the daisy tree

i. morning light.
ii. grapefruit + brown sugar = yummiest breakfast.
iii. morning devotions.
iv. little tiger.
v. algebra, the bane of my existence.
vi. rain beating down on the roof. (from the skylight window, I unfortunately didn't climb on the roof!)
vii. new blog design ideas.
viii. tesco's lidl's croissants. the best. :)
ix. sky clearing up.
x. the end of the rainbow.
xi. a walk down to the lake with Caleb.
xii. making Anna's fairy cakes. they're extremely delicious and made the whole kitchen smell heavenly.


Two-not-pictured--facts-about-today:

For the most part, I've been keeping up with my daily photographs. But there were three days in a row when I didn't take one single photo. It's awful! To try to make up for that, I decided to take lots of pictures today. It ended up to be around 126 pictures!

This morning (at like, 5:30 or something crazy like that) my mom left for the airport to go see my sister, Heather, in California. She'll be gone for a week. A week isn't that long, but a week without a mom is VERY long! :)



 Goodnight! (or good morning, or whatever time it is for you...)
   

Hello! Today I'm going to show you all how to make fairy cakes. It's true that this is a fairly common recipe, but I just love the almost sugary crust these get! The recipe will be in metric (tested) and American. I haven't tried to make it in American measurements, but I did a translation of it and all should hopefully work!

Below are the ingredients.


[American]
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 Eggs
2 Sticks butter
1 cup sugar
1 2/3 cups flour

Step 01: preheat the oven to 200c/400f


Step 02: cream the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer (or by hand, but it takes much longer!)


Step 03: add the eggs in one by one with a little bit of the flour, beating as you go.



Step 04: fold in the rest of the flour and baking powder, and finally the vanilla essence.



Step 05: spoon into cupcake cases (I used these silicone ones) and place onto either an oven tray or a cupcake tin. Bake for 10-15mins, depending on your oven or until golden.
Enjoy!

makes 12-15 individual cakes

Alternatively, you could slice the tops of the cupcakes off, spread raspberry jam in the middle and place the tops back on to get a yummy, bakewell effect!



Thank you Hannah for letting me guest post on your fabulous blog!

Anna x

 I've always loved making crafts, and pinterest is pretty much a dream come true for crafty people. There's an absolutely endless amount of ideas for projects and diys and recipes. I thought I'd share some recent diy projects that I've loved making over the summer. I wish I could take credit for all these ideas...but I owe it all to pinterest. :)


 This may be my favorite diy project ever.
 how-to: There's a good tutorial at this blog:  
 things I learned: 1) Instead of buying very expensive wax flakes or a wax block, you can just buy a white candle, take the wick out, and use that instead to melt down. 2) You can use crayons (I used half of a pink cone) to color the wax. 3) Food coloring will not work. 4) This makes a bit of a mess...but it's very worth having to clean up afterwords!





 No explanation really necessary... you simply cut little triangles from as many different colors/patterns of paper you can find, draw a few curved lines on a plain card, and stick the triangles onto the curved lines. Kinda adorb.

 I love TOMs. I'm not one of those girls who are crazy about shoes...but TOMs are the exception. And they come with cute canvas bags or "flags". Which turned into my new favorite wallet and my new favorite pillow. how-to:
Wallet: here
Pillow - just fill it with fluff (I used the stuffing from a pillow that my mom didn't need anymore) and sew the open edge of the bag!



I was looking for something simple but interesting to hang on my wall. This is exactly perfect. 
how-to: My dad scanned the page from the book (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe!), fixed the color (on a photoshop-like program) and printed it out onto print-paper.



 Painted...with nail polish. Granted, this is weird. But it's awesome. Nail polish is the best thing for painting glass jars, keys, and...now, bobby pins. Just try it.



 There's more, but I'll have to save the rest for another post!
 And I'll post soon to catch up with my daily photos.

Almost forgot! This is my pinterest accout: http://pinterest.com/hanmaryw/

  At the beginning of summer I posted about doing the Louisa May Alcott Challenge - a lovely reading challenge hosted by Tarissa. And even though I've been doing a lot more school this summer than I had originally thought I would have to do, I still have been reading L.M Alcott books and really enjoying it. I originally had 3 things on my list to read, and I got two done - and the third book I'm hoping to read soon. Here's a bit about the books I got to read:



                                                            

   the story: The tale begins when Bab and Betsy - two young sisters - discover a runaway circus boy hiding in their barn. To the little girls, this is frightfully exciting, and at once become friends with Ben and his talented poodle. This is the tale of all the happenings of the town and the adventures and mishaps of the two sisters, Ben Brown, the kind Miss Celia, and her younger brother Thorny.

 my thoughts: Sweet, funny, quaint. The characters were so lovable, and Alcott's style of writing is just so lovely. I think it's geared a bit towards a younger age of children than some of Alcott's other books (like Little Woman, or Rose in Bloom), and also unlike her other books it's not specifically just for girls. It was such an enjoyable little book and I'm so glad I read it.





 a few quotes:


 my thoughts: This is one of my all-time favorite books. It's just amazing. I love the story more and more each time I read (or in this case, listen to) it. The characters are so real and I love them to bits. And even though I have the story pretty much memorized, it still makes me laugh and cry at the same parts. Anyway, love this book.

 the radio theatre: Okay, I adore Focus on the Family's Radio Theatres. I could listen to them all day. Their Chronicles of Narnia ones are just perfect, as with The Secret Garden and Les Mis. And this one? No exception. It's absolutely lovely. The voices are wonderful (young Jo's voice is perfect!), the music is beautiful, and they kept quite true to the story. Side-note: I saw that an Oliver Twist radio theatre is coming out soon...eeeep!



  I've enjoyed doing this challenge so much; I was reminded of what a wonderful author Louisa May Alcott is. I'm hoping to finish my goal and read Jack and Jill soon!