Catching up on christmas

Just a couple of photos from christmas (sorry if I have already shown you) This is the reindeer my dad made to greet everyone on christmas day. Now you may already know reindeer are my favourite animal so this was a fantastic surprise!

Isn't he fantastic!

I found these lovely little playmobil figures in my stocking (they came all the way from Denmark!)

This is the lovely handmade stocking and Manny found this on etsy and it travelled from Canada!

Mini egg cake and pancakes

This is a birthday cake I made for my boss for her birthday. Just a simple chocolate cake, chocolate butter cream and lots of mini-eggs!!

I am a little late with these but I also have a few pancake shots for you. We had our pancakes after a roast, so only wanted them a pudding. I made little scotch pancakes in my new one-egg pan (I love it!)

They turned out really well and puffed up to be light and fluffy. I havent had much luck in the past with pancakes so I was really pleased with them.

Quilt cover to cushion covers and elmer blanket

This might be my favourite blanket I have made yet! I used a fabric sample book for the front and an old hospital sheet for the back! Very cheap to make and I love the elmer the elephant type look to it!

 I made all these cushion covers from quilt covers that I have collected from car boots and charity shops - the first one (with orange flowers) is my favourite. I bought this quilt years ago and haven't had the courage to cut it up yet, I tried to put it on my quilt but it was a really funny shape so I finally took the plunge and cut it, I love the result!

Hope you have had a good weekend, I have been working on another blanket and spent Saturday with my sister making valentines t-shirts!

A few holiday pictures

Just some photos for you today, have a good weekend x

Home-made pop tarts, pretzel sticks and a lovely blog friend

Look at the lovely parcel that arrived for me - I took part in prudence puddleducks's guess who post, and after some digging around I guess right! This little gift popped through my door soon after! Thank you so much

At the weekend we had people over for the superbowl so there were many things being cooked (forgot to photo them all!) Here were the first things - pretzel sticks. Recipe here I have only just found a beautiful mess and now I am hooked - it is a lovely blog - go and have a visit.

They didn't brown very much but they tasted delicious!

I also made pop tarts - again I am not a fan of measuring pastry for hours so I made mini round pop tarts. I did 2 fillings, chocolate and marshmallow and cinnamon. They were really nice, something I will be doing again. Recipe here

Did you do anything for the superbowl?

Red velvet smores recipe

I keep forgetting to give you all the recipe I used for my smores so here it is!

First of all I made the marshmallow - for this I followed this recipe I made them the night before and stored them in an air-tight container. I had way to many and the rest kept for about a week after.

For the red velvet graham crackers I used this recipe as I didn't have any buttermilk I just used mile (semi-skimmed) and they turned out fine! I also used a cookie cutter to shape mine as all the measuring to make perfect rectangles seemed like a lot of extra work - when I could just make them round! I also chose to use a small star cutter to cut a shape out of the middle of the top cracker of the cookie - I really love seeing the marshmallow poke through.

Then came piecing it all together. I first melted some chocolate and coated each side of the graham cracker. Then I roasted the marshmallows (in truth they were put under the grill in the oven until gooey, but roasting them on a camp fire would have been more fun) then all you do is squidge it all together! 

Enjoy - let me know if you make any - share your pictures too x

(sorry for the blurred picture, I wanted to include some photos I hadn't already shown you!)

American bake off!

As promised here are all the entrants, above are my smores.

Peanut butter and jelly cupcakes

Chocolate cake

Apple and cheese cake

Oreo cheesecake

The table was very full! We had an amazing time - but all left feeling very full!!