Free Clip Art from Pixabella

Scotch Shortbread

Scotch shortbread is a biscuit that is soft and luxurious it simply melts in your mouth when you take a bite. The high in fat content in the butter prevents the biscuit from baking hard and gives you that lovely soft crumbly texture when baked.

Traditionally Scotch shortbread was made into three shapes, one large circle which was usually cut into segments after being baked, round biscuit shapes or finger like shapes like you see above in the Scotch shortbread clip art.

To add a little interest to the top of the shortbread the tines of a fork are used to create a pattern just like in the shortbread clip art. If you want to be a little adventurous you can use what ever shaped cookie cutter. At Christmas or on Valentines Day Scotch shortbread biscuits or shortbread cookies can be cut into the shapes or hearts or even Christmas trees.

This type of  biscuit is so easy to make and positively mouth watering that it can be served anytime of the day or night. Draw a fresh pot of tea or coffee and enjoy!  To make Scotch Shortbread you use the recipe below. Read more »

Strawberry Jam

Last week when I was at the Supermarket I bought myself some strawberry jam and designed this cute strawberry clip art jar (jelly for my American readers). I love strawberries and I absolutely love strawberry jam, it’s my favourite. The thing is,  I have this rule about strawberry jam or any jam for that matter. It must be flavorsome, contain loads of fruit and is not overly sweet.

Having a strawberry jam criteria requires a little patience and light reading at the supermarket but it’s worth it in the end. You know the old saying. “You are what you eat” so I took the time to compare the amount of sugar used verses fruit, size of jar, and price. Did you know, that some jams contain more sugar per 100grams of the product than fruit?

I find this quite alarming, consumers think they’re buying strawberry jam and in actual fact they’re eating sugar with a bit of colour and fruit thrown in. If you’re going to buy this kind of jam you may as well save your money and sprinkle some sugar on your toast.

Don’t get me wrong some strawberry preserves have their place in the supermarket, just not on my toast. If I happen to buy a jam that’s too sweet, what I usually do is save it and use the jam as a filler in biscuits, cakes and slices.

Especially when I make jam on toast I like the toast to be so hot that the butter melts and mixes with the strawberry jam when you spread it all over the toast. Who can’t resist the aroma of hot toast and freshly brewed coffee first thing in the morning. Hmmm yummy!

Choosing more fruit over sugar does make me feel good as I am reducing the sugar in my diet and I get more fruit for my money. For brand names sake I am not going to mention the name but I will share the info about the fruit verses sugar content so you can be sure to buy real jam.

The sugar verses fruit content for a 340gram jar of strawberry jam will be something like this;

Sweet Strawberry Jam

45g fruit per 100g of product

60g sugar per 100g of product

Real Strawberry Jam

60g fruit per 100g of product

44g sugar per 100g of product

If you would like to make a difference to your family’s sugar intake, take your time and read the ingredients on the label, because you’ll be surprised how tasty real jam is. To download this strawberry jam clip art jar just right click on the image once then again and choose the “Save As” option from the drop down menu.

Mosquito Eliminator

Isn’t it funny when we know there is one mosquito or several mosquitos in the house and you can’t help but turn into the mosquito eliminator. I guess mosquitoes carry a lot of disease and when you hear them buzzing around with their high pitch radar you know they’re going have a piece of you.

No one likes to bitten, especially if you have a bad reaction towards bites. Recently I had a spate of mosquitoes to deal with in the house, I never saw them, or heard them, I just knew they were there from the welts they left behind. I was desperate it was going to call the mosquito eliminator or put my insect pest control skills into play

Sometimes the mosquito would bite when I’m sleeping, or after my shower, but most of the time when I’m outdoors watering my patio garden.
Figuring out where the mosquitoes are coming from is a real dilemma, because they usually live near stagnant water, and there were no signs of water around the house. To the best of my knowledge the taps don’t leak, yet they’re still breeding somewhere very close.

To my horror when I was putting the clothes in the machine I saw one emerge from under the washing machine, and sure enough, the washing machine had a wet patch under it, which is of course is a nice cool dark place for them to breed.

Having found their hide out, I just had to figure out how I was going to rid the machine of mosquitoes without disturbing them. So now I am going to have to make sure I regularly lift (yeah right) the washing machine to clean under it.

Despite my hatred of insecticides I think I will use my mosquito eliminator techniques and grab the mosquito repellent, and spray underneath the washing machine. Although I felt a little fumigated at least I can be in the house without feeling like I am the main course for mosquitos.

Valentine Hearts Clip Art

Making a gift stand out on Valentines day isn’t too difficult if you have Valentine hearts clip art and some contrasting colored wrapping paper to wrap the gift.

For this project you’ll need some nice grey glitter paper or grey textured wrapping paper, scissors, tape, double sided tape and some thick grey ribbon.

Once you’ve bought the gift, make sure you get rid of the price tag or simply get a black felt tip pen and scribble out the price value. Just scribbling out the price always works well in case the gift needs to be exchanged.

Begin by carefully wrapping the gift to make it look super neat like it’s meant to be photographed. Once you’ve wrapped it, tie the gift with the thick grey ribbon, and for give measure tie a sweet bow.

Now pop the gift out of harms way so you can prepare the Valentine hearts clip art decoration. Make sure you have the scissors and tape close at hand. Start by downloading the Valentines clip art to your desktop so you can print it out easily.

This Valentine hearts clip art decoration can be made two ways: Read more »