Tag Archives: lebanon

Christmas keepsake ornaments – homemade recipe

Posted on December 7, 2015 | 1 comment

Kids will love doing this, seeing their handprint and footprint turning into Santa and Rudolph.

Last year we handmade our christmas tree decoration using a homemade salt dough, and it was absolutely fun. This year i learned another recipe of dough made with baking soda and cornstarch. It’s much better than the salt dough and it’s really white that makes it easier to color.

You will need:

1 cup cornstarch (cornflour)
2 cups baking soda
1 1/2 cup water

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to medium heat. Whisk continually until it starts to thicken. It will take couple of minutes to look like mashed potato in consistency, remove it immediately from the heat. Place it in a bowl and cover it with damp cloth until it’s cool.

Knead it on a smooth surface, adding cornstarch if it feels a bit sticky and let the fun begin!

Cut two big circles and print your kid’s hand or foot. Make a hole with a straw to add a ribbon later to hang it on the Christmas tree. Transfer the shapes on a baking sheet and put them for an hour in a 70°C preheated oven.

Take them out, make sure they are completely cool before your kids start coloring them.

We turned Nady’s handprint into Santa and Joud’s footprint into Rudolph. Don’t forget to add the name and date, it will be a precious and memorable keepsake over years.

Nady colored 2 golden stars to add them to the ornaments before inserting the ribbons.

I am sure everyone who enters your house will be wowed by these beautiful ornaments. They will make your tree one of a kind.

What a beautiful season, i am overwhelmed with all these preparations. Every year, I wait impatiently for Christmas, it fills my house with joy, hope and kids laughter. Life is not worth enjoying without newborn Jesus in your heart and your kids in your arms. Happy holidays to all, Ho Ho Ho!

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 and follow on twitter. More interesting posts are yet to come.

1 Comment

Posted in DIY, special occasions, way to play

Tagged baking soda dough, blog, blogger, christmas, craft, DIY, footprint, handprint, jaymmy, keepsake ornaments, lebanon, marmite et ponpon, qatar, tiny hands art, way to play

Adding fun to the traditional seeds planting on St. Barbara

Posted on December 3, 2015 | 2 comments

Lebanese traditions say; people plant wheat on St Barbara day as an act of sympathy with St Barbara who was hidden in a wheat field while running away from her father. Nowadays we don’t just plant wheat, we do lentils, chickpeas or whatever grain that grows nicely taking advantage of it to decorate later the Nativity.

With kids everything we do should be fun and attractive or they loose interest. To make this tradition more entertaining, i added to the cups where we planted the lentils, pictures for Nady and Joud’s face. Cut it on top exactly at the beginning of the hair to make the lentils stems look like hair.

And it was a good lesson on how we plant grains in cotton. Follow the images tutorial to see how we did it.

You will need cups, use the shortest possible so you won’t need to fill in with a lot of cotton. Make some holes in the cup to let extra water come out. Soak well the cottons in water before sprinkling the seeds. Don’t put them under the sunlight directly, in a shaded place where they are exposed indirectly to light.

I couldn’t find wheat to plant it so i only used lentils. But if you find wheat they will look much closer to hair.

Let your kids water them daily and watch them growing. They will love seeing green hair on their heads!

It’s a great lesson of patience as well. They will have to wait at least 10 days before having long hair 🙂

For those who were expecting some traditional sweets recipe, click on last year post for maakroun, and bon appetit!

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 and follow on twitter. More interesting posts are yet to come.

2 Comments

Posted in DIY, special occasions, way to play

Tagged blog, blogger, DIY, jaymmy, lebanese traditions, lebanon, planting seeds, qatar, St Barbara, way to play

Christmas tree advent calendar – DIY

Posted on November 26, 2015 | 2 comments

Here comes Christmas! The most beautiful and meaningful annual festival when happiness is a small word to what I actually feel. This Christmas comes with double joy, my family doubled in size; Nady and Joud my Christmas star.

It’s not early to set up the festive mood especially when it comes to Christmas decoration. Advent calendar should be ready by 1st of December, so if you are willing to DIY as we did, better for you to go ahead.

Last year we had a reindeer advent calendar, this year we created a beautiful cute forest of Christmas trees to start the countdown to the big day. A fun and simple craft to lay the foundation of a very exciting season. What’s better than the Christmas day is the anticipation to it.

First you need to prepare 24 green cones, made with 200gsm cartons. You can use different shades of green to give it a realistic look.

After all is done, i gave them to Nady to unleash his creativity. Give your kids their favorites materials and watch them being creative; pompoms, paint, washi tape, stickers….

For display, lay them on a white surface or use cotton to create snow. The sky is the limit, use any material for the mood you want to settle.

Now the fun part of this advent calendar is what lays underneath 🙂 Oh yes, sweets and toys. Who doesn’t love a daily surprise gift while counting down?!

If your kid’s age let you take the advent calendar to the next level, don’t just hide sweets or toys under the cones, put words like love, hope, faith….to teach them the real meaning of Christmas.

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 and follow on twitter. More interesting posts are yet to come.

2 Comments

Posted in DIY, special occasions, way to play

Tagged advent calendar, blog, blogger, christmas, christmas tree, DIY, lebanon, marmite et ponpon, qatar, seasons greetings, way to play

A perfectly spiced carrot cake

Posted on November 10, 2015 | Leave a comment

carrot cake

It’s been long i want to make a carrot cake. At last i found the right time with the best recipe to welcome my parents who are coming to visit me.

The secret behind a successful carrot cake is a the well balanced taste of spices in the batter and the perfect sweet taste of the cream cheese. I believe this recipe really nailed it.

I mentioned in the previous post that mom and dad are coming to visit us in Doha. Last time they were here, i welcomed them with the spectacular chocolate cake with red fruits, and it was a hit. This time should not be less at least. A moist fresh carrot cake with cream cheese frosting to say Ahla w sahla!

carrot cake If you like this cute welcome bunting, click here to download a printable file. You can make it yourself using two wooden sticks (or straws) and a green thread (or whatever color you want) to attach on it the letters. I believe simplicity is the best. Welcome mom and dad, Nady and Joud are so delighted to have teta and jeddo with us!

carrot cake To make this fab cake you need:

1 1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
6 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
3 1/4 cup flour
1 tbsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
500g finely grated fresh carrots

Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and flower two 9″ round baking pan.

In a bowl mix oil, granulated sugar and brown sugar until combined then add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla and mix well.

In a separate bowl mix together the dry ingredients; flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg then add them to the liquid mixture and mix until all well combined and smooth. Finally fold in the grated carrots.

Pour the batter equally in the prepared baking dishes and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean.

When they cool off, layer them with the cream cheese and frost outside the cake as you desire, i made it look like a big carrot adding orange and green food coloring to the cream cheese.

carrot cake

To prepare the cream cheese you need:

600g cream cheese
200g butter
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

In an electric mixer cream together cream cheese and butter until no lumps remaining. Add the vanilla and salt and combine. Lower the speed and add the powdered sugar, one cup at a time and after the last cup increase the speed to medium high and beat until combined.

Some people likes it with walnuts or raisins. You can add some between the layers if you fancy.

This cake stays up to 4 days covered in the fridge. I suggest to serve immediately and enjoy it with your favorite people. I can’t wait!

carrot cake 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 and follow on twitter. More interesting posts are yet to come.

Make your own all natural energy drink

Posted on October 28, 2015 | 3 comments

These days i feel like a train hit me! I am physically worn out. I am sure lots of moms (or even dads) have been there and felt exactly the same after those long sleepless nights and busy days without a help. To cut it short, i am dog-tired!

Luckily and finally mom is coming next week. Yeyyyy! can’t wait. But till then all i can do is drinking from this energy drink to survive. A homemade, all natural drink to boost your performance.

1cup orange juice (2-3 oranges)
1/2 cup mandarin juice (2 mandarins)
3 tbsp lemon juice (1 lemon)
dash of salt
1 tbsp honey

You can add 1/2 cup of water to these ingredients if you don’t want a really tangy taste. This super easy energy drink is the best when you need a quick jolt of balanced revitalization, and being full of vitamin C, it works as a prevention from cold and flu as well.

Citrus fruits, especially oranges, are a good source of electrolytes. For the people who doesn’t know what are the electrolytes, they regulate our nerves and muscles function, our hydration, the pH of our blood, rebuilding damaged tissue, and determining blood pressure. They are basically calcium, sodium, potassium, magnesium chloride, hydrogen phosphate (a mineral) and hydrogen carbonate (a salt). So having this tangy drink is a smart option to replenish depleted electrolytes.

Honey, as they call it liquid gold, is a natural sweetener that directly enters the bloodstream and deliver a quick boost of energy and memory.

Salt (sodium chloride) is needed to maintain the proper stomach pH. It’s also known that salt lowers adrenaline spikes to improve the sleep quality.

This fire booster drink is a healthier substitute to coffee, if you wish to lower your daily caffeine intake.

Citrus fruits are in season now, don’t hesitate to try this homemade all natural energy drink and keep up your verve all day long.

Offer this drink to your kids after school (not later than 4 o’clock, they will be full of energy and find difficulty to sleep and you will hate me), it will recharge their energy and protect them from catching cold. Skip the dash of salt, kids might not appreciate the taste, and don’t worry, the lemon will do the job, it is a super alkaline which helps your body maintain a healthy pH level.

Now catch me if you can 🙂

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 and follow on twitter. More interesting posts are yet to come.