Hurrah for a practice run

I saw a great idea for the girls to make when they are here, aquariums with blue jelly, and other stuff.  Of course the recipe I saw had fruit as the other stuff, and I went for lollies.

I am so, so, SO glad that I did a trial run through first as EPIC FAIL.  Seriously.

Side view

So from looking at it, it didn't turn out too bad.  The MnM's (gravel) lost their colour, and the mushroom lollies (plants) lost a bit of their coconut, but the chocolate fish handled it all ok.  The jelly was a bit dark, and my container may have been a bit smallish, but the look wasn't the fail.

Top view

Where the MnM's lost their colour I had a grey watery liquid, which was a partial fail.  The big fail was the taste.  Seriously, I figured regardless of what it might look like, the taste would be fabulous.  But no.  Super sweet, and I can do sweet, but this was just off the scale awful sweet.  I don't think that the coconut helped.   Of course TJL and I managed to choke the stuff down.  I should have thrown it out but I hate waste.  And now I know why the original recipe had fruit and a small amount of chocolate.

You live and learn.

So we won't be making blue jelly aquariums with the girls.  We will make jelly, and have lots of other stuff, and they can make themselves ice-cream sundaes instead.  I LOVE ice-cream sundaes.  (If you haven't worked it out already when I say that we will be doing this kind of stuff 'for' the girls, it's really all for me!)

On a happier note, some little cross-stitches arrived in the post today.  It was such a surprise as I ordered them from the USA and wasn't even sure that they would arrive before the girls went home, so super stoked that they arrived a week after I ordered them.  Big ups to JuliesXstitch.com, very impressive service (and yes I have emailed her to thank her).

... Puppy ...

... Butterfly ...

... Fish...

I have wrapped them up in mermaid paper and numbered them (I have no idea what number corresponds to which set) and when the girls get here I am going to have them draw numbers out of a hat (maybe 1-15), and they keep going until they get a 1, 2 or 3, and what ever number they get, they get that package.  I'm hoping it will save arguments over which one they want.

So kicking myself for not ordering myself a set.  Might get around to doing that soon, or may just buy one here in NZ, though choice and cost may limit me!