Garden Improvements - New flowerbeds

And once again weeks have gone past without me putting anything new on here... ;-)

Just a quick one this morning to show the new flowerbeds that we've built in our courtyard.
For those of you that know me personally, you know that I love gardening, especially vegetable and flower gardening. Now one of the frustrations of our new house is the lack of space for me to practice this hobby (although we are taking steps to rectify this - more later)

Our barn has got a lovely (rather large) courtyard at the front, and there were two little flowerbeds/planters, that the previous owners dumped a bunch of plants into, and then left them to it :(. A real mismatch!

Last year I ripped out all these neglected plants out of the one and planted some vegetables. Not many though as they were only 1.1m x 1.1m, and there is only so much you could do with such little space.

Below are a couple of photos:

This is the one with a few veggies from last year..





and this was the other one (I started removing some of the plants by the time these photos were taken)





So in March, after realising that our plans to enlarge our estate ;-) wasn't going to happen anytime soon (councils being councils), we decided to do something to these flowerbeds to give me more space.

It took us (mostly Adam) 2 whole weekends to dig out, demolish, rebuild and fill back in. And here are some evidence of the process.
(Believe me, he did not take kindly to me photographing him working!)





We even had to get a man with a truck to come and deliver more soil, as the soil and compost we had which we thought will be "more than enough", clearly wasn't.



So here are some images of the finished beds, and believe me, it was such a treat to get stuck into planning and planting them, considering they were more than twice the size of the old ones.
(dimensions 1.4m x 2.8m)





PS: I'd just like to say thank you soooo much to Adam for all the hard work and for caring about what would make me happy!
PPS: I'd also just like to make sure that you are all aware that I DID actually do some shoveling and other hard work too, although it's not very clear from the description above! ;-)

My new speciality - Banana Muffins

I LOOOOOOOVE Banana Bread!!! No, I don't think you completely understand, I really really really LOOOOOOOVE Banana Bread. I grew up with my mother serving it as a treat/snack after church on a Sunday morning with a cup of Rooibos (Redbush) Tea.

Now, I've been making Banana Bread for years now, and I always make a couple extra as they freeze so well, and there is nothing more satisfying than to quickly whip one out when guests drop in unexpectedly.

A couple of months ago we had some people stay over on a weekend (I forget who though ;-) ), and I decided to make some banana bread muffins for breakfast. They are so quick and easy to make and they always get a wonderful reception. It also gets people out of bed, as the smell coming from the oven while they are baking is DEVINE!!

To these breakfast muffins I now add a couple of handfulls of scrunched up Shreddies to give them an extra dimension. (I'm sure branflakes, or other similar cereals would work just as well)

So these muffins have now become a standard breakfast feature whenever we've got people staying over. So if you want to taste them you've either got to make them yourself (see recipy below) or you've got to come and visit ;-)

xx




Recipy:

125ml Butter
250ml Sugar
5ml Vanilla
2 Eggs
500ml Selfraising Flour
10ml Baking Powder
2.5ml Salt
4-6 Bananas (Over ripe are ideal)

Optional: a couple of handfulls of Shreddies or similar


Prepare Muffin tray
Oven 180 degrees Celcius
Mix butter and sugar until creamy, then add the vanilla
Add eggs one by one and mix well
Add dry ingredients to the egg mixture
Mash up bananas with a fork and add to mixture
(Scrunch up Shreddies and add)
Spoon into muffin tray and bake for 15-20 minutes

Serve slightly warm and spread with butter/margarine.



PS: These muffins tastes even better after a day or two in a cake tin. It is as if the mature, so no reason why you can't make them in advance and just warm them up for 20 seconds in the microwave before serving ;-)

PSS: As I said above, they freeze really well, so I normally put some away in the freezer in ziplock freezer bags ;-)

Crochet Blanket - waveytastic!!

After I finished my sister's blanket (linkie here) and the whole moving house thing was completed, I found myself at a loss for things to do with my hands in the evening in front of the television.

I wanted to crochet something else, but had no idea what I wanted to do and had no specific project in mind. It just had to be something I could do while watching television.

Once again I went trawling on some of the crochet/knitting websites and pretty soon I found a pattern that I really liked. The very next day I set off for the wool shop to go and buy some wool in 4 different colours. Just to show you exactly how much of a spur of the moment project this was, I didn't even have a colour combination in mind, I just stood in front of the shelf and thought 'Oh, these 4 colours would work nice together...'



And if you asked me what I was going to do with the blanket at the end, I would have said, 'Maybe I'll give it to someone, or maybe I'll sell it etc'.

I have plans to redecorate our livingroom, and it is most probably going to involve some red, but didn't want to commit to making it for us (in case I then wanted to change my mind about colours and my husband then holding me to my first choice).

So I went for completely random colours...

I have to tell you though, I'm going to have to make another couple of these when we do the livingroom because my kids absolutely LURVE this blanket, and even my husband (who doesn't particularly like crochet'd things) said that he quite liked this one and he wouldn't mind having it draped over the back of the leather sofa.

Too bad it isn't red then isn't it?? ;-)

PS: I love this blanket too, and everybody that has seen it in our house has commented on how nice it is and how well the colours work together.

What do you think??

Soooo Sorry.... Life took over!

It's been a loooong time since I posted on this blog, and the only thing I can say about it is that life sort of took over a bit!!

Moving to a different part of the country, getting the house sorted (still ongoing), children settled, establishing ourselves amongst new people (and missing the old ones) and most intimidating, moving my business to a new area, has been A LOT harder than I thought it was going to be!! Something had to give, and unfortunately it was this blog :(

I still kept up all the projects, and started a whole heap of new ones. I kept taking photographs thinking that I'll catch up soon and blog about all the things I've done, but sadly it never happened. So I now have a huge backlog of posts that I'll be scheduling over the next couple of months to catch up, and then hopefully now that things are on a bit more of an even keel, I'll be able to update the blog as I go along ;-)

I think we've done ok in the grand scheme of things, because as my two Munchkins are happy, and that's after all what it is all about! ;-)

My first fabric purchase for the new house

A few weeks ago I went wandering in Evesham. We had only moved in a couple of weeks previously and I was still exploring the town and finding my bearings.

I came across a "curtain and other odds and ends" shop on a backstreet (a couple of people had mentioned it before) and decided to go and have a look inside.

As I said it had loads of upholstery fabric and a curtain making service, and it also sold loads of off the shelf bedding and curtains with really old fashioned designs (mostly aimed at old people I suppose ;-) ).

But tucked away in the back corner they had a little section of Fabrics on the roll and for the most part they weren't all bad.

The minute I saw the two designs below I fell in love, and instantly bough A LOT of it. Asked me what I was going to make with it and my reply would have been "I haven't got a clue!!", but now I have an idea.

Watch this space as I will show you soon, but in the meantime...

Who agrees with me that this is absolutely lovely?



(Jenn - I know this is pink, but you know me I always gravitate towards pink ;-) )

Owl biscuits just because we now live in a Barn

A few weeks ago I wanted to make some biscuits for the kids, but I was stuck for ideas. With no inspiration and not wanting to do the usual plain shortbready type biscuits, I went trawling on the web to see if I could find anything interesting.

Since moving into the barn the kids (I mean me REALLY!!) have gone a little owl crazy. Ryan loves the wooden owls that we've got sitting on the roof beams, and has to say night-night to the Hoo-Hoos every night. So when I came across instructions in a library book I took out 2 weeks previously (and hadn't opened yet), I knew that this was what I was going to make.

So without further ado, here are some owl biscuits that the kids were absolutely delighted about and the next door neighbours now think I am some kind of baking god!

Well maybe I am, who knows? ;-)

Chocolate and Ginger nut treats

I recently made these Chocolate and Ginger Nut Treats which I found somewhere on someones blog, but in true Liezl stylie, I now don't know where.

Anyway, I have been getting so many raves and nice compliments about them that I just had to share them with you. And the best thing of all is that they DON'T have to go in the oven.



** I just have to say that this is not the recipy I followed, as I can't find it again. But I do remember the ingredients, and the recipy below is everything that I put in ;-) **

Ingredients:

100 g unsalted butter
185 g chocolate
2 tablespoons golden syrup
225 g ginger nut biscuits (crushed)

Directions:

Lighty oil a 18cm/7inch sandwich tin.

In a saucepan heat the butter 100g/4oz of chocolate and golden syrup, stir until melted.

Remove from heat and stir in the biscuit crumbs.

Press warm mixture into tin.

Melt remaining chocolate, then spoon on top.

Chill at least an hour before serving.

Suggestion:

You could always use white chocolate for step 5 (like I did) and sprinkle over some crushed toasted nuts on top (I didn't).


But most of all, sit back and enjoy!!
(Both the treats and the praises from other people ;-) )