The Interior DIYer
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Sunday Times – interior bloggers Christmas feature!

If you happen upon page 10 of today’s Sunday Times Christmas guide, you’ll find my big mug staring right back at you. 

The lovely Dara got in contact with me a couple of weeks ago looking to feature our compact apartment in the Sunday Times’s interior bloggers Christmas feature. Myself and Siobhan Lam of April and the Bear were featured over a five-page spread and I’ve got to say, once I saw Siobhan’s home, I made the ugliest of ugly-crying faces. Her home is beautiful, trendy, stylish, creative, detailed and jaw dropping in general. It is a tough act to follow. But Bill Murray, my berry wall and I did. Even though we’re clearly not in the same league. 

Happy Sunday, friends. I hope you have a chilled December Eve and indulge in a cheeky bit of something spiked xx A
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Edible ornaments – revisited

Last week I hinted towards an upcoming Christmas feature [which will be out on Sunday!], so I decorated our apartment for Christmas a week early. I repainted our living room [again], fought with the Christmas tree and put it up, decorated for the season and as is now tradition, I made this years’ batch of edible ornaments, just in time for the photo shoot … 

This year I made our edible ornaments a bit simpler. I used a tumbler glass from our cupboard as a cookie-cutter to make all the cookies uniform and I cut the holes out of the raw dough with a plastic drinking straw.

I baked the cookies, let them cool and added the lemon icing using the back of a spoon [full edible ornaments recipe and instructions here].

For some of the cookies, before the icing set I added edible silver cake decorations. To get them to in a straight line, I used the back of a knife to gently indent the icing and the silver decorations fell into place more easily. 

But for the majority of the cookies, I let them sit for 24 hours and allowed the icing to dry completely. In order to draw on your cookies with an edible marker, you must let the icing dry for at least 24 hours. As you can see in places on the cookie below, because the icing wasn’t completely set, when I drew on it the icing cracked and the marker bled [dark spots].

This year I made our edible ornaments a bit more on trend. Completely by accident. I initially wanted to draw constellations on them, but I mucked up the first one so I kept drawing triangles and it turned into a neat looking geometric design. Which just so happens to be very trendy this year. And by drawing without a plan like this, there is a very small margin for error and you can’t go wrong. 

This could be a great Christmas project for kids of all ages and will keep them entertained for maybe 15 minutes. I can’t promise anything. But the best part of these ornaments is eating them straight off the tree. For example, our Christmas tree is within arms reach from my desk. I just devoured one. OM NOM NOM. 

I’ll be sharing my sneaky Christmas feature on Sunday, so keep your eyes peeled. I can’t wait! Happy Friday, homies. And best of luck with your decorating xx A
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Merry half way there

My husband and I have a silly tradition. Every December my mother in law makes us a serious Christmas pudding for the season. This thing is loaded. On average it weighs about 7lbs, and every year I cut a quarter of it, stash it in our pink tupperware box at the back of the fridge, and on the 25th of June, we celebrate Christmas in June. I think this is our 5th year celebrating it. Maybe 6.  

Last night I happened to be cleaning out the fridge when I saw the pink box. I gasped. I realized we missed the 25th of June, but only by one day. I alerted husband as to the date, I hurriedly took some pictures and then we annihilated what was left of it. 

That pink box’s sole purpose for 6 months of the year is to keep husband from eating the rest of the Christmas pudding. And every year around April he takes it out of the fridge, opens the lid and inhales deeply, much like a recovering drug addict on the brink of temptation.