Today's Creative Burst

We're getting ready for our annual end of November camping trip. Not much to do, except ponder which of our favourite camping recipes we want to eat (we have a collection now), and make some bags. Yes, all the camping over the summer has done-in a couple of our bags, namely one of sleeping bag bags, and the bag that the tent lives in. Important bags! 

It's been on my to do list since August, but, frankly, I haven't had time. I've been working hard on editing ever since we got back from our Hokkaido Camping Trip and then once school started we jumped into cross-country every Saturday. My creative free-time was tied up in making sure we had snacks for lunch-boxes and afternoon teas.

On Thursday I passed a significant point in editing for our Winter issue, so I decided to take some time to go shopping at my favourite craft shop for material on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately I came down with a nasty headache (that included chills and a bit of nausea). So instead, I lay on the bed from one o-clock till the boys came home.

Thankfully today my head was fine again and I squeezed in a visit to the shop. Found some suitable material quickly (thankfully colour and pattern doesn't really matter in this case, I'm dreadful at picking material to make clothes).

Nope, these aren't pencils. They are chopsticks. You
use the other end to eat with. We now have one blue
pair and one green pair.

I also enjoyed browsing quietly. It is a visually appealing shop, a combination of crafting materials and cute homeware products. I found a pair of charming chopsticks for our middle son. Now each boy has their own pair (again). They'd outgrown the cutesy chopsticks that Japan abounds in and new ones were desired.

Here are some other things I found . . . but didn't buy.

I can't figure out if these are to be worn
inside or outside of your trousers. Or perhaps
they are "room clothes" as Japanese
people tend to call them: clothes
that are suitable for "inside the house",
but not to be worn outside.

Um, yes. The "shorts" version of the above.
Confusingly titled "Over pants".

Almond Bars

I got home at two and have been baking ever since. I baked this new recipe and it's turned out fabulously! German Almond Bar. Very easy, tasty, and has the thumbs up from our most picky sweets-eater. Ticks all the boxes for me.

German Almond Bars
Knead together:
300g flour
150g chopped almonds
100g sugar
200g margarine
1 egg
vanilla
Roll out 0.5-1cm thick.
Cut into longish pieces.
Bake at 190⁰C until firm (recipe says 12-15 minutes, but I had it in there about twice that amount of time, admittedly in a slow oven).

At the request of the boys I also made some Chocolate Biscuits that require biscuit cutters. Mostly they specified that they wanted the Lego shaped biscuits (see here). I sighed, these take a long time to make, mostly because of the rolling out and cutting process. Cute, when you have little ones, but tiresome when you're making enough to feed hungry teen/pre-teen boys.

In the foreground is the "adult's" pizza.
It had homemade tomato sauce, with
chicken, capsicum, pineapple,
and mushrooms.
Delicious!

Then I moved straight on to making Pizza Dough. Commercial delivery pizzas are just too expensive here, so we never order them at home. Instead we make our own pizzas. We used to use our bread maker for the dough, but appetites have outstripped the bread makers' capacity and so I've been trying to make it myself. I'm still not totally happy with the result, so I'll keep trying. It's a team effort, saved for a Saturday night after a quiet day. I make the dough and David does the rest. Here's tonight's effort. It didn't rise enough, though. Either it needs to rest longer or it needs more yeast, or perhaps it needs both?

I wanted to get started on cutting out the material for the bags this afternoon, and maybe I would have if I'd been able to buy them yesterday. However I plainly ran out of time. Perhaps tonight, if David decides to continue working on his 3,000 word assignment for his Masters.

I'm feeling relaxed, but weary after this creative day. While I type this, my boys are wrestling in the next room, prior to going to bed. I think I'd better pull the plug on it before it gets out of control, and send them upstairs for devotion time.