Gypsy Magic

 

One afternoon during the Christmas holidays we had such good fun with my mom's record collection and a small digital camera. I'd love to encourage you: try this out for yourself, it's delightful!

Can't even remember how I found the site, but when I stumbled upon sleeveface.com I knew right away that I just had to try this!

Innocent

Crafting for charity, and for the fun of it ... 

Do you happen to have any left over yarn in your cupboard?

Until december 1st dutch smoothie lovers can participate in a knitting campaign to support the elderly in need of a little extra attention, as set up by Innocent.

Caps and wall plugs

After watching this film about the rather bizarre competition for the title of Meilleur Ouvrier de France I had images of pastry and sugary stuff on my mind for days. And hey, my girls could do with some nice cakes for their beloved pet shop figurines, so you can see how I had to give this a try :)
Here you're looking at bottle caps, toothpaste caps, beads and lots and lots of nailpolish. Plus a small dental sticks box and some wall plugs that made for a table.
If you take pride in baking, watch the trailer of the film: it's on youtube. Enjoy!

She's off...

Time goes by so fast... In the blink of an eye she's already gone off to explore new horizons! Leaving her mom feeling more than a little ambivalent and with not that much to say. Unabashed by the significance of her milestone and with help of her 'big' sister she worked enthusiastically on preparing farewell treats for her friends in kindergarten. The idea for the astronaut is from MakingFriends.com where many a delightful project for a rainy day can be found. Instead of using salt dough for the mound, we made our little adventurers stand on chocolate chip cookies, sticking in the flagpoles when the cookies came right out of the oven and hadn't firmed up yet. The recipe for the gluten free CC cookies is found at Food.com, but at the moment that site seems to be down, so I'll edit this post later to add the link.

EDIT: this was the recipe I used

And then there was the silver lining:

In gluten free baking there is many a dark cloud. When I wanted to bake some cupcakes real quick, trying to adapt a favourite wheat flour recipe, the cakes didn't tumble from the mold like in the old baking days. Instead I had the whole batch crack and fall apart into crumbs. Ugh. But then these days we have the internet, now haven't we? Just typing in 'what to do with chocolate cake crumbs' led me to The Pioneer Woman.com. I was so enraptured I could hardly wait to try my hand at her flower pot desserts, so I made 'em for our daughter's birthday dinner. Thanks Ree. You've really made our day ;-)

Cupid's wings

When our eldest daughter entered preschool, it didn't take long before she began asking me for pink clothes, preferrably with bows, ribbons, petticoats, lace and such. Not surprisingly her costume of choice at this year's carnival was that of a ballerina. For her little sister she had something else in mind though: little Lucie was to be dressed up as... Cupid :-)) Need I mention I was happy to oblige? I took some pictures during the process, so here's my tutorial for making a pair of little angel wings. Might come in handy later this year, no? If you need inspiration or a style to choose from go visit Karen Hatzigeorgiou's site, and while you're there, DO take a look at her other pages, she does incredible things with books. Wow!

Fab

Awww, my little one has just turned two!
The past year wasn't easy on her, or on any of us for that matter. In spite of our best efforts and intentions, she still got glutened at times, and was sick and cranky a great deal. I lost so much sleep that I got pretty desperate. But still, every time things got a little better, I focused ferociously on this one thing: gluten free baking. I need safe foods for my baby, and they have to taste just as good or even better than the stuff that makes her ill! My family and friends were recruted to evaluate what progression I made. I learned a lot. Not only about nutrition and good eating, but also about love. People all over the world are struggling with food intolerances! Many of them enjoy cooking and baking and their willingness to share and help is truly amazing. Every yummy gluten free (or other allergen free) recipe posted is a wonderful gift to all of us. I'm awed and thankful that there's so much love around!
Time to do right by you and post a few links to some fabulous recipes I encountered.
Here's for: quinoa pancakes, avocado ice cream, peanut butter granola bars, blueberry muffins, chocolate chip cookies, and white bread.
The cookies in the picture are by my own recipe I am still working on. The 'white' ones have almond flour, coconut flour, teff and glutinous rice flour in them, the dark ones contain cornstarch, brown rice flour and chestnut flour.
When I'm truly and permanently satisfied with the result, I'll post the recipe on Recipezaar (and let you know ;-))
EDIT #1: The first cookie recipe, for dark chocolate chestnut flour cookies is now available on Recipezaar!

EDIT #2: And finally: here's the second recipe: gluten free butter cookies! Enjoy!

Delightful kids crafts

These measure only 1,5 inches and were such fun to make! The idea came from Making Friends.com, where all kinds of delightful crafting projects for kids (and their parents) can be found. Originally it called for wooden spools and beads, which I didn't have, but luckily paper beads are easy and quick to make. Just roll up narrow strips of (black) paper with some glue brushed on. There's a clear tutorial on this at: www.tappi.org .