wicka-wicka-wack – reeeewiiiindddd. This is a re-post, orginally from last July when I was a brand new blogger. Since I’m such a Christmas nut, this was a popular post (at the time) and my readership was much smaller, I thought I’d bring it back (waaaaay back) as I knew it would be new (who knew it would be new? I knew) to my new readers . HO Ho. HOt out today isn’t it? Enjoy!

My name is Elaine and I’m addicted to Christmas. No seriously.

Okay, so I’m not crazy-put-your-stuff-out-in-October-crazy but I do LOVE the holiday season. I love the warmth, the tradition, the coziness, the shimmering lights, the hustle, the quietness, the FEELING. I love Christmas.

I also love crafting and making things and that is how my little annual tradition of Christmas Craft Night was born. The concept was to get some girls together, drink some wine, chat, enjoy each others company and make a Christmas craft! And it took off. Big time. So now it has become an annual tradition that my friends say they love. And I love hosting it. Love it. The best compliment I received was from a friend who told me that the craft night was, for her, the sign that the Christmas season had begun. She looks forward to it every year to kick off the season and get her in the Christmas spirit. Wow.

So how I start is, I pick a craft that seems doable in a few hours. The point of Christmas Craft Night is that every girl leaves with a completed craft. I always host it right at the beginning of December so that the ladies can enjoy that years craft for the whole month.

After I choose the craft I do a trial run to make sure that it’s doable in an evening and work out any glitches. Then I design an invitation to send out that features what the craft will look like. In earlier years I’d include a list of supplies for the ladies to bring but now I just pick up the supplies myself (to save them running around and take advantage of bulk deals) and then just charge a fee that covers their potion of the supplies. I aim to always keep it under $20.

Here is what last years invitation looked like:

Sunday morning as Chace was playing with his toys and watching ‘Fireman Sam’ I was doing the not so exciting task of puttering around the kitchen cleaning up.

Last night I made Chace (my three-year-old) a special little treat.

That’s right. I made him a sweet (ha, get it) ice cream clown – in honour of him running away to join the circus… might have been kidding about that last part.

And as you can most likely tell, it was very easy to make.

First I simply melted some chocolate (I used Aero bars) in a homemade double boiler. If you don’t own a double boiler you can acheive the same effect by filling a pot about 1/4 full of water and resting a stainless steel bowl over the opening (like a lid). Once the water in the pot begins to boil, your chocolate will melt nice and evenly. Stir the chocolate though so it does not scorch.

Once melted, I twirled the open end of my cone in the chocolate.

And then twirled it once more in a bowl of sprinkles.

With my ‘hat’ made I moved on to Mr. Clown’s ice cream face.

To stop it from melting all over the plate I scooped a small scoop into a little condiment bowl and then stacked another small scoop on top of that. Then I topped it off with my waffle cone hat and made a face with Runts candy. I love how the hat hangs over the back as seen above.

What a ‘sweet’ (stop me now) little face.

I quickly snapped a bunch of photos as my time was limited. For obvious reasons – melting ice cream, yes. But someone something much more pressing was waiting in the wings.

Mr. Clown lived a short life but he was well loved.

It was a perfect way to ‘cap off’ (okay, done with those now) a warm summer evening.

I love doing little crafts like this with Chace and marvel at the excitement he gets from such simple things. It’s amazingly beautiful, and innocent, and ‘sweet’ (sorry – had to).

What about you? Any easy to make toddler faves that you want to share? Made any special treats recently? Run away to join a circus as of late? Please share 🙂

PSST – I’ve updated my Facebook page with a new seasonal cover photo highlighting some summery projects. Head on over and let me know what you think – and don’t forget to ‘like’ the page if so inclined. Thanks 🙂

Chef Kev was back in the kitchen last night and I found myself walking aroung quoting lines from Forest Gump. Bubba would have been so proud of the shrimp spectacular that Chef Kev made.

So let’s dive in shall we?

This salad was amazing and had just the right amount of heat. ‘A box of chocolate’ had nothing on this bad boy – although Chace did convince us to give him some for dessert. I guess life really is like a box of chocolates – when you’re a three year-old. Anyway….

Shrimp Noodle Salad

This recipe serves four. Here is what you need:

20-25 prawns – frozen tail-on
tequila lime marinade (Chef Kev used this one)

1 pack (8 oz/227 g) bean sprouts
1 bunch fresh cilantro
1 pack noodles – (Chef Kev used the “Mr. Noodles Chinese Style Fresh Pack Noodles” found in the chilled area of your produce section)

peanut sauce (Chef Kev used the one from this line)

to assemble:

A few hours ahead of time, remove the tails from prawns and marinate in a bowl of the tequila lime sauce.

In a small bowl, dice all three peppers, mince the shallot and your jalepeno. Set aside.

In a big bowl, add the bean sprouts. Then, chop up a good handful of the fresh cilantro and add it to the bowl.

Cook the noodles as per package directions. Make sure to seperate and cut your noodles as cooking so that they don’t end up as one big clump! Drain, rinse with cold water and drain again. Drizzle with sesame, peanut or olive oil. Toss to coat. Add to large bowl containing the bean sprouts and cilantro.

Cut corn off the cobs (or open your canned corn).

In a sauté pan, heat up some olive oil on medium heat. Grate in some fresh ginger and press in 4-5 cloves of garlic. Stir around and then add the corn and shrimp from your marinade bowl. Sauté on medium heat, stirring until the shrimp is just cooked. Scrape all into the large bowl.

In the same pan, drizzle in a bit more olive oil. Heat to medium. Add in your bowl of peppers, jalepeno and shallots. Heat for a few minutes just enough to sweat the ingredients (but so they still stay crisp). Remove from heat, add to the large bowl and mix.

Drizzle salad with tequila lime vinaigrette and finish with peanut dressing. Toss.

Squeeze the juice from your two fresh limes into the salad and season with salt and pepper

Continue seasoning to taste.

If desired, finish with dry roasted peanuts on top.

Serve and ENJOY!

Like what the chef is serving? See all of Chef Kev’s creations here.

Happy July! The month of sun (hopefully), Canada’s birthday and the Olympics!

Click on any below to be redirected to the download. Enjoy!

Caroline Johansson

The Lovely Dept.

Red Stamp

Marco Palma via Smashing Magazine

Love Notes by Lauryn

Pepper and Button

Studio of Mae

Jennifer Squires

Marcos Sandrini via Smashing Magazine

Sherif Saleh via Smashing Magazine

Kikki-K

If you’ve got a calendar that you’d like considered for my monthly round-up, please let me know!

This Sunday is Canada Day – which is quite appropriate given that I’m Canadian ;). … So here’s a little idea that you may enjoy tipping back as you tip your hat to this great country.

Now I don’t think I need to point out the obvious, but you probably notice that this drink is layered in red and white – just like our amazing Canadian flag. How patriotic! And gorgeous. And tasty!

I can’t take full credit for this idea though. This morning as I was feeding my little guy breakfast I had the ‘Today Show’ on in the background. Given that July 4th is coming up, they were doing a segment on entertaining ideas for the holiday. They featured an amazing layered red, white and blue drink. I thought, “hey, I want to try that” so I went to their site looking for some direction.

What I found was a section linking to favourite pinterest inspired July 4th ideas and I found the inspiration for the drink I saw – which led me to this site.

So, I got started.

What you will need for this is:
Ice
Sprite Zero
Cranberry Juice
Strawberries

First I filled my glasses about 1/3 full of ice.

Then I filled each cup about 1/3 full of cranberry juice.

Then I added a bit more ice and begain to layer. I poured in another third of Sprite Zero. The key to layering is to pour your second beverage DIRECTLY on to an ice cube so that it does not mix into the cranberry juice.

You can see the Sprite Zero hitting the ice cube above.

Here they all are with their second ‘white’ layers.

So then I went to add another layer of red cranberry juice.

FAIL! flopzilla. mixville.

I think what happened here is that the layers mixed because the sugar in my cranberry juice, was denser/heavier than the sugars in my pop. There is a note about drink sugars here. I thought I had covered my bases, but apparently not.

Oh well, on to plan B.

I cut up some strawberries and created a new red layer! They didn’t sink down as I was careful when placing them and made sure they sat on top of the ice.

And when that was all said and done we had this!

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

I must admit, I drank the one that I messed up as I typed this post. Delicous!

I’ll save the two pretty ones for Chef Kev and Chace 🙂

Have a wonderful and safe long weekend everyone. We’re off to do some fun things around town and celebrate a good friends’ birthday.

And probably drink a few more of these no doubt.

Cherishd Bliss