About 6 years ago when Clever Baker Friend and I worked together we thought it would be a great idea to make some baked Christmas gifts to give to the people we worked with. At the time we had about 6 people to hand our treats out to and since then it has become a tradition. At its peak we made 35 packs for people but fortunately we have down sized a little since then. Something that hasn’t changed in that time is the joy we get from giving these boxes of hand made goodies to our friends and family. They seem to enjoy them too because each year we get asked if we will be making them again – we couldn’t stop now even if we wanted to!
Originally we would spend 1 or 2 whole days together baking and packaging while we listened to Christmas Carols, but with 3 children under 4 between us we find it easier to divide up the cooking and packaging to do it at home. Not nearly as fun, but far more practical than trying to coordinate it around naps, feeds and other activities. The packaging changes each year depending on the best bargain available this year, we opted for white cupcake boxes with simple baking paper so the food is the star. Our core menu consists of:
As the title suggests I have a bit of an obsession with glossy lifestyle magazines. I can keep my habit under control for most of the year but come Christmas time I simply cannot say no. The colourful front covers draw me in with promises of bumper gift guides, cheap and chic gifts to make and bake, festive flair tips and how I can decorate like the experts. I want to dive into the pages of these publications and immerse myself in all the shiny freshly painted fabulousness. As I pour over the stockists lists and curse why so many of the stores are rather inconveniently located in Melbourne, I store the images in the ‘one day’ file in my head.
I thought that it was about time I shared a little tutorial on making push cakes. The process is no more complicated than making cup cakes for a party but the benefit is that these treats are already portioned out and wrapped in an airtight container for easy storage and transport. This batch had to travel in the heat for an hour up to the Hunter Valley on the weekend and were still as fresh as when I first made them.
I have a bit of a reputation with my friends for having a serious online shopping habit. It started off fairly innocently buying beauty products off strawberrynet.com – which I have since managed to earn the maximum loyalty discount on, and the odd piece of clothing etc off eBay. It swiftly progressed to the buying of new items of clothing, shoes and accessories, stationery, bed linen, floor rugs, vacuume cleaners, makeup, Skye’s bedroom furniture. In fact you name it, I have probably bought it online. It’s not just me though, Luke has a weakness for eBay that saw the first couple of weeks infatuation resulting in the phrase ‘I think I just bought something’ being said over and over again. I quickly taught him how to add things to his watch list to try and overcome this problem. The biggest purchase he has made is a trencher, but mostly he sticks to bike and fishing paraphernalia. Needless to say we are fans of “Add to Cart”.
Here is the first in hopefully a series of Fix It Friday posts. This week I am focussing on making some adjustments to how I keep my recipes. Earlier this year, I bought this very pretty recipe binder from Typo. Super cute, lots of divider sections, a pocket for loose recipes and takeaway menus and a notepad for writing any special handed down recipes. But as sweet as it looked, it just didn’t work for me.
Something I have struggled with while Luke is away is getting Skye to understand why he is home some days and gone other days. I know she is too little to understand the concept of week days and weekends so I discussed the problem with her carer at Day Care and she suggested that I make a visual calendar with pictures of the activities Skye does each week. She explained how she had used it for another child who always liked to know what he would be doing each day and that it really helped him understand how each day differed.
She said it was not necessary to list the days of the week but it wouldn’t hurt as she may learn this as an added bonus. I figured it would be worth trying and set about making something that we could print out and laminate so she could see it each day and know what to expect.
I played around with making a page for each day but thought this might work better for her to see how each day connects to the rest of the week.
Do you have planners or calendars for your children? Have you found them helpful in teaching your children about the regular activities they are involved in each week?
Make sure you have a look at all the other fantastic bloggers linking up with Diary of a SAHM for iBOT this week!
Ok, so I am no fashion expert and I have no intentions of trying to keep up with likes of Styling You or Fox in Flats but after months of jeans and a thousand variations of grey something I am so excited to see all the bright colours being previewed in the new Spring Fashion Collections. A couple of weeks ago I was most displeased to see that the summer clothes were starting to hit the shelves but as the weather has warmed up nicely I am ready to shed my winter woolies in favour of a little fun.
I blame this handbag really, I was quite happy in my muted tones and heavy boots until I spotted this beauty from Country Road. The colour is so bright and happy and I have long had a love affair with their beautiful bags. I wonder how long it will be before my Aldi savings can pay for one of these baby’s…
Once I saw this I was on the hunt for as much colour as I could find, and it would seem that this season is not going to disappoint. Everywhere right down to the budget friendly Big W is getting in on the action, check out this cute skirt, I am also a little bit in love with the red shoes.
I defy anyone to be cranky whilst wearing a pair of yellow shoes (Wanted Shoes)
Of course some items may not totally fit my current lifestyle, but I still thought this kaftan seen in the latest David Jones catalogue was too special to not mention. What? You think it might be a bit much for hanging the clothes out or ducking down the street for some milk? Yes okay, fair call, but in my head I would totally rock it.
Have you ventured into the new bold colours of summer yet? I would love you to share your favourite new finds.
After much organising and excitement, last weekend my pregnant friend and I set out for a last items for the baby shopping trip to IKEA. It is roughly an hour and a half drive to our nearest store and not somewhere that I make a regular trip to so when the chance to tag along as her assistant came up I was more than happy to help. To make matters even more exciting Skye was going to spend the day with daddy and nannie at the farm so I only had me to worry about packing into the car – bliss! It was a good thing that we only had to fit 2 people in the car because the list of things I had to check out while I was there grew very quickly and of course my friend would need some room for her all important purchases too. Trust me, that trolley was flat-pack Tetris at its best because I didn’t wish my friend to be pushing trolleys in her delicate state.
