New Year's Eve Outfit

Hello everyone!

I just wanted to wish you all happy new year! I hope you have a wonderful time tonight!

Here's my OOTD, NOTD and FOTD for New Year's Eve!

Happy New year everyone!

xo

Eleonor

Christmas cards & tags

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a nice time yesterday!

On this post I would like to show you some of the Christmas cards and tags that I made this year. Card-making is one of my new hobbies and I really enjoy it lately! I hope you like them!

Enjoy your holiday everyone!

Thank you for stopping by!

xo

Eleonor

Cake Pops!

Lately the cake pops are literally everywhere on the web! You can find at least one cake pop recipe on every single cook-blog/website! And the truth is that they are simply adorable! The look so cute and classy and they can make any buffet look way fancier!

So after being brainstormed over the last months, by reading recipes and looking at beautiful pictures, I finally decided last week to try to make my very first cake pops!

There is a variety of recipes on the web but I decided for the one with the nutella! (I'm sure you can understand why!) So all you need is a sponge cake, nutella, lollipop or cocktail sticks, dark chocolate and cupcake sprinkles (or any kind of sugar decorations).

I baked my own sponge cake using this recipe and I let it cool completely. Then I broke it into a large bowl and I crumbled it using my hands until it was in fine crumbs. Then I stared adding nutella, a heaped tablespoon at a time and I stared mixing it with the crumbs. I kept adding nutella and mixing until I had a fudge-like texture (or a texture similar to a cookie dough). After that it was time to form the mixture into small balls. I placed them on a tray lined with baking paper and I refrigerated them for about an hour. 

After taking them off the fridge they where quite firm and ready to be frosted! I melted the chocolate and I dipped in the one edge of the sticks before sticking them into the top center of each cake ball about halfway through. At this point it is very important to make sure not to insert them too deep or too shallow. I let them for about 5-10 minutes to set and then I started dipping the cake balls into the chocolate. Before the chocolate was set I decorated them with sprinkles and grated coconut. 

After I have finished decorating all of my cake pops I refrigerated them for about an hour. And that was it! My very first cake pops were done! Aren't they cute?

Thank you all for stopping by!

xo

Eleonor

The final countdown!

Hey everybody! 7 days to go! Christmas is soooo close! And I still have 1000 things to do! But I'm excited anyway!

Have a nice and cozy Tuesday evening everyone!

Thank's for for stopping by!

xo

Eleonor

Our Nutcracker!

This week was an absolute madness, with a lot of stress and work but also full of interesting challenges. Yesterday was the Christmas play of the kindergarten that I work and luckily everything went fabulously! After almost 2 months of rehearsals and construction of the scenes, poems, scripts and music we were finally ready to perform our play! And by we I mean the children! This year we put on the Nutcracker into a more childish, carefree and funny version of course! My little pupils did all very well, like proper actors! 

  

Friday was the hardest day of all, because after work we went straight to the theater to set up the scenery and the decorations. After 12 hours of non-stop work my body touched it's limits and suddenly I was with a fever and I knew that it was time to stop. Imagine my stress being with a fever the day before the play. Fortunately I took some febrifuge and I made it!

  

So although I had a lot of stress it all ended up well and the play was amazing! My students and their parents really enjoyed it! On Monday the children kept asking me "Are we going to repeat the play miss Eleonor?" In my opinion that's the true success...that the children loved the whole process so much that they wanted to do it all over again! 

But now it's time to take it slow a little bit and enjoy the season in our class! Just sing Christmas songs, read Christmas books and make Christmas crafts with tons of glitter! 

Thank you all for stopping by!

xo

Eleonor

Baby shower and a diaper cake!

I don't know about you but I have the feeling lately that everybody is having a baby! I know too many couples that are expecting! And most of them are expecting baby boys! Bring some boys into the world ladies! They're definitely needed!

One of those couples is my cousin and her hubby, who already have a beautiful and super smart 4 year old boy and in a few weeks they're about to have their second son. Of course we threw her a surprise baby shower! Her sister has arranged the whole thing and it was pretty amazing I must admit! The house was beautiful decorated with all kind of baby stuff (everything in blue of course!) and the buffet was simple yet elegant and delicious!

A glass of wine, some good quality cheese, toasted bread and fluffy cupcakes for dessert along with good friends and family chit chatting by the early decorated Christmas tree! Just the perfect way to celebrate a new life that's about to come into the world!The fact that it was on a Thursday afternoon made it even more special as it was a refreshing break in the stressful week. 

As I was thinking a few days ago about what present should I bring to the soon to be (for the 2nd time) mommy, the idea hit me! A homemade diaper cake! I googled a little bit to get some inspiration and I was ready to start creating! All I needed was newborn diapers (about 40 diapers), a round base (to place the cake on - I just used a regular cake base but you can use a serving platter also), rubber bands or tape to roll the diapers, decorative ribbon and baby goodies!

I started by rolling the diapers which was the most time consuming part of the whole process. I secured them in place with some tape. Then I needed something at the core of my cake in order to "build" the diapers around it. I used a roll of paper towels that I secured in place with some tape. Then I started placing the diapers around it and I secured each layer with a large rubber band. I continued building the cake until I've used up all of the diapers.

 Once I've had the cake base done it was time for the fun part : decorating the cake! The first step was to rap a ribbon around the tiers to cover up the rubber bands. Then I slid the baby goodies as well as the card between the diapers. At the top of the cake I put a baby bottle and a teddy bear. Then I adhered a few stickers on the ribbon just to make it a bit fancier! And that was it! My homemade diaper cake was done! I was so proud of it! 

So what do you think? You like it?

Thank you all for stopping by!

xo

Eleonor

Oh winter, how I've missed you!

Hello everyone!

The weather here finally starts to "smell" like winter! It's becoming harder and harder every morning to get out of bed and in the evenings I'm totally happy with just a hot tea and a good book. Oh winter,how I've missed you!

So all I wanted to do on Friday night was to stay home, put my thickest sweater and my fluffiest socks on and do something relaxing and fun! Baking was the perfect idea! And what is more fun than baking on a cozy Friday evening? Well, baking on a cozy Friday evening with your best friend of course!

As we both are big chocolate lovers the decision wasn't hard...giant chocolate cookies! (it makes my mouth water just by typing it on the keyboard!) 

I chose a recipe from one of my favorite you-tubers Laura Vitale.  I love every single one of her recipes! We tried this recipe out which is quick and simple but since I had no white chocolate chips we replaced them with simple chocolate chips.Needless to say that the cookies where simply delicious (I'm eating one right now!)

  That's how I spent my Friday evening and that's pretty much how my whole Saturday went on too. The only difference being that crafting for school and cardmaking replaced baking. But I kept the thick sweater and the fluffy shocks! Once again....oh winter, how I've missed you!

 What did you do this weekend? Did spent your time home like me or did you go out?

Thank you all for stopping by!

xo

Eleonor

Preschooling!

Hello everybody!

As some of you may already know I am a preschool teacher. This year I have 18 cute and super smart pupils! 11 boys and 7 girls! I enjoy preparing activities and crafts for them and I enjoy watching them growing, maturing, learning things, laughing, playing and having a good time all together even more! 

Today I wanted to share some photos of our classroom life with you.

We are learning about the basic colors and experimenting with some color mixing! They loved it!

Our friends from the preschool in the forest are helping us learn the numbers!

 

We've learned number 4 already!

We are learning about grapes and the process of wine-making!

And we make our own wine!We aren't going to taste it of course! It's just for mom and dad...and for Ms.Eleonor!

When we got back to school we made grapes!

Making rainbows! We love colors!

Our rainbows are ready! Aren't they cute?

We never forget our classroom rules! Alright....almost never!

What do you you think of our paper-plate turtles?

Thank you all for stopping by!

xo

Eleonor