NEEDLE FELT 1ST BIRTHDAY CAKE TOPPER

Story time: I don't like candles on a cake, or more specifically I don't like the blowing out of candles. It seems just an euphemism for covering the cake in fine film of snot and spit. Lovely.

So, when the Kiddo had her first birthday in, er... October... I went for something different, wait for it... I needle felted the topper. You didn't see that one coming.

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All joking a side, I wanted something simple and went for a plain sea green "1". You could totally do this with a cookie cutter (like I did with these snowflakes), but I just free handed it. It took quite a while to get right, and I felted it very firmly, so it would stay straight, but once i was satisfied with it I just stuck a toothpick in there. No glue or anything, just pushed it in there. I'm very happy with it! I think it was nice and plain for an innocent one year old. And I can reuse it when she turns ten! Wah, my baby!

This is a blurry still from a video I took. It's all I got, sorry.

Her smash cake was made following this recipe from treats with a twist. I substituted butter for oil and added one tbs of maple syrup, and topped it with whipped cream. I tried it myself and it was quite tasty.

Quite a few people who were at the party asked for the recipes for the things I made and I don't think I followed through... So, if that's you I'm sorry and here they are (mostly in Finnish unfortunately, definitely worth Google translate though). Every one of these is something I will definitely make again! My husband is allergic to eggs, so these are eggless and could be made vegan/vegetarian.

Cream Cheese Filled Rolls from maijalinnea.
Peppermint Chocolate Poke Cake from urbaanivegenda.
Queen of Coffee Cakes from urbaanivegenda.
Cookie Dough Bars (in English) from life's simple measures.
Banoffee, except instead of bananas I used strawberries.

Kinder Pie

This pie is a huge hit at the moment, and I love Kinder eggs, so of course I had to make it.

It doesn’t actually contain any real Kinder chocolate, but the taste is spot on. So even if you can’t get your hands on Kinder eggs, you can make this pie!

It’s sooooo good! Definitely worth making.

I mixed together a few recipes, the cake batter from here and the filling from the comment section of this post.

KINDER PIE (eggless)

6dl flour

2dl sugar

3tl baking powder

6tl vanilla extract

4rkl cocoa powder

150g butter, melted

1 1/2dl water

2dl milk

Mix together the dry ingredients, add butter, vanilla extract, water and milk. Mix together. Pour in to a high edged baking tray. Bake for 15 min at 200 °C. Let it cool completely.

1 can of condensed milk

150g white chocolate

Put the condensed milk in a microwaveable bowl and heat for 5 minutes stirring every minute or so. Do not let it boil over! This is to thicken the milk up a bit. Melt the white chocolate and add in to the milk. Spread over the cake. Let it cool completely in the fridge.

130g milk chocolate

100g white chocolate

Melt the milk chocolate and and spread over the filling.

Melt the white chocolate and spread it on top. You can make fancy patterns or just swirl it about like I did.

Let it set and cut in to squares and serve!

DIY Hama Bead Snowflakes

I’ve always thought Hama Beads were a bit, I don’t know, tacky maybe, but then I saw these snowflakes on Pinterest. So cute. Now I’m obsessed.

I had a bit of trouble getting started. You are supposed to construct them on the plastic base and then iron them through a baking sheet to melt the beads together. It took a few tries to figure out what to do. The first one I melted a bit too much and the second one I somehow managed to tie into a knot! Alright then. After that I was a bit more careful.

These two I made with a circular base.

And these with an hexagon.

I actually think I could have melted these a bit more, because they feel a bit fragile. But I hung them up on the kitchen window with sewing thread and they look very pretty and wintery.

DIY Pom Pom Pillow

I’ve been making so many pom poms lately! This time on a pillow.

I saved a picture of this pillow from Living with punks ages ago on my DIY board on Pinterest and finally decided to do something like it.

I’m not much of a sewer, so instead I crocheted the pillow. I used the same pattern I’ve used for the bows in my wreaths, just on a larger scale. I also decided to sew the pom poms more tightly onto the pillow than in the original. It just seemed like a sturdier option.

I just love how it looks. I used a wool yarn and the combination of white crochet and pom poms makes it look so wintery and cosy.

DIY Crochet Snow Lantern

We live in an apartment so we don’t have a yard, just a balcony. So, I had this amazing (in my opinion, of course) idea that I’d make a snow lantern, like the once we used to make when we were little, only instead of snow I’d use yarn and polyfill and then I could keep it inside! Using a led light of course, this thing would catch fire like nobody’s business.

Crocheting the balls was the fun part, just make a basic amigurumi ball in the size you want. Trying to assemble it or even trying to pile it for a second, so I could see how it was coming together and estimate how many more I still needed to make, was the part where the balls kept rolling on every direction and I lost my temper. Whew. But I managed it! And I think it looks so nice. I like how it is minimalistic and even quite sophisticated as far as Christmas decorations go, but also cosy and fun. I can see myself pulling this out every winter for next 50 years, without it looking tacky.

I sewed all the balls together, and it is really sturdy. I could throw it across the room and not do it any damage. But if I were to do it again… I’d use a glue gun. And just try to control my throwing impulses. Also, I love crocheting, but definitely the easier route would have been just wrapping Styrofoam balls with yarn and gluing them together. Ah well, all that ends well!

Happy Independence Day!

Today is the independence day here in Finland and, being on a bit of a wreath kick, I decided to make an (independence) wreath for our door.

I was inspired by this tutorial on Bleubird blog. For colours I chose three different shades of blue and two different shades of white. I didn’t have a wreath base, so just cut two rounds from a pizza box and wrapped them with blue yarn to make the base more sturdy. Once I had a mound of pom-poms and was running out of yarn, I started to tie them onto the base. Then realized that I didn’t have enough and had to make some more. The wreath takes a huge amount of pom-poms, but they are so much fun to make, I didn’t mind.

I’m already thinking about other colour combinations to try. White and different shades of red, with a green bow. Or all white with a red bow.

I know that in some countries independence day is a huge party with fireworks and stuff, but we are just going to burn candles, eat cream cake, visit the graveyard and watch the president’s independence day reception.

Happy independence day!

DIY Spruce Pom-Pom Wreath

As a first step in my Christmas Spirit project, I decided to make a huge wreath for our front door, so you would feel a bit festive every time you came or went. I had seen this adorable pom-pom spruce wreath on Pinterest and wanted to do something similar.

The pictures are a bit washed out, especially the bow for some reason, but I think it turned out very pretty.

I bought a fake spruce base, then made a bunch of pom-poms from left over yarn. While watching YouTube, pom-poms are a great mindless project. I chose a pastel colour scheme based on what I had. I crocheted a striped bow for some extra interest. I fiddled with the placement a bit and then when it looked about right, sewed everything in place, to make sure that every time someone slammed the door there wouldn’t be a cascade of pom-poms. Though a cascade of pom-poms does sound lovely.

I have to add, I had to pluck a few spruce bits away after I hung it up on the door as they were blocking the peephole a bit. Something to consider if you are making one.

Blueberry Quark Pie

Jake and I have been dating for three years today! Is three year dating anniversary a thing? I’ll spare you all the sappy talk, but I did make this blueberry quark pie (Jake’s favourite) to commemorate this occasion. Woohoo!

Blueberry Quark Pie

Crust

100g butter

3/4 dl sugar

1 egg

3 dl flour

Mix together butter and sugar. Add the egg and mix well. Add the flour and mix until smooth.

Grease the pie pan and pat the dough in.

Filling

500g quark

1 dl sugar

2 eggs

4 tsp vanilla sugar

Mix all ingredients together.

250g blueberries (frozen or fresh) + some sugar to taste

Spread the blueberries evenly on top of the crust. Pour the filling on top. Bake for about 30 minutes in 200° Celsius. Sappy writing with leftover dough optional.

Crochet Pumpkins

We don’t really celebrate Halloween here in Finland and I’m not even sure pumpkins like this grow here. Autumn is associated with yellow leaves, apples and rain, but not pumpkins. So I guess these go under the influence of too much Pinterest.

However, aren’t they cute? The pattern is from here. I didn’t use a styrofoam ball, but filled them with polyfill. The pattern didn’t include a pattern for a stem, so I just winged them. I wanted each to have a bit of a different kind of stem, to make them look slightly more natural.