100 year old gets a residential facelift

After three years this amazing renovation is almost complete.  We spent our first night in our new house and it was more amazing than I expected.  There is a feeling you get in some houses and buildings, the feeling of a sick building.  Other buildings you don't but this was the complete polar opposite, not just a nice building this house feels healthy, happy, almost uplifting.  I love this building.
From the artists and craftsmen who originally worked on this magnificent building to the architects, craftsmen, builder and trades people who have been involved in the project it seems that we have been lucky to continually run into people with a great sense of pride and craftsmanship in the work they have invested.  I am in total awe of the outcome.

Scones with jam and cream

Note: To make this a completely salicylate friendly treat replace the strawberry jam and strawberries with some  Hank's pear and vanilla jam.

Ingredients:
3 cups plain flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tbs caster sugar (not necessary)
80g butter, cubed, at room temperature
1 cup milk, at room temperature
Extra plain flour

Method:
Turn the oven on to 220 degrees celcius.  Sift the flour and baking powder twice.  Place the softened butter, flour mixture into a mixing bowl and use finger tips to blend together until it resembles bread crumbs.  This is a good time to get help but the way warm little hands like to get in there and enjoy this tactile experience will mean your scones aren't as fluffy as they might otherwise be.

Make a well in the center and pour the milk and sugar (if using it) in all at once.  Use a butter knife in a scraping and cutting motion to drawn the flour mixture in from the sides and slice through the center of the mixture making sure you only mix until the mixture has just come together.
Tip it out onto a clean and lightly floured work surface and bring together with your palms, do not knead the mixture.  Just bring it together and use your palms to gentle pat it down to be a two cm thick rectangle.
Use a circular cookie cutter or thin rimmed glass that has been dusted with flour to cut as many scones as you can out of this lot.  Bring together left over bits very gently, the more you handle it the denser they are, and cut out the rest.
Put in the lined trays close together and use a pastry brush or finger tips to paint the tops with milk, if you paint down the sides they won't rise properly.  Cook for about 10 minutes.
(Makes about a dozen to eighteen scones. )
Serve with jam, cream and strawberries.

Chantilly cream
200 ml thickened cream
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbs castor sugar

Place all in a bowl together and whisk until the cream is thick and fluffy. 

Go Fish

Age recommendations frequently underestimate children.  This has been an awesome present for Mr 4 and little Miss 2.

When we've been playing together I always ask for the colour on the card and also follow up with a name for the colour that they are more familiar with, I like that they have less obvious names. Chartreuse, maybe I'm a total pleb but I have never had a reason to use this term to describe a colour.

Twelve days of christmas

I am a recent convert to the twelve days of christmas.  Having the time with just one toy, no matter how flashy and fabulous, gives a chance for children to appreciate them a little more than the toss to the side treatment they get during the present opening frenzy of a large family christmas.  No doubt reducing all these gifts to one special teddy for the duration of your childhood, instead of the population a small outback town perched precariously on a chest, would do the same but industrialisation, a throw away society and grandparents have done away with the chances of that happening.

On the first day of christmas my parents gave to me a fairy sitting on a horsie.

On the second day of christmas my parents gave to me two dogs in a truck and a fairy sitting on a horsie.

Bunting...advent...school fairs...advent bunting...I have truly been possessed by the domestic spirit.  four years ago when I was twenty kilos lighter and dancing til my eyes adjusted to the surreal tangerine sun rise I would certainly not have believed that I would fit so nicely into a domestic routine and be enjoying it so much.  I didn't even know what bunting was but thought those little flags that people strung up were a useless and ciche waste of fabric.  Now I draw with erasable marker on the back of my children's laminated cards a map to where they will find tomorrows present and tuck it into the advent bunting which I am so proud to have made myself from the beautiful example set by Sew Sweet Violet whilst I plan the time I will need to sew some christmas themed bunting for my daughter's day care and bake a gift of shortbread for the good folk at work.  Merry crafty christmas mums and makers everywhere.

Lark a treasure trove of retro booty, sweet and precious things.

 

Handmade Christmas - Sight Words Books

One of the christmas gifts I aim to get organised to finish is a small collection of sight words books.  The beginnings are a bunch of sketches which I aim to manipulate with GIMP and the mouse track pad.  So tedious.  I cannot wait to get my Bamboo stylus and Sensu brush for christmas.
I want to bind using the japanese book binding method, Tinker Labs has a great tutorial here.

Gigi and the Bear

So I heard there have never been any bears in Australia or Antarctica?

 

Dog Birthday Cake

great recipe to do with kids.  Especially the younger ones as it seems they gain the greatest pleasure from creating something for someone else, in this case one of their favourite creatures - the family dog.

Ingredients
3 eggs
1/4 cup of canola oil
1 tbsp golden syrup or honey
1 carrot grated
1 cup of wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder


1 pack of cream cheese frosting
1 container of pate

Method
1. Preheat oven at 180 degrees centigrade.  Grease the ramekins with butter and place a circular cutout of baking paper, the diameter of the ramekin at the bottom.
2. Add the eggs, this is fine for little hands to do even if they are new to cracking eggs, egg shell is good for dog coats and they are not going to mind the texture of a little egg shell if they happen to have some of it touch their tongues while ducking down their throats in literal break neck speed.
3.  measure and allow your little one to add each of the ingredients one at a time and mix until completely combined.  You may need to take over after they have had enough.
4. Separate between ramekins to give each party member their own cake.  This mix makes three cakes.
 5.  Bake for about 10 - 15 minutes.  Checking the mixture is cooked through.
6.  Once completely cool cut in half and spread a nice thick layer of the pate in the middle of the cake.
7.  Ice with the cream cheese frosting and serve for twenty seconds of madness.

Dog Birthday Party

We decided to have a birthday party for our house guest, Louis the spitzoodle (or whatever).  Mr 4 told me someone had sent a message saying it was Louis' birthday on the 1st of December.  This seemed very specific so I thought my partner must have had an email from Louis family letting us know that.  It wasnt, they hadn't, he is four so he has a very creative grip on reality.  It was awesome!  Kids and dogs loved it.  We had doggy birthday games (just one, bones hanging by a piece of wool laced over a pagoda beam, very funny to watch and every dog ran away with a prize).  I had bought a Spot book while I was out and just left it on my son's bed getting on with the party preparations.  This worked out perfectly because neither of them had seen it until after the festivities and it looked like it had magically appeared there.  So now we have the magic animal fairy who delivers special gifts to boys and girls who treat animals like the special little people they are.

The dog cake was great to prepare together with my little Miss doing all the adding of ingredients and mixing.