A Handmade Christmas

This year I actually managed to make all my Christmas presents. I of course (as is the true style of crafters!) left it all to the last minute even though I had said to myself I would be more organised about it this time! So after several late nights and early mornings crafting away I produced these presents for my family and friends.

This is a decoration for my friends daughter. I have made her a decoration every year for Christmas and will also make one for her son now as it was his first Christmas (I rushed and ruined my first attempt at his decoration so he hasn't got one yet)

These were some marzipan sweets. I made the marzipan (which is surprisingly easy) and just piped some melted chocolate over the top of them. I made these for my Dad, Grandma and Godmother. I also made Turkish Delight.

I was actually quite organised with the present for my mum and finished it on the 1st December! She decorated her bedroom and it is now plum and Paris themed so when I saw a Paris postcard chart in CrossStitcher I knew I had to stitch it up for her. I changed the colours of the threads to match in with the rooms colour scheme.

This was a top for my cousin. I find males very hard to craft for so decided to just decorate tops for them as it was easy and quick to do! He loves Starbucks and has a collection of mugs from when he goes on his travels around the world.

And this is the one I did for my brother. He is a Philosophy teacher and his favourite 3person is Richard Dawkins, a well know atheist, so when I saw this phrase when searching for sayings to do with him it was perfect!

I stitched this for my Auntie. My Grandma found the material in her house a while ago and it is something that my Great-Grandma has crochet around the edge of but had never got round to putting a design in the middle. I did one for my Grandma a few years ago and have enough to do one for me, Mum and my cousin when I get time so we can all have one. I just need to decide on what to put in the middle for everyone else. My Auntie was easy as she loves poppies!

Staying with the theme for boys of decorating a top. I did one for my friends 5 year old who is obsessed with Doctor Who. I knitted him a tardis for his birthday which I shall show you soon so continued with the theme for Christmas. He recognised what it was when he opened it which was a relief!!

 

And finally a present to the whole family really- a Christmas Cake!! I have never made one before so I used a recipe from Delia and it turned out alright! I don't really like fruit cake anyway but even I could eat this one! I also made a Christmas pudding for my Dad using another Delia recipe- this is yet to be tasted though!

 



 

I just went for simple icing as I have never iced a cake in royal icing before so didn't really know what I was doing but I think it turned out alright! We had a fancy candle to put on it before we cut into it!

I had a good Christmas and hope you all did too? I'm really pleased I managed to make all of my presents this year and am going to say again (as I do every year) that I will start earlier next year with making them!

An Easter Cake

Good Friday has started off well so far. I had hot cross buns for breakfast and fish for lunch. It is also the first day of 3 days I have off for Easter.

This week I have baked an Easter cake. It was a bag of dry ingredients that I got from Sainsburys after Christmas for about £2 including the marzipan and icing- AMAZING!

These are the bags of ingredients:

The bags have all the dry ingredients you need all measured out in little bags. It was very easy to make.

Here is the mix ready in the tin

And all wrapped up ready to go in the oven

It took 3 and a half hours to cook in the oven, the longest I have ever had to bake a cake for. And I was a bit worried it was being burnt to a crisp in there.

The top turned out fine but the edges were a bit darker than the rest. Which is where mum chipped in to say a should have put paper around the edge aswell to stop it cooking too quickly- which is great after it has been cooked!

After the burnt cake had cooled overnight it was time to decorate it. The decorating bag had everything in it including apricot jam to help the marzipan stick to the cake. It also had 3 different sized stars but I found an chick one in the drawer that I thought would be more Eastery. I rolled ou the icing and marzipan thinner that it said because mum doesn't like it that much. Unfortunately this meant that there was a leftover ball of marzipan and icing which I had to eat- such a tough life!

Here is the decorated cake:

I hope everyone had a good Easter. We are still eating the cake and I am informed that it doesn't taste burnt!

Xxx