Howling at the Moon

Just one more day until it's New Years Eve! I have to work the whole weekend (OR nurse), so I guess I'm pretty exhausted by the time the clock strikes twelve, but we will see. I made this Fire Rocket, designed by Lalylala.      Happy turn of the year to all of you!! Hope to see you next year!  ~*~ My handmade Christmas Cards were featured by Sew Can Do !  Thanks, Cheryl!

My recipe for a simplified   P e p p e r m i n t T r i f l e   (or you can use the original recipe ) What you need: Instant cake mix plus the ingredients mentioned on the package (normally butter, sugar and eggs). 600 grams cream cheese 100 grams peppermints, grinded to powder (if you can't find this you can use peppermint essence) 100 grams marshmallows 150 butter Peppermint candy canes for decoration Bake a cake with instant cake mix as indicated at the package. Add green food coloring until you think it has a nice deep green color. For the cream between the green layers and on top: Melt the marshmallows au bain marie. Mix with two tablespoons of water after melting.  While the marshmallows are melting mix the cream cheese with the butter. Then add the melted marshmallows and mix until smooth. Add the peppermint powder bit by bit to your own taste. I don't like it when the peppermint taste is very dominant, I want it to be subtile. ...

My favorite drink is coffee! Yours? I know I'm by far not the only one who can't start a day properly without a cup of coffee, or a 'bakkie troost' as people (especially older people) in The Netherlands call it, meaning 'a cup of comfort'. For my parents, as being a bit older people, I made two cups that I handlettered with a porcelain pencil. Both quotes are from songs. The first one is from a Dutch song and means 'Coffee, coffee, delicious cup of coffee', the second one is from a song by Dr. Hook, namely Cookie and Lila. Maybe you remember the post from last year , about going to Dublin with my father to go to a concert of Dr. Hook in the Olympia Theatre. I made this mug is as much for coffee as to remember that great trip. In a little jar I've put instant mix for Wiener Melange. I thought it would be a nice little Christmas present for coffee lovers. www.betweennapsontheporch.net

Every year my two little daughters have a Christmas Diner at school, for which parents (but most of the time you can fill in 'mothers' here) are supposed to make snacks, sweets, food, fruits or whatever eatable things you can think of in amounts of about fifteen to twenty for the class mates of your children. The teachers decorate the classes. The School Christmas diner takes place at the beginning of the evening. Light are dimmed, candles burn and the Christmas Trees twinkle in the class rooms and the home made food is displayed on large tables, so the children can walk past the tables and take whatever they like.  Every year it's a race against the clock to make the snacks and to dress my daughters nicely before the start of the Christmas Diner after I come from work, but I did it again! My oldest daughter loves sweets, sugar and chocolate, so she wanted me to make the Chocolate Candles that I saw just a couple of weeks ago at All that's Jas . I altered the r...

The last couple of years I didn't send Christmas Cards anymore, but my family and in laws are complaining more and more about the lack of Christmas wishes coming their way from our side, so this year I made cards for all members of the family 😏. ~*~ The Sinterklaas Cake that I made was featured by Sum of Their Stories ! Thank you, Julia! The Hot Cocoa Set was featured by Pattern Paradise ! Thank you, ladies! www.betweennapsontheporch.net

Now that I write this post, I realise I have a lot of deers this year for Christmas Decorations. This time it's a crocheted garland in white with cross stitched deers in gold. I found this idea here ~*~ My crocheted metamorphosis From Caterpillar to Butterfly was featured by Strawberry Butterscotch ! Thank you, Anna!

~ I love Pinterest and would like to make a recipe of my boards every week. Since I have lots of recipes pinned (that, until now, I just pinned and only that), I hope this will be a way to reduce the amount of pins on my boards ~ This week I made the Italian Biscottis with Cranberries and Pistachios , only I left the cranberries out. I didn't read the recipe very well and when I started preparations I saw there had to be dried cranberries in the cookies instead of fresh. The last time I used fresh cranberries wasn't very successful, so I thought it was best to keep them out and make a nice Christmas Garland from the fresh cranberries to brighten up our kitchen with some Christmas spirit.  So my biscottis only have pistachios in it, but they taste great anyway. Really great, if I may say so. But the best thing wasn't the taste, but the memories of Sicily they brought back. I think I will bake them again for Christmas, as a present for someone, but to make them...

This year we will celebrate Christmas Eve at my parents home. We already celebrated Sinterklaas with presents and sweets, so normally we don't give each other gifts for Christmas, but I thought it would be nice to give some small hand made things. For my sister and her boyfriend I made this Hot Cocoa Set. The (free) pattern for the sleeves I found here . The cocoa jar is a formerly vegetable jar that I handlettered first with a glass pencil, because little errors are easily wiped out, and then did again with white glass paint. www.betweennapsontheporch.net

My daughters had another vacation a couple of weeks ago, so we went to the zoo. A zoo that not only accomodates present-day animals but also offers a home to some (fake, of course) pre historic specimens.  Unfortunately my daughters only could visit the dino park together with their parents, because a dino egg that was on the edge of hatching was stolen by a nutty professor. His plan was to clone the dino that was inside to make a lot of money with it. After a lot of puzzle solving and searching our 'expedition' was lucky enough to find the egg and steal it back from the professor, but we heard his hysterical laugh in the forest all the time. It was not before we brought the egg back to the scientists that my youngest daughter could relax. Good job of the employees of the dino park, because apparantly it all seems very real for kids!       www.betweennapsontheporch.net

Now that Sinterklaas has left the country, setting sail back to Spain, all Sinterklaas decoration are gone and I've started decorating for Christmas (does it ever end?). I want to keep it simple, I don't like to overdo it when it comes to Christmas.  The first thing I made this morning, is the lantern with the 'car that brings home the tree' in it. Not original at all, I know, but I just like it so much! Christmas without a tree isn't really Christmas, after all. To bring home the tree and set it up in the house, is the start of Christmas. ~*~ My Sinterklaas Hot Chocolate was featured by Embracing Change , by Two Chicks and a Mom , and by The Cottage Market ! Thank you, Stacey, Sherry and Andrea! www.betweennapsontheporch.net

~ I love Pinterest and would like to make a recipe of my boards every week. Since I have lots of recipes pinned (that, until now, I just pinned and only that), I hope this will be a way to reduce the amount of pins on my boards ~   Last week I told you about the Spanish Tortilla and that I was looking forward to make it. When I'm at Menorca with my family, we eat tortilla a lot, so making a tortilla here at home, brings a lot of good memories.  The tortilla I made this week tasted exactly as I expected, so a big YES for this recipe ! So super delicious with some aioli! ~*~ For next week I've chosen this Biscotti Recipe with Cranberries and Pistachios , because I have a lot of cranberries left from a garland I made with them for one of our Christmas Trees. And because biscotti make me think of Sicily, where we went last year for a short vacation.

Tomorrow, the 6th of December, it's Sinterklaas's birthday, Sinterklaas being the thousands of years old bishop who's giving away presents and sweets for his birthday. Tonight his birthday will be celebrated by giving each other lots of presents (children believing it's the Saint who's giving the presents). In The Netherlands, where I live, Sinterklaas's birthday is celebrated extensively, especially by people with kids. Santaklaus doesn't play a big role in this country. Of course Christmas is celebrated, but here it has more to do with the birth of Christ than with Santaklaus. My daughters and their class first will welcome Sinterklaas at school this morning. The youngest kids will get presents, but the oldest had to make a 'surprise' in the last couple of weeks for someone in their class (chosen by drawing a name from a bucket full pieces of paper with the names of all children in class on it). The intention is to craft something around a li...

A month or two ago I was in a Lalylala flow and crocheted lots of her patterns, that I purchased on Etsy. After that I found The Velvet Acorn , another lovely Etsy store, and started knitting sweaters. But since a couple of weeks Lalylala has a book published and as it comes to crochet I think it's one of the cutest books ever seen. And really original. No pages full with amigurumi (although I do like a nice amigurumi every now and then), but a book full of crocheted bugs. So I had to start crocheting again. The first thing I made from the book was this butterfly! It's not just a butterfly, but the whole metamorphosis from egg to butterfly is worked out in patterns. Love it!  Basic pattern is the caterpillar and wings, egg, cocoon and hat with antennas are all adjustable.  Caterpillar in egg Caterpillar in cocoon before metamorphosis After metamorphosis: a beautiful Papilio ulysses !  ~*~ My story about Sinterklaas and the Hot C...