It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Christmas 2010 is upon us! It feels like it came in a blink.

The tree's up and the newsletter's in progress and cards are being made.

I truly enjoyed making the cards (left)  at stamp camp at M's farm on the weekend and couldn't help myself and continued to make more (right) using the lovely materials my sister-in-law P sent for my birthday. Ahhh, wonderful holidays...

Cards

A variety of cards are shown in various parts of the blog. Let me know if anything takes your fancy and we can work together come up with what you need for any occasion.

Regular A5 card with envelope - $5

Congratulations J & E!

Just a note, short and sweet to congratulate J & E on their wedding.

Thanks for inviting us to celebrate this wonderful day with you.

Flouro 80's Cake

K turned 30 this year and celebrated with an 80’s party.

What better way to celebrate but with a flouro chocolate (K’s fave flavour) mini cupcake tower!

French Week @ Home

Final week of themed dinners at home. French week was hosted by B and my contribution was this humble apple tart. 

I made little single serve ones for home and a  big one for work! It was so cool that it went so fast – I didn’t even get to send out the email to tell everyone about it!


 

Masquerade

My friend H was going to a masquerade ball and asked if I could make her  a mask – and I said of course I would! I’ve been wanting to do one up but just haven’t had an opportunity.

I got out the photos we took in San Marco and let myself be inspired by the Venetian style. I wanted to keep this simple but classy so I used felt, feathers, pearls and only a little bit of bling.

  

Italian Food Week @ Home

 

We had Italian Food week at home and it was a blast! I dug out my recipes from an Italian cooking class from ages ago and used some recipes from the Italian edition of Gourmet Traveller.  Here are some of the dishes…

Above: Cotechino with Nebiolo and Lentils (so proud ~ it looks so much like the photo in the magazine!);

Below (L-R): Oxtail Stew (a super rich Roman dish that has dark chocolate in it!), Salsa di Pomodoro con Braccioli (meat rolls with pancetta and parsley in tomato sauce, probably from northern Italy); A fresh garden salad; and, Spirali con Pesto alla Genovese (fresh pesto on spiral pasta with snow peas).

 

We also had the classic Scaloppini al Limone plus some Tiramisu and Cannoli for dessert. 

Caramel Mud

This is cake 2 of my weekly cake baking streak and I offered to make J’s fave caramel mudcake.

My bestfriend B’s husband J had his birthday dinner at an Italian restaurant in O’Connor.  It’s a great place to celebrate with friends – no corkage (and as you can see, we made the most of it) and they took their time to get the food out.

Mmm, I loved my eggplant parmigiana and cannelloni but could not forget husband B’s braised lamb shanks!

A great night was had by all!

 

Sugar Craft Day Part 2

Sugar Craft Day will take place in Moss Vale, Southern Highlands on 11 December 2010.

Theme - Christmas and Summer

• Cookie Decorating - piping + fondant
• Cupcake Art - butterflies + flowers
• Figure Modelling - reindeer

Please leave a message if you are interested to take part.

Work and Play - The Races

It’s Melbourne Cup time once again and race season is not complete without a fascinator (or two). Our manager J provided the division with some materials and we all had a bonding craft lunch hour. Here’s what I made for me and for E ~ notice that we kept the team spirit up by using some logos and publicity pictures in the pieces?

  

None of the ladies on our division won the fashion parade but we took two of the men’s with Aw’s Alice in Wonderland and Ax’s Flemington Race Course Hats!