It’s been 10 years now since I lived in Sydney, Australia. Recently we received a gift box (yay!) filled with heaps of Australian beer and food – including my favorite biscuits, Arnott’s shortbreads – as well as a box of Weet-Bix, self-proclaimed “Australia’s favourite cereal.”

Never a huge milk and Weet-Bix breakfast fan, I thought I’d try to make a recipe using Weet-Bix as a primary ingredient instead. This muffin recipe adaptation is based on an Artarmon Public School original and subsequent comments at Taste.com.au.

It’s a rainy day in Chicago, the perfect type to spend inside messing around with recipes. One thing I liked about living in Sydney was that its climate was so nice most of the time that forecasters would simply say the weather was going to be ‘fine.’ Not ‘sunny’ but ‘fine’ …not ‘partly cloudy’ but ‘mostly fine.’ Always got a kick out of that.

So here’s an other-side-of-the-globe toast to ‘mostly fine.’ Now if I can just figure out what to do with our unopened jar of Vegemite?

Ingredients:

• 3 ripe medium-sized bananas, smashed
• 4 Weet-Bix (aka Weetabix when sold outside Australia)
• 1 cup almond milk (I used soy milk because I was out of almond milk; you can also use regular milk)
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)
• 2 tablespoons flax seeds (optional)
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chocolate pieces (I broke up dark chocolate espresso Ghirardelli individually-wrapped chocolate that I had in the cupboard)

Other Supplies:

• Glass bowl
• Muffin tin (or Nut cups)
• Potato masher or wooden spoon

Preheat oven to 350°F. Mash bananas in a bowl and crumble in Weet-Bix. No need for an electric or stand mixer …I used a potato masher the whole time.

Stir in the soy milk. Set aside for 10 minutes so it soaks up the milk.

Meanwhile, break up your chocolate bar into chunks and set aside.

Beat together the eggs and oil in a small bowl, then pour into the Weet-Bix banana combination and stir. Sprinkle baking soda, brown sugar and salt and gently mix in. Add flax seeds and flour and stir until just combined.

If your batter seems too thick, you can add a bit more milk; mine was OK but it could fluctuate based on the banana sizes. Gently fold in chocolate pieces.

Spoon into nut cups or a lightly greased muffin pan and bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. I prefer nut cups to muffin tins but only had a few left. When using muffin tins, be sure to take cooked muffins out of the pan as soon as you can to cool on a rack or dishtowel avoiding overbaking. Good on ya!

Recently I took part in the first inaugural Chicago Craft Social hosted by Amanda Edwards, Megan Hall, Megan Heep, and Jessica Jones.

In addition to meeting tons of super cool crafty Chicago ladies, I made these fun retro Paris notecards out of old time-y black-and-white France vacation photos. Table leader Lisa Haskin of Faux Transformations said that her sister-in-law had inherited stacks of old photo albums stashed in a neglected corner of her new home’s attic.

My guess is that the photos are probably from the 1950s. Check out Notre Dame on the left. When I visited Paris, the front area was a landscaped pedestrian walkway but here it looks like people used to be able to drive right up to it.

Lisa also was generous enough to provide her envelope template to create matching A2 size envelopes from lime green pieces of paper. Not only nifty and economical but also nicely coordinated!

I like these photo notecards so much that I scanned in all the original Paris vacation photographs so you can make your own retro Paris notecards.

Supplies:

• 1950s-ish Paris vacation photos from an old family album (PDF, 9.6MB, 300DPI)
• Glossy 8 1/2″ x 11″ photo paper or 8 1/2″ x 11″ 210g white text paper or other heavy paper (for printing photos)
• A2 size (4 1/4″x 5 1/2″) folded notecards in light gray
• Lime green 8 1/2″ x 11″ colored paper (for envelopes and trim)
• Lisa’s A2 size envelope template (PDF, 176KB, print on letter or legal sized paper)
• Cardboard or posterboard large enough to fit the A2 size envelope template (optional)
• Pencil
• Rubber cement or glue stick
• Remoistenable envelope glue (this stuff is cool)
• Rotary paper trimmer OR Xacto knife (this is my kit) and metal edge ruler and gridded self-healing rotary mat OR good paper scissors

Make your cards

Print my free 1950s-ish Paris vacation photos template ideally on glossy photo paper to mimic the “photo” look, or on heavy white paper. I included two photos per template of Notre Dame because it’s just such a great shot. Cut them out using your Xacto knife, metal ruler and self-healing mat.

Next, cut squares of colored paper about 1/8″ larger than each photo. Please note that I kept the photos the same sizes as the originals, so the close-up Eiffel Tower photos are slightly larger than the other two.

Affix one photo onto one colored square using rubber cement or a glue stick; then glue in the center of your light gray folded notecard.

Make your envelopes

Print out Lisa’s free A2 size envelope template and cut out (note: if you’d like, you can trace it onto cardboard or posterboard for a more sturdy template). Place your cut-out template onto a piece of 8 1/2″ x 11″ colored paper. Lightly trace around the template and put it to the side.

Cut out just inside your pencil markings using either an Xacto knife, ruler and self-healing mat or scissors.

(Tip: If you’re pretty good with an Xacto knife, you can cut out a stack of envelopes at one time. Simply stack 5 sheets of paper, use your knife/ruler/mat and to slice through all five layers).

Fold the two sides in. Fold the bottom up. Use rubber cement or glue stick to affix the bottom to the sides.

Fold the top flap down. Here’s a cool trick from Lisa: Spread a line of remoistenable envelope glue on the bottom edge of the top flap. Once it dries, you can lick it to close. Très cool, no?

Whew! I finally edited and posted our episode of ‘Amazing Wedding Cakes’ that first aired June 2009 on WeTV …right after Bridezillas as a part of WeTV’s We Go Bridal night. Check it out below…

The background: While on the road in Austin for SXSW, I got a call from Mary Maher from Cakegirls. Cakegirls is a super creative bakeshop extraordinaire owned by two Chicago sisters, Mary and Brenda Maher. Cakegirls has garnered awards and press galore for their luxury cakes, wedding cakes and specialty cakes. Mary wanted to feature our poppy wedding cake on season 2 of ‘Amazing Wedding Cakes’, a nationally broadcasted reality cake TV show starring the Maher sisters and three other US cake creators from coast-to-coast.

After a little begging with Shane, we stopped by The Cake Girls’ Belmont Avenue shop on a cold winter day to film our segment. I brought along my wedding inspiration – a swatch of retro-poppy fabric – that we used as the central theme throughout our wedding, from our sewn fabric invitations to table numbers, guest towels, ring bearer pillow, place cards, sewn zigzagged programs, menu, reserved signs, whimsical flower garland “altar” and bridesmaid’s handbags.

I probably should have thought to brush my hair or put on a little makeup before going on national TV :) but overall it’s so much fun to see our cake as a part of the show. And I’m secretly relieved that I don’t come off too much like a Bridezilla…

During our recent weekend visit in northern Michigan, my friend Jennie and her two girls made this flower-topped chocolate iced birthday cake for me. Pretty, yes?

Ten-year-old Elizabeth did much of the baking, mixing the batter…

…and pouring it into pans…

…with eight-year-old Mary serving as “official taster.”

While Jenny made rich chocolate icing, Elizabeth went outside to cut a fresh white hydrangea as a cake topper.

Well, I’ve seen fresh flowers on cakes before yet this was the first time I saw the secret to how to keep them looking fresh: those little plastic vials that you can easily get from any corner flower shop.

All you need to do is clean the outside of the vial, take off the top for larger stems, fill with water and press into the middle of your iced cake:

Now you can add pretty flowers – hydrangeas, Gerber daisies, the possibilities are endless. And of course, be sure your fresh flowers are free of dirt and bugs before putting it on your cake :)

I thought the cake was just beautiful and the homemade chocolate icing was especially yummy. Jennie was generous enough to share her chocolate icing recipe with me …and you!

• 6 tablespoons softened butter
• 2 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup Hershey’s cocoa
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat butter. Add sugar/cocoa alternately with milk. Beat to spreading consistency. Blend in vanilla.

Canning has been a theme the past few weeks so I’m excited to share these free canning labels with you inspired by A Sonoma Garden.

It all started with a canning night from iheartcrafting, a Chicago ladies’ crafting group. Hostess Lisa bought large boxes of lovely blueberries, fresh green tomatoes and flavorful apricots from a local farmer’s market.

We all pitched in jars, lids, pots and labels and canned enough blueberry jam, apricot jam, and pickled dill green tomatoes for each of us to take home five jars.

Next up: Northern Michigan. I brought these labels as a hostess gift for my friend Jennie. She’s been learning all about canning, including raspberry freezer jam that needs no boiling …so much easier and no boiled fruit.

So now that you’re properly in the canning mood, let’s get to the labels! I made these labels based on cute label designs by Kendra at A Sonoma Garden.

My revised design involved scanning in a swatch of Anna Maria Small Gathering fabric in citrus…

…then I cropped in close, changed the colors in Photoshop, and typed in the labels. NOTE: Some of the photos say “Dykens Family” but the free downloadable template says “Yummy Homemade.”

You’re more than welcome to use this canning label template for free with the request that anyone using this template or design post a comment below or email me to track its usage. And if you’d like to use Kendra’s original canning labels, be sure to check out A Sonoma Garden. Craft and pass it on!

Supplies:

• Kathy’s free canning template (PDF, blueberry jam, strawberry jam, salsa, relish, and blank for you to handwrite your own) – simply print the pages that you need (or download the source Adobe Illustrator free canning template file to customize yourself – it’s 98MB which is big, alternatively, download this smaller source version which is 23MB; you’ll just want to copy/paste the colors that you would like. Also, I used the Apex family of fonts so if you do not own this font, you’ll want to change it to one that you do own.)
• Full-sheet blank sticker labels
• 2-inch circle punch or good paper scissors
• Computer and Adobe Illustrator (if you’d like to customize the labels with your own text)
• Color laser printer (or FedEx Office, my new best friend)

Download one of my free canning label templates (pre-typed or blank) and feel free to use Adobe Illustrator (get the 30-day trial version here) to customize with your own creations.

Print onto full-sheet sticker paper using a laser color printer. No laser color printer? FedEx Office can print them for you very cheaply.

Using your 2-inch hole punch or scissors, cut out the labels.

Peel off the label backing and stick on top of the lid of your canned goodness.

COPYRIGHT NOTE: You’re more than welcome to use this project and template for your own personal use. Please post a comment below if you use this project so I can smile when I see that it’s being used. Craft and pass it on!