Birthdays

My 'wee' brother turned 30 on the first weekend in July (he is much taller than me, which isn't hard, and has just turned 30 so really he isn't wee at all, but he's still 'my wee brother' to me). We had a lovely surprise meal for him with family and friends at his favourite Indian Restaurant. Unfortunately due to timing issues, it was later in the evening, neither Baby R or D where able to come. D and I were a tag team, I went for dinner and D put Baby R to bed and I drove home, took over baby sitting duties and D went out for drinks with the boys and girls. This arrangement suited me down to the ground as I got an early night. Party animal I am not, especially when you have to get up at 6am every day!

Anyhoo I took on the task of making the birthday cake. I feel big birthdays really deserve a homemade cake. Well all birthdays do but finding the time isn't always easy, but you must find the time when your favouritest littlest brother turns 30! I was resigned to making my signature victoria sponge cake with icing which I feel is a bit played out and as a result I wasn't really overly excited about baking. Then I did a little browsing on the internet and found a very exciting sounding recipe for a Chocolate and Guinness cake. Yes you heard right, GUINNESS, the black stuff. On a side note: I know this will probably disgust many of you but I am quite partial to a really cold half of Guinness. My friends and I call it our Holiday Half - we always have one when we go on our hols to Donegal. Happy memories! Anyway back to the cake: It's a Nigella Lawson recipe I stumbled upon. I haven't baked in a while and the things I read about this recipe had me so excited about getting into the kitchen again. And let me tell you, it was the easiest recipe ever, so simple you could make it blindfolded! And what's more it was a hit. Everyone loved it. I felt guilty taking the praise because it was so seriously easy to make but it did taste delicious and it's my new favourite cake recipe. Thank you Nigella, you really know your stuff. I didn't use Nigella's recipe for the cream cheese frosting, I found another recipe as I wanted to ice the whole cake and needed a firmer frosting.  The all important age was marked out in Smarties (ah my inner child was very happy).

30 birthday candles outlined the perimeter of the cake and I also added a little non-toxic glitter to the top for an extra sparkle. The smarties seemed to fade after about 2 hours on the cake so it looked lovely and pastelly which was a-ok with me!

Oh I do love a surprise cake coming out in a restaurant, the surprise, the singing of Happy Birthday, the inevitable embarrassment I love it all! But I do not love having to call the birthday boy back from the almost entering the bathroom knowing the cake is about to arrive and having to ask inane questions while your little brother looks at you like you have gone insane. "What did you have for your meal?", "Did you enjoy it?", "Have you ordered that before?". All the while thinking please won't someone help me and where on earth is that cake??!!!

My husband said it was good to have me back in the kitchen again and my older brother who is a total foodie said it was the best cake he'd eaten in ages, high praise let me tell you. I really should have taken a photo of the inside of the cake but I really am a disorganised blogger so apologies (I usually feel I have to say sorry for something!) Anyway I'm taking this opportunity to pass this recipe on. You have to make this cake. Go on, ya will, ya will, ya will, ya will*........

♥♥ Happy 30th Lovely L ♥♥ 

*Said in the style of Mrs Doyle

Edit: would be good if I gave you a link to the recipe dear reader, haha I'm an Eejit! http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/chocolate-guinness-cake-3086/

Edited further to add: Ooops I've just realised another omission by me! In my haste to get this post done I forgot to mention that I didn't follow Mrs Lawsons frosting recipe. I'm not saying there was anything wrong with Nigellas frosting, it just looked a little loose to me and as this was a birthday cake which had to be decorated on the top and the sides I decided to look for a more traditional cream cheese frosting recipe.

In the end I made it using 60g of unsalted butter, 200g full fat cream cheese and 400g of icing sugar. The recipe is here. I have to admit though that I absolutely hate butter cream icing so I was worried about the original 70g of unsalted butter that the recipe called for. So I used 50g initially and then I chickened out thinking that I didn't really know better even though sometimes I think I do and I was worried the frosting would be too loose so I added in another 10g of butter. Edit I think you have to be careful about over whipping the cream cheese and also about making sure you use FULL FAT (a moment on the lips and forever on the hips as my mother says) cream cheese. Anyway you'll be better than me and you'll actually follow the instructions and don't think you know better than someone who clearly knows what they are on about. I think I can safely reiterate my earlier point - I am an eejit.

Have fun with this recipe.

Recent Ta-Dahs

Well I say recent but I think I finished this project well over a month ago. Ah well, never worry, it's just a little overdue but here goes........

A wee while ago I took a notion to work with some fabric and my sewing machine and I did a little patchwork project. After Baby R was born I spent many hours (most of which in the dead of night) feeding him in a wicker chair in our bedroom. The chair was fine as a decoration but after some time spent breastfeeding it in, it was soon realised to be hideously uncomfortable! So we made a decision to get a new chair so that I could nurse in comfort in the wee hours. Having Baby R did strange things to me.. a usually very, VERY indecisive person I knew we needed a chair IMMEDIATELY and within a couple of days (very decisive for me I can assure you) we found and purchased a green velvet chair (this was actually our exact requirements, probably a bit specific but hey we found one!). So why am I telling you this? Well the chair was very comfortable and looked very sweet in our pale green bedroom and fit the bill for quite a few months but as my little Baby R got a bit bigger I realised little spills of milk were being left on the very comfortable and very sweet little chair. So we covered the seat with a baby blanket (just a yellow one that someone had bought for us, you know the kind of thing you get when you don't know your baby's gender in advance) and an old cushion that I made a cover for when I first started to learn to use my sewing machine. To say I wasn't in love with either the blanket or the cushion (which was falling apart at the seams!) would be an understatement and a much more organised and efficient blogger (which I most definitely am not!) would have taken a 'before' picture to help you understand the injustice being done to the very comfortable and very sweet little green velvet chair. So I devised a plan. I bought some fabric squares from Ebay and set about making a patchwork cover for the little chair. I couldn't stop there and I bought some beautiful Tilda fabric called Christmas house (I intend to make some Christmas stockings with this stunning fabric but I'm not entirely sure which year or indeed decade I'll get this done!).  I combined the fabrics and this is the result.

A little close up

I couldn't stop there though. The very comfortable and very sweet little chair needed a new cushion, I was rather ashamed of the existing cushion cover. I didn't want to use up all the lovely Tilda fabric, like I say some day it will be a proud Christmas stocking, but I also didn't have much money to spend on fabric. I did a little blog browsing and general searching for some reasonable cheap fabric and I came across the Ikea Cath Kidston fabric range. A trip to my local Ikea in Belfast paid off, I got 1M of scrummy floral fabric for  roughly £5. Result! 

So I covered the old cushion...

In my crafty drawers I found a little cushion that I had never found a use for and made a little cover for it too...

 I didn't bother with zips, I just did a little envelope at the back as I was under time constraints and I'm very happy with how it turned out

I think the very comfortable and very sweet little chair now looks much better with it's patchwork cover and little cushions. It's protected from milk stains and looks pretty too. 

I felt the very comfortable and very sweet little chair's corner of the room was lacking in the picture department so I had these lovely Rob Ryan cards (I can't tell you how much I love this man's stuff) that I bought for my husband for our 4th Wedding Anniversary (a few weeks before Baby R was born)... 

and for the arrival of our little bundle of Joy.

D always said he liked the cards so much he wanted them framed and hung on the wall. However I only just got around to framing them and mounting them on the wall when the chair was sorted. Am I lazy or a procrastinator or just extremely pushed for time?! I'll let you decide! 

♥♥ I'm really happy with the look of this corner of our room now and so happy to have been able to play with fabric and my sewing machine. Little amuses the innocent they say! ♥♥ 

/\/\/\ Ripple Ta-Dah /\/\/\

Woohoo, I'm back in less than a week. Whoopie! Well lets get to it, the point of this post is to show you my, I mean, Baby R's ripple blanket. I finished it a while ago and it has been in a lot of use since. I was thinking/worried that it might be too warm by the time I got it finished to actually get any use out of it, but hey it's May and it's baltic so the blanket is getting plenty of action... see there's always a silver lining haha*

So the yarn was bought at Christmas with vouchers for the local craft shop from my very thoughtful secret santa. I picked up some Rico Baby Classic DK and I fell in love with it straight away. It's 100% acrylic and it's super soft, I have never felt such a soft and luscious acrylic yarn, it's really lovely stuff. And after thinking I wasn't going to go down the stereotypical boy route I ended up picking very boy colours, I just couldn't help it.

I used a ripple pattern from the lovely and extremely generous Lucy at Attic24. I started with a chain of 168 which was very generous and I'm glad I did because I think/hope it will last little R as he grows into a little boy which he is rapidly doing! I did double rows of each colour and a total of 55 double rows. I wanted to keep going because it was lovely to work on but somehow I ran out of one colour and had ample left of the others (mystifying!) and I took this as a sign to stop. So would you like to see? As if you have a choice teehee!

Here goes...

The full blanket is actually fairly big

Soft and snuggly...

 Mmmm ripples...

♥♥ mummy blanket & baby blanket ♥♥

I like how the ripple ties in with my own granny blanket. I have to confess I really am not in love with the colours of my granny blanket but I do like how to two blankets compliment each other. 

I took a few snaps of Baby R with the blanket, we mostly use it when he is out in the pram cos the weather is rubbish (rubbish I tells ya)

Cosy and warm

He looks like a little egyptian mummy 

The seal of approval xox

♥♥ I'm thrilled to have finished it and I am thrilled to have made Baby R his first crocheted blanket. I hope it gets loved and used a lot over the years ♥♥ 

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my last post. Thankfully Baby R is doing much better and we are all enjoying the weekend together.  Now it just needs to stop raining so we can go outside!

*Note to the weather:Please sort yourself out and stop being so beeping cold, it's May you know!!

Where does the time go.....

Well when I said it would probably be 2 months until I blogged again, I was only joking. But as it turns out it has taken me nearly 2 months. Good grief! It's actually been a difficult few weeks, Baby R has taken to his feet which is so exciting, he has been mobile since my last post but then he has also been floored by illnesses. He had a tummy bug (which D and I both ended up with), then he had a nasty sore throat and really sore ears over Easter (we were in the out-of-hours doc at 8.30am Easter Sunday morning - that's how we spent out Easter holidays), after finishing a really strong antibiotic (Amoxicillin didn't work so after 48hours of it and poor Little R's temp not dropping below 39C we were given a stronger antibiotic) we thought he was ok but then started having trouble with teething and we thought surely he can't be sick again but a trip to the doc last week confirmed that he has a sore throat and really red, sore ears AGAIN, 3 weeks after finishing a really strong antibiotic. I just feel awful for him because his temperature has been through the roof and he was trying to solider on but sore ears are one of the worst pains especially for little ones, and this is now his 4th ear infection so I'm worried that this is going to be a recurrent thing for him. I would do anything to make him better and so for the last week I have taken baby R into bed beside me and cuddled him all night to help him sleep. I think we are finally over the worst so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a few weeks/months of good health and fun for my little one. Trying to juggle all this with work is challenging to say the least... but hey we are still able to tell the tale!

Sooooooo I'm going to attempt not to write an essay and let my photos explain what I've been up to, aside from nursing my sick little R. Here goes.....

This was taken on Mother's day and it was Baby R's first ever walk in out local park. He was laughing his little head off and I was almost in tears with happiness...

While I was stuck in bed with the tummy bug my masking tape finally arrived and I may have went a little over board but I added some bunting wherever I could think of.... 

Bookcase bunting...

Bunting for the piano...

 Happy Hallway bunting...

At this stage I thought D was going to have a fit but somehow the Bedroom bunting has survived... (he kept saying "Not in the bedroom, Not in the bedroom")

I also managed to make some fabric bunting (I can't remember when I did this, I think it was in Feb sometime but Im sure you will forgive me a little chronological error or two!). This was inspired by Cherry Heart, I saw her Bathroom Bunting and thought I had to have some! Cherry's is much prettier but in my defence I'm always in a rush!!

I finished my ripple blanket, or rather Baby R's ripple blanket! I am so chuffed with this and I really think it deserves it's own post. So just a sneak preview...

I was also very, very, very, extremely lucky to win my first giveaway. I won a beautiful handmade apron from the absolutely wonderful Mrs Thomasina Tittlemouse. I really wanted to post about this sooner as I was soooo hugely grateful to receive something so beautiful but I just couldn't get the time to. Thankfully I did manage to send Mrs Tittlemouse a little something in the post to reciprocate her generosity. I spent the entire Easter weekend (well not the trip to the out-of-hours doc obviously!) in my new apron. A more beautiful apron I have never seen. 

I was also inspired by Elizabeth to make some very, extremely, tasty Olives. You can find the recipe here. The apron kept me cleaning from a good splattering of D's new fancy Balsamic Vinegar, beautiful and functional! 

Hard at it!

 Yummy, scrummy Olives

I also made some bread to go with the tasty Olives. I haven't done any fun cooking in ages and I was determined to make some tasty treats over the Easter Weekend and I succeeded in doing this (pre out-of-hours doc visit mind you!)

We deserved this...

I have been working on my Japanese Flower Scarf... it's a beautiful project to work on. I was so proud of myself for working out the pattern, my husband insisted that not reading Japanese would cause a problem for me and I was very happy to prove him wrong! The colours of the yarn all work together so well so it's lovely to add flower after flower and see it grow (not that I am that quick with it mind you!)

I have purchased a few wee squares of fabric from ebay to cover the seat of a velvet chair that we bought after Baby R was born, so that I could nurse him in comfort but more recently he likes to splash his milk around and slabber over it, so a thought a pretty floral cover for the seat might just help the lovely chair see another day!

I think I better leave it there. I'm so happy to finally get back to my little part of the internet, I was worried I had lost my mojo, but I think I found it again, it was hidden under a pile of toys, snotty tissues, calpol and nurofen! I can't guarantee when I'll be back but thank you as ever if you have managed to stop by, you know I'm very grateful ♥♥

I'd just like to leave you with one of my favourite photos of 2012 so far...

PS can you tell I've been mucking about with photos? They are probably all over the show but I love messing about with them. I was very sad that Picnik has gone but I just found PicMonkey and it's just as much fun! Hurray!!

~ ♥ Happy Mother's Day ♥~

 Just a quick word to wish you all a very Happy Mother's Day. It's bright and sunny here in Belfast and it has been a great start to the day. Baby R and his Dada very kindly offered me a lie-in. Baby R still wakes around 5.30am these days and I try to keep him in bed for as long as possible by lying him back down in his cot, tucking him in and giving him the dummy (that he has cheekily thrown across the room), I usually have to do this  3 or 4 times but in saying that we usually get up around 6.20am. This is fine on a work day but unfortunately Baby R doesn't know the difference between the working week and the weekend. So anyway this morning D kindly offered to give Baby R his milk and take him downstairs for a play so I could rest my eyes for a little bit. Wakening at 5.30am every day is usually fine but I guess it takes it's tole eventually so I appreciated the rest this morning. Then I when a woke I was greeted with this...

 ♥ A scrummy breakfast of Lady Grey Tea, cereal, yummy hot cross bread (in a loaf - whodathunkit!) and tulips (my favourite)

  ♥ I was lucky enough to receive two lovely cards from my little sweetheart. One was helped by Dada (the one to the left with bunting on it - yes that's right bunting on a card whodathunkit! - my dream card). And one was helped by our lovely childminder Mrs A (the handmade one on the right - I'm chuffed to bits with this card, she really is a lovely lady). *Mrs A and the children she takes care off all made their Mums a lovely hand painted terracotta pot with a lovely primrose in it and I'd love to share it with you but I forgot to water it yesterday and it's gone a bit wilty. Eek! I have promptly watered it and I'm hoping it will return to full health soon!. 

 ♥ Now I was a very lucky girl and got a few beautiful gifts too. 

I probably look a little spoilt but the CK spotty bag was sort of a gift to myself, I've been having a hard time in work of late and decided I needed to treat myself. Now I have buyers remorse and feel guilty for spending money on myself as we really need to be careful with money. So part of me is tempted to return it but I do love it and I really don't buy myself things that often. Hmmm not sure what to do. Anyway Baby R and his Dada were so thoughtful. They got me a little fabric bundle with birds and trees on it (I had been moaning about not having a fabric stash and I think little/big ears picked up on this). A beautiful floral greengate spoon.  A CK picture frame to put a lovely picture of my little darling in. And a CK notebook and jotter. I am one very happy Mummy. 


♥ Regardless of all these lovely gifts this is the main thing making me happy today and everyday...

♥ And his dada of course for giving me such a lovely morning


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a rare event for me to manage 2 blog posts in 2 days, no doubt it will take me another 2 months before writing another one soooo.... 
I just wanted to quickly say that I love that people pop by and read my blog, I really love this as I know how precious time is. And I love that some people feel compelled to comment, it's delightful reading that someone likes my blog. I understand the time constraints on modern life, I'm finding it difficult myself to get the right balance between work-life and home-life but we are coping ok, so far. I guess I'm trying to explain why I haven't been commenting on as many blogs as I'd like to. I love reading blogs and the lovely things that people are working on and their lives but I just can't always find the time to say hello and comment and this makes me feel a little bad. I hope you understand and you are all so lovely, I kinda know you will. 

♥~♥~♥ Happy Mother's Day Everyone ♥~♥~♥

♣♥ Shamrocks and Hearts ♥♣

♣♣♣♣♣♣

Firstly I'd like to wish you all a very Happy St Patrick's Day from us here in Ireland. Baby R and I are wearing green today but other than we don't have any other plans to celebrate the day.

 We are visiting Toys R Us today to get Baby R some much needed toys. We didn't go over board at Christmas because he wasn't even a year yet and it was hard to know what he needed. But now he is toddling and developing a bit more we think he needs a few more toys. So it's not really celebrating our patron saint but we are doing it in green!

♥♥ Ta-Dah ♥♥

So anyway the main reason I am blogging today is because I have finished something on my to-do list. This is my Granny Heart Bunting Ta-Dah! The pattern/tutorial is from the very lovely Sandra at Cherry Heart  and if you don't know her blog I strongly recommending popping by - she has the most beautiful blog with such gorgeous ideas and is very generous with her time posting lovely tutorials for anyone to use. I am attempting to keep this post brief as I usually tend to write an essay so hopefully the photos speak for themselves!

Happy daffs, yummy yarn and scrummy bunting..

An in situ shot. I just love looking up to see the bunting across the archway it just looks like it should always have been there. It makes me smile a big, dopey, beaming smile when I glance upon it. I am easily pleased....

  And finally Baby R and I in our greenery. I think he likes the bunting too!!

A big thank you to ♥Sandra♥ for the tutorial. I am super happy to have made it. I love it when I achieve something, it helps to keep me going and keep me smiling.

♥ Enjoy the weekend and the sunshine everyone ♥