Hapy 7th Birthday Holly!

11/11/02 :At about 11am, I was getting my epidural. I remember the anaesthetist standing against the wall, feet crossed, watching the monitor. He asked me how that last contraction felt, and when I said "What contraction?" He said "Right, that's it, I'm out of here!" LOL - I guess it worked! At 7:20pm, Holly was finally delivered by C-section, as no mater how hard we(I) tried, she would not fit the other way. It's scary to think what would have happened a few generations ago, when C-sections weren't an option. But, luckily for us we had a fabulous team of doctors, and she was born, a beautiful baby girl.

She has grown into the sweetest, kindest, gentlest soul I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, and to be able to call her my daughter makes me extremely proud indeed. She was chuffed to bits with all her gifts - a pink Nintendo DS from us, an Avery Moxie girl from her Grandpa and Claudia and Tom, a pizza cooking set from Liam, a cooking game from her cousin Michael, and some spending money from her Nana and Grandad in Africa - thanks Mom - they were super thrilled with that! She's gone off to school with her poppy on one side of her jumper and her birthday badge on the other, and some sweets for her classmates.

We're taking her and some friends to see 'Up' on Saturday, which I'm about as excited as she is for!

And lest we forget....

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

~Lt-Col John McCrae

Greek Day

Aren't us mums a clever bunch? Our kids have been learning all about Greece this week in Year Two, other Years are doing USA, Brazil, Australia, India and Japan, and they end the week with a dress up day. They could either wear something traditional from that country, or pick out colours from the flag.

Well, yesterday morning, what started out as a Sainsbury's Basic fitted white sheet, ended up in a pillowcase-style dress for Holly, with a gold ribbon bodice! A sheet of gold card cut into leaves, stuck to an Alice band makes a perfect laurel wreath. Impressive, huh? Holly's friend has his baby sister's cot sheets folded over a belt for his skirt, with a scarf cleverly draped over him to make a waist coat. Now they could have gone the easy route and worn blue and white, but don't you think they're learning so much more this way? They're tasting Greek food today too, I wish I was there!

The Roof is Done!

I finally felt brave enough to tackle the roof. I mixed three colours: the stone of the walls, seasoned oak and black ash, and then dry brushed the black ash on and blended it in as much as I could. It's tricky to see when you're looking straight at it, the paint has a slight plastic-y sheen to it, which reflects light, and in fact it looks lighter in the pictures than in real life. But I'm happy with it for now. The great thing about blending colours and dry brushing is that you can tweak it as much as you like. I might even try the seasoned oak straight on with a dry brush. But then again, I might just leave it like this.

The silly thing is, I've run out of shingles so the back roof panel hasn't been shingled. I'm not sure if it's because I used too many rows on the front sections, I counted 17 rows on my top one, and on an Arthur I saw on Flickr I think they'd only used 11 or so. Oh well, I'll keep an eye out for similar shingles, but even if I don't find any, at least it's just the back of the house.

I Have a Boot Dilemma

I need new brown, everyday boots. I have expensive taste, and simply cannot afford my absolute favourite leather boots from the High Street (they're over £100). Then, while in Chichester over my birthday weekend, I saw a pair of boots in a shop window, with a price tag (£35) I thought was a mistake. Turns out it was no mistake...they're not leather. I then found a pair at Next that are leather, and at £60 not horribly expensive.

Can you guess which is which? The ones on the left are the fake leather ones which style-wise, I'm leaning towards. The ones on the right are real leather, feel nice, look nice, but are a bit plain. Could I wear them with a skirt?

Here they are on...shot into a mirror so they look a bit hazy.

And what they look like with my boot cut jeans.

Front/ankle view...what do you think? In South Africa we have a great saying, which goes...

"Goed koop is duur koop." It means buying cheap is buying dear, kind of like penny wise pound foolish. Obviously, leather boots will last longer, wear better and have some kind of guarantee at the store if they fall apart after one season. But I do like the style of the cheap boots. Will I kick myself after a season for not having bought leather?

My 'Lil Trick Or Treaters!

The kids just before heading out - three witches and a vampire!

I love how Holly is such a poser for me now - this witch face and hands was all her doing!

My sweet little vampire boy! He so needs new trainers. Those are the ones he rides his bike in, see how worn the toe break pads are? LOL!

And then I found this image amongst my saved ideas file, I'd forgotten about it when it came round to doing my pumpkins this year...it belongs to a Pea and it's from 2007...if it's your shot give me a shout and give you credit for it...and maybe next year I'll feel brave enough to attempt one like the one on the left!

Happy Haunted Halloween!

If you were to visit me at the moment, this is the scene that would greet you at my front door! I found these cat window decorations at Sainsbury's, and while I'm not loving my orange tinted lounge in the daytime, I do think it's worth it for this nighttime glow!

Don't you just love Flickr for photo inspiration? I don't know what I did before I discovered it. Now, every time I need inspiration, I skip the Google image search of old, head straight on over to Flickr, and get more ideas than I know what to do with. I found the witch on a broomstick, drew it onto my punkin, and cut it out with my craft knife. Next year, I think I'm going to have to try the haunted house on the hill...


And then, what do you do with your punkin seeds? Throw them away? That's what I used to do... until someone on TwoPeas mentioned the fact that they were eating their roasted seeds. So I got the recipe, and this year, I roasted mine. Oh. My. Gosh. Would you like to know how?

wash your seeds
soak in salted water for about an hour
pat dry on kitchen towel, spread out on foil covered baking sheet.
Drizzle in olive oil or melted butter, grind some more salt over, I added some Chinese Five Spice, shake up and roast at 150ºC for an hour or so, stirring up every 20 minutes.
You can spice them any way you like - whatever tickles your fancy.

Or...

skip the salt, and use sugar and cinnamon. Just as good, I did this with my second punkin ;-)
Happy Halloween, have a fun and spooky night!

The very happy thing about birthdays...

It was my birthday on Sunday, and I've had a lovely weekend full of fun! My OH took the kids down to Grandpa's house on Saturday morning, leaving me the whole afternoon to do a grocery shop, tidy the house and get myself ready... for a girl's night in! I had five friends round for an Indian take-out. We had a lovely evening, drinking great wine and bubbly, yummy curry's, having a laugh, and topping it all off with these gorgeous cupcakes that my friend Becky made. Can you believe you get edible food glitter? I can't imagine a cupcake without some sparkly fairy dust now!


Thank you Becky, they were divine!

Then, after they all left at 1:30am !!! I set my clocks back, so it was suddenly only 12:30am and a perfectly reasonable time to go to bed!
Sunday, I woke, had a leisurely breakfast, then headed off to Ikea on my own, where I bought a new desk for my computer. I've had it on my Oupa's old bureau, which is a piece of furniture I have always loved, it has wonderful memories for me, but it was just never a great solution for the computer. So it is now headed for a bit of a makeover and will be my daughter's new desk in her room, and with all it's drawers and secret cubby holes, she is very excited about that! After Ikea I stopped off at my sister's house for a fantastic lunch...roast chicken, roast potatoes, yorkshire puddings, cauliflower and cheese sauce, mixed veg, and a cheesecake for pudding - Yum!


On Thursday I received the most wonderful parcel in the mail...from Mercedes! She has really spoiled me, and I know she didn't know it was my birthday this weekend, but the timing was great and it did make me feel very special indeed!

I went down to fetch the kids on Monday, and we stopped off in Chichester for a touch of shopping. There's a tiny little dollshouse shop there, so I bought the house a hanging basket (being held up by Holly here!) a strawberry plant and a great rusty old watering can. At Ikea, I bought a lazy susan, so that the house can swivel easily from the front to the back. Clever, huh?

I have always loved birdhouses, and when I first lay my eyes on Mercedes's birdhouses I fell in love with them, and begged her to make some to sell me. Now, she has given me these exquisite birdhouses, but I'm still begging her to sell these on Etsy because I think they are just the bee's knees!

Cupcake cushions! How absolutely perfect! And I just love the little gift bags Mercedes always uses...I must ask her where she gets them from...

And then, because I had sent her the little elves, she was inspired to make me a set of her gorgeous little water jugs and bowl, and an enamelware container, wit the sweetest little elf pictures! I can see the inspiration for a few more mini elves coming from these.

And then a set of her famous enamelware containers, and they are every bit as amazing and realsitic in real life as they look in pictures. I am amazed at the little signs of wear and rust she gives them!

Ta Da!!

Need I say any more?!!

Getting the moon to hang was tricky, but so long as it travels okay it should hold it's place!

And the finishing touches, the banner wishing Ann a Happy 70th Birthday, and some cute little Halloween punkin tealights. I think the word pumpkin should officially be changed to the way my son says it - Punkin - it's so much cuter, don't you think?

Progress...

The cakes after they'd been covered...and the kids' favourite part - the 'tops' cake - made out of the rounded tops I cut off the cakes, stuck together with raspberry jam and buttercream, slathered in the leftover buttercream and covered in sprinkles. Yum.

And a sneak peak - this was shot now at 8pm so the lighting crappy and you're gonna have to check back tomorrow if you want to see the whole thing put together and done, and photographed to death, ha ha!

What I'm Up To...

So, I've had a bit of disappointing news, with regard to some work I was doing. I'm not sure I can share the news yet, other people are involved and I need to wait until I get the all clear. But, at least I've been able to concentrate 100% on my first proper cake order. It's for a lady's 70th birthday party - she was born on Halloween - so I've been asked to do an elegant Halloween themed cake. I've decided to use the base design of Arthur's Christening cake. So it'll have orange and cream stripes on a brown cake, then brown spiderwebs on an orange cake, and orange and brown spots on a cream cake, with a haunted house on top.

Here are the panels for the house...busy drying so that when I construct it, it's not going to go all floppy and cave in on itself. Okay, that's the plan, if it doesn't work I'm stuffed. I hadn't mixed enough brown so I still need to do the roof, but that'll come.


The first batch of cakes are on the cooling rack, the second are in the oven, and this is what my kitchen looks like!

The other positive side to my news is that I've had time to do the Arthur's roof: it's on, glued, fixed, sanded and waiting for paint. The colour I've been looking for has been ordered, I can pick it up this weekend.

I'll post pics of it and the finished cake soon.