New Years Eve

I have just finished putting the table together for tonights Dinner Party. I have the crackers, Menu's and napkin rings I made this week . I used a tall glass vase with gold sand in the bottom and stars and a candle for the centre piece and sprinkled more of the gold stars around for a festive look. I spent an hour pressing that cloth :-( it still looks creased!!

Wishing you all a Happy Safe New Years Eve whatever your doing
xx

Thankyou Cards

Lord its so good to have some Me time after the madness of Christmas, I am all on my own here for a few days and I intend to make the most of it!! No cooking for me till Thursday night I am on snack food...lol

I made these quickly today after a 5 hour session getting my craft room in order :-( everything seems to get dumped there when people come round but its looking great now and I will be able to find my papers etc. When your doing lots of crafting like at Christmas you seem to just put stuff anywhere instead of away properly and boy did I pay the price today :-(

These are using a variety of papers and card, Cricut and carts "New Arrival" & "Plantin" plus lots of Prima flowers and a bit of ribbon. Nice and easy as I have a lot of thankyou's to get out and I like to get it done sooner rather than later as I think it is rude to wait.

I am off for a nice hot well earned bath now.. bye

New Year Menu * Napkins

New Year Eve we are having friends round for dinner so I wanted to make some things to enhance the table. I used mirror card to cut these on the Cricut, the only thing is it looks smudged :-( a downside of mirror card which is why I rarely use it. Anyway here they are.

The Menu cards - "Plantin Schoolbook" and "Stretch your imagination" for the champagne glass. I used the offcuts and some cut from red to get the contrast features and the extra glasses to put onto the napkin rings. I printed the inserts on my PC in "Word" using "Curlz" font. There is some sequin waste behind the cut out to look like champagne bubbles and tiny ribbon bows for the napkin rings.

2010 Calendar

Unusual that I didn't get a shop bought calendar this year but thats good as I can make my own. I never do as I expect one so it made a nice change to be able to personalise it and not forget any birthdays this year, hopefully.

I had a planner last year of Forever Friends Bears and didn't want to throw away all those lovely images. So I cut them out with a nestabilty Die, used a selection of pastel papers and cardstock and embellishments from my stash to make this calendar. I printed my own calender sheets using word adding regular dates, birthdays, anniversaries etc. I coloured the background in Word as well to match the colour theme and just used it all in a very random manner which took no time at all. I am more pleased with this than some of the things I spend ages planning I think its quite effective. I only used 6 sheets and made them double sided and bound them on the Bind-it all. I saved the hanger from the old calendar to thread though the binding and thats it.

Whoops forgot to add that the lettering for the months is done on the Cricut, welded the letters in Design Studio using the Alphalicious font. I put double sided glue paper on the back before cutting to make them easy to stick as I just had to peel them off the backing :-)

No craft just fun

Satori is joining in and Santa bought her a new tuggie toy and ears :-)

I am winning on the cooking front

Well I am cracking on with the preperations, all the veg is done, trimmings for the Turkey, Gammon all roasted and the trifle done. I used edible glitter and cherries to decotate it very festive :-) I can't wait to have the gammon for dinner tonight I am starving, done all this cooking and not had a thing yet :-(

Merry Christmas

Well its finallly arrived and we are on the final countdown. All those days and weeks of work and planning have come together to make our Christmas'ses. We have stuck, cut and baked for our lives and tomorrow it will all be gone :-)

To all the followers and visitors to my blog, I want to thank you for your support this year, for thinking my place is worth visiting and for all the lovely comments I have been given on my work. I hope I can inspire and share more with you in the year to come and look forward to seeing you here again.

All that remains before the big day is for me to say that I wish you all
A Very Merry, Peaceful and Wonderful Christmas
and
A happy Safe New Year
God Bless
xxx
Sandra

Gingerbread Cricut House + recipe

Winter woodland houses would make a brilliant pattern for these, you might need to cut it then enlarge the cut to make a better size house though. I borrowed this picture of the one above as I haven't made one yet but as my grandson is coming over today we might give it a go :-)

Gingerbread recipe (make biscuits with it too)

Ingredients

300g butter
125g caster sugar
125g brown sugar
225g treacle, or golden syrup
725g plain flour Bicarbonate of soda
3 tsp ground Ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon

'glue' icing

2 egg whites
500g icing sugar

hundreds and thousands
chocolate buttons
dolly mixtures, silver balls, etc

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/Gas 4. Line two baking trays with baking paper.
Melt the butter, caster sugar, brown sugar and treacle in a large saucepan.

Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon together, add the melted butter and sugar mixture and stir well until it comes together like sticky dough.

wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

roll out the dough to 1/2" thick and cut out the pieces until you have a front and back wall, two side walls and two roof panels.

Carefully move onto baking trays and bake for 12 – 15 minutes. Remove the trays from the oven and allow stand for a few minutes to firm up. Cut out a door on the front wall and windows on the side walls and reserve the cut-out pieces for later. Place on a wire rack for a few minutes

Received with enthusiasm

What a lovely day I had out giving the gifts I made and seeing my parents to exchange gifts. They were all recieved with enthusiasm so thats nice, made it worth the time and effort I put in. I am going to get better organised for next year though buying containers and jars as that was a bit fraught this year.

I had to leave to get home as heavy snow was making it bad to travel and I skidded my car into a fence but no damage thanks goodness. My poor parents had to get back to Surrey, which should be a 50 minute journey, unfortunately due to snow and ice it ended up taking them 5 hours . Thankfully they arrived safe and sound so it ended fine. Why are parents so stuborn I asked them to stay over and drive back today but they wouldn't listen :-(

Have a good day and if your weather is bad stay home and drink chocolate!!! :-)

Best gift ever - New Baby Due

I am so pleased to hear I am to be a Nanna again my daughter had her scan yesterday and all is well. Here it is baby No2 due about June I think

And finally the biscuits that's the giftbags complete now. I haven't made a brilliant job of the icing and the Edible Cake Glitter is a bit big but that's all you can buy, still they look quite Christmassy. I saved a collection of boxes and containers for these to keep them fresh.

Recipe for German Spice Biscuits, we always used to go to the German Christmas Markets at this time of year and I got this with a traditional German Christmas biscuit cutter I bought. I suggest a double quantity to get enough but they are so easy and tasty its no loss to have to many :-)

4oz Plain Flour
2oz Caster Sugar
1/2 teasp Mixed spice **I have been asked by an American lady what this is, its a mix of cinnamon, numeg etc premixed in a jar. I think Pumkin Pie Spice mix is a similar thing with mostly the same spices in
3 oz Butter

Blend in processor or by hand to make a dough and roll out. Cook Gas 3 160C 325F for 20 mins. Leave to cool for a minute before putting on a rack to get cold. Decorate as you like.
See EASY

Parcelled Up Sweets & Recipes

Here are my sweets packaged up and ready to go in the giftbags just got to finish the cookies and I am "good to go".

Chocolate Fudge - EASY

• 5 oz butter, softened
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 can condensed milk
• 5 oz plain chocolate broken into squares
• 28oz (large box) icing sugar, sifted

Method

Place the butter in a large bowl and beat in the vanilla extract and condensed milk.

Place the chocolate squares in a bowl and set it over a pan of barely simmering water. Leave it to melt, remove from the heat and stir with a wooden spoon.

Allow the chocolate to cool and then beat it in, gradually, to the butter mixture. Beat in the icing sugar, a little at a time. When it has all been incorporated you should end up with a soft, dough-like mixture. (I did it in the food processor as its easier than elbow grease)

Line a 20 x 30 cm shallow baking tin with baking parchment paper. Press the mixture into the tin, ensuring that the surface is even. Using the tip of a sharp knife, mark the fudge into about 80 pieces and then place it in the fridge for at least 4 hours to set.

When the fudge has set, use the edges of the paper to lift it from the tin on to a large chopping board and cut it into the marked pieces. Wrap the fudge to give as gifts.

Makes loads to give and sample :-)

** found this one on the Good Food Channel tried another but it was a failure :-( it is a smooth texture not crumbly like some fudge but it tastes great, nice and creamy. Keep it in a cool place though as it has fresh cream in and eat asap!! as if you could resist :-)

Florentines

12 oz of a mixture of the following, leave out what you don't like and add more of what you do :-)
some cherries quartered try to use multicolour ones,(red dark red, yellow and green),

chopped nuts - almonds, macadamia, walnuts, pecans mixed peel finely chopped plus

1 oz chopped angelica if you like
4 oz butter
4 oz caster sugar
2tbsp double cream
4oz plain chocolate (milk if you prefer it) and a little white to drizzle over again of you want to as it looks good

Line several sheets with parchement or greaseproof paper, they spread out a bit, so leave room Oven on Gas 4 or 180 C/350F Melt the butter and add sugar then boil for 1 minute remove from the heat and add everythingelse ( apart from the chocolate) and stir it up
Place small rounds on the sheets squash down to flatten a bit and bake for about 8-10 mins. Neaten them up by pushing in the edges with a knife while they are still warm if they are miss-shaped so that they are round.
Melt the chocolate and dip them in on one side and leave to harden then drizzle with the white chocolate if your doing that bit.
White chocolate takes a bit longer to set so wait before packaging them up.

**taken from an old Mrs Beetons cookbook my nan gave me

Yummy... diet recipes will be needed after New Year!! xx

Christmas Chutney Recipe

Ok so its fast easy and ready to eat with no waiting (it will improve with time though if you want to wait) but its only got a 6 month shelf life...as if it would stay round that long its gorgeous in cheese sandwiches :-) You need to keep it in the fridge when opened. I am a bit of a chuck it in cook so measurements don't happen much in this recipe!! If you want a guide for American weight try this converter but I think you will manage without it ;-)

Ingredients- 3 large cooking (about 2 lb) and 5 eating apples (about 1lb) cored and chopped (don't bother peeling) 2 large onions or 3 medium chopped, 1-2 teaspoons of ginger or an inch of fresh grated/chopped small, 1 teaspoon peppercorns, 1 lb white regular sugar, 1/2 pint white or cider vinegar,

Fruit - either 1 lb fresh cranberries - possibly a slightly sharper result or
1/2 cranberries 1/2 dried dates - sweeter chutney
or dried cranberries soaked in boiling water to plump (drain off water before using) I have added a variety to try,

*If you use dried cranberries it will not have such a pink colour but tastes as good. Put everything but the cranberries in a pan and slowly heat till the sugar has melted the bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer till its thickened and there is no fluid left in the pan. Add the cranberries and cook 10 Min's more till they have softened but not burst apart.

**If using dried fruit put it in at the beginning

Put it into sterilised jars, wrap and use. Don't forget put it in the fridge once its been opened, keeps for 6 months in the pantry unopened.

Hope you like it :-)

Preserves for neighbour gifts

I Christmass'ed up some of the preserves I made in the Autumn to go in gift bags for my neighbours and friends. The ribbons are in fact red but the light makes them look orange :-( Also I made some bag fold over closures for the homemade sweets I made today to go in as well. I just have the biscuits to make and that's my gift baking finished. I hope if the sweets are set to photo them to post here tomorrow. Thanks for looking :-)
xx