It's a beautiful sunny winter's day here in Sydney. Just thought I'd share a photo from this morning's activities.
Taken from the headland between Curl Curl and Freshwater beaches. Looking towards Manly beach.
We walked between the two beaches this morning, then had morning tea/coffee at the cafe at the South Curl Curl Beach SLSC. Gorgeous location right on the beach.
Hope you're having a great day.
Cheers
Fiona x
June sees the start of birthday month in our house. Both Phoebe and I have June birthdays, my niece and a few friends also celebrate during this month. But for some reason Phoebe's birthday celebrations seem to last the whole month... (usually overshadowing my birthday completely).
On the weekend we took Phoebe and a few friends to the Sydney Observatory for her birthday celebration. She wanted to go to the Observatory last year, but we left it all too late to arrange, so this year we started early. Just as well, as we couldn't get in next weekend as planned (that's the Observatory's 150th birthday and there's big things planned there) so we had to go a week early for Phoebe's birthday.
We arrived at Observatory Hill early, and the girls had fun running around the rotunda. They watched a bridal party have their photos taken, then the girls insisted the bride and groom kiss, which they willingly obliged.
I tried to take some creative photos, but without my tripod, they didn't really work out. Here's one of the better ones.
The view from the rotunda was beautiful looking north over the harbour to the Harbour Bridge and Luna Park.
The Observatory was great. We looked through two big telescopes including the large one in the domed roof. The most amazing thing we saw was Saturn, we could actually see the rings around the planet. Quite amazing.
After the visit to the Observatory, it was back home for the Starry-Starry night pinata cake. We saw this cake being made several weeks ago on Better Homes and Gardens. Phoebe loved it when she saw it and ordered one (from mum) for her birthday.
Armed with wooden spoons the girls had to smash their way through the chocolate outer shell to reach the cupcakes and lollies hiding underneath.
Phoebe and I made little starry time capsules for the lolly bags. We found the plastic containers at Reverse Garbage. We then wrapped a strip of Scenic Route paper around each container, added a scalloped punched oval shape, a star shape (with doodling) and a Maya Road chipboard letter to finish.
I just have to say I love my new Marvy Uchida scalloped punches. After searching here in Australia for them, and not being able to find them, I finally bought several from Papertrey Ink in the US recently.
That's about all for now. Thanks for visiting!
Cheers
Fiona x
We've all been a bit under the weather around our house over the last week. We're feeling better this week, thankfully.
Some non-crafting news: A friend of ours has started embracing life in the slow lane and has started a blog to reflect on his finds. Take a look at the Slow Lane blog.
And there's just a few things to share from me from the past week.
Made this little fabric bookmark as part of a present for Phoebe's friend last weekend. It is inspired by a a m s' work over on flickr, here are some of her bookmarks. My bookmark is more "rustic", shall we say, and could be a good one for the kids to make - hand stitch the felt monogram to the fabric and straight machine stitching around the edge.
A quick card I made last week....
I've been back at school this morning playing working with Phoebe. It is Education Day. My tasks were to paint the sun and make a find-a-word. Loved sitting with the kids painting and chatting.
That's about all, short and sweet today.
Thanks for visiting.
Cheers
Fiona x
Yesterday was the big day....
Paul, my DH, turned 50. It's a big number, but he coped very well :-))
We had a busy day, lots of running around, but we managed to celebrate in between the busy parts. The girls cooked bacon and egg rolls for breaky. The carrot cupcakes were iced with a cream cheese and ricotta icing, and were really, really yummy. We fitted in a netball game and a basketball game, and a few other committments. We had drinks at friends and then we went to dinner at China Doll on Woolloomooloo Wharf.
It was a good day.
And today was Mothers' Day. A lovely day was had here with my gorgeous girls. Breakfast in bed. Watching Phoebe's fabo soccer game. Phoebe made Chocolate Kisses for afternoon tea (recipe from Better Homes and Gardens). Visiting my mum and dad. And dinner cooked by the girls Paul.
Bring on Monday so we can all have a rest!!!
Happy Mother's Day to all the mums out there.
Fiona x
We have a very important birthday in our family this weekend. After subtle (and not so subtle) questions from the girls as to the type of cake that would be enjoyed by this birthday person, it was decided that carrot cake would be well received.
So here I am cooking today. We are running out of time to prepare the cakes, and tomorrow (THE birthday) is already full with sporting matches and plays, so I thought I'd make the cakes today, so the girls can decorate in the morning.
Something occurred to me this morning as I was enjoying my cooking - BY MYSELF. One of the very few negatives of having children (apart from the cost of running them) is that you create cake spoon and bowl licking competitors. I love licking the spoon, the bowl and anything else that has a dollop of uncooked cake mixture. But these days I rarely get to indulge in this pleasure. I have little people who, as soon as they hear the cake tin going into the oven, suddenly appear in the kitchen. And that's if they weren't already there, "helping" with the actual cooking.
Today I was able to enjoy a little bit of cake mixture, uncooked, by myself. And this mixture in particular was delicious and rich uncooked.
Here's the first batch out of the oven. The mixture was huge. I've made 28 muffin sized carrot cupcakes from this recipe. Looks like there'll be some left over for Mother's Day on Sunday :-))
The recipe I used is the Church Picnic Carrot Cupcakes (page 49) from the Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook. Great book, full of beautiful ideas for cupcakes.
OK, I've finished my cup of tea, better keep going, I've got a mini book to work on and some ribbon orders to pack. I'll share some photos of the finished cakes when the girls have worked their magic on them tomorrow.
Have a great weekend everyone.
Cheers
Fiona x
I haven't shared the new love in my life. I never thought I'd be so smitten with a kitchen appliance, but I am. I love this machine. My gorgeous family bought me a KitchenAid for Christmas. The hard thing was choosing a colour. If you know about KitchenAids, you'll know their appliances are available in a fantastic range of colours.
When I went to the store to order my machine, I still hadn't decided on a colour. I had narrowed it down to either white or pink. The Gemini twins in me were having a huge tug of war in my head. The practical twin was saying get the WHITE, it'll go with everything. The other completely non-practical twin was whispering get the PINK, you really want the pink, who cares if it doesn't go with the blue kitchen! The shop assistant was on the phone ready to order the machine, asking me which colour. PINK came out of my mouth in reply, and so a pink KitchenAid was ordered.
It certainly looks best with pink icing...
Phoebe's basketball team is called the Hotcakes. We had the team BBQ a couple of weeks ago and Phoebe and I made pink Hotcakes cupcakes to take. I iced the cakes this time with a piping bag and really loved the effect.
We added a little pink surprise in the cakes before cooking them. With the cake mixture in the patty pans (with pink cupcake papers), a small amount of pink food colouring was swirled through each cake. We did this with a tooth pick dipped in the food colouring.
Make sure you swirl the tooth pick deep into the cake, and not just on the surface.
Here are the cakes cooked with their pretty pink swirls.
Once cooked, cooled and the cakes are iced, the pink swirl will only be revealed once you bite into the cake. This is a bit of a cheats way of making marble cupcakes.
Last week, the Hotcakes won their basketball gala day. Another trophy for the trophy cabinet! Another pink moment...
Hope you're all having a great week. Thanks for visiting.
Fiona
x
I'm moving away from Easter craft projects for one post. This is an Easter cooking project.
Easter Egg {surprise} Cupcakes
Make your cupcake mixture. Place mixture into cupcake tins.
Place a small solid chocolate Easter egg in the middle. You do not have to cover the egg with mixture.
Bake. As the cupcakes rise in the cooking process, they cover the chocolate egg. Here is a photo taken from oven cam about half way through the cooking time.
Now while I was waiting for the cupcakes to cook I thought I'd take some photos of my other cupcakes baked by Bacio Beads, Lovelinks and Bijoux.
Here's the baked cupcakes, and the chocolate eggs are now safely hidden inside the cupcakes.
Decorate the cupcakes with icing and eggs or little fluffy chicks (just make sure you remove the fluffy chick from the cake before taking a bite.) And when the cupcakes are being eaten a nice chocolate eggy surprise will be discovered inside each one.
Emily had some friends from her new high school over on the weekend, and they decorated cupcakes for afternoon tea.
I must thank Mel, who sent me the gorgeous Easter egg patty papers which you can probably just see in the photos. They were so gorgeous and made our cupcakes very special!
And make sure you visit Mel's blog, she has some more Easter crafting ideas over there. I love the Easter bunting she's made, very clever.
And lastly for this post, thank you to everyone who has been visiting during the last few weeks, and for all the links back to my Easter crafting posts. I really do appreciate the fact that people are reading.
I was asked by Georgie in a comment if my Easter ribbon is for sale over at Ribbons Galore. No, it's not and I only have a small amount of the three Easter ribbons (the carrots, the eggs and the Easter bunny which Mel used in the bunting). So if you'd like to win some, leave me a comment and I'll choose a few winners.
Till next time.
Cheers
Fiona
So school's out and we are finally on school holidays. Lots of end of school stuff went on last week, but it all seems a long time ago now, and we are finally getting into the Christmas spirit.
Today I was at the fish and fruit markets at 7.30am buying the salmon and prawns and salads and fruit for tomorrow. With that all finished by 8.30am, it left a pretty long day ahead of us. So the girls and I caught up with friends, jumped on a bus into the city with the main aim of visiting the David Jones Christmas display windows.
It became a fun festive adventure, wandering through the busy city. Here are some photos from our day.
Martin Place Christmas tree:
Martin Place is looking very festive with the stars and banners:
Pitt Street Mall had these groovy Christmas trees:
Bush firemen:
The bush fire service Santa was also found in Pitt Street Mall:
Free Hugs man.... (if you don't know about him, see HERE):
We did make it to David Jones. The window story this year was The Nutcracker:
Beer Bottle Busker (see him HERE, but today he was playing Christmas songs outside St James Station):
Lindt Cafe (a trip to the city is not complete without a stop here):
The girls decided to try their luck at busking in York Street while waiting for the bus home. They sang the same Christmas song over and over and collected $2.15 between them.
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I'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy, prosperous and healthy new year.
Thank you for visiting my blog this year. I look forward to bringing you more craft and scrapbooking ideas and classes in 2008.
Enjoy the holiday season.
Until 2008
Cheers
Fiona
x
Thank you ladies for sharing your Christmas traditions in my last post. I've loved reading what everyone does for Christmas... there are lots of different festive activities, but we all seem to enjoy this time with family and friends.
Not a lot to share from me this time. I've been making these little Christmas cards with Maya Road ribbon and felt, sewn onto small cards.
I had a couple of projects in the latest Scrapbooking Memories. First one is the layout below using Piggy Tales papers, Maya Road sheer letters and Autumn Leaves stamps.
The second project in SM was a card using Urban Lily Oh So Merry paper and a stamp from Autumn Leaves.
The gingerbread for the gingerbread houses has been made. I did share my recipe last year... Robyn S who left me a comment reminded me of this fact. Thanks Robyn. The recipe can be found HERE, along with the icing to hold the house together. The Nordicware Gingerbread House Mold which I use to make the pieces for the house can be found at Alfresco Emporium.
Now, onto the RAK winners of the little Maya Road people keychains (drawn randomly, in no particular order)....
Trace G: "My favorite tradition is driving an hour and a half to go find the perfect Christmas tree and then cut it down ourselves. The day also includes a sleigh ride, hot chocolate, and some cookies. Those reindeer are beyond adorable.
Happy holidays"
Julia: "My favourite tradition is decorating our Christmas tree while watching Carols by Candlelight and all singing along at the top of our voices."
Robyn S: "I love everything about Christmas. I now make gingerbread thanks to your gingerbread recipe you posted last year. This is a tradition I am starting. Thank you, love you blog."
Yvette: "Our favourite tradition is having the kid's photo taken with Santa. Not such a big deal, except the *children* involved are now 23, 20 and nearly 17! We are off to see the big fella tomorrow night and the kids are so excited!"
Thanks again to everyone who left me a comment.
Hope you're all having a festive week.
Thanks for visiting.
Cheers
Fiona
x
Emily's year 6 graduation dinner was held the other night. A lot of work went into the coordination of this night. There was a decorating committee, a food committee, a 'security' committee and even a cupcake committee. The school hall was transformed into a fabulous venue for the kids. The theme of the evening was 'Reach for the Stars', so we did out best to make it as starry as possible. Here's the hall when we'd finished decorating...
I made the centre pieces for the tables. They were terracotta pots painted black with silver glitter on them. The pots were filled with sand to hold the mini balloons, then black crepe paper was crumpled on the top to hide the sand.
The cupcakes looked fantastic. Fondant starry shapes were placed on top of the iced cakes.
Emily looked beautiful. She was soooo excited about the evening.
All the kids had a fantastic night. Their only complaint... their evening was too short. I think they could have kept dancing for another couple of hours!
With the graduation dinner behind us now, it's time to relax... not. Christmas shopping was officially started on Tuesday, still quite a bit to do there. And we still have to make our gingerbread houses, which I'll be starting very soon.
I made these ribbon baubles yesterday for a few friends. They are clear plastic baubles which I found in my local art store (and have also seen them at Spotlight). I've bought them in past years and filled them with lollies for kids Christmas gifts, but this year I thought they'd look pretty with ribbon in them. There's also a sneak of some new ribbons coming the Ribbons Galore very soon.
Our latest design team project for Maya Road was to create a winter project. I don't really have many snowy photos in my album (in fact I only have a few photos of snow from my Europe trip in the 1990's). So I used the Maya Road Sheer Snowflake album to create these little guys: They'll be back later in 2008 after their publication.
The backs were covered with Urban Lily Oh So Merry papers and stamped with the new Maya Road Postcard clear stamps.
I have written out the instructions to create these little guys for your personal use: ETA: the instructions have been removed as the reindeers have been accected for publication.
Download fiona carters reindeer decorations.pdf (US letter size format)
Download fiona carters reindeer decorations.pdf (A4 size format)
And lastly, I think we have enough time for a very quick RAK before Christmas. I have some of these little sets from Maya Road which I'd like to send you.
Leave a comment before Sunday telling me your favourite holiday tradition (or just leave your name in a comment), and I'll put the names in a hat and pick a few out.
That's about all for this week. Hope you're all having a great week.
Bye for now.
Fiona
x
