Stolen Jeffy's (Homemade Salted Twix)

Last week I attempted to make Homemade Twix for the first time.

They were super easy and delicious. For my first try I kept things simple. Shortbread biscuits, a can of Caramel top n fill, rock salt and chocolate melts.

Lay out the biscuits on a baking tray, spread the caramel over the top, sprinkle rock salt (optional...but delicious), refrigerate overnight, cut up, coat in chocolate and consume.

In our house when we make something that we know we'll make again we give it a special name for future reference. These were renamed 'Stolen Jeffy's' due to a story which has been told in the Carter family long before I was around about a twix bar which belonged to my father in law. It was consumed by someone else in the house and no one ever owned up to it. To this day you cannot mention Twix without Jeffy ranting about his stolen one. 

BJ felt the name was very appropriate. 

Everyone seemed to enjoy them... Except for my niece Kaia who said 'They don't taste as good as they look'. Thanks Kaia.

'Perfectly Salted' - BJ Carter

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2012 So Far

I've had a very busy year so far and right now i am officially on holidays for a WHOLE week.

On top of maintaining (and recently re-designing) this blog, my partner and I have bought a house, moved out of our family homes and started living on our own for the first time. I also work a full time job. My title (recently self-promoted) is Office Administrator. I do SOO much in my office, most offices would hire two or three to do the work I do. This puts a lot of pressure and strain on me daily and to finally have a small break to collect myself and focus on some other things is something I'm so excited about. 

This post is to just re-visit some of the things i've created and worked on this year so far. I'm really happy with how things are going. I feel like I'm improving in my blogging skills and I plan to spend some time this week in my craft room, getting inspired and creative.

xx

Smorgy

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Wedding Outfit

This Saturday BJ and I went to our friend Bianca from Blush Loves Mint beautiful wedding in her Belgrave backyard.

The weather was surprisingly lovely considering how miserable it's been lately. 

I rushed out and bought a dress last minute and threw together a really cute outfit for the occasion.
BJ scrubbed up pretty nicely as well. I've tried this dress on 3 times, but this time it was on sale - Dress Win!! It was super flattering and comfortable as well. 

Megan: Dress from Dangerfield, Tights & Cardigan from Kmart, Ankle Boots from Spendless Shoes, and Sunnies from Rubi. Everything was also bought on sale :)

Bianca did an amazing job decorating. There was a delicious Candy Buffet (which included some of my favourite candies), beautiful cheeses and dips scattered around, flowered everywhere and these amazing turkish glasses laid out for guests to fill with her homemade soft drinks.

On top of all that, the marquee was covered in white and cream pom poms, giant white balloons and two amazing black chandlers which i just wanted to steal!!

Bianca was happy for me to share a few snap shots that BJ and I took of the decorations and tables. Look at how beautiful it looked.

Congratulations to Bianca and Patrick and a Happy 1st Birthday to their daughter Ruby. It was a lovely day and heres to many more. 

xx

Smorgy

PS: I ate waaay to much candy :)

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Decorations

For Kaia's 6th Birthday I made some decorations for the celebration. Some cute tissue paper pom poms and an adorable flag bunting for the cake. (I also baked the cake). Kaia was most excited when I told her she could take the pom poms home and hang them in her room.

xx
Smorgy

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Homemade 6th Birthday Present

Last week my niece Kaia had her 6th birthday. Normally I have a plan well ahead of time of what I want to do for peoples birthday presents but since we bought the house I've been a bit stuck coming up with ideas.

I love making presents but what can you make a 6 year old and have them get the enjoyment out of it as they would any other birthday present.

Over the years I've made LOT'S of presents: Scrapbooks, art, figurines, jewelry, food etc but this birthday was hard.

And then it came to me.... I knew exactly what to make her and have her love it.

I made Kaia her own personalised game of Memory.

Kaia LOVES playing Memory and I knew this would be a hit. 

I picked out 12 photos of her - Fun memories like our family trip to the zoo, her weekend with George (the class teddy bear), Cooking with BJ, her first day of school and Meeting Santa.

I designed a cute little back for the cards and laminated them all so they last.

Packaged them all in a cute box I've been holding on to for years and with some alphabet stickers 'Kaia's Memory Game' was complete.

She liked them soo much that i plan to make her two more sets - One for at Aunty Megan's house and one for at Nana's so she'll always have them on hand to play. (Oh and just so you know that's not ALL that i gave her for the big 6).

Coming soon... Homemade party decorations

xx

Smorgy

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Fork This 42 - Homemade Chips

On this weeks episode of Fork This BJ and I made homemade chips using this crazy little Japanese thing I found on ebay.

xx
Smorgy Pin It

Fork This 41 - I Announce This Cake...

This weeks Fork This I attempted to not only make my first batch of homemade ice cream but my first ice cream cake. I'm soo happy with the final result even after a few hiccups along the way.

Watch and see what the family thinks of my ice cream cake.

Fork This 41 - I Announce This Cake... from BJ Carter on Vimeo.


xx
Smorgy Pin It

Homemade Christmas Hampers

Because BJ and I have just purchased a house we did Christmas on the cheap side and decided to make all our siblings homemade hampers with lot's of tasty treats inside.

We decided to make lollipops (Which we didn't burn this time), coloured popcorn, coconut balls (With coloured coconut), gingerbread (Snails, squirrels, hedgehogs - You know, the usual thing) and candy cane meringues... plus we included an invited to dinner at our house and a heap of chocolates.

Coloured Coconut

Mustache Lollipops

Coloured Popcorn

As a lot of the stuff we decided to make doesn't really have a long shelf live we were literally cooking our arses off Christmas Eve to get it all finished... AND then i still had to put the hampers together and make them all look pretty.

I had this little cardboard boxes in amongst my craft supplies which i used, lined them with some of the brown packing paper we used to wrap our other presents, stamped them to look all pretty and then filled the box with the goodies.

Of course we did post a Fork This episode about this which you can watch here.

Here are some close up photos of the finished hampers

 xx
Smorgy

PS: I love this photo

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Homemade Wrapping

This year BJ and I decided to save money we'd make a lot of our own gifts (Blog about that coming soon) and we made our own wrapping paper and gift tags also.

I had a roll of brown packing paper and an idea. I carved some awesome stamps of Christmas trees and holly and BJ designed some beautiful gift tags with a very 50's feel to them.

We stamped the hell out of the paper, tied them up with some twine and attached the tag. They looked fantastic. I'm soo happy with how they all turned out and I will continue to use this style of wrapping, Making different tags and stamps to suit the theme of the gift.

Here are some photos of the gifts.. Let me know what you think

xx
Smorgy Pin It

Fork This - Episode 31

Merry Christmas from Fork This.

BJ and I did homemade gifts this year for our siblings which included lot's of delicious treats.

Episode 31 - Merry Everyone from BJ Carter on Vimeo.


xx
Smorgy Pin It

Fork This - Episode 13

New episode for Fork This. BJ and I make Pumpkin Pie... BJ and I first had pumpkin pie in Wisconsin in October 2008 after a delicious Faux-giving dinner with friends. We've wanted to make it since but just never got around to it. A couple of episodes back we found an imported can of American Pumpkin Pie filling and HAD to buy it.  It was absolutely delicious and we will definately be making this as a regular dessert in our home.



Fork This - 013 from BJ Carter on Vimeo.


xx
Smorgy Pin It

Just a quickie

I've not felt motivated at all to do any crafting. Finding it hard to find the time when i am motivated.

Went away on a 10 day cruise which i will blog about soon i promise.

But just to give myself some presence on my blog, here are some photos of the last lot of resin pieces i made last year.
They aren't great - The pieces or the photos. But resin takes practice. 

 

Blue sparkly Skull

 

Clear Gun

 

Clear Space Invaders

More pics can be found on my facebook page

xx

Smorgy

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Shrink Plastic

I've found a new favourite craft.

Shrink Plastic.

I have had a few goes of it and have come up with some awesome pieces of jewelry.

I've uploaded some photos to flickr and facebook for everyone to see. They wont be available on my website until the end of September as i and going oversea's for a month.

I have a few more photos to put up of some really special pieces i made but i can't just yet as they are presents for some friends.

Let me know what you think.

xx

Smorgy

 

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More Resin Fun

I spent my Sunday messing around with some ideas and trying something's I'd never done before. 

Here's what i came up with:

 For more pictures and descriptions please go to  My Silhouettes Of Knights Facebook Page

xx

Smorgy Pin It

Resin Course

I had an awesome weekend, let me tell you.

As some of you know i had a bit of trouble with my resin when i first started using it. I was getting a LOT of bubbles and really wasn't happy with my finished products. So this Saturday i went out to Richmond and dis a Resin Jewelry course to see if i was doing something wrong or if i just got a bad batch. 

I came out of the course with a beautiful matching ring and cuff bracelet set. And a not soo beautiful one. hehehheee.

My Success!

      

My Failure!

The successful one came out as a shimmery copper colour. I think it is just stunning. 

The failure. Was ment to be a transparent orange with black wire embedded inside. With others on the day having complications also, we decided the failure was due to a bad batch of resin. Which is a shame because it would have been super cool.

I bought some more supplies whilst there. More colours and I have a heap of ideas to test out. 

I'm going to make some different molds and have a play with colours and embedding and ill see what i can come up with.

I would love you know what you think of the bangle and ring styles in my pictures. The Copper one is a cuff, with a square top ring, the reject is a unusual shape with a ripple around the outside of it, and a square ring which waves in and out.

xx

Smorgy

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