HOLIDAY PROJECTS 1. Snowglobes

I thought I would try and post some quick and easy holiday projects for kidlets. If your mini-creatives are anything like mine they will have an insatiable appetite for projects. Sometimes I feel like I am running from one room (with a dustpan and brush) to another to keep up with them and their trail of creative destruction!

Anyway, here is project number one and, depending on the chaos the rest of the week will bring, it may yet be the last!

This is such an easy project and fairly quick so it limits the boredom and the enevitable "Mum can you finish it for me while I watch Pokemon?"  Plus, and never to be underestimated, there is glitter involved!

Send the kidlets off to search for small cheap plastic toys, hopefully that should fill a good half an hour! While they are doing that, dig out some old empty jars that still have their lids. 

Using superglue or the equivalent and glue the toy onto the lid, then leave to dry for 24 hrs. 

 Then have the kidlets sprinkle some glitter and sequins into the jar.  Fill it to the top with water.  

Run a ring of glue on the inside of the lid and screw it back on.  Leave the right way up for another 24 hrs to harden.
I found the snow globes worked best if the toy almost filled the jar.  If they were too small they became lost with the distortion when the water was in.

The kidlets also painted some of the lids with acyrlic paint and sprinkled on more glitter.  You can never have too much!

A great way to use up those annoying toys lying around!

DISASTER!!!!!

It is very tempting when blogging to present a picture of perfection.  To fool people into thinking I have a magic touch and everything I do turns to gold, that I live in a perfectly designed house with kidlets always dressed beautifully and myself with never a hair out of place (ok everyone who knows me stop laughing now!).

I do want this blog to be inspirational and inspired but sometimes it is good to tell the truth.
 

Last week I had our  More Than A Mama Easter Fayre I was feeling fairly confident as I had been doing fayres for a year now and I think I know what I doing.

The week before I had another fayre and had made some french macarons.  Now I have a history with macarons, I think they look divine and have always wanted to have them on my stall.

This is what they should look like .

  Thanks to Melena for her gorgeous pictures. (She teaches classes on how to make them.)

I have made some in the past from Nigella's Domestic Goddess and while they have been very yummy they looked blobby and cracked.

So I tried another recipe, and another and another and another etc.....and finally thought I had cracked it.  I made a batch that had the 'foot' and kept their shape which was a little bit like a meringue and they didn't have the lovely glossy top but I thought I was close.

So the day before the fair I took my aged egg whites and whipped up two batches of macarons. They looked perfect on the trays I let them form a skin and put them in the oven.

After a little while I checked and they were losing their lovely colour and going brown so I took them out.

They did have lovely flat tops and a glossiness but I couldn't get them off the tray!  I tried cooking another tray for longer at a lower temperature but no matter what I did they were too goey and stuck.

ARRGGHHH!

I WILL crack them one day!........(or I just may crack first!)

Anyway after that I broke a cookie topper ready for a cake.  

Our internet went down for four days.

My oldest kidlet caught croup and we had to get the paramedics out and she has missed a week of school!  Finally in my frazzled state I was foolishly taking a picture of a cake while the kidlets were having lunch and 'tiny k' knocked her juice over which spilled straight onto the cake!

 Fortunately I managed to rescue it from disaster, and I am now starting to calm down and relax for Easter...ok yes I have also had a great big Barcadi and Coke (it's all we had in!) and some of the kidlets Easter chocolate (I will replace it).

Anyway hopefully with more time now I can post some  beautiful things and fool you into imagining my 'perfect' life again.

(Look away now!)