Paper bags for my Mom

I am going away in December/ January so I have made a simple paper bag with a little gift in it for my Mom for each day that I am away. Here's all the bags in a box

All bags laid out to see

A couple of close-ups

 

Including the cards I made

"Bubbles" for 31st December

Playing cards I had made

Top view

I am hoping that someone at the residence where she lives will be able to give her a bag each day

Chess board cake

Today's experiment - I bought the cake pans and decided that today was a good day to try it out. My normal cake recipe; I just think that I over-cooked the cake slightly

 Butter cream icing to sandwich the three layers together and stick the chocolate fingers around the outside

Whipped ganache spread over the top and piped

A view from the side

A slice

The inside

I can see all sorts of combinations here - pinks, blues, colours .....

It was quite easy to do once I worked out how I was using the pans

And some great goodies to be won

My friend Hilary runs Scrap it Simple in Christchurch. She is so very creative and has just got to her 400th blog post so is offering a wonderful prize - go and look here: http://scrapbookngfromtheheart.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/my-400th-blog-post-giveaway.html

A month of catch up

In October, a few trees fell on to SH1 which meant that all the pine trees at school had to come down. This photo shows the before

And this photo shows the view from my deck with all the trees down

 Colin and I did a catering job - here's one of the two groaning tables!

 A selcection of sweet treats

 Sandwiches, mini blinis with salmon and some crudites

 Hot savouries

So we worked really hard and were "all caked out" but there was plenty of food that tasted good


I also decided to make a Rainbow Cake - this is the outside - covered in white icing. The original icing I had on was a complete mess and I had to scrape it all off and start again

 The inside - it looks fantastic when cut

In other news, we are well in to exams with only three weeks of school left. Then I have two weeks to Christmas and a lovely holiday!