The 5-a-day breakfast!

Welcome to the beginning of another week, and what a beautiful weekend we've had. I hope it continues!

Don't forget to head over to visit Wendy and all the lovely blogs linked up to visit Handmade Monday (if the link doesn't work there is one on my right hand side bar.)

Just a quick note to my fellow bloggers by way of an apology. I am currently unable to post comments on blogs that have word verification on them. I think my ipad is going through some kind of midlife crisis or something. I do read them all! And once my deskyop pc is up and running (don't ask) I:ll aim to comment on those i missed!

I hope you're all enjoying the sunny weather. I think it makes it easier to eat well instead of just stodge when the sun shines. Not that my girls need any reason to eat fruit! I thought this week I would share my recipe for 5-a-day pancakes which is usually a hit here and sets us up for a good day!

To make 8 pancakes you need:

1cup self raising flour

1cup milk - semi skimmed, full fat, buttermilk - whatever you have.

2 eggs

2 ripe bananas

A punnet of blueberries.

In a bowl beat the eggs and add the flour to make a thick batter. Add in the mashed up banana and slowly add the milk until it is dropping consistency. Add the blueberries -as many or as few as you like. Drop generous spoonfuls on to a hot frying pan or skillet. Once there are bubbles forming on the top, flip them over. It takes a couple of minutes only.

Serve with chopped fresh fruit on the side (hence the name 5-a-day pancakes !) we like strawberries, melon and grapes.

You could try adding raisins instead of blueberries, add a spoonful of cocoa powder in the mix too for a chocolatey taste.

These pancakes literally take 10minutes to put together from ingredients most of us have around the kitchen and the kids can get involved too. They are great for babies too, Teaghan loves them and it is a breakfast she can eat by herself without the need for spoonfeeding.

I usually make half quantities just for the girls and it still nakes 4 generous pancakes.

I'd love to see what kind of things you serve up for the kids instead of the same old cereal and toast!

Til next time!

Happy Mother's Day

I hope the mothers amongst you have been spoilt rotten by the kids. Judging by my Facebook timeline, most of the Mums I know seem to have had a lovely day. I still find it quite surreal that I am a mum, and feel incredibly lucky and blessed to have my two gorgeous girls in my life. I never dreamed that it would ever happen for us after many years of trying. In the end it all worked out for us, but others are not so lucky, and go through all konds of hell to experience what many people find quite natural and easy - conceivibg, carrying and having a child. So while you enjoy your treats today, just spare a thought for those ladies who would love to be a mummy but for one reason or other have not been as lucky as we have.

Of course it's time for  Handmade Monday and also  I made this! blog hops. The first hosted by Wendy, the latter hoated by the Bath Bomb Creations team. Lots of great blogs are posted there so take a look!

This week I have a sewing project to share and I also want to share my Hermann and Hetty news too.

I have carried on with my sourdough baking, and have even been brave enough to experiment a little. To the ladt baych of Hermann I decided to add cocoa powder and chocolate drops and make chocolate muffins. They were lovely and will defintely be made again. I haven't tried any other bread recipes yet but I will.

My sewing project was a little taggie for Teaghan. I made it out of scraps in my fabric stash, the fabric has been upcycled from a pair of my pyjamas,  and an old flannel cot sheet. The whole project only took a couple of hours to complete, including distraction time! Its not perfect but I doubt Teaghan cares about that!

Well that's about it for this week. Don't forget to check out the other blogs and have yourselves a great week.

Til next time!

Finding my mojo!

Here we are again, another week gone! And it's been a busy one, with some making and baking going on in the Gallery house. So I have a few things to share with you this week, as I link up as usual with Wendy for Handmade Monday and the Bath Bomb Creations team for their I made This! Sunday Linky.
Don't forget to have a wander over there to see what other people have been filling their week with this week!

The making has involved both fabric and paper crafting this week, although only one was completed. I am currently involved in a fabric tag swap over on UK Scrappers so I spent some time this week trying to sort out what I wanted to do. I wasn't able to actually complete any of them as things just didn't go to plan. In order to avoid sewing as much as I could, I bought some wonder web to glue the two pieces of fabric I'd chosen to use for the main body of the tag together but it just didn't work out as I wanted. Instead I decided to sew them, but was thwarted by the search for the thread box, and then the wakage of a certain Tilly Bud from her morning nap!

But I did manage to complete one crafting project, which was to make a fairy door for Caoimhe.

The door is actually a purply pink colour, unfortunately the photo doesn't quite show that! I made it with the offcuts of a picture mounting board, which I got from an Artist's shop in town. It's thanks to my friend, Sharon, that I came across the shop and knew that the owner sells the offcuts of board he doesn't need for his picture framing service. I know I promised not to buy any more stash, but at a handful of boards for a quid, I'm sure you'll forgive me!

I made the door whilst Caoimhe was at nursery and put it on the wall outside her bedroom door before she came home. We have been talking about fairies for a while, ever since Violet the elf came to stay, and she has become increasingly interested in them. She has recently discovered Peter Pan and Tinkerbell too, and enjoyed dressing up as Tinkerbell for World Book Day at the beginning of March

So you can imagine the excitement when she discovered that her very own fairy had come to stay, too! I'm sure we'll all have lots of fun with Daisy and Buttercup (who is Teaghan's fairy!) in the house!

I have also well and truly rediscovered my baking mojo this week. I love baking and cooking with Caoimhe as you know, but recently I have been more than happy to let Grandma take over the baking . I'm not sure why this is, other than the fact that with Caoimhe now at nursery 3 times a week we don't seem to have much time. But this week I have made a concerted effort. It all started with Hermann, who has continued to bubble and grow for the last couple of weeks, and we are now onto our 3rd batch. This week we made 2 lots of Hermann cake, some muffins and a couple of loaf sized cakes, one of which was given away. Once again they were delicious!



I've bravely made a sourdough bread starter, too, and today I made my first loaf from it. Well, I say 'made', but it is currently on it's second proving. I started it off this morning before breakfast and I'm hoping to get it in the oven some time before midnight! This slow rise seems to be the norm, and should apparently get quicker as the starter develops with age. we have decided to call our starter Hetty, for no particular reason, and she is now in her tub in the fridge waiting for the next time I decide to make bread. I will let you know how it all turns out, triumph or disaster!

And of course we had Sunday Dinner leftovers last week, so me and The Flop made veg, and chicken and veg pasties. A huge hit with both my girls for tea and dinner the next day!

Right, that's your lot this week! I'm off to read all the lovely blogs on Handmade Monday, and I Made This!
Til next time!

Stashbusting!

Morning all and happy Monday to you! The beginning of another week and we're into March now. The littlest Gallery is now 7 months old. Not quite sure how that happened! We're getting on well with finger foods and Maisie the dog has taken up residence under the high chair. It definitely makes meal times easier and if there are any new mummies or mummies to be reading then take a look at Baby Led Weaning as an alternative to the mush approach. I'm really proud of her as she will quite happily tuck into sprouts, brocolli, caulifliower.. in fact anything I give her really. I am savouring this time as I know from experience it doesn't last long!

Since it's Monday I'll be linking up with Wendy again over on her blog for Handmade Monday There's always lots of lovely blogs linked up so have a look.I'm also linking up with the Bath Bomb Creations team for their I Made This! linky party
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This week I wanted to show you that I've been good to my word and have been using my stash instead of buying more. We have a couple of family birthdays this week so I dipped into my craft stash and came up with these two cards. I actually managed to make them without little fingers dipping into my boxes of stuff too which is a miracle! I love that Caoimhe likes making things too and I'm looking forward to making Mother's Day cards and gifts with her this year.

We have some baking planned for tomorrow. Hermann the cake is still going strong and it's time to split him up, give some away and cook him. We're giving two away and keeping one to carry on with again. Not sure how long we'll be able to keep him going but I love the idea of it. It will also be interesting to come up with different ingredients to put in him and see which we like best. I am going to look into sourdough bread too and see if that appeals so if there are any tips out there I'll be glad to hear them!

More cooking this morning, as I am making Sunday Dinner Potato Cakes. All the left over veg from yesterdays roast mixed in with some mash. Great way to get veggies in the kids, although they are pretty good with their veg really so can't complain. And it is a quick warm up tea for when Caoimhe comes home from nursery and demands to be fed NOW!! Home made potato cakes are the best, much better than shop bought ones and you can add whatever you like to them too. If you've never made them then have a go next time you have left over mash. You'll pretty soon be making extra mash just to be able to make potato cakes from the leftovers!

Til next time!

A lovely win!

I have been quite lucky recently. I have won a couple of fab blog giveaways from blogs I regularly read and enjoy. I thought you might like to see one of the prizes which I received last week and I've been wondering what to do with it since!

This fab selection of fabric was courtesy of Sarah at  Tilly Mint Boutique. As you know my sewing skills leave something to be desired (calling them skills is stretching it a bit!) but I am determined to rectify this.

I have earmarked one of the pieces to be used in the fabric tag swap I'm takong part in on  UK Scrappers. I will post up a photo of the tags when they're done!

I'll share my other prize another time!

A small victory!

And no, I'm not talking about Arsenal's fantabulous 5-2 win over Spurs in the North London Derby. (And once again, can I apologise to my twitter followers for any sweary  outbursts!) Instead I am referring to the fact that not only have I discovered a new craft as I promised I would here, but I have found a use for the wool tops I bought when I decided to give wet felting a try. (and have been sitting, unloved, in my craft box ever since!)
It's fair to say I have been influenced by a lot of the lovely crafters, whose blogs I read regularly, and also Kirstie Allsop must partly take the blame as well. I watched her series on different crafts in Handmade Britain just before Christmas, and she she made all the different crafts not exactly look easy, but accessible. I think that crafting can sometimes feel as though it is too difficult, or only certain people can do them, and it can be a bit off putting to the novice like me. But I have learned something, give it a go, you never know!
So one of the crafts that I saw Kirstie attempting, and have read about in the blogs too, is needle felting. I have to admit to having been put off by wet felting. I had a few attempts and never got the effect I wanted despite what seemed like hours of work. I think this negative experience made me steer away from felting full stop. But I really like the idea of making my own embellishments for paper or fabric crafts, and I have seen such lovely things made by needle felting. So I bit the bullet and purchased a kit.
Yes, I know, I promised to not buy any stash for 3 months. But can this really be counted as stash?? It is for a new craft after all!
Well it was a success! I thoroughly enjoyed making my first little piece, and I'm looking forward to making some more.I was surprised with how quickly it started to come together, not like the hours of pounding wet wool with a potato masher and a rolling pin!  Ok, it's not perfect by a long stretch, but practice makes perfect you know! And you never know, it might just inspire me to venture into wet felting again in the future.

Not a great picture, but you get the idea!

I promised you an update on Hermann's progress. Well today I split him into 4 and passed him on to 2 other people. I decided that I would keep 2 portions, one to bake now, and one to carry on the process all over again. So tomorrow me and the Flip Flop will bake one of our Hermanns, and I have had my orders about what we're going to put in to him. of course, knowing my daughter, chocolate had to feature. We're also going to add dried fruit, a lovely tropical mix actually not just raisins, but also dried papaya, pineapple and apricot. I'll let you know how he turns out!

I've also been doing a few ATCs for swapping on UK Scrappers

And I've just signed up for a Fabric tag swap... I'll probably regret that but it seemed like a good idea at the time. At least now I can attempt to needle felt some embellishments for it!

It's time again for Handmade Monday hosted by the lovely Wendy, so don't forget to check out what everyone else has been up to! Something I will be doing...just as soon as I've watched Match of the Day!

5-2. Blimey!

Til next time!

History repeating itself.

Hi folks, and welcome to the beginning of another week. We're nearly a quarter of the way through the year already. Time is certainly whizzing by! I am yet another Handmade Monday nearer to being a working mum again, but the least said about that the better really! Thanks once again to Wendy for hosting the Handmade Monday blog hop. Looking forward to reading what everyone has been up to over the last week. And here I need to make a bit of an apology. For some reason I am not always able to post comments on blogs and I don't know why. I do most of my blog reading on my ipad, and I have always been able to post without a problem until recently. I'm hoping it's just a glitch and will work itself out soon. I just wanted to tell everyone that I do read the blogs, even if I'm not always able to post a comment about them!

I don't have a lot to show this week. Last week was half term as those of you with kids will know. It was also my first half term with a term-time child, so I had a full week with both my girls for the first time since the Christmas holidays. I wanted to make the most of it. We didn't do as much as I wanted to in the end, but we did have a trip to the canal museum at Portland Basin museum and caught up with our play dough making, story book reading and dvd watching! Caoimhe loved Portland Basin. It's a really good way to spend a few hours if you are in the area. The museum covers industrial and social history of the region and is quite interactive. They seem to have set the place out with kids in mind, as there is a learning centre and a play area too, plus some of the exhibits are very 'hands on'

Twirling in a 1920's dress

Trying on hats.

It's the sort of place I would have loved to visit as a child. Definitely worth a visit!

My girl was also far more productive than I was, making a beautiful blueberry cake with grandma



I love that Caoimhe enjoys spending so much time with my mum, inevitably baking. It's something I remember doing with my grandma too, and I loved our Saturday afternoons spent making jam tarts and sponge cakes and so on. I'm so glad that my own daughters will get to do the same things that I enjoyed as a child, too.

My own contribution to Handmade Monday is a little sad and unfinished. I had hoped to get most of it completed for today, however my youngest had something to say about that, and refused to sleep last night, so I couldn't do it!

I shall reveal more when it's finished, as I know what I want to do but it just might not end up that way!

Well unfortunately afternoon naps don't last very long in this house, and I am being shouted at by a certain young lady so that will have to do for today!

Don't forget to have a look at Wendy's blog.

Til next time!