Quick Chat

I don’t have much time to talk today- we’ve had a birthday party this evening, and we’ve got our Purim party tonight. We’re all dressing up-it should be lots of fun!

I’m looking forward to trying this awesome Stem Stitch demo from over at Kootoyoo soon as well. At the moment I really just stick with back stitch! I found her site via this week’s Blog This blog round-up, it’s all about craft- one of my favourite topics!

In the mean time, I’ll leave you with this awesome Banana Bread recipe I’ve got in the oven as we speak:

Banana bread

A simple and practical way of putting to use some over ripe bananas and cheering up a cup of tea!
You will need:

4-5 tbs reduced-fat canola spread (I used one of those Dairy Spreads)

2 eggs

150g sugar ?(I used sugar subtitute- and measured it in cups etc, because the weights are different!)

2 or 3 ripe bananas? (I used 4)

150g plain flour

¾ tsp salt? (Didn’t measure this…)

½ tsp bi-carbonate soda (or this…)

¼ tsp baking powder (or this…)
Preheat oven to 180°C.
Combine bananas, butter, eggs and sugar in a large bowl and mash with a potato masher or fork until you create a paste.

In a seperate bowl, combine flour, salt, bicarb soda, and baking powder.

Add both mixtures together, and stir until smooth. ?(I just put them all in the same bowl… didn’t quite understand why I would need two bowls for this??!! Just seems like more washing up to me…)

At this point you can add half a cup of either chopped nuts, or dried fruits such as walnuts or chopped dried figs. ?(Didn’t add any of this…)

Pour mixture into a lightly oiled standard size loaf tin and bake in pre-heated oven for approximately 50 minutes. Insert a cake skewer into middle of loaf until it comes out clean.

It’s now sitting in my oven looking like this… and if you cut this baby into 30 pieces it’s 1 Weight Watchers point per piece!

Rating to come!

Thanks for visiting my site again! keep checking back for more updates!

Tags: weightwatchers banana recipe dessert

Blog Essentials

I’ve been thinking lately about some of the things I consider ‘essential’ both when reading other people’s blogs, and writing in my own. Oh course, some people might disagree, and this isn’t by any means a definitive list, so if you think of anything that you wish blogs you read have, or a feature you wish your own blog had, add it in the comments!

1. Email Collection. I find this to be essential, and loath using any blogging platform that doesn’t have this. Collecting people’s emails is important so that you can reply to the comment they left you- people won’t always check back to your blog to see if you’ve replied when they asked you a question. I know that personally, if I write a comment on someone’s blog, and they reply to me I am much more inclined to comment again!

2. RSS. This is a pretty heated topic in our house. Luke HATES it with a passion (see his post here), and I wouldn’t manage my blog reading without it (read what RSS is here). Either way, you have to be aware that so many people do choose to read blogs via RSS, so it’s important that you 1. have an RSS feed and 2. that it looks good. I recommend using feedburner if you want to ‘pretty up’ your RSS feed.

3. About page. If I read your blog, I want to connect with you, talk with you, and know more about you! It’s pretty simple to make one, even if your blogging platform doesn’t allow it. I always recommend choosing a blogging platform that does though, if you’re interested in good SEO (serach engine optomisation) and things like that.

4. Links that work. I am bad at this- if you update your permalinks, or something moves, or you changed your URL,  or whatever it is, sometimes the links go dead. For good SEO and just as a general curtosey to your readers, it’s good to keep an eye on the links in your posts and update them.

5. A plan. This can be one of two things- it can be an actual ‘schedule’ or posts, or it can be a ‘mission statement’. Just something that you keeps you focused, and on track with your blogging. It’s also a good idea if you have a mission statement to include it in the ‘about page’, because that will give new-commers to your blog a really clear indication of what they’re getting themselves into!

I like to plan out my posts a month in advance. It’s a pretty flexible system, and changes every week, BUT I always have a stream of posts I’ve started, and can finish. This is particularly good if you sometimes have ‘blogger’s block’ (If you’re sufering from this ailment, then I suggest getting FatMumSlim’s eBook- so many great ideas!).

6. Search function. Sometimes I will remember that I saw something written on someone’s blog. The easiest way to find the post they wrote is to use the search function within the blog- that way you don’t have to worry about typing special queries into google- you just type in a key word you remember, and hopefully you’ll get the post you’re after in the results, within the blog! If you’re not sure what I mean, try searching for something in the search bar on my blog- top right corner in the sidebar!

So there’s my list of blog essentials. If you use a blogging platform that doesn’t have some of these functions as basics, I’d love to know why you chose it… perhaps there’s a way around it!

Tags: blogger wordpress typepad bloggin tips ideas blog essentials platform comparison

Finally…

On Sunday morning I struggled to wake up for church. I was just So tired. The day before, Saturday I didn’t need to be anywhere, and WANTED to sleep in, but was up by 7:30. *sigh*
Anyway, I managed to find a few spare minutes in the morning, and took the opportunity to FINALLY finish my tree painting. You’ll remember that I finsihed the embroidery that goes with it quite a while ago, and that they were started at the same time…!

So, here it is- the finsihed product!

The reason it took me so long was because a) I wanted to use real bark for the swing, and b) I wanted to use real string to tie it on.

The bark I managed to get a while ago, but the string just seemed to envade me… I couldn’t find the right stuff anywhere! I decided to bite the bullet and just paint on the rope, because that’s better then having it unfinished, nagging at me. If I find the sting that’s in my mind, then I can glue it over the top.

Bark for the swing

This painting is SIGNIFICANTLY different to any other painting I’ve ever done, because I PLANNED IT! haha. Usually I am done with a painting after a few hours, this one took weeks! I am proud of my efforts though, and can see the benefits to thoughtful planning, experimenting, and purposeful painting. On of the things I’m proud of is the ‘bark’ of the tree. Good ol’ gap filler gave me the texture I wanted here, and then light brush strokes using about 5 layers gave it the final look I was after.

Tree trunk from the front.

Bark looking up (to show you the texture)

The other thing I’m proud of is how I experimented with the leaves (see tests below). I’m pretty happy with how they turned out, though if I did it again I would make them smaller. My favourite leaves are the ones with multiple colours. It was an accident how they happened- but I love it!

After much experimenting- the right type of leaves!

Leaf Experimenting... texture vs plain, and different style leaves

P.S: Don’t forget to enter my giveaway!

Tags: painting