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valentine's day 2013

I didn't bake. I didn't go all out. I didn't even use any of of the many ideas pinned on my Valentine's board on Pinterest.

Instead, the boys were greeted this morning with root beer heart-shaped waffles (made on the weekend and frozen to be ready for today) and a collection of sweet treats at their spots at the table. I remember my mom doing this growing up on holidays like Valentine's, Easter and Hallowe'en and I remember the anticipation, milder than on Christmas morning, of coming down the stairs to see what little treat there might be for us. This year there were chocolate hearts from Purdy's, some red lollipops (the boys are in a lollipop phase) and some fudge from Butter. Neil got some dark chocolate and some David's Tea called Fired Up Fennel, because Neil likes fennel!

I also did get my crafty queen crown on a for a bit last night and whipped up some little valentine's pockets. I bought the Starbucks special edition valentine's gift cards weeks ago when they first came out and I included a little message heart from me with some special phrases for each boy from when he was little and some lyrics from our wedding songs for Neil. The materials for the pockets were actually part of a banner kit I bought but decided to repurpose it to use for this!

From the same craft company, I ordered the materials to make these cute little boxes to give to some friends and to some co-workers.

And to really celebrate and share our love for each other, we went as a family to get our Hep A vaccinations and then a quick dinner out before fencing and a hockey game. Yep, that's reality on Valentine's Day, not so different than any other day except maybe there was a little more chocolate involved!

more holiday ABCs

the ABC story continues...

C is for Candy Cane Amish Sugar Cookies

D is for Dessert for Christmas Eve, a chocolate peppermint log cake

E is for Eggnog Cranberry Loaf

G is for Gingerbread Houses and Gingerbread Playdough for little friends

       
N is for Nuts, a holiday tradition

P is for Pinecones, gathered on a much needed afternoon walk

S is for Snowmen (still dreaming of a white Christmas!)

and that's it for the ABCs for a couple of days...off to enjoy the most important letter of the alphabet-

F is for Family!

Merry Christmas!

holiday ABCs

I have been very loosely following along with Make and Take Holiday ABCs. Marie is of course crafting and creating her way through the alphabet. Me, I decided to play along on Instragram and capture the holidays, alphabet style. Some photos are of items crafted, created or baked by me but many are not. Just a way to capture the holidays through a different lens!

If you follow me on Instragram or read this blog regularly, these photos have been popping up this month (on the right side bar of the blog).

Here's a little overview so far...

A is for Advent Calendar

C is for Candy Cane Cookies, Chocolate Snowflake Cookies and Christmas Cards

       

D is for Doughnuts

G is for Gingerbread

       

H is for Hot Chocolate

L is for Lights

M is for Mantel

N is for Nutcrackers

O is for Ornaments

   
P is for Pointsettia

S is for Santa, Skating, Stockings and Snow

           
T is for Tree

W is for Wreath

 to be continued...

 

valentine's day is coming

If you don't listen to the radio, watch tv, drive, ride the bus or get newspapers or mail, you may not have noticed the bombardment of red and pink and reminders about the jewellery and chocolate and roses that is so predominant at the beginning of February. You can read my thoughts on the commercialism of Valentine's Day here along with some previous projects I have done, also some here and here. Although I think I let others know how much I love and care for them all year long, I am all for a day that is about expressing our feelings of love and appreciation, whether there are flowers and chocolates involved or not!

 

I ordered these cute little treat kits from Pebbles in Utah and will be giving these to some colleagues who I need to give an extra little thank you to.

The little bag/holder starts off as a diecut that looks like this:

As my friend Michelle suggested, it would be so easy to cut strips of paper, fold them and then punch a hole out for the peekaboo window and use this for all sorts of occasions.

And as I do every year, I made little minibook/cards for the boys and Neil. This year I was inspired by an envelope book I saw online and kind of figured it out as I went.

I ended up using three envelopes. I glued the flap of one to the back of another, and then did that again. This resulted in three pages/pockets.

I covered the outside of each envelope with patterned paper as well as the envelope flap.

 

The envelope pockets will contain a little love note, a coupon from me (Colin is going to be so happy to have his lunches made for a week!) and a gift card for a treat somewhere.

Although my Pinterest Valentine's board is very full of ideas and I would love to be a full-time professional crafter and baker, I think I will just have to pick a few foodie treats to share with my family and staff on Tuesday. 

Here's to sharing some love!

projects for 2012

This year I am taking on three crafty projects to balance out my lifestyle and academic projects!

I enjoyed participating in The Simple Things challenge so much last year and posted a photograph every single Sunday for all of 2011. When I have some time, I'm going to create a photobook with all of those photos. This year I am continuing with this photography/appreciation for the simple things challenge but will not be posting every Sunday, just as a special photograph resonates with me. I might also do the occasional Wordless Wednesday as well. Two of my blogging friends, Lisa and Nicky have participated in that blog phenomenon and I love looking at their photos that speak volumes all on their own.

This year I am also continuing with Ali Edward's One Little Word project. This will be my fifth year choosing a word and my second registering for her class. Last year, I basically used her class as inspiration to keep focused on my word but abandoned the projects after the second month. It's great to go to the galleries to see what everyone is doing though. I'll be posting more about my word soon.

Starting in 2008 (the first year I thought of it) I started taking n photos on the nth day of the nth month of the nth year. So in 2009, I took nine photos on the ninth day of the ninth month. I made a little mini-book that year with all the photos.

 

  
For 2010 and 2011, I posted the photos on my blog here and here. For 2012, I am taking the Ella class, Take 12 and will be taking 12 photos on the 12th day of EVERY month for the year 2012. 

 

So there we go...these three projects are my main crafty/creative photo projects for the year!

snowglobe cake

For Adam's 15th birthday, I wanted something unique that suited Adam and I have always wanted to make the snowglobe cupcakes I saw on bakerella's blog years ago. I think that's actually how I discovered her blog. I've been saving the little round coca-cola bottles for the last two years and decided this was the year!

I used the cola cake recipe referred to on bakerella's site and made a dozen cupcakes and one nine-inch round cake. The recipe has cola in it and you boil the wet ingredients and the butter before adding it to the dry...kind of different. There was also mini-marshmallows right in the cake batter. When I told Adam, he asked why I didn't make a Sprite cake (Sprite is his favourite soda pop) but then I explained that I used the coke recipe because the snowglobes were made from coke bottles. Ah...I see! says Adam.

I sprayed the inside of the bottles (thanks Neil for cutting the opening for me) with some simple sugar syrup and then coated them with sugar crystals and let those dry overnight. The cupcakes are actually upside-down (to make the snowglobe base) and I used a serrated knife to cut right through the paper liner to cut off a thin slice of the cupcake so I could frost it.

I had hoped to find little hockey players to put inside but Neil and I searched out all the local places to find such things with no luck so I used some mini-ornaments instead and created little snow scenes. This ended up going well with our day out in the snow!

If I had really wanted to make snow-like very white icing, I guess I could have used vegetable shortening in my buttercream frosting instead of butter but I just couldn't bring myself to do that. Instead, I added more mini-marshmallows and some white sugar crystals to the top of the cake to make it a little more snow-like.

The cake was a huge hit. I think I'll wash and save the bottles so we can make these again!