Clever-clogs

My clever Mum has been doing a cake decorating course over the last couple of weeks.

Inside this incredible cinderella cake are 3 different flavours of cake (chocolate, caramel and vanilla - all delicious)

Cinderella holds the tiniest bluebird in her hands and there are a couple of sparkly mice and a pumpkin at her feet. Beautiful. Sadly none of the little girls in our family are having birthday's anytime soon so we just had to eat the cake. I did manage to bring Cinderella's head and body home with me in the hope that I can reincarnate her as a mermaid for E's birthday in August. Hopefully I will be able to keep her ant free for that time!!

This fabulous cake on the other hand, does have a home to go to. My nephew is turning 6 next month and this is his birthday cake. 

He loves wildlife and is having a blue tongue lizard at his birthday party so I think this guy will fit right in!

And here's another photo of the incredible 40 chocolate rose 40th wedding anniversary cake that she made the other week.

What a clever Mummy I have!

Limited service resumes :o)

Happy New Year to you all! How were your Christmas and New Year celebrations? Are you back into the swing of things or still taking it slowly?

One of the Christmas cakes Mum made and decorated with her Grandchildren. This one was done by Thomas.

It's been a great and much needed break for me and I'm feeling well rested (and much healthier!). I had two wonderful weeks with my family in Brisbane. I'm so glad we went over before all this week's dreadful flooding events. To all of you affected, I wish you a safe and speedy return to normality. My parents and siblings are thankfully unaffected so far (although my brother was in the city yesterday helping to sandbag properties on the river and stopped to help one of his favourite restaurants load up their vans in an effort to keep some things from being damaged).

The scooter cake Mum made for my nephew Ollie



It's my Mum's birthday today. She and Dad were meant to be going away to celebrate but have understandably (and thankfully cancelled). Some of you will know that she is the main reason and inspiration for my creativity and as it's Thursday (Creative Space day), I thought I would dedicate my first post back to her Creative Space.

Our yummy starter at Christmas. The glass holds chilled cucumber and coconut soup which is divine.

Mum's Creative Space is mostly cooking these days as her eyesight isn't good enough to cope with detailed sewing and cross stitch anymore. All the photos in this post were taken during the 2 weeks we were with them in Brisbane. Pretty impressive isn't it?

Chocolate berry roulade

I particularly loved the extra touch to this dessert. She just dusted cocoa powder over a spoon and fork. It looks so effective. I'll definately be stealing that idea! 

So Happy Birthday Mum. Hope it's a good one despite all the floods and rain. xxx

I'll be back posting on a limited basis until the kids go back to school (and a little of my sanity returns!)

For more Creative Spaces, pop over to Kootoyoo.





AWOL Creative Space

Just in case any of you were thinking I've dropped off the face of the Earth, I'm taking a little holiday with my family in Brisbane. I therefore don't really have a Creative Space for you today mainly because I haven't figured out how to upload my photos on to my Dad's computer. In the meantime, check out my Mum's awesome creative space circa 1978.

I suspect my parents may have had shares in Fisher Price. No wonder I have a slight obession with vintage Fisher Price toys. Mum still has that knitting machine and I have a strong suspicion that that is my current sewing machine.

And here's a photo of me modelling one of Mum's creations whilst mauling a wallaby on holiday in Oz, circa 1973.

Pop over to visit the hostess with the mostess for some proper Creative Spaces.

Autumn gorgeousness

How was your Mothers' Day? I hope you had a good one with lots of cuddles from the ones you love.

I was treated to extremely soggy cereal by my little ones (Maddy had poured the milk on for me to save me the trouble!) which I had to tactfully decline. Even she agreed it looked revolting! Both girls made me beautiful cards (one of which I am going to frame it is so gorgeous but more on that another time).

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We went for lunch at Richard's sister's gorgeous home. The girls love it out there. They love feeding the sheep and chickens and seeing their cousins, Aunts and Uncles. Most of the family were there, including the guest of honour, Jill (my wonderful mother-in- law), who became a great grandmother this week to little Bella Sophia (that makes me a Great-Aunt but sshh....don't tell anyone because I can't be that old!)

The girls had a fantastic time with their cousins who are just so amazing with them.

We went for a walk to look at the magic toadstools and admired the wonderful colours of the autumn leaves. There was an incredible light coming through the trees and I was gutted when my camera ran out of batteries. (Lucky for you though as you would have had an even more picture heavy post!! 

Look at these beauties. Aren't they amazing?

We had some wonderful friends over for dinner to end the day. Thank goodness for slow cookers as we were able to prepare dinner before we left the house in the morning and there was no panic in the evening. I made a really lovely Moroccan lamb dish with raisins, almonds and honey. All we had to do when we got home was make the salad and the couscous. Nice and easy!

I'm playing along with Elsie Marley's kids clothes week this week which means I have to sew for an hour a day. Should be easy! Ha! I might have to bunch some of those hours together for kindy days I think. I'll be posting about the clothes I make this week so watch this space.

Parcels from Nanna

There is a great deal of screaming and jumping around in excitement when a parcel arrives from Nanna. One arrived yesterday for each of the girls. Maddy's contained a very cute bear and a bracelet with elephants on and Eloise had this in it.

Beautiful isn't it?

This is one very pleased little girl.

I'm hoping to get a few crafty bits done today myself. I need to finish this painting.

which is for Maddy's school art auction.

And I want to do some more work on the Maddy's sweater.

I bought a pattern yesterday to make something for myself so hopefully I can cut that out.

What have you got planned for the day?

I was brave

and made a start on the scarey sweater last night. Nothing like my daughter's high expectations (and all the wonderful encouragement from you lot) to give me a boot up the backside and just try.

This is the lace edging at the bottom. I have to pick up the stitches along the top to start knitting the back once this edging is done. The main body of the sweater is knitted in reverse stocking stitch and I think I will be googling that one to work it out once I get to that stage. Do any of you know of any good links to learn that stitch?

Thanks to everyone who wished my Mum a speed recovery yesterday. She has an appointment with the fracture clinic today so fingers crossed they will give her good news.  Here's a picture of her in full action mode last Christmas. She's a pretty outstanding lady and doesn't let much stop her so I'm sure she will be back on her feet in no time.