Upside – I have attempted things that I haven’t done before and am starting to believe and grow in my creativity

Downside – Less time to sit down and write about what I have done and share it

When I started with the BLOG, I had NO idea that it was so time consuming. Between being a wife, mom of 3 active boys, family, church, work, new Creative Projects* AND (to my dismay) a personality does not allow for many half- baked things, trying to nail down some time to write my blog has become a little more difficult.

*I have so many things I have done in the last couple of months, but not sure what is blog worthy or not yet

I am trying to figure out what will be the best route forward for me sharing my creativity, so come pop in and see if there is something new….and if there isn’t you know my hands are getting dirty doing something new that I will hopefully share at some stage  

So before Christmas hits us right between the eyes, I wanted to share some wrapping ideas again.

THE FAKE PRESENT!

You may ask yourself what “the fake present” is and why on earth I would want to do a “fake present”. There are 2 and a half reasons for this:

1.  For those in our house that feel the need to sniff around and figure out what Father and Mother Christmas has got them
2.  Living in South Africa ( and I suppose that could be said for anywhere in the world if you have watched Home Alone), it might be the safest thing to put a “Fake Present” under the tree in case someone else wants to help themselves to your presents
½. They look pretty under the Christmas tree

So, this is a relatively easy project you will need some of the following:

• Boxes
• Brown paper
• Sellotape
• Scissors
• Ribbons or string
• Wax for seals
• Stickers – I designed, printed and cut my own, but buying some from a shop or even drawing them could work very well!

The boys were intrigued at the presents that appeared underneath the tree so early in December already. Who was it for, what was in it? Can we touch it? HAHA…..refer to point 1

I thought I would leave you with NOT SO FAKE present ideas for friends, teachers or someone you love………….

My wish for you all the Christmas is that

I hope you don’t just have presents this Christmas, but that you are Present.

Care for the people love you and love the people that don’t care!  

Make Christmas count!

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I am back and hopefully I will be able to go full steam till Christmas. My absence has nothing to do with not wanting to write but much more with my capacity to be a wife, a mother, work and BAKE all at the same time.

In preparation for our annual Champagne Sales Day, where I also sell my Greek Delicacies, I wanted to start early to make sure I have enough stock to sell. You might ask how much is ‘enough stock’ and the answer is “I have absolutely NO CLUE”. Who knows how many people will want to dig into my food? So, being true to my heritage I have started making a supply big enough to feed a small village!

Now that you know what I have been up to, we can get back to something less time consuming.

CABLE REEL TABLES

We had a need for a round table in our lounge as a side table and we needed to find something affordable that suited our décor. It really didn’t seem like a difficult task until we started our search from anything new to second hand.  If you would believe me, there are not that many round side tables available.

This led us to think outside the box and we decided to start looking for Cable Reels. My husband went to a hardware store close to his work to find out if we they could help him with some and managed to get 3 for free!! (totally ticked the budget box and they were very much to my liking). We had to do a little work on them to make them work as tables. Below are some hints on how to make Cable Reels useful:

Might be a problem: Always make sure that the Cable Reel can stand stable as you will be putting glasses and plates down on them.
Might be a solution: Cut two long strip of wood and place them on the bottom of the reel, levelling it out. Shape the wood till you have a stable table

Might be a problem: If using inside your house you don’t want it to scratch your floor.
Might be solution: Use off-cuts from a carpet and paste it onto the bottom of the wood strips used to stabilise the reel.
We have two outside for when we Braai etc. (BBQ for the non-South Africans) and one inside. We definitely didn’t want the inside one to damage our floor, but didn’t mind as much on the outside on our porch, so we left the carpets as protectors off them.

Might be a problem: The top surface is uneven, the bolts are sticking out or the hole is preventing you from putting things down on the reel safely.
Might be a solution: Have a glass top cut that will fit onto the top of the reel. Use door nobs as spacers between the reel and the glass top. Preferable get something like safety glass as it will prevent the glass for shattering into little pieces if you have an accident.
As mentioned we kept two outside which we kept rustic without glass tops, but prefer a glass top on the inside one.

It is said one man’s trash is another’s treasure….Hope you find some trash that works for you !!!!

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The last few weeks I have been playing around on a new medium which has left me going back to draw some more every time I finish a sketch.

I received new phone books earlier this year and instantly knew that I wanted to do something with the old ones….and the new ones for that matter, as I haven’t used a phone book in AGES!

I have done varied sketches but felt that I needed to share this one with you. As I am still learning to work on the medium and seeing what work’s and what doesn’t, this one might seem a bit rough…but again, I just felt I needed to share.  The last 10 days have rocked our community with deaths that have left everyone dumbstruck. While so much of the focus is on trying to restore peace, I often sit and think of the mother that has lost her son, the wife that has lost her husband, the uncle that has lost his nephew. The loss, the sadness and the grief. That moment when you are crying in the rain….

I don’t know how it feels when it feels like your heart is ripped out of your body and the sadness that comes with it and I don’t even really want to imagine.

It all looks fine on the outside, but the inside is broken. Even if you know where the person is going when they die, we MUST grieve…that is just how we have been made.

So, I cry silently with a mother, uncle, aunt, sibling or friend whilst they mourning, but I know that for those that do believe, there IS eternal life. It makes the grief somewhat easier, but it doesn’t mean we don’t do it.

It is fine to just CRY IN THE RAIN….

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Whilst still practicing to get this whole Blog thing underhand, I can say that I am at least pretty sure I can mean cake….. and this time around it is the story of the Sandwich cake.

And everytime I start with a blog post about cake I want to sing “It’s all about the cake, yes the cake, yes the cake….”. Arghhh, song stuck in my head again!!

I was planning a tea party last year and realised that I had more than enough sweet on my menu and was determined to do “something else” as the centre piece cake. My fabulous mother put me onto the idea of making a savoury instead of a sweet cake after she made a similar cake for a friend for her birthday. In South Africa our cakes are always “sweet” so this was going to be VERY different if I could pull it off.

I started researching Sandwich cakes and came across what the Swedish call Smörgåstårta (Sandwich cake). They are made in every form and shape with a variety of fillings.  After reading through most of the recipes, I realised that this was a definite “PIK ME – I also want to try it” moment!!

I mostly found fish and a variety of vegetables used in between the layers and settled on the following for mine – salmon/trout mousse, mustard sauce, salmon, cucumber for in between the layers and cream cheese, cucumber, egg, shrimp and salmon for the decorating.

I KNOW, this sounds like a very weird combination…..but you just have to try it, it rocks! I had two little helpers on the day that I was making it and they were licking out the bowls and even had a slice or two when the cake was done!

I was also rather taken by the cakes that looked like a pretty rounded birthday cake and so my mission started as I needed to find the perfect bread, which could be baked in a round cake tin. And voila, I found this wonderful recipe that has since never flopped on me ……BREAD

You will need the following:
Bread
Salmon/Trout mousse
Mustard Sauce
Other fillings
Garnishing

Salmon/ Trout mousse
400 g (14.1 oz) smoked smoked salmon/trout pieces
100 ml (scant 1⁄2 cup) mayonnaise
100 ml (scant 1⁄2 cup) heavy cream
Mix all the ingredients together and chill in the fridge

Cream cheese mixture
300 g (10 1⁄2 oz.) cream cheese, softened
300 ml (1 1⁄4 cups) sour cream
Salt and pepper to taste
Mix together the cream cheese and sour cream. Season with salt and  pepper. Set aside.

Mustard Sauce
1 1⁄2 tbsp. Mild mustard
1 1⁄2 tbsp. Dijon mustard, at room temperature
2 ml sugar
100 ml (scant 1⁄2 cup) cooking oil
Salt to taste
Make sure that the ingredients for the mustard sauce are at room temperature, otherwise it will split. Mix sugar and mustard and drizzle in oil. Season with salt. Store in the fridge.

Other fillings
400 g (14.1 oz.) cold-smoked salmon
Lettuce

Garnishing
Salmon (left over from what you didn’t use in the cake)
Cooked shrimp
2 boiled eggs
A couple of radishes, sliced, to garnish
Parsley

ASSEMBLY:
NO 1
Bake the bread as per my bread recipe

I found it best to bake the bread the day before and assemble the cake the next morning. Keep the bread in an air tight container overnight.

NO 2
Cut the bread into 3 even piece horizontally.

NO 3
Cover the bottom layer with the Salmon/Trout Mousse and cucumber if you wish. Place the middle section of bread on this layer.

NO 4
Layer the Salmon on the next layer of bread, followed by the mustard sauce. I would suggest that you don’t pour all the mustard on at once, but use as per taste as it can be very overpowering. Next place the shredded lettuce on.

NO 5
Close up with the top of the bread. Spread the cream cheese mixture over the tops and sides of the cake. Then garnish. Refrigerate before eating.

Notes:

• You can use butter on the bread between your layers. Make sure it is nice and soft so that it doesn’t break the bread when you spreading it.
• You can choose your own savoury filling, be adventurous
• Use a good bread knife to cut the pieces
• Invite me for a piece

I need to make this cake again!! Tea anyone???

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It is official: 16 weeks to Christmas! WHAT??

I just LOVE Christmas! It definately isn’t the most significant biblical date we celebrate but it IS the time we celebrate our Saviours birth. And I love this time of celebration and giving! The way our family celebrates is “less of us and more of you” attitude.  The kids all get one present from us (and maybe a few small things from the family) and the adults do a “Santa’s hat” type of gift giving which results in one nice present. Hahaha….except for the year that I got  a “car battery charger”.  Much too long to explain how this happened now…..maybe one day.

For the rest, Christmas is a time of giving, spoiling and blessing others around us. I do take tremendous delight in doing up my house and making everything look very Chrismasy (not a word, I know, yet such a perfect description).

So, in order to prepare properly I am starting now! September has crept up on me and I am not letting Christmas catch me unaware!

I have started off by designing some Christmas packaging stickers a few weeks ago, but as they are still to be printed and I cannot show you, I have been thinking of Christmas wrapping. Or for that matter, wrapping in general.

I can hear you saying “Just throw it into a gift bag” or “use wrapping from the shops”. I don’t deny that when presented with the last minute gift wrap challenge, these would be a good option, but if I have time I like to do something different.

I love all things paper!! So, in my pursuit of creativeness I have chosen a blank canvas to start my process. I have NOT searched the web as to options on what to do as I wanted this to be something that comes from me regardless if it is great or not!

As my first instalment of wrapping I also decided to stay very “clean” with only accents of colour. I have included some samples below of what I have done.

Please note that I have done loads of drawings….some stayed and some have landed up in the waste basket. The trick is to keep on drawing and playing around.

Below I started off with using a brainwave as my pattern for my first design. I use only the red berries as my accent on the wrapping.

Then I progressed to drawing simple building line drawings and adding some of the washi tape from my stash*. The photos just don’t do it justice!

And finally (my favourite) I started cutting up my old telephone book and making shapes that I stuck down. Using a Sharpie I drew over the patterns. I have big plans for my old phone books….might even need to go collect some more for future projects!! Below is one of the ones I have made.

*Stash – The copious amounts of art supplies you buy that you have NO clue what you going to use it for BUT you still buy it and store it, because you know that there is somewhere you will be able to use it (or you think there is)

Go make “Pretty”! It is sooo easy to get make your own unique wrapping! Add some colour or even some extra 3D elements!

Get wrapping!!

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I know I have mentioned in a previous post that I cannot do without carbs and thus I would do very badly at Banting*.  But what I didn’t mention is that I have a fabulous Bread recipe. You don’t even need a fancy-smanchy electronical bread maker.

*In short, it is an eating plan that you cut out all carbs and is very popular in South Africa

So for those of you that publicly or even secretly love a fresh slice of bread with melted butter, this is the recipe to start with. It is easy, reasonably quick and tastes divine!!!

This cake is the starting point for my “Sandwich Cake” that I will be sharing in the future. I know, I know…you thinking “What the heck!! This woman had a problem with cake. Now she is even making one like a sandwich!”.  Haha….and you are total correct. So, don’t miss my instalment on it when it comes out!

Back to the bread!!

I have learnt that the trick in making bread. Lots of love and oh, making sure that the dough rises properly.

2 1/2 cups warm water
1 Tbsp. active dry yeast
1 Tbsp. sugar
6-6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup butter, softened

Pour 1/2 cup of the water into a bowl and stir in the yeast and sugar. (If you are going to use an electric mixer, start off in the electric mixer bowl). Let sit for 5 minutes, until it looks foamy.  If the yeast doesn’t do anything, toss it out and buy fresh yeast.

Add the rest of the water and about half of the flour. Stir until well blended. Add the rest of the flour, the salt and butter and stir with the dough hook (or by hand if not using a mixer) until well combined and shaggy. Continue to knead until it’s smooth and elastic. I do it for about  10 minutes with the dough hook. If you are doing it by hand you will have to do it somewhat longer.  If you were using the electric mixer, you will need to turn the dough out onto the counter top and knead a few times to make sure it’s evenly smooth.

Shape it into a ball and put it back into the bowl. Cover with a tea towel and let it sit for 1 – 1 1/2 hours, until it’s doubled in size. Grease the pans that you want to use. I sometimes use loaf pans or as seen on the pictures I have made round breads that do not go into a pan. Once the dough has risen, divide it into the amount of breads you want to make.

 Place the dough into the pans, cover with a tea towel and let it rise for another hour or so. They will rise right out of the pan……ready to be baked.

Preheat the oven to 180°C and put the rack in the middle of the oven. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the loaves are brown. Immediately turn the loaves out of their pans and onto a rack to cool.

Mmmmm…..just looking at it makes me hungry!!

My boys LOVE eating the fresh hot bread with melted butter on it. It never lasts long enough to go off!

So, go practice so that you are ready for my Sandwich Cake!

When I mentioned the statement above some ladies I was having tea with yesterday (waiting for kids on an outing), one lady said that instead of her making the bread, maybe they should all come over to my house so I can teach them. How insanely clever…..maybe I will have to start some classes in the future. Sharing is caring (and not ONLY Barney the dinosaur says that!!)

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Who doesn’t love a good party? I don’t just love the party, I love preparing for one!

So, I had an opportunity to do two things I love….Bless someone and organise!

Last year I had the opportunity to bless a friend by assisting in throwing her a baby shower. And as much as I love boys, throwing a shower for a little girlie ticks lots of my boxes.

THE AIM: Keep it cost effective while keeping it visually pleasing and blessing a friend!

Before starting the process, I started making some lists of what areas I needed to cover. Oh man, I cannot explain what making list does to me, getting ready to sort out a potential mess……it’s a like a cool breeze on a hot day! So, with me in my happy place I went to making my list…..

THE List:

• Colour pallet/theme
• House décor
• Table décor
• Cake
• Food
• Drinks
• Party games
• How we are going to have the special mom open her presents

Colour Pallet – It is important to decide on what your theme is going to be and for that matter your colour pallet. I decided on a “vintage pink” which included dusted pink, white and muted browns.

House Décor – this was not too difficult as I went to my go-to decorations Bunting ( see Bunting vs Bunting ). I also included some large ‘paper balls’ hanging from the ceilings.

Table Décor – I wanted to use the Cake as my focus point with food surrounding it.

• I used my nice white tablecloths, which in truth doesn’t get pulled out that often with dirty little testosterone hands roaming my house.
• In order to make some table confetti I used paint sample strips and punches flowers and heart shapes out of them. OK, so you might we wondering how many of these sample strips I needed to get. A LOT….and yes, I am pretty sure that the guy working in the paint section must have thought I was TOTALLY crazy!!

Cake – I wanted a BIG cake as it would be the centre piece of my table décor.  BUT (wow, I do use that word a lot when trying to explain anything about ‘cake’) I was pretty sure that the ladies coming to shower would not be able to eat the whole cake. And so the best next option was the Nappy Cake (see Nappy Cake )

Food – These days food can become rather expensive, so I decided to make most of the food and asked some close friends to the preggie mommy to bring a plate of eats. The idea with eats for an afternoon shower was that it should be easy finger foods with probably more savoury than sweet. And not to forget some healthy options for all those on “healthy eating plans”.  A few examples tiropita (greek cheese triangles), baklava (greek nuts and syrup rolls), bougatsa (greek custard filled rolls) , brownies, scones, small tea sandwiches. Oh and I also put popcorn in pink dotty packages….just because it is pretty!

Drinks – Except for serving tea and coffee, I thought it to be wise to have a juice and water in separate dispensers. I used mason jars with pretty straws as glasses as well. Pretty, pretty straws

Party games – It is very important to make sure that your guest of honour is happy with party games! Some people love getting silly and some don’t. For this party we were going with the latter, so in order to have a little bit of fun, I set up two stations…..

• Station 1: Guess what is in the bag – Without looking you had to put your hand into the baby bag and guest the baby items. Each correct guess gives you a point.
• Station 2: How many pink marshmallows? – In a jar filled with pink and white marshmallows you needed to guess the amount of pink marshmallows

Once we were all seated, ready for opening the presents, we played one last game. I had a list of things that people would possibly have in their bag and as I read them out, each person could give themselves a point for the item that was in their bag. After all the fun the winners were announced and got a jar full of jelly beans.

How we are going to have the special mom open her presents – Our guest of honour isn’t fond of the spotlight, but we felt that she needed to open the presents in front of her guests. So in order to take the spotlight off her every guest would got one turn to guess what was in a present (and not the one that they had given).

After all the oo’s and aa’s, I hopefully made the guest of honour feel very special….as that was the whole point!

This made me realise again that I don’t want to just bless someone because there is an occasion. So as my King blesses us without any occasion, I will keep on allowing Him to let me bless people around me without occasion!

Share if you like this….as sharing is caring!

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Our household has a slight imbalance when it comes to Testosterone.  Currently it is 4 Testosterone bodies versus 1 Estorgen. And seeing as 3 of those 4 Testosterone bodies are all still minors, there are just some things you need to learn to work around. One of those things is to find everything that needs to go back into the school bag to school! After a school library book went “missing” for about 3 weeks, I had to make a plan.

You might not believe me but it is actually much easier than you think to lose a book in my “kinda ocd tidy – I know where everything is” house. So, in order to solve my problem I had a few choices:

1. Put trackers on every item needed for school (my budget doesn’t allow this)
2. Mess up my house to find the missing books (no OCD person, even if you only have it slightly,  will ever agree to this)
3. OR as any creative person would do….make one dumping point for all the school goods! (much better sounding idea as I didn’t have to choose from the first two options….rescue remedy avoided!)

It didn’t take very long for me to get an idea of what I wanted and I had the perfect wall to mount my new “Dump It Station”.

In order to get this new station made I needed to rope in the adult Testosterone in my house. So with one Testosterone body and one Estrogen body we set off to by all the materials.

Our materials list was simple:

• 3 containers for school books and supplies
• Hooks (preferably 2 per child)
• Wood to mount the containers onto
• Nice big bolts to attach it to the wall (Testosterone body sorted this out for me)

We used Bashew crates*  and went to our local wood yard to find rustic looking wood pieces. In order to get the piece to look like I wanted we needed to attach the crates to the wood before we attached it to the wall.

*for my overseas readers, any drinking bottle crates like Coke or Pepsi will work

As much it is great to make things on my own, there are just some things that are more enjoyable with my best friend next to me. It also doesn’t hurt that he has much more muscle than I have, as the wood was pretty heavy!

I think though the best part of making this was my littlest testosterone filled body telling me that I must please stand away as he will be helping his Dad build this with his tools!

So when you have a testosterone problem are getting messy, get creative…..BUILD A “DUMP IT STATION”

If you enjoyed this…..please share because Sharing is Caring

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The reason isn’t rocket science! China now produces products at such a low cost that it nearly impossible to compete with them. People are after the next ‘sale’ or ‘good buy’ they can find. Any crafter will know that the time that they spend making their products will never equate to what they can sell it for. It does sadden me that people don’t always see the amount of love and time that is put into handmade products.

So I have been thinking of another way to share my products and skills and in turn help someone else. Bartering!

I know that there are many people that barter successfully all over the world, so….PIK ME, I want to try it!!

Funny when you are thinking of something you land up talking about it to everyone! 

I have managed to have a few discussion about bartering and thus helping people around us in this week! Oh and I would like to claim that I don’t talk much, but I do, so might as well own up to it. I think then to clarify, they have been rather in-depth discussions.

I think it is best to first explain what bartering is:

I have to clear that bartering is not going to make you rich with money but it will make you rich in value. If bartering is done correctly you should be able to meet all your needs and maybe some more. I also don’t think that bartering is just about us getting what we want, but enriching and helping other people who do not have monitory means to obtain goods. Please note that I am not discouraging “giving” as I believe this is a vital part of what our purpose is, but I do love that we are able to empower people to use their abilities to obtain goods. 

Bartering has become a way to trade for people in countries whose money systems are failing, such as Zimbabwe. You are able to get goods and services which you would never get by using the money you have. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to not think of money and just barter what you have for what you need. One of the problems is that we have ascribed a value to what we have to barter with and thus will not barter without the value being met. 

I am pretty sure that we wouldn’t be able to barter and survive outside our economic system, but I am sure there must be a space for bartering creatively for goods and services where I am. Would that allow me to cut out the “middle man” and receive some services/products without the extra mark-up? Would that allow the person with a creative skill to make and barter with a product for something else they can’t afford with money?

The one limitation of bartering is that you need to find someone that has what you want and is prepared to barter with it. And so “bartering websites” and “facebook community sites” are born. I am currently part of a community site that offers “swopping” as one of the trades but I see very little of that happening. Can we trade in a society that just “wants, wants, wants” and is driven by how much they can get for a buck? How do you put a value on your product you want to barter? Can you trust the other barter???

I think we can barter successfully, if we can all get on the same page. It is not about making anybody rich, but fulfilling needs and maybe some wants…helping people that might only have a skill to barter with.

Do you have something that I want? Would you like to barter? I am hoping that I will be able to write another post someday of some successful bartering that I have done.

Get your creative juices flowing and find someone that wants to trade with you….how much richer our lives can be when we look for ways to enrich others and not just ourselves.

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Guess what, today you getting some real traditional cake from me. Yip, no alternatives today, because sometimes the real deal is all you need! We had a friend’s birthday to celebrate this past weekend and I decided to bless her with some cake. “Cause it’s all about the cake, ’bout the cake, OH TROUBLE!”

I cannot remember exactly when I started baking this cake, but it was definitely when I was in High School which means is more than 20 years ago. It is my Aunt on my Dad’s side’s recipe and I am pretty sure she got it from some other trusted source. Over the years I have adapted it to make it my own. It has now become “The Cake” I get asked to produce for my in-law family get-togethers and also my go-two recipe when I want to make something nice – Welcome to my “Almost Famous” Totally Real, Awesome Chocolate Mousse Cake!

Mmmm…might have just given you an incentive to have me over? 

I doubled the recipe for the sponges below as I wanted to have a 3 tier cake. 

While the cakes are cooling down I make the mousse. I use a ‘package pudding’ to make up my mousse as it gives it the right consistency. To make sure that my mousse is thick enough I just reduced the amount of milk that is normally used to make up the pudding.

Once the pudding is chilled I started the assembly of the cake. Putting some mousse in between every layer of the cake and then covering the whole cake with it. Put the cake into the fridge to chill and set.

For the final piece of the cake (mind the pun) I melt some milk chocolates and added some milk to make it more runny. Before all the pieces of chocolate has totally melted I pour the chocolate mixture over the moussed cake (removed from the fridge). As soon as it is done, the cake goes back into the fridge.

An Voilà, you have my My Totally Real, Awesome Chocolate Mousse Cake!!

Tips:

• As there will be a tier left over, you can use it to make some smaller cakes or just serve it cut up into blocks
• Make sure to taste as you go along, as life is too short to just look at your cake and not have it!

GET CREATIVE AND MAKE A TOPPING OF YOUR OWN!

I think this cake deserves to be branded as “FAMOUS”, but it will have to be shared and made to be made famous, SO PLEASE SHARE!

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