Along hop the Easter Bunny…..

Ok, ok so I know I promised to blog about cooking from my many, unused recipe books this week but cooking just didn’t happen in this household today. Instead my little girl & I mostly lounged around in some warmer clothes which was such a pleasant experience given the horrible, humid days of late. I really crave cooler days by around the end of February so for it to be at the end of March & still have melting sticky heat it almost too much for me to bare.


Anywho getting back to today’s post, as it’s only a few weeks out from Easter (unseasonably late this year which is another thing I am not thrilled about) I thought I would link to some fantastic & simply Easter crafts for all my crafty followers.

Easter really is a very understated holiday which I believe deserves a lot more attention & celebration. Christmas has become such a huge fan fare & I don’t see why Easter shouldn't as well. Now that I have a child & another on the way I plan to build Easter up in our home, to be celebrated with as much anticipation as Christmas.

So to kick start the Easter month which is only a few days away let’s start with some adorable handmade gifts:

Fabric Easter Basket

Blog: Sew Mad
(this post is in German however there is a link at the bottom of the post for us English speaking followers)

Secret Pocket Fabric Eggs



Sew Mama Sew

Now let’s move on to some lovely, simple home decorations you can do yourself;

Bunny Bunting

WARNING THIS ONE IS TOO ADORABLE

Dana Made It

Decorative Fabric Eggs

(also great to give as gifts to adults)

Retro Mama

Easter Egg Tree

Martha Stewart

Well I hope you enjoyed this tribute to Easter crafts & that you will joy me this month in celebrating all the brilliance Easter has to offer.

Madeit Monday Roundup

Well with my daughter's 2nd birthday in little more than a month I've decided to do my first ever MADEIT MONDAY ROUNDUP on handmade gifts for her!!!

This decorative cushion by Tiges and Weince would be the perfect addition to her "big girl" bed.

I am just loving this felt food sushi pack by Life's a Stitch.

All though summer will be gone soon I still have of show off this Sunshine Frill Shorts & Bikini set by one of my all time favourite designers, Tea Pony.

As she'll soon be into pretend role playing I think this Super Hero Mask Set from My Little Hero Designs would be perfect!

For a long time now I've wanted to make a fairy garden for her, don't you think this fairy door, by The Fey Folk, is just devine.

And lastly the perfect playsuit for playing with fairies, by Butterfly Bettsy

To find even more beautiful handmade gift ideas pop over to Madeit right now!!!!

Exciting News!!!!!

That's right baby no. 2 is on it's way!!!!

For those who aren't aware I had insulin dependant Gestational Diabetes (GD) during my first pregnancy. No matter what I did one of my readings was always too high which resulted in my having to take insulin once a day. This time around I'm determined to make sure I'm able to either beat the whole GD thing or at least escape having to use insulin again. Thankfully though the GD had no affected on my first child & she was born a healthy normal weight of 8 LBs with perfect blood sugar levels after birth. On a plus side though I did lose weight during the last trimester of the pregnancy & was 10 kgs lighter a week after the birth then I was when I fell pregnant. Don't worry I had the weight to lose in the first place!

Today I did my first Low GI shopping for this next chapter in our lives & I must admit I'm really looking forward to this new healthier lifestyle (notice I didn't use the word diet?). I look forward to bringing you all along for the journey. Weekly I will post on my ups & downs, recipes & milestones of the pregnancy.

Cookies In A Jar Tutorial

So as you may know this year I made the pledge to only give handmade gifts to family & friends, well in honour of this pledge this Christmas I am giving all my playgroup mummy friends their own COOKIES IN A JAR!!!! These are so fun & colourful & just the perfect present for anyone.

Alright so onto the good part, to make these gorgeous little jars here's what you'll need;

1ltr Jar ~ I hoarded my Maccona coffee (200g) jars for the whole year but still didn't have enough so popped into Vinnies & picked spares up for as little as 50c
1 cup Plain Flour
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Bi Carb Soda
1/4 tsp Salt
1/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/3 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup rolled oats
100g M&Ms
125g White Choc Chips

Sift flour, baking powder, bi carb & salt together then place in the bottom of the jar. Layer brown sugar, caster sugar, rolled oats in this order, making sure to compress each layer. Finally layer M&Ms then white choc chips. That's it, simple isn't it.

Now the rest of the recipe goes like this which you might like to copy & paste into a Word document then laminate just as I have done;

COOKIES IN A JAR
Prep 10 mins Cooking 15 mins Makes 24

Extra ingredients needed to make cookies
125g butter, melted & cooled
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla

To make cookies, preheat oven to 190C
Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.

Empty jar into a large bowl. Add butter, egg
& vanilla. Stir until well combined. Shape
tablespoons of mixture into balls & place on
baking trays approx. 5cm apart.
Bake for 10 – 15 mins., swapping trays
halfway during cooking or until edges are
lightly browned.
Turn cookies onto a wire rack to cool.
Serve & Enjoy!!!

I hope you have as much fun as I did prepare these gifts & I hope your friends & family love them as much as mine did.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!

Friday Feeling

My Sister's Safari Baby Shower

I recently had the pleasure of organising my older sister's baby shower. As she had already decided on a safari theme for the nursery I decided it was also a great, out of the norm, theme for her baby shower.

Delicious After Dinner Mint Melting Moments & Chocolate Bars



Aren't this glass bottles fantastic??? I love them to bits!

I just love these jumbo brandy glasses

Noddle boxes for the guests to take home full of lollies

Some of the guests sampling the lolly buffet

Sorry about this photo not sure how I got this terrible blue shade.

Don't the Bird of Paradise flowers just look divine on the table?

And finally the cake, nothing flash but I just had to try my hand at mini bunting.

One last photo of my mum, sister & myself taken at the party.

And the winner is.......

Comment # 9 - ERICA SWARTS!!!!!!

Congratulations Erica, I'll post of your adorable patty cups tomorrow!!!

The winning entry was picked randomly using http://random.org/

Thank you to all who entered, another giveaway will be held next month!

Robert Gordon Giveaway!!!

It's competition time at Sweet Cheek Crafts!!!!

So who doesn't love cupcakes???? Nobody that's who!

So today's giveaway is a 50 packet of Superstar Red Robert Gordon Patty Cups!!!! Aren't they just too cute for words, I want a packet of each design all for myself.

Entry into this giveaway as easy as 1..2..3!

All you have to do is;

1. Follow my blog here & comment below this post

2. Follow my Sweet Cheek Crafts Facebook page here

3. Follow my Sweet Cheek Parties Facebook page here

The winning entry will be drawn & announced at 7 pm Sunday, 24th October!

Good Luck!!!!!

Pink Ribbon Morning Tea @ Playgroup

Well the gods were not kind to us today at all, we were meant to have a lovely sunny day so that we could hold a Pink Ribbon Morning Tea at our regular playgroup. However the weather was less then desirable which meant a change of venue was needed so I put my hand up to have a "wet weather playgroup" at my house so we could still raise money for a worthy cause.

As it was held at my place I was able to quickly whip up a few pretties to help set the right mood for the morning tea.

Here a few photos I managed to snap but please excuse the quality of them as I really have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to manual settings on my Nikon. I hope to undertake an online course in the near future on how to get the best out of our DSLR camera then there will be no stopping me.

Yummy meringues made from the latest Donna Hay Kids magazine

This was my first attempt at Cake Pops & although the very talented Angie from Bakerella has nothing at all to fear from me I still think they turned out pretty good.

The vanilla cupcakes! These gave me such dramas yesterday while baking them.

Luckily I had a little bit of hot pink tissue paper around the place so I could make some cute pom poms to hang from the ceiling fan. I'm going to move them into Sahara's room later today as permanent decorations for her.

October is such a big month with different charity events so as well as donating to the Breast Cancer Foundation I will also be donating 10% of my sales from the upcoming Mummas Fair to Stillbirth Foundation Australia. International Baby Loss Week was held 9th - 15th October this year.