A Winter Tea Party

On discovering that the winter festivals in Quebec and Ottawa were finished and we couldn't go, Z1 was rather upset and I, on the spur of the moment, proposed that we have a winter tea party. I suggested she invite two friends and that we could have cupcakes with blue sprinkles. I sent the invitation emails to the parents before I could back out of it, what with her birthday party coming up and the house never being as organised as I'd like.

Blue sugar

Glazed, cracked, beautiful

Blue sprinkles seemed hard to come by in my usual range of shops (or at least not in reasonable quantities at a reasonable price) so I Googled and found you can just add blue food dye to sugar. Hurrah. I then went on over to Pinterest and found that you can apparently make "edible glitter" by putting dyed sugar in the oven for 10 minutes. Z1 didn't seem too excited about this but I was. However, it didn't really turn much sparklier than the simple sugar + food dye combination. It did change the colour a little to a more turquoise/greenish hue and it also produced a beautiful glazed, cracked mess on my baking tray.

I baked some cupcakes and the Zeds helped by licking the beaters after I had finished (I know about raw eggs and salmonella - we had a lucky escape this time - one of many, many lucky escapes from the perils of post-cake-mixing  bowl and spoon licking). Some were chocolate, some were vanilla. I wisely decided to start icing them just when the Zeds were due to go to bed. Husband got them up to brush their teeth while I squiggled and swirled. I lovingly took photos knowing that they were to be destroyed decorated by the Zeds in the morning. All in all, it was a success  - I got to try new things like the ribbony icing tip that came in a 4 pack of icing tips and also making blue sugar. Z1 had her friends over and got to run around screaming a bit. I got to have my friend over too (one of the mums stayed  - yay!) and there were even leftover cakes to bring into work on Monday. Maybe next year we'll go to Quebec or Ottawa for the winter festivals but our Winter Tea Party was fine for this year.

 

Le Conquering of Les Crafts en France

 In the middle of August, me and the Zeds left work and school as usual one day and were driven by Husband to the airport. We took a 'plane to Paris, took a train to a town near our top-secret holiday hideaway and were collected by my venerable father and magnificent mother to be transported to the peaceful and green place in the picture. With multiple adults to watch the various children, warm sunshine, countryside and not much else, the pace of crafts here was considerably more relaxed than the 21 days of Christmas Conquering Crafts that started this blog.  In fact, though I was prepared to do more, we only really made a fairy house.




This was a scheme that I was rather more excited about than Z1 was. I thought we could do a stick collecting expedition as phase one with construction belonging to phase two but the phases merged. Z2 was good at stick-collecting but had to be persuaded to relinquish them as building materials as he likes to use them to fight bad guys.  The paint on the stones was from an outdoor painting project (painting sticks, in fact, using the stones as a palette for the paints) that Z1 did under my dad's supervision but they doubled up as good walls for the house.Interestingly, Z1 confirmed that she saw some items of fairy furniture, including a sofa made out of teeth, one morning when she checked the house. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a photo of this but it is, surely, a sign that the fairy house was most successful even if it didn't quite look like these .

Other relevant information:

• I did make the paper houses from this post with one of the other resident children
• I also made this delicious and delightful dinosaur cake but that was all my own work with limited baking resources.

Impossible Coconut Pie

I didn't even need to think up a catchy title for this post as the name of the recipe is pretty catchy in itself, doncha think? I believe the pie is called "impossible" as it forms its own crust when baked and you don't have to make pastry. I found it in the ever-flowing fount of inspiration and was curious to try it but felt I should find a reason to make it.

I bought the coconut on Tuesday and was still looking for a reason to make it. The problem with baking in my house is that, while I usually have enthusiastic helpers in a Zed or two, they aren't usually very enthusiastic eaters of the results. I don't understand why as we've only had one baking result that was really and truly not worth eating. We do have willing neighbours, though.

Yes, I am cruel , I banished
these happy small people.

In fact, one neighbour, an old lady (84 on the 5th of July, I believe), gave me a perfect reason to make the coconut pie. We had a rather sad conversation with her on Wednesday about how her bingo was finished and she is at home alone all day and all evening and, though the neighbours are friendly, they are busy with their own lives. We pass her most mornings on the way to the bus stop and wave and remark on the weather but now we're making a bit of a bigger effort to stop for a chat...or, indeed, to drop off some coconut pie. So there was reason number 1 to make the pie - we could use it as a pretext to drop into B at the weekend. As it happened, I had also booked tickets for Z1 and me to go and see the Wizard of Oz this weekend but was keeping it a secret to avoid conflicts with Z2 (who, I felt, would be just as happy at the cinema with Husband) and to avoid over-excitement from Z1. From this a plan emerged - Saturday morning would be spent making the pie, once it was baked and Z2 was napping, Z1 and I would take the pie around to B and then I would casually mention to Z1 that we were going to the theatre. Marvellous!


After our usually summer Saturday morning routine of me getting the Zeds breakfast and then attempting a peaceful breakfast myself in the sun on the front porch (after growing up in Ireland, I cannot tell you how much I LOVE this proper summer that we get in


Breakfast on the porch

Toronto, despite floods and storms, it is WARM.), we set to work. As is usual when I bake with the Zeds, I got a bit more irritable than I should about them dipping fingers in the bowl and tasting and so on. In fact, I banished them after we finished mixing. It was for their own good. Also, the entertaining bit was over, really.



Slightly over-toasted
coconut pie

I baked it and then put it under the grill
(for slightly too long) to get the coconut toasty looking. I tasted it and approved. I sliced a bit for B and put it in a container. Z2 was put down for his nap by the Husband and Z1 and I set forth. B was out but I came prepared and we left it on her front porch with a  note. We went off to see the Wizard and B was waiting for us on Monday morning with the container. She didn't actually mention if the pie was good and the Zeds haven't tried it (though Z2 did express some interest in it this morning) so I can't give an unbiased report. Husband has said he will try it. I liked it, it's better warm. I tried it with raspberry coulis that I made for cheesecake and that was quite nice.

You may also be interested to know:
 - the recipe (halved from Pinterest) can be downloaded from the downloads page here
- Z1 loved the Wizard of Oz and I rather enjoyed it too. The merchandisers really missed a trick not selling ruby red slippers in the foyer, though.

No children were harmed in the making of this craft

First you must cut out your fishies

No children were harmed, indeed, since no children were involved. Between Pinterest and this blog, I have moved on from merely saving cereal boxes for future use to sitting down at the table while Z2 napped and Z1 watched...erm...probably Gnomeo and Juliet, not too sure as I was busy...to do a crafty thing.



Then you must glue your silhouttes
to the background

Z2's bedroom is painted blue, glossy blue, walls and ceiling. It makes it rather dark but I have decided to go with it and I call it the pond room and he has some mirrors in the shape of frogs on the wall and also this rug which I do love quite a lot. I decided he needed a shark poster which gradually evolved into me making these fish silhouettes.


This craft was a nice mix of being prepared and just making do with whatever I had to hand. Preparation included printing out the fish silhouettes. Making do included using a black marker to colour in the watermark bits as the silhouettes were from a stock picture library type thing. I also had carried them around in my bag for a few days so had to choose the non-crumpled fish to use. The frames were ones that I found about the house and the blue backgrounds are a blue card and a blue envelope which I also found around the house.



Then you must display them with Z1's flower display
and a piece of her art in the background*

I am quite pleased with the finished results. Z1 was impressed and Z2 admired them. However, they are rather small for the expanse of bedroom wall so I may have to get my scissors out, find a few more frames and  do a few more. Or I might just buy the shark poster after all and hang these on either side.

*If you do not have any original Z1 artwork or flower displays to hand, you can improvise with art and flower displays created by yourself, your own child/dog/hamster or even shop-bought displays.

A Cake, for no other reason but F*** (with linguistic explanations)

A friend of my brother's in university was very fond of some of the expressions she encountered in Ireland. On of these was "For f***'s sake" which she misremembered as "For no other reason but f***" which seemed appropriate for this blog about a cake I made just because it looked pretty and not really because anyone in the house wanted to eat it.

Z1 wanted to make fairycakes (as I like to call them, being Irish and resisting the American invasion of "cupcake". In the interest of full disclosure, she was, in fact, asking to make cupcakes) on a Sunday afternoon. For some reason, I took against the idea of fairycakes and insisted it would be biscuits (ah, more linguistic divides between Europe and North America - by "biscuits", I mean what are generally referred to as "cookies" on this side of the Atlantic). I even hardened my heart to tears in favour of fairycakes and tried to distract her with the wondrous look of the Zebra-striped cake. I succeeded. Hurrah!



After baking

before baking

Our cake mix was thicker than I expected but the dolloping and waiting for it to spread worked pretty well. I felt our pre-baking cake looked reasonably like the Pinterest picture.

As I dolloped, a niggly part of my brain kept telling me that this cake would not be eaten and it was a terrible waste of ingredients. The Husband is not a big cake eater and the Zeds generally lose interest pretty quickly. This didn't stop me from being very excited to cut the cake and see how it turned out. I had to restrain myself from slicing it before it had cooled and before it was iced.


The final product - iced and sliced

It turned out magnificently in my not-so-humble opinion.  As it happened, the Zeds did eat several slices. So did I. Husband had none and by the time I realised I should have given some to the neighbours, it was a little old so I didn't feel I could. I am half-proud of not having just wolfed it all down myself like a glutton but also rather ashamed at the waste of good ingredients.


You may also be interested to know:

• although I generally avoid posting updates about the same thing on multipe social media platforms, I was so excited and proud of this one that I think I did the triple whammy of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
• people on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram asked for the recipe - I haven't posted it here as I just used a Victoria sponge recipe that I found on the BBC recipe  website. I think it was probably Delia Smith's. I added cocoa to half the mix in place of some of the flour. I also got the buttercream recipe from the BBC and added cocoa in place of one of the ounces of icing sugar.

Not pancakes (but possibly even better)

Pancakes seemed like a good idea on a cold, snowy, February, nearly-pancake-Tuesday-anyway day. However, we had only a piddly amount of flour left. Very piddly - not much more than 50g. I hadn't checked before announcing the plan to Z1. (Clearly I did not learn my lesson from the not-gingerbread fiasco)  Things were looking grim.

I Googled "what can I make with 100g of flour" (in my wish for more flour than we had, I misread the scales) while Z1 stood disconsolately on the chair beside me, gazing at the flour that was not going to be a pancake in the bowl. She also kept putting her hand in it which I found somewhat irritating but flour does feel kind of silky. Google did not solve my problem.

I turned to Pinterest, recalling a single serving chocolate chip cookie recipe but came across these three ingredient Nutella brownies before I found the cookie recipe. Only ten tablespoons of flour were required. With trepidation, I got my measuring spoons and spooned out my flour - just about enough. Hurrah! I told Z1 we would make brownies instead. It was all good. We'd even just bought a new jar of Nutella. It was then that pure wonderful began. I remembered we had a jar of non-Nutella, non-hazelnut chocolate spread. It was bought when I was alerted to the fact Nutella wasn't allowed in school 'cause of the nuts. It wasn't very nice and nobody ate it...until now.
The brownies began to smell very lovely in a short space of time and then we ate them warm from the oven with the chocolate chips still melty. Z1 gave them 58 marks out of 10. (I really must work on her grasp of numbers, fractions and rating scales.) They were also rather delicious, possibly even more so, after they had cooled. 

The satisfaction of using the jar of sweet brown not-Nutella and the tiny bit of flour is immense.


Credit where credit is due: My recipe can be downloaded from here but I adapted it from Schoochmaroo's recipe at Instructables here.

Feast your eyes on these marvellous marbles

I love them

I don't think much needs to be said - just marvel at my marbles. Some of them weren't completely frozen but I didn't have the patience to wait longer.  I also didn't have the patience to keep my gloves on while snipping the balloons off. That was not a good idea.

Icy Colourful Marbles - progress report

Day 1 - poking the snow-dusted
balloons

I may have uttered a few curses under my breath as the icy wind attempted to flay the skin from my cheeks while I walked through the car park to work on Thursday morning, but I thought of my slowly freezing garden sculptures and bravely toughed it out.

I had checked the temperature immediately on waking: it was -1C. By the time we were leaving the house, we had a light dusting of snow and it was -3C. Poking the balloons revealed that there was some crunchiness but they were definitely not solid ice. By 11am, it had reached -4C and I was at my desk thinking of my balloons.

More snow had fallen by the time we got home. A poke let us know that they were significantly icier than the morning. A shake revealed some slooshing. Temperatures are forecast to continue dropping - it should be -7C overnight and -8C by morning. I think we'll be snipping and exposing our icy jewels on Friday evening. I am rather excited.

Day 1 - in the evening

Bring on the minuses!

Tempting fate with green water-filled
balloon over my head. Mopping up.

We moved to Canada in April of 2011. I was dreading the winter but Toronto gave us a mild one. As this current winter started and progressed, I had been quietly thankful for each day that went by where the temperature was above -10C or so. I'd check the forecast and then check it a few more times to see if it had changed when any temperatures below zero were predicted.

The day I decided to do this project, it was a balmy 13C (only days after my personal record low temperature of -21C which we survived with minimal digit loss).

Careful placement; in the bowl, ready for placement;
striking a pose to show the arrangement off
(so mild no coat was needed!).

The forecast, as I formulated my plan, was predicting a high of -2C for the next day. I was pleased. I checked later and it said a high of 8C. I was dismayed but committed to the project so we went ahead anyway. (I also checked another forecast which still said a high of -2C - hurrah!)

That was quite an introduction without getting to the point, wasn't it? Well, the plan was to make these icy colourful marbles.

I was genuinely excited about doing these and was disappointed when Z1 and Z2 were busying themselves in the garden. I told them when they had finished playing, we'd do the water balloons. Z1 told me "We are not playing, we are taking care of the worms." and that I could do it myself.  So I did, I started by myself with a green one and went to take it outside to show the Zeds to see if they'd be interested now that there was something to look at. (I had a minor panic when Z2 could not be located - he'd wandered off behind the shed and was not responding to being called.) He was thrilled to see a balloon and happily followed me to the front to help me put it in the grass. Hurrah. Z1 soon followed when she saw that her brother was interested so we retreated to the kitchen to prepare a few more.

Here's the how to. I saw this on Pinterest and didn't read any instructions before starting. The one I did on my own was a good practice: I filled the balloon with water by stretching it over the spout and, when I removed it, water spurted out everywhere, forced out by the balloon contracting back to its deflated size, I suppose. I was not expecting that. Lesson learned.

I had a dropper to drop food colouring into the balloons before filling so the Zeds could help with that by squeezing the dropper. After that, they were guardians of the balloons as I filled the next one. We had an incident where I tied a knot too hastily and put the balloon into the bowl where it promptly splooshed its (thankfully not very brightly coloured) contents onto Z1's coat and the floor. Paper towels were promptly employed. We did a few greens and a few reds. I only had a small bit of blue food dye left which we divided between an attempt at a purple one (mixing red and blue) and a just-blue one. It may be rather pale. I didn't fill them as large as they look in the Pinterest picture as I was fearful of balloon breakage and also thought that it would be good that the smaller ones would freeze more quickly.

They are outside as I type. Current outside temperature is 12C (at 9pm) though it is predicted to be -3C by 8am which is around when we will be leaving the house. I cannot wait to poke them but I suspect the big reveal (cutting the balloons off) will be Friday or possibly even Saturday. There is also snow forecast so we might have to dig them out to see them. Bring on the minuses!

Planning and wishing for cold weather

Ah, we've been on a go-slow with the crafts for a few days. Both the Zeds seem to have suddenly discovered their Christmas toys and have been busy with them. Also, we have run out of pipe cleaners which are pretty much craft essentials.

I do have plans though. Sneaky plans and clever tricks. Ok, well, not particularly sneaky plans and possibly not particularly clever tricks but definite plans.

With Pinterest as my muse, I had considered doing something like these melted bead decorations but I fear we might poison ourselves with the fumes from melting them in the oven or, at the very least, stink the house out.

However, this weekend I have plans for garden decorations if winter would just cooperate and cool down again (12C in Canada, in January! What's that about?). In fact, I am now getting excited about it and may just execute the plan tonight as the forecast is telling me it should be below zero again. Watch this space, there may be balloons on it the next time you look.

Borax Crystal Pine Cone - result! (and failure?)

The brown bit is the pine
cone

Hurray! It worked better than I expected. I opened the jar with the greatest of ease and the aid of some hot water. The picture over there on the left is what I saw when I opened it - solid crystals with the pine cone embedded. 

Borax crystal pinecone on
the Christmas tree 

Here, on the right, is a photo of the pine cone on the tree taken using the flash. It doesn't do it justice...neither does the below photo without the flash. It's a twinkly, sparkly, possibly toxic, beautiful, crystally piece of nature.

The flat bit from where it
was against the side of the jar
(also what it looked like
without flash)

Useful information: Apparently "Borax" is no longer available in shops in the UK because of EU regulations. Borax substitute can be used for this (and the other similar projects) but yields less impressive crystals, I am told. 

Other points to note: I do feel this is kind of cheating as it was not a craft we did today and the Zeds were not involved at all. Z1 had a plan to make candy canes out of paper but we got distracted by Elfing ourselves and then it was pretty much time for bed. You may judge whether I can consider myself to have failed in my aim to conquer Christmas. I think I am going to let myself off the hook and say I have continued in the spirit of the project.

Pine Cone with Borax Crystals: Work in Progress

I am not sure that this will work very well.
The first problem was that pine cones float (I should have thought of that). I proudly and deftly solved this by putting the lid on and turning the jar upside down with the pine cone attached to string, caught in the lid, keeping it anchored.
Sadly, I think I anchored the pine cone too close to the edge of the jar so the crystals may end up more on the jar than that side of the pine cone. However, when I tried to open the jar to rectify this, I realised that the lid is probably going to be firmly attached to the jar with crystals.
Another possible problem is that the water is turning kind of brown so the crystals might be brownish or yellowy too.

On the left - floating pine cone
On the right - cleverly anchored pine cone
(too close to the side of the jar - pah!)

Sigh.

More Glitter. Also Bubbles.

Bubble bubble. Glittery Nails (Z1) and glittery dough
The ornaments I produced - could do better.
(Probably will do better as I have plenty left)

I mostly decided to do this because of the description of it as "super soft and pliable". It just sounded lovely. Also, the use of silver glitter to make it decorative makes it a one step craft - no waiting for it to be ready to decorate. Aaah, glitter.

My favourite bits of this were the lovely bubbles when cooking it up and kneading the glitter in (I used gold, not silver 'cause I used all the silver up in my beloved snow globe which might, truth be told, actually have too much glitter though, really, it doesn't 'cause too much glitter doesn't exist when dealing with snow globes and Christmas crafts.)

Z1 wasn't in the least bit interested though she did happily roll some into a ball while watching Toy Story 2 with be-glittered nails. Z2 was napping.


Practical information: I rolled it out on my counter but it got a bit sticky and hard to take off the counter so would probably do it on greaseproof paper or on the baking sheet when I do it again.  I also let them air dry which has only taken a few hours and they seem to be good to go.

Credit where credit is due: I found this via Pinterest at The Imagination Tree here. They found it somewhere else but since it was the "supersoft and pliable" description and their pin that drew me in, I am crediting them.

A Snowglobe 24 Years in the Making

Glittery reindeer

Before I turned it over
(I should have painted
the Ragu jar lid more
thoroughly)

Could it ever have lived up to my expectations? I have been longing to make a snowglobe since I was about eight, I think. I can remember recipes where dessicated coconut was recommended as snow and one where glycerin was suggested so the snow would swirl more gently.
Today's long-awaited snowglobe was made without input from Z1 (she was too busy playing in a box and trying to remember how to write vampire) but with some advice from Z2. We had a choice of a reindeer or some snow-topped fir trees as figurines and he chose the reindeer. Just as well because he knocked the fir tree off the table a moment later and it broke.

Slightly forlorn reindeer
when the glitter stopped
swirling

I painted the lid of the jar with acrylic paint and glitter glue a few days ago to get it all ready for today.

Glittery reindeer gazing
wisely at the world

And, y'know, it's nice. It's got sparkly glitter and water and swirling, so it's definitely nice but what am I to dream of making now?
Also, I should not be trusted with superglue.



Credit where credit is due: I found this simple version of a homemade snowglobe at this blog which seems to be in Chinese via Pinterest

Why I had 2 forks in my work bag today

A late afternoon work meeting yesterday and a Christmas concert with pot luck dinner at Z2's daycare today meant two afternoons of Christmas crafts in public places. I felt that Coffee Culture had had its fair share of the Zeds and me yesterday so Z1 and I went to Second Cup today. (Z2 remained in captivity so that he could make his grand entrance with the rest of the toddlers for the concert.)

Sample pom poms

I prepared by putting a 2 forks (one each for me and Z1), 2 balls of slightly sparkly yarn (left over from the rainbow scarf project referred to in this post) and a pointy scissors (as opposed to the Z1-friendly scissors from yesterday ) in my work bag. I also made these little lovelies on the left to show Z1 what we were going to make.  Alas, I made them during my lunch break at work so it was too late to realise that the yarn tends to shed a bit and may not be the most suitable for pom-pom making.

Pom pom earrings and
pom pom on fork in progress

A highlight of today's  cafe Christmas craft session (apart from the really nice chewy chocolate brownie) was when I suggested Z1 could wear my pre-prepared ones as earrings. (see right)

Two tone pom pom

She abandoned her brownie (which is how I know it was tasty - her abandonment resulted in my enjoyment of it) in favour of the craft so that was a good sign. On the right, you see her contemplating her wrapped fork. She had the idea of using two colours of wool on one pom pom which made a pom pom with a different coloured core. We made one pom pom before moving on to other things. Just one.

Pom poms on the tree
(with Borax crystal heart in the background)

In other news: I have abandoned the idea of including information about cost, messiness, time taken etc. on the crafts. I felt this is more about the experience than a how-to guide. Also, it was kind of annoying to do and took up too much blog space.

Credit where credit is due: I found the idea for these at Mrs. Fox's blog here

Christmas Crafts in a Cafe

Inspired by this blog (via Pinterest) and with a couple of hours to kill with the Zeds between picking Z1 up from school and going to a late afternoon meeting for work, I though a little snipping of coffee filters in a cafe would be perfect to pass the time.
I prepared a few examples the night before, pre-folded a few coffee filters (the very coffee filters that I nearly misbought in Walmart back in November ) and remembered to put a Z1-friendly scissors in my bag. Organised, I was.
Combining cake, crafts, crumbs and coffee in a cafe called Coffee Culture with children was a little chaotic (and alliterative). See.

Attempted snipping, our
favourite one, cake remnants,
and coloured in snowflake 

Hmm...perhaps you can't quite see the chaos there but I had to prevent Z2 from knocking over my ridiculous butterscotch caramel (or something like that) latte and from sitting on the cake and from snipping things whenever the scissors was put down for a moment. I also had to allay the wrath of Z1 when I was pleased with a snowflake that I made and she was angered that it was nicer than the one we collaborated on. I convinced her that my one was inspired by her so she could take credit. Phew.

All that and Z1 decided that she couldn't do it. I am not sure why as she does cutting out quite well, usually. It may have been that she was very tired - I handed over two rather cranky, tired Zeds when the time came for me to skedaddle to my meeting.

She did like the idea, though, and decided she would join in by colouring the filters before I cut them. The fact that the only colouring implement we had to hand was a blue biro did not put her off. So here they are - cut by me and one coloured by her. The nice thing about this is that the more I did, the more I wanted to do as I figured out what looked pretty. And coffee filters come in packs of hundreds. And we don't even have a coffee machine to use them up. I may just wallpaper the house with snowflakes.

Coffee filter snowflakes

Credit where credit is due: There are a lot of versions of this kicking about the internet but I found this via Pinterest from Heart of Wisdom (direct link to blog post up above in my post)

Of Crystals and Sparkle Sparrows

On Friday, after being Pyssla-ed off in the morning, I had time to go to my beloved Dollarama and I bought three of these beauties. Our Sparkle Sparrows (TM)* are perched on our stair bannister, cheering every trip up or down the stairs (apart from when they drive me slightly nuts by falling upside down). 

Saturday was rather rainy and miserable but was substantially brightened by a delightful lunch party during which a friend cooked delicious food for us and kept thanking me for letting her use my kitchen. Z1 was rather disappointed that there were not more children at the party and, after entertaining the troops for a bit, retired to her room. This did not prevent our Christmas crafts happening.

Snowflake after 

Snowflake before

 This was one I was looking forward to - Borax snowflakes **. I set the apparatus up as you see on the left just before the Zeds went to bed on Saturday evening. Well, I actually  initially had it in a large glass jug that cracked when I poured boiling water into it, spilling boiling water all over the hob (stovetop) which had not yet been tidied up after all the cooking for lunch. Once the jug was disposed of and most of the water mopped up, I tried again with this vase which I warmed with hot tap water before pouring in the boiling water.

Snowflake on the tree

The Husband and I kept checking it all evening to see what was happening - nothing much. Sunday morning was to be a lie-in for me but I ended up hopping out of bed not long after the Zeds and Husband as I was too excited to see what had happened with the Borax, water and pipe cleaners. As someone who very rarely gets an uninterrupted night's sleep and looks forward to a lie-in all week, this fact is significant. I was rewarded with the sparkly masterpiece you see here. Magnificent. Z1 immediately decided to do another, this time heart-shaped, so Sunday's craft was sorted instantly and is in process as I type. Once more, I have been checking on it frequently and it's fascinating seeing the crystals appear. 

Heart-shaped sparkly
crystal loveliness
(before)

These, despite the lack of instant gratification, were a definite success and require hardly any time or skill to set up. I love them a lot.

Z1 has really taken to the pipe cleaners and she made me a bracelet as  

Christmas present (see, it's a Christmas present so it counts as a Christmas craft). This was entirely her own creation - all I did was provide the beads. I am allowed to wear it every day but if I untwist it and the beads spill onto the ground, she WILL NOT make me another. 

We also put the tree up this weekend. (The Husband kindly went out in the snowy dark to get it for me as he knew how much I wanted to get it today. Aw.) Christmas is coming. The goose is getting fat and it's less than two weeks 'til we depart for Dublin. This gives me butterflies in my tummy.

* not really TM but as named by Z1

** Credit where credit is due: I got this idea, via Pinterest, from Delia  Creates

Planning, purpose and intentions

As I mentioned in the first post, Pinterest is really the reason that I started this blog - all those ideas, so much potential. Also, I want to spend December doing things other than mentally packing for our trip to Dublin and getting over-excited so the crafts and the conquering of these crafts and, consequently, of Christmas will serve this purpose well.

So that's what it will be to me but as I am putting it out there on the big bad internet, I have been thinking of how it should be for any readers who happen to read it.

To this end, as well as describing how me and the Zeds get on with any given craft, I figured I should give a quick guide to what's needed and how much it costs, and how much mess it causes and how much time it takes and how much efforttoo, so I'll be including that in little notes in each post. There is still more than a month 'til we even hit December so I am hoping to plan and refine the purpose of the blog as the month of November goes by so that the December package will be all that I want it to be. Suggestions welcome.

In the beginning..

In the beginning, there was Pinterest and it was good. It was full of Christmas crafts and cute ideas and super fun crafts and easy ideas with kids and it made my head explode a little with the possibilities and with the time and effort people put into doing crafts, and photographing them and uploading instructions to the internet.

I love Christmas. I really do. I love the idea of crafts too. And the idea of Christmas crafts. So here I am. This Christmas is particularly exciting for me as I am going to Dublin (where I am from) and will be with my family for Christmas which we hadn't really planned on until my mum twisted (my rubber) arm and convinced me. I haven't told the Zeds yet as the excitement would be too much for Z1 so I have been bubbling over with excitement and telling random mothers at the school gate and the like about it in order to have an outlet. And I've been browsing Pinterest. And now, here I am...as I said before.



BEFORE

So I shall set out to plan some crafts over the weeks to come and be ready to begin on the 1st of December - probably with some kind of countdown calendar. But be warned, I am not a naturally crafty person and the Zeds will be my excuses for having things turn out a bit wonky. As a special preview and visual warning, here are some pictures of Christmas craftiness from last year.



AFTER (roof)



AFTER (I feel the clutter in the background adds to the scene, don't you? No? Pah!)