Too Cute to Eat

I know this is about a month delayed but the result of this fun little project was so adorable I felt it needed to be shared, better late than never and perhaps it can be some VERY early inspiration. If not just a sweet little creative idea. I can’t take the credit completely for this, I did find an image of something similar online and made it my own through the process of attempting to replicate what I had seen.

What you’ll need:
Drinking chocolate or cocoa powder
Large and mini marshmallows
Large chocolate buttons
Rolos
Strawberry laces candy
Powdered/ Icing sugar
Melted chocolate
(some biscuits…..)
Cocktail sticks
And patience!

Really this is a recipe that for the most part requires a little time and some patient assembly skills.
Basically the large marshmallows are skewered with the cocktail stick, decorated with a face, topped with a drop of melted chocolate to glue the chocolate button and also on top of the button to glue the Rolo as a hat. The laces get plated together and wrapped around the edible snowman with hunger care. To finish there are two options, these sprang from 1) the snowmen failing to stay standing on their own and 2) a lack of pretty jars.

Option 1- the well-presented gift!
Here the assembled snowman was stood into a jar filled with a enough hot chocolate powder to make up the jar with warm water or milk and result in a hot chocolate!! Then a little dusting of snow (powdered/ icing sugar) and some mini marshmallows completed the look, the jar was sealed up and tied up with a ribbon. Instructions for the good part, the eating were to remove the snowman, make up the hot chocolate (not with boiling water, the jar may break) and then to use the snowman to dunk and snack as an accompaniment, get stuck in I say, YUM.

Option 2- the trouble makers
Honestly it was a nightmare trying to figure out how to get these little figures to stay standing. I encountered this quite major issue as I began decorating and upon time to leave these tiny men to try I found them tumbling all over the place and refusing to allow my fine work to set, determined to smudge and smear my efforts by tossing themselves without warning onto the table top. After trying to add further cocktail sticks for stability, trying to realign in case crookedness was the case, the only viable solution was more chocolate, I should have known from the start. What worked was taking a digestive biscuit, adding a good dollop of melted chocolate and sitting the snowman comfortably in this delicious puddle.
They did need to be placed against some tall object (eg a glass or a cup) to prop them as the chocolate set (to speed this I, very taboo for chocolate but I placed them in the freezer for less than 5 minutes to harden). After this they were secured in place and set solid, sturdy little snow soldiers. Again is dusted these with snow to complete the effect and placed in a container to transport to their new homes. Around their toes I tossed mini marshmallows to loosely mimic snow and just add to the fun.

These made perfect and personal gift for several grateful children last Christmas and were so fun to give out, seeing the excitement and watching the joy upon receipt of such a simple thing was really special. Gifts never need be exceedingly elaborate; edible is always a crowd pleaser!

Let me know what you think, I certainly loved making these sweet little things.

Personal Space

My room can probably be summed up by this photo. It is me, what I love and what has driven my room to look as it does. This is my room in my parents house and we have lived there for 12 years now so this room has very much evolved over time and as you can imagine accumulated quite a lot of not only things and clutter but also memories and treasures.

The sheer volume of what can only be described as hoarding was a little out of control and so I was forced to embark on a several day long journey of sorting through the collection I had made of my life and release the thing I simply did not need but up until this point had held onto. I should mention that a lot of the unnecessary things I had stored and tucked away steam from a fear of losing something, of forgetting or being forgotten. In my early childhood and right up until this house my family never spent very long in one place and the result of this was that tiny little me clung to what ever I could in the various moves to document that point in my life and keep hold of myself I guess.

It was very entertaining to go through all this and see what I had deemed critically important and worth saving at the various stages of my life and through the different moves. It brought back so many memories, reminded me of stories and events, I read old cards, letters, diaries, looked through printed photos I forgot I had or had taken. It was a really difficult process but also a sweet and reflective journey. A suitably poignant event for this particular crossroads point in my life and cleansing for transition to the next.

I haven’t painted my room in between 6-8 years and so the adornments displayed on the walls are reflective of mostly the past but also my inner most self. I recently thought about painting the room, departing my the girly pink I once loved and now have outgrown but then when I weighted this against the memories and time pasted on those walls, the dreams, ambitions and memories it doesn’t seem worth it. Id prefer to have it as is than have a fresh, bare paint job. So these are my walls, overbearing and covered but I love them none the less. There are definite ‘zones’ to the room I suppose, and especially now its cleared completely I think once I buy a few tiny finishing touches, perhaps a corner chair for the guitar and some other bits this plan will be even clearer. I am happy with what was revealed once the clutter was removed and although it feels foreign to me right now and quite empty I know its just an adjustment and it suits me better for who I am now while still keeping that younger, always dreaming part too.

I did days worth of organizing, completely emptying every single drawer and shelf, taking every shred from my wardrobe and only returning them to shelves once I had a plan and ergonomic system decided upon. Now everything has a place and storage is not just a dark mass of random pieces but a neat and accessible, functional thing.

One goal of mine starting this was to make a drastic change from how I sorted my jewelry. It was embarrassing, I had my more expensive and ‘good’ jewelry all in separate boxes, within two shoeboxes, under my bed. This meant that these items were mostly forgotten and rarely escaped their boxes. The rest of the jewelry was all balled together in various small containers, a jumbled and unsecure mess. Detangling the necklaces alone took a serious amount of time. I am still not in a situation where this is exactly how I want to store it all but for now I am delighted with the upgrade and change and think it has worked out very well. I went to a hardware store, bought two standard hardware and s=fishing container and with a little work customized them to meet my needs. Using the honestly ridiculous amount of individual jewelry boxes I had kept, the containers I bought each piece in, I made inserts for the new mass storage boxes. I took the padding in the little boxes, measured it to fit each little section and cut it to make a cushion for my jewelry and also some protection against the crude but functional storage device. It worked out so well, I was even able to as is insert some ring cushions and some earing cushions to store some pieces even more precisely. I am so pleased with this little DIY job and it is working out so well so what I want and in total cost me 4 euro!!

    

This project and complete renovation took about 3-4 days of pretty intense and emotional purging and cleaning but in the end, now that it is done and a new room altogether is before me I am so glad I got up the courage and will to finally do it and I think I have definitely been rewarded for my work with a sanctuary and organized haven, a personal and personally organized space I am proud of. A space just for me.