After a mad rush up to Christmas (we had builders in insulating an old loft conversion) there was unfortunately little time to spend baking and making. I had started knitting some Alan Dart mice back in November, so these got finished to hang on the Christmas tree – one for each daughter.
I also decided that I would take cake pops to my sister-in-laws for our Christmas Eve family meal – the reindeer heads with orange Matchstick antlers went down a treat with the kids.
Having a 3 year old daughter – Hello Kitty is very apparent in our house and the day before putting the decorations up, she asked for a Hello Kitty door wreath and decorations for the Christmas tree. The wreath was a step to far - we ended up with a hand made willow, ivy and red berries, but unfortunately the hook kept falling off the door. For the tree we came up with the idea of making little Hello Kitty angels – we printed off some images, drew up the wings. Emily then cut out the heads (I helped around the whiskers), wings and the semi circle dress - the lot was stuck together with plenty of cellotape. A loop of silver thread was attached and a hoop of tinsel added for a sparkly touch. They looked great on the tree, and will be stored away for next year.
During advent, we had a Hello Kitty calendar, the sort where you got a little toy behind each window. By Christmas Day we had furniture for a bedroom, kitchen and lounge plus two little characters. On the back was a room scene to cut out but it wasn’t big enough for all the toys, so after Christmas we made a 3 storey house out of an old cereal packet. Unfortunately Emily decided they had to have stairs too – so an extension was added for the two flights of cardboard stairs. Each room was then decorated using the scrap wrapping paper from Christmas. So now Hello Kitty and Mimmy have a house to play in.
It’s is always fun at Christmas to invite friends over for a little bit of crafting fun – in this case food craft.
Gingerbread houses to be precise – maybe a little ambitious when you have very little time – but I was surprised how easy they were to make. The only issue I had was that I only had one large baking sheet, so baking took some time with all the bits for two houses.
I found a recipe off the internet, most of them had black treacle, not my favourite ingredient so next year I will swap ½ the black treacle for golden syrup.
So the sides were made and a huge batch of royal icing was made up (using Dr Oetker egg whites), and out came my old icing bag and nozzles. The houses were fun to stick together – until my husband told me I got the roofs on the wrong way – so the pieces were prised off, cleaned and stuck back on. I was really surprised just how quickly it stuck together, and how strong they were when finished. The houses were then left overnight to really harden – ready to be decorated by Emily and her friend Lucy.
Making the houses was a great way of getting rid of the sweeties that we had collected over the past year. Emily and Lucy "directed" where they wanted the icing, and then covered the roofs with sweeties. Paths of icing were created so that the gummy bears could "conga" up to the front door of the house (although I don’t think many of Lucy’s bears made it to the party!). A reindeer cookie was added to each front garden, with cake decorations added for eyes and a nose.
Both girls were very good and didn’t eat too many sweets – the same can not be said about Claire and me.
Emily and Lucy (and mummies) were really pleased with their finished results, and proudly shown off to their Daddies later.
So Merry Christmas, Claire and Lucy – we hope you enjoy munching through the house as much as we all enjoyed decorating them.
The scrap page was put together using Serif CraftArtist – using Lifestyle digikit and my own little gingerbread man image.
Not only is making cake pops and icing models good fun it kept my 3 ½ year old quiet for ages – double bonus!
After picking up some reduced fondant icing from my local supermarket and some Dr Oetker coloured icing – Emily and I spent an afternoon making icing models for the Christmas cake. I had recently seen a demonstration on TV by Ann Pickard and took inspiration from what I had seen (and could remember). So we made some snowmen, penguins and trees. A few days later, Emily thought it would be nice to have an angel too for the cake – so out came the icing again and I made a little angel. The angel was nearly finished but she was missing something ….what could she hold? "A penguin" was suggested , and duly made. Whilst messing around with the icing, we spotted the Playdough dog that Santa had bought last Christmas, so 3 puppies and a teddy were made from the mould. I think I will dig out my fimo moulds and have more fun soon.
We also had a play with pop cakes – they seem to be everywhere – so I thought they would be good to make for the schools Christmas cake stall. Looking at the options on internet of how to make them – I went for a pop cake maker that makes little spherical cakes, instead of mixing cake and butter icing together. The plain cakes are a good size for little children, instead of the large muffins or cupcakes with lots of icing/frosting. I bought a Sweet Treats Pop Cake Maker from Lakeland, and so far we have been really pleased with the results. The cakes are moist and tasty. So I had a practice for the sale next week, I kept the decoration simple with dark or white chocolate and lots of sprinkles. Fortunately we didn’t have to munch through 25+ pop cakes as my niece had an 18th birthday party to go to so she took the spare practice pop cakes. The process was simple enough for my daughter to have a go – and she had great fun sprinkling sprinkles everywhere and getting some onto the cakes too.
The scrap page was put together using Serif CraftArtist – using Lifestyle digikit.
