Woop Woop!

I'm a very lucky girl.  Not only am I on leave, but it is my birthday today, and look at what DH Daz made for me over the past couple nights...

...a GIANT cupcake birthday cake!  I usually make my own cake, if I have one at all.  But because baking is kinda 'what I do', he really wanted to make me a cake, all on his own.  I just had to make sure we had all the right ingredients and point him in the direction of the recipe.  He even piped the icing on the cake all by himself.  What a clever husband!!!

And to put it in perspective, here's what it looks like next to a regular cupcake... it's a whopper!

So, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me-eeeeee, Happy Birthday to me!  Ha ha ha.  I shall be seeing some of you tonight, at Benny's Again, for dessert.  YUMMO!

Tyler James...

SUCH a handsome wee manny :)  Look at those baby blues...

Baking for a BIRTHDAY!

It was DH's birthday today.  I asked him a while back, at around the time I had made a make-up case cake, a surfboard cake and a caravan cake, what kind of cake he would want for his birthday...  'a Kit cake of course' was the answer....  (as in Kit from Knight Rider - if you're too young to remember this, google it!).  

So... I didn't really want to make an all black cake, as that amount of gel colouring has a nasty effect on your insides, if ya know what I mean, so I decided on a chocolate version.  It does have the red Kit lights on the front though, see?

As the day has gone on, Kit has shrunk, bit by bit, like some sort of cruel torture.  Oh well... like Marie Antoinette once famously said 'LET THEM EAT CAKE'!!!!! (and they did, teehee!)

So this post is for D - Happy Birthday honey... only two more years till the Big 4-0!  Woop woop! xxx

So there's been a bit goin on here lately...

SO much to tell you, so little time...  Job changes (I KNOW!), SENZ de-brief, and lots of other things too...

I have had a bit of a rough trot at work lately.  Some of you know what I'm talking about.  So after 15 years working for the same firm, I handed in my resignation last week.  I start a brand new job on Monday 25th July.  I had been considering making a move for a wee while, but only got the courage up to actually send in an application for a job last month.  Out of 120-something applicants, I was one of three interviewed for the position.  Then I got the 'Dear John' letter in the mail :(  Bummer.  Oh well, I thought, there's still SENZ to look forward to.  Then I got a phone call from their HR guy on the Friday night that I was in Auckland at SENZ asking me if I wanted to come back in and see them, as there was another opening they thought more my cup of tea.  Sweet!  When do you get home?  Sunday night.  Can you come in Monday lunchtime?  Um, OK!  Turns out that due to a shuffle-round of staff, there was this new job available, and I was the only one being considered for it.  Was I interested?  Let me think about it... um, YES PLEASE!  So I now have 7 more working days left at RSM, and that's it.  End of an era.  Well, end of a lot of things I hope.

And SENZ?  Well, that was FANTASTIC.  Loved the shopping.  Loved the trip away with my Ma.  Loved staying with my sister, her partner and bubs.  LOVED working for Trina.  She's the best.  Loved the yummy class kits that I am still yet to play with at home.  Didn't love the ash cloud that nearly prevented us from getting there (thank GOODNESS we were booked on Air NZ).  Also didn't love the self-deflating air bed and Ma and I were sleeping on.  Tee hee.  Someone made a naughty comment about the bed going down, but I had no idea what they were talking about.  Honest.  *wink*  Oh and loved the dinner out I had on Saturday night at The Lone Star with Trina, Nic, Lucy, Rachel, Tana, Ange and Skye.  Thanks Ladies!  Interesting conversations about a 'bad pork experience' and scratch and sniff clothing!!!  Lucy, you are a MACHINE when it comes to dessert.  You're awesome.  *grin*

Now, I haven't even had time to photograph any of my SENZ purchases or layouts, or even to 'pretty-up' the photos I do have to show you in Photoshop, but here they go, straight from the camera, unedited...

This little man is just the CUTEST!  Although this was the look that Ma and I got initially... kind of a 'Who are you freaks, and where has my Mummy gone?' look, don't ya think?

And he was cutting his first teeth while we were there.  Can you tell?

But Auntie Beck did manage to get a few smiles in the end :)

So that was nearly two weeks ago already.  All going well (and ash clouds staying away), Sarah, Kelv and Tyler will be arriving in Timmers on Saturday for a few days.  They don't go home until next Wednesday. 

The weekend just been saw me catching up with some old friends.  My oldest friend Ange (as in I have known her the longest of all my friends, not that she IS the oldest of all my friends!), is back from Kuwait with hubby Andy and baby Jessica.  They are here for 6 weeks before they start their new teaching jobs in Thailand.  There was a baby shower for her on Saturday afternoon (even though Jessica is now 3 months old), as us NZ friends hadn't met her yet, or had the chance to have a baby shower for her before she arrived!  I took a cake to share for part of the afternoon tea, and made a present for Jessica on Saturday morning.  So here's a quick kitchen bench shot of the cake, the card and the pressies...

Mmm, caaake!  Oh and SOMEONE had TWO pieces of cake... how they managed it, I am not sure - it's hell sweet with all that icing all over it!

And a close-up of the card... the two flowers are satin lollipop flowers with pins on the back, so that they can pin them to a headband, bag or dress for Jessica.  Handy!

And the fabric dice/ball... with lots of little ribbon loops for Jessica to grab on to, and a small (and very quiet) bell on the inside, so that it makes some noise.  I appliqued her name on the outside of it too.

One last note to all my Auckland friends who were complaining of the cold during SENZ.  Yes it was wet, but you peeps wouldn't know cold if it jumped up and bit you on the arse!  Here's a photo I took at 8am this morning.  That's our lawn.  With frost on it.  It was -1 degree.  At 8am.  Seriously.

See, this is wash COLD looks like.... brrrrrrrrrrrr

Oh, and last minute open invitation to those of you who may be interested... I have booked a table at Benny's Again on Friday 22nd July (which just happens to be my birthday) from 8pm for DESSERT.  They have the best desserts.  If you want to come join me and my family for a scrummy pud, feel free.  Just let me know if you're coming so I can make sure there's enough seats booked!

Right, that's my break nearly over, so I gotta dash.  Seven and a quarter working days to go, and counting... Wahoo!

A new toy, SENZ and cake!

I recently got a new battery operated glue gun from Tania at Embellish It, a snazzy pink one called the i-Bond, made by Imaginisce.  It's CUTE. See?...

And I have to say, it ROCKS!  Go and see Tania - she'll hook you up!  I had a decent play with it this week while making my SENZ swap pins… check these out:

I haven’t taken part in the whole ‘swaps’ thing before, and had no idea how many to make, but I have a couple dozen to take with me, so that’s a start.  Thanks Tania for teaching us how to make these lollipop flowers at the last camp - these ones are scrummy layers of satin, cotton and tulle with a bit of felt on the side and a button on top!  Who knows, I might swap one with some of YOU out there in bloggy land?!

And speaking of SENZ, and my trip to Aucks with Ma, only TWO MORE SLEEPS to go!  Yay!  Not long till Ma and I get to hang out with Sarah, Kelv and Tyler for a few days.  And I get to immerse myself in the SENZ culture this time – I am a TA for Trina for 4 of her classes.  Totally looking forward to it.  Totally.  To be honest, don’t even care if the weather is completely shite the whole time I’m up there – I’ll be indoors anyhoo!  Just as long as that darn ash cloud stays away until I get up there and back. 

D and J tried to tell me that seeing as I am away for 4 lots of dinner, they were planning on covering all the major food groups (in takeaways) – KFC, McDonalds, Pizza and BK, while I was gone.  Luckily they were kidding!!!  Who knows what state the house will be in when I get home about 8pm on Sunday night, or even if the grocery shopping will have been done, but I know one thing… by then, they’ll be pleased to have me home ;)  Ah, lovely.

It was Ma's birthday last week, and as promised, I defrosted the 'other' vertical layer cake that was in my freezer and dressed it up for her birthday dessert.  The thing is, she doesn't really like buttercream frosting all that much.  I know, right? Weird, ha ha ha!  So I did the rose swirls on her cake with chantilly cream instead.  They're not quite as good as they could be.  I had loaned out the proper icing tip, so I substituted it with an ordinary star tip, but they still look pretty effective.

And FINALLY, a shot of the inside of a Vertical Layer Cake...

How SERIOUSLY COOL does that look?!  Wahoo!!!

Save the Date...

27 October 2012 - Crop for a Cause 2012 - you heard it here first...!

A Quick Scrap...

Hiya.  Got a bit of scrapping done a couple weeks ago at a Pink Ribbon fundraising crop held by Tania from Embellish It.  I got the double layout of Raincliff Camp finished that I started at Scrappin Patch before Trina's class, then I very quickly chucked this one together...  

A total scraplift of Trina's class, just all in shades of PINK, using the new Teresa Collins Posh papers.  In part because of the Pink Ribbon theme, partly cos I loved these new papers that Tania had in, and mostly cos I found two photos of me in a pink bikini (the only time anyone is going to see me in a pink bikini too, I might add!).

So thanks Trina for the layout design, I don't generally give them another go, but it sure makes throwing together another page easy!

Toodles,

A Special Cake for a Special Lady...

Those of you that know me, know that I like to muck around in the kitchen doing a bit of baking from time to time.  In fact, a lot of you that know me, have taste-tested that baking!  

I have wanted to try a Vertical Layer Cake for absolutely AGES, but it seemed like too fancy a cake to just roll out for school lunches, you know?  The I am Baker blog has the best tutorial, which I followed easily.  And, seeing as my Nanny was turning 80, I decided to give it a crack.  It turned out to be a 3 day process...

The theory goes like this.... bake two 8 inch round cakes of the same flavour (I baked Dark Pink Velvet Cake), placing them in the oven at the same time.  Immediately you remove them from the oven, slice the 'hump' off the top of each cake to make it level, and invert one cake on top of the other so that the two freshly cut cake tops are touching.  Place in freezer immediately.  Phew!  Now once you have done this, repeat again with a different flavoured (and coloured) cake.  My second cake was just a basic white cake.  I did all this on the first night.  Then I did the dishes, had a cup of tea and went to bed ;)

Once frozen, take out of freezer temporarily and cut concentric circles into both cakes, making sure the circles are the same size on each cake.  Did I mention you were cutting into FROZEN cake?!  Hmmm, not terribly easy, but do-able all the same.  I made a template from the side of a cereal box, drew 3 circles on it, and used that.  So I cut the biggest circle in each cake, then trimmed off the outer circle of my template, then cut the next smallest circle in both cakes, etc etc - you get the picture?  Here's what the cakes looked like once sliced:

Different cakes but identical dimensions and identical cuts, you see?  Then, slice through the outer rings until you reach the centre circle, on both cakes.  Then swap the inner circle, and every other circle, until you have a cake with alternating layers VERTICALLY.  Cool huh?  Wrap a piece of baking paper firmly around the outside, brush the top of the cake with a simple sugar syrup (1c sugar, 1c water, bring to boil then cool completely), then put back in the freezer again.  That was the second night.  Less dishes this time, but a very sore hand!

When you want to frost the cake (or cakes, depending on how hungry you are!), take it out of the freezer and let it thaw in the fridge for a bit.  Otherwise peeps, your frosting sets way too quickly on the frozen cake, and may well sweat as the cake thaws.  I did exactly what Amanda from I am Baker did, and piped roses all over using my 1M tip.  Looks complicated, but was so SO simple.  Icing tip was only about $3 or $4 at Ballantynes.  If you don't have a piping bag, use a plastic zip lock bag and snip the corner out of it.  Does pretty much the same job.  Once iced, I used the Wilton Color Mist Spray that I have had in my cupboard for several months waiting for a moment like this.  It's basically an aerated food colouring spray in a bottle.  Way cool.  So here's the finished product:

And don't forget the close-up:

So here's what Amanda from I am Baker's one looked like, that had me champing at the bit to try one...

And yes, ours did look a lot like that once sliced open, but not chocolate and white, dark pink and white instead.  We had the cake at a nice little family morning tea for Nanny at her place a couple of weeks ago.  We had been out for tea the night before, but weren't allowed to make a fuss, so no cake.  No Cake?  Well, I wasn't having that, thank you very much, I have been wanting to make this cake for ages!  Nanny said it was great - her birthday was on the Wednesday and she had visitors, flowers and drinks that day, then we had a meal out on the Saturday night, and a family morning tea on the Sunday.  'My birthday has just about lasted all week' she said... At 80, why not?!  

I'll leave you with a cute shot that my cousin took at the dinner of Nanny and Grangran together.  80 and 87 and they still look cute together.  They still hold hands too :)

Oh and PS - the cake tasted as good as it looked!  The 'other' cake (which is still in my freezer) is going to be for Mum's birthday this week.... I mentioned I had another one stashed there and she put dibs on that.  Only two more sleeps Mama!!!!

Right, off to bed for moi...  Toodles,

Oh and PPS - I hope that those of you in Chch get a good night's sleep tonight.  The aftershocks today were strong enough that we even felt them here.  In fact the bigger of the two had me under my desk at work, preparing to kiss my butt goodbye... Don't know how you guys do it day after day.  Thinking of you all. x

So, how was YOUR weekend?...

Ours was great!  I went to Rolleston on a 'roady' with Tania and Mum to go do a Trina class, helping to fundraise for Christchurch all at the same time... apart from the 2 hour trip each way (even more for Tania), it was a fantastic way to spend the day!  J got to hang out with Grandad Jim for the morning while D was at work.  It was good to catch up with Heidi, and to see Trina again too.  She has already done a de-brief on her blog, which you can catch up on here. We did a bit of scrapping and talking crap (as you do!) until the class started.  What a great layout - so simple but so effective.  Love it!  Here's my finished page...

And a few gratuitous close-ups...

And don't forget the compulsory 'photo-with-the-famous-person' !

PS - Hey Squirt, look who Ma scrapbooked on her page (surprise, surprise!)  Tee hee.

So like I said, we did a bit of scrapping and a bit of yacking from mid-morning until the class started at half two.  And being the good scrapper that I am, I took my camera and got Tania to click off some shots of me and Ma together, as I haven't got ANY of us two 'scrapgeeks' together yet (that's what my two sisters call us).  So here's the 'normal' one (if we could ever be called 'normal', ha ha ha!)...

Then Tania said 'be silly' - not too hard to manage tbh!

And I call this the 'recovery from being silly' shot...

Oh well, we had a blast, and I think that you can tell that from the photos :)  I actually DID manage to get a page part-done, but never got to the gluing down part.  Here's a shot of the work in progress...

Yep, Nic and I are always double trouble when we get together, but I think this time that it was me and Mum :)  

So we pretty much headed home straight after the class, getting back to Timmers about 7.15pm.  Not too bad really.  Tania still had to drive on to Waimate, poor thing.  Ma and I had some of Daddy-Jim's leftover Chili Con Carne reheated for tea at her place, then it was 'home james' for me and J.  D was out at a friend's 50th.  I spent a quiet evening having a Criminal Minds Fest, catching up on 3 weeks of overdue MySky viewing.  Lovely!

Yesterday was a pretty quiet day... I was really tired, and have to confess to having a nana nap, although it was so long I probably should have called it a nana-and-grandad-nap!  Pretty much all I managed for the day was a visit to my Nanny's, doing the grocery shopping and cooking up a jam-pan of pumpkin soup.  Impressive huh? Yeah.....

Tonight, however, I lit the fire, cooked a stir fry for tea, divvied up the soup into freezable portions, cooked a couple of bacon and egg pies and two chocolate cakes and dealt to a MOUNTAIN of dishes.  Phew!  Amazing how much you can get done when you have to!  Right, I can hear the oven beeper going off, so my cakes might be ready...

Catch ya later peeps...