Thursday, December 22, 2011

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas!



So tomorrow's my last morning at work before we shut down and go on our Christmas break.
And I just wanted to take the opportunity to wish you a peaceful, blessed Christmas and a sparkly New Year.

May it be everything you dreamed it would be!

xox

Monday, December 19, 2011

Nifty Idea!



Check out this awesome cell phone holder made from an empty lotion bottle.
Brilliant!
I'm always stepping on my cell phone / charger on the way to the loo in the middle of the night.
I'd love to make one of these, but I don't think I'll get it as neatly finished.
But you can try.
FInd out how here.

Monday, December 12, 2011

I don't know if I'll be making these again...

Don't get me wrong! They were sinfully delicious, but that was about the only PRO in a gargantuan series of CONS.

But I'm getting ahead of myself! Let me start from the beginning.

Some of you may know that every Christmas my book club has a little tradition of making 8 little homemade Christmas gifts to pass around the table at our year-end dinner. It's fabulous! You get to make a few simple, cost-effective little gifts and in return, you get back SEVEN awesome homemade gifts from the girls sitting around the table. The whole idea is to be as creative, fun and frugal as you can, while completely dazzling your girls with your awesomeness.

This year I took home:
A cute little basil plant in a lace / bead decorated tin (from Maria)
A bottle of homnemade, eco-friendly detergent and desk calendar (from Vanessa)
A silver sequined bag (from Lorraine)
A jar of homemade mango cordial (from Gail)
A jar of cookie mix (from Kate)
And a jar of pickled chilies (from Terri)

Sacha sadly wasn't there this time, so there were 6 gifts instead of the usual, rocking seven! Still! As you can see, we were spoilt rotten.

For my contribution to the gifts story, I decided to bake some chocolate cookies and bung them into a pretty duck-egg-blue coffee mug for each of the girls. Lovely idea, but in my laziness to find a "quick and easy" recipe, I accidentally ended up spending way more than I should have and it took absolute ages to make. The recipe was alarmingly finicky for one that involved a ready-mixed box cake mix. *wtf*

I wanted to call them "Carmen's Kitchen Sink Cookies" seeing as there was a load of chocolate in them in various forms, but a quick Google search revealed that that name was already taken. So I made up something silly on the day, that I now simply can't remember. They turned out like Baby Elephant Turds, so maybe I should call them that? Or Angel Turds, seeing as they look revolting but taste like absolute heaven.
*quick google search*
Argh! Also not good.

Let's just call them "Carmen's Never-Again Cookies"



Preheat the oven to 350F.

Mix together:
1 box of chocolate cake mix
125g melted butter
1 large egg
1 cup white choc chips
1 cup brown choc chips
5 Snickers bars chopped into ±1cm cubes.

Using a 1TBSP scoop, place slightly flattened balls of the mix ±5cm apart on a baking tray lined with a silicone cookie sheet and bake for 15mins. Makes ±4 dozen.

And this is what you end up with:



A box of turds.
Fucking delicious, but expensive, time-consuming turds.
Not for me thanks. Pass.

Friday, December 02, 2011

Look what's in the window at Dionwired this Christmas!



If anyone's wondering what to get me, that lime green smeg in the middle will do just nicely, thanks!
Any takers?
...
...
Anyone?!
...
...
I'll just wait to be surprised and find it under the tree on Christmas morning, m'kay? Yay!