Cake in a mug

I've seen this idea for making cakes in mugs kicking around for a fair while, and I finally got around to trying one when my craving for chocolate cake overpowered me. There are some really simple [this being one] and some more "developed" recipes for cakes in mugs on the internet it's all up to personal choice. I just wanted something super quick and fun plus with currently having really bad tonsils at the moment, I needed something easy to eat. 

What you will need;

One microwaveable mug

Said microwave

One egg

Four tablespoons of icing/confecioners sugar

One and a half tablespoons of cocoa powder

Just measure out and mix all the ingredients together into your chosen mug and stick into the microwave for about one to one and a half minutes depending on the power of your microwave - just make sure to keep an eye on it.

Mine developed a slight lean after taking it out of the mug, I guess you can eat it without a topping but I choose some cream. It's never going to beat a top notch cake and or desert but if you want something quick and very easy to make then its definitely worth giving a go. I think this might starve off many a chocolate and cake hungry pang in the near future.

Have you ever made a cake in a mug? Have any good mug cake recipes to share?

My Shutterfly Photobook

One of the most addictive projects I've ever done is making our Chicago photo book. While I'd love to have the skills to make a scrapbook an online version was much more workable for me. Yet I wasn't sure which company to try, but after a play around I decided to use Shutterfly. Shutterfly aim to provide the user with a range of templates, cover styles, embellishments and designs to create a personalised book for you and your memories. It was these extra touches of embellishments - for example being able to add pins, stickers, tape, banners and love hearts, that set Shutterfly aside from the other photo book websites which merely provide a printed photo album with the added line of text. 

Online design board - your uploaded photos and pages line the bottom with design options for layouts, backgrounds, embellishments and a library of idea pages are on the left. You can edit, arrange and preview your photo book pages at anytime.

How long you spend and how detailed you make your photo book is entirely up to you, you have the ability to save and store your photos online and return to your project as and when you need. Because it's up to you how creative you want to be, you don't have to be an entire genius at either computers or graphic design, the templates really do help you on your way. From designing to ordering my book took me three weeks - Christmas and New Year happened mid way and I was determined to do a good job on our honeymoon photographs, verging on somewhat obsessive.

I opted to make a 8 x 11" photo book with a hard cover, you're provided with twenty pages with any extra charged at 75 cents each of which I added ten extra pages. Shutterfly seem to run a lot of promotions so we got our book at a discount with addition savings on the extra pages, another offer provided at the time, free shipping on orders over $30 so we saved again. In all, our book cost just under $34/£22.

It took just over a week for our photo book to arrive and they provide you the ability to track your package. All their parcels are bright orange and are safety wrapped. Inside of which was my first ever photo book. I love how shinny the front cover is, for which you can add your own photos and words - I opted to cover ours with a photograph of the bean. The quality of the paper and the printing is of a very high standard, when you upload your photographs a warning appears if they are of a high enough resolution. Even the one photograph which was of a low resolution came out as good as the rest.

The printed page of the computer screen [first photograph], the spine, and the spine and back of the cover the later of which you can design and embellish as much or as little as you require.

Would I make a photo book again and use Shutterfly? The answer to both is yes. I love the personalization you can create and their offering of inspiration. To be able to have my photographs properly printed out is an extra bonus especially to the quality to which they are printed. Whether I would create a photo book for normal everyday occasions is a different matter, but for important events such as our honeymoon, children, big holidays, etc I could really imagine making one. Shutterfly also allow you to order your photographs as prints and make other photo gifts so it's a very useable website with something for everyone.

Have you ever tried making a photobook? 

The Coty Envelope Compact

This compact happened to be one of my Christmas presents [I'm suffering from a bit of a serious compact backlog when it comes to posting them so beware of the forthcoming compact over load] and its additionally one of the compacts most collectors will come to own, it's sinuous with powder compacts and one of the most important powder compact manufactures. 

As a brand, Coty was one of the leading French perfume houses [later additionally producing from New York] and became known for introducing unusual styled compacts particularly during the 1940 and 1950s. One that they most famous for is their envelope shaped compact around 1954. Yet it wasn't their original design - they merely added extra presentation boxes in a post war era. In fact the envelope as a style for vintage powder compacts was first introduced in 1923 by the French jewellers Van Cleef and Arpels.

Its gold tone engine turned metal exterior has a smoothed edge with its Coty trademark engraved upon the lid of the powder well. Additionally attached to the powder well lid is a small clip, designed to hook over your puff, additionally featuring the brand of Coty to keep it in place - a tiny detail I've never seen before. Unlike some of it's American counterparts the mirror is held in place with an overlapping rim of metal - something more often associated with British compacts.

Snow, toy trains and being a geek.

The blog title alone would basically sum up our weekend. Friday night started with more snow, making home made chicken curry for the first time and fighting for the new crochet ripple blankie i'm making off our kitty who adores my blankets. We finally posted off my residency forms [the next step in the immigration lark] on Saturday after eating some posh, huge muffins [I opted for the cream cheese carrot cake muffin]. Then we drove over to the hobby store and brought a new toy train starter set. We've been talking about getting a new set for a while after the 1976 set that we do have engine's won't run. 

When it comes to trains, I am a geek and will openily admitt it. Even to the point of getting excited when seeing former railway tracks and buildings especially like the 1900 Detroit United Railway Powerhouse building in Farmington that I photographed on the way back home. Even though the basic sets only come with curving track to make a huge circle, I could spend hours literately watching the toy train going around, and around - now we just need a bigger apartment so we have the space to add more tracks and things to it. Didn't I tell you I was a geek?!

This weekend was also spent wasting hours on Pinterest and Joe found me this blog all about Penguins - my second obsession - seriously I could loose more hours watching all the uploaded penguin webcams. We're also sorting out a lot of Joe's old things to put and sell on Ebay, working our way through DVDS, spare transformers [the toys] and now old Pokermon and other similar like cards [I particularly don't understand them]. Seeing I can't work in the states yet my job is being in charge of running our Ebay lines so that is how I'll be spending this week. I might even make another memory board to see if that might sell on the old auction site.

Drop me your link if you have a Pinterest!