Hand made Mini Album

Until I was browsing through some old photos the other day I had completely forgotten a little mini album I had made many Mothers Days ago.

The front of Grandma Carols Brag Book

When my friend had her twins, someone had made the two girls identical little pastel albums with a concertina looking spine, and tied closed with ribbon.  My friend let me look the books over and take pics so that I could figure out how it had been assembled.

Showing the spine and construction of the book

Then I went to spotlight and found a kit that looked very similar.  I purchased the kit but only used it as a template, and combined the ideas from the kit and the pics I had of my friends albums.

I was very pleased with the results for the childrens Grandma Carol.  It was neat and compact; small enough to slip into her handbag.

I'm glad that most times these days, thanks to my smart phone, I remember to take pictures of my creations, but just 5 or 6 years ago it wasn't that easy.

I think it's time to make an update version of this mini album with step by step instructions that you can also follow, to make you own beautiful hand made gift. :-)

The back cover with a secret letter to unwrap!

Basic Buttermilk Pancakes

For some tasty, light and fluffy pancakes try this recipe.

I had a 1 litre value pack of buttermilk in the fridge and the following recipe used up all but one mouthful :-)

3/4 cup of castor sugar

1 tsp bicarb of soda

3 cups self raising flour

3 3/4 cups of butter milk

3 eggs

Sift flour and bicarb into a bowl

In another bowl beat your eggs gently and add your buttermilk.

Making a well in the flour slowly add your egg/buttermilk mixture to your flour mix, whisking as you go to eliminate lumps.  I had Little Miss 6 hold the bowl for me at this point, to stop it spinning on the bench as I whisked.

When all the ingredients are incorporated and your batter is lump free you are ready to cook!  Careful not to overwork the batter at this stage.  Your batter should look bubbly and airy in the bowl.

To cook my pancakes I used a small frying pan with a 14cm base to make my pancakes a set size, and cooked them one at a time.

One ladle of batter at a time was the perfect amount for the size of my frying pan.

I also prefer to use a tiny amount of butter instead of oil on the base of my frying pan, but be careful how high you set the heat as butter burns.

Let your batter cook in the frying pan until plenty of bubbles appear.  Then flip  carefully and cook the other side just long enough to make sure the batter in the middle is cooked. 

Your pancakes should be visibly fat and fluffy :-)

Minecraft Cake

Saw it on Pinterest.....TOTALLY NAILED IT!


The year has been so rough I forgot to Blog about Master 14's birthday cake.

I actually had a Minecraft Pinterest board already made for a friends son but it was actually a picture uploaded to Arty Farty Peeps on Facebook, of a cake made by James McDonald, that was my favourite and I chose to copy. My board can be found here.

This is the picture of the cake by James McDonald

It was pretty easy to do without any recipe as such, just the picture as a guide.  I made a chocolate crackle slab, a white chocolate crackle slab and a blue jelly slab.  I also made a basic chocolate cake slab.  All these items were made the day before.

On the day of the party I whipped up a batch of green butter cream icing and started cutting and sticking everything together on the cake board.  It was not without mishap.

I already had the Wilton Grass/Hair Tip.

Aside from ingredients for the cake the only thing I bought was a couple of plastic Minecraft sets that were for sale at Target.  I printed off some of the paper templates from my Pinterest board but decided against using them.

I was worried the cake wasn't impressive enough, or maybe even too babyish for a 14 year old boy but it was yummy and Master 14 said his friends loved it.

Get LOST!

I'm a little behind in catching up with my party blogs but I am ticking them off the list one at a time.

For my birthday last year Miss 21 bought me all 6 seasons of LOST which we watched through TWICE. I kid you not. I hadn't set out for it to be that way but we had just finished watching all 6 seasons the first time when MIL known affectionately as Mad Nana came to stay with us and she had never seen LOST so the kids were pretty keen to share the experience with her, and off we went again! :-/

When September was rolling around I felt I needed to start looking ahead to Mr almost 15s birthday in November. The kids were bugging me to watch LOST for a THIRD time and I was determined to hold out against their pressure. But that's when the idea for a LOST themed party started to come together in my mind.

As always once the theme was set I created my Pinterest board, which can be found here.

It didn't seem like it would be that hard. There was plenty of sites on Pinterest sharing the Dharma labels for the food and a few extra easter eggs for the die hard fans like us who had hung in for all 6 seasons. I did a trip to our local food wholesaler to see exactly what I could get in super sized containers, mostly condiments, and planned the menu around that.

Super sized items I purchased were;
Mayonnaise
Tomato sauce
Barbecue sauce
Peanut Butter

We put Dharma labels on those.

'Desmond'

Miss 5 & 9 as child Kate & Shannon trying to get a mobile signal on the island.

I purchased a box of small bottles of water & another of generic soft drink, the size similar to what you might be given on a plane, and we attached a mix of Dharma, Oceanic Air & Ajira Airways labels on those. At home we also use shop brand oj concentrate and the suppliers had just changed from cartons to little plastic bottles so I saved those over several weeks, washed them and the day before the party refilled them with orange juice. They were also given the Dharma label treatment.

Hubby, for the greater good, purchased some large buckets of KFC several weeks before party day. Once empty we cleaned them as best we could. From the supermarket I purchased pre-crumbed & spiced chicken that we cooked in the oven. The KFC buckets got covered in Mr Clucks Chicken labels and then filled with the oven fried chicken.

Miss 21 dutifully applying labels.....

I wanted to play LOST music while guests were arriving, eating and generally waiting for the show to start. I was able to get both musical scores and songs played on the episodes online. There are complete lists for both at LOST wiki.

On the day we cooked pork on a spit roaster but we referred to it as Boar.  Accompanying all this was bread rolls, Dharma labelled margarine and corn chips in bowls. It was a fine feast.

I had also used the Tiny Teddies biscuit recipe, found here, to make fish biscuits; the fish shaped cutter being purchased from eBay.

Little fish biscuits & my 'sand' for the cake.

But the best part of the night was the outdoor cinema we set up, fire pit burning off to the side for that authentic island feel, and as soon as the sun went down, Mr 15 and his friends settled in to watch as much LOST as they could in 3 hrs.

'Russo, Desmond & Hurley'

'Sayid, Sawyer, US Marshal & Kate, complete with pistol & hand cuffs'

'Kate & Desmond'

A week or two before the event Mr almost 15 approached me with concerns that his friends wouldn't get the references and the 'in' gaggs because none of them had watched LOST. But as I explained to him the theme, the kitchness and in jokes were for him. It was HIS party and he liked LOST. His friends just needed to turn up looking like a cast away or someone from the show, which we gave them information about on the invite, eat the food and enjoy the show.

I chose my favourite posters & images from my Pinterest board and printed them off to hang up outside to help set the mood.

Miss 21 came up with the idea for the cake, and thankfully it was a nice simple idea that would be easy to pull off.

After I had purchased the fish cutter I revisited my Pinterest board and rediscovered the Pin for the large fish biscuits Sawyer gnaws on in the polar bear cage. It included the recipe and a print out for the very large biscuit. I decided these would be great to put 1 each in a brown sandwich bag as the take home party bag, which they were really too old for but it was funny. Included in the bag was their own copy of the recipe and the biscuit template so they could make more at home if they wanted to.

When it was almost time for the evening to come to an end we quickly showed them the recap from the beginning of Season 6; which condenses 5 seasons of LOST into 8 minutes. Feedback Mr 15 received from the party was that most of his friends had gone home and continued to watch LOST, as they had really enjoyed watching it at the party.

Because of the big party year we had last year, with baby showers and 21sts etc, our LOST party was quite simple. As you'll see from my Pinterest board, with more time you could take it to a whole other level.

Hubby as 'John Locke'

I myself left it too late to order my "Still recovering from LOST" T-shirt so I went as pregnant Russo, which surprised a few parents doing the drop off....yep they thought baby no 7 was on the way.....obviously a very convincing costume. Lol.

"It only ends once....the rest is just....progress." Jacob.