Peanut-butter-cookie-dough-frosted chocolate cupcakes (and possibly the longest blog title ever!)

SO good! 

Found the recipe over at gimmie some oven via Pinterest (of course!).

The cookie dough topping is egg free, so even safe for kiddies! Izzy loved helping with this recipe.

And my hubs liked even more wandering through and helping himself to a spoonful (or three) of the cookie dough.

I would say though, I halved the recipe so it would do my 12 instead of 24 cupcakes, but I still have spare (even with "helpers" taste testing!) and the topping is so filling that I would probably have about half as much on top as it suggests.

Good job I can only eat one before feeling sick, or they'd all be gone by now!

Plus I'm gonna count this as a no spend summer project. I'm pretty sure baking items are a necessity, and I can't count anything I bought on my normal food shop as extra spend right? ;)

Also linking up to...

Dinosaur messenger bag

Ethan really loves having a bag with him at the moment. He uses his flynn rider bag sometimes, but it's just not big enough for all his treasures! :) Plus we're going away soon and it would be nice for him to carry a few things with him too!

So I decided to make him his own messenger style bag, but with a twist especially for my little dinosaur loving boy!

It even has a secret pocket especially for treasures/treats to be hidden away from an older sister.

I made it by making a longer than normal flap...

and just sewing around the sides. If you made a non-dinosaur themed bag it would look like my back from the front. (wait, that sounds weird...)

The bag is made really similarly to this Flynn Rider bag, but bigger and lined. If a step by step for this would be useful let me know!

I also knocked out a little wallet for his money, 

as he had been using Izzy's pink spotty one. Poor boy.


But now he loves having his own big-boy bag and wallet!

And it will be perfect for our holiday AND cost me no money! I just used scraps! (and the strap was an old belt!)

Dining chairs make over

Although I mostly am enjoying the challenge of a no spend summer, there are some things that suck.

Like that before I decided not to buy anything else I'd already started to recover and paint my table and chairs.

(Here's a before picture I was able to dig out from here.)

I recovered the seat covers in oil cloth and l.o.v.e. it! So easy to wipe anything off! Paint, cereal, gravy, ice cream...

Cost about £3 to do all four. As you can see I've re-painted the chairs too!

They'd seen better days, and I really do love the white. Looks so much better in my kitchen/diner.

I really do love the difference!


So, my problem?


I ran out of paint. :( 


Sanded down the fourth chair and probably have enough paint to finish it, but have a sanded table without paint to re-do it...


However, I do have a table cloth! Phew!


Another thing that sucks? Sick kids. Like the kind of ill where they're just grumpy and whiny for a week, but not sick enough that they stop arguing or yelling constantly for drinks, food, toilet trips, different clothes, another toy, a tissue, a blanket...ugh. 


Something that doesn't suck? (of course kids that are not seriously ill) My amazing friend; when she heard I was doing a no spend summer, brought with her freezer paper and printable fabric next time she came over. Just because she thought I might be able to use them.


Then she later suggested I have a look through her part of her fabric stash she wasn't using when I was at hers next.


So here's to things that don't suck! Like awesome friends, and before and afters! :)

How's your week been?

Tinkerbell tutu

After the nearly fail of Izzy's last friend's gift I really wanted to make something awesome, but still not spend a penny.

I used the same method as this scrappy tutu, but this time just used a window panel from Ikea cut into strips. (£2 I think when I got it about 2 years ago.)

I did ask Izzy to model it, but she refused saying that it wasn't hers :) well taught obviously!

So instead you just have different angles on my (newly painted and recovered!) kitchen chairs!

It does looks really cute on. Plus...

took me about 30 mins from start to finish! Even with my gorgeous four year old assistant.