An Owly Birthday

 I made this card when I totally failed to find the fun fold I had been planning to use - either I didn't save it, or I just didn't look hard enough.  The video by Srushti Patil calls it a Magic Envelope Card. It's a combination of a waterfall card and I'm not even sure what the other fold is called, though I have seen it incorporated in cards before. After making the card, the theme dictated that my second Oswald Owl cushion flew out now with the card, rather than waiting for Christmas. The first Oswald is here.  I have one left to knit for Christmas, and then one for myself and I will have got great value from the purchased pattern. 

Waterfall panels

It was a good way of using up some long-hoarded paper. With more time and energy I would have put a little more effort into the magic folding panel, but settled for the contrast between the owls in the wood on the front and the toadstools and animals, which are glossy, on the inside. Being wider than 6", none of the plainer designs in the pack were wide enough to decorate the front of the envelope. There were quite a few decorative borders too, also not wide enough but at least I was able to use the little squirrel on the front, mounting on card to make it stiff enough to act as a closure. 

June Favourites

...are thin on the ground. I feel as if I might even have had more in a normal year when we would have been away on holidays for half the month. The first three were all made for the occasion.

The blog header is a thistle-type plant from the Botanic Gardens, in July 2018. I didn't have very many photos from last year and had to look further back. 

Christmas Wishes

Peaceful wishes for Christmas to all my cyber friends.


Christmas baking - the Bûche de Noël for dessert on Christmas Eve, and a brioche for breakfast on Christmas morning. At the time of writing this, we haven't yet had the brioche, but I took the advice of a workmate to try using some Italian 00 flour (he'd just been using some for traditional soft bread-rolls from the part of the country he comes from), and it certainly rose beautifully and feels lovely and light.

I tried to make the Bûche a little less rich than last year when I used ganache and a cooked buttercream - and judging by C's verdict after eating the trimmings off the ends, I succeeded. I'm still using my mother's original recipe, which actually I think is  American and not French at all, as it comes from The Gold Cook Book by Louis P. De Gouy, who was the chef at the Waldorf Astoria for 30 years. It's my brother who has the book, but I have the recipe on an index card, and so far I've managed not to lose it. I guess, actually, since De Gouy's father was the "Esquire of Cuisine" in the royal courts in Belgium and Austria, it could have European roots.

I added four peacocks to the flock of birds adorning my tree this year - when I saw them in TK Maxx back in November I couldn't resist them; one has taken up a perch for the evening on the log. I appear to have lost the little sprig of holly I made for it a couple of years ago using an Impression Obsession die, so this time I cut a couple of sprays of ivy from Yupo, reckoning that it wouldn't get soggy even in contact with the cake.

The brioche recipe is from Stephen Harris in The Telegraph. We won't be having raspberry compote with ours, I bought some nice jam in a fine-food store.