Arianne's Chocolate Brownies

My friend Arianne gave me this recipe for chocolate brownies about 15 years ago. I found it recently flicking through one of my old recipe books. I made some today for our office Christmas party. They don't look so pretty but they really gooey and very yummy.

Ingredients:
4 oz (110g) self-raising flour
1/4 teasp salt
1 1/2oz (40g) cocoa
4 oz (110g) butter
8 oz (225g) soft brown sugar
2 eggs, blended
1 tblsp milk
Icing:
1 1/2 oz (40g) butter
1 oz (25g) cocoa
3 tblsp evaporated milk
4 oz (110g) icing sugar

Beat butter and sugar together til light and fluffy. Add eggs a little at a time. Fold flour, cocoa, salt and milk into the mixture. Turn into greased tin about 11 by 7 inches. Bake gas mark 5 (around 190 celsius) for around 30 mins. Cool in tin.

Melt butter for icing. Add cocoa and cook over low heat for 1 min. Remove from heat and add milk and icing sugar. Spread over cake and leave to set.

Does it count...

Does it count as handavinna or föndur if it comes from a box with pre-made everything and you just have to stick it together? Cause if it does, here is our piparkökuhús

Aðventukrans

Ok, so I accept Lisa's challenge to be more active on this blog!
Christmas preparations are in full swing in my house and I've been knitting presents left and right!
I knitted some traditional wool socks for my friends Guðjón and Rúnar who are living in Brussles. Apparently it gets cold down there in the winter! Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures before I wrapped them up :/
So, insted I took a photo of my aðventukrans

The idea is totally unoriginal but it's so easy! Just stick a ribbon on a candle, print out numbers (or shape them in coarse wire) slap them on and voila! The berries were just because I was bored ;)

The tablecloth that is underneath is from hendes verden, a danish magazine and the pattern is available there for free. It's meant to be something you place your christmas tree on but I made the pattern smaller and used it for the table - turned out pretty good actually!

So, I'm knitting a few hats and stuff - will post as soon as I take some photos!

New look!

I thought it was time our blog got a face lift with the help of this wonderful site and feel free to change it at will whenever the mood takes you. Next month marks not only the month of Christmas but also the first anniversary of this fantastic blog of ours and I thought it would be really nice if in December we could all post one thing we've been making... even if it's just a photo of the Christmas decorations in our homes... creativity comes in all forms!! :-) Or if you haven't been making anything maybe just a blog about some creative discovery you've made or an arts and crafts shop that you've stumbled upon.. lets get a bit more active girls, who's with me? (Picture woman with flag marching down a road... just for extra impact!) hahahaha

Skrappkeppni

Jæja ég ákvað að vera með í skrappkeppni á skrapplistanum... svona til að koma mér aðeins í gang í föndrinu. Keppnin felst í því að skrappa 7 síður á 7 dögum, hver síða er nokkurn vegin fyrirfram ákveðið verkefni og ég hef 24 tíma til að klára síðuna. Hljómar nógu einfalt... en fyrstu tvær eru búnar að vera hell og ég var að skila 2-3 mín í skilatímann!!

Jæja ég set inn fyrstu síðurnar til að sýna ykkur - þið krossið svo fingur fyrir mig að ég nái að klára alla 7 dagana.

Dagur 2


Dagur 1

Christmas is coming!!!!!!

Today is the 25th of September, which means 3 months till Christmas, or 13 weeks, or 90 days to be precise!!! I have started my Christmas-card making but I still have loads to finish and I was planning on handmaking all my gifts as well... so this year I am starting early so that I don't run out of time like last year. I am of course trying to encourage a bit of ceativity amoung our group by telling you this... I'm hoping it will inspire some action on the hand-making front, whether it's Christmas orientated or not. ;-) Below is one of my finished Christmas cards for this year. Since my boyfriend celebrates new year I decided to have merry christmas in my language and happy new year in his language on most of our cards for here and Jersey. I am of course a Christmas fanatic (as you all know) so for me preparing Christmas cards at this time of year is great fun... but for those of you who are still enjoying the summer weather (that would be Jamie and Hulda who are in America) spare a thought for us over here who are well on our way to winter!!!

Come on people... get creative!!

Well it seems that I was the only participant in the chocolate challenge but that's ok... I have of course won, so that makes up for the lack of participation!! ;-) I have decided to hand the "theme" reins over to Lára. She can decide when the next theme challenge will be and what the theme is and we'll see if anyone's any better at participating next time! I have really been concentrating on jewellery lately so I thought I'd post a photo of my friend Auður modelling her earrings, necklace and bracelet set. One of our members, Jamie, will soon be heading to the States so we'll be even more widely spread than we are now... I hope everyone's having a wonderful summer so far... keep on creating!! xx