WITL and Piggy Cupcakes

I was very excited to pick up my printed pages for WITL for 2011 today. I had them professionally printed from a local lab and they can do 8.5 x 11 inches for me on beautiful lustre paper. The pink/purple edges need to be trimmed as this page is a 12 inch page so if you are wondering why the top and bottom has purple on it that's why. They do a great job and am looking forward to some trimming of photos and putting in my folder. I will then do my extra journalling and fill in's for the smaller sizes like Ali's. When it's all done and printed our week looked pretty good really including all our routines.

Also I thought I would throw in a picture of the "piggy" cupcakes that James and I decorated this afternoon for tomorrow's grade 2 baking stall. I found it last night on the web, so simple. Waffer biscuits for the ears, half a white marshmallow for the nose and some chocolate drops for eyes. I only made 12 to go to school so unfortunately the kids (and I) couldn't try them out but as they are so easy I will definately make them again as they are cute and fun and not very time consuming.

Cup cakes

Today James had a play date all day so Sienna and I went to the local coffee shop for lunch and also bought a packet mix to make some cupcakes. It had to be something that could be done by hand as all my cooking things including mix master are still in boxes. I did manage to find the muffin tin without too much looking (thanks to my organization of boxes). Here are a few pictures of my little girl in pink making cupcakes with pink icing (what other colour is there after all in a little girls' life. PS....pretty happy with the diffused lighting that comes into my kitchen for photo opportunities. I've lost my "glamour blue bench top but pretty happy with the lighting".

Tonight's side dish

It doesn't get much better than this. Picking veggies, plating them up and sharing them with your family. I'm taking this side dish to my Mum's place and even though it's winter just those fresh colours just makes you want to try some. Sunday night roast at my mum's place is a tradition of my family for over 20 years. Most people are home on Sunday evenings so my mum made it "roast night" and we all catch up every week. The kids are in their pj's and usually watch a dvd and catch up with their Brisbane cousins.

I know my little veggie plot would be considered small by any standards (2 x 1.2x1.2 boxes) but I'm loving it. Today I planted some more butterhead lettuce, dill and coriander.

Sharon, Di and Amy...all I can tell you is it's in the nozzle and the wrist action and just practise. It is not easy to start with but if you use the "buttercream recipe" (just search on google) because it doesn't need to go into the fridge so you can ice them the night before and they will look beautiful the next day. (I have to work out how to reply on my comments, Sharon help!!) The options are a bit confusing and I'll have to look into that.

If you want to see some lovely cupcakes go to Leanne's blog where she did the most inspiring lego cupcakes for her son's birthday last year (posted 15th June, 2009). And her gift wrapping of those individual cakes is something that should be in a magazine.

Cupcakes

After being inspired by lots of people's cupcakes I talked my sister into coming along with me to learn how to make and ice beautiful cupcakes. We did a course with Sharnel last year which was great because gave me the confidence to tackle the job. I had always wanted to send along to kindy or school a beautiful batch of cakes. For James 4th birthday at kindy I sent along cakes that 4 year old kids would eat but I was dismally disappointed with my efforts. It had a lot to do with the icing and my theme was red and blue for spiderman which (so I'm told after the fact) when you use the red food colouring in those little boxes of colouring it actually comes out pink and the more you put in the worse it gets. Anyway I swore after those cakes that I would learn how to make a beautiful batch of cupcakes for his 5th birthday. I can honestly say I was very proud of these cakes and they were 1000% improvement on the ones I did the year before. Let me know what you think of these little cakes and I can't show the lovely cakes off without including a picture of a very excited 6 year old on the morning of his birthday.