Category Archives: special occasions

Snowman fridge – crafts for tiny hands

Posted on December 3, 2014 | 4 comments

At christmas, people find themselves shopping for fancy decorations, huge and expensive trees that they compete over (as if there is a reward at the end of the season)and they end up paying leg and arm to decorate their houses. The result is forbidding their children from touching anything or enjoying the festivities.

The only reward that matters is seeing my son enjoying a real Christmas and living it to bits! To your kids, touching, discovering and playing with the colorful decorations means more than just admiring. Therefore, i never buy any decoration that i wouldn’t let him touch. In a previous post i showed you how to make handmade ornaments , my son loves to decorate and redecorate his own tree with no restrictions, we call it “le sapin de Nady”. The best way to introduce Christmas to your toddler is letting him live it.

Today we are doing a snowman fridge! The simplest ideas are the most striking. I enjoy crafting with Nady, especially he has a go at arts and crafts, i find it as fun and quality time together. All you need is self adhesive colored papers, but if you don’t have you can use regular colored ones and clear contact papers.

5 black small circles to make the mouth
2 bigger black circles for the eyes
an orange triangle for the nose
any colors you like to make 7-10 rectangles to form the scarf and 3-4 circles for the buttons.

If your fridge is not white you can still do it the dishwasher or a white door. I love the rich simplicity!

If you like this post give it some likes and shares to spread the joy. Don’t forget to like marmite et ponpon facebook page. More posts yet to come, stay tuned!

4 Comments

Posted in design, DIY, special occasions, way to play

Tagged art and craft for kids, blog, christmas, christmas crafts for toddlers, jaymmy, marmite et ponpon, snowman, snowman fridge, way to play

Warning! Addictive Christmas shortbread cookies

Posted on December 1, 2014 | 8 comments

A melt in your mouth Christmas shortbread cookies, as festive as flavorful, are to be considered on your to bake list for this season. You would love to close your eyes when eating to involve all your senses.

Whenever i want to make a no fail recipe and be sure the taste will be as good as the picture, i go back to my small notebook where i keep my mom’s recipes. Every time i bake these shortbread cookies i get more and more certain it’s the best recipe.

This quantity yields 12-30 cookies (depending on how big you cut them out)

200g butter
2 1/2 cups flour sifted
2 eggs
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Combine all together and knead until the dough is smooth. No need to let it chill as we use cold butter. But don’t hesitate to put it in the fridge if it gets too soft while working.

You will need a set of different sizes of star shape cookies cutter to be able to make the levels of the tree from big to small.

Preheat oven to 180ºC. Line your baking pan with parchment paper and bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes. Keep on checking, when the edges start to turn to golden, it’s time to remove, you don’t want them to get brown.

Let them cool completely. To stack them, start the base with the biggest star to end up with the smallest. Dust with powdered sugar and serve! The best is to be served with a cup of tea or coffee.

Cookies can be kept in an airtight container for about a week. But I am sure such addictive shortbread won’t last to that time, at least in my house.

If you like this post give it some likes and shares to spread the joy. Don’t forget to like marmite et ponpon facebook page. More posts yet to come, stay tuned!

8 Comments

Posted in dessert, j delights, special occasions

Tagged blog, christmas, Christmas shortbread cookies, christmas tree cookies, confectioners sugar, how to do, marmite et ponpon, recipe, shortbread, shortbread cookies, shortbread cookies tree

Liebster award

Posted on November 28, 2014 | 9 comments

I woke up yesterday to see that marmite et ponpon is nominated by the fashion blogger Karen, clumsy chic for a liebster award. German word “liebster” means dearest, lovely, valued, endearing. It’s an award given to discover new bloggers and bang the drum for them. Thank you Karen Nicolet for the nomination. Don’t hesitate to follow her, i am sure clumsy chic will be one of your references to fashion and travel. The rules are:

Answer the questions of the blogger that nominated you
Link back to the blogger who awarded you.
Nominate 2 other bloggers to pass on the award to.

I will start by answering the questions and at the end you will find my nominations.

1- If your blog had a personality how would you describe it?

Jaymmy as is! spontaneous, creative, fun and loving!

2- Where do you get your inspirations from for your posts?

For food posts, usually i get inspired from friends, family, restaurants, other food blogs and my travels. It goes like this; i like a dish in a restaurant or at friends lunch or i read a recipe that gets me excited, i search for the ingredients and techniques then i adapt it to my own taste without following a particular recipe. For arts and crafts posts, i come from an artistic background, it’s not just a gift, it was supported by years of studies. My original work is a creative director. Lately i should mention my son became my inspiration.

3- What’s your favorite quote?

“We don’t do big things, we do small things with great love” for mother teresa.

4- Who’s your favorite cook?

I like jamie oliver, martha stewart and nigella lawson and my mom who is the greatest cook to my heart.

5- If you have magic powers what are the 3 things you would do?

I would keep my “famil(ies)” healthy and happy around me
i would travel the world with my Antoun and my Nady
i would eat anything i like, the quantity i want without gaining weight

6- What was the best craft you did so far? I can’t say the best one but three, they hold so much feelings and memories, and made me discover how much Nady has inherited from my artistic skills.

7- If you could give an advice to another blogger, what would it be?

Strong content is ultimately the most important thing. Be yourself and give it time (Blogging experts say you need to blog for at least one year before expecting to see significant growth). Focus on the quality of the post and use nice pictures.

At the end, i pass this forward to the fashion lover and beauty fanatic Maya, playing with fashion and to the dedicated Najib from blog baladi the famous Lebanese blog.

9 Comments

Posted in special occasions

Tagged blog, jaymmy, liebster award, marmite et ponpon

Reindeer advent calendar DIY

Posted on November 27, 2014 | 4 comments

Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen, the flying reindeers leading Santa Claus sleigh will surprise you with a treat everyday 🙂

I know it’s not the time to start the countdown, but if you are willing to do your Advent Calendar by yourself as we did, you will need to prepare for it. Anyways it’s in three days.

So easy and fun to do. A great way to introduce Christmas to your toddler and live the fun of the season everyday. You will need:

25 beige paper (200gsm) not too thick. you decide on the size depending how big you want to make the cone head
brown felt to do the antlers, i used approx. quarter meter. If you can’t find felt, use any thick paper to let the antlers stand.
25 red pompoms for the nose
50 wiggling eyes
red thread
25 clothspin
numbers from 1-24
UHU liquid glue, and UHU patafix to fix the clothspins on the wall

As the step by step above picture shows, create a cone very similar to the popcorn one. stick the eyes and nose, better say let your child enjoy sticking them in the right place! Cut the antlers and stick them (i used the UHU liquid glue), make two holes on both sides to insert the red thread. The last thing to do, stick the numbers on the clothspin and attach it to the thread.

Attach them on the wall in tree shape from 1 to 24. I used UHU patafix to not spoil the paint. You can hang them on a wire (thread) next to each other if your plan is not to fix them on the wall.

Let the countdown begin!

I kept the last 2 rows empty, Nady has always his new games and rules, he was enjoying hiding his small toys. Anyways we won’t be here to use them, didn’t i mention we are going home to celebrate Christmas with our family??! Yes, we are and can’t wait!

If you like this post give it some likes and shares to spread the joy. Don’t forget to like marmite et ponpon facebook page. More posts yet to come, stay tuned!

4 Comments

Posted in design, DIY, special occasions, way to play

Tagged advent calendar, blog, christmas, countdown, DIY, how to do, jaymmy, marmite et ponpon, reindeers, reindeers advent calendar, santa, Santa Claus, step by step, treat

Napkin folding christmas tree

Posted on November 26, 2014 | 13 comments

Christmas eve dinner with the family is one of the traditions! Since we got married we managed (so far) to celebrate Christmas eve with both families together back home. This is what i call joy comes in a bundle!

Dressing the table for the occasion is so fun. Everything is fun about Christmas, i know i am saying this in each post, but what to do, dear Christmas i love you so much!

Origami, this art of folding, always allured me ! I love how you can transform a flat sheet into a 3D shape, any shape!! Here is a step by step tutorial to know how to fold a napkin into Christmas tree shape.

You can leave it like this:

Or you can add an ornament on top, could be a star, bell or Santa hat like i did!

If you like this post give it some likes and shares to spread the joy. Don’t forget to like marmite et ponpon facebook page. More posts yet to come, stay tuned!