Silent Sundays - Danish Summer

A photo I took last May of a raps (canola) field.

Harry Potter

Source

Tomorrow night Hans and I are going to see Harry Potter. The tickets were purchased last night, and I am ready to see it! I'm a bit sad that this is it. No more movies to film or books to write. I was sad when the 7th book was released, but with the release of the final movie, it really feels like it's the end.

Yes, I know, I'm a total Harry Potter geek!

Anyway, I've seen some ideas and recipes around the blogoshpere recently, and thought I would try my hand at some. I figured Hans and I needed to imbibe in some Cauldron Cakes and Butterbeer before the movie.

I saw a plethora of recipes for cauldron cakes, pretty much all of them called for devil's food cake mix. Well, I have my own recipe for chocolate cupcakes. 

Cauldron Cakes

1 1/2 cups of flour

1/2 cup of sugar or substitute (xylitol or stevia)

1/4 cup of oil (I normally use olive or canola)

1/2 cup of cocoa powder

1 cup of water

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1 teaspoon of salt

1 tablespoon of vinegar

Mix everything in 1 bowl and pour into muffin tin/silicone cupcake forms and bake in a preheated 350F/176C oven for about 20 minutes. Remove and let cool. Makes about 18 small-medium cupcakes.

Once cooled begin decorating. 

My first few cupcakes I attempted to make cauldron handles out of chocolate. The handles took what seemed like forever to cool, granted I wasn't able to pop them in the fridge (or freezer) to cool. Once they were cooled they worked, but looked terrible on my cauldrons.

I decided to go with other suggestions and use licorice strings. These turned out much better! I removed some the the center of my cauldron with a knife to fill with dragons blood (black currant jelly) and added the licorice string handles. I wanted to add chocolate chip 'feet' to the base of the cauldron, but we didn't have any. So, I left well enough alone.

Next came the Butterbeer.

This was a difficult one, and some of the experimenting was unpleasant. All of the recipes I found called for butterscotch schnapps or butterscotch chips or extract. Well, I don't have any of those! So, I decided to make my own version of butter beer, using a recipe I found  for butterscotch sauce.

Butterbeer (1 glass)

1 tablespoon of butterscotch sauce (recipe found here)

1/2 - 1 teaspoon of butter

beer to fill

This is best served warm. It would make a pretty tasty winter party drink. 

Heat butterscotch sauce with butter in the microwave (will only take 30 seconds or less) stir to mix. Add a small bit of warm beer to mix, then top with the rest. It will be very foamy, be careful not to overfill.

If serving cold, chill the beer first, mix together room temperature butterscotch sauce and butter. Add a small amount of beer to mix, then top it off.

Adjust ingredients to taste. The first time I made this it was WAY too sweet for me. 

Are you going to see the final Harry Potter movie?

Linking up here:

Young & Crafty
Bacon Time With The Hungry Hungry Hypo
Just a girl
Be Different Act Normal
Confessions of a Stay at Home Mommy
Reasons To Skip Housework
Euro Style Cakes

Tiered Stand

The past week has gone by so fast. I feel like I've been running in circles, but have very little to show for it. 

I have, however, managed to get a quick project in. I don't have a tutorial for this one, but it's pretty straight forward and super easy.

I went thrifting, yet again, and this time I bought dishes and candle holders. 

Here's what I made with them. 

I glued 2 candle holders end to end, then glued to the center of a large plate. Followed by 2 more candle holders and a bowl. Then glued the bowl on top of the first set of candle holders. Finally, glued another, smaller bowl on top.

For the time being, I'm using it to hold some of my craft supplies.

What do you think?

Linking up here:

Young & Crafty
Bacon Time With The Hungry Hungry Hypo
Just a Girl
Pouty Pink Princess
Be Different Act Normal
Ask Anna
Embellishing Life
Confessions of a Stay at Home Mommy
Reasons To Skip Housework
Not Just A Housewife
Vintage Wanna Bee
A Diamond in the Stuff
Lovely Little Snippets
Ginger Snaps
Polka Dots on Parade
Organize and Decorate Everything
Someday Crafts
Homemaker on a Dime

Spending some time with family.

Yesterday was a pretty awesome day. I took far too many pictures and had a hard time choosing which ones to post.

Hans and I went over to his parent's house yesterday. Jens, Mathilde (Hans' brother and his wife), and Jonas were visiting for the last time before Mathilde has their second child.

Kristina (Hans' sister) and her family were there as well.

We arrived at 3, just in time for tea (or coffee). Henny (Hans' mom) had buns, warm cinnamon rolls, and almond cake on the table. After eating and drinking, we went to the park. It was a beautiful albeit, cloudy day. We walked and talked, and then played on the playground.  Even my father in-law, Jens Kristian (who is 67) played with us.

Here are the pictures from our adventure, I hope you enjoy.

Decorating Dilemma

Our bedroom makes me pull my hair out! 

It's boring and white. It lacks wall space. It's quite small, and I just don't know what to do with it. So, I'm added a little color. 

For now, it's a little bohemian. 

Just ignore the gym against the wall, we have no other place to put it.

See that dresser? It's the one I picked up along with my dining set. I'm just getting around to taking a picture of it.

Now, I'm asking you, can you help me figure out what to do with our bedroom? The biggest challenge, it has to be done on an extremely minuscule budget. Any feedback is welcome!

Linking up here:

Not Just A Housewife

Favicons

Those of you who use blogger probably already know that you can upload your favicon to your blog. However, that feature hasn't been available to those of us who are using Chrome, yet.

Well my friends, today is the day!

If you don't already know how to use it, it's pretty easy. 

First, create your icon. Here's mine.

Then you will need to convert it to a .ico file. There are several options to choose from here. I made mine and converted it months ago and don't remember what program I used, but IconJ.com has a free online converter. You can upload your file (sharpen it if necessary) and then download the .ico file to your computer. 

After you've done that, just go to the design page in blogger and click the edit button next to the favicon tab.

Choose your .ico file and upload it. Then, save the changes, and you're done.

It's that simple!

Silent Sundays - The dogs

Brody guarding the sleeping baby, Bella.

"Binking" together, he was in the zone while she was playing.

The Diva, Zoe.

Adding to the Art

I'm sorry I was MIA yesterday. The day got away from me, and I went to bed without a second thought. When I awoke this morning, I realized I didn't post anything! I hope you can forgive me. Now, onto today's post!

About a month ago, the very first project on here was my abstract art. Since completing that project, my wall has stayed pretty bare.

 Sorry about the lighting in this one.

Last week, while shopping at the thrift store, I found these.

And this.

Naturally, they needed a makeover, so I broke out the paint, and went to town.

On this one, I just painted it the reddish-copper and then glazed it with a gunmetal color.

Here's what the wall looks like now.

What do you think?

Blueberry-Watermelon Frozen Yogurt

I've had a small watermelon for about a week now and I've needed to eat it. I have been looking around online looking for ideas and have seen several recipes for watermelon ice cream. I thought about it for a few days, and today, I took the plunge. 

Sadly, I was far too impatient to get it made that I forgot to take pictures of all the action, but it's pretty easy.

Start by making a simple syrup, you can do this with sugar, or a sugar substitute and water. Or you can just use agave and avoid this step.

Pull the syrup off the heat.

Add about 3-ish cups of watermelon chunks, 1 bag of frozen blueberries, and some lemon juice.

Pour the syrup over the top and blend well.

*Here you can either pour it into a container and freeze for a sorbet, or add yogurt. I chose both. I used skyr, it's basically Greek yogurt. Skyr is thicker than yogurt, lot fat, low calorie, and packed with protein. I don't think it's available in the US, but I know the Greek yogurt is. 

Pour the sorbet mixture into a container and freeze, scraping with a fork every hour or so until all of frozen.

If you choose the frozen yogurt route, add 1 1/2  packages (about 350 grams) or so of yogurt or skyr and blend again.

Because I'm far too impatient, I poured some in a glass and made a smoothie, before putting it all into a container to freeze. It was the best smoothie I've ever made!

It took about 7 hours to prepare and freeze, but here's what I ended up with.

How do you eat your watermelon?

Linking up here:

While He Was Napping
Pouty Pink Princess
Smilemonsters
Be Different Act Normal
Young & Crafty
Ask Anna
Embellishing Life
C.R.A.F.T.
Craft-O-Maniac
Not Just A Housewife
A Diamond in the Stuff
Night Owl Crafting