Writer Baker Maker

Into the Woods

(Images property of Walt Disney)

Ever since the moment I saw the announcement for Into the Woods I have been dying for it to come out.

I helped in a school performance of this Stephen Sondheim musical a few years ago and, as many stage assistants will tell you, you'll never forget the songs there always there in the back of your mind until someone brings them back up and again and you can recite every word (In my head the same goes for West Side Story and Aladdin).

I was so excited when I heard the first few bars playing on the trailer. And I couldn't wait to see it.

It has definitely lived up to my personal hype. The film was cast wonderfully with a whole host of actors who could surprisingly all sing well. I'm always sad when a musical is cast with an actor who can't sing as well as the rest especially when it's such a well loved musical in the theatre world.

I already adore this story line and even G enjoyed. There were so many highlights but my utmost favourite songs are most definitely 'Giant's in the Sky' from the incredible Daniel Huttlestone who's voice fellow musical lovers might recognise from Les Miserables. 'On the Steps of the Palace', I absolutely love Anna Kendrick, not only is she hilarious but her voice is the stuff of my dreams. And 'Agony' with Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen, a scene which made me laugh out loud.

I know I'm biased as I already loved this musical but it is so wonderful on the big screen!

If you're looking for something to see this weekend I really recommend seeing it, musical fan or otherwise.

Katy

xx

It's a New Year

2015 is about to begin. It always seems like the past year has gone by incredibly fast when I look back every year. But 2014 has topped all of them by far.

I never imagined that at 20 I would be engaged to the most wonderful man, about to finished University and begin life as an 'adult'.

I've had Writer Baker Maker for a year now and can't quite believe it. I'm constantly thankful that I started blogging.

I thought it best to kick off the New Year in the traditional way with some resolutions, I'm not going to go crazy and try to be reasonable with my list this year. We all know how hard it can be to stick to them so I'm going to make them realistic.

1. Write in a diary. I used to keep a diary and it was always so nice to look back at what had happened in my life, I'd like to have that again. I've also had a beautiful notebook for years and I think it's time to take the plunge and write in it.

2. Cook and bake more! I love to bake and cook but it falls by the wayside a lot when I'm busy doing other things, or just being too lazy to put the effort in. So this year I'm going to experiment more, I'm going to bring out all the recipes I've sticky noted in my cookbooks and be a little more adventurous.

3. Read more books. I love to read, it's always been my favourite passtime and after loosing my kindle a few months ago and only just discovering it again I realised how much I missed reading.

4. Take more baths. I used to hate baths and never really liked Lush products but I've given both things a second chance this last year. So I want to take more time to relax and enjoy a bath now and again.

5. Be more active. I'm not going to make a crazy resolution to loose lots of weight this year because I don't feel like I need to but I do want to be more active, there's a pool around the corner from our house and I want to start swimming more often. Get out my yoga mat and be more healthy this year.

6. Drink more water. It's a new year so I've bought myself a new Bobble water bottle and I'm aiming to drink my recommended intake everyday.

7. Keep organised! I have tons of notebooks and now a calendar and week planner so I have all the tools to be prepared and ahead of the game hopefully this year I'll be on top of everything.

8. Start something new. I don't know entirely what yet but I want to try and start something new that I've never done before.

9. Write more notes and letters. You all know I love to write and I love to write to people knowing how exciting it is to receive a hand written letter. So I hope to do more of that, to keep in touch with people I love in my favourite way.

10. I want to remember everyday to be grateful for everything I have. I am so incredibly lucky and I hope I can be appreciative of that.

I hope you all had a wonderful New Years Eve, whether you stayed home in your pyjamas or went out in your best dress.

Here's to a new year. Bring it on 2015.

Katy xx

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Last night we got dressed up into our Christmas eve pyjamas, prepped our Christmas dinner and snuggled up together to watch a Christmas film. Luxie had her stocking on the tree and likes to snuggle under the tree on our rug.

We're all dressed up and dishing up our Christmas dinner right now. I thought I'd wish my lovely readers a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays if you don't celebrate Christmas I hope you're day is wonderful and joy filled no matter what.

Katy xx

Advent Day 24: Last minute Cranberry sauce

Merry Christmas Eve! It's nearly that day! We've had a busy few days travelling round visit people. Today though we had a lazy day, we popped to the shops (not as crazy as I thought but still hard to negotiate) and prepped all our food for tomorrow.

One of the things I prepped today was our Cranberry sauce, we love cranberry sauce and if we buy a jar we go through it at lightning speed! So I decided to try making some for our dinner!

So I thought I'd share the recipe with you as a little last minute addition to our table and maybe yours..

It's really simple and you'll need;

500g cranberries fresh or frozen,
200g sugar,
200ml orange juice.

Pop your orange sugar and sugar together in a pan and bring to the boil on a medium heat.

Once that is boiling slightly and all your sugar has dissolved add your cranberries.

If they are frozen they will take about 5 minutes to cook through, fresh ones around 10 minutes.

Once some of the cranberries have burst and your sauce is starting to thicken up turn off the heat and leave to cool on the hob.

This will last in your fridge for about 1 week but I know in our house it'll be more like a few days!

All our things are prepped and in their pans ready to go right in the oven tomorrow and we've got our chicken prepped and beef ready to go in the slow cooker. I'm very excited about our Christmas dinner!

Merry Christmas, I hope you have a lovely day with the people you love!

Katy x

Advent Day 15: Kitty Christmas DIYs!

I decided recently that I wasn't going to spend a fortune this Christmas on toys for the cat. I'm a sucker and a total cat person so it's hard for me not to spoil Lux, I headed over to the ever useful Pinterest to find some ideas. (Find me here!)

I started with a little stocking! Super simple but cute and of course everyone needs a stocking at Christmas!

Then I grabbed some red felt from my stash and cut out circle shapes to make mice!

I folded the felt in half and used a simple stitch to sew the sides, stuffing a little bit with wadding before I finished sewing. Then I added a little tail by plaiting some thread and sewing it to one end. Quick and simple toy that you won't mind being destroyed in 10 minutes.

Then I riffled through my scraps of fabric and picked out some material. I drew the outline of a fish and used my pinking sheers so I wouldn't have to do any edges. I sewed two fish shapes together and then added some ribbon so you can drag it along.

Last but not least some simple pom poms with a long enough string to be dragged and dangled.

The easiest way of doing this is to take two fingers and wrap a large amount of wool around them. Once you have enough take a length of string and wrap it around the middle of the wool and put tight, slip the wool off your fingers and tighten the thread as much as possible so it is secure. Cut around the outside of the wool through the loops until you have a pom pom!

My little monster cat is definitely excited for Christmas, she loves to try and pull down the tree and all it's decorations or drag away the already wrapped Christmas presents. I hope your kitties enjoy these!

Katy xx

Advent Day 14: National Wrapping Day!

It's National Wrapping Day! I LOVE to wrap presents it's one of my favourite things about Christmas time, along with finding the perfect gift for friends and family.

Before I start wrapping I like to get the room all cosy, in this case I sat in front of our Christmas tree grabbed all my bits and bobs I need for wrapping and lit some Christmassy candles! And obviously I was joined by little black and white monster Lux. Who is trouble when you're wrapping, she likes to steal string and run under and over all my wrapping paper.

My wrapping style is very classic and simple, but best of all easy peasy! I've always loved to wrap things and it wasn't until the last few years I've refined my wrapping technique and learnt the power of brown paper. Don't get me wrong I'm all for colourful and interesting wrapping paper but my style in recent years has been brown paper and twine with simple reds, greens and metallics. They go with my tree and the Christmas colours we use around the house to decorate.

I thought I'd share my wrapping this year and a few easy things to do with brown paper to jazz it up a little!

So I have my basics, plain brown paper from IKEA and brown fawn printed paper from ASDA, scissors and clear tape. Other things you might want are; Washi tape, string, gift tags, ink and stamps.

My method is the simpler the better, not only is this neutral and goes with any decorations it's also slightly less gaudy than some of the wrapping papers out there.
For a lot of my wrapping I do simple brown paper with either brown twine or ribbon around.

On all of the presents I put tags so even though G will have 5+ presents and all of them will have tags so I don't get confused and give the wrong presents to the wrong people!
For the tags I simply grabbed some plain tags normally used for parcels then I used alphabet stamps to write Merry Christmas.

For other presents I took the brown wrapping and used my deer and tree stamps to print all over the paper. I try to stick with only one or two colours per wrapping so brown and silver or the deer paper with red tag! Other little additions I used are wooden letters! I just grabbed some thin thread and tied it onto the tag, I matched the letter with the name of the person who the present belongs to!

Any wrapping paper can be jazzed up with some ribbon and a little bit of Christmas cheer! You could add Christmas decorations strung around your present with some ribbon, wooden ones would look great and go with most wrapping papers. All different ribbons could look great but pom pom ribbon or ric rac would be super festive! Personally I love twine and old fashioned looking ribbons in natural colours.

I've popped some of my favourites down below the letters from Hobbycraft are the ones I've used on some of my presents!

I'd love to see how you wrap your Christmas presents!

Katy! xx

Advent Day 9: Christmas Cookies

Hello, I love Christmas cookies and I thought I'd share my favourite recipe. I made these ready for Christmas tree decorating so I made cranberry and white chocolate for myself and fudge for G.

Firstly the Cranberry and White Chocolate ones!

Ingredients:

135g unsalted butter

160g sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

190g plain flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

100g cranberries

60g white chocolate chips

To get you started cream together the sugar and butter until it's light and fluffy!

Slowly add the egg bit by bit making sure it's fully incorporated each time.

Next weigh out your flour, cinnamon, salt and bicarbonate of soda. Combine together and grab your sieve.

Sieve the flour mixture into butter, eggs and sugar slowly making sure it's incorporated and there are no lumps.

Last but not least stir in your cranberries and chocolate.

Then line a baking tray or pan with greaseproof paper and add small balls of dough onto the trays.
Bake at 170' for 15-20 minutes. Then leave them to cool, although they taste pretty delicious warm from the oven.