Slightly behind but thought you would like to see two special birthday cards I made in November. This one was for my mother.
A Coffee and Walnut cake with one candle for each whole decade...
And here is the birthday girl herself with her eldest grandson.
And this card was for my father.
I made the marbled paper a long time ago and it reminded me of the sea so I added real sand, tiny shells and seaweed. I really love tiny shells and can happily spend hours on the beach searching for them. The 'Happy Birthday' was a peel off sticker as I thought it could easily be removed if the card was going to stay out longer than usual and I had a feeling it might well do. Sure enough a month later it is still on the windowsill, minus the sticker.
The start of December in our house means the Christmas mugs come out along with Christmas music and carols. Then begins the start of the mince pie baking. I make so many each year that it gets to be a bit of a joke and we keep count. This was the first dozen out of the oven and as I transferred them to the cooling rack I realised that these two tins of mine have baked every mince pie I have made since I got married 31 years ago. Actually I still have quite a lot of my original tins which is quite amazing considering the amount of use they get.
Anyway this first tray was quickly joined by some more and the blackboard recorded that 30 were made. However as I went to photograph them...
there was no longer 30 there!
This week they were followed up by another batch taking the score to 60.
Then I made a batch of Frangipan mince pies yesterday, I really like the almond topping, it goes so well with the richness of the mincemeat, and with eggs and almonds in it sounds almost healthy! Well that's probably a good excuse to eat one or two (for me) and considerably more than that by my husband and eldest son! Good job I photographed them yesterday as there are none of these ones left now.
The mince pie tally is now 74! It will go up even quicker once the Universities break up and my two youngest return home for the holidays.
