Gifts for children who already have everything

When children's houses are filled to the brim with toys from loving family it can be hard to find a gift that they will like, and that doesn't take up a lot of space in an overstretched home. It can also be difficult to find something for a baby who doesn't really know what's going on and their parents tell you not to bother because they are lucky enough to have so much already.
I found myself in these circumstances this Christmas, but still wanted to give something on Christmas day.

For the baby in the family I made a multi-coloured window star. It takes up no space at all and is pretty to look at. I'm also sure these stars aid imagination and intelligence in some way.

For the toddler in the family I decided to make some home-made play dough. I made four colours (the dark one is purple but didn't photograph very well) and added glitter to make them a bit festive! I think play dough is a great gift for a toddler, I've yet to meet one that doesn't enjoy playing with it. It shouldn't take up much space and obviously wont last more than a couple of months.

Here's the recipe I used (per blob):

1 tsp cream of tartar

1 cup plain flour

half cup of salt

1 cup water

1 tbsp cooking oil

food colouring (as much as you need to get the colour you want)

Glitter

Mix all ingredients in a pan over a medium heat, stirring continuously. When it leaves the sides of the pan it's ready! Don't worry if it's still a bit sticky, as it cools it becomes less so.

It keeps for about 2 months stored in an air tight container.

I wrapped the blobs of play dough into a cracker shape.

I hope they like their presents as much as I enjoyed making them!

Solstice greetings and mince pies

Winter Solstice greetings to you all!


We marked the day with the exchange of a home made gift each, and by making mince pies.

It couldn't be more wintery here at the moment. We have so much snow! The roads nearby are like a big sheet of ice and we're hoping that our food delivery will arrive safely tomorrow, so that we can have the Christmas we have planned.

Stay safe if you are travelling over the festive period x

Home spiced and roasted nuts

Spice and roast nuts was another one of the items on my list of 101 things. There is a roasted/flavoured nut stall regularly at our local market and we love it but it's quite expensive and the nuts aren't that fresh. When we visited the German Christmas market and tasted the freshly roasted nuts we were amazed at what a difference it made so that encouraged me to try making some at home and cross another item off the list.

We both chose a recipe to try that appealed to us. Cameron chose Cinnamon Roasted Almonds - recipe here. They were amazingly easy to make and taste better than the sweet almonds Cameron usually picks at the market.

I can see these being quite versatile too - they could be crushed and used as toppings for yoghurt, fruit crumbles etc.

I wanted to try something savoury so I went for Cajun Roasted Nuts - recipe here. These were also fairly easy to make but didn't taste quite as I'd imagined because of the strong heather honey I used but they were still pretty tasty!

I read that you can make these in advance and freeze them until you're ready to serve them, which is very handy.

Snowflake Quesadillas

It's snowing today! It's not settling but it's big beautiful fluffy flakes and wonderful to watch. I read somewhere that when it snows, it's a rare time when you get to see what a million looks like!

What to eat for lunch on a snowy day? Another item to cross off my list of 101 things - Snowflake Quesadillas!



They were inspired by these Snowflake Quesadillas on the Martha Stewart Website, years ago. I'd printed off the recipe and put it in my inspiration folder for another day.

We skipped the spinach tortilla bit and filled them with ham and cheese for lunch. They were delicious and Cameron was particularly impressed (he's been calling me Mummy Martha all day!).

I think this is a really versatile recipe, there are limitless possibilities.

Christmas cake 2009

I always try to think of a new idea for decorating our Christmas cake each year. Not so much to impress people, but just because I really enjoy the process of decorating cakes.

You can see some of our past Christmas cakes here.

This year I searched for cake toppers for inspiration and didn't really find anything that I was happy with. I knew I wanted to use roll-out icing as last year I didn't do very well with the royal icing method.

As December approached I still didn't have an idea and then we were making glittery Christmas pictures one day and it made me think about some edible glitter I had in the kitchen cupboard.

Here's what I ended up doing:

I covered the cake in marzipan and ready to roll icing as usual. I made some sugar syrup using just sugar and a little water, reducing it so that it got nice and sticky like glue.

I painted a simple snowflake design on the cake, then covered the entire thing with edible glitter (disco green, just because that's what I had in the cupboard) and waited about 10 minutes for it to really stick and dry a little.

I was going to dust off the excess glitter with a pastry brush but Cameron decided he wanted to blow it off - so he did! - and covered our entire kitchen in glitter!

The sugar "glue" worked well and I finished it off with some sugar pearl decorations from a shaker set we bought at the supermarket.

I really like it - what do you think?

Homemade Transfer Tees

When I started planning for festive presents, back in the Summer, I had planned to make some clothing incorporating Cameron's superhero characters - the ones he created himself to feature in comics and things - but I held off on making them as his interests can change so quickly and I wanted to get it right.

My instincts were correct and Cameron's interests moved towards Pokemon during Autumn and so that has been my focus theme for this project.

I borrowed some of his drawings of Pokemon characters and scanned them. Then printed them onto transfer paper - making iron-on transfers to go onto plain cotton t-shirts and vests. I found out that my printer has a setting for transfers and also mirrors the images so that they end up the right way round (very important if your image has writing on it!)

Transfer paper is pretty cheap and available in some shops, I couldn't find any in my town so purchased it on eBay.


I love that he will now have clothes that are not only unique but feature his own illustrations!


I made a few more, using images from the internet (I'm unsure of the law around copyright for images online but I think this is legal as long as I don't sell them?).


The transfer paper worked really well and the finish is much nicer than some ready-made transfers that I've bought and used in the past that can feel quite plasticy and heavy. The kind I bought also had clever colour changing backing paper that told me when I'd applied enough heat which was really handy.

I'm so pleased with the way they've turned out and I can't wait for Cameron to see them!

Festive Baking

We're at it again - festive baking - but not on such a grand scale as last year's 12 Days of Festive Treats!


I thought I'd post some links to the (badly photographed) recipes from last year - we are repeating a few of these this year but they are all really great.

Chocolate Star Biscuits

Candy Cane Cookies

Orange Cinnamon Sables

Santa Lucia Buns

'S' Shaped Cookies

Sugar Cookies

Chocolate Pepper Cookies

Applique Cookies

Cheesy Poppy Seed Bites

My mince pie pastry recipe

Grantham Gingerbreads

Peanut butter cookies

I hope you find something you like!