Lets get cutting

So today i told my son that we were having a lazy day which basically means we're staying in. I wanted to do some baking so he watched telly, played in his room and generally kept himself amused while i baked. I thought i would have a go at some no bake cookies and then wanted to make some cookie dough to roll out and cut out. Anyway i had a go at my friends No Bake cookie recipe  but changed some of the ingredients. I'm not a big fan of cocoa so missed that out, i also skipped the peanut butter as my hubby and son don't like it either. The recipe is as follows


1/2 cup of butter
4 tablespoons of cocoa
2 cups of sugar
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 cup of peanut butter
2 cups of rolled oats
1/4 teaspoon of vanilla
Pinch of salt (which i forgot)


So melt the butter, cocoa, sugar and milk in a pan and then bring to the boil, the important bit, for one minute.This bit worries me a bit but i think it did it for a minute, then add the remaining ingredients. So in went the oats, coconut (50g), 4tbsp of lemon curd. Much like the frogs last week i ended up with a runny mixture, i added more and more oats to try and thicken, dry it up. I'm not sure whether this is down to converting cups to our measurements but at this point i knew spooning some onto baking paper that they weren't going to set. I'm no master baker so having dropped a tray full some of which were more oaty and spread less and one or two kinda melted i decided to put the rest of the mixture in a rectangular baking tray and into the oven for 15 mins or so. So hopefully a bit flapjacky. Feel free to suggest where i am going wrong with these types of cookies, not the full boil, not enough oats, not getting the quantities right?


Any i move on...next was to find some roll out cookie dough which i did here i followed the ingredients again, converting some and using my cups where the packets were accessible. I mixed everything together and added 150g of choc chips then rolled it up put it in a tub and into the fridge. It stayed in the fridge while i completed above. I got it out and rolled it out as best i could, it was slightly crumbly but i got by. There were no cooking instructions with this recipe, helpful! so i cooked them at gas mark 5 for round about 15ish minutes.The are solid and very tasty and look great but i do need to make the dough a little more pliable and then it will spread more easily and the dough will go further. We have nice thick heart and choc chip men, I've eaten one and finished my sons as he apparently doesn't like them, shame. So that's me all cooked out for one morning. Could do with a sleep now lol.

In the eye of the beholder

It's an age old saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, personally i think beauty is there for all of us to see just some need to open their eyes more than others. 

There are all sorts of beauty all around us, we don't need to travel far to see them or pay charges to see them, this was in my friends garden standing proud and being maintained by the bee's during their industrious process of collecting pollen and there must be pollen a-plenty on a big sunflower, it must be like pollen heaven :)

These beautiful lillies were in the same friends garden, aren't they just beautiful, like a work of art with their frilly petals and beautiful spray painted colours and their wonderful scent wafts the air.

This i took in my garden, it's been a while waiting for the deep red to bloom and in the mean time the ladybirds have taken up residence. This morning i popped out to see if there was any progress and this has opened up enough for me to see a glimmer of autumn colour. There are many heads on this sunflower so it's late performance will bring about a splash of beauty and colour now that many blooms are on their final curtain.

It's there, can you feel it, Autumn is coming, more beauty to follow, keep your eyes peeled :)

All kinds of everything

So on a Sunday morning when i get the chance there is nothing i like better than a good old mooch round a car boot. Today was one such day. The weather was chilly and blowy but dry so off we went.


It's interesting what grabs you at a car boot. For Brett it's about anything and everything for me it's about books, recycled stuff and somethings that sometimes surprise me.


So today the first things i bought were from a friend of mine whom nearly a year ago ran into me doing a car boot and was instantly like, oh i can't look at your stuff. Didn't bother me and i saw this first tin, yes you hear me tin and was instantly attracted to it. I think it's about the colours and texture, not sure what I'll do with it but at 20p i know I'll find some use for it :)

The next thing i bought from the same friend was another tin, i think you can probably see why...

This little tin is just one of those that originally had sweets in it but it's kinda cute and it's wheels spin and i just thought it might brighten up a bit of the kitchen or something along with my Snowman tin that comes out.

Then i spotted this on a different table. I ummed and arrhed thinking would i make use of it and if so what would i put in it. In the end at 50p i thought yes i would use it, it goes with our decor and I'll find something small enough to pop in it nearer the time, cute isn't it :)

Infact with a new baby being born in December or there abouts that might work nicely :)

So that's me for today, might see if there are anymore on tomorrow and who knows what I'll find.

Challenge 42 and Get Sketchy Challenge 53

So i made this card up for Challenge 42 over at Michelle Perkett Studios the theme for this challenge was back to school. I also based this loosely on a sketch from Get Sketchy

So this is using Mary Margaret and as is my theme i paper piecing i used two different papers to achieve this result. Having done that i applied a clear ink pad and sprinkled clear embossing powder over her, twice infact. This made some of ink and colours bleed a little but as I've been doing quite a bit of distressing i didn't let it put me off lol. She is pretty shiny now which made it kinda difficult to photograph which is why i used several different shots so you can get the general gist of the card. I used a dream tag from some other coordinating papers, dream sequence kinda fits the events of the last few months trying to get my head round my son going to school, gosh where does the time go. I recycled some floral ribbon which came in a bag of crafty bits from someone i don't even know but inked it to co-ordinate with the other colours.I tried to keep it a bit girly as I'm planning to give this to my friends daughter for her birthday today. Anyway i hope you like it.

Baking Day - Tried and Tested Frogs

So today i was a bit undecided what to bake, i could go the safe route and do something I've already done or try something new. Usually i bypass recipes that requite cocoa but today i thought what's the worst that can happen so today i did no bake Frogs :)


This recipe requires


400g granulated sugar
110g butter
60g cocoa powder (sifted)
125ml milk
1/2tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
150g porridge oats
100g unsweetened desiccated coconut (i think mine was sweetened but hey)


Line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper or baking parchment.


Combine the sugar, butter and cocoa powder and milk in a saucepan over medium hear. Bring the mixture to the boil, whisking (stirring) occasionally to remove any lumps. Reduce the heat to medium-low and boil gently for 5minutes. Remove the saucepan from heat and stir in the vanilla extract and salt. Add the oats and coconut and stir to combine.


Spoon rounded tablespoonfuls of the mixture on to lined trays. Chill for at least 1 hour.


Peel the 'frogs' from the paper and store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.

This recipe is taken from this well thumbed book, i had to scan my favourite recipes in order to return this book to the library, i had had it a few weeks. I think this would be an excellent Christmas present suggestion don't you :)




I have to say i did lick a rather large spoonful of this when i had finished and found it pretty tasty so once they are cooled they are going to be pretty addictive but I'll keep you posted :)

They look great,

They taste great, even Brett finished one :)

This recipe made about the 35 suggested.

So i would give this recipe a 7/10

(might make these again without the cocoa just out of curiosity)