Having a Break

Well fellow bloggers I off for a well deserved break with my daughter. We are going on our annual pilgrimage to Norfolk to visit the folks. Sadly hubby and son have to work so we'll be leaving them behind (the bit I hate) to fend for themselves for a couple of weeks.

We have loads off stuff planned so when I'm back hold on to your hats because there will be lots to tell.

Congratulations Card

I recently bought a Papermania Lucy Cromwell Card Kit set which I saw whilst out shopping for Scrapbooking bits. I thought it was lovely and such a mix of lovely images, from the gardening bits to frocks and perfume, I just had to buy it . The paper quality was excellent and the decoupage images so easy to remove from the sheets.  

I have made a few of the decoupage pieces up but as yet have only made one complete card and here it is below. I thought the image ideal as a congrats  card. When I have completed a few more cards I'll put them on the blog too 

 I used a simple scalloped edged card then added a base sheet of floral paper with a faded rose design, which I cut to leave a small white edge to the card.  I then added a strip of pink ribbon at the base of the card into which I had twisted a paper rose in the same tonal shades as the roses in the main image. 

I mounted the decoupaged image of the rose in the tea pot on a piece of coordinating pink shimmer paper and then placed this on the card just about the ribbon. I completed the card with the addition of sentiment from the card kit. 

I was very pleased with the end result I just haope the other cards turn out as well.  

 

Summer pages

Some more pages for my daughter's scrapbook These photos were all taken when she was about 3-5 years of ages. This was the time/age for taking loads of shots because at that age kids don't seem to mind being caught on camera. Its only later when they get older they hate pictures and as soon as a camera is put in front of them they start worry about how they look or they do stupid faces or even worse they walk away.

As these photos show little was thought of poses or how they looked and as a consequence they look great.The first one Mucky pup I think is great the face is so cheeky and full of mischief. I just which I could recall what they had been doing   
 

What they have been up to lord only knows but I'm sure it was fun

I had fun with this page got to splash some paint about and be a bit mucky I also added some bunting my favourite thing at the moment. I also used some leaves I had in my bits box to add colour.

  

Summer fun on her bike

In this photos she looks so matter of fact I'm sure its about the time we took of the bike stabilizers then there was no stopping her 
For this I used various oddments of paper plus some ribbon. The design is simple but I think it works.
 

The safest place for her ha ha

This picture was taken when we bought Bry her first pet a rabbit she named Velvet. You'll see more pictures later. In this picture shes is testing the cage we created to give the rabbit a chance to have a run. She looks so serious it makes me smile 

   

For this page I used basic black grey card over which I splatted white paint plus added some edging in white.I then used some Stampin up paper which I thought looked very much like a cage/wire pattern.I added this to the left of the page making it cover horizontally approximately half the page  

Vertically across the page I added  an adhesive border pattern I think its a K&Co one but I'm not sure. I then had scraps of card from packs of letters which I thought was rather nice. I then stamped over these pieces with some distress inks. I tore all the pieces of card into strips and layered them up horizontally on the page. I then mounted the photo on another piece of the scrap card stamping along one edge which I had torn and distressed.

I then added the photo to the page so its a little off centre Finally I added the title, subtitle and a few bits of journalling.

I hope you like them all       .

Pie of Pies

My hubby recently bought himself the Hairy Bikers Perfect Pies book and has been desperate to give on of their recipes a try so yesterday he decided he was giving on e of the recipes a go, After much deliberation he decided upon the Scotch Egg Pie. As we did not have a pie plate we had to amend the recipe slightly and used a pie dish. I'm sure if you want you could find this recipe on line, but just in case here it is  with minor modifications

Ingredients

1 1/2 block of Ready made short crust pastry  (bikers make their own pastry)
6 Eggs hard boiled
500g Sausage meat or sausages
100g fresh bread crumbs 
Black pepper

The ingredients

 Method

Pre heat oven to 200 C or Gas Mark6

Boil eggs

Mix bread crumbs thoroughly with sausage meat 

Divide pastry into two portions one for base one for lid of the pie. Roll out pastry for the base and place in pie dish/plate

Then add about half of the sausage meat make hollows for eggs and then place eggs into pie

 

Then put remainder of sausage meat into pie 

Roll out pasty for the pie lid Carefully place over pie and crimp edges of the pastry to secure the lid 

Use left over pastry to decorate pie We used hearts but leaves or something else might be appropriate    Brush over with beaten egg to give a golden crust 

Place in oven and cook for between 45 - 55 minutes
 

The finished pie

This pie can be eaten hot or cold both equally delicious.It would make a great picnic dish or for the buffet table. Why don't you try it and see what you think. I know one thing the Hairy Bikers pie book is going to see a lot of service in our house.

I also made a quick apple pie  to take round to family the following day

Busy Times

Life in the last few days has been really hectic. The beginning of the week began quite slowly but come Wednesday and it felt as if we were all caught up on some huge fast moving conveyer belt. Wednesday we were rudely awaken at 8 o'clock by the carpet fitter who wanted to arrive in 30 minutes to fit the stair and landing carpets. Not too early I hear you cry, but when you'd planned on him arriving at 10.30 and you'd hope to have a bit of a  a lie in it was awful. Anyway having been advised that the carpet would take only half a day to fit we were a little surprised to find the guy still working away at gone 3 o'clock. It wasn't the fitters fault it was the guy who had assessed the job he'd apparently not felt the job was very technical, but it was. Carpet looks fabulous though. 

Anyway getting back to the point,  as soon as the fitter left we had to leave and drive down to Plymouth and due to the time in had taken to fit the carpet we were late. We arrived in Plymouth well after 8 o'clock hungry and a little irritable if truth be told. We did have a great meal, though as we were so late we were the last folks in the restaurant  The following day my daughter and I spent shopping, having coffee and lovely cream teas in various venues in Plymouth whilst poor old hubby had to attend some awful training course. So that was great. trouble was we then had to drive home in the afternoon and we met every traffic jam imaginable 

Friday was spent charging about sorting stuff out for the weekend and Saturday and Sunday worst days of all were spent moving my daughter from one student house to the next. Talk about hard hot work, struggling up and down stairs all day with boxes of books,, furniture, clothes, bedlinen etc. Mind you Leeds looked as if everyone was on the move so you did feel you were not alone. Everywhere you looked there were students with loaded cars and vans moving furniture etc and at one time we saw two young girls struggling down the road with a double bed mattress between them. I just wish I'd had my camera. I expect my daughter will feature her new room on her blog later when its finally sorted out.

In her old place just prior to moving out

Today I'm resting having taken the van back at 8.30 this morning to the hire folks.              

Red is the Colour

Here are another two pages, yes two pages, of my daughters scrapbook that I have managed to get done in the last few days. This is  despite all the other stuff I have had to do in the past two weeks, finishing off moving all the furniture having redecorated our hall and landings, preparing all the bits for my daughters house move in Leeds and loads of gardening. Oh yes and going on a Cupcake decorating course. Well I do love to be busy its fun. I'm also going to Plymouth for a couple of days this week prior to  going to Leeds for the big house move. 

Well here are the two pages, she likes them thank goodness particularly the school page as I incorporated her school uniform colour and daisy emblem on the page.

Bryony with her brother

Ribbon bunting I tacked on using staples I like this look

The second page is of  the Revels which is our local fair we have each year and all the school enter floats etc This year we had entered a float based on the Addams Family. I had actually designed and created the float along with a group of helpers it was great fun ,we won the cup and even appeared in  the local newspapers
   
Bryony so wanted to be involved even though they she and her brother were not allowed on the float itself as it was only the year six children allowed this privilege. Bryony went as Morticia Addams and Toby as a vampire count.  I can tell you it took ages to make their costumes and Bryony's wig which I made from a black dustbin bag was fab but really tricky to make and I understand hot to wear.

I pleased with both pages, but what do you all think?

Cup Cake Crazy

Yesterday my daughter and I went on a cupcake decorating course which was great fun, messy but fun. As it was all about the cake decoration we had to make our cup cakes the previous day, ready for decorating the following day. I made standard vanilla cup cakes ( I know boring)  and my daughter make some chocolate ones. You will see below I have given the standard recipe for the cup cakes but if you want the chocolate ones you merely have to add 4 tbsp Cocoa Powder and 1 tbsp Natural Yogurt to the basic recipe.

Ingredients 

200 g Plain Flour
2tsp Baking Powder
200g Caster Sugar
100g Unsalted Butter
3 Eggs
150ml Milk
1tsp Vanilla Extract.  
   

Method

Pre heat oven to 180C, 350F or Gas mark 4

Place flour, baking powder, caster sugar and butter into mixing bowl and mix to create a mix like fine bread crumbs 

Mix eggs, milk and vanilla extract together then add gradually to the dry ingredients mix thoroughly to make a smooth batter.

Place mixture into bun cases. Do not over fill cases, its best to fill only about half to two thirds of the way   

Bake in oven for approx 20 - 25 minutes check to make sure cook by pressing top if it springs back they are cooked. 

Vanilla ones above chocolate below

Now we had the cupcakes we only had to decorate them. Here is what we did with the above basic cupcakes 

We made a cookie monster

Pale pink moulded rose

Violet rose hand crafted

White Rose

 I was very pleased with the finished results and the techniques we learned. I think the Rose idea will definitely see action again next Valentines Day, if not before.