Monday, April 27, 2009

Also...

Tom and I are doing a sponsored walk for Christian Aid. Sponsor Us!

Joyous

So I fell off my bike on Friday.

Quite spectacularly. Grazed my chin, bruised my face, took a whopping great chunk out of my left knee. My helmet was a write off. Thank God I was wearing it! It seems the brakes failed. Which isn't good when you're halfway down a hill but oh well and ouch.

Apart from the bruising I had a fun weekend with Tom buy housey things. Saturday was his birthday and we spent it trawling round the Range, Homebase, Ikea and John Lewis. It doesn't sound fun when written like that. But I really enjoyed it.

We bought cream and red rococo print fabric for dining room blinds, a roman blind to use as a template, giant picture frames for my artwork, paint tester pots and living room curtain fabric. The living room fabric was half price in John Lewis. We confused the shop assistant a bit with our maths. the tester pots are now a patchwork across Tom's wall. That is especially joyous!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Ah.....

Baby blanket finished and done.

Tom's project to proof read.

Half a dress sewn for Amy.

All toyboxes done.

One side of Broiderie cardi knitted.

Half a sock for Amy.

One website made and domain purchased for Fran.

Curtain fabric picked out in John Lewis sale.

Domestic Bliss.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

April So Far

This month is beginning and ending with cake.

I spent a great weekend with Jess in High Wycombe at the beginning of the month, mainly baking which was fun. We made some cake pops a la Bakerella.

Here is in pictorial form:


This is Jess' awesome cake tin of joy!


... and her catering sized roll of greasproof paper...


..which she used to expertly line the tin of joy...


..as you can see we were in a kitchen with all mod cons, including...


...the Bakerella blog on Jess' laptop.


These are Jess' very cool scales that let you switch between units of measurement, and reset them to zero to add the next lot of igredients. I call them her drug dealer scales as you can measure really small amounts of mass.


Pint glasses are the best recepticle for beating eggs.



Mmm...buttery sugar!


Lots and lots of cocoa!


Beat that cake mix!

Whilst the cake was in the oven, we made cream cheese icing to bind it all together:



Then we set to work crumbling cake!



After we mixed in the icing, we made the cake balls...



..stuck lolly pop sticks in them...



and kept dipping and dipping...





These one are dipped in white chocolate...



We then made the chocolate yellow to make some little chick cake pops.



Decorating them was my favoutite bit. I think they came out really well...


Now Austin's birthday cake should have cooled so I can ice it...