My Arty Crafty Scrapbook

It really was full of great stuff, this weekend.

Romance

The children and I went to the wedding of a couple of friends from church and it was lovely.  The bridge and groom had huge smiles throughout the whole event, and when they were pronounced ‘husband and wife’ everyone cheered and Liz (the bride) even raised her hands in celebration!  That’s how it should be – the promises were made seriously and thoughtfully before God and the congregation, but then the celebrations began!

Whilst the official photographs were being taken, fruit juice and cupcakes were laid on for all the church guests:

During the ceremony, Joe took up his favourite position – behind the camera!

The whole ceremony was a lovely affair – the songs were brilliant, and backed by the church band; the talk about marriage was practical, biblical and thought-provoking even for those of us who have been married for quite some time; and the general feeling of worship and joy abounded.

Crafting

That evening, I pootled over to Jen’s for a meeting of the Country Crafter’s Guild and we spent a fab evening crocheting, putting the world to rights and eating home-made banana muffins – all to the tune of Jen’s peapod burgundy gently “popping” away in the background!  I had decided to make a flower cushion, like that featured in Attic24, for Hannah’s new bedroom, and was keen to get started with that:

Not sure whether I’ll manage to get it finished within a week, but I’ll give it my best shot!

Creating

Sunday saw some serious activity in the kitchen, with the job of making two cakes for the children to take away to their camp next week.  Hannah’s chocolate sheet cake (from my Amish cookbook) was straightforward enough, and makes enough to feed an army, but Joe wanted a butterscotch sponge which, of course, meant making caramel.  I’m always nervous about making this, since I’ve never actually managed to do it successfully, but today the angels were smiling on me and it seems to have worked.  The sponge was fine, apart from the fact that I should’ve dissolved the coffee granules in hot water before adding them to the sponge mix – now the cake looks rather freckly, and I suspect there will be random caffeine hits as the cake is consumed!

After the wedding on Saturday, we had called in to my parents and picked a bucket load of plums, so today was also the day to make plum jam and plum wine (at the very least!).

First the jam:

It was the first time I’ve used my jam thermometer instead of relying on the old “saucer in the freezer” trick, and both tests seemed to agree with each other that the jam had reached setting point.  Will test at breakfast tomorrow and report back.  (In the photo above, you can just see the corner of the limoncello jar, which I put outside in the sunshine – apparently this is what the Italians do when they make it, so I thought I’d give it a go on this beautiful sunny day!)

Next, I prepared the remaining fruit for wine, by soaking the plums in a bucket of (near-) boiling water.  The recipe said to use a wooden spoon to mash up the fruit, but I found it much easier (and more tactile) to use my hands!  The plum/water/pectolase mixture now sits for a few days before the next stage, which is just as well as I didn’t have time to rack the peapod today (which is in a bucket that I’m going to need!).  That’ll have to be a job for tomorrow, along with the final stage of the raspberry cordial.

I don’t have a picture of the mashed plums (surprisingly!), so instead I’m going to post a picture of my bunny in her very picturesque hutch:

Family

Finally, we closed off the weekend by sitting down as a family after dinner (roast chicken – a sure winner every time!) and watching “Notting Hill“.  Gary and I haven’t seen it for a long time, and the children never, and it turned out to be a really good choice (Hannah cried in the sad bits, but don’t tell anyone!).  I’m beginning to wonder whether we ought not just brick-off the top floor, if it means that we’ll spend more evenings together as a family, rather than everyone in a different room!  (I suspect the novelty would soon wear off though).

The children are both nervous/excited about camp tomorrow so I don’t know whether they’ll get to sleep terribly quickly.  It’s going to be very strange for me too, as it’s the first time ever that I’ll be without both the children at the same time for any length of time – a whole week.  Although Kevin will be here painting, I’m hoping to spend my time in a mixture of knitting, hooking, cooking, crafting and catching up with friends, as well as grown up work, September education planning, and some quiet, spiritual contemplation and prayer time.

But now it’s time for bed … that’s if I can find our bed underneath all the chaos!

Goodnight all.