Macaroons!

Our Stitch group got together yesterday to have a Bake Off making French Macaroons.  It did turn into something quite chaotic with several batches being made at once, all with different colours and flavours being added.

The rest of the family did not seem to go a bundle on the electric whisks and shrieks of laughter that appeared to be emanating from the kitchen, but never mind.  We managed to produce these!

We made about 3000 of them, but it was these lucky 12 that were just the right consistency.  We followed a Lorraine Pascale recipe off the BBC Food website.  And there are enough ingredients left to have another attempt.  We did share them out between us, and I would have put a picture of the lovely ones I got to keep, but unfortunately, I ate them today before I switched on my camera.

Despite all their loveliness, macaroons are incredibly sticky.  I am still finding hot spots around my kitchen now...

Bird House

I have been planning working on a bird house for some time (especially since the Angie Hughes course I went on gave me several designs in a house shape that are crying out to be made into something).

So while it was still quiet over the Christmas period (children and husband happily playing with their new toys), I found a piece of pelmet vilene that had been sprayed previously with Ranger Adiorndack sprays and spruced it up a little.

Here is the finished article:

I am hoping to make a lot of them, all in different styles and then hang them up.  Here are a few other close-ups:

The inside is calico stamped with a Kanban stamp of a tree, from an Autumn range (Autumn Garden)

I have also painted my Tim Holtz Configuration Box with Gesso in the hope that I will be galvanised into action!