Post Tagged with: "christmas"

mini gingerbread houses

mini gingerbread houses

When I arrived in Edmonton I was super keen. I had been scrambling to pack up in Toronto, so I hadn’t had much time to craft or to bake. I already told you about my fun Christmas gift wrap, and all the other crazy things we got up to over the holidays, but I only mentioned the gingerbread in passing. And here is what I did.

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Yes friends, I finally did it. The mini gingerbread houses from Not Martha. I’ve mentioned before that my baking leaves something to be desired, so I have to admit I was a bit nervous in undertaking this project. This isn’t just baking, this is BAKING PLUS ARCHITECTURE.

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I actually baked one batch of houses on one day and then two more batchs the following day. The second day’s gingerbread houses worked a bit better. Not Martha wagers this is because the baking powder has lost some of its mojo, and I tend to agree.

So, I used the Not Martha pattern, the Martha Stewart gingerbread snowflake recipe, and the Martha Stewart royal icing recipe. If you are crazy enough to want to try this next year (or in two years), here are some things I learned in the process:

  1. Roll out your dough onto tinfoil, cut out your houses and remove the excess bits leaving the houses behind. Then put that tinfoil onto a baking pan. Simple!
  2. Make lots and lots of paper patterns. This speeds up the process. A lot.
  3. Use a dollar store pizza cutter to cut.
  4. Line up all your pieces in lines, this speeds up the process. A lot.
  5. Cool your dough. Cool it before you roll it out and cool it before you bake it. This makes your houses not spread when baking and keeps your doors big enough and your pieces fitting together.
  6. Bake all your pieces for each house in one batch.
  7. If you aren’t going to actually perch your houses on mugs, you might not want to go to the trouble of cutting out the little doors. The mug aspect is a bit of a novelty.
  8. The actual constructing of the houses takes patience. Lots and lots of patience.
  9. Seriously. Lots of patience.
  10. You can buy meringue powder in the bulk section of the bulk barn. This can save you big bucks.
  11. Royal icing is like glue. You just need to wait a few minutes.
  12. Get friends to decorate. It’s FUN! I had the hubs, my mom, my dad, my brother and his partner. It was belly bursting!
  13. The gingerbread recipe made enough dough for 30 mini houses (at 1/8″) and two 8″ snowflakes (at 1/4″), sorry no pictures, the snowflake was delicious.
  14. You could probably use about 1/3 of the royal icing recipe and have enough!

In the end, they were super cute. Would I do it again? I don’t know. Ask me when turn into crazy Christmas Al again next year!

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December 30, 2011 0 comments Read More
christmas break

christmas break

First off, hello friends! Sorry I was on such a long blogcation. I really did intend to post more once the blogcation was technically over last week, but somehow the Christmas season took over and I didn’t get two seconds to breath until today!

As I previously mentioned, we packed up our apartment and sent our stuff into storage on December 15th. We stayed in Toronto on the night of the 15th and attended the hubs’ work party. It was a swanky affair and a super opportunity to say “see you later” to lots of friends.

On the 16th, we flew to Edmonton where my mom picked us up. The night of the 16th was our friends’ annual Mexican Christmas party, complete with delicious food (I spent Friday afternoon pulling a pork), margaritas, a pinata, and … mulled wine … ok, the mulled wine was for the outside part of the evening!

The 17th was full of errands, finishing up some photography work before the holidays, and spending some quality time with my parents. Then on the 18th we drove to Lloydminster, where we spent two wonderful days with one of my closest friends – and perfectly amazing new mom – and her husband and new baby Cole. Cole looks cute on me, hey?

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We drove home on the evening of the 19th to dinner with another of my closest friends’ and bridesmaids, on the 20th my brother and his partner arrived from Australia, the 21st was another dinner with an old friend and the 22nd was spent scrambling to get ready for Christmas at the cabin.

Christmas at the cabin has been a Pelensky family tradition since the cabin was winterized when I was in high school. This year, there were 23 of us in attendance (including four kids). We had our “Christmas” dinner on the 23rd, a tapas party on the 24th, and Christmas morning on the 25th. I was the luckiest one and got to snuggle with my sleepy five year old niece (technically second cousin) for 10 minutes before she got to go upstairs to see what Santa brought her.

After the morning madness, we all went out for a family portrait, since my brother lives in Australia and I live in Toronto, we haven’t done that in years.

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Then we got our annual family photo, the first one is cute… but boring… the second one has the “wow” factor we look for every year!

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With a backdrop like that, the hubs and I needed to take our own picture, but unfortunately, it turned into somewhat of an axe fight.

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And I also snapped some shots of my grandparents.

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Christmas was a beautiful day this year, so before the hubs’ birthday dinner we went down to the lake to make a snowman and to play some “water” sports. Yes, that is my cousins kneeboarding behind a John Deere Gator on the frozen lake.

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We had an almost delicious (but burnt) birthday dinner for the hubs, complete with a suprise DQ Skor Blizzard Cake on the 25th and the 26th was a cleaning blitz in the morning, followed by Christmas dinner with my mom’s side of the family in the evening.

Today, I spent the morning cleaning and unpacking (the hubs and I like to joke that we are living in my parents’ basement) and then my mom and I hit some after-Christmas sales for some new greige and coppery-browny glass Christmas ornaments for her home next year. I just got home and am catching

All in all a wonderful, wonderful 12 days. As you might imagine, I’m just beginning to catch my breath and hope to start a more regular posting scheudle soon.

Things might get a bit shaken up around here soon… here is my tentative schedule for the next three months:

Dec 31: Fly to Palm Springs CA
Jan 3: Fly to Buenos Aires
Jan 5 – 10: Shoot a wedding in Punta del Este, Uruguay and visit Colonia, Uruguay.
Jan 10: Move into Buenos Aires apartment
Jan 15, or so: Try to get last minute cruise (11 to 14 days) to Antarctica
Feb 13: Mom arrives for 1 week in Buenos Aires.

So, it’s going to be crazy up in here for the next little while!

December 27, 2011 0 comments Read More
wrapping

wrapping

I’m back!  The move went as well as could have been hoped for and we’ve been buzzing around Edmonton and Lloydminster at about a million miles an hour!  Things will be pretty light around the blog for the next couple of weeks, but today I want to talk about this year’s wrapping.  I’m obsessed with it.  Kraft paper, hand made felt flowers, salt dough gift tags and string.  All inspired by pinterest.

 

I love this time of year.

Inspiration & tutorials:

  • Wrapping here
  • Gift tag here
  • Flower 1 (felt poinsetta) here
  • Flower 2 here
  • Flower 3 my brain – based loosely on flower 4 (rather than cutting out five flower shapes, print out four circles and then follow the instructions).
  • Flower 4 here

Tomorrow (or maybe Christmas Eve’s) craft is the tiny gingerbread houses by not martha.  I’ve got thirty baked but as yet unassembled tiny houses sitting in my mom’s kitchen just waiting to be made!

Merry Christmas friends!

December 22, 2011 0 comments Read More