Wednesday, 28 November 2012

Willow trees and 3-day cupcakes


I love willow trees...they're my favourite kind of tree. They're beautiful! We have one over hanging our backyard :o) I actually found a lovely little nook of Armidale yesterday with willows all around.. it was so beautiful! Ok so I had to navigate across built up debris and kinda sank into the mud a fair bit but I got to where I was going eventually! Worth it!
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Ours provides lovely shade, gives a gorgeous green glow when the sun filters through the tendrils...ours has recently become home to a family of ravens. Two very young birds sitting on a bough outside my house happily carolling away waiting for mum to feed them. They sound a bit like Velociraptors from Jurassic Park (which by the way, scares the beejeebies out of me!)

I guess it wouldn't be so bad if my little dog, the protector of the universe didn't feel the need to bark at them. My little dog feels the need to protect the yard against ANYTHING at ALL costs. He has little man syndrome. Completely harmless, just thinks he's a big tough Doberman.

He's not exactly terrifying! He may lick you to death but that's about it!
Hmmm. the 3-day cupcakes. No, it was not some insane multilayered difficulty of 1000 cupcake recipe...in fact it was just a cupcake recipe on Junior Masterchef for cryin' out loud! But they still took me 3 days.
This is basically how it happened:
Find recipe with intentions of making awesome cupcakes to consume with gusto. Lose enthusiasm. Find butter cake packet mix in pantry...regain some enthusiasm and proceed to make cupcakes the cheat way. I.e. not from the actual recipe

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Scoop out a little of the centres, and put them away for the day. The next day I make the lemon curd and stick it into my cupcakes.... then they go back in the fridge...still unfinished. Why I couldn't finish them all at once on day one I have no idea. Anyhoo... day three (late last night) I pulled them out and finally made the meringue for them. The meringue for once in my life actually reached the right consistancy, but I burnt them under the grill....  I then ate 4 in a row they mustn't have been that bad; then again my standards for my own baking aren't that high and really I'll eat anything. So no problems eh?

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Sunday, 25 November 2012

Marvelous Mondays Hop! Come One, Come All!

Hi Beans! Guess what's a little different this week? I'm co-hosting the 'Marvelous Mondays' blog hop hosted by the fabulously talented Julie at This Gal Cooks! Pretty nifty right? I super dooper with a cherry on top encourage you to link up your crafty, delicious and DIY posts and join in! SQUEEE! Enjoy! ^.^
 
Good evening, everyone! Welcome to Marvelous Mondays week 22! I hope you all have had a great weekend. This week's co-hosts are:

Julie from This Gal Cooks (HOST)
Tash from Quirky Crafting Schmoogle Bean (co-host)
Sarah from Southern Comfort from a Yankee Perspective (co-host)
Amanda from Realistically Domestic (co-host)

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Rules:


  • Please follow your host and co-hosts via Google Friend Connect, Twitter, Blog Lovin, Facebook or RSS Feed. Please leave a comment stating how you followed so your host can follow you back. Your host and co-host links can be found at the top of the party post. 
  • Check out your fellow bloggers' projects. Leave them some wonderful comments to let them know that you stopped by.
  • Link up your recipes, crafts or DIY projects. Please link something that you made. No giveaways or shops, please.
  • Grab a button. It's not mandatory but it helps get the word out about the party.



  • Wednesday, 21 November 2012

    Sweet Inspiration ~ loving the colour brown!

    I really am! It's one of my favourite colours, you can pair it with so many beautiful colours like pink and blue and yellow and it's just so versatile! I've been in love with 50 shades of brown lately (yeah I know, bad pun) and I'm feeling like I want this inspiration to spill over into my photography... so I rummaged through my yarn stash, my ribbon drawer and pulled some things together to inspire me to create a really beautiful newborn photography prop set. I've put together some inspiration in this post, the materials I have on hand and some of the things i've already made hoping that some brilliant and completely adorable ideas start forming! Oh! And you remember how I started to learn to knit the other day? And that I was hoping I wouldn't make any mistakes so I didn't pull it apart in frustration? Well it's been pulled apart about 4 times since then and I've started again...this time with slightly bigger needles and I'm finding it much easier. Also please excuse the terrible lighting in these photos! I'm still learning how to do that properly... and not doing to well *sigh* Oh well I'll get there eventually.

    I'm really looking forward to getting creative with it and to see what happens!