Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Favorite Banana Loaf

We all have that one recipe that you know you cannot mess up, it always comes out perfect, and we never want to try another recipe. Well this banana loaf recipe is that type of recipe. I absolutely adore this recipe and it is so easy and quick to make. It's great for afternoon tea, when you have guests over, or a new neighbor. So enjoy the smell of warm banana loaf coming from your kitchen.

Delectable Ingredients

1/2      c soft butter
2/3      c sugar
2         eggs
1 3/4   c cake flour
2         t baking powder
1/4      t bicarbonate of soda
1/2      t salt
1         c banana pulp (approx 4 ripe bananas)
1         t vanilla essence


~ Cream the butter and sugar together and beat in the eggs one at a time.

~ Sift the dry ingredients together and stir alternately with the banana pulp in the creamed mixture. Stir in the vanilla.


~ Bake in a greased pan in a moderate oven (375 F) for 1 hour.


Enjoy a delicious piece of banana loaf. Serve warm, either by itself or with some butter.
Happy baking.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Happy to all you love birds. Hope it is a gorgeous day for all. Great time to love on family, friends, and loved ones.



Sending Love

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Sharing the Love

Valentine's Day is almost upon us and I just had to share some of these great finds. There are just such cute ideas to craft and make, how do you pick. Thanks to good ol Martha Stewart she has given me some great ideas to make my own. Some lovely Chocolate Cookies made into hearts, you can also use normal sugar cookie mix and decorate how you please, fun for the kids or a treat for a loved one.



I fell in love with these Red Velvet Whoopie Pies, this is something I am definitely going to whip up for Valentine's Day.

How could you not want to try one of those. Yummy.



I just thought this was some gorgeous wrapping for any gift on Valentine's Day. DIY Project: 3D Valentines. Absolutely beautiful and unique and looks like so much fun to create. Great inspiration for birthday gifts as well.


Enjoy sharing the Love on Valentine's Day. 

Crafting some Love

Valentine's Day. This one day creates a month of love, how exciting. What a great time to make something personal for our loved ones. It can be home made, baked or bought, but adding a little personal touch can add that extra special feeling to the gift. And who doesn't love giving that special gift or receiving one in that case.

For Valentine's this year I decided to make something for my loved ones. An envelope of Love. 

I am using a mini petal envelope template, you can use any color card or paper when creating this envelope. You need to decide what you would like to put in there for them, to determine the size of your envelope. I will be giving Herbal tea, so my envelope is  4" x 4" which then makes my petals 2" each. Make sure your sides are half the size of your envelope, it allows them to reach the center perfectly and close easily. 


I decided to use a cream card and double it as a card, so my love note will be on the inside of my envelope. 




Placing what you want inside, fold it up and there you go, your home made gift and love note for your loved one.  You can seal it with a sticker or cute ribbon. 


 

Enjoy crafting. 

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Every Little Detail - DIY Bliss

Planning a wedding is never an easy task. Most brides have some idea of how they want it to look on that  day. My favorite part about weddings is seeing how the bride and her team create her wonderful day, through design and planning using the venue, lighting, decor, food and flowers.
I wanted to share with you My Wedding Day. The planning of which took about 3 months, but on that day every minute spent was worth it. I had incredible help from family, friends, and of course my handsome husband.
It was a budget friendly and eco-friendly wedding, a lot was hand-made and borrowed. I wanted Our Day to represent us as a couple, our different personalities and likes.

Enjoy...


Joshua and I on our wedding day. My wedding dress and getting ready.






My gorgeous shoes where made perfect by the lovely Kate Pewthers. Check her out on Etsy. She added mustard colored fabric rosettes to them and a gorgeous flower to my black birdcage headpiece. She also made my bridesmaids hair pieces too. A perfect touch.




I spent a lot of time going through magazines and on the internet looking for ideas. The ones I liked I adapted to our day, I added our colors and some personal touch to the design. I wanted something fun to show where each guest was seated that day. I made these paper rosette name cards for each guest and used some old vintage windows to display them.


Our favors for our guests were wire and seed key chains hand-made in South Africa for the ladies and home-made brownies for the men. Favors can take out a lot from your budget, so try looking for fun ideas that can work for you. Some ideas in posts to come.


Our table names where our favorite songs. We made each name with normal scrap-booking card and dell sticks, which were just placed in our arrangements on the tables. Personal and easy. Our dinner menus were printed and folded into a cootie catcher. 

                                                       

Our tables where an arrangement of around the house vases and mason jars. I went to the local flower market and chose flowers that worked with our theme and budget and just went from there. We used succulents, billy buttons, bells of ireland, and teddy bear sunflowers. Don't be shy to try something different, when it is all put together it works beautifully.







My gorgeous bouquet was made by an incredibly talented friend. Sometimes it is not easy trying to explain what you have in your head and in this case there where a lot of those moments. The best way to deal with this problem is find pics of flowers and bouquets that you like cut them out and build your own bouquet and arrangements. It will help everyone understand your thoughts and ideas. I wanted something different and unique that added to my dress and our beautiful day. Using most of the same flowers in our arrangements on the tables we added in some roses and feathers to finish off the look. Perfect.




Every little detail can add to your day. But not everything has to break the budget. There were a few things that we wanted at our wedding that we made or we just came up with another plan. One being we wanted a photobooth so we just used one of our cameras and a few props put up a background and just allowed people to have fun with it. We got some great memories just from that and we didn't have to buy anything. Don't be afraid to try different things to find the one that you love. It is your day and there is nothing like looking around and knowing that you had a big part in everything that is there.

I'll end off with a huge thanks to family and friends, without them our day would have not been possible. We had so much fun and an absolutely unforgettable day! Thank you to everyone that lent a hand. You helped make it happen.

A very big thank you to the lovely Jesse Thomas. All the photos you see were done by her. Her work is amazing, she is an absolute joy to work with and made it so much fun for us! Thank you Jesse for capturing every moment. jessesthomas.blogspot.com

Here are a few more pics.. why not..











Fun Beginnings

Welcome to the first post of Keyhole Ideas. Yay! I am so excited to start sharing ideas and thoughts. There is always something that can be created, changed or made. Thank you for visiting and I thoroughly hope that you enjoy each post. Have fun dreaming, crafting, and making.