5 little witches....

I had a small Halloween party for my girl and her pals yesterday, which was fun, but very hard work, it took a lot of thought and planning. I worked for 2 days at making props, baking scary cakes and witchy fingers. The spookifying of my kitchen was a challenge. I downloaded some scary labels and made some myself which I stained with teabags. I stuck to bottles and jars I had collected and filled them with gross looking food stuff-found in the cupboards.

We had scary music sounds, the lights down low,and candles lit.

We did pumpkin carving with the help of 3 other adults, which was most welcome!

We played musical statues to the Monster Mash.

We did face painting.

We ate hot dogs sausage rolls, werewolf cupcakes, Ghostly Mini Pavlovas.

 The girls wouldn't touch the finger biscuits, they were so delish too, just a straightforward shortbread recipe, with some green food colouring! Recipe Here

 More for us to eat then, very nice dunked in a cuppa :)

There was lots of shrieking, tears (from my one, think the excitement was all a bit much) and good fun!!

We are off out tonight to knock on a few neighbours doors, then an early night, I certainly need it.

Happy Halloween everyone!!

Pretty Poncho

I made this Poncho for Sadie last week over a couple of eves, it's a very simple pattern, and very quick to achieve as not many rows.  I found the pattern on You Tube.

The wool was a real bargain at £4 for 2 x 100g balls,I just about had enough to make this and finish off with 2 little tassles!

Sadie loves it, it is super soft, I love the way the pink speckles through the grey.

Another added bonus was a lovely gift from my step-mum, who bought me a great book-The Happy hooker, which  has plenty of projects  for me to get stuck into. I need to be kept busy at this for now see.... :)

Another blanket reveal

I started working on this one for my daughter 2 weeks ago.

Amassing squares

It's a bit wonky in places- I'm very new to this so will get better at better at joining. Some of my squares were larger than others which didn't help. Still I made it with love and all adds to the charm, It's very thick, colourful and snuggly!

Draping

I absolutely LOVE crochet!

Onto more projects! Going to try and steer away from pink next time!

Carrot cake from Baking mad series.

I have been watching Eric Lanlard series Baking mad, and am mightily impressed by his baking and decorating abilities, his cakes are works are of which is partly why I really enjoyed the series, as is more creative than every day baking, he can come across rather snobby though, typical Frenchman!

On special occasions its nice to really push the boat out and produce something with a wow factor,and there are lots of ideas in this series for just that.

I though I would try his Carrot cake recipe as haven't found a recipe yet that I really love and think ' This is the one' but this may be....

. 

I halved the amounts on the recipe as only wanted to make one cake as this makes 2 loaf tins.  I added some milk to the mix as felt too claggy and thick to me.

The muscavdo sugar definitely is an improvement on caster sugar, it gives it a better depth of flavour. This cake was very moist inside, I heartily recommend!

Recipe here here

Kids and hubby will devour later.

Finished Blanket!

Yipee!! It's done, it took 1 week, every evening all evening and a bit squeezed in during the day here and there and I'm really proud, as this is the first thing I've ever made, EVER! It wasn't without its problems,but I corrected them as I went. The hardest part was the scalloped edge, lots of unravelling  and restarting took place,until I sussed it.

My daughter loves it and is snuggling into at every given moment which is what I intended.

I think the colours are gorgeous,it makes me feel cheerful looking at it.

The reveal moment.... here it is....

The picture really doesn't do it justice, my camera phone is broken, this was taken on hubby's blackberry,which has the worst camera ever!


Onto blanket number 2 now.....