Valentine's Day Cards

Love is in the air!! I may be single, but that doesn't stop us spreading a little love (and glitter)!!

Missing from this picture is the heart shaped cookie-cutter to make the glitter shapes! If you don't have one, just cut a heart shape from cardboard to use as a stencil.

We started with our hand and footprints! The Zebra just loves getting her toes painted.

On one piece of card, stamp a foot in the middle of the page - this is for the love bug. 

Using black pen or paint, colour in the heel of the foot to make a head, draw on some feelers and legs, and then decorate the body. If you have googely eyes you can also use them! 

For the word art, have two pieces of paper horizontally. On one do the handprint on the right hand side, on the other use two feet to make a 'V' on the left hand side.

Use glue to mark out a L and a E. Cover in as much glitter as you can! Stick the two pieces together to make Love x

 

Using the heart cutter or stencil, glue around the outside several times on the piece of card.

Time to bring the glitter out again!

These would all make a great cards for valentines, or even just to have as a pictures! 

Here's hoping you have a lovely day, what ever your plans xx

Bread and Butter Pudding

Could this possibly the ultimate comfort food? It certainly felt like a treat to me since adapting a low-carb & low-sugar lifestyle!!

Ingredients:

• 25g soft or spreadable butter
• 1/2 loaf of bread
• 50g sultanas, raisins or other dried fruit
• 2 tsp cinnamon 
• 350ml milk 
• 50ml double cream 
• 2 eggs 
• 25g caster sugar
• nutmeg - shake to taste 

****preheat oven to  180degs

It's best to use older bread. As I keep my bread in the freezer to keep it from going stale, I had to remember to leave a loaf out for 24 hours! 

Use grease proof paper to butter the dish. We had to make two puddings so as well as doubling the ingredients, we had two dishes to prepare. 

Butter all the bread and cut into quarters. This was the first time the Zebra was allowed to use a butter knife and she had great fun.

Use a third of the bread to make the bottom layer, sprinkle on a third of the fruit and then shake on some nutmeg. Repeat twice until all ingredients are used and the dish is filled.

Asd the milk and cream to a pan and stir until it's really hot, but do not let it boil!

Whisk together the cinnamon, eggs and 3/4's of the sugar. When the milk & cream is ready, stir it in slowly.

Pour the mixture over the layered bread and then top with the remaining sugar. Leave for at least half an hour to set before you pop it in the oven for 30 minutes.

So tasty and warming - Total stodge but extra yummy!

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Happy new year - Chinese new year that is!

Today begins the year of the fire monkey and to respect the Spring Festival we have created an oriental cherry blossom tree.

Other than the usual materials, you will need an empty plastic bottle - the smaller the better!

I used pink, purple and white paint to give a variety of colours, and spread it thinly onto a plate so the picture didn't get lagged!

This is the tricky bit! Using a black marker draw a tree onto card. I drew lots of wiggly lines heading up and out, then made them thicker to look like branches.

Then it's over to the Zebra! Dip the bottom of the bottle into the paint and then stamp all acros the tree to give it the blossoms. She really enjoyed making the pink prints all over the page, in fact she was so engrossed there wasn't a single bit of paint on her toes!!

                     恭喜发财  恭喜發財 

Footprint Butterfly

We are slowly heading towards spring so time to make some bright, pretty crafts!

You can use any paints, but I love these pastel shades for a spring butterfly.

Squirt the paint into lines on a plate, then press their foot straight into it. I had some paper down to dab the excess paint off before printing onto the card. 

The Zebra just adores painting with her feet and had great fun stamping her mark!

Once he prints have dried, draw a butterfly wing shape around one foot. Cut it out and use it as a template for the other foot.

Draw and colour a black head and body on the scrap paper left over and cut it out. 

Glue the body and wings down and stick on some eyes. Twirl a pipe cleaner round a pencil to make the antenna and then stick to the head.

Ta-Dah! A beautiful butterfly waiting for the sunshine. 

Wintery Window

We haven't seen a single speck of snow out of the window this winter, so I guess we better make our own!

The blue card is for the sky and the brown is for the windows wooden frame.

I used PVA glue to trail a line of glue across the top of the card. I made it nice and thick so there was lots to flow down - this gives an icicle effect for the windows. The Zebra rather enjoyed watching it drip down!

Once it had reached the bottom, the Zebra used blue and silver glitter to cover the picture.

The Zebra though it was much more fun to cover me in glitter...

And make patterns on he table!!

While she played, I cut 4 rectangles out of the brown card, then fixed it onto of our glitter sky.

And here you have it - a wintry snow scene to watch out the window!

Warm Orange Nutty cake

For this weeks bake I am using my fab new cooking book! 

I've been eating healthy for over a year so thought it about time to treat myself to a new read. The recipe was a bit too healthy for me so we made a few substitutes!

Ingredients

1 large orange

125g dried apricots 

70g walnuts

70g almonds

70g Brazil nuts

4 eggs

200g caster sugar

125ml olive oil

85g wholemeal self raising flour

****preheat oven to 160degs

First up, cover the orange in water and boil for half an hour, then add in the apricots and boil for another 15 minutes.

We don't have a food processor, so had to make do with my smoothie maker! The Zebra loved putting all the nuts in the container one by one, and had even more fun pressing the button to whiz them up. 

Tip the nuts and flour into a big bowl and mix together. Pop the bowl to one side.

The Zebra greased up the cake tin with a little oil, she loves anything that resembles painting.

Once the orange and apricots are boiled, cut the orange open and take out any pips. The whole lot then goes in the processor/blender until smooth.

Add the fruit purée in with the oil, eggs and sugar. Mix together really well.

Finally, tip in the nuts and flour from earlier. If you have a processor you can blend it all together, but we did it by hand!

Spoon the mixture into the pre-greased tin and decorate the top with nuts. Remember to lick the spoon clean!

Pop in the oven for an hour to get the perfect, tasty, healthy cake!

It's not chocolate but the Zebra sure does love it!