Gratitude Wrap...

Well i decided to finally make a gratitude wrap today, i have been meaning to make one for a couple of weeks! You can read all about how to make one here http://www.soulemama.com/SouleMamaGratitudeWrap.pdf and you can also see the reason behind them here http://www.soulemama.com/soulemama/2008/07/gratitude.html!

I started sewing this morning then my sis Tracey called to say that they had a power blackout so they came around to my house where there was power. They stayed a couple of hours and just as they left all the power in my house (and area) had a blackout!!! I lost my power for nearly 4 hours and it was SOOOOO hot!! I cant imagine living without some sort of cooling in this heat. On a good note whilst we had no power i started to read a book i have been meaning to read for a while, and i am now half way through it and completely engrossed! (hopefully finish it tonight!!)

Anyway, dont look too closely at my pics. I have made sooo many mistakes in making this wrap! I guess thats one way to learn right?? I decided after today i really need to invest in some lessons, especially in regards to bias binding ARRGGGHHH!!

Here are the pics





Oh i forgot to say, you can use these to put in cards, and stamps and pens with the idea being (as you might have read if you read the links above) that you always have stuff handy to write thank yous or letters of appreciation. I think i will put a diary and a notebook and pens in this one! I just have to get to the shops to find a nice diary and notepad!

Baking baking baking...

On the weekend i got a surprise pressie from my hubby!! i was SOOO excited! Actually i cant believe i havent blogged about my pressie and excitement already!! I got a Kenwood Chef which i just love! So suffice to say...even though the weather has been SOOO HOT these past few days, lots of baking has been happening in my kitchen.

This is my new baby



This morning i decided to bake some sugar cookies with the girls, i thought they would love to use their cookie cutters and then ice them together!

Here is some of the shapes they did before they were baked



Half way through rolling these cookies out i got a call from my gorgeous sis Donna who said she was dropping by for a visit! When Donna and the girls got here we quickly decorated the few that were baked and then the girls quickly demolished them!!! I will probably bake up the rest of the dough tomorrow and decorate the rest with the girls.

Olivia

Hannah

Caitlyn

Ellie

I thought i might post the sugar cookie recipe in case anyone out there wants to try it! Its a great recipe to use with cookie cutters and then just ice with a royal icing

Sugar Cookies

Ingredients
6 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
250g butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt

Directions
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Mix dry ingredients a little at a time until it all comes together to form a dough. Chill for 1-2 hours.

Bake for 8-10 mins or until just starting to go gold/brown on the edges.

HAPPY BAKING

Summer Days...

Yesterday we took the girls down to Phillip Island for the afternoon/night. Our first stop down there was to see the koala's which the girls loved - we only saw about 8 or so though and were expecting to see a few more!





We then went to the beach for a play and a swim!!! It was a beautiful afternoon and the girls just love it when we go to the beach! We are lucky enough to go a fair bit as we only live twenty mins or so out of frankston and over an hour to get to the island!















After that we went and had some dinner before heading to the penguin parade! We sat waiting for the penguins from 8:15pm til nearly 9:30pm before the first one showed up but it was a beautiful experience though and well worth the wait!!

Happy Birthday Kai!

Well today we had my nephew Kai's 3rd Birthday at Hungry Jacks! It was so nice to see him enjoying his party as he has had a rough year and totally deserves to be loved and spoilt! Thought i would share a few pics from his bday!











I thought i would also include a link to my Flickr account to a set of photos of all the cakes i have made over the years (well most of them anyway!) Hope you enjoy the pics!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/louisebeddoes/sets/72157603980827241/

Dressing up days...

Well today it is meant to be 38 degrees and so the girls and i have decided to stay inside in the cooling today! We havent been doing much really, but the girls have been into the dress ups for the past couple of days, and so i thought i would share a few pics of my girls!







I processed the photos a bit more high key/ cooler than i normally would but i think it was nice to have a different effect once in a while!

I read the book Vanishing Acts, by Jodie Picoult yesterday (yes the whole book in one day, it was too hot to go anywhere and the girls were happily playing :-)) and it was a really good book. I have also read her book My Sisters Keeper and that book was amazing as well so i think i might have to read some more of her books.

Hannah keeps asking when i might sew the tops for the dolls, in actual fact i have been putting it off for fear of it being too difficult for me to do!! I really should get out my sewing again and see what i can do for the dolls!

More blogging to come later...

Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes!!

This afternoon i finally got around to make Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes! I LOVE ferrero rocher chocolates so when i found this recipe on hot to eat a cupcakes blog (found here http://howtoeatacupcake.net/2009/01/ferrero-rocher-mini-cupcakes.html) i knew i would one day have to make them!!

Cupcake recipe adapted from Cupcakes Galore by Gail Wagman
Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes
Makes 36 regular cupcakes

3 1/2 cups plain flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
225g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
6 eggs
1 3/4 cups Nutella (i ended up using a whole large jar and most of a small jar including the filling!)
3/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon instant coffee granules

Ganache
400g semi-sweet or milk chocolate ( i used half and half depends on your taste)
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup chopped toasted hazelnuts

Filling
36 whole dry roasted hazelnuts
Left over nutella

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius . Line muffin pan with paper or foil liners ( i used gold foil to give the ferrero rocher feel).
2. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together and set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes) . Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add 1 3/4 cups of Nutella and blend thoroughly. (Warm the milk in the microwave. Stir in instant coffee until disolved.) Alternately add flour mixture and milk, blending well after each addition (Don't overmix this makes them tough! Blend only until no traces of flour remain.)
4. Using a ice cream scoop (or spoon if you dont have an ice cream scoop) , fill each cup with batter. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool on wire racks.
5. When cupcakes are cool, use a round icing tip to remove part of the centre of the cupcake. Fill them with the remaining Nutella and push a hazelnut (whole) in the centre.
6. Make the ganache. Put chocolate chips and cream in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on medium hear for for 2-3 minutes, depending on your microwave. Stir gently with a rubber spatula. Heat for 40-50 more seconds. Stir until well blended. Let sit about 30 minutes, or until ganache is spreadable. Stir in chopped hazelnuts and spread on cupcakes.

This is what the final cupcake looked like!! SOOOOO YUMMY!!! A MUST FOR FERRERO LOVERS LIKE MYSELF!

Sewing, sewing & more sewing!!

Yesterday, my little girl woke up with an upset tummy and i knew that we wouldn't be heading out anywhere all day so i set myself up for a day of sewing!! I thought i would try and sew the dolls clothes that i had previously promised the girls! They were excited and so off i went! I decided to make some little jeans with ruffles on the bottom!! Lets just say as a complete novice sewer they took a lot longer than im sure they are meant to but i think i am learning lots and lots about all the functions of my sewing machine and i am sure thats what its all about right!!!

Anyway here is a pic of the two pairs of jeans i ended up making for my girls dolls! Dont look too close they are definitely not close to perfect! In face the edges are quiet messy really BUT they look like jeans and they fit the dolls and most of all the girls were very happy!!!!! So now my next project is...yup...you guessed it!! TOPS!! I just hope they arent too hard!! I will update with pics of the matching tops this week hopefully once i get back into some more sewing!



And one of my little girl who wasnt feeling so well and fell asleep on the couch mid morning! She looked so peaceful



Im off to bake some ferrero rocher cupcakes so ill be back later to share pics!

Our fun, yet exhausting day...

After not leaving the house yesterday due to the extreme heat outside and my need to sew today i thought i would take the girls out for some fun! We went to the shopping centre which had Strawberry Shortcake there for the school holiday activity. The girls got to give her a big cuddle! The girls, especially Caitlyn have been big fans of Strawberry Shortcake for years so they were very excited



They got to decorate a cupcake each (they were given some frosting and some lollies to decorate with)



After decorating the cupcakes and cuddling strawberry shortcake again the girls and i went and had some lunch with my sister Kez who works there! I had told them before we got to the food court no maccas then as soon as they saw aunty kez she said lets go get some maccas!!! Got to love sisters :-) It was great to see her for lunch and lovely to spend some time chatting!

We then went up to my dads and had a big swim in his pool and played for a while



And this was the end result of the day

First time at sewing!

Well, today i finally used my sewing machine, that my lovely hubby bought me for Christmas! It was another one of my ingenious ideas, i think i will start sewing! Yes it was that simple in my mind! However after sewing ALL DAY today and still not finishing my first ever sewing project (an apron) i have learnt its not that easy!!

Here are a few pics of my WIP!

This is my setup at the kitchen table, halfway through the days work


This is the pattern i am attempting to make. Notice it says its SO EASY!! Ha!


This is how the apron looks after todays effort! I need to add the pockets and also i think i will add some ric rac or some other sort of embellishment to finish it off!


Here's to more sewing and getting quicker at it!!!

My little scrapbooker...

Hannah (7), got a scrapbook kit from santa and has pretty much been asking every day since Christmas if she can sit down and scrapbook.  I finally got around to printing the photos for her from her party so that she could complete the scrapbook.  The smile on her face says it all! I think we will be doing more of this...(I know mummy certainly has been neglecting hers!!)

I might even be a rock star....

Yesterday my girl Eleisha, who is 3 years old was dressed up in Hannah's "Hannah Montana" wig and guitar with the headpiece on singing loudly and knowingly to each of the songs! Was a very cute and very typical Eleisha moment and i thought i would catch it with photos, who knows, one day she might be my very own rock star!!

Hope you get a smile out of this!

Well its been AGES since i last blogged!! I have for some reason found the interest and time to want to start blogging again, so lets see how successful i am this time around!  Maybe its just the new year, you know, all the resolutions you make and good intentions you have!  I certainly have plenty of those.

Some of my "resolutions" for this year 2009, are to make more time to do the things that i want to do (crafty mainly!), to be more organisined (two kids at school this year I'm thinking this might be a good res to stick to!!), and to eat much more healthily as a family (more so just knowing what is going into our bodies, less processed and more FRESH!).  I am sure i have more than those, but they are the ones i can think of at this late hour of the night!

Anyway i am going to leave it there for now, i am going to post a couple of photos from the past few days!

More blogging soon...(fingers crossed!)