home - making

ambika, my little sister and the other half of this blog is taking a break from here as she needs to study for her book keeping qualification and has an exam very soon. so hello, it's me again...


inspired by this and this i used some old lace doilies to decorate a curtain that covers our balcony door. and i'm really pleased at how it turned out.


i also made this simple envelope cushion cover with some gorgeous poppy fabric that was given to me by my mother in law. i think it may be a laura ashley design.


i added a strip of denim fabric from one of j's old pair of jeans to make it look a bit more modern, and backed it in a grey colour.


still lots more that i want/need to make for our home. but i'm slowly getting there.

sarada x

things we found on a windy day

it's been so windy here lately. the kind of days where you just want to cosy up in front of the fire, if we had one that is. but there's no chance of staying in with my two year old. i ask him everyday what he'd like to do and his answer is always the same, 'go for a walk.' so when we have no other plans, off we go.


we collected these autumn leaves the other day and made them into a rainbow when we got home. they are our new work of art on the living room wall until we get some pictures up there.


and we emptied out our pockets and made little acorn people inspired by this post at acorn pies that i found via simple kids.


the next day i kept my little one happy by making a house for them out of a cereal packet. i thought it would be fun for him to help papier mache it. so i got some magazine pages for us to rip up but he found them too hard to tear so got frustrated and screwed them up and threw them instead! then i made some flour and water glue which took me back to my childhood, and i showed him how to glue the paper onto the house. obviously he decided it would be much more fun to put his hands in the container and squish the glue around. that was fine, but i objected when he started to wipe it all over me and flick it around the room. i'm afraid the project was aborted swiftly and it ended in tears. oh dear! well, i finished it off myself while he was sleeping and after the house had dried he seemed to like playing with it. oh, and snapping off the heads of the acorn people and rolling them down the stairs. i think we'll just go for a walk tomorrow!




sarada x

better than revising

i've done this doodle for steph's australian, twin god children, for christmas. hopefully this year we will get a little parcel in the post in good time. this seems to be my new distraction and it certainly beats revising.

ambika

forest school is cool

since september, we have spending our monday mornings at a local forest school type parent and toddler group. it's such a lovely thing to take part in and really starts the week off on a positive note. so all wrapped up, whatever the weather, we go and meet our friends in the woods for stories, singing and lots of seasonal nature activities. there is always a cosy fire to sit around and usually we cook something on it too. this is an apple cake that was baked and steamed with the ashes from the fire. we quite often have vegetable stew and last time we all helped wrap up little potatoes in foil to bake in the fire.


we learnt how to dry slices of apple by coring an apple and slicing it into rings then hanging them from a hazel stick to dry. ours never made it back home to the airing cupboard though!


and we've also done things such as making fruit leather out of hawthorn berries, dipping colourful autumn leaves in wax to preserve them and we made a hideout using twigs and leaves.


we have a nature display of sorts at home now, where our little clay and teasel hedgehog, we made at the group now lives. he's been glued back together several times and is accompanied by little bits and pieces that we find when we are out and about.

we love our little woodland group! it's such an antidote for the sometimes hustle and bustle of our busy town lives. and i always leave feeling so inspired, and i know my little stan does too.

sarada x

black ink

i've been doing these drawings when i really should have been doing other things.



i have an introductory accounts exam in december. i cant remember if i have mentioned it before. probably not as it does not stimulate my creative senses, or seem to sit very comfortably in this space. anyway i have been revising and revising with a touch of drawing in the middle. a little light relief. i will be glad when it is all over.

ambika

at halloween

we went to stanley's first halloween party. he dressed up as a spider. he did wear it for about 15 minutes at the party but his favourite thing was showing daddy his costume when he got home.


we decorated a pumpkin when granny and grandad came to stay. a potato peeler turned out to be the best tool.


and we made biscuits out of the pumpkin flesh which turned out tasty but more cake like than biscuit. i think because i wanted to use all the pumpkin i had they turned out much more moist than they were supposed to!

here is the recipe that i adapted from an old cookbook to suit my little dairy allergy sufferer;

pumpkin biscuits with brown butter glaze
4oz soya margarine
5oz plain flour
4oz wholemeal flour
6oz soft brown sugar
8oz of cooked pumpkin (i used the flesh of a whole medium pumpkin)
1 egg
2tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp ground allspice
1/2tsp baking powder
1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
3oz pecan nuts roughly chopped
3oz raisins

brown butter glaze
2oz soya margarine
4oz brown sugar
4oz icing sugar
2tbsp soya milk

mix together the margarine, sugar and egg until light and fluffy, then mix in the cooked pumpkin. stir in the rest of the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. place teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto a greased baking sheet and cook in a pre-heated oven (375f/gas mark 5) for 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges are firm.

to make the butter glaze melt the soya margarine in a pan over a medium heat, add the brown sugar, then take off the heat and add the icing sugar, thin with the soya milk and spread on the biscuits when they have cooled.

a delicious way to use up that pumpkin.

sarada x