Friday night challenge

I hope everyone has had a good weekend, as we come to the end of it. The weather here in Christchurch has been really lovely over the past few days. Just maybe we will get a decent summer this year. Fingers crossed!

After work today I remembered the S.E Friday night challenge was due so decided to sit down and have a go. The challenge involved doing a layout, card or OTP including the colour pink, ribbon/felt or fabric and black pen. This is what I came up with. I wanted to do something special with this great photo for my Nana. This challenge was perfect! I altered a chipboard frame with Basic grey blush papers, added some Heidi Swapp letters, some bling, doodling and ribbon and voila! I have attached a magnet strip to the back so my Nana can put in on her fridge. It has inspired me to make one for my Mum and myself.

Anyhow, I better buzz. We rented "The History Boys" and "Catch and Release" on DVD so better go and watch them and indulge in a slice of leftover Lemon Meringue pie from last night.

Have a great week! Ciao.

Yay, it's the weekend...

Well that's the end of yet another week. Roll on the weekend! Time certainly has been flying along, can you believe it's October 1st on Monday! Also daylight savings changes over tomorrow night. That is a change that I am happy with, I can't wait for warmer lighter evenings. We bought some bikes late last summer and really didn't get much chance to ride them as it got cold and dark pretty quick. As I work Sundays there hasn't been much chance over the weekends to ride. The lighter evenings will hopefully mean we will get our daily dose off fresh air and some quality together time. It's just so easy to zone out in front of the telly on cold winter night.

Anyhow on to other topics, here are a few more items I have been working on this week. I love how the door hangers turned out, so bright! The canvas is the inspiration of a customer at work, she makes a similar version and I couldn't resist scrap lifting the idea for myself. This one I made for my sister's bedroom. I have created a set of three blue ones for our own bedroom but I will photograph them when the sun is out.

A nice lazy weekend is planned, hopefully a walk or bike ride tomorrow morning then the usual coffee somewhere. Tomorrow night we are having a few friends over, it feels as though we haven't caught up with them in ages. We got the Cranium board game for Christmas so thought it was about time we had a game with friends. So tomorrow night Craig is making his excellent Chilli con carne, and we are having a Mexican themed meal with margaritas. If I remember to take any photos, I will share in the next post. We have only played the game once on Christmas day and it was a hoot! So I'm sure it was be a great night, especially with a jug of margaritas thrown in.

Over at Scrapbook Essentials , they are running a weekend challenge and I hope to get that done. Check it out if you have a spare moment to indulge in some creating over the weekend. Also this weekend heralds the end of this months Kiwi Jack me up and Neen's Music in me fortnightly challenge. It will be great to have two more challenges to complete.

The Music in me....

Here is my take on Neen's Music in me challenge . The song was "The real thing" by Gwen Stefani, so I decided to use this family picnic photo and make family my focus. I really love the colours, I don't typically use or like orange but I have used it on a few items this week. Fun to step out of the box. I can't wait to see what the next song is. I'm really enjoying doing these challenges, so thanks Neen for a brilliant blog.

I have been working on a few other things but as they are gifts I will have to wait till next week to post pictures. Heres a look at another layout I have just completed about my Mum's love of taking pictures, she hardly ever appears in photos because she is always behind the lens! hehe Pity I can't talk her in to scrapbooking , maybe one day when life for her gets a little less hectic. In the meantime I can make the most of having some great photos to work with.

Anyhoo that's about it for me, I shall head back to creating.

Lemon Meringue Cake

Here's the recipe for this great cake I made my sister for her birthday. I've had a few requests for the recipe. It sounds like a hassle but I can't honestly say it's worth the effort. It origanally came from a recipe by Julie Le Clerc but I have changed the cake recipe to a denser, easier to prepare cake and don't make swiss meringue just the usual stuff. I loved the original recipe but am not into making extra work for myself when it really doesn't change the result much.

Lemon curd

4 large egg yolks (save whites for meringue)
2 large eggs
¾ cup caster sugar
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
½ cup of lemon juice
125g butter, roughly chopped

Whisk the egg yolks and eggs and place in a heavy based saucepan with remaining ingredients. Place over low heat, stirring constantly for 10 minutes or until the mixture thickly coats the back of a spoon. Remove to cool.

Extra note: This lemon curd is fabulous on nice hot toast if you have any left over!

Easy lemon cake

100g softened butter
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
Zest of 2 large lemons
Juice of 1 lemon
1 ¾ cup of flour
1 ½ tsp of baking powder
1 ½ cups of milk

Preheat oven to 180C or lower if it’s a fan oven. Grease and line a 20cm loose-bottom cake tin. In a large bowl cream the butter and the sugar till light in colour. Add the eggs one at a time beating well between each egg. Add the lemon juice and zest and mix through. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into the wet mix. Add the milk and mix to combine. Pour the mix into the prepared tin and bake for at least 50mins. It is ready when a skewer comes out clean. When the cake has cooled slice it carefully into 3-4 layers with a serrated knife. Spread each of the layers with the cooled lemon curd and place the cake layers back together. Leave the cake covered in the fridge for 30 minutes to set. Transfer the cake to an oven tray and cover the cake with the meringue, make decorative swirls over it and bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 5 minutes watching carefully until meringue has just browned around the edges. This cake will last in the fridge for 3-4 days if someone doesn’t eat it first. J

Meringue

4 egg whites (saved from lemon curd)
1 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence

Beat the egg whites in a clean dry bowl with clean egg beaters until it gets stiff. Start to spoon in caster sugar spoonful by spoonful whilst continuing to beat egg whites. Add vanilla essence and continue beating egg whites till white, stiff and glossy.

Pay it foward....

As I said in an earlier post, I was lucky enough to be chosen for one of Janine's (angelgurl) "Pay it forward draws. The deal was that I had to pay it forward to 3 people. I could either send them a homemade or bought gift, then they in turn would pay it forward. My way of choosing was to take all of the names that had left a comment on my blog over the past week and pull out 3 names.

So a big drum roll please.........

Congratulations to.......

1. Beverley

2. Neen

3. Ness

I will be sending out a wee something to each of you. Do bear with me though, it may take a few days to get myself organised. Also HUGE thanks to all of you other lovely ladies for leaving such nice comments on my blog, I really do appreciate your kind words!

All day crop

Yesterday I spent the whole day scrapbooking. From morning till night we scrapbooked, I must say it's the longest time I have spent creating in one stretch and I was knackered by last night.

I did however get my version on Neen's challenge at her fab new blog " The music in me" done. This is a very cool site with fortnightly challenges based around music. I urge you to give a challenge a go if you have time. I added a layer of vellum over the entire layout then added the photos, I liked the feeling of frost it gave. I can't wait to see whats next.

Here is another layout that I really love. I used some really nice new Daisy D papers. They seem to always come out with such different and interesting papers. On this layout I made the photo open up and behind it I have written about some of the special things that Craig does for me that makes our marriage better.

We also worked on some brilliant recipes pages, we each supplied one recipe and shared them. A great 6x9 album for keeping our yummy recipes in.

It's inspired me to add great recipes to my blog from time to time. I have had some nice comments about the Raisin, oat and cinnamon cookies. For those who haven't tried them they are a must! :)

Raisen Oat Cinnamon Cookies

I thought I would share one of my favourite biscuit recipes. I've just made a batch and they smell great! They never last long around our place, I do suggest you try them.

Raisin Oat Cinnamon Cookies

125g softened butter
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup of plain flour
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 ½ cups rolled oats
¾ cup raisins

Preheat oven to 180C. In a bowl cream the butter and the sugars together till pale. Add the egg and vanilla and beat together. Mix together all of the dry ingredients and mix into creamed mixture. Roll dessertspoon amounts of mixture into balls and place on a greased oven tray, flatten with a fork. Bake biscuits for 10 – 12 minutes or until golden brown.
Makes 30 biscuits

Kiwi jack me up entry

Here is my jack of this months Kiwi jack-me-up layout. I took these great pics of my sister while we were visiting them last weekend and just had to capture the love between her and her puppy Oscar. I really enjoyed stepping out of my usual colour schemes, the red and brown are great together but I would never usually use them. I can't wait to see what the next jack will be!

Road Trip and Pay it forward

Yesterday we thought we would take a road trip up to Kaikoura for the day. My sister and her fiance rented a holiday home for a long weekend and we thought we would head up to visit. The weather was stunning as we drove along the coastline, it makes you remember how beautiful our country is! We spent the afternoon out on the deck in the sun, then after lunch and a relaxed walk around the shops we made the most of the spa pool. Oscar the dog enjoyed the company, we can't believe how big he is getting. After a fabulous day we headed home, both thoroughly relaxed!

In other news I was lucky enough to be drawn for Janine's (angelgurl) "Pay it forward" draw, so now I get to pay it forward to some people who read my blog.

So.. here’s the idea…I will send a gift (something handmade or something bought) to 3 random people who leave a comment on my blog. If I draw your name then all I ask is that you pay it forward to someone by doing of giving something nice to someone. It's always nice to fill the world with just a little more love!!

If you think this is cool, leave a comment on my blog and on Sunday 16th I will randomly draw 3 names and post you some goodies.

Till next time ciao!

Well it's been awhile again since my blog has been updated, I just haven't had much to talk about. Here's a run down of the past few weeks.

Firstly spring has sprung in this part of the country. The weather apart from a wee cold snap earlier in the week has been pretty nice.

Also today I my younger sister's birthday, I made her a Lemon Meringue cake (her favourite). It's a lemon sponge cake layered with lemon curd then smoothered in Meringue. I also created a really cool mini album for pictures of her new puppy. I will add photos later :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

to Vanessa!