Baking with Grandma

This weekend just gone my Mum came up to visit. We had such a great weekend, shopping, cooking, eating and celebrating a late Mother's Day as well as both her and my birthday. The absolute highlight of the weekend was Max and his cousin Emmy helping mum make a cake. It was beyond adorable watching the three of them working together, cracking eggs, blending up the limes, mixing it all together. Emmy and Max both took their jobs very seriously and mum managed the whole process with the patience of a saint!

Mum is an amazing baker and the cake was delicious. Perfect parts tangy and sweet. I will definitely be making this one again.

Here's what you need if you want to make it yourself.

375g of Limes (13 ounces)
6 Large Eggs
225g of White Sugar (8 ounces)
250g of Almond Meal (9 ounces)
1 teaspoon gf baking powder

1. Grease and line a 20cm (8inch) spring form tin. Preheat the oven to 190c (375f).

2. Place the limes in a pot of water and boil for 2 hours. Drain, and when cool cut in half and remove the seeds. Blend up the limes, skin and all, in a food processor.

3. In a separate bowl beat the eggs and then add the sugar, almond meal and baking powder, mixing well. Add in the blended limes and mix again.

4. Pour mix into your tin and bake for one hour (you may need to cover with foil after 40 minutes to stop the top from burning).

5. Allow to cool slightly before removing from the tin, then serve warm with fresh cream.

(Adapted from this Nigella recipe)

 

Nigella says that the cake tastes even better the next day, but ours didn't last that long so I have no idea if it's true or not!!

xx Tamsyn

PS My mum is just about to start her own blog!! I'll let you know when she starts writing posts :)

DIY Number Magnets

A couple of months ago Max learnt to count to ten, and it's still pretty much his favourite thing ever. Just recently he's also gotten really interested in recognising and drawing numbers as well.

So, I decided to make him some number magnets to go into his Easter basket this year. They're a lot cuter than the plastic magnet numbers you buy at the shops, and they were really easy to make too.

But before I get started on the 'how to' check out this video of Max counting. Is it not the cutest thing ever!?




Ok, onto the DIY...

I picked up some wooden number from Bunnings, it cost me $12 for all ten. The other supplies I used were all things I already had at home:

• coloured paper
• home-made mod podge (water mixed with PVA glue)
• craft files
• a small paintbrush
• scissors
• a mini exacto knife
• craft glue
• magnet strips (my tip is to save up the ones you get free in the mail and use them for these kinds of crafts)

I started out by roughly cutting my paper down to the size of each letter and sticking them together with mod podge.

Once I'd done that for all ten of the numbers I went over the surface of them with another coat of mod podge and then left them to dry.

I got a little bit impatient and tried to trim the cardboard back before they were completely dry. Bad idea... I tore some of the cardboard and had to start the number one again. My advice, wait until they are completely dry before moving on to this next step.

(After trimming them, before filing them back)

After trimming the paper back as close to the wood as I could I went around each number with a craft file and made sure everything was perfect and neat.

I added another coat of mod podge just to make sure that they would hold up to serious toddler abuse, left them to dry again and then glued some magnets onto the back of them.

And here we have it, the finished product (only they're not on the fridge anymore, I've wrapped them up ready to be included in Max's Easter basket on Sunday. I think he is going to love them!!


Happy Easter!

DIY Dry Erase Meal Planner

As I mentioned in my last post, my sister and her two girls have temporarily moved in with us. We're only three weeks in, but so far it's only bringing good things.

One of the best parts is having someone to share cooking duties with. One thing you might not know about me is that I HATE cooking dinner. I don't mind baking or cooking for parties, but I find cooking dinner one of the most boring chores I ever have to do.  Sean is a great cook and he likes to cook, but he also works full-time, doesn't get home until 6pm and by then he usually just wants to sit down and eat. So before Jen moved in there were lots of arguments about who would cook and we would often end up getting take aways.

Now Jen and I are taking turns with the cooking. And even better, because she is a health nut I have (almost) stopped buying take out and am actually cooking on most of my nights. Big win!

In honour of our new arrangement I put together a quick paint-chip dry erase meal planner. It helps us keep track of who's cooking on which night. Plus Sean loves checking out what's on the menu before he heads off to work each day! I got the inspiration from here via Craft Blog.

The photos I took of it are all on an angle because I've hung it in the small hallway that our walk-through pantry backs onto. I could have taken it back down off the wall to photograph, but I was feeling a little lazy.

Simple, and definitely not fancy. But it's tucked away out of sight and absolutely perfect for what we needed!

DIY Instagram Polaroids

A while I go, on someone's blog (I forget who's sorry) I saw the most adorable instagram polaroids.

The second I noticed them I knew I wanted to DIY them, and I finally got around to it on the weekend.

It was really simple...

I picked out a dozen of my favourite photos from instagram, added a polaroid frame to each one using picnik and printed them out onto 200gsm card stock.

Then using my trusty guilotine I chopped them down to size.

I used this little embossing tool and a ruler to create an indent along the inside edge of the frames. It's hard to see in these photos, but it subtly gives the 'polaroids' a bit more depth and makes them look a little more realistic.

You can see it better in this photo of the magnets I added to the back of each photo. I used some magnetic tape that I had in my craft cupboard, but a great way to keep costs down is to cut up and use those advertising magnets that turn up in your mailbox.

And voila, insta-roid magnets!! I love them :)

(PS I'm always on the look out for more people to follow on instagram. my username is @tamsyn_riley)

A Blue & White Christmas

Finally! My Christmas decorating is done and I have gotten around to taking photos :)

As I mentioned earlier in the month, I decided on a blue and white theme, but also included nature inspired elements. I wanted to keep an Aussie feel about it all.

For the front door I made a really simple wreath from sticks and hot glue. I just went down to the 'carefully cultivated to look like true-blue bush' nature reserve near my place and picked up a bag full of sticks off the ground.

I like it, but I think I might go with something a bit more traditional next year.

I decided to put the tree up in the dining room this year. So that ended up being the room that got the most Christmasing (yes that definitely is a word, regardless of what spell check says). Keep in mind though our house is open plan, so really the whole place feels Christmasy :)

I diy'ed a lot of the ornaments and other bits and pieces this year. I'll do a post tomorrow with more details about each of them.

I also made this tiny little Christmas village out of air-dry clay, and it sits on the window sill in the dining room.

In the kitchen I wiped down my chalkboard and then wrote up the words to 'away in a manger', one of my favourite Christmas Carols.

In the main living area I added in a few extra Christmas decorations. A bowl of baubles and my gorgeous Christmas spider (courtesy of Tanya from dans le townhouse). I hung heaps of my diy clay stars on the potted tree next to our picture window, and I added more lights and decorations in our wall cut out.

So there you have it. My decorations for Christmas 2011. Don't forget to check back in tomorrow for some DIYs :)

A Winter To-Do List

Lately I have been seeing gorgeous Summer To-Do Lists popping up all over the internet.

(from here)

I was feeling so inspired to do one for Max and me when summer rolled around next. Although it wasn't until I was reading through all of the reader comments on Katie's post about her list, that I decided why wait!? There's nothing stopping me from doing a winter to-do list for the monster and me. Its not like it really gets cold here anyway!

I cleaned off the chalkboard in the kitchen.


And wrote up our list. I'm loving it!!


We've already crossed one thing off our list. We took Cooper for a walk this afternoon. Not the kind where I push Max in the pram and walk Cooper. The kind we walked Cooper (at toddler pace) around the block, holding hands. It was magical. Max wanted to stop every couple of metres to point something out to me, or pick up a leaf, or wave at kids across the road. It was such a sweet and fun thing to do.

If you have young kids I highly recommend writing up a list of fun things to do together!