Recipe: chocolate making

Making chocolates was always super fun when I was a kid. Choosing the molds, whether to add colour or flavour. Never mind getting to sample the end product! Actually, it might have been chocolate making that started my chocolate obsession?? (On a side note, my husband recently worked out my weekly chocolate budget… I’m not sure if he was more amazed, disgusted or proud of my clear dedication) Anyway, back to our current chocolate making.

Master D chose to make bears, frogs and tools. We melted about a cup of chocolate for each mold – just in the microwave for about 40 seconds. For our frogs we made choc mint, just by adding some peppermint essence. For our bears we made peanut chocolate with crunchy noodles (yumo, just add a tablespoon of peanut butter and half a cup of crispy noodles) and for the tools Master D decided on white chocolate with green food colouring and rose water essence (odd)!

While we were making them Master D looked at the bench and said (with a fair bit of glee) ‘we’re making a mess mum!’ 🙂 After letting them set for about an hour we had a taste test, although I was apparently only allowed to eat the frogs. Master D chose to eat a hammer first but soon afterwards told me that his tummy was rumbling and could he have another?

Thanks for reading, Kelly

Finger puppet fun

Listening to Master D play with his homemade finger puppets cracks me up. The other day his puppets were asking each other ‘are you naughty sometimes?’ to which another would answer (in a very serious voice) ‘ yes, sometimes’. LOL 🙂 Lucky for him (and his sometimes naughty finger puppets) they are super easy and fun to make.

Normally I have an animal in mind when I start – usually inspired by my wool scraps 🙂 Sometimes I sketch my idea to start me off (and I’m no artist as you can see):

Then I cast on around 12 stitches, before knitting about 18 rows of stocking stitch (knit a row, purl a row, repeat) before casting off. When I cast off I leave a good length of wool attached (I use this to sew my little creature up at the end).

 
Next I cut out my felt features; nose, ears, tail or whatever is needed and sew them on to the wool rectangle, together with googly sew on eyes.

 Then I sew up the creature using the wool I left attached, trimming off any excess. 

Then it is ready for play!

Just be careful around any Wookie dogs (you can learn more about this ferocious animal in my post ‘This is us #1: Wookie‘)!

Attacked!

 Thanks for reading, Kelly