Valentine’s House

Maisie is not really a crafty girl as she often doesn’t have the patience to sit for long periods of time coloring, painting or crafting as she much prefers to be moving but one thing she does love is decorating foam holiday houses.  In the past Maisie has made a few different foam projects.

She made a sweet Valentine’s house (February 2009)

Her next project was an Easter house (April 2009)

She then made a spooky Halloween house (October 2010)

Then along with Grandma’s help she made a foam Christmas tree (November 2010)

Since Maisie enjoys doing these so much I now pick up the houses on the after holiday sale and tuck them away with the holiday decorations so she’ll have them to make.  One thing I have found when making these is that we need to hot glue the house together before adding the decorations otherwise the house is too flimsy when she presses the stickers on.  The foam houses are always fun projects for us to do together and so much neater than making houses out of gingerbread and frosting.  On top of it, Maisie has saved each house which she wouldn’t be able to do had it been made of cookies and candy.

The one time we did make a gingerbread house.  Look at my cute wee little bunny. (March 2008)

Last Sunday I posted a picture of my Dark Chocolate Dipped Candied Lemon Peel and said that I would be using them on my Crazy Cooking Challenge recipe and to please come back and check out the recipe and then I went along, posted the said recipe over on Cook Lisa Cook but never linked it up here.  Well I need to change that as this recipe was fantastic and I’d hate for you to miss it.  Our Crazy Cooking Challenge this month was to search non-celebrity blogs looking for the ultimate chocolate cake recipe.  Once we found what we thought was that ultimate recipe we were to make and feature that recipe and the blog where we found it.  I found an absolutely fabulous recipe and I changed it up a bit to come up with my Double Chocolate Meyer Lemon Mousse Cake.  I adore the taste of dark chocolate and lemon together and this cake was perfect, delicious and stunning.  I hope that you’ll click on the picture to check out the recipe and that you’ll give it a try.  Trust me, you’ll be delighted with the results.

Other wonderful recipes posted on Cook Lisa Cook include: Mango Lassi, Stir-Fried Asparagus with Water Chestnuts, Ginger & Cashews, Curried Roast Chicken Pieces with Spicy Sweet Potato & Carrots, Grilled Corn & Bacon Pudding, Oriental Chicken Salad, Potato Salad with Bacon, Coffee Crusted Steak, Home Style Chicken Curry, Watermelon Frosty,  Mango Gazpacho, Toll House Double Stuff Oreo Brownies, Long Beans with Walnuts, Blacksmith Pizza, Rhubarb Crisp, Laksa, Math Book No Bake Cookies, Aloo Gobi, Mint Lassi, Red Curry Chicken, Lamb Curry, Grilled Corn, Avocado & Tomato Salad with Honey Lime Dressing, Baked Egg Cups Two Ways, Thai Peanut Salad, Holy Guacamole, Cantaloupe Agua Fresca, Wallaby Darned, Piggy-Out Cookies, Wicked Good New England Lobster Roll, Long Beans with Garlic, Super Simple Summer Shrimp Salsa Salad, Grandma’s Teriyaki Steak, Watermelon Tomato Gazpacho, Red Chinese Long Beans with Peppers & Red Curry, 24-Layer Crêpe Cake, Fig & Watermelon Salad, Grilled Chèvre & Fig Panini, Spicy Asian Cucumber Salad, Grilled Prawns, Spicy Brown Sugar Bacon, Kicked Up Piggy-Out Cookies, Pesto Pita Pizza, Cilantro Lime Chicken, Nutella Crêpes, Mango, Lime & Chile Spiced Ice Box Pie, Roast Beef & Garlic Herb Cheese Sandwich, Layered Crespelle with Bolognese, Fresh Mozzarella & Basil, Jamaican Jerk Meat Pies, Nutella No Bake Cookies, Velvety Mac & Cheese, Welsh Cakes, Tom Yam Ghoong (Spicy Shrimp Soup), Lime Jewels, Southwest Pasta Salad, Walnut Roca Squares, Uncle Bubba’s Shrimp & Grits, Chocolate Chip Gingersnaps, Levain Bakery Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies, Copycat “KFC” Coleslaw, Happy 6th Birthday Maisie Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies, Thin Mint Irish Coffee, Caramel Apples, “Rotisserie” Chicken, Pulled BBQ Chicken Sandwich, Mummy Hotdogs, Mango Upside Down Cake, Pork Belly Soup with Collard Greens, Aloo Tikki, Pink Strawberry Cake Balls, Praline Pumpkin Cheesecake, Apple Dumplings, Rum Cured Salmon, Apple, Cranberry & Rhubarb Crisp, Hasselback Potatoes with Garlic Sour Cream, Crunchy Oat, Almond, Cashew & Pebbles Granola Bars, Texas Chicken with Lime Butter, Biscoff Fudge, Eggnog Popovers with Cranberry Butter, Creamed Corn with Cheese and Cilantro, Potato Crusted Pork Chops, Oatmeal, Cashew & Chocolate Granola Bars, Texas Chicken Sandwich, Seared Scallops with Creamy Pesto & Lemon Pepper Pasta, Thai Chicken Noodle Soup, Glazed Lemon Squares, Chang-Style Brussels Sprouts, Maisie “safe” No Bake Cookies, Ponderosa Lemon & Sour Cream Tart, Pork Dumplings with Rice Wrappers, Sweet & Spicy Apple Pork, Dark Chocolate Dipped Candied Lemon Peel and Crunchy Fudgy Heart Bites.

Enjoy!