Heidi's Crafts

Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge #14 is

2012-02-14T13:51:00.001+02:00

Hello everyone, Happy Valentines Day!! I hope you had a great day so far.

Have you all voted for the winner of our Baking Fun Challenge #13?

If not you can see how to vote here.

Now since today is Valentines day the theme for this fortnight’s challenge is.....

Valentines!!!

Anything that has to do with red, white, pink, hearts or roses.

The prize is the Women’s Weekly Little Party Books Fairytale.

This is the cutest little party book that every little girl wants.

It contains ideas on Invitations, Dress-Ups, Games, Food and Take-Home Treats for you to enjoy.

I decided to make “Macaroons Au Chocolate” as my example.

Ingredients:

4 egg whites

2 tsp. lemon juice

1 1/3 cup/250g superfine (caster) sugar

2 1/3 cups/ 200g ground almonds

2 tsp. cocoa

For the filling:

150g bittersweet Chocolate

1/3 cup/ 80ml whipping cream

1 1/2 tbsp./ 20g butter

Cocoa, for dusting

Heart stencil.

Method:

Prep and cook time 1 hour

1 Beat the egg whites with the lemon juice until they form stiff peaks, then gradually trickle in the sugar, still beating.

Continue beating until the mixture is firm and shiny, and then carefully fold in the ground almonds.

Fold in the cocoa to lightly colour the mixture.

2 Preheat the oven to 270 degrees F/ 135 degrees C.

Put the mixture into a piping bag with a large round nozzle and pipe 60-70 small domed circles approximately 3/4 inch/2 cm in diameter onto a cookie sheet lined with baking parchment.

3 Bake the macaroons in the oven for about 40 minutes, leaving the oven door open a crack. (It works to put a spoon in the oven door.)

4 For the Filling, chop the chocolate into small pieces and melt carefully in a bowl over a pan of hot water.

Cut the butter into small pieces and stir into the melted chocolate.

Whip the cream until stiff. As soon as the chocolate has cooled fold in the cream.

5 Sandwich the macaroons together in twos with the chocolate cream. Put the stencil on top of each macaroon, dust with cocoa, and then carefully remove the stencil.

There you are! I hope you like it, now it’s your turn I can’t wait to see what you all will come up with!

If this is your first time here, this is how it works:

-You can link-up using your blog or if you don’t have a blog, e-mail your entry to me.

-Create a post on your blog with the recipe and at least one picture of the finished product.

e-mail the recipe, with at least one picture of the finished product and I will enter your recipe in the challenge (remember to come back and check out your entry).

-One recipe per person/blog please.

- All entries must be appropriate

-You are allowed to have help with your baking.

-Please use the blue frog below to enter. Be sure to add the link to your direct blog posting/recipe and not your whole blog as this makes it much easier to find your recipe.

-Please comment on at least 3 other entries.

-Each recipe needs to be linked back to Heidi’s Crafts or has to have the button in the post.

-This is a fortnightly challenge, you have two weeks to enter.

-Entries need to be linked up by Monday the 27th of February for this Valentines challenge.

-After the challenge has closed, I will announce the entries in a separate posting and you will be able to vote for your favourite recipe.

-You are all allowed to advertise anywhere you like for people to vote for you, on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

-I will have a personalized blinkie, specially for the Winner. As well as the PRIZE!! I ship anywhere in the World!

-Age doesn’t matter, from little girls to grandmas are welcome to enter!

-The aim of the challenge is to encourage mothers and grandmas with their girls to enjoy making food in the kitchen, to share recipes, find new ones and have lots of fun together!

Baking Greetings

Voting For Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge #13.

2012-02-14T09:44:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone, I hope you’re all well and had a good weekend.

Today is time to start voting for the winner of my Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge #13!

I had a total of 4 entries and they are:

Kathryn

Who made a finger-licking Pasta Vegetable Salad.

Sarah:

Who made a delicious Chicken Caesar Salad.

Aunty Wendy

Who made a beautiful Polenta nests with Italian garden Salad.

And Last but simply not least,

4 year old Gabrielle!

Who made a mouth-watering Tuna-Mayonnaise Salad.

What amazing salads you ladies made here! Thank you so much everyone for taking the time to enter. I would also like to say a special thank you and welcome to Kathryn and little Gabrielle for entering for the first time!

To vote all you have to do is:

1 Go to the top of my blog,

2 Just under my blog header, on the right, is a voting poll with all the entries.

3 Next to each name is a little white circle

4 Click on the one next to the name of the entry you like best.

5 Then click on the button that says “vote”.

You have voted.

The Voting will close on Sunday the 19th of February at noon.

Good luck everyone!

Voting Greetings.

E-mail Entry For My Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge #13

2012-02-13T09:29:00.001+02:00

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a good week and weekend so far.

I got an e-mail entry for my baking challenge from a dear friend of mine’s sister who is 4 year old.

Gabrielle made a tuna-mayonnaise salad! Here is her recipe:

You will need:

1 Third of a cucumber, sliced and cut into quarters

2 tomatoes, chopped

A few fresh lettuce leaves, shredded

Half a red pepper, cut into Julienne strips

2 tins of tuna, drained

Mayonnaise (enough to make the salad moist)

2 carrots, peeled and cut into Julienne strips

Method:

Wash your fresh ingredients in salt water. Start by mixing your

chopped tomato with the cucumber, lettuce, red pepper and carrot

strips. Mix the 2 tins of tuna into the salad along with the

mayonnaise. Refrigerate before serving. Enjoy with fresh, homemade

bread and butter.

This was one of Gabrielle’s first things she made in the kitchen! Well done Gabrielle, your salad look delicious! Thank you so much for entering.

Everyone please remember you still have time enter this baking challenge, this theme is “salads”. You have until Monday the 13th of February to enter.

If you would like to enter, click here.

Baking Greetings

Colour Combo Card for Stampin for the Weekend

2012-02-10T13:41:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone, I hope your are all well. It’s time for a new Stampin for the Weekend Challenge!

The theme for this challenge is

A Colour Combination!

Pale and just a bit of Dark Blue with tones from Cream to Brown.

And you are allowed to have just one type of embellishment in whatever colour your want.

Here is a picture to give you more of an idea.

We have two sponsors this fortnight:

Simon Says Stamp

They are offering the winner a $25 give voucher!

And Bugaboo Stamps

They give the winner 7 images of her choice!

Here is some inspiration:

I enjoyed making this card, I haven’t been up to making cards in quite some time.

I used lots of circles for this one.

Bagaboo Stamps sponsored the SFTW DT too, so I used one of their cute images.

I coloured it with the following Copics:

E37, E35 and E33 - for the girls’ hair.

R20, R21 and E00 - for the girls’ skin.

E33 and E53 - for her shoes.

B05 and B02 - for the dark blue.

B02 and B000 - for the light blue.

W3 - for a shadow around the image.

I used some of my beautiful heart buttons that my mother bought me for Christmas.

I also added a piece of blue ribbon and a bow at the top, that a sweet friend gave me.

I hope you like my card! Please hop over to Stampin for the Weekend and see if you can take part. The DT made such beautiful cards!

I would also like to take part in the following challenges with this card:

Craft Us Crazy - Anything goes

Little Darlings Challenges - Favorite Embellishments

Papercraft Star - photo inspiration plus hearts

Scrapbook Sisters - anything goes

Have a blessed weekend

Crafty Greetings

Winner of Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge # 12

2012-02-06T09:31:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a good weekend.It’s time to announce the winner of my Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge # 12 Smoothies and cold drinks!

First I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who entered, the winner voted to be.................

Linnie!!! Which is my mother!

Congratulations mommy, you won the Food Lovers Smoothies and Juices recipe book! (You don’t need to sent me your postal address, Lol)

Here is the special winner blinkie I made you:

I really hope you like it! Your Two Tone Berry Smoothie looks so pretty!

All you have to do is right click, then click “save image as”.

Then you can proudly display your winner blinkie on the side of your blog with a link back to this post so that your blog readers can see that you won and also join in next time.

Now there is always a next time with my Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge

The current challenge is Salads, any kind of salad, sweet, sour, salty what ever you can come up with!

You have until Monday the 13th of February to enter.

Baking Greetings

I’ve Been Tagged!!

2012-02-05T15:14:00.000+02:00

Hi everyone, Tane from Fifth Out Of Ten tagged me!

It looked like fun so I decided to do it.

The rules are:

1 Post these rules.

2 You must post 11 random things about yourself.

3 Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post.

4 Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.

5 Go to their blog and tell them they’ve been tagged.

Here is 11 random things about me:

# 1 I love doing paper crafts

# 2 I love my family

# 3 One day when I am married I’ll take all the children God wants to give me.

# 4 I would love to babysit other mother’s children so they can go on date nights with there husband without worrying about their children.

# 5 I would love to have a solo part in our ballet concert this year.

# 6 I love watching tennis, I watched a 6 hour match the other day without getting bored and I love to play tennis myself too.

# 7 I love reading adventure books or series.

# 8 When I’m at home I like to keep my hair either in a pony-tale or roll it up and clip it to the back of my head.

# 9 I had braces for 2 years and 10 months.

# 10 I can’t wait till we go on holiday in a few months.

# 11 I love spending time in the kitchen, REALLY like it!

Here is the questions Tane asked me and my answers:

Q #1: What is your favourite animal?

A: I don’t really like animals, but I think it will be birds.

Q #2: Which board-game can you play on and on and never get bored?

A: Cash flow.

Q #3: What is your favourite country?

A: I’ve never been to another country, but through pictures I think Switzerland or Mauritius.

Q #4: Bath or shower?

A: Shower.

Q #5: A hike or a walk on the beach?

A: A hike.

Q #6: Lily or Rose?

A: I love Roses.

Q #7: Blue or pink?

A: Pink.

Q #8: Are you tall, short or average?

A: I think |’m average.

Q #9: If you were a fairy, would your wings be pointed or round?

A: I love big pointed wings, so I think they would be pointed.

Q #10: Sneakers or high heels?

A: I don’t like sneakers at all, as long as the heel is not to high or slippery at the bottom, I’ll wear high heels.

Q #11: Which do you prefer, salmon or tuna?

I think tuna.

Okay now I would like to tag:

Sarah from A Light Princess

Kelly-Anne from Beautiful Girlhood

Kathryn from Chatty Kathy

Sarah from Easy Make and Do

Aaliyah from Growing in His Image

Nine from Just Me

Serenity from Beautiful Girlhood

Ali from Livin’ My Live 4 Jesus

Sandy from Simply Me Photography

And here are your Questions:

#1 What colour is your hair?

#2 What do you want to do when you grow up?

#3 What is your favorite subject in school?

#4 What do you prefer to wear a dress or pants?

#5 How do you like to wear your hair, ponytail, bun or lose?

#6 How are you planning to improve your relationship with God this year?

#7 If money was on potion, where would you like to go or what would you like to do?

#8 What is your top 3 favorite books?

#9 Do you like working in the kitchen?

#10 What do you like to do as a hobby?

# 11 What movie can you watch over and over and never get board?

There you are just follow the rules!

I hope you like it and good luck answering!

Question Greetings

Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge #13 is...

2012-01-31T21:08:00.000+02:00

Hi everyone, I hope you are all ready for a new Baking Challenge!

Before I tell you what the new challenge is I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who entered in challenge #12 - Smoothies and cold drinks. I had an amazing 10 entries!

If you haven’t voted for your favorite recipe yet, you can vote here.

Now I think you have waited long enough.

The theme for this fortnight will be..........

Salads!!

Any kind of salad, sweet, sour, salty what ever you can come up with!

The prize this week is the Australian Women’s Weekly recipe book called Kitchen Garden.

This book contains amazing recipes on salads and vegetables.

It also gives you tips on how to grow herbs and vegetables!

There are things on: Planning for Production

Artichokes

Asian Greens

Asparagus

Beans

Beetroot

Carrots

Chillies

Herbs

Onions

Rhubarb

Salad Greens

Tomatoes

Zucchini and Squash

Preserving the Crop

I decided to show you my everyday mixed salad with a slight twist:

You need:

Lettuce- as fresh as possible

Tomatoes - I like to use the small ones, but since we only have big ones in our garden at the moment I used big tomatoes here.

Cucumber

Avocado

Peas - If you can find sugar snap peas as they are very nice.

Onion

Green Pepper - any colour you like.

Olives

Feta cheese - (Optional) I don’t use it in everyday salad.

Black Pepper

Salt

Olive Oil

Balsamic Vinegar or lemon juice

Method:

Chop everything up in a bowl. Starting with the lettuce, followed by the other ingredients and finish off with the onions on top.

Then to make the dressing. Mix the black pepper and salt in a grinder and sprinkle over the salad.

Then pour the olive oil and then the Balsamic vinegar over.

Mix with two forks.

You can enjoy the salad just like that with your meal or you can fry chicken strips and put that on top. It makes a wonderful lunch or a light supper.

I hope you like it!

Now it’s your turn to show me what you can come up with! I can’t wait to see!

If this is your first time here, this is how it works:

-You can link-up using your blog or if you don’t have a blog, e-mail your entry to me.

-Create a post on your blog with the recipe and at least one picture of the finished product.

e-mail the recipe, with at least one picture of the finished product and I will enter your recipe in the challenge (remember to come back and check out your entry).

-One recipe per person/blog please.

- All entries must be appropriate

-You are allowed to have help with your baking.

-Please use the blue frog below to enter. Be sure to add the link to your direct blog posting/recipe and not your whole blog as this makes it much easier to find your recipe.

-Please comment on at least 3 other entries.

-Each recipe needs to be linked back to Heidi’s Crafts or has to have the button in the post.

-This is a fortnightly challenge, you have two weeks to enter.

-Entries need to be linked up by Monday the 13th of February for this Salads challenge.

-After the challenge has closed, I will announce the entries in a separate posting and you will be able to vote for your favourite recipe.

-You are all allowed to advertise anywhere you like for people to vote for you, on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

-I will have a personalized blinkie, specially for the Winner. As well as the PRIZE!! I ship anywhere in the World!

-Age doesn’t matter, from little girls to grandmas are welcome to enter!

-The aim of the challenge is to encourage mothers and grandmas with their girls to enjoy making food in the kitchen, to share recipes, find new ones and have lots of fun together!

Baking Greetings

Voting For The Winner Of My Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge #12 have started:

2012-01-30T13:07:00.001+02:00

Hello everyone, I hope you all are well and had a good weekend. We spend the weekend watching the Australian Open For Tennis 2012. It was nerve reacking, but really good. We watched the longest Men Singles Championship in the history of Australian Opens, nearly a 6 hour game! It was also little Michael’s 2nd birthday. (I will post more about that later)

Any way, it’s time to vote for the winner of my Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge #12, the theme was Smoothies and Cold drinks. I had a surprising nine entries of the most amazing drinks. They are:

Tane:

Who made a mouth-watering Blueberry Smoothie.

Perrin:

Who made a Creamy Strawberry and Cranberry Smoothie.

Grace (Who is 8 years old):

Made a Smooth, Cinnamon, Peanut-Butter and Banana smoothie.

Danika (Who is also 8 years old)

Made a yummy Grape and Yogurt smoothie.

Kelly-Anne:

Who made refreshing Ginger Beer.

Sarah:

Who made a lovely Berry Smoothie.

Beth (Who is 7 years old):

Made a delicious Mango Cooler.

Nancy:

Who made a beautiful Lemon Cordial.

Linnie (my mother!):

Who made an amazing Two Tone Berry Smoothie!

And Key:

Who made a finger-liking Mango Tango smoothie!

Wow! What amazing recipes! Thank you so much everyone who entered, it’s so good to see all of you entering after the holidays again, every single one of you made an amazing smoothie/drink. I would also like to say a special thank you and welcome to little Grace and Kay for entering for the first time!

Now ladies you all know what’s next. Go advertise, so people can vote for you!

To vote all you have to do is:

1 Go to the top of my blog,

2 Just under my blog header, on the right, is a voting poll with all the entries.

3 Next to each name is a little white circle

4 Click on the one next to the name of the entry you like best.

5 Then click on the button that says “vote”.

You have voted.

The Voting will close on Sunday the 5th of February at noon.

Good luck everyone!

Voting Greetings.

A Bright Smile!!

2012-01-27T14:15:00.000+02:00

Yesterday afternoon, my mother took me out for lunch. Just the two of us. It was such a special time at such a special new Coffee Shop in Durbanville.

We had the most beautiful and delicious Cappuccino.

And a breakfast quiche. It was wonderful to have such a special time with my mother, and I’m so thankful to have a mother like her.

After that, my dad and I had to go to the dentist for a follow-up on our braces :-( (We both have)

I really didn’t look forward to it, but when we got there the most exiting thing happened:

They took my braces off!!!

After having them for 2 years and 10 months.

I was really, really glad to have them off finally! I’m so happy and decided to share a before and after with you.

Before - Some of these teeth where still baby-teeth.

In the long and painful process.....

After!

Dr. Brian Faure and me. Dr. Brian was the first Dentist in South Africa who used the unique Damon brace treatment and he did my braces from the start. For two of the almost three years, we had to fly to his rooms in Pietermaritzburg, every three to six months, for my treatments.

The past year Dr. Bryan moved to Cape Town and Dr Aubrey Everson assisted him in doing a great job with my mouth.

I can’t belief it’s off, it feels like a dream and that I will wake up tomorrow morning with them back. Lol!

Thank you Daddy for all the sacrifices you did to give me this Lifetime Gift!!

Thank you to Uncle Garth from Sevenpointfive who introduced my parents to the Dr. Faure’s method and insisted that they consider treatment - years ago!

Thank you Lord Jesus, for giving me the ability to endure the braces and being in ultimate control of the development of my mouth!

I hope you like it too!

Have a blessed weekend everyone

Heidi-Mari

Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge # 12

2012-01-17T13:24:00.001+02:00

Hello everyone and welcome to the first Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge for 2012! I hope you are all doing well.

The first challenge for 2012 will be

Smoothies and cold drinks!!

Since it’s so hot in South Africa and you need something to cool you down, I thought I would make this fortnight’s challenge smoothies and cold drinks.

The prize for the challenge is a Food Lovers Smoothies and Juices recipe book!

These stylish recipes will help feed your passion with a collection of delicious smoothies and juices that are easy to prepare and a feast for the eyes. Whether you are making a refreshing drink for a summer day, a tempting aperitif or an accompaniment to a light lunch, you will love these delicious and nutritious mixes.

My example is a pineapple, mango and carrot smoothie.

To make this smoothie the following:

Makes 2

Preparation time: 10min plus 20 min standing time

2 large carrots, peeled

1 1/4 cups/ 300ml cold water

1 mango, peeled and chopped

2/3 cup/150ml orange juice (I used pineapple pulp instead)

1 Grate the carrots and put into a bowl with the cold water. Cover and leave for 20 minutes. Or if you have a juicer you can juice the carrots.

2 Put the mango into the blender with the orange juice or pineapple pulp. Pulse until smooth.

3 Hold a sieve over the blender and strain the carrot juice into it, discarding the shredded carrots. Or add the carrot juice. Pulse again to combine.

4 Pour into two glasses and decorate with what ever you like.

I just added a few strawberries.

I can’t wait to see what smoothies and cold drinks you can come up with!

If this is your first time here, this is how it works:

-You can link-up using your blog or if you don’t have a blog, e-mail your entry to me.

-Create a post on your blog with the recipe and at least one picture of the finished product.

e-mail the recipe, with at least one picture of the finished product and I will enter your recipe in the challenge (remember to come back and check out your entry).

-One recipe per person/blog please.

-You are allowed to have help with your baking.

-Please use the blue frog below to enter. Be sure to add the link to your direct blog posting/recipe and not your whole blog as this makes it much easier to find your recipe.

-Please comment on at least 3 other entries.

-Each recipe needs to be linked back to Heidi’s Crafts or has to have the button in the post.

-This is a fortnightly challenge, you have two weeks to enter.

-Entries need to be linked up by Monday the 31st of January for this Smoothies and cold drinks challenge.

-After the challenge has closed, I will announce the entries in a separate posting and you will be able to vote for your favourite recipe.

-You are all allowed to advertise anywhere you like for people to vote for you, on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

-I will have a personalized blinkie, specially for the Winner. As well as the PRIZE!! I ship anywhere in the World!

-Age doesn’t matter, from little girls to grandmas are welcome to enter!

-The aim of the challenge is to encourage mothers and grandmas with their girls to enjoy making food in the kitchen, to share recipes, find new ones and have lots of fun together!

Baking Greetings.

I Serve An AWESOME God!!!!!!!!!

2012-01-14T11:53:00.002+02:00

I serve an Awesome God! A God that can do ANYTHING........a God for whom NOTHING is impossible.......a God that cares, loves and knows your heart. He knows you better than you know yourself, He knows what happened to you everyday of your life, He knows what will happen to you everyday of your remaining time on Earth. He is there when you need Him, all you have to do is ask.

As some of you know, my mother fell pregnant January 2011. It was number nine and we where all SO happy. But then on the 11th of March when my mother was 12 weeks pregnant, we discovered the baby’s little heart stopped beating. It was SO painful for all of us! My mother lost one baby before CJ (my 17 year old big brother) and two babies before me, then after six children, she had this little one. Since I wasn’t even born before the previous miscarriage, I didn’t know what it was like to loose an unborn sibling. I was SO sad and prayed day and night for the Lord to give us another sibling before the 1st of October (that was the baby’s due date)

After many nights of crying myself to sleep (and waking up with sore eyes the next morning!) and a few talks (and cries) with my mother, life went on. My mother helped me lots! She told me God knew what He’s doing, He knows me and that it’s a stretching of my faith.

She told me how other people may have been affected by it. (Appreciating their babies more, for example)

I made peace with God that He knew what He was doing.

Still I kept thinking why everyone was having babies now! Many of my mother’s friends and some of my blog friends just had or was about to have babies.

One Wednesday morning in December (I think is was around the 7th) as I was taking to my parents coffee in bed, (CJ, who usually makes the coffee was on another movie shoot.) my mother had at smile on her face, but not just any smile, her eyes where extra sparkling as she sat up in bed. I asked her something about the little ones who slept with them that night, but the smile only grew bigger and bigger. I looked at her and finally asked the question:

“Are you pregnant?”

She looked at me and.........nodded!!!! My mother said YES!! She is pregnant!!!!!!!! We are expecting another baby!! I cried-laughed giving her a huge hug. We are expecting another sibling in August 2012!!!!

THE LORD HAS ANSWERED OUR PRAYER! The Lord answered my prayer.

Never give up, never give in, never say it’s to big for God, never say God doesn’t understand! He DOES! But He knows whats best for you.

Stay strong in the tough times, don’t give in, don’t fall. Remember what He has done for you in the past, remember the promise He gave you for the future...have faith.

It may seem like God don’t know, but just have faith and wait on Him. I have been through it!

Thank you everyone who prayed for us during this time. Please will you continue praying for this tiny little baby to grow strong, be born on the right time, the right way and for his/her calling in live.

Have a blessed day

Heidi-Mari soon to be a sister of 8 siblings!!

Use Something Old - Creation For Stampin For The Weekend.

2012-01-13T13:19:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all doing well, and getting out of the holiday mood! Today I would like to show you a calendar I made for my mother for Christmas. It’s also time for a new Stampin For The Weekend Challenge, the theme is

something old.

Use some of the things you had laying in your boxes for some time.

Our sponsors for this challenge is Lilly Of The Vally!

Now here is my example:

I used a lot of old paper and images to make this calendar for my mother and June seems to have the most and oldest paper!

I made two cards with this paper months ago, you can have a look at them here and here.

I also used an old image from Whiff Of Joy. I don’t use it much, because it’s such a big image, I have to make a very big card. But here it worked well. I coloured it with the following Copics:

R20, R21 and E00 - For their skin.

E37, E35, and E33 - For the girl’s hair and the cookies.

E35, E33 and E53 - For the boy’s hair and the chair’s feet.

E33, R21 and E53 - For the chair.

R20, R21 and E00 - For the girl’s red top and the boy’s pants and socks.

Y15, Y11 and Y00 - For the girl’s yellow pants, top and the boy’s socks.

B05, B02 and B000 - For the boy’s top and the girl’s patches.

W3 - For a shadow around the stamp.

I simply printed the calendar and put pink or blue pearls on the birthdays of our family. Here are Danika and Andrew’s.

Please will you hop over to Stampin for the Weekend and take part in our challenge. The theme is easy - so everyone can join in!

I would also like to take part in the following challenges with this calendar:

Anything Goes Challenge - Anything Goes

Bearly Mine - Anything Goes

Everybody-Art-Challenge - Shabby

Top Tip Tuesday - Anything Goes

Before I say good-by, here are a few pictures of what the other pages of the Calendar looked like:

I wrote the names in Afrikaans, because our mother-tong is Afrikaans. This is January and Michael’s birthday.

February and it’s my mother’s birthday, my mother loves red so I made February Red!

March is usually a month to go to the beach in South Africa.

April, I just love this paper and the soft ribbon!

May is fall is SA and I think this image fits well.

June (the one above)

July is winter and I just love this image! It is also my birthday.

August, I suppose should be more of a boy page, because there are three boys’ birthdays in August, Daniel, CJ and Josua, but I just love this paper.

September is more or less spring, so I made a spring page.

October, I decided to play around with ribbon! It’s my dad and David’s birthdays.

November is hot and this paper generates heat!

December is high summer, but I decided to make it a Christmas month. When you come to December it will remind you about Christmas.

I just punched wholes in the top of each page and put 3cm Key Rings in.

So there you are! It took me about 3 - 4 days to make or 13 hours of non-stop-work. Now I know three days isn’t 13 hours but I can’t work 24 hours of the day and I also had to keep it a secret from my mother, she LOVES it!

I hope you liked it too!

Crafty Greetings

Summer Holidays At The Lues Family 2011

2012-01-11T16:51:00.001+02:00

Hello everyone, today I would like to show you some of the things we did for Christmas 2011!

We hardly ever go away at Christmas, we just have family and sometimes friends over.

On Christmas eve, my grandparents came for a barbecue to our house and it was lots of fun.

Home-made Christmas crackers!

Michael pulling his cracker with my mother.

Wow mommy.......my chocolate, really?!

mmmmmm.....

David and my mother pulling

After everyone had chocolate, we had delicious cocktails Danika and my Mother made.

We had a lovely barbecue and chatted till late.

An amazing fruit cake my mother backed for Christmas morning, with the Nativity scene.

Christmas breakfast table, which you can read more about here.

A lovely Mango, carrot and pineapple smoothie. (We NEVER have smoothies so it was a real treat)

We had a lovely time opening gifts.

We (my mother and I) made my dad a beautiful Scrapbook page to hang in his office (I don’t have a photo of it, sorry)

I made my mother a calendar (Will post it on my blog soon!), and my mother also got a beautiful glass tea pot.

I got a Lindt Chocolate apron and a few other lovely goodies.

Michael in his own play-world.

We had a lovely week between Christmas and new year, just relaxing!

On new year we had a great meal, we had “Chinese Stir fry”

The table and more crackers

All the yummy sauces!

My new apron!

Part of “Chinese Stir fry” is to eat your food with sticks! We only had 2 pairs left (the little boys love playing with them outside and not bring them back in, lol!), so CJ and I ate with them!

During the week we had lots of fun and delicious foods.

One evening, we had home made hamburgers (this is my hamburger).

A Lindt Chocolate pudding with Chocolate ice cream and White Lindt Chocolate sauces!

The little ones watering mommy’s garden, and playing in the kitchen while we made lunch.

Playing in the swimming pool.

We also went Ice Skating!! Something we did like 6 years ago and never again! It’s a real challenge, VERY slippery, it looks so easy when you see other people do it, but try it yourself! I struggled to get the hang of it.

CJ did very well.

Josua also did okay, Andrew sat on the seal and rowed himself!

So did Danika.

And I........went all around in a circle, holding on to the side of the rink, lol!

We where all wet in the end, but it was lots of fun!

This past weekend we also packed Above Rubies magazines in trade for going to the ice ring!

Josua, myself (my eyes are not closed, I’m just looking down) and CJ.

700 envelopes that needs to be posted all over South Africa!

“I’m gonna get posted too! See I’m wearing white to match the envelopes!”

I hope you all had a lovely holiday season too!

Have a blessed new year!!!

Winner of Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge #11

2012-01-03T13:41:00.001+02:00

Hello everyone, Happy New Year!!!! I hope you will all have a great year in which you will achieve you goals.

I know I’m a little late, but here is the winner of Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge #11.

Thank you everyone who took the time to vote! The winner is

Danika!

CONGRATULATIONS Danika!!! Your refreshing Fresh Fruit Cocktail was and looks delicious!

Here is the special blinkie I made you:

I really hope you like it!

All you have to do is right click, then click “save image as”.

Then you can proudly display your winner blinkie on the side of your blog with a link back to this post so that your blog readers can see that you won and also join in next time.

Please note: that I’m taking a 2 week holiday from my Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge. I will be back on the 16th of January.

Have a blessed day everyone!

Baking Greetings

A Tablecloth Overly For Kelly’s Sensational Sewing Challenge!

2011-12-31T09:39:00.002+02:00

Hi everyone, I hope you’re all doing well! Today I would like to show you a tablecloth overlay I made for our Christmas table.

My Mother brought me a beautiful piece of red material with yellow stars on.

I simply cut it in a square, and overlocked it.

It’s quick easy and simple and it looks beautiful!

Here’s a close-up.

Here is what it looks like when I laid the table.

This was our Christmas Breakfast Table.

Kelly’s Sensational Sewing Challenge’s theme this 2 months is Christmas. I would like to enter this table cloth into her challenge.

Kelly also has a prize this 2 months! Please hop over and see if you can take part.

Have a blessed weekend

Sewing Greetings

Voting For Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge

2011-12-27T22:47:00.003+02:00

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a great Christmas and a lovely holiday so far. We are having a very relaxing holiday!

Now it’s time to vote for the winner of my Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge #11. It’s also the last challenge for the year. I’m taking a 2 week break for my Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge, so I’ll see you all again around the 10th of January.

The 11th Challenge was Colourful food and I have a total of 6 entries, which is really great for this time of year. We have some lovely Colourful entries this time and they are:

Dodi:

Who made these creative Cake-pops. I love the sparkles on them!

Tane:

Who made cute Christmas cakes. It’s beautiful decorations!

Perrin:

Who baked a stunning Christmas Fruit Cake with panted baubles on top. Love the baubles!

Kelly-Anne

Who cooked a delicious Blackberry jam. Love the dark colour!

Danika (Who is only 8years old)

Who made the most beautiful, refreshing Fresh Fruit Cocktail. I just love the fresh fruit skewer inside!

And my mother, Linnie:

Who baked the a finger-licking Panettone (it’s a delicious light Italian fruit cake) with fresh berries. I love the white topping with fresh berries!

Thank you so much for all of you who entered, I love all your beautiful colourful entries!

Now if you don’t know how to vote all you do is:

1 Go to the top of my blog,

2 Just under my blog header, on the right, is a voting poll with all the entries.

3 Next to each name is a little white circle

4 Click on the one next to the name of the entry you like best.

5 Then click on the button that says “vote”.

You have voted.

Voting close on the 1st of January at noon.

Good luck everyone.....

Baking Greetings!

Merry Christmas!!!!!

2011-12-25T20:57:00.000+02:00

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

From The Lues Family!

Christmas Crackers - For Stamping For The Weekend DT

2011-12-23T21:06:00.001+02:00

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all doing well, getting all the last things done for Christmas. Well, there is still a Stampin for the Weekend challenge this week.

The theme is:

Anything Goes!

That’s right you can enter what ever you like.

We have 2 sponsors and the first one is:

The Pretty Little Ribbon Shop, who is offering the winner 50 meters of Divine Bakers twine and a pack of Doilies! How great is that?!

And the second sponsor is

Bugaboo Stamps, who is offering the winner 7 free digi stamps!

Now it’s time to show you my creation for this challenge:

Christmas Crackers with a beautiful Christmas image.

We make our own crackers every year, since it’s so expensive to buy crackers with such cheap, easy-breaking gifts inside. And it’s lost more fun and prettier to make it yourself!

Here is a tutorial I wrote a few years ago on how to make your own.

For this cracker I used a beautiful Whiff Of Joy image called Betty Mouse with Candy Cane and I coloured her with the following Copics:

R20, R21, E33 and E53 - For her skin

R29 and R27 - For her hat, skirt and on the candy cane

Y15, Y11 and Y00 - For her yellow blouse

Y15, Y11 and Y00 - For the bow on the candy cane.

W3 - For a shadow around the stamp.

And for this cracker, I also used a Whiff Of Joy Stamp called Christmas Train and I coloured them with the following Copics:

E35, E33 and E53 - For their skin

R20, R21 and E00 - For their ears

R29 and R27 - For the red on the train

G17, G14 and G12 - For the Green on the train

B05, B02 and B000 - For the blue on the train and the mouse’s hat

Y15, Y11 and Y00 - For the yellow on the gift box

V04 and V01 - For the purple on the train

W3 - For a shadow around the stamp.

Inside these crackers are Chocolate Lindor Balls, and you can give it to anyone and they will be happy.

Please hop over the Stampin For The Weekend and see if you can take part in our challenge! There are great prizes and stunning DT creations.

I would also like to take part in the following challenges with these crackers:

Cooking It Up With Katie - anything goes

Crafting for all Seasons - Christmas

Crafts and Me - Christmas

Divas by Design - Christmas

My Mum's Craft shop - anything goes

Penny's Paper-Crafty - Holiday Gifts

Sisterhood of Crafters - Christmas

4 Crafty Chicks - Anything BUT Rectangle or Square

Aud Sentiments Challenge - Anything Goes

Paper Play - Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you have a lovely Christmas with friends and family!

Crafty Greetings

Winner of My Baking Challenge #10 is..........

2011-12-19T20:20:00.001+02:00

Hello everyone! Today is Monday which means........it’s time to announce the winner of my Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge #10 - Fruit and Vegetables.

Thank you everyone who took the time to vote!

The winner of challenge #10 is..........

Tane

Congratulations Tane for winning my 10th Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge!!!!

Your White Chocolate Mousse with Fresh Fruit looks amazing!

Here is your special blinkie with a picture of your Chocolate Mousse:

All you have to do is right click, then click “save image as”.

Then you can proudly display your winner blinkie on the side of your blog with a link back to this post so that your blog readers can see that you won and also join in next time.

Now there is always a next time with my Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge!

The current challenge is Colourful Food! Which means you can enter anything with colour! The prize is a Delectable Desserts recipe book by Linda Fraser!

You have until Monday the 26th of December to enter

Baking Greetings

Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge #11 is.........

2011-12-13T20:38:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well. It’s time for a new Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge!

But before I get started, I would like to apologize for the late postings. I only managed to post the voting post last night and I know this post is late too. I’m really sorry, but over the past week our whole family of ten (lol) was sick, on Monday it was my turn. Really sick, I couldn’t even get out of bed to do the voting post. So I’m very sorry. But here it is now.

Have you all voted for the winner of the previous fortnight’s challenge Fruit and Vegetables? If you have, thank you so much and if you haven’t you can vote here.

Ok now the theme for this Fortnight is.......

Colour!!!!!!!!

I want to see colourful food.

The Prize is a Delectable Desserts recipe book by Linda Fraser!

- This is another AMAZING recipe book with over 75 spectacular recipes for delicious desserts of all kinds, from ice creams, bombes and mousses to tempting soufflés, pies and tarts.

- Over 300 photographs, highlighting each step-by-step recipe and finished dish.

-Ideas suitable for all occasions - from special events and celebrations to informal entertaining and everyday family meals and treats.

-Includes quick and healthy recipes as well as rich traditional desserts

The contents of this book is:

Pies, tarts and cobblers

Fresh Fruit Desserts

Crumbles, Custards and Puddings

Cold Desserts and Ices

My example is cold chocolate cylinders with mousse and fresh fruit:

Most of this is made out of Lindt Chocolate!

We made chocolate cylinders that we learned to make on the Lindt Chocolate Decorations Course. The decorations on top we also learned there.

Okay first we made the cylinder with tempered chocolate, then we made all different kinds of decorations for the top. We put orange, fat soluble coloring powder on a transparent sheet, then the chocolate on top and then rolled it, put it in a cylinder (like a toilet roll), let cool and pull off the transparent.

Then we made dark chocolate and white chocolate mousses to put inside. Both brown and white chocolate mousse are made the same way.

Here is the recipe:

Makes 3 cups.

ingredients

170g/ 6 ounces chocolate chopped

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter cubed or sliced

4 egg yolks

3 tablespoons sugar (don’t be tempted to leave out the sugar as it stabilizes the mousse)

1 tsp vanilla extract or 2 tbs cognac, rum or kirsch.

1 cup heavy cream for whipping or more as needed to thin the chocolate mixture.

Method:

1 Combine the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl.

2 Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir with a wooden spoon or whisk until melted and smooth. Note: make sure the bowl fits perfect over the saucepan and that no steam can come up the sides of the bowl. If it does it will stop the chocolate from melting.

3 Combine the egg yolk and sugar in a heatproof bowl and set it over the saucepan of barely simmering water. Whisk for about 5 minutes, or until pale and slightly stiff.

4 Remove from the heat. Stir the chocolate mixture into the egg yolks, add the vanilla and stir until well mixed.

If at this point the mixture becomes stiff and grainy, whisk in heavy cream, 1/4 cup at a time, until the mixture is smooth.

5 Stir for a few minutes to cool. Let cool to room temperature.

6 Whip the cream to soft peaks.

7 Stir about 1/4 of the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture and then fold in the rest with a rubber spatula.

Scoop or pipe the mousse into the cylinders and decorate on top.

Then we took some tempered chocolate and made patterns on the small plate.

And then for a finishing touch, black berries and raspberries cut in half, put close to the cylinder.

Be sure to keep it in the fridge if it’s a hot day. (Yes we made a lot!)

If you don’t.........

this will happen! These were some of our tests!

Bon Appetite! This is a really, really great dessert!

Now it’s your turn to show me what you can come up with! Anything with colour will do!

Here is how it works:

-You can link-up using your blog or if you don’t have a blog, e-mail your entry to me.

-Create a post on your blog with the recipe and at least one picture of the finished product.

e-mail the recipe, with at least one picture of the finished product and I will enter your recipe in the challenge (remember to come back and check out your entry).

-One recipe per person/blog please.

-You are allowed to have help with your baking.

-Please use the blue frog below to enter. Be sure to add the link to your direct blog posting/recipe and not your whole blog as this makes it much easier to find your recipe.

-Please comment on at least 3 other entries.

-Each recipe needs to be linked back to Heidi’s Crafts or has to have the button in the post.

-This is a fortnightly challenge, you have two weeks to enter.

-Entries need to be linked up by Monday the 27 of December for this Colour challenge.

-After the challenge has closed, I will announce the entries in a separate posting and you will be able to vote for your favourite recipe.

-You are all allowed to advertise anywhere you like for people to vote for you, on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

-I will have a personalized blinkie, specially for the Winner. As well as the PRIZE!! I ship anywhere in the World!

-Age doesn’t matter, from little girls to grandmas are welcome to enter!

-The aim of the challenge is to encourage mothers and grandmas with their girls to enjoy making food in the kitchen, to share recipes, find new ones and have lots of fun together!

Baking Greetings.

Please Note: This will be the last baking challenge for this year. After this challenge I’m going to take a 2 week break. I’m sure everyone else will be on holiday or to busy to enter anyway!

Voting For My Baking Challenge #10 Fruit and Vegetables

2011-12-12T20:36:00.003+02:00

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a good weekend!

It’s time to vote for the winner of my Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge #10 Fruit and Vegetables. I had 9 entries which is really great, and they are all such amazing entries! They all look amazing!

First entry is Dodi:

Who made delicious Pineapple Berry Smoothie.

Second entry is Tane:

Who made mouth-watering White Chocolate Mousse with Fresh Fruit!

Third entry is Perrin:

Who baked most beautiful Apricot Cupcakes with Fresh Fruit Topping.

Forth entry is Kelly-Anne:

Who made an icy-cold Fruit Slushy for a very hot day.

Fifth entry is Sarah:

Who cooked yummy Apricot Jam, with a beautiful colour too!

Sixth entry is Aunty Wendy:

Who made old Fashioned Apricot Chutney, mmmmm......

Seventh entry is an e-mail entry of Aunty Hazel:

Who baked a finger-liking Spinach and Butternut Quiche!

The eighth entry is Jessica:

Who baked an amazing Blackberry and Apple Pie.

And the Ninth entry is Aunty Karyn

Who made a yummy Carob Pie!

Thank you everyone for entering and a special thank you to Jessica and aunty Karyn for entering for the first time!

You many now all go and vote and anyone can vote for you!

To vote all you do is:

1 Go to the top of my blog,

2 Just under my blog header, on the right, is a voting poll with all the entries.

3 Next to each name is a little white circle

4 Click on the one next to the name of the entry you like best.

5 Then click on the button that says “vote”.

You have voted.

The Voting will close on the 18th of December at noon.

Good luck everyone.......

Voting Greetings!

E-mail Entry For My Baking Challenge!

2011-12-11T18:49:00.001+02:00

Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well.

I have an e-mail entry for my Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge, from a dear friend of mine’s mom.

Aunty Hazel made Spinach and Butternut Quiche!

Here is her recipe:

Ingredients

1 cup plain flour

75g butter

iced water

1 cup butternut

tomato slices

red or yellow pepper, sliced

15ml olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 large handful spinach

10ml butter

250ml cream or milk

3 egg yolks

1 cup grated cheese

1 slice round feta

salt and pepper

Method:

Mix the butter and flour until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.

Pour in the iced water and knead until dough forms a ball. Cover and

refrigerate for 30 minutes. Grill the butternut, tomato and pepper

with a little oil at 180 degrees celsius. Fry the onion and spinach

in butter until soft. Add cream, egg yolks, cheese and veggies. Roll

out the dough and press into a pie dish. Bake blind until golden.

Pour in filling and bake until set.

Thank you aunty Hazel for entering my challenge, your Quiche looks really delicious!

There is still a little time for anyone to enter. Challenge closes Monday the 12th of December at noon. You can enter here.

Have a blessed day

Baking Greetings