holy tummy ache

It's the most wonderful time of the year... for hobbies! I've been baking a lot for Christmas. This year I baked meat pies, pumpkin pies, apple pies, cookies and cinnamon buns. I'm very pleased to announce that everything came out perfectly. I didn't burn a single item or omit any important ingredients. I will say that I did make the apple pies without a recipe, which I guess should actually be more impressive. Usually I follow my Mom's recipe, but because I moved it was not available so I just winged it. This is also the first year I made meat pies, and they were really good.

Here are the cinnamon buns. So gooey good!













I also used a knitting loom to make some super over-sized leg warmers for my sister. She was very excited to receive these. I am really enjoying the knitting loom projects for gifts. They workup very quickly and look really nice.





Here are the matching cowls.












And as promised, The EPIC Christmas Lamp! I really wish I had put the presents under this, that would have been a great picture. We didn't have a full sized tree this year so I decorated the lamp instead. All you need is some lights, beads and an ornament or two. Beginning at the top fasten your lights and/or beads securely. Now wrap around the lamp slowly in a clockwise motion until you reach the base. Tie tightly and admire your Christmas creativity!







Not to mention, our 3ft tree! A Christmas miracle.

Also, this elf creeps me out, so I hung it up. Merry Christmas!

potluck? more like pot belly

Every time I go to a potluck I tell myself that I will eat in moderation and watch how much dessert I eat. Of course, that never works.

My work asked staff to bring in items for our yearly holiday potluck, and I decided to bring cupcakes, shocker I know. I'm pretty sure that people are getting tired of reading about cupcakes on my blog so next time I promise it will NOT BE MORE CUPCAKES.














Here's a little explanation of my creation. Vanilla cake with vanilla icing. That about sums it up. I wanted to do something a little fancier but ran out of time. I just moved this month and forgot my flour at my old place. (We're moving out very slowly). I had a roommate pick some up from Costco, OMG. This flour bag could provide an army with bread for a year, I'm not kidding, this thing is huge.

Anyway, these were quick and pretty so it worked out. My coworkers really seemed to enjoy them, so that's good.














Next entry will be my Christmas creations! Prepare yourself for the epic new tradition, the Christmas Lamp!

so sweet, they could get away with murder

These cupcakes are so yummy! So, first we have mini vanilla cupcakes with pink buttercream frosting. They are as tasty as they are pretty. I made these when I was visiting my cousin at her house for dinner. They were such a hit that even my sister was taking pictures. I will be making these again for sure. I think I'm getting better at my icing technique too. I'm loving the large star icing tip I bought at Michael's. It's much better than the small one that came with the kit I bought.



These were a thank you gift to a friend who has done some piercings for me. These are chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. I tried to put jam in the middle but it didn't really work. I filled an icing bag and tried to pipe it in but the strawberry bits kept clogging the tip. Oh well. Next time I'm going to scoop out a small portion and fill it. They were really yummy though. (I always sample my creations for... safety reasons.)

tastes like diabetes

These are my first fondant decorated cupcakes. Aren't they cute?

















They are vanilla cake with strawberry frosting and marshmallow fondant. I chose to use marshmallow fondant because I had all of the ingredients but also because it was an easy recipe. I also found out that marshmallow fondant tends to taste a little better than regular fondant. Some people will discard fondant like a fruit peel but this fondant is a little more tasty.

Next time I think I'll use buttercream icing. I used a butter-based icing for this, but it ended up being way to sweet. If I was to use this icing again, I don't think I'd use fondant with it.

This fondant was mixed with food colouring. I didn't have gloves so I put the fondant in a ziplock bag with a little colouring and mushed it around. It worked really well. I cut the flowers using cookie cutters. Some of the fondant is stacked and some is placed inside a cut-out space.

Once again, I mixed some strawberry jam into the icing. For my next cupcakes, I think I'll add food colouring instead and practice my icing techniques some more. I bought a new icing tip this week and I'm excited to try it out.

I should also mention that I made a tiny mistake when preparing these. I was rushing to get the cake mixed and put in the oven. While they were baking, I mixed the icing and realized that I had put twice the butter in the cakes that I was suppose to. So, the cakes didn't really rise that much and they are a little oily but everyone who tried them said they were good. I guess it's better to have too much than not enough.

this art makes me look fat

Yummy cup cakes. My boyfriend bought me this new cookbook and I just finished my first recipe from it. They are called 'Pretty 'n' Pink' but mine are more like 'Tasty but Needs Work'. To be honest, I am proud of these. I've never made this cake or icing recipe before, I've never used a double boiler, never made a meringue and never used a piping bag. Overall I think this is pretty good for the experience I have.

These are some delicious little desserts. The cake is a basic vanilla white cake and the icing is Swiss Meringue Buttercream with Strawberry Jam. I'm happy that these cakes are mini because the amount of butter in this is shocking, but they just melt in your mouth.... drool. I even put some sprinkles on some of them.










This one is my favourite, it looks like poop.

where leg warmers loom

Just finished yet another pair of leg warmers. They certainly are a popular item being requested. These were created using one of my knitting looms, these are made with the smallest. The knitting loom kit came with four different sizes, a hook and a needle. I really recommend knitting looms for beginners. They are pretty straight forward. I received my first one for Christmas one year when I was a kid and I was able to figure it out then. The kit I used, referred to this knitting technique as 'corking' but I think knitting loom sounds a little better.

I made a pair of these before for my sister in a light purple colour but didn't take any pictures. This pair is for a friend at work, she saw the pair that my sister was wearing. When she asked for them I made a mental note to take some pictures for this blog.

I can't wait to hand them over to her tomorrow at work. Next, I should be working on a couple of cowls, but knowing me I'll find something else to distract me along the way.

creative christmas

This post is appearing a little later than I had intended but better late then never, right?

What do you do when you have no money but want to get into the holiday spirit? Create your own Christmas miracle! All it takes is a little paper, some scissors and imagination. I finished all of this while watching Greece, so I guess about an hour and a half?

The tree was pretty simple. Start with the top of the tree by folding a piece of green paper in half length ways. Draw a coniferous (evergreen) shaped tree top half, cut out and unfold. Viola! The top is complete. Tape some more green paper to the back of this paper and continue drawing and cutting out until you are happy with the size you have. I recommend using a pencil and drawing on the back of the page at all times. If you don't know how to draw a simple Christmas tree shape, I suggest looking up images of trees through a search engine and studying them.

The wreath was just an afterthought. I had many scraps left over from making the tree and didn't want to recycle them yet. I gathered them all into a wreath shape and taped them down. Then I added 'berries'. It looks great around my peek-hole on my door.

Everyone's favourite, paper-chains were another idea. Tape strips of 1 inch thick paper around each other. I alternated green paper and a white paper with red lines on it. (I didn't have any red so I printed some funky designs in red on white paper).