BEST EVER CHOC CHIP COOKIES

So although this is not a baking blog, I thought I would share my best EVER chocolate chip cookie recipe. These are delicious, Subway-style, soft, chewy biscuits that just melt in your mouth... one is never enough!

My good friend Keri recently started an amazing food blog called The Goodness, basically this recipe is the antithesis of any you will find on there! But forget about your waistline for a minute, preheat your oven and get ready to bake.

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

 2 cups flour
 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
 1/2 teaspoon salt
 170g unsalted butter, melted
 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
 1/2 cup white sugar
 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
 1 egg
 1 egg yolk
 2 cups milk chocolate buttons

Preheat the oven to170 degrees C (not fan-forced). Grease baking trays or line with baking paper.

Mix together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk with an electric beater until light and creamy. Sift in the dry ingredients and mix with a spoon until just blended. Stir in the chocolate.  buttons, and chill in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Make balls of dough and drop onto the prepared baking trays. Place them about 3 inches apart. (The main thing is not to flatten them at all, as they will spread by themselves).

Bake the cookies for exactly 15 in the preheated oven. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. This usually makes about 30 medium sized cookies.

Enjoy!

Mx

MY LITTLE BOY

But here's the project I'm most proud of :) Bos Alexander Veysey was born March 4, he is now 9 weeks old and he is such a treasure.

Mx

LOGO DESIGN

This week I finalised a logo for my friend's new Wanaka hair salon - Mountain Air Hair Studio.
It was heaps of fun putting it together and she loves it which is awesome!

Mx

DESIGN TIME

Now that I am on maternity leave I have challenged myself to put more time and energy into my design work, trying to get more experience under my belt. It is a LOT daunting putting myself out there... but here goes!

Mx

DIY CHAIN NECKLACE

In a recent edition of Fashion Quarterly I saw this ridiculously expensive chain necklace. I thought I would make one for myself, so I raided my box full of random jewellery bits and pieces to put it together.

I didn't have the right piece of chunky chain on hand, so decided to do it with what I did have which was a really short fine chain and some larger oval chain. (You should be able to get hold of lengths of fine chain, clasps and chunky chain from a craft store to make one for yourself.)

I joined the junky chain into a circle and folded that in half to start, then attached loops at each end. I then attached these to the fine chain.

Voila! You could make a much nicer one of these using custom purchased pieces, and make a beautiful necklace for a fraction of the cost of the original. I would definitely put the clasp at the back of the neck if I was building this from purchased pieces too :)

Mx

DIY RIPPED JEANS MAKEOVER

A while ago I saved this photo on my computer:

I loved the look of the ripped white jeans with the fabric behind the holes. I really like ripped jeans, but often do not love the look of my (sometimes pale) legs showing through.

About 3 months ago I went along to a clothes swap and picked up these beauties and set about making them more wearable:

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

- Ripped jeans

- Fabric to cover holes

- Needle and thread (same colour as jeans)

- Sewing pins

I popped down to the local op shop and picked out a grey long sleeve turtle neck top, in a light stretch fabric. As these jeans are quite tight - I needed the stretch in the fabric so that the patches would move with me and the rest of the pants.

I then cut patches about 1 inch wider than the holes in the pants, placed the fabric behind the holes, and from the front, pinned the patches to the jeans.

I then grabbed a single white cotton thread and sewed them on, using a simple back stitch and trying to sew as straight lines as possible!

The result? 

Some cute new jeans for summer that I feel much  more comfortable wearing :)

Mx

DIY GIFT TAGS

Christmas is coming, and one of the best things about giving is wrapping the presents first! One thing I really hate though are tacky Christmas themed gift tags, so this year I decided to make some myself out of some scrap white cardboard I had in the house.

I wanted to make simple shapes with simple borders - and used a fine-tipped permanent marker to draw them on,  but a fancy ink pen would probably do the job much nicer if you have one!

I have uploaded a scan of the ones I drew, as well as some created on the computer if you want to download them HERE.  You can then print and cut out on light card, or just use it to copy from onto your own card.

Then you can get to the really fun part...

Wrapping :)

And of course, they aren't just for Christmas :)

Mx