Howling at the Moon

As told in the post about Gisele Gazelle , I have quite a lot of colleagues who are about to deliver or already did, so I'm busy making baby presents at the moment. Something I have on my Baby Presents DIY Pinterest Board for some time now, is this Woodland Animals Garland, a combination of crochet and cross stitch. Since one of the before mentioned colleagues delivered a boy last week, I thought this would be a nice present.  I found this idea here . The pin refers to a blog called The Fox in the Attic , but the link does not longer exist.

Last weekend we celebrated my youngest daughter's birthday for family and friends and this week her own friends from school will come over for a little party. As told it's unicorns all over this year and because most of the festivities will take place in the kitchen, I tried my best to draw a nice unicorn on the black board that we have on the kitchen door.  ~*~ My Unicorn Pinata , also made for the party, is featured by Scrapality and Creative Jewish Mom this week! Thanks, Andrea and Sara!

  ~Since I pinned lots of recipes on my Pinterest boards through the years, but never made anything from the pinned items, I've set myself a goal to try one recipe per week to reduce the overload~ The Cheese Croquettes were on my list this week. It's a bit of a mess to make them, as it is with all food you have to coat with breadcrumbs, but the result is heavenly! In the recipe the cook also adds jalapeños, but unfortunately my supermarket was out of supplies. I'm sure they would have tasted even better with the  jalapeños! But this recipe is a keeper, so there's no doubt I will make this croquettes again and then with all the ingredients. ~*~ The  next on my list will be the Black Bean Vegan Enchiladas . My family loves Mexican food, so almost every Mexican recipe is an instant hit in my house. I hope they also enjoy it without meat in it. Since I'm the only vegetarian in our household, I'm cooking different dishes half of the time, meaning my...

There's taking place another round of delivering colleagues at my job and for some of them I'm busy making a little present. The first one is for a baby girl. It's a gazelle that I named Gis èle , the third pattern I made from the book Pica Pau by Yan Schenkel.   ~*~ The Donkey with poncho (also made from the above mentioned book) was featured by Creative Jewish Mom and by Nifty Thrify Things ! Thanks, Sara and Vanessa!

This week my youngest had her 8th birthday. It was on a school day, so besides unwrapping presents we didn't much yet, but this weekend we will celebrate for family. Next week her own friends from school will come over. Normally we go somewhere, a zoo, a swimming pool, a theme park or whatever, but this year my daughter wanted to stay at home and play Bingo. It's something they do sometimes at the after school childcare service and apparently she loves it so much she finds it party worthy. I bought little presents to win, most of them having something to do with unicorns, because unicorns are it in our house at the moment, enough for everyone to don't go home empty handed.  Besides the bingo to fill up the hours, I made a pi ñ ata. A unicorn pi ñ ata of course.  ~*~ The Unicorn that I crocheted for my daughter's birthday was featured by Strawberry Butterscotch , by Sew Can Do and by Creative Jewish Mom! Thank you very much, Anna, Cheryl and Sara...

~Since I pinned lots of recipes on my Pinterest boards through the years, but never made anything from the pinned items, I've set myself a goal to try one recipe per week to reduce the overload~ Last week I made the delicious Stroopwafel Cake, that was gone in less than an hour (no, not only because of me) and let you know that I would make French Onion Soup this week. Well, I did.  I still remember the first time I ate onion soup. The name by itself didn't make me particular enthusiastic, but I was eating out with my parents while we were on vacation on Menorca and they pushed me a bit to try the soup, because they tried it before and were quite lyric about it. So I couldn't say no. Glad I didn't, because I'm a onion soup fan ever since.  I didn't follow the recipe exactly, because after making onion soup a lots of times, I know what I like and what not, but it's a good basic recipe.  Instead of four yellow onions, I used: 2 yellow oni...

From the Beetles, Bugs and Butterflies book by Lalylala I made this snail. I don't like snails at all, especially the naked ones, but this one has a house and the house is what made me give in!

After making the Unicorn for my daughters birthday, I wanted to make more from the Pica Pau book by Yan Schenkel . Because I'm a lover of donkeys and once in my life hope to owe one (I think they're so hilarious and beautiful at the same time) I chose the donkey.  I love his little Mexican poncho!    Beneath the poncho he's wearing a tough striped shirt! But the best part of this donkey is his tail!

Finally everything is back to normal; husband to work, children to school. The days I'm normally off from work, the house is mine and mine alone again. I can clean, bake, crochet, whatever I want without people getting in my way or making a mess of what I just cleaned up. So this is also the week I can pick up the Made It item on my blog again. I pinned lots of recipes on my Pinterest boards through the years, but never made anything from it, so I set it as a goal to try one recipe per week to reduce the overload. First one of the year is this Stroopwafel Cake (find the original recipe here ), stroopwafel being a dutch treat made of two thin waffles with cane sugar syrup between it.  Instead of the ingredients in the recipe I used an instant cake mix (only add butter, eggs and a bit of milk). I teared the stroopwafels to pieces and mixed half of it through the batter. After baking the cake I put the rest of the waffles on top of the cake and fixed them with sugar...

As told last week my youngest daughter is about to turn 8, so the upcoming weeks I'm busy with making a lot of birthday related stuff. She chose the not so original unicorn theme, but original or not I love to make all things unicorn.  There's always at least one birthday present that I like to make myself and fortunately there's a lovely unicorn pattern in the  Pica Pau book by Yan Schenkel that I ordered a couple of weeks ago.  So cute, don't you think?! ~*~ The Reindeer Garland that I crocheted for Christmas was featured by Pattern Paradise !  Thanks, ladies!

In just couple of weeks my youngest girl will be turning 8! While she normally is quite original in choosing a theme for her birthday (the Angler Fish from last year for example), this year it has to be unicorns. The upside from this theme is that inspiration is everywhere. To not duplicate someone else's idea is impossible. Finding the original source is also undoable, so excuse me for not naming the one who came up with this idea in the first place.  ~*~ The Sinterklaas Hot Chocolate that I made last month was featured at the monthly party from Shanice at City of Creative Dreams ! Thank you very much, Shanice! The Fire Rocket that I made for New Years Eve was featured by Nifty Thrifty Things !    Thank you, Vanessa!

First post in the new year, so let's start by wishing you all a great 2018, with lots of love and health, because what are you without those two? Cheers! Pattern by Lalylala's Four Seasons New Year's Eve www.betweennapsontheporch.net