My first exploding box

Ok well, technically the title is in some way a bit of a fib. This isn't the first one I've made but it is the first one I've managed to finish, the other is nearly there just needs it's photos putting in which should happen fairly soon I hope.

I made this for my Dad for a belated fathers day gift, or card, depending on your perspective.

The design is deliberately kept simple, my Dad's not one for fuss so I wanted to keep it feeling uncluttered.

Hope you like it....

And finally... the pictures

I've finally gotten around to finishing off the album from the party. I struggled to get started on this, I knew the colour scheme that would work but it's not in my normal comfort zone and I had difficulty finding papers that were just right. In the end I di

scovered Lime Rickey from the Basic Grey range. The album is actually made from two different precut sets, I had the chipboard version from ages ago, thought, house party, excellent, that

'll be perfect. But there weren't nearly enough pages for the number of great photos my friend Jane had taken. Another bout of serious googling brought forth an acrylic album, exactly the same shape and size but from a completely different manufacturer and it was full steam ahead.

So, sorry, there are lots of photos here but I hope you like it.

Party Planning

Not much going on in the way of crafting right now as my focus is on getting the house ready for the Fabulous Forty Fiesta. I did manage to have a go at making Granola this weekend though. Coeliacs really struggle with breakfast cereals, almost everything but Cornflakes and Rice crispies are wheat based, and those that are oat based contain gluten from the oats being grown and processed in the neighbourhood of wheat.

I bought a huge bag of oats from Spoff, who seem now to have been taken over and the new link for products isn't available. Hopefully this will be sorted soon. Their oats are grown too far north for wheat to grow, and processed in a completely wheat free plant.

So, anyway. Granola is one of those fantastic things to make that you don't really need a recipe for, and you can completely customise it to suit your own tastes. I made mine with oats, some honey, maple syrup, a little sunflower oil, almonds, pecans and a handful of mixed seeds that I've used in the past to top bread. Mix it all together and bake in a low oven, stirring a couple of times til it's fairly uniformly golden brown. Allow to cool completely and store in an airtight container for up to two weeks. You can then mix it in with dried fruits to taste, like raisins, apricot, mango, anything really but be aware that these aren't completely dry and will reduce the storage life of your granola if you store it mixed.

Ah, but the party. Mexican theme, shopping is going well, the housework less so. I have three days off and some lovely people who've offered to assist so hopefully it won't be too bad.

The menu:

Nachos with tomato salsa, corn salsa, guacamole, grated cheese, jalapenos, sour cream

Beef chili made with braising steak, ancho and poblano chilis and 100% pure chocolate

Three been chili as above

Chicken fajita strips

Corn tortillas

Basmati and wild basmati rice

Giant Cupcake and regular cupcakes (flavours yet to be decided)

Just working on the playlists, getting a mix of some latin themed numbers but mostly really fun dance stuff from the 80s/90s.

Have a friend who's going to do the photography for me..... there will be comedy moustaches involved!

Right, best get on, Monday looms, bleugh!

It's the season of love...

This week I have volunteered to provide the UKScrappers Weekly Challenge and my theme, not surprisingly given the time of year, is Love. If you get a chance, have a look, or even better, have a go.

That's my layout, which was originally created for the Sugar and Spice blog. My next posting will be on Thursday if you're interested, it's always a good source of inspiration anyway.

The party plans for my 40th are well under way. Thought, to be fair, this mostly consists of shopping for fun stuff and a very small amount of tidying up. I do have three days off before the party and some willing helpers which is ace.

Wishing you all the best, and hoping you have a lovely valentines day, and remember, even if you're a Bridget Jones like me and don't have anyone to share the day with - take the time to pamper yourself. Be lovely to you, you're worth it! And if you are fortunate enough to have someone in your life, I hope you take the time to make them feel special.

Giant Cupcake

Hello people

I brought back a giant cupcake silicon mould from my trip to the USA recently. I'm having a party in March for my 40th birthday and thought it would be great to serve a couple of these up as dessert. The recipes that came with it talked about american boxes of cake mix, not available here and certainly not available gluten free so it was time to experiment.

Using a recipe given to me by the lovely Debs at Homerton Hospital, I tried a four egg sponge with the addition of a little coconut. I've made this before with a straight swap of Doves Farm GF plain for the wheat flour, adding in baking powder to 'self raisingise' it. Yeah, that's not really a word but I'm fairly sure it makes sense.

So the recipe:

Debs Sponge

8oz Doves Farm GF flour

8oz of softened butter or marg

8oz caster sugar

2oz dessicated coconut

4 eggs

1 tblsp milk

3 tsps GF baking powder (generous ones)

Cream the butter and sugar together.

Add the eggs in one at a time until well incorporated

Sift the flour and baking powder into the mix

Add in the coconut and enough milk to get a soft dropping consistency.

Then I sprayed the insides of the mould with lots of PAM (it's a buttery flavoured non sticking spray - alternatives would be to brush the interior with a flavourless oil or melted butter). It's worth taking some time doing this because of all the nooks and crannies.

I estimated the fill levels and also got four muffin sized buns out of this mix. In the end, it wasn't quite enough to fill the mould when it baked and I'd up it to a 5 egg ratio next time but I think it looks ok. It certainly tasted good and didn't last long when I took it into work.

I filled the cavity with a low sugar strawberry jam and a basic vanilla butter cream.

Please note the dip in the base is created with a sort of lid on the base of the mould rather than it sinking :) Honest.

So, this is what it looks like before it's iced. I'm not an experienced cake decorator but if you're so inclined, you can do all sorts of things with this including make it look like a cat, pig or dog.

This link has some good instructions and ideas. You can now buy the metal version of this mould in Lakeland, it's by a company called Wilton.

No longer dreaming of a White Christmas

This blog comes to you from the snowy lands of Colorado, Broomfield to be precise just outside of Denver where I've just had my first white Christmas in recent memory. It's been lovely just chilling out here, spending time with family, having a much greater choice of gluten free foods and fantastic shopping.

I also picked up my Cricut which I got in the Black Friday sales here. For anyone who doesn't know, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, when Christmas shopping starts in earnest and there are huge sales on, probably bigger than the UK New Years sales. I was lucky and managed to get it for only $75, about £50, and this is my first, very simple project created with it.

I did bring some scrapping tools with me, but it's never the same as having your full stash and I've found I'm not really good at planning in advance what I'm going to need, which meant this had to be very simple.

This is my favourite picture so far:

But will post more of the drive up into the Rocky Mountains soon, especially the ones of the Elk herd we saw.

Unfortunately I had some very sad news. My lovely friend Jill, wife of Phil, lost her battle with cancer a few days after Christmas. It was very quick, which meant she didn't suffer any more than she had already, and also meant she died with dignity, at home, in the arms of the man she loved with all her heart with her Sister present. She is missed.

Hoping you've all had a fabulous Christmas and New Year. Remember to cherish your loved ones, tell them you adore them, hold them and don't waste a moment of your time with them.

Mixed media blog

And by that I mean this is going to be a cooking and scrapping blog. I'm a bit of a slow scrapper, particularly at the moment but I am really pleased with how this one has turned out. I love blue, it's my favourite colour so I have a lot of blue patterend papers in my stash. I have a terrible habbit of defaulting to plain papers as the basis for my pages, then regretting it later on so I bit the bullet and started this layout with the paper.

My kittens loved this old paper tray when they first came to me and both cuddled up in it frequently. Bee's just a tad big for it now but still manages, somehow, to get comfortable enough to sleep in it. They really can sleep anywhere.

Last weekend I stayed with my lovely friend Alan, who always pushes the boat out for my in a culinary sense by finding and making gluten free recipes. This time it was a tart with caramelised onions and goats cheese, scrummy! So having had some GF ready made pastry in the freezer for a while made by Dietary Specials, I thought I'd recreate it. I made it into more of a quiche by adding an egg/milk custard to it and this is the outcome.

I made it up as I went along but essentially the recipe goes like this.

I sliced three large onions and cooked them slowly in a knob of butter over a low flame til they were gently browning and sweet, then allowed them to cool. I lined a pie tin with pastry - with gluten free pastry it works best to press into the tin rather than trying to roll it out due to the fragile nature of the dough. I then filled it with the cooled onions and two rounds of goats cheese which I cut in half. In a small bowl I beat together two eggs with a splash of cream and milk, and some fresh thyme leaves and pepper and poured this over the filling. I then topped it off with a small amount of grated cheddar and baked at 200c for 25 mins. I'd probably do it at 190c (or 170c in my fan oven) but it wasn't by any means burnt.

My Sugar and Spice blog is also up today. Please take a peek if you can :)

I've also now booked by Christmas trip to Family in the USA. This now means of course that I can start planning and preshopping my crafting bits :) Can't wait! My passport renewal also came through in double quick time, I posted it on Monday and got it back on Friday. How's that for service?!