A Brand New Year

Hello 2016! I hope this is a year filled with lots of playing, painting, patience and perseverance! 

This past year was also filled with Hellos! Hello to little Roger, hello to a brand new house for Jane and family, hello to golf (although this particular hello was more like a re-introduction), hello to new friends, and hello to blogging.

A new year gives us the opportunity to reflect and make improvements and changes in whatever is important to ourselves and hopefully this can transfer to a whole host of fantastic outcomes in our lives. 

My list of improvements are always long; hopefully I will say hello to a healthier new me! This includes lots of painting, yoga, walking, making new friends and caring for those friends who make everyday special for me. Laugh, love and live! My new mantra.

Until next time...happy creating 

Nadine

Merry Christmas

I hope your day is filled with joy, love and peace!

My next post will be in 2016!

Until next time...happy creating

Nadine

Frosting Success

Apart from creating a Christmas card (or in reality, hasty note cards), I wanted to decorate sugar cookies with panache.

After many past disasters that I didn't want to repeat, I did some research on the Internet. Here is what I discovered.....

First step, bake some yummy sugar cookies...I wanted a simple design, I chose the snowflake, a nice simple easy decoration because each cookie can be different. 

I wanted to use a frosting without eggs and that would also dry and harden with a nice shine. 

The frosting recipe is

1/4 cup warm water

1 teaspoon of almond extract

2 tablespoons of light corn syrup

3 cups of icing sugar

Mix all together until desired consistency. Then I divided the icing up into tightly sealed containers.

Second step, to outline the cookies with frosting. I chose a soft pastel blue..I had the little ones in mind with the theme from Frozen. They are going to love them!

Third step, is to float that same colour of pale blue in the centre of each cookie. I added a little bit of water that would allow the icing to float. I tried spooning the icing in and spreading it around to cover the entire centre of the cookie evenly. Not so easy and very messy, I was getting icing everywhere! So I took some advice from the Internet, I can't remember the site now, but one post suggested using a squeeze bottle....Yes, in a controlled fashion I could float the icing into every cookie, evenly, without any waste or icing drips all over the table.

I let this dry hard, overnight before continuing. 

Fourth step, make this design into a snowflake and so pretty to look at.

So I used the plain white, but the first couple of cookies were too thin, so I thicken the icing up, but it was too thick and I couldn't get the icing out of the icing bag. Back to adding a touch more water

And voila, I had the right consistency. Here is the photo of the finished snowflake cookies, I think the girls are going to love eating them right up!

Although there were lots of steps, letting each step harden is the secret to a successful outcome.

Next cookie holiday is Valentine's...I can't wait...

Until next time...happy creating

Nadine

No Posts This Week

As my middle grandchild would say, "I'm a little bit sick, Nana"; as a result I've not been up to feeling well enough to create any thing at all this week.

Hopefully, I'll be feeling more like my old self for a creative post next week.

Until next time....happy creating

Nadine

Nana's Little Helper

One thing I learned when visiting my grandchildren last week was, if they see you being creative they catch the "creative bug" as well.

So I present my oldest granddaughter's masterpiece and mine....she just loves sparkly markers....

Until next time...happy creating

Nadine

Children and the Magic of Christmas

I just had one of the best weekends with my grandchildren. Well that's not totally true because I have had many. However, this weekend was so enjoyable because the Christmas season really got underway. I was there to witness and participate in all the excitement, wonderment and joy. We strung outdoor lights in the rain, decorated a gingerbread house watched Christmas movies and had a tree trimming party with very fancy dresses. This will be the first Christmas in their new house, the baby's first Christmas and how the magic of the season brings pure joy and awe in a five and three year old.

This weekend was better than I expected and I was so happy to be a part of the celebration. Now I don't feel so bad about missing Christmas Day...it's impossible to arrive early enough to witness "Santa's generosity" anyway!

Until next time....happy creating

Nadine