A little pennant

I LOVE pennants, as many others do these days.
Any way, I usually do some a year, had one in my Christmas Tree, remember? for Love's (yes, in Sweden you can name your kid Love.) birthday I decided to do a special one, wishing him a happy birthday. I made three. One in french and one in english too. *SO MUCH TIME LEFT* or I was just bored.
OK, so I printed these monograms from Martha Stewart (Martha is my middle name, by the way, how convenient!) I love them, C used them for almost the same thing when they baptised her kid.
You can get them here.
And they you'll just need colored paper and a string.
It got real nice with the washi tape and two colored string!
Taadaaa!!!!
//E

Dumpling time!

Too much food right now, sorry for that, but I, and my boyfriend, have just realized that I'm actually quite a good chef.
So, two days ago I decided to make dumplings, last time they where good, but not great. This time, I was determined they would be more than great.
Looking through our fridge I realized we had a good start, the luxury with dumplings is that you can fill them with anything you like.
I like vegetables and decided to make all vegan dumplings today.
Carrots, mushrooms, red cabbage, cilantro, parsley, garlic, chili, lime and union would be great, I decided.
So, i chopped all the vegetables, and thought, protein is great too, so I chopped some tofu. I fried it in a pan with sesame oil and some soy sauce (the japanese one) and I just let it get soft and good smelling and tasting.
Then I hade my boyfriend to take care of the boring stuff, fill the pastry, we were lucky and found some ready made dumpling pastry in the freezer from last time. Keep them wet!!!!
Then just put them in the pan, and made some sauce, I usually use soy sauce, some sesame seeds, carrot, garlic and chili. Bled it with sesame oil and some chinese vinegar. To make the taste a bit softer you can boil a cup of water with two spoons of sugar and poor that in to.

Now you're done! Don't forget the chopsticks, you can't have dumplings with knife and fork!

This is me in the middle of everything, my birds, Paul&Stella is always in the middle too.

Semlor, or buns as Google translate wants to call it

Today, my sister had some friends visiting her from Halmstad, a city on the west coast. I wanted to make them something special, so I decided to make semlor, the greatest pastry in the world. A simple bun, filled with almond and cream.
I took a classic recipie,
75 g butter
25 g yeast
2,5 dl milk or soy milk
7,5 dl flour
0,5 dl sugar
cardamon
salt

Stuffing:
2,5 dl cream or a non dairy cream product
300 g Almond icing
1 dl Milk or soy milk

Melt the butter, poor in the milk, it has to be 37 degrees Celcius, then tad in the yeast, blend it with almost all the flour, and all the other ingredients. Then let it yeast for 40 minutes or more. Make small buns, let them rise on a baking tray for 30 minutes and then in the oven (225 degrees Celcius) for 10-15 minutes.

During the ferment you'll have to prepare the almond stuffing. Blend the milk with the almond icing, you can put it on the stove id you want, but it hase to nicely blended. Then whip the cream.

Take out the buns, let them cool, then cut the top of, but keep it! Dig a small hole in the bun and stuff it with the almond stuffing. Then put on the cream, put on the lid, and it's done!!! Now eat!!!!//E

Something to hang in the Christmas tree

This year I bought my first tree, guess it came with my 25th birthday. Hated it, but apparently, I grew up this year. Anyway, we bought this huge tree, but had nothing to decorate it with, so we decided to buy some decorations in thrift stores or vintage shops, but also so make a lot of decorations by our selves. 

My favorite is the snowflake.
You'll need pearls, I used transparent, white and red ones.

Make the in any shape you like, my friend Charlotte came up with the polka idea!

//E

Last minute gift

Tomorrow we celebrate Christmas in Sweden. Friends and family, you and me and everyone we know. Something like that. We've been cleaning all day and now, when the clock soon turns 9, I think we'll lay our last hand on some gifts and make some candy. I suddenly remembered I'd forgotten one gift, luckily, I've made some fig jam earlier and had a spare jar.
Now I realize it looks a bit like poop. Not much of a Christmas gift maybe...
//E

Perfect gift?

Love to make jam.
My mum used this when I was a kid.
I still use it, and love it. Perfect Christmas gift.
//C

Sweet sweet toffee

Love to make this every Christmas!

100 g butter
2 dl cream
3 dl sugar
1 cup light syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
 
Orange Toffee:
2 oranges, grated peel
1 lemon, grated rind
 
Pistage toffee:  
1 cup chopped, toasted pistachios
 
Chocolate Toffee:  
2 tablespoons cocoa
 
Cardamom Toffee:  
2 tsp cardamom
 
Ginger Toffee: 
1 tsp ground ginger

Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Stir in cream, sugar, syrup and vanilla and boil uncovered, 
about 15-30 minutes. Stir occasionally.
Make a "kulprov" to know when the batter is ready (125°)
Stir in any seasoning or keep it natural, I have just some seasalt on.
Pour toffee on an oiled plate. 
Cool it down. Cut into pieces and wrap the caramels in waxed paper, store cold.
//C

Saffron and jam

Tryed a new recipe, saffron cake with red currant jam.
Very good, lot of butter. It was hard to pipe the, piping bag burst.
But you can make small balls by hand, pressure them in the center and add jam.  
We have red currants by our country house, so I made the jam myself.

275 g butter
1 g saffron
1 teaspoon rum
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 1/2 dl powdered sugar
6 dl white flour

Beat butter and sugar. Mix the saffron with a bit of regular sugar and rum. 
Add the saffron mixture to butter / sugar. Add flour. 
Pipe on a baking tray. Add the jam.
Bake about 6-8 minutes at 200 degrees.
Good Luck!
//C

A great gift

My sister turned 23 in the end of November. I made her a light strand to hang somewhere in her apartment. All you need is a lightning strand, some cute paper cups (they don't need to be this christmasy, and you can change every season!) and a knife. Let's begin!This is what you need. Make sure you have as many cups as there is lights on the strand.

Cut an X and simply pull the lights through the X. 

Now they're done!

And there's light!

There are tiny clouds in my bedroom

I made these pompoms some days ago, and hung them temporarily in our bedroom lamp, but I think they'll stay there forever from now on. Think they look like tiny clouds. If I can't fall a sleep, I can always count clouds instead of sheep.

If you want to make your own clouds, or pompoms, whatever you wanna call it, you'll need napkins or tissue paper, and thread. I used the same cotton thread as I used to the christmas decorations.
//E

Liberty pendant

These days I don´t sew as much as before, but I can never throw anything away. 
 I saved all the small and large pieces of fabric that I have ever used. 
Of these, I do some nice jewelry, silver plated pendants with autentic Liberty fabric. 

Now in december they cost 200 sek and I send them by mail (Sweden free shipping)
Popular as Christmas gifts. If you want for one to someone close,  
or to treat for yourself, send me an email and let me know which one!
//C

Two doors, two wreaths.

Sunday means crafts day for us two. 

This particular sunday, we decided to start decoration for christmas, 

only 22 days left until the big day.

If you want to do one by your self, you'll need a styrofoam wreath and some inspiration.
We used moss, colored wire, fabric, buttons, satin ribbons and small thing we found at home.
//C&E