Creation...

A sad cake story, a stained glass window, and a table runner and napkins...

A sad cake story
I was very proud of my Christmas cake.  Little C helped me make it by eating all the fruit as I stirred it in, and I only stopped him helping once I had added the 6 eggs to the mixture - I thought six raw eggs might be pushing it a bit. 

Anyway, last Friday I iced it and I think it looked beautiful.  It was only as I put on the icing that I remembered that last year, while it tasted very nice, I had thought it a little dry and planned to try a new recipe this year.  Nevermind, too late now.  Big C and I had a slice each in our comfy hour.  It was good.

"White", and eggs and a couple of crafty clues

Little C and I went to the theatre on Tuesday with our local Toddler group.  We went to see a show called White at the MacRobert arts centre at Stirling University.  Here are the relevant websites, and please bear in mind that all pictures that are about to follow are from one or other of the websites here:
MacRobert Arts Centre
Catherine Wheels Theatre Company
White

The show, by the Catherine Wheels Theatre company, was a little odd, but perfectly suited to the 2-4 age bracket.  Little C, only 16 months, was entranced the entire way through. 

They had a low stage, with lots of white bird boxes and a white teepee on it, and the entire set was white. 

For the audience they had three rows of benches, graduated in height from those comfortable for adults to sit on at the back, to little ones that Little C was very comfortable on at the front, and in front of those were lots of white rugs for children to sit or crawl on.  Little C sat happily on his bench the entire way through the show (about 45 minutes I think), with only one crawl on to my lap briefly, and one wander over to the stage (I retrieved him).

Christmas Cracker alternatives

My latest bout of creativity.

I found the Jean Greenhowe website when I posted about my knitted dolls and while on there spotted a free pattern for mini Christmas stockings.  I had a moment of inspiration. 

This year we are having family over for Christmas (a rare occurence as we are usually the ones doing the visiting) so I want to make things nice.  I'll post about my tablecloth and napkins another time - when they are finished...

I hate Christmas crackers, I think they are a colossal waste of money and packaging.  But I do like the idea of having a nice little surprise on the table.

So here's what I've done:

Playdough, and writing and snow update

I made playdough!  First of all I got out the playdough that had been hanging around in the back of the toy cupboard at Toddlers, and to my delight Little C played with it without trying to eat it - result!

Here's the recipe I used.  I mixed 1 cup plain flour, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup salt, 2 tbsp vegetable oil and 2tbsp cream of tartare, and quite a bit of green food colouring (I just kept adding and stirring until it looked ok).  I put them all into a saucepan over a medium heat and stirred until it stopped being liquid and started to form into a dryish doughy mix, which scraped off the pan into a ball.

A touch of winter

I usually define winter as December, January and February.  I think it defined it's own beginning this year, and it definitely arrived a few days before December!

It snowed a little bit on Friday while we were out with the waggy-tailed one.

It snowed a bit more overnight, and on Saturday morning we were hesitating about whether to attempt the trip to Edinburgh (we did).