Raspberry & Honeycomb Ice Cream

Summer has now officially hit us, which means for us lots of running around under the sprinkler, splashing in the blow up swimming pool, kids jumping on the trampoline with the sprinkler underneath, lazing under the cooler watching kids movies and …… 

ICE CREAM!!!

One of the perks of having children is that guilt free pleasure of serving up dollops of ice cream on cones to the kids and having a scoop or two for yourself. After all, one in, all in, I say!

Its a fun treat which we all look forward to each afternoon, and with this becoming a daily event, the best way to keep up the ice cream supply is to make it yourself. I am fortunate to have been given an ice cream machine a few years ago, so thankfully the most difficult part of the task is actually deciding which recipe to make.

With a few punnets of raspberry's and a craving for honeycomb, the decision was fairly easy to make.

Within an hour the ice cream was made and freezing its way to tummy heaven.

The recipe for the ice cream can be found here, and the honeycomb here.

Frozen raspberries can be used instead of fresh and a crushed up violet crumble bar instead of making the honeycomb. But trust me, the honeycomb is incredibly easy and takes all of ten minutes.

So now that I have rediscovered how easy it is to whip up this summery treat, I am getting excited about making some passionfruit ice cream with fruit off our vine, and some sorbet with fresh lemons from the tree. And don't even get me started on how to feed my chocolate addiction……

Have you a favourite ice cream flavour???

Until next time……kx

52/52 Weekly Stills- Wrapping up 2013……

1. Christmas Eve excitement
2. Christmas lanterns in the garden
3. Oh, where to start first……
4. A favourite Xmas decoration…been dropped, broken and lovingly repaired.
5. A boy and his dog
6.  Overly loved up little friends- Kaloo & Kaloo two!
7. Pile of towels at back door waiting for the spontaneous swim in blow up pool
8. Passionfruit growing on our vine
9. Our teeny tiny (yet productive) veggie patch
10. A pretty 'pop up' plant found in our garden- Im guessing it's a noxious weed because they keep popping up everywhere. This one got away from me but Im glad…the flowers are so pretty and the colour so festive
11. The gorgeous mix of Aggies and clusters of old white roses
12. Watch me grow- I have no idea what this is…Any ideas? Ornamental Pomagrante or persimmon perhaps???

Hope you had a lovely Christmas and enjoying this festive period……kx

My Stationery addiction!

I have an addiction to stationery...put me a shop and I gravitate straight to anything made with paper. Cards, wrapping paper, notebooks, diaries, invitations, etc. Im in heaven whether its Officeworks or a shop that specialises purely in paper products.

Im quite old fashioned in the sense that nothing beats snail mail and Im a big believer in posting cards to say thank you or send well wishes to someone.

I have always loved nice stationery sets but it wasn't until I was engaged that the fun began with exploring options for wedding invitations. Fiona Foot from FiFyFoFum designed our stationery and we were not disappointed. I have a soft spot for letterpress printing and so after a chat and exchanging a few emails with ideas, Fiona designed a simple but classic style invitation set. We were thrilled with the final product.

Now with children, I love browsing the net and stumbling across stationery sites. There is so much out there to choose from and thankfully these days we are not limited to whats available just in Australia.

So here are some of my favourite sites!

Kiki k- Im starting off with an oldie but a goodie! I have been buying this diary for the last 5 years and I just love it. Its the small size so fits easily in all bags and comes with a notepad which is always quite handy. They have a great online store but today I found out that one of my favourite shops in Albury is stocking some Kiki K products.....Im so happy! Thank you Little Nest! Very excited!

Also from Little Nest, this gorgeous William Morris Wildflowers Correspondence card set.

Love the floral designs- a card for all occasions!

Katy Jane Designs- An Australian Site with lovely cards and invitations. Also found on HardToFind.com.

Lucy Sheeran- Found on NotOnTheHighStreet.com. UK based but a lovely range of personalised designs. Sadly, I tried to order some but at the time they did not post outside of the UK, but were hoping to offer this service soon. Still nice to look and get ideas!

Dee Dub Designs-  Found on Madeit.com. Love the silhouette of the cowboy. Would look good in any boys room.

The Print Press Studio-  Again on Madeit.com. Lovely range of childrens cards and prints.

Shutterfly- Great for personalised cards and calenders . We made Father's Day and a special birthday card for one of the Grandparents last year with the children  jumping around holding the birthday numbers.  I also made one of the calenders and have been impressed with the quality, cost and delivery. The individual cards cost about $5 plus postage and the calender I thought was a bargain at about $20. I love it as each month we have lots of great photos of the entire family. You can personalise special dates with photos. And, once you have set up an account and ordered, it will remember all those dates for the next calender you order which saves so much time. Lots of different backgrounds and designs to choose from. They make great gifts for Grandparents too!

They also do prints...well worth a look! They can also be found on the Tiny Prints website.

Cute!

Tiny Prints- Huge range of gorgeous designs. They are based in the States so postage is a pain, however, they have a great range of designs and when the US dollar was high, it was great value and easy to justify the exy post. Quality is fantastic and its about 2-3 week turn around from when you order to receiving in post. Be organised and order in advance. I was caught out once when I ordered at last minute and forgot it was Mothers Day over in the States- so my order didnt come as quickly as needed. Otherwise- one of my favourite sites!

Love this shot!

Some of my tiny prints stationery!

Minted- Another US Site. Similar to tiny prints. I haven't ordered from this company but I do love their designs.

Oh Louise Designs - Found on Etsy. I ordered some Thank you cards for my daughters Christening. I bought a few different designs each with her name on them. Again, based in the States but very easy to order from. Arrived within a few weeks. Great to deal with!

Our Sophie cards.....

Hope that has given you some ideas for adding to your stationery collection.

I didn't include any letterpress examples. Will save that for another blog.

Have a lovely day! Kx