Sweets for my sweet...

Today I want to share a recipe that I saw in the Ideas Magazine (page 58 in the Afrikaans edition)  last week. I had to alter it a bit as I couldn't find all the ingredients at our local supermarket...

Me and my 3,5-year-old son went about this recipe as follows:

We made two separate batches, one red (or pink) batch with caramel flavour and one yellow batch with pineapple flavour. I couldn't find the peppermint flavour they refer to in the original recipe. At the end we also added some edible glitter (just for some sparkle... :))

One batch is made of 480ml icing sugar sifted into a bowl with 35ml cream added (maybe add a little more if the mixture seems to dry) and 5ml flavouring of your choice. Kneed the mixture until nice and soft and add the colour you want (we used gel colouring that is usually used with fondant). Mix until evenly distributed. Roll the 'dough' into small balls and place onto a lined baking tray, leave to dry.

Easiest sweeties we've ever made (as we don't like spending to many hours in the kitchen while the weather is so nice outside...). 

On the right is my son, Jaco who helped me make these sweets. He insisted that his cars should also feature in the picture as they are the same colours as the sweets... :)

Oh so beautiful...

www.trendyweddingleblog.com

www.marthasteward.com

I just came across these stunning pictures of bridal bouquets made out of succulent plants. This is so inspiring and fresh. Just had to share it...

I'm even starting my own succulent "nursery", just to be able to try out these ideas :).

Let me know what you think about the idea of using succulents in floral bouquets...

A Nostalgic peep into the past

Hi,

Today I want to share a project that I was involved in last year. It was an end of year function for my now ex-colleagues.

With Christmas just around the corner, we went with the (pretty obvious) festive colour theme of red, green and silver.

I enjoyed this project so much as it was my first 'independent' flower-arranging project.

The day was filled with fun activities, good food and lots of laughter. We even had a "fashion show" for everyone who participated in dressing up as their childhood idol, ending the day with an "award ceremony" where everyone ended up getting an award for something funny or outstanding they did during the year.

Some of the attendees went home with bruises to show off from the paintball games that was played...

The venue was Helderberg Farm, somewhere between Stellenbosch and Somerset West. I would highly recommend this venue as we had fun with all the available activities. Boland Spitbraai spoiled us with a wonderful lamb-on-the-spit (including so many salads, I can't even remember them all) for lunch.

Thanks to all who helped make the day so special.

To good friends (Cheers)!

Garden project for the day

Hi again, I hope you had a stress-free, creative Worker's Day yesterday.

This project has been on my wish list forever. So when I went to a nearby garden centre the other day and came across this metal heart shape I just had to have it. I must add (actually gloat a bit...) that this project cost me a total of R90. Yes, it's not a typing error... The price includes the metal heart shape and a bag of the white crushed stone. I am lucky enough to have a good supply of succulent plants in my garden, so I could just use that.

It only took me about an hour to complete this project and I'm very pleased with the results.

  My 16 month old son thought it needed a touch of colour, so he added a handful of  black compost to the design...

Starting with putting the shape down where I wanted it to be, I then removed soil from inside the shape only as deep as the iron rim's width. This step was then followed by putting down some newspaper to cover the inside of the shape (mainly to keep out unwanted weeds and to keep the stones from being washed into the soil when it rains). Now the stage was set for my stone filling, topping it of with the pink-tinted succulent plants just on the outside of the heart.

I must admit that I don't know how long it will stay this clean and perfect, but it warms my heart for the past week already and haven't been bombarded with any other objects, colour effects or anything else of the sort by my two busy boys...

Hope you enjoy doing something similar in your garden. I would like to hear about your projects as well!

Feel free to email me for info on where I bought the heart shape and stones. I'm even willing to share some of my succulents with an enthusiastic crafter... ;)

Kind regards

Lené