Making, Baking, Skies, a Walk & Bunting...

 Making...

 ... snowflakes! Lots of. This was just a small selection. The spiky six-pointed ones are mine (it's very important to have six sides/points for a snowflake I think!), the round eight-pointed ones were made by another volunteer (less afflicted by the need for accuracy)

Also, painted panels...

...here shown completed. It took me ages to paint the words, I'm such a fusspot for neatness in these matters.

If you have young children you'll probably know where the words are from...

The reason why, to decorate the nursery float for the village's annual gala day. Our theme: We're Going On  Bear Hunt. The panels refer to the hazards encountered - long wavy grass (Swishy swashy), deep cold river (Splash splosh), etc. The Hooo woooo refers to a snowstorm, hence the snowflakes. However, I was disappointed to see we had a trailer with a pale roof which meant the snowflakes didn't stand out very well. I checked and in previous years we have indeed had a dark roof, grrr! Anyway, it's shown above almost finished, and we came third, out of three! The nursery has won the previous three years so I expect it was time for a change...

Now to some random May baking. Blogging has made me take regular photos of my baking, something I rather enjoy doing, and it's nice to have some kind of record of the made items because of course they don't last very long!

Scones. Still the best recipe I've tried (from this book). I'm going to attempt to make these again for this year's agricultural show, I heard a rumour that it's most important to use a ridged cutter, as I've done for the ones above. For last year's show I didn't have such a cutter and just used a glass which gave a smooth edge, surely that's the only explanation for my scones being unplaced!

 With ginger & rhubarb jam. Yum!

 

Another jar gone...

Chocolate cake, a favourite standby baking recipe. From this book (slightly modified - I mix in 3 tablespoons or so of milk at the end just before putting the mixture in the tin and use butter icing to top it once baked and cooled.)  

Now, two pretty sky and bird photos...

Then N and I are off on a walk to admire the cow parsley while A is at Brownies...

Moo.

Our walk companions.

And lastly, the granny bunting. This is for Lucy@attic24 who is trying to make miles of the stuff for Yarndale. As Lucy's blog was instrumental in helping me learn how to crochet I'm glad to be able to help. I made my first pennant while we were camping in Kirkcudbright.

Here's the second one.

And here are a few more while I use up lots of wee odds and ends of wool and N plays with the sandpit. Only after completing three did I bother to measure them, and discovered they were too big. I removed the seventh round and they're now fine. I've made ten altogether...

And that'll need to do for now - I've invited the parents to visit on Sat and the house is in dire need of a good clean and tidy...

April That Was.

This should really have been several posts, and they should have been posted during April. Rather than lose the memories, here they all are all...

1. Butterscotch Sauce.

This is the sauce I remember having with ice cream when I was rather younger than I am now. I made my Mum hunt through all her old cook books till she found the right recipe. It's very sweet and a little goes a long way. The sauce is served hot so has the effect of both melting some of the ice cream creating a creamy caramel mix and hardening in places to form a gooey chewy toffee.

There's rather a lot of it shown in the photo above. I'd made double the amount and it was too much, the quantities below should be plenty for four servings. It's very simple and only takes minutes to make, perfect for when you're needing a last minute special dessert.

Butterscotch Sauce for Ice Cream
1 oz (25g) butter
1 oz (25g) soft light brown sugar
1 tblsp golden syrup
Heat and stir. Boil for 1 minute. Serve!

While we're on the subject of food, here are some baking/cooking pic from April...

Choc chip cookies from this book. Too sweet for me, I much prefer the recipe I normally use which is listed in my side bar.

Next, a baking request from A...

She did some of the mixing and filled the cake cases...

Making the wings...

 Ta da! Angel cakes.

 They were scrummy.

 The recipe was from her Moshie Monster magazine. There was a rather obvious mistake in the recipe, I still felt pleased with myself for noticing it.

Roast chicken, stuffing, roast potatoes, bread sauce and veg. Plenty leftovers too.

 "Homemade" sausage rolls (buy sausages, wrap in ready made puff pastry)

 Macaroni Cheese from Nigella Express. The children didn't like it. Hubby did, I thought it was just OK. I did use quite bland cheese, perhaps stronger cheese would have helped. The texture was a little dry too.

Apple Cake from probably my favourite baking book Children's Book Of Baking. I have made so many recipes from this book and they all taste great and are simple to do.

 Surprisingly good potato scones. Recipe from "On Baking" by Sue Lawrence, another book I regularly use, great for traditional British baking recipes.

After all that food let's go for a walk in the garden.

At the beginning of April the crocuses were still going strong.

I have a few anemone blanda plants in the garden now but don't seem to have managed to take very good photos of them, this was the best one. They're still flowering so I'll try again for May.

 The cat's favourite slab for rolling on.

 Buds.

 New rhubarb leaf.

Now to later in the month when there was a bit more happening...

 Daffodil.

 Snakeshead Fritillary.
 
And right to the very end of the month. All is developing much later than in 2012 & 2011, and later even than 2010 which at the time I though of as being a late Spring.  

 Shard amongst pebbles.

 Spirea.

Tulips

 Flowering currant

 Kerria japonica buds.

 A little home for something, I love finding these in the garden.

Unknown blossom. 

 Whitebeam

 Rowan

 More tulips.

 Ornamental cherry blossom buds.

Now, how about some crafting and thrifting...

 I had a go at making a friendship bracelet. At this stage I was rather pleased with it...

 But once finished I wasn't quite so keen. I think I'd use 8 strands instead of 10 next time so it's not quite so wide and will take less time, I'd also not use variagated thread as that made the chevron pattern less obvious.

 Part of a large haul of wooden spools & thread. 20p each.

 We've been needing more egg cups, so I was pleased to find these, £2 the set.

 A TKMaxx bargain at £1. It's still a pleasure to acquire a new pencil case, even at my age!

On to an art project...

 N's.

 Mine

 Then we painted them black...

...and got scraping. This is N's.

 and A scraped mine.

I'm not in a hurry to repeat this project. It took a long time, and the scraping made a terrible mess - N looked like he'd been sweeping a chimney! I quite like the results though, especially as they are so different to each other, N's is probably my favourite with all the busy scraping marks.

A pencil drawing by A (of Moshlings)

A blackboard picture, also by A (of Iggy, another Moshling)

 This may one day be creative. I included it to remind me of my small involvement. Hundreds of 2 litre plastic drinks bottles with the ends cut off. One day it will be an eco greenhouse at the nursery.

Now another visit to the loch, just a quick one this time. More sparkly water and fence wire, this time with added cow, and some splashing in the puddles...

 

 Lastly...

The pot row. It's in a lane next to the owner's garden. I think I'll try and get a photo of these each month. You can see here how they were looking in March.