First Christmas Page!

Awe, what a cutie! Here is my First Christmas page, and it's Sienna's First Christmas too! Oh she is just the cutest in her red and white headband! I never end up scrapping any Christmas pages cos the pics are always so full-on and the pages end up even more fuller on! But this pic is just so beautiful and serene. I love it Fliss, great work! The OLD on this page is the Christmas tags, the 3D Snowman and tree stickers, snowflake brad & rub on. It was fun digging through my stash to find some cute Christmas things! Sometimes I forget what I've got {heheh, time to clean out!} Don't you love the gift PP?! It's so cute! And the red spotty is one of my current faves. They're both Kaisercraft. They've got some great papers out!
Hope you're having a great week!
:) C

The Spirit is waning...

Bare with me... I had written a nice long post with nice pics from Christmas and then my internet dropped out and I lost it all, just as I pressed "Post". Can you imagine?!! {tearing hair out}. And no, "back page" doesn't work. GRRRR... So I'm going to try a condensed version.

Here is Mum and Dad's tree with only part (yes there was more) of the presents visible under the tree. More sprawl off to the left under the window. My family are not in the habit of buying Gift Cards, presents are our thing so the poor little tree can't possible crouch over them all! The first Christmas Will spent with my family he walked into the family room and stood there with his mouth agape. "Are they all presents?" he asked.. "Ah, yes Babe, we didn't just wrap up empty boxes!" was my reply! {giggles}.

Our family also seems to like wrapping the presents beatifully in colour themes. Yvette's gifts she wrapped in the bright green with red journal spot tags, Alicia's were all red and white, Mum and Dad's were silver with Black ribbon etc. So pretty! It makes giving and receiving Christmas presents all the more special when they are wrapped so beautifully!! How pretty is this one from Mum and Dad, it even has a beaded Dragonfly tied into the ribbon! Mine were wrapped in silver and ice blue. I've already bought my paper for next year too (love the 50% off Christmas sales!)

So wanna see what I got? Here is my traditional pic of all my presents on my bed. The coolest thing is the Cake Tin that Alicia got me that bakes a giant Cupcake! I love it! I can't wait to try it and I am gathering some decorating ideas for making it for my birthday at the end of the month (Jan 31, mark it in your calenders people!) She also gave me a Piping kit along with it too, that's gonna be fun! Some other fantastic gifts I got are: Scrapbooking stuff (I've already used the 7 Gypsies stamps Y!), a gorgeous Toiletries bag with bunnies on it, beautiful tea towels and placemats and a whole bunch of cool DVDs off Willy.

It was a wonderful Christmas, I love you family!

:) C

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

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

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

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