It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

I’ve been busy lately making a few different Christmas products. I recently discovered a website called Instructables (they have an app as well). I found these two different Christmas crafts to try from the Intstructables site: socksnowmen, crayon melt glass baubles/oranments and these painted baubles/ornaments on a website called Favecrafts. For full instructions please follow the links above.

The first ones I tried to make were the crayon melt baubles. I picked up the glass baubles from Spotlight. They stocked three different shapes at my Spotlight. Just make sure when you buy them that you check for broken or cracked ones. These were very easy and quick to make. I’d definitely make these again. I love the look of them – very festive. The only thing I would do differently is to try and find some gloves to use that will protect my hands from the heat! I did manage to burn my fingers when making these. I was afraid of wearing fabric gloves though as the glass ornaments were very slippery. Rubber gloves also don’t work as the rubber heats up too. 

I then tried the painted glass ornaments. I used acrylic paint to make these and found that I did need to drip a fair amount in order for it to run down the sides. I then left them upside down for nearly a week to get these ornaments to dry. A lot of paint dripped out of the bottom (wasteful!) and changed the look of how they were. I also found out later, that they weren’t actually dry! Not something I would do again. At least not with acrylic paint (I couldn't find the specific paint that was mentioned in the instructions and I am certain this affected the final product).

Lastly, I made the sock snowmen (of course I had to try these – we all know how I love a good sock craft!). I tried making the sock snowmen as shown in the instructable, but I found I didn’t like how the body sat when using the method shown. A friend of mine shared this sock snowmantutorial with me via Facebook so I tried this one too. I really love how these turned out! Super cute. In the next lot I do though I’m going to use more ‘festive’ socks and add more embellishments. I also didn’t have any toothpicks to use for the nose so I just did little felt noses which I think worked out well.

Stay tuned for more crafts in the lead up to Christmas!

Over-ripe Bananas?

I don’t know about you, but in my house we go through a lot of bananas. I mean, my toddler just loves them, and my husband and I find them to be a filling snack. So, normally we eat them all before they have a chance to get over-ripe. However, every once in a while we have a few that get over-ripe and none of us want to eat them. Rather than just throwing them away, I use them to bake.

Over-ripe bananas are great for baking with as when bananas are over-ripe they are higher in sugar and therefore your baking is much sweeter. Banana bread is always a good choice for baking with, and my mum has a great banana muffin recipe too (the one I normally use). This time though, I thought I’d have a go making my own recipe as I had other things in my house that needed to get used too. I had some pineapple that needed to be used up, as well as some rolled oats. The end result: Banana Oat Muffins with Pineapple Chunks! They were easy to make and a very filling and relatively healthy snack or breakfast.

Ingredients:

2 cups rolled oats

2 cups milk (approx.)

3 over-ripe bananas

3 eggs

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

½ cup brown sugar

2 ½ cups self raising flour

2 tsp bi-carb soda

1/3 cup oil

1 cup diced pineapple (I used fresh but you can use tinned – doesn’t make a difference – just make sure you drain it)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees (Celsius).

Place oats in a bowl and cover with milk. Set aside.

In a large bowl mash bananas to a smooth consistency. Add eggs and oil. Mix together. Add flour, bi-carb soda, brown sugar and cinnamon. Mix.

Now add in your oat and milk mixture. By now the oats should have absorbed all of the milk. Mix together until the texture is consistent.

Lastly, add in the pineapple chunks and stir through the mix.

Spoon mixture into pre-greased muffin tins and put in the oven for approx. 20 - 30 mins.

Ta-da! All done. This recipe makes 2 dozen muffins.

Depending on your oven, the baking time may vary. Personally, most of my baking needs longer as the seal on my oven needs replacing. If you want a sweeter muffin without adding lots of extra sugar, try adding in a couple of teaspoons of vanilla extract.

Because these muffins are quite moist they do need to be stored in the fridge and consumed quite quickly. However, you can also wrap them individually and freeze them and then they will keep for a couple of months.

Hope you enjoy!

Bravery Rewarded

I took it upon myself recently to look into what was involved in entering an item or two into our local show. It turns out it was super easy and only cost $1 per entry. Then came the hard part, do I enter or not? After umming and ahhing for a while and asking the opinions of my mum and my hubby, I decided to go for it. I mean, the worst that happens is that I don't win anything and my ego is bruised - but regardless of the outcome it is a learning experience.

So, I entered. There were lots of categories listed and picking the correct one wasn't as easy as it would seem. This is because the description of categories was quite vague. I thought that I would fit in amongst the 'sewing' and 'toys' sections. Turns out I was wrong! Because what I do isn't knitting, crochet, bears or machine sewing, I had to enter in the category of 'handicrafts' and the section of 'other'. If I had entered anything else there was a high risk that my entry wouldn't be judged as it didn't fit the correct criteria.

So I filled out my form, transferred my entry fee and entered. The Canning Show (which is my local show) was on this weekend and today we went on a little family outing to check it out. And what a pleasant surprise when we went into the craft exhibition, I had won first prize!

There you go. A little bravery and hard work paid off. Next time maybe I'll aim to enter in the Royal Show and see how that goes.