New mirror and yet more birthday cake...

A new mirror design...



...just recently completed.



I've a few new designs ready to make. I should have a bit more time to do them now that the birthday party season is over. Talking of which, we were lucky again! The day of the party dawned fair, the storms of the previous day forgotten, by afternoon the sun was shining and we had a garden party!


The birthday boy is wearing the checked shirt and dark blue hat and eating something (what a surprise!)


On the actual birthday I made another cake ( I did look in the shops just to buy one, but didn't see one I fancied!)


It's from this book which was an impulse buy in TK Maxx one day. Everything we've made so far from it has been good and because it's aimed at children there's nothing too tricky either.


Think somebody enjoyed it anyway!

We went for a little birthday bike ride along the cycle path to the loch.


N & A travel in style in the trailer pulled by Dad. I get to ride unencumbered and stop for a couple of photos.



Pretty!

Empire biscuits (including recipe!) & Birthday Cake (yes, again!)

A rainy day!



Phew! Been busy day today - getting ready for the wee fellow's first birthday party tomorrow. Rather a dreich day too - two good excuses to bake some biscuits & cake...

Here is my empire biscuit recipe!

Copied over the phone from Mum many moons ago...

8 oz (220 g) butter
4 oz (110 g) icing sugar
4 oz (110 g) cornflour
8 oz (220 g) plain flour

1. Cream the butter and sugar
2. Add the flours, mix to a dough
(Should really chill the dough for 1/2 hour before rolling but I often don't bother and it still seems to roll out fine)
3. Roll out to preferred thickness (I would normally make them thick - about 3/4 cm (that's three quarters not three or four!) and cut
4. Bake at 150C (Gas 2) for 20 mins ( should be baked through but still very pale in colour)
5. Once cooled, ice half of the biscuits and decorate with a cherry piece (these will be your tops),
6. Apply raspbery jam to the remaining biscuits (your bottoms!)
7. Squidge tops & bottoms together.
8. Enjoy!

Today I made rather more dainty biscuits than I normally do.


Rolling out the dough & cutting out the shapes - circles are the norm, but anything goes really, I've done circles & stars.



Biscuits baked, pale, barely golden in colour

Count your biscuits (carefully - not like me, iced far too many today!). Leave half of them as-is...


...ice the rest and decorate, traditionally with a piece of glace cherry.

Now for the jam...



Personally, I only ever use Tiptree jam. Nothing else compares! I currently have quite a selection, blackberry jelly currently in use for breakfast toast, raspberry for the empire biscuits, stawberry for the birthday cake (coming up) and black cherry for the cupboard.

Apply a gernerous dollop to each biscuit and sandwich together.


Some completed star shaped biscuits, bit fiddly to ice & jam but look nice, expecially at Christmas.

On to the birthday cake. I made a standard sponge cake using the recipe from Rachel Allen "Bake"



One half of the cake is covered with a good spread of strawberry jam. Mix up some butter icing (again from Rachel's book), apply on top of jam, sandwich the halves together...



Glace icing on top, decorate with sprinkles and a scrumptious treat awaits.

I go for personality rather than good looks with my cakes as you can see! And yes, that is a dead tree in the garden, must remember and remove it before the next cake photo shoot!

I managed to get all this done during the birthday boy's naps. A kept herself busy with some painting:



I'm now a bit pooped having also cleaned and tidied the house (no small task!) - all part of the pretence of having a tidy home for the visiting Mums tomorrow! Any hopes of having the party in the garden are now dashed (or should that be drowned!) so we'll be all squidged in the house instead. Perhaps I should have just left the cleaning & tidying till after the event...

Bike ride & introducing Choonin

It was such a lovely morning I set off for my bike ride for the first time without a fleece!



Off in a new direction today, this cyclepath has some sculptures along the way...


The path used to be a railway line


The Roman soldiers must have just been painted in the last couple of days as I could still smell the paint. I was a little disappointed as I liked how they used to look in all their faded rusty glory.


View from near the soldiers.


Then on to the road for the trip back home. I planned my route so I'd pass a viewpoint towards the end but it was very hazy today so the view wasn't worth taking a photo of. One to return to on a clearer, crisper day.

And when I got home...

there were banana muffins for breakfast!

I also took some photos of this little chap that I finished off last night...


I'm told his middle name is Choonin (we can't remember his first name apparently!)



I am sooo chuffed with how he turned out! I'm new to knitting and this is my first completed project. It's a very simple pattern modified from a couple of similar ones I'd seen in books. He'll be getting a hat very soon. I made him for A who clearly specified that the scarf was to be blue and the hat green and that HE was NOT a SHE! I had intended making up pink accessories and attaching some crochet flowers so just as well I checked in advance then! I'm going to tweak the pattern further when I make one for N, if it works out as I hope then I'll be sharing the pattern...

Roses are red...

I polished, packaged and posted off this Macintosh inspired red rose mirror to its new home yesterday.


The design is a little tricky to execute - all those parallel leaded lines to get right and lots of fiddly little nooks to clean the polish out of, however, I do rather like it even if I say so myself!

It's quite appropriate that my most recent mirror sale is of a rose as I was planning to pop some photos of granny's roses on my blog today...









Just a small selection as Granny has loads! I like them in her garden but I'm not too keen to fill out my own garden with them - they're not very good at hiding the weeds and though I love pruning(!), rose prunings are too jabby!

Off now to fill up the paddling pool after several reminders from A who has been very patiently waiting...

Violas are not pansies

We're just back from a few days spent visiting the grandparents.

I went a little crazy with my new camera in Granny's small but packed garden. Here are just a few photos of her violas (not pansies, I was informed)...









Daughter & I also got NEW SHOES! Soooo, here is my first (seemingly obligatory for crafty mumsy blogs) foot photo...



I recently came across Snapdragon's lovely blog, and did we not find some of her work for sale while we were on our travels...


...I bought a butterfly badge for A.

Just to finish, another flower photo...


... roses to follow!

Pebbles etc

Bit disorganised today with nothing exciting to report (thankfully!). Just posting some of the better photos taken when playing with my new camera in the garden...


These pebbles sit in one of my window boxes. The dark red and pale grey ones were collected a few years ago from the lovely beach at Auchmithie with the intention of using them in a pebble mosaic for the garden at some point...


Second phase of honesuckle flowers.


Hydrangeas are starting to bloom, gorgeous blue.


The pumpkin, which is now a squash, as the original pumpkin got, errr, squashed!
(It was flattened by some gymball rolling at the 4yr old's recent birthday party.)

Saturday morning cycle ride

For the first few miles I follow my usual route. The killer hill seems easier, am I getting fitter?


A pleasant view from along the top.

At the big stone...

... I decide to go straight on instead of left...


...and end up at the loch. The scullers were out training - what I used to do on a Saturday morning bc (before children!)


This otter carving is new since I was last down this way.


I just took the cycle path home. There's a mediaeval church just off the cycle path which I've glimpsed many a time through the trees but never bothered taking the time to stop and visit...


...till today!


Bit of blurb


Love the stonework


more!


and more!


Then back up the lane to the cycle path. The sun is just starting to make an appearance, it turned out to be a lovely day despite the earlier presence of the ominous black clouds.

And I used my new camera! I'm still not entirely happy with the quality of my scenic shots - I think they're still rather dark. Off now to read the manual to see what I can do...