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Friday, December 28, 2012

RAINBOW CAKE!

I did it! I conquered the famous Rainbow Cake!
(inspired from here and here)
8 layers later and with cheap supermarket colours no less 
(none of these fancy gel colours for me!)
Happy Birthday to my husband (the other day) :-)




Sima J

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Christmas Present Craft

I just clicked 'create a new post' .. I think the computer has to pick itself up off the floor now it was so shocked to see me click that! (" are you SURE you didn't mis-click right now" says Mr. Computer)

I'm BACK .. well not sure for how long but I actually MADE stuff so I thought I could post about it .. on Christmas eve .. because there is nothing decent on TV tonight and since there's Cyclone Evan bearing down on us our (outdoor) carol singing got canned :-( Thanks a lot EVAN .. GOSH!

Anyway, you are NOT reading this on Christmas Eve because the present I am posting about is a Christmas gift and I don't want the person to get any sneek peeks :-)

I got the idea originally from this pin here:


They did it with some fancy vinyl letters or something .. a bit of kiwi ingenuity and here is how I did MY version for a friend's Christmas Present:


First I found a lot of African inspired pics and montaged them and then print them on photo paper - you can use any pic for the background you like! 
(or fabric would probably be good too!)


Trace out the letters you need to make whatever word or saying you want onto Duraseal (the stuff you use to cover kid's school books) and then cut them out with a scalpel


Stick them firmly on the photo (in the right order!) 


Paint over whole picture with whatever colour you want .. I wanted the brights to stand out so chose a white.


This is the picture after painting the entire thing:


Some of the ink seeped through after it had dried. I could have done another coat but
 a) I quite liked the look
 b) I am too impatient!


Now comes the fun part .. peel off the letters!



End product!


I decided to finish it off by sticking it to a canvas. I used double sided tape to do this = no mess. 
I found that the parts where the duraseal had been was a little sticky still so I sprayed hairspray over it all to hold it :-) 


Merry Christmas wherever you are! I hope it's a stunner for you :-) 

Sima J


Monday, July 2, 2012

Designing Northland H.E.A.R.T conference ..

I've been designing lately .. and having fun doing it!
Here's the Save the Date flyer for an up coming conference
 for Homeschooling Women in Northland:



Today I've been working on the brochure to go with it.
So fun! 
Also, rather tricky and frustrating when you're looking after kids at the same time!

Sima J

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Orchid love

An orchid to brighten your day:
Known in the industry as 'Carl's Pink' (aka Kiwi Pink) - we are the only ones in NZ who grow this now and they are BEAUTIFUL!  Lucky for me I get some for FREE :-)


Sima J

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Mini Lemon Meringue Pie & The Happiness Project

(please excuse the random colours of the words - it's stuffing up on my end for some reason!)

Just a brief post before I delve into the goodness that is 'The Happiness Project" (by Gretchen Rubin)



I really don't have much in the way of photos and that's really what people want to see on here right (or else some amazing writing skills - of which I do not have!)
SO here is A photo!  I had some pastry that I'd frozen (yes, you can freeze pastry apparently!) that I had thawed to use as a base for my chicken pie. After defrosting it in the microwave and then sniffing/poking/tasting it decided that yes, it was just short pastry, not specifically sweet pastry, I rolled it out to use.  I found that it was too little to be a chicken pie base so I thought I'd better use it for something since I probably shouldn't RE-freeze it so I made these little lemon meringue pies in ramekins.  One each for me and hubster.  YUM!

Needless to say, we are now doing pilates at night ;-)


Right off to devour 'The Happiness Project'.  I'm about a third of the way through and LOVING it!  Unfortunately, hubby started reading it before me (I had it on back-order at the library) and now I only have until Monday (I can't renew it because someone else has a hold on it after me!) to finish it so I'm trying to squeeze in reading whenever I can.  Except for now.  Which I should be doing.  But anyway, you should read it, it's great (so far anyway!)

Sima J

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Rhubarb Pie

Wow .. What is this?  A Post?!  NO WAY!
But hey, I am blaming the lack thereof due to having a baby, a toddler, a homeschooling 8yr old, husband, dog,  and 2 cats to look after .. yes I know, excuses excuses but hey I am USING THEM!

Just a quick post - with no photos of my own - of a YUMMY recipe that I got off my MIL!

There are no photos of my own and I can't take any more since we ate it all but here is the easy peasy recipe for: 


Rhubarb Pie


Mix together 
- 3 eggs
- one 250g pottle of sourcream (I used lite Sourcream so I didn't feel SO bad!)
- 1/4cup sugar 
- a splash of Vanilla Essence. 

Add some chopped up Rhubarb (about 2ish cups) (I chop it up in pieces about 1cm or less).


Pour that into a sweet pastry base (I use the 'Sweet Shortcrust Pastry' out of the Edmonds Cookbook - but you can use whatever one you want!) 


Pop in the oven for about 1/2hr-3/4hr or until the top is set (looks like custard).


It's super yummy, especially with icecream!


(Photo from here - this is sort of what it looks like!)

Hope you have use for this recipe (it's handy when you're Mum has a whole lot of Rhubarb haha)

Sima J

Friday, January 13, 2012

Popcorn first post for 2012!

Wow.  It has been WAY too long since my last post!
I see I still have 24 followers.
I'm guessing this is because it's a pain to delete people ;-)
Or maybe you were holding out hope that I just may one day decide to post again!

I have been busy.  VERY busy.  It's called .. a newborn.
I'm sure you understand (since most of you have kids!) although some of you have MORE kids than me and still manage to post most days - SHEESH how DO you DO IT?!

Anyway, like I said, I've been busy - too busy even to be reading YOUR posts which is shocking!  I miss having time to sit back and have a good nosey at all the cool ideas and stories you all write about .. but that explains why I haven't been commenting on your posts!

I have managed a couple times to read over your stuff - but it's a very rare occasion.  In fact I have to pause writing this because newbie is whinging for some more milk ..

...

..and is now half-napping on my shoulder (one handed typing is so much slower!).
So I'll cut this ramble short. 
I just found out a great 'new' invention - popping popcorn in bags in the microwave, but not the store-bought kind!  It's much healthier!  You can put whatever toppings you want on - or none at all!
Get a paper bag.


(mine weren't square-bottomed - I got a pack of 100 Homebrand ones for a few $ from Countdown)

Add a couple Tablespoons of popcorn kernels.

Fold the edge over 3 times and microwave for 3min, or until the popping stops :-)


ENJOY!

So easy and much healthier AND sooo much cheaper than store-bought bags!

(note - this is probably old news to a lot of you since I found quite a few sites with this info on .. but it was new news to me so thought I'd share anyway!)

Hope this year is treating you well so far :-)

Sima J