Pickled Jalapenos: from plant to jar in 40 minutes.

Sliced Jalapenos ready for pickling.

What do you do when you have a VERY successful chilli growing year and you find yourself with loads of Jalapeno chillis ready and dozens more following on behind? Well if you have a husband who happens to like adding Jalapenos to chilli con carne, fajitas, tacos and pizzas (to name but a few) which means you go through several jars of shop bought sliced Jalapenos every year, then the sensible thing would be to try and make your own pickled sliced Jalapenos.

Little Mudlets Craft Success

A last minute creation; the wonder of a childs imagination.

Little Mudlet didn’t have any produce to exhibit in the local show but she did have entries for some of the childrens’ craft classes. Having been successful last year with her photography entry, she had been snapping away trying to get the perfect shot for several weeks and Friday saw me heading into town to do some shopping but also to use the photo printer which is in one of the shops.

Entrepreneur Mudlets

Ready for business

All the hard work put in by the Mudlets to produce pinecones and salt dough ornaments paid off this afternoon, when they had an extremely successful stall at the village Christmas market. Paper chains were added to the mix, with the last few of my knitted toys, as well as the last few glittery cones from last year which I found, carefully packed away in a shoe box, hidden amongst the tinsel and streamers in our Christmas decorations boxes.

Glittery Cinnamon Salt Dough ornaments

Rudolph the red nose reindeer …….. with sparkly nose

The Mudlets love to do crafting, whether it be making and painting Warhammer miniatures or Airfix models with Mud, learning to knit (Little Mudlet is doing a pretty good job making a blanket for her teddy), or drawing. They particularly enjoy crafting associated with Christmas and this year is no different. Middle Mudlet has collected around 80 pinecones which she will be painting and glittering and both girls have a pack of paper chain links bought in the January sales and a couple of packs of sparkly cards with envelopes, in red and green, which they intend to make into Christmas cards.

Pinecones for Christmas

Cleaned, baked and nearly ready for painting.

December is approaching at break neck speed and the annual Victorian Market will be upon us in a matter of weeks, so this morning I popped down to the greenhouse to retrieve the pinecones Middle Mudlet had collected a few weeks ago, in order that I could start preparing them ready for her to paint.

It’s been a while

The Mudlets were thrilled at how well their pine cones sold and my toys did okay as well.

November was the last time I wrote something for my blog and, at that time, it was a relief when I took the decision to put down my virtual pen and walk away. That said, I would occasionally pop in and have a nose around the blogs I follow but for the most part, the WP tile on my phone was left untouched, neglected and alone, passed over as I reached for Google, email, word or the camera tiles instead. I’m not entirely sure what went wrong, other than it became a chore to sit down and start typing which was a shame because I love writing, as is evidenced by the articles I still produce for the village magazine and letters I draft on behalf of Gardening Club or the PTA.

Over recent weeks, however, the urge to reclaim my blog has been growing ever stronger and I am finally ready to re-enter the world of blogging, albeit with a more relaxed approach and to start with, here is an update on happenings in Mudville:

A crafting Saturday

Just needs the spacers but I’m pleased with how this looks.

When the girls received an invitation from their best friend to go over and watch the Lego Starwars movie on Saturday, they happily accepted and as the invitation also included an offer of coffee and jewellery making for me, I went as well. Before long the kids were safely ensconced in the lounge with a huge bowl of freshly made popcorn and some juice and my friend and I were sitting in the dining room with coffee and all of the paraphernalia needed to spend an enjoyable couple of hours, making bracelets and earrings, laid out in front of us.