Fancy Bakin'

Hi!

Jingle Bells.... Jingle Bells.... Wow, Christmas is only 3 sleeps away, can you believe it (if you read that this post is from Wednesday and that should mean only 2 sleeps, it's cos it's 1:30am and I haven't actually gone to bed yet from Tuesday night, bare with me!) How quick has this Christmas season passed? My last Christmas as a single girl! Next year I'll be Mrs Lam, how exciting!! LOL {giggles... snort!} No really, I'll be married {giggles again}, still seems so funny.

Last weekend was the Christmas get together dinner for my Mum's side of the family which is always a hoot. I have a bunch of awesome cousins who have lovely partners and now fantastic kids too, so it is always a big bunch of fun! We chat, eat, play, eat, chat, eat, take pics, eat, chat, eat, eat, open presents, eat etc.... LOL! Check out us girlies in our Santa hats! This isn't even all of the girls, Fliss didn't make the pic, neither did Sienna, Amy, Georgia, Emma, Elise or Alexia (or Yvette and Tassy I'll add!) but there is one other little person who did make the pic.... the tiny peanut inside Alicia. Yep, she's pregnant! She's due early June which means she'll be 7 months pregs at our wedding! How cool is that! We are all so happy and excited for them, Congrats Alicia and David!! I had a dream on Friday night that it was a girl too... but I did have a dream when Fliss was pregnant with Cooper that she would have a girl and call her Moon. Yeah, random!! That didn't happen. Maybe one day Will and I will have a Yue Liang (Chinese for Moon) of our own :) {wink}

I made a bunch of new treats that I hadn't made before which was fun. And I tried to make impressive looking ones this year too! For starters, the Marshmallow Candy Canes which came out of Super Food Ideas mag. Fiddly, but fun, and pretty much just sugar and air, so probably not a good idea to feed these to any children you have to take home with you. The centrepiece of my plate was the Spiced Gingerbread Shortbread tree made with 3 different sized cookie cutters! It turned out awesomely and looked great drizzled with white choc and sprinkled with coloured sugar sprinkles. So cool! I think I'll look for an even smaller star for next year so the top isn't so flat. I'd like cutters that could layer into a nice peak! The plate looks so cute adorned with white marshmallow snowmen (not home made, sorry!)! Aren't they the cutest. Plus I also made Mocha Shortbread fingers (delicious!) and almond caramels! I had so much fun making it all. We saved the Christmas tree to eat on Christmas Day :) or at least to show Tassy on Christmas day, maybe we'll eat it the next day seeing as we always seem to wedge food into every available crevice til bursting point on Christmas day!

Here I am doing my best Martha Steward meets Mrs Claus impersonation! Look at all the food in the background of this pic- I can see Cheesecake, Torte, a Cupcake tree, a panetone, dips etc...we eat very well when we get together!

Well, I hope you have finished all your Christmas shopping, are getting some quality time in with your family and I wish you a Very Merry Christmas if I don't post before then!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

:) C

Christmas Shenanigans

Looking back through last year's Christmas Posts is a really cool way of reminding myself of all the cool baking and decorating I got up to {thought to self- I must make those delicious gingerbread cupcakes again!} and it also reminded me of the Christmas Shenanigans Will and I got up to with the Decorations at work last year. Remember this pic? Well the Reindeers didn't make it back to work this year (too many Christmas Shenanigans caught on CCTV?), but they have been replaced with a "Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"-esk kind of Christmas Tree forest. The perfect habitat for one giggling, twenty seven year old boy masquerading as a decoration! You know the funniest thing, he wouldn't have even looked twice at the trees before he met me, he probably wouldn't even have noticed there were trees there at all. But my head has passed on it's vast knowledge of how to be childish and fun, and still be the boss and Will has absorbed it all! Every time we got out of the lifts at work he'd say "We haven't taken our picture yet!" hehehe {giggling to self, at the monster I've created!} Love you Will!! I wonder what props they'll provide us with next year!

:) C

Christmas Cards 2009 Edition!

Hi y'all!

Well, if you write on my blog (all 4 of you- Mum, Y, F, AJ.. oh and Tassy!!) you should have received your card today! How did you like it? Ok Yvette, you may have to wait one more day, lets see how good the postie is in our Nation's Capital. He's usually pretty quick, did you get it already? Oh, Fliss I just realised I didn't post yours cos I thought I'd see you this week... don't worry, it'll look so much better IRL when you get it!!

I started out with this really pretty and awesome design for my cards, bought all the Baja Breeze cardstock and ribbon, then realised I didn't actually own the SU Winter Post Stamp Set I was going to use {slapping forehead}... so it was back to the drawing board! I decided I was not going to buy one snowflake stamp off etsy just to make these cards so I dug around at home and came up with a small Hero Arts round snowflake relief and some tiny tiny snowflake (kinda) shapes that were with the Hero Arts Acrylic Birthday sentiments I have. A quick borrow of Fliss's heat gun to emboss- man it had been YEARS since I'd done that!- and we were away! I am really really pleased with how they turned out! I think the Real Red stands out so nicely against the muted blue and silver! Love them! I hope you like them too! They were actually super quick to make too, cos they have a simple design and the BG stamps are arranged randomly, so I didn't have to really worry about where I was stamping them, just a rough idea of placement. Then the red label is punched with SU's Curly Label punch and the stamp is from the matching set, I don't think I could have asked for a quicker design, and fun to make too cos it included embossing, stamping, punching and tying ribbon! Happy me {high five-ing self!}

BTW I have increased my Christmas Cards received to 3! Wow! Lol {giggles} I'm clearly not very popular, or I come from a much lazier time than my predecessors and my peeps don't send cards! Hang on... hey Mum, where's my card?!! I want to see what you wrote about me in this year's Christmas Letter {wink!}

:) C

Happy Birthday Will!!

Today is my Fiance's birthday! Happy Birthday Will!! If you haven't texted Will yet, here's your reminder!

If you know Will, you will know that he loves fishing! If you know him a bit better, you will know that he loves fishing dispite rarely catching anything. That is testament to one of his greatest virtues... patience! He just loves going out, on his own or with his bro or friends, and dropping a line in. Sometimes he gets nibbles, sometimes he gets nothing at all! The second last time he even caught a fish! Actually I think they got about 6 that were legal size, so that was like all his Christmases had come at once!

So I set about making him a fishing birthday cake!! I searched everywhere for fish lollies to put in the "lake" made of blue jelly (reminiscent of the "Pool Party" birthday cake Mum made me once from the Woman's Weekly birthday cake book- I loved that cake!!) I finally found these lollies called "Swedish Fish" at the International Lolly shop at Macquarie Centre. They cost an absolute fortune, but they looked fantastic! I made a "rod" out of a wooden skewer and tied a fish to it with sewing cotton! I even put a few fish on the "bank" so it looks like he's had great success!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILLY, I HOPE YOU HAVE A FANTASTIC DAY!! xoxoxoxooxoxoxo

:) C

The Crazy Grocery Shopper..

Are you a Crazy Grocery Shopper like me? Do you spend forever wandering up and down all the aisles, looking for specials and those meat bargains (mouldy meat as Dad calls it- gross!) but then end up buying something truly ridiculous that you don't really have any hope of using? Oh yes, this is me to a T. I learnt this from Mum. Mum would go grocery shopping every Wednesday when I was growing up. This was an all-morning event, not a quick 20min trip to the local corner store, but a fully fledged few hours making sure everything on the list was bought, and a few special things too (like a packet of Twisties on my bed when I got home from school- {gazing into the sky as the song "memories" floats above my head}). But what I didn't learn from Mum was buying something on special that you've never used before, that seems like a total bargain and that you only have the faintest inkling of what to do with. Enter.... a 1kg bowl of Ricotta cheese. Oh but it was on the best sale!! Down to only $3.98!! Well that's cos you have to use it all up by Tuesday Boof Head (the reason for the sale)! And you have to find a recipe! Don't worry, I am from the internet generation, thank goodness. Hello Blueberry Ricotta Muffins!! The recipe is from here, but I had to modify it a bit and add some mini M&M's cos who knew Blueberries only came in 125g punnets?! Oh man, they were sooooo good with the chocolate, ricotta and blueberries. So I stamp this one.... [SUCCESS!] Would you like one?

Oh yeah, I crumbed some Ricotta over the top of our Spaghetti Bolognese for dinner too... delish!

:) C

My fave Decorations.

Spreading some more Christmas Cheer over here! I'm gonna post about some of my fave Christmas Tree decorations today! YAY!! I'm not sure if you have favourites, or if you're like my future family in-laws who didn't have a tree until last year when Lil went and bought the biggest tree the shop had and all the exact decorations that were on it on display! It is a beautiful tree, but it's a bit like walking into Myer when you walk in their front door cos it's so uniform! It is slowly getting some personality though, it gained 2 new Christmas balls this year that don't match the others, maybe I'll buy it a couple more so it looks haphazard and eclectic like a proper tree {wink!} My tree has bits and pieces from all over the world (name dropper) and some hand made ones too :) Ones given to me by Mum (snowman, top right- I think she had hopes of replicating him, but never did), Dad (daughter's are a blessing ball), Felicity (wasn't the Good Will Toward Men angel from you?), or tied to presents like Yvette and Alicia sometimes do. I have ones that I was supposed to tie to presents, like the glass snowman with glitter in his bottom ball- bottom left of the first pic, of which I bought 3 to tie to presents but alas, was not able to part with {sigh!} Some from America- e.g. the Mickey Mouse head glass baubles amongst others, some from Germany and other exotic places. Some I just buy in a silly whim like the crazy little Gingerbread man with his giant bow - top right of bottom pic, or the reindeer with wobbly disjointed legs- background of bottom left on the last pic. And then my beautiful, but small, collection of delicate glass balls, I especially love the winter scene on the bauble bottom left of last pic, so beautiful. The newest member of the Tree is the Mushroom bauble top left of first pic, oh so sweet! I even started writing on the back of them (or somewhere discrete) where I got them so I will remember in years to come! I love my decorations, and I guess that makes me love my little tree, if it wasn't for such a small tree all these decorations would be lost amongst the foliage! I guess a small tree is a blessing after all :)

:) C

Some Christmas Cheer!

A little birdie reminded me that I've neglected my blog this week, well that's only cos I don't think I've had anything blog-worthy to post about! But then I remembered Mo. Say hello Mo! Mo is my new Snowman Mug that brings me a little bit of Christmas Cheer every time I put the kettle on :) Ain't he the cutest!! Good Ol' Mo was only $3 at the local crap shop at Eastwood, a bargain I'd say. I think I'll have to go back and get Mo a friend! I have a bunch of Santa Mugs that I haven't yt unpacked for Christmas this year and Mum also gave me a Santa jug, sugar bowl and serviette holder as an early Christmas present that will make nice companions for Mo!
Hey Mo, time for a Milo and a Fruit Mince Tart? Yep, I thought so!
Happy Weekend!
:) C

Pumpkinbread Snowmen!!

Hi y'all!!

My latest Christmas treat: Pumpkinbread snowmen!! I saw this awesome Snowman tray in Coles on Friday and couldn't pass it up, it was only $5!! It does only bake 6 at a time though, so you either have to bake in batches or only bake 6 snowmen and the rest in cupcake cases (which is what I did) but for some reason the snowmen tasted better {wink!} Originally the recipe came from here but I switched it up a little cos I didn't use the streusel on top, it sounds absolutely delicious, but it was another 1/2C butter and extra sugar that I really didn't need. Plus the snowmen look good on their own anyway. I meant to sprinkle the cupcake versions in chopped pecans before baking but forgot. LOL! Next time... and there will be a next time cos these are absolutely delicious!!

The pumpkin bread so much reminded me of when I was in Connecticut, this time of year 3 years ago. Oh, all the pumpkin bread, ginger bread and fancy Christmas treats I ate from Starbucks in Old Saybrook, so so so so beautiful! Here are a couple of snaps from there, just for old time's sake! I LOVE that awesome red barn at the Old Saybrook Country Barn store! It's fantastic!! I hope one day Will and I can spend a Christmas in the Snow somewhere! I loved my White Christmas in Germany, I'm sure he would too :)

Merry Christmas!

:) C

A little spontanaity..

I love a litte spontinaity, when you don't really have anything planned for the weekend and it just happens? That's what it was like for me this weekend! After lunch yesterday I got a call from Fliss who was after some "hired goons" as Matt called it, to come along to the beach and hang out with them. Well, I managed to tear myself away from my Christmas Present Wrapping- as much as I love wrapping presents, the idea of hanging out with family, and the fact that it was going to be both Cooper and Sienna's first day at the beach, won hands down! Luckily I have had many years of contortionism when it comes to climbing into a packed car (both with our Tarago and it's forrest of Palms Dad would buy plus 6 people's worth of luggage; and my last trip to the USA and our 6 people and luggage in the Suburban and me sitting way in the back) cos I had to climb over Cooper already strapped in his car seat and slot myself into the middle empty seat in the Land Rover between the 2 baby seats! {insert Soulcalibur computer game voice: "Charlotte... WIN!"} So I was sitting beside this sleeping angel, and a very happy, chatty Cooper as we headed to Manly. Alicia met us there and we had fun chatting and playing with Cooper and some sand toys and nursing a very sweet sleeping Sienna! I snapped heaps of gorgeous pics, they are all on my SLR at Fliss's though, so you'll have to do with these 2 from my little point and shoot camera.. Sienna looking angelic in her Car seat and Cooper enjoying some of Mummy's Royal Copenhagen ice cream (no 50c Maccas cone here!) I love the look on his face, it's like "What is this magical cold stuff, it's awesome!" See the tiny pink sock poking out of the peanut sling too? So cute!
Thanks for a fun day Felicity!!
:) C
P.S. Did you notice my new Christmas Banner? How awesome does that Christmas dinner look? I'm looking forward to another one Mum!!

Merry Christmas Season!!

Hello!!
"Where have you been?" I hear you ask!! Well, as of Tuesday I have moved back to doing night shift! One of my good friends resigned and my boss offered me his position as Night Supervisor. I had missed my night shift since moving to days last January, so I've been making the most of my mornings at home this week and have gone to Ikea (without the 4 million people of the weekend), visited Felicity, Cooper and Sienna, met Will for Coffee and Lunch out, put up my Christmas Tree, almost finished my Christmas Shopping and have slept in til at least 10am most days.. woo hoo!!

So, Merry Christmas to you! I love Christmas so much! I love baking, decorating, Christmas Carols, Christmas Lights, the Christmas story! Yay for Christmas!! I had so much fun putting up my Christmas Tree (as usual). I just LOVE it!! My flatmate is an Indian guy and he had never helped decorate a Christmas Tree before so I gave him some decorations to put on it and he was chuffed! He was like a little kid sitting beside the tree just staring at it! he kept saying "It's so Beautiful"!! Lol. It's only a tiny tree too (about 1m high) so imagine if it was a full size floor to ceiling tree! I put it in front of the window so all the neighbours and passers by can see the lights from outside :)

Here is my little tree in daylight too, excuse it's unglamorous location next to the heater, but I only have a small apartment, hence the small tree, so things tend to live cheek by jowl. And as Yvette pointed out, I have a lot of stuff (thanks {sigh}!)

What should I do for the rest of today? I could wrap my Christmas presents, go to the local village shops for a bit of a look around, do my grocery shopping... wow, night shift is awesome!!

:)C

There are 2 ways to kill a diabetic...

...and the main one is to let her make both a Gingerbread House and a Buche Noel in one night. Ouch, my sugar infested head!! Here is my fabulous Gingerbread House! It's a bummer that it got wrapped in cellophane before I could take pics of it, but you get the gist. It'll make an appearance at Christmas for sure, I'm looking forward to it! Well, the actual Gingerbread bit is what I'm looking foward to, I've kinda gone off lollies since I haven't been able to eat them! Sneaking one or two now and again is well enough for me. Chocolate on the other hand, that's another story! Look Mum, I made a little pile of "logs" at the front door (chocolate bullets!) It is an asymetrical house as one slope of the roof has a dormer window (in the second pic, pity it's so dark, but I'm full of sugar so lack the concentration to fix it up on Photoshop!!) I had to begin to just put lollies in random patterns cos people from the other tables kept coming over and taking our lollies! I wanted to stick em on before they all disappeared!!

So on to the Buche Noel (Yule Log), brace yourself Mum, it doesn't quite look like yours!... unfortunately it is a little dry, I think that may have happened cos it stayed wrapped in the tea towel overnight, but it's ok cos I used the old addage "Ganache covers a multitude of baking disasters" and instead of icing it I covered it in ganache. I hope my work mates don't notice. They don't bake so I might be safe... I also used mousse as the filling instead of the whipped cream recipe and I think it's not as good, I don't recommend it Mum! Anywho... here is my Yule Log with it's piece of holly and a marshmallow snowman, isn't he cute! The cake didn't roll up quite as tight as I would have liked either, but it didn't break! I broke up a Cadbury Flake over the top to create "bark". Do you think it looks ok? Well, there was heaps of ganache left so I dipped the bums of some of the tiny puddings I made yesterday into it, then there was still a bit left so I spooned it into a mug, poured in milk and microwaved it... man, thats a delicious hot choc! I got 2 sips in and felt sick from too much baking and "testing" the ganache so I had to abandon it. Yes, Yvette I felt bad and would have posted it down your way if I could!! I hope my work mates like these sweet Christmas treats!

:) C

Christmas Baking has begun!!

Yep, it's officially 1 month to Christmas now!! Whoa {slapping back of hand on forehead}, it's time to get the tree out from underneath the piles of sheets and towels in my linen cupboard and it's time to start baking my fave Christmas cakes/cookies/sweet treats! It's also time for me to try out some new recipes this year, YAY!! Well, they are only new to me, Mum and Yvette have been making them forever, but I'm gonna try them now. Last night I baked a Buche Noel (Yule Log) but it's for tomorrow's supervisor meeting at work so I only baked the cake and will fill and decorate later tonight after the "Build a Gingerbread House" night at Church! That will be fun!! But I did totally make these gorgeous tiny Christmas Puddings last night! Yvette made them for Christmas 2 years ago and man, I must have eaten about 10 of them! They are so so so so so moorish and I want to keep eating them forever!! They are really easy and fun to make and I put them together sitting at the dinner table watching NCIS! Multi-tasking :) They are made from crumbled Dark fruit cake, a bit of cocoa mixed in, white chocolate drizzled on top and some glace cherries to finish them off! I ended up with about 26 in total so there's plenty to share around, and eat for myself!!
Happy Hump Day of the Week!!
:) C

Scrapping Love.

Hi! Go on, tell me how faaaaaaassssstttt this year is going. I wont believe you. Cos I don't believe it is already the end of Nov!! NO WAY!! Where has this year gone? I feel like I'm clutching at an ever slipping rope, stop going so fast, days!! Our wedding's gonna be here before we know it!

This is a really CRAP photograph of this layout, so sorry! I love this pic from our Engagement party back in Sep, it was snapped by Will's friend Wei Ke who is a budding professional photographer. We were having a "moment" together just as the party started. It had been a super busy day setting up and a busy few weeks organising. We took this moment to say "right, this is our night and now it's just time to enjoy it" and Wai Ke happened to catch it on film. So sweet!! The silver title sticker is actually a raised embossed silver sticker, it's really cool! It came from RJ's in Wollongong (my fave crap (cheap) shop!) I had fun digging out all my love related scrapbooking gear for this page! The OLD on this page is the I love you sticker, the word stickers, the "cherish" piece, the bird rub on, the PPs and the tab at the top of the pic. Oh, that pic melts my heart. So I guess the only new stuff is the silver sticker and the felt heart. Yay for using up my stash!!

:) C

Lets Go Disco!!

Hi! I can hear you now... bad blogger, bad blogger!! It's been almost a week and there aren't any Disco Christmas Party pics!! Well, here you go....

Here I am all Disco-ed up and ready to Party! I had my own personal shopper (my sister Alicia) pick out and purchase my dress (by Atmosphere) on her last buying trip to London. I love having my own personal shopper who knows what I like, what will suit me and what will fit me! She's the best!! I don't have a pic of the back but it's got an open slit down the back from the neck to a little under bra strap level. Very hot!!

Will and I do our best 70s pose!! Will donned his fave Disco shirt (an authentic 70s brown floral number that used to be his Dad's!- yes, he has actually worn that out on dates with me too!) a giant afro and fantastic stick on handlebar Mo! How good does he look?!! I think he's rockin that Mo pretty well. It's a pity his effort for Movember isn't quite as successful! It went hard for the first week but has now stopped! He is Asian, we shouldn't have expected much in the facial hair department, unless you wanted to see one of those horrific confuscious beards. Ew!! {shuddering}

One of my friends is a budding photographer and so was snapping pics of us with his massive professional camera, and other random people thought he was the paid photographer for the night and so kept lining up for pics with him!! LOL!! He has posted them up on the public drive on our work computers and I've had heaps of people say I looked awesome (which is always nice to hear!) but also that I'm a camera hog cos I'm in every second pic. What can I say... the camera loves me {giggling!!}, it's just that I stand out of the crowd in electric blue sequins!!

This last pic is one of my faves, how awesomely disco is it?! I love the orange lights in the background, the dancing crowd and the flash flare off my sequin dress!! Lol! It's cool! I wish more people had dressed up for the night, I had an awesome time going disco and it was quite easy too, there are heaps of sparkly things out there at the moment. One of the Asian ladies from my department was wearing a full body all in one jumpsuit, big sunglasses and an extra long straight blonde wig, I had seen this person at the party and didn't recognise her at all, at work on Monday I was told it was her and I was flabbergasted! She looked amazing. I wish I had have taken a pic with this "stranger" on the night!!

I'm off to Wollongong tonight to talk Bridesmaids dresses with Mum. I'm looking forward to a swim in their pool too!!

:) C

I'm too sexy for these rollers...

Hi!

Yep, thats me lookin Hot in Rollers.. or is that me just looking normal in Hot Rollers? You choose. Anyway, I'm rockin these rollers to try out a 70s Farrah Fawcett-esk kinda do for our Work Christmas Party at Star City on Saturday. It's a Saturday Night Fever theme. I am not a hair-do or make-up practice kinda girl, I usually wing it. But for some reason I had the combo of time and enthusiasm so am sitting here with a head full of rollers waiting for my hair to set. There is a click beetle making his clicky way across my Kitchen floor which is reminiscent of summer at school. Hooray for summer on it's way!! Part of me wants to squash him, most of me wants to pick him up and embrace the icon that is childhood memories, but I think I'll let him click on the floor a little longer. Look at those hair stragglers that are supposed to be in rollers! Argh! I have very unco-operative hair, sometimes quite straight, sometimes annoyingly kinky. Choose will you, hair!! I bought mousse and flexi-hold hairspray to try to keep the curls in and have tried each product on one half of my head to see which works better. I'll let you know how it goes!!

Here's a page about trips home to Mum and Dad's. There are certain things that make trips home complete, without them I wouldn't feel like it had been a proper trip home! Also, these things are quite cool cos they are portable. Zum beispiel: (For example) if Mum and Dad are away on holidays, these things apply to visiting them on holidays too. Family, if you can think of any others that apply please let me know! So they are: Family Time, Rummykub, Slippers and Chips & Coke. You can be assured of these things anytime you pay a visit! And that's what I love about going home, nothing changes :)

Like the blue Japanese masking tape at bottom right? It's thinner in the area where the flowers are so whatever colour is underneath shows through the flower. now that's pretty cool!!

:) C

McJapan and other delicacies..

So, I have printed out some pics of Sienna to scrap, but I've been madly showing them around at work like the baby-struck crazed Auntie I am! But with such a cute Bubba to show off, why not! It does mean though, that I don't have them at home to scrap, so you'll have to make do with some Japan pages to tie you over :)

Do you always check out McDonald when you're overseas too? You know they have way different stuff to the Maccas here in Australia right? Not all Maccas are the same! Alicia told me they even have Milo served at Maccas in Malaysia (or was it Thailand? She gets around too much!) I remember when I was in Germany {11}!!! years ago they had a McRib, and I thought that was totally cool, and who can ever forget the McGriddle for breakfast in America (like a Bacon and Egg McMuffin served on 2 maple pancakes instead of English Muffins!). Well, we quickly made the trip past Maccas and ended up eating it on quite a few occasions, mainly when I was sick of Asian food (sad, but true. I'm not used to Asian for breakfast, lunch and dinner!!) To my surprise they had the McGriddle on the menu (ate one!), but we did also enjoy the Teri Yaki burger and the McJuicy chicken with Akatogarashi sauce. I dunno what that was but it was spicy! Oh yeah, they had a McPork too {chuckles}, no hiding what that was!

Then my most favourite-est food ever in Japan was Gyoza!! They are the most delicious pork and veg dumplings that are pinched into a shell shape and fried on one side. We had them whenever we saw them on the menu and I could have eaten them forever and still been happy! They were awesome!! You usually sauces to dip them in like vinegar, something like Hoi Sin or chilli and they were mighty fine! Probably the best ones were ones we had on the last night there, I don't think it was just cos we knew it was out last plate and we had to cherish them!! They were super home made, a little falling apart, char grilled and perfect. LOVE GYOZA!!

:) C

P.S. Just another sweet little pic for you too!!

xoxo

Welcome Sienna!!

GREAT NEWS!!

Well, there will be no Baby Shower for Felicity today! I am so proud to announce I am the Auntie of a brand new, tiny baby girl named Sienna Grace, born Friday 6/11. Congratulations Fliss and Matt!! Fliss had her in record time, making it to the hospital only 40 mins before Sienna was born, and after being through the McDonalds drive through on the way to hospital cos Matt was hungry! {laughing and clutching at tummy}. Typical guy.

Mum and Bub are both very well and I have loved visiting the hospital these last 2 days. Fliss will be out this arvo so I'm debating whether to call in again today! It's hard to resist!! Sienna is so light and compact, being only 2.76kg born so she's easy to sit and cuddle for hours! She has a much darker fuzz on top than Cooper did, but she has his mouth, and just looking back on pics of Cooper when he was just born, they are so much alike!!

Here are 2 of the 3 proud Aunties (wish you were here Yvette!), Mummy and Granny all so proud and happy to have another girl in the fold! I'm so happy to be able to buy gorgeous little girly dresses and ballet shoes and pink frilly things and scrapbook in pink again!

Cooper has been a great big brother so far too, checking out Sienna and giving her kisses! So sweet!

Congratulations again Fliss and Matt, we are so proud of you!!

:)C

Bakin' it, I ain't Fakin' it...

Oh yeah, back to baking!! How I love it. Not sure if this can really be called baking seeing as I only turned the oven on to roast the peanuts, but I did melt the Caramels on the stove. Does that count as baking??! Lol. I got my Bake-On cos Sunday we are having a "Baby Afternoon Tea" for Felicity who is due to have Baby #2 on Monday! (Nothing like leaving it to the last minute!) She didn't want a Baby Shower cos she doesn't need more stuff, like toys and play mats and feeding pillows that you get with Baby #1. Plus we've done all the baby theme games before so this time we're just going to get together for some girly chat time and eat delicious delicacies with our cousins and some close friends. Sounds very grown up and posh to me! Mum, Alicia and I have all planned some fun and tasty foods, whipping out our old fave recipes plus adding some new fun ones in there too. I decided to try making Mother Lode Pretzels which I read about in a Taste of Home Mag and got on line here. They were fun to make, but beware if you get caramel in odd places it is VERY sticky!! You melt Jersey Caramels with a little Evaporated milk, dip your pretzel rod into it while it's still warm and then roll them in assorted toppings. I rolled in roasted crushed peanuts, mini M&M's and mini Marshmallows. It's a bit tricky to work out the pressure you can exert before the Pretzel rod becomes a tiny heap of pretzel crumbs, but I got it right quickly and didn't waste too many rods! I had to taste test one or two also, just for QC, and they are really nice with their mix of sweet and savoury. YUM!! I can't wait to see what others think of them!

Saturday I've got another big day of baking planned so keep your eyes peeled!!

:) C

Some more Crackers :)

Hey!

I made a couple more cards using my new Stampin Up Animal Crackers set from the 2009-2010 catty, this time with the super sweet Duck stamp. He's cute little sentiment says "you quack me up!" which is awesome. I again coloured the image in with my SU Stampin Write Markers, seeing as I have a very limited number of colours I think I've done pretty well (you may think this guy is just all yellow but he does have some shading blended in with an orange marker, just to be a little tricky). I never stitch buttons on cards, in fact I think I could count the number of times I have stitched buttons on cards with one hand (or it is approx equal to the number of workable Islet Cells I have left in my Pancreas- lazy little diabetic causing blighters). So you get it, not much? But for some reason I have been going gun-ho with a needle and thread and have sewn buttons on all 5 of my recent cards! OMG! Don't flip out, this wont last long and then my jars of buttons will be reserved for gluing on cards again. Until then... stitch away!

:) C

P.S. If anyone would like to have me over for dinner I'm not really enjoying the left overs I'm trying to consume so I'm free. Call me.

New Page, Old Subject!

Hello!

I'd say Happy Monday but isn't that an Oxymoron? LOL!

Well it's been a while since Will and my 2nd Anniversary of starting to "go out" but I've only just gotten around to scrapping it! I hope Will doesn't mind that I used Pink BG paper! lOl!! Nah, he wont mind. He does flick through my Album now and then, which makes me smile :) He reads all the journalling and touches the embellishments! So cute!! Anywho... I took a leaf out of Yvette's book and did a little collection on the right side which is always fun! I love finding bits and pieces that show how I feel about the pic, and convey the mood of the memory. Argh, those title rub ons were a pain in the backside though {pulling angry face and growling!} I could not get the "S" to stick down! I think it's cos they're pretty old and no longer co-operative! Man that annoyed me cos I'd done the whole title and it was just the last letter that wasn't playing fair! Do you like how I layered the black and pink cardstock lace bits? The OLD on this page are the title rub ons, the white filigree rub on, the pink and red sticker words, the date spot, the black PP and cherry PP, lace cardstock and "love" sticker. Ok, so there wasn't much new stuff on this page at all!!

Hope you have a good week!

:) C

Animal Crackers!

Hi Y'all! Happy Saturday!! What a lazy morning I've had, I'm still in my PJ's and it's 11am!! {giggles!} Happy me!!

When I saw the "Animal Crackers" set in the 2009-2010 Stampin Up Catalogue I giggled so much! The pics are just gorgeous and the cute sentiments that go along with them are hillarious! I hadn't yet mounted the set and so set about last night mounting, stamping, colouring and creating! First up was the cute Bunny and her "Ears wishing you a happy day" sentiment. The image itself is quite small which allows for some fun giant embellishments such as the big bow! I used the Martha Stewart Doily Edge punch along the right side for a bit of femininity for the sweet bunny and blinged it with some kaiser jewels. I also inked around the edge of the large scallop circle with my pink Brilliance ink for a bit of sheen.

And here's probably my fave image from the set: the Squirrel and his "I'm nuts about you" sentiment! What a cutie!! He was fun to colour in too, I used my Stampin Write Markers and he turned out really well! I stamped my Hero Arts Woodgrain circle stamp on Baja Blue card with Choc Chip Ink and punched it out with a Marvy Giga Scallop Circle punch. I loved the cool background it created for the little squirrel! I love the black spotty ribbon too, it's just from Spotty but it funked up this card really well! Then I stitched the 2 buttons on to finish it all off! I love this set, it's so much fun!!

I'm off to Chatswood shopping with Alicia this arvo! I love cruising around different shopping centres on the weekend and I haven't been to Chatswood for ages! I know they have Cupcakes on Pitt there now too, so I might have to make a sweet little visit!

Have a great weekend!!

:) C

Taylored Expressions Challenge #88

Hello!

It's time for me to get challenged again :) I broke out some Cat's Pyjamas stamps I've had for about a year that have never seen ink (OMG!! Shhhhhhh don't tell anyone!) and chose Taylored Expression's Challenge #88, so many ideas popped into my head when I saw this sketch! I can't believe I hadn't used these stamps before, they are just so cute! I love that you can curve acrylic stamps too, I curved the Sentiment stamp as I placed it on my acrylic block so that it would match the curve of the Scalloped Oval. Isn't that awesome?! I coloured his hat, jacket, and cool red scarf in with my SU Stampin Write Markers, I love those things. I had so much fun doing a Boy Card with this sketch! I hope you like it too!!

:) C