Muffin Heaven

The way to anyones heart in this family is through a muffin and especially a chocolate one so I thought I would share what I think to be the best ever chocolate muffin recipe. 5 minutes earlier there were 24 muffins. I grabbed these for a photo before they disappeared as well.

Best Ever Chocolate Muffins

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1 cup (220g) sugar

1 cup (110g) flour

8 tablespooons cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 teaspoon vanilla esence

2/3 cup (160ml) milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

4 oz (120g) chocolate chips (optional)

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 deg F (gas mark 4 or 180 deg C).

Grease muffin tin. (6 XL muffins (paper cups recomended), 12-15 medium and 24 mini)

Best the eggs with the sugar, mix with the four, cocoa powder, baking powder, vanilla and milk.

Fold in the oil

Add chocolate chip; coat them in flour before mixing into the batter.

Bake at 350 degrees until a wooden pick inserted in the centre comes out clean and they spring back lightly when touched. ( approx 30 mins for XL muffins, 20 for medium and 15 for mini)

Serve Hot or cold. Sprinkle with icing sugar.

( hot with cream is our favourite)

Thud!

Well the roll certainly ended with a thud today!.

I had this long list of things to get done today and the only thing I did get done from the list was changing the sheets on all the beds to cosy flanalette to try and combat these cold nights that have hit us all of a sudden.

I wanted to try a reverse applique elephant on a top for Mia and also make her a semi matching skirt from the left over 'underneath' fabric and the also get a start on the wheat bag bears and more hats for the market on the weekend. Oh well - it just gets bumped to tomorrow's list.

I did however manage to get 2 new pairs of earings made and listed in my shop on madeit. Plus edit the shop front banners/logos, profiles etc to show the correct business name of "me" not the one I originally wanted "me2".

  
Must get off to bed now as I promised everyone I would have at least one night this week where I am alseep before midnight -well at least I will be in bed, if not asleep. Yet another thing to bump it to tomorrow's list.

On a Roll

Bouyed on by the wonderful responses I received for my Zipper delights made last night and a lovely belated Mothers Day lunch with my mother, sister (oddsocks) and my very own energiser bunny Mia, I decided that I would give a T-shirt re-fashion project a go. I wanted to experiment with more zipper ideas that are running around in my head, but ran out of hot glue :(
Sarah has wanted one of my new t-shirts with gathered sleeves etc since I bought it and as she will not be getting it any time soon I thought I would try one of the fashion upcycles that I have seen on many lovely blogs for turning old Dad t-shirts into kids clothes.
Well I think it worked out very well. 

From this.......

To this.......

The ruffles may not stay yet - not sure if Sarah will like them but wanted to see what they would look like and if I could make decent ruffles.

Coffee Cozy Hit

I am so excited - A cafe owner approached one of my customers to ask where she got her cup cozy and where could she (the cafe) get her hands on some. Yay!

I know it should not be that exciting as all the Mumasupial products have been in stores for years but I have been the salesman for a lot of these. It is nice when sales come to you especially when totally unexpected.

The aforementioned coffee cozy's made from crazy felt and vintage buttons..... Keep your brew hot and your hands not!

I need some better photos me thinks. Cant really see all the amazing threads that have been incorporated into the felt...Hmmm, already planning the 'shoot' in my head. Pity sleep needs to come first.

Normal Life Returns - But With New Crafting Thrown In!

Well today life returns to normal and after school drop off, cleaning, toddler wrestling, food shopping ( and then the putting away) school pickups and then cooking 2 separate versions of pasta for dinner ( Spag Bol for the kids and Tomato and Chilli Mussel Linguine for us) I did not feel like sorting and ironing the washing.

So instead I made friends with my glue gun and created some brooches for my mum to choose from as part of her mothers day present.

and then some earings for my sister ( Odd Socks) and I.

and then cos I had a couple of ring bases lying around  - a couple of rings.

This one ( red ) actually has a pattern in it that did not come up in the photo.

I could defrinately get into the habbit of making these and it is nice to do something that I can wear rather than always making things for children.

Only stopped tonight as I ran out of hot glue sticks. - bummer!

Mothers Day

What a wonderful Mothers Day it has been. I am a very lucky Mum. A good morning cuddle with my girls before heading off to the market for a day of good sales and happy people. Mothers Day markets see a lot more fathers and husbands walking around a little less reluctantly and add a perfect autumn day like today and it couldn't get much better.

Ariving home I was met by two girls eager for me to sit down and see what they had made.

First was Sarah with her beautiful card that she had made and a teatowel that the school had created with all the childrens faces drawn by themselves. Her wonderful mosaic mirror will come next week as the grouting hadn't dried by end of class on Friday. The perfect way to extend Mothers Day past one day.

 

 

 

Then there was Mia's card that Sarah had printed and glued for her to colour in.
Aparently the wording on the envelope says "Dear Mum, I love you. Love from Mia", and the inside of the card says "Dear Mum, Happy  Mothers Day. Love from Mia".

 

 Then came the chocolates and other goodies and the most appropriate commercial card I have seen. ( Mia always asks for peanut butter sandwiches, Sarah can never find socks and both think they need a bandaid a lot more than they actually do)

On opening the card fully you hear two voices call out "Mum, Mummy etc" in unison, just like I hear everyday.

Thank you to my 2 favourite girls for a perfect day!

Some order needed.

I think I am going to have to get ( or make if I'm not too lazy) some recipe cards and a holder. At the moment I write or print all my recipes out and keep them together with a bulldog clip. Up until now this has been fine but my charming 2 1/2 yr old decided yesterday that if you turn them over they are great pages for drawing. If she has used pencils this would be fine maybe even cute, but instead she found my permanent marker used for mailing labels and coloured in not only the recipe backs but also the kitchen chair! Now to find a way of getting permanent marker out of fabric chairs - ho hum.

Something like this by 1canoe2  would be nice......

Zippers, Zippers everywhere!

I love zippers!

Thanks to a lot of late night surfing I have come up with a new obsession and finally one that I can wear. It is nice to get away from Slings and other baby related things sometime.

Inspired by WheelerWillisJewelry and Amalia Versaci and with help from tutorials like the lovely Zipper Flower TUTORIAL on Craftaholics Anonymous I am now making friends with my hot glue gun and watching wonderful things create themselves.

Some of my inspirations....