the Airport. It was such fun; the kind of fun that is very childlike - good and honest. You know like if you give a little one a cardboard box and they're entertained for hours. Well that was us.

I was exceptionally pleased that I had bought some new Boots a couple of weeks ago - they are keeping my Feet nice and warm in this weather and I don't slide around too much because of the grips. I'm usually a ballet pumps kinda girl all year round but these were purchase in very good time.

We were completely drenched by the time we got back inside and many cups of tea were consumed. But boy was it fun! Welcome to the world Gilbert!

Messing about with paper

I spent some of Sunday afternoon making a small stash of Greeting Cards to be used in the first few months of this year for loved ones. Instead of making a card here and there I'm much better at sitting down and making a few in one go. My main aim was to use us lots of mismatched scraps that I had lying around. Bits and pieces that I just couldn't bear to throughout as I knew they would have a use at some point! I'm a bit of a dithering and often can spend an absolute age trying to work out how to put things together so I had a look on the Internet and came across 2 Sketches 4 You - a lovely template site which really did help with. Add some Ink, Rubber Stamps, Buttons and Flowers and I was off - a very happy afternoon of making.

Kitchen Bunting

Last Year, I was fortunate to win a rather lovely give away from the equally lovely Ada from Vintage Sheet Addict. It was a completely joyful package of Vintage Wallpapers and Vintage Sheet Fat Quarters. The above photo from Ada's Blog shows you the loveliness that was so kindly bestowed.  I pondered for quite from time what do with them as I wanted to make the very best use out of them. Well we live in a Victorian Terraced house and the Kitchen it tiny, like minuscule! So just after Christmas we put a shelving unit in the Kitchen to hold my Baking Supplies and it very much needed prettifying.

Also last year, I bought some wooden bunting wood shapes from Etsy. I knew I would use them but they were stashed away. Well today was the day - out came the wallpaper, wooden bunting and other bits and pieces including my beloved Twine.

Within 15 minutes, it was done and up in the Kitchen. Boy, I love a quick project, sometimes making blankets just seem to take forever and some quick is just the ticket. Thank you Ada for the beautiful give away - it has made a rather dull shelving unit far more beautiful. Gosh I really love love love Floral Bunting.

Cake Pops!

I was a very fortunate lady as my Mum bought me a Cake Pop Maker for Christmas. I have long looked at these decorated little beauties on Pinterest, saving the particularly pretty photos in my Baking Inspiration Board. Now I could make my very own in the pretty in pink machine. Thank you Mum!

The machine cooks the Cake Pops in just 4 minutes and they come out of the machine so easily. So far we have kept it simple and just made Chocolate and Vanilla Sponge. I was pleasantly surprised how easily they came out of the machine - not one of them stuck. Then we had little round balls of cake that looked slightly like Planets. In just twenty minutes we had 30 in total. I will also confess to loving the uniformity of the Cake balls - if I had made them with the crumbled cake and icing concoction, the sizes would have been all over the place. We of course had to try one to make sure if was ok and they were light and not in the slightest bit dry.

We then melted some Chocolate and used this to 'glue' the Lollipop Stick to cake, leaving them aside to set for an hour or so. Boy am I glad there were some Lollipop Sticks in my Stocking from Santa - I can see us going through them quite quickly. Although I think I'm going to order some plastic ones that don't have holes in the end so they an be washed and reused.

Next up was the best bit - the decorating. I had been gifted by a friend some pretty sprinkles for Christmas as she knows my love of Baking and these were just the ticket. There was Chocolate coated Popping Candy, Rose Flavoured Crystals, Green and Gold Sugar and Hundreds and Thousands. So pretty! These added to my existing collection of Cake decorating supplies like Glitter (oh how I love Edible Glitter) and Chocolate Stars etc. So we had lots of play with to make our Cake Pops beautiful.

We coated each Cake Pop in more Chocolate and then sprinkled the pretty decorations on top. We made the Vanilla batch for a Family get together and the Chocolate ones for a Friends Birthday and they went down a treat. I'm now dreaming up more complicated varieties - I'm thinking next up is something like Sticky Toffee and Lemon Meringue Cake Pops. The possibilities are endless!

My Week

This week we had Sparklers on Monday for New Years. I have made quite a bit of progress of my Hexy Blanket. I made my first Cheesecake ever, a baked Strawberry little number. We had an impromptu play on the Swings at the Park. We drank Hot Chocolate complete with Marshmallows. I wore my new M&S Pjs a lot. We had a Friends Birthday for which his presents were brown paper packages tied up with string, well yarn, I just liked the sound of the lyrics. I made Soda Bread, another first. I purchased a new Filofax with the hope that it will help me not forget things. We went to Laser Quest for said friends Birthday and my team won and I felt 14 again. We ate home made Chicken Noodle Soup. There were lots of misty nights which when driving home late at night is spookily wonderful. I've had a really lovely week. 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to one and all! Here's to a very happy one full of fun and laughter. I have a few things that I want to achieve this year - not resolutions, just goals. I want to;

1. Walk up to the very top of Snowdon
2. Go to Cornwall, Polzeath to be specific
3. Find the star in the sky that has been named after my Father
4. Go camping as much as possible
5. Finish projects that I have on the go!

Welcome 2013...please let it be a good one.