Merry Christmas, I wrapped my presents for you!

I did indeed say this to my husband this last week. I have everything wrapped, that i have so far, except my stocking stuffers, which I am holding out that the hubby still has to do. So i am about 80% done for Christmas!!!!!!! I still have some stuff to get and stuff to make.Christmas cards are done and awaiting stamps and some are awaiting addresses. My goal is to be completely don for Dec 1st so I can relax and enjoy the season. (Also for bragging rights, which is the best part:) I have to confess i have also been listening to Christmas music!!!!! I ripped most of my Christmas cd's onto my computer. I now have 14 hours worth of music, it is on a playlist on shuffle. It is awesome. My husband and I have a deal, I can listen to Christmas music before December 1st as long as he doesn't have to hear it. He's a Christmas anything is for December only kinda guy. It's all good:) I was at Superstore on Thurs night and came across the cutest cake pan. I texted a picture of it to the hubby and he wanted to know if i was going to get it. We both agreed it would be a great addition to my ever growing collection of cake stuff.

I also picked up this pancake pan as well. It was only 10$. I used it to make egg on toast this morning for breakfast.

Added some pepper and bacon bits:

Cooked eggs all the way through:

Made ready some super store P C Thins with cheese and some bbq sauce for the hubby and breakfast sauce for me:

Now they are ready to eat. This is one of my favorite go to quick meals.

Breakfast Sauce (just like Mcdonald's): 1 tbsp creamy dill mustard 2 tbsp mayo super duper easy and very tasty.

We had our first snow fall today.It was pretty to watch and thjankfully the sun came out and melted all away. I confess that I don't want winter to come just yet. As I was heading into Super Store this morning, brushing the snow off mmy clothing, a woman came out and asked "Whats with all this? It was perfectly fine when I went in!" As I said it did melt away this afternoon and was loverly and sunny.

I found some really cute blocks at superstore that say "Give Thanks". I also found a really beautiful wreath at Michael's for half price and a Thanks Giving printable so I adjusted my shelf accordingly. I will chang out for the halloween blocks after this weekend.

Happy Canadian Thanks Giving, Ta

Halloween Decor

As yesterday was the 1st of October I changed my autumn them to one with more of a Halloween feel. I went out to the Dollar Giant and the Dollarama and came home with a few more fun items for my shelf. So far this is what I have come up with.

I also have some pumpkins I did for the bathroom.

I was looking at the toilet paper pumpkins and realized I could have gotten some red scarves and done apples. So I went and got some red scarves and tried it out, but alas it is too late for September and apple time, but they will more then keep for next year.

I haven't much for a thanksgiving theme I'm afraid. I will have to work on that. I am looking forward to Thanksgining this weekend. It is definately one of my favorite holidays. Thats why I love October so much, Thanksgiving and Halloween in the same month. The added advantage of having both my parents and my husband's parents in the same town, is two dinners. This year it's going to be a little crazy as the husband's parents are holding thier's at noon on mon and my side of the family is holding it at 4:00pm on mon. Im going to be more stuffed then the turkeys. However a major upside of this is that I have not had to cook a turkey dinner ever! Now I just have to decide what i am going to do with the bits and bob of decorations left over. Ta :)

Favorite season of the year

Yes indeedy, Autumn is my favorite time of year. As I was on a walk this week with the children of the daycare that I work at, we were wachimg as the leaves were falling off the trees. I told the children that if they caught a leaf as it fell, that they could make a wish. Leaves are much harder to catch then you would think. I love the change of coulour of the leaves, I love the cooler temperature. I know this means winter is just around the corner, but I love it just the same. I have a shelf in my living room that I have been using as a sort of mantle to desplay seasonal decor. I was looking at the shelf and realized that not much was actually on it, so I moved every thing around so now only the bottemm shelf is being used for books, leaving three shelves and the top for me to do with as I pleased. I found the owl wreath at Super Store and he just had to come home with me. I'm glad I scooped him as when I went back yesterday all the wreaths had been sold. As tomorrow is the 1st of October the shelf will be revamped to more of a Halloween theme, but I was really happy as to how this turned out. I will update with the new decor probably sometime this week.

ta

Been a while

Life has been a little crazy. I now have a working computer again. It's been really nice. My phone has been a life saver, but it just isnt the same. I haven't been doing much crafty type stuff, but i have been busy. Last June I took a Wilton cake decorating course, course 1. I really enjoyed it so I took course 2 this last month. i was really hoping to take the third course but as the main instuctor is retiring, they are only offering course 1 for October. I have been taking the course through Michael's. I now have lots of cake decoratimg toys (tools) and have really been enjoying cake decorating. Here are some of the cakes etc I have done:

I have done a lot more, but i have still to get the pictures off my phone so i will upload those at a later time. Ta

Ok people: After a very long year and a half i now have a working computer. i have been using my smart phone in the interm, but it just isnt the same. Hopefully now i can motivate myself to make and create and actually take pictures and actually start posting on here again. Gwen:)

Sugar Cookies

My friend Mel suggested we make sugar cookies for Valentines to give away. She wanted to try different recipes to see which ones we liked the best. Mel did two recipes and I did two. Both of us picked a recipe that included cream cheese. She also had one that had sour cream and I had another recipe that didn't include chilling.

The consensus was that neither of us were too impressed with the cream cheese recipes. This really surprised us. Usually anything with cream cheese added is better. We found that the dough didn't really taste much different then the ones without cream cheese. As the cream cheese makes the recipe more expensive to make, it made it seem not worth while to use it. Also the cookie dough was harder to manipulate, at least the recipe I used was, and the cookies really didn't rise at all.
I haven't gotten the sour cream recipe from Mel yet, but I will give you the one I used.

Roll Out Cookies

1 c unsalted butter (I used margarine) softened
1 1/2 cups granulated (white) sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract and 1/2 tsp almond extract (I didn't have almond extract so I just used 2 tsp vanilla)
2 3/4 c all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 400 f
In a mixer bowl, cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and extracts. Mix flour, baking powder and salt; add to butter mixture 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. DO NOT CHILL DOUGH. divide dough into 2 balls. On a floured surface, roll each ball into a circle approximately 12 inches diameter and 1/8 inch thick. Dip cutter in flour before each use. Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet 6-7 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.
makes about 2 doz cookies.

I iced with Classic Butter Icing.

Classic Butter Icing:
Cream 1/2 c soft butter with 2 cups icing sugar.
Beat 2 tsp vanilla, 2 tbs milk and icing sugar into mixture.
Gradually add 1-2 tbsp milk into icing until smooth and of desired spreading consistency.
I placed icing into Ziploc bags with a small hole cut on one of the corners to make decorations and words on the cookies after spreading cookies with a base coat of icing.





My Husband and I had our Valentines meal on Sat. This was my table setting:


I got the valentine crackers from the Dollarama as well as the little pink takeout boxes. The pink glasses we got as a wedding present.
Twas all that yummy and good:)
Have a very Happy Valentines Day:)