Somewhere over the rainbow

This is one of those "indoor days", when leaving the house is limited to a short run to the mailbox to get the Sunday newspaper...

The rain is pouring down outside, the wind is houling, the threes are left bare and naked, stripped of all their autumnal, golden glory!

Ahead of us are months of this.....

Today I need some colours! I need sunshine! I need memories of warm and sunny days!

I need to show you some snippets of the colourful birthdayparty we threw for Little Missy and her friends. Just so we can remember that somewhere over the rainbow there are days like this:

Rainbow cake !  A HUGE success! 

I wish thes photos could come with the sound of 15 girls squealing when the cake was cut, and the rainbow inside was revealed  :-)

Until next time...

❤️Live - Love - Laugh❤️

Happy Colours Tah-da!

This post is a really colourful one!  

I have finally, after more than a year as a   "almost finished but already in good use" blanket, finished my son's 

"Happy Colours Blanket" 

This blanket was actually finished last autumn, but the edging remained....

I kept procrastinating the prosess of making all those tiny 1/4 hexagons that I was convinced was crucial for a nice and even border..

The blanket was, however, adopted by the kids immediately, so it has really been in very good use the past year. 

But when I brought it out from summer storage a month ago, I decided that enough was enough: the edging had to be finished!

After fumbling along with those stupid parts of the hexies for days, I frogged the whole idea and started from scratch. 

I chose a different appoach, and made a row of half trebles along the whole blanket first, trying to decrease evenly in the short sides to make it as straight as possible. 

After a few rounds of trial and error, and a lot of frustration, I finally managed to make it look fairly decent, and continued with a few rows of half trebles in the back loops only. I really like this structure, and when using double thread for the edging, the border came out firm and (almost) straight :-)

I added a simple picot to the last row, to make it a little more intereserting. The blanket is for a boy, so it shouldn't  be to "lacy" and sweet. 

Here is this is the final result, laid out in all it's glory :-) ❤️

The edging is not 100% perfect, but I'm quite happy with it anyway!

A close-up of the border on the rippled short sides..

I took it for a test-run on Little Missy's  bed, just to show the size of it. Her bed is 200 x 90 cm.

Happy Colour Therapy! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

I'm so o happy I can finally  tick this one off the list.

Now the plan is to finish a few of my other WIPs that keep laying around...

I have quite a few....

Until next time: 

❤️Live - Laugh - Love❤️

Cakes and music ❤️

Last weekend was the confirmation of a friend's daughter, and since she is a very eager singer and pianoplayer, the theme for the party was music and notes. 

A nice challenge❤️

I made some vanilla cupcakes with the amazing Vanilla Bean Frosting on top...

From sugarpaste, I cut out notes with a sharp knife and let them dry overnight. 

Perfect:-)

French macarons were on the order, so these pink pretties were decorated with a little treble clef, to fit with the musical theme...

The place settings and the cakes.....A perfect match 

❤️ Live - Laugh - Love ❤️

Passion for baking...❤️

Two confirmations and two birthday parties, spread across the last 4 weeks, kind of set the agenda for how to spend my weekends this last month....

Don't get me wrong, I really love baking, but I must admit that even a passionate amateurbaker as myself has had enough of all the sugar and frosting by now.... :-)

I'll try not to overload you with cakes and stuff, so I'll portion it out on several posts, and in a few days I hope I will get back to my wool and crochet....I really miss my needles and yarn...so much better on the thighs, too......he, he!

Anyway, today, I'll show you what I made for the confirmation of "the boy next door"....

These goodies in soft blue/aqua/creme tones were made for our neighbours son's confirmation a few weeks ago. Inspired by the colourtheme for the tablearrangements, I made some sweet merengue roses.... 

....and a yummy Oreocake covered in roses, made of cream cheese frosting. 

Oreocake really never fails! There wasn't  a crumb left of this cake after the party....

The flower decorations on the table. So pretty! ❤️

Time to relax....until next weekend with another confirmation....

❤️ 

Live - Laugh - Love 

❤️

Pretty in pink❤️

Little Missy turned 8 years old this weekend. It is so strange seeing your little babies grow up. It happens way too fast for my liking. I mean, of course I want them to grow up, but the days and years go by so fast! The fact that it is 8 years ago since that this little bundle of joy came into our family is hard to believe. It feels like yesterday. 

From the day she was born, she has been a happy ray of sunshine in our lives. Always smiling, always positive, always caring for others. Twisting her two older brothers (and her father) around her little finger....she gives them "that look", and she gets her way....❤️

She's a real sweettooth, so her wishlist for her birthday always include lots of cakes....

 I really love to bake, so I usually do my best to accomodate her cake wishes. 

This year the list included french macarons and cupcakes. Pink.....

French macarons with lemon and raspberry filling ❤️❤️

Vanilla cupcakes with whipped vanilla bean frosting ❤️ 

This frosting is very similar to swiss merengue. It is wonderful to work with, and the taste is really yummy! I'm not too fond of trafitional buttercream  - I find the taste of butter a little too heavy.....

This frosting, however, is light and sweet, and melts in your mouth❤️  On the cake, however, there is no melting. The frosting stays in place, and looks great even after a day or two...if there's still any cake left by then...

I usually put the decorated cupcakes in the oven for 1-2 minutes under the grill, so the surface stiffens a bit. Just make  sure you watch it - do not let it in there too long!  It is only supposed to have a thin, invisible crust. This makes it easier to transport the cakes without messing up the beautiful piping.

You can find a great recipe and step-by-step tutorial for this wonderful frosting in the amazing blog Passion for Baking

A very happy birthdaygirl❤️❤️

All set for a "pretty in pink"  gardenparty ❤️

❤️Live - Laugh - Love❤️

Coffee love❤️

Summer is over, the kids are back in school and our usual daily chaos and logistic challenges have hit us again with full force...

Work, school, after-school activities, after-work activities, housework (laundry - the never-ending laundry! )

I need coffee! Lots of it!

It has been an amazing summer in this country! The best we've had in 100 years, according to the statistics...

We still enjoy nice weather, and the late afternoon coffee on the porch is the best moment of the day 

But the afternoons are cooler now, and autumn is knocking at the door...

I therefore decided that my beloved French Press coffee pot needed a nice and warm jacket for that autumn chill. 

I'm in love with stripes at the moment, so I made a simple stripey version of plain single crochet stiches. 

I went a little overboard with all the buttons, and can't really decide whether it is too much or just enough :-)

I really love these pretty Tilda buttons ❤️

Coffee for two is served! Hot and delicious ❤️

"The perfect cup of coffee should be 

black as the devil,

 hot as hell, pure as an angel 

and sweet as love."

                    Charles Maurice de Talleyrand 1754-1838

❤️Live - Laugh  - Love❤️

❤️The Summer Slumber Cushion❤️

This summer has been "the best summer ever", with sunshine and blue sky for weeks and weeks! 

A colourful and happy summer, indeed!

So, all my warm wool was put aside, and cool, colourful cotton has ruled my crafting life the last couple of months. I love it!

I started a wonderful v-stich blanket after being "sucked in" on all the v-stich madness that ruled the "crochet world" on Instagram this summer. So many beautiful blankets made it impossible not to start one myself... 

I call this my Summer Slumber Blanket, and I love working on it 

The problem with Instagram: too much inspiration makes you sidetrack from your projects all the time, and the result is an infinite number of WIPs, and not finishing anything!! 

So of course I started a cushion project to match my Summer Slumber Blanket......

Inpired by all my colurful Rice kitchenware I keep at our summerhouse, I wanted to make a fun and colourful cushion to use in my garden lounge. 

I searched online for the perfect grannysquare for such a project, and found the beautiful Rosie Posie Granny tutorial on  the wonderful blog of Sandra Cherryheart. 

Yellow edging...mmmm❤️

Happy yellow joining  ❤️

Love how this simple joining makes the squares pop ❤️

The back is just one big, happy grannysquare

Happy and colourful, but still lacking that little extra "wow" factor, is it not?

Yes, that's right! Pom-poms are needed!

I really enjoyed making all these little pom-poms :-) ❤️

Hello!

No need for colourful buttons on this one....Plain white ones it is:-)

   Ta-dah!!!   The Summer Slumber Cushion 

..and the back, which can be the front as well....:-)

A wonderful, colourful bouquet of pom-poms ❤️

                        ❤️ Live - Laugh - Love❤️