In A Jar Selling

Hey everybody! (*cue me singing "Hey Everybody" by 5SOS for the rest of the day*) 
So as you know my mini company In A Jar sold in the Mill Christmas Market on Saturday the 21st of November. This went really well! Loads of people came and bought a jar or two, and we made a bit of dosh too;)

We're also selling in school on Mondays and Thursdays in the Science corridor, and as per usual you can email us if you have any questions!

We're also on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook...you know the drill by now;)

Amber Flag

Life in TY is busy and exciting; we're always up to something! This year we are hoping to get the Amber Flag for our school. It is an initiative set up by "SuicideAware" to encourage schools to promote positive mental health and to rid themselves of misconceptions and the stigma attached to mental health. 

Everyone in our year is getting involved in some shape or form. I'm a part of the Audit group. I have to keep records of everything that is happening around the school relating to the amber flag. Other groups include the PR group, the notice board group (who do art and make posters to put on our noticeboard dedicated to mental health), the web group (who run our Amber Flag website; I'll link it when it goes live) and the events group. 

I think this is a great project to work on in TY, and mental health is definitely a very important issue for schools (and society in general) to address. I'm glad to be a part of this, and I'll update you as we do more and more to earn the flag!

In A Jar in the Mill

Hey lovely people. I'm sure by now you don't want another post about my mini company "In A Jar", but I have important and exciting news for you! 
(If you don't know what my mini company is, I have posts about it here and here.) 

So we'll be selling in The Mill in Celbridge tomorrow (Saturday the 21st of November). If you're around you should pop along and see us (and maybe even buy some). The door is always open, or should I say aJAR!(Hahahahaha...ha...ha....) 

As per usual bigger sized jars, such as our Movie Night In A Jar and our Sleepover In A Jar are selling at €8. Our Christmas In A Jar is selling for the price of only a fiver! Bargains bargains everywhere! 

Hopefully we'll see you there! Don't feel left out if you can't come though, you can join in on the jar action on our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

I'll let you know how we get on!

Chocolate Biscuit Plum Pudding-icing

Today is a Thursday, so I had my weekly Home Economics class. Here I decorated my chocolate biscuit plum pudding I talked about last week. Want to see my earlier blog post on how I made the pudding? Look no further, it's right here.

Decoration ingredients:

• Ready to roll white icing
• Ready to roll icing in green and red for the decorations on top
• Icing sugar to dust
• Water (or edible glue if you have it)
• Rolling pin

First of all you'll need to remove your pudding from your bowl. Hopefully you greased the bowl enough before leaving the pudding to set! I know we certainly could've done with more in the greasing department.
(Your rolling pin may come in handy here to hit the bowl so the cake comes out!!!)

Sprinkle icing sugar on the counter/your worktop. Be sure to use plenty here as you don't want your icing sticking to the surface!

Take your white icing and your rolling pin and roll it out.

Once the icing is rolled out, you need to pick it up and place it on your cake. (This is the scariest maneuver in the recipe). When you've completed, your pudding should look like this:

Now for the creative bit. Using a knife, draw the contours and the curves you want your icing to make.

Keep going around the whole "pudding" until you have something like this

Green and red time!!!

Take your green icing  (use a much smaller amount than you did for the white icing) and roll it out as you did with the white.

The goal here is to make holly leaves. A cutter would be handy. (I actually brought one with me to class but it was way too big for the pudding) If you don't have a cutter I'd recommend making a template to make your leaves. Or if you're feeling creative, brave or simply don't have the time to do so (like my cooking partner Tara and I were) you can cut the leaves freehand.

Stick your leaves to the white icing using water (or edible glue). We chose to add the veins to the leaves after sticking them on. 

To make the red holly berries, simply take a small amount of red roll out icing and roll it using the palms of your hands until you make a ball. 

Arrange your leaves and holly on the pudding (here's how we did it)

Sit back and enjoy your lovely chocolate biscuit pudding! Alternatively, you could use a muffin tin to make several small individual puddings. 

Projects

Transition Year-infamously known for work experience, projects, teamwork, and supposedly "dossing". Well for a "doss year" TY is pretty busy, in a good way.
Since it's a year in between two courses (Junior Cert and Leaving Cert), we're doing many projects to keep us going. So here's the lowdown, the inside scoop, the "juicy goss" on the projects I've done/ am working on.

French: I did a powerpoint project on "a French speaking country" with mon amie Ciara. We chose to do ours on Luxembourg. It went well and we learned a good bit about the lovely little nation.

Irish: We had to do a "sraith pictúir ar mo laethanta saoire". This was where we show 6 pictures representing the things we did on our summer holidays and give an oral presentation on them. It was "go maith" (good)

Geography: Our teacher gave everyone a county in Ireland to do a project on. I was given Leitrim, the county with the smallest population in the country. It was grand and I did get to learn more about the county while doing my project.

Science: Everyone in TY has to have some form of science project for Scifest later on this academic year. I'm doing mine with Róisín on sound energy and electrical energy and if music could potentially create electricity. It may sound daunting, but it's great craic and it's really interesting. (You'll most likely see more about this later on in the year)

Mini Company: I've mentioned this before, "In A Jar".(Contact us at stwolstansinajar on gmail.com) I won't bore you by constantly talking about my mini company so be sure to check out my other posts about the company to read all about it.

Religion: We did an individual essay on gender equality, and then presented a group project focusing on gender equality and education in third world countries. I did this with Kate, Carmen and Naoise. The project and studies we did opened our eyes and made us grateful for what we have.

Amber Flag: I'm also on the committee for the Amber Flag. It's a flag/award that schools can earn based on the awareness the school creates about mental health issues. This is very important to me (and the others) so I'll definitely update you on this as we go along.

Mini Company Update

Today after school Jade, Kate and I all made some more jars. We focused mainly on the Movie Night In A Jar....so now you can all see what it looks like. (hurray!). To be honest, I find it quite jarring how much I answer myself on this blog. Hehe JARring...see what I did there? Nope? Just me? Well I think my jar puns are ah-mason. (*everyone reading this groans loudly*). 
(Shameless self promo time now) If you want more of these lovely puns you should check out our Twitter. I'm in charge of it so that's another reason you should show us some love.

Anyhow back to business. I present to you....Movie Night In A Jar!

This lovely jar includes a microwave popcorn sachet, chocolate bars and sweets, a lavender candle to relax and wind down to, and a packet of tissues if you're watching a tearjerker. And it's a reusable jar with chalkboard paint and chalk included so you could customise the message on the jar, and reuse the jar itself. (#reducereuserecycle)

The jar is €8 (not bad not bad if I do say so myself). 

Here's a photo of us making up our Christmas selection box style jar. (Including the contents of a selection box with an extra Christmas scented candle). This jar is slightly smaller and is selling for only €5. For only a fiver you can get yourself the equivalent to a selection box (with extra added "Celebrations") with a candle and in a reusable cool jar.

So that's the idea. Be sure to check us out on our social medias (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) 

And why not see the other lovely people behind "In A Jar"? They're pretty cool. And they put up with my puns day in day out so I think I owe it to them to give them a shoutout.

Kate's blog

Jade's blog

Róisín's blog

Irina's blog

Later alligators!

Chocolate Biscuit Plum Pudding

Ah Home Economics-one of the highlights of my week. At the moment we are working on Christmas cakes (woohoo!). We were given the option of either a traditional style fruit cake, or a chocolate biscuit cake. Needless to say the latter was the more popular option (although I hold no grudges against fruit cake). 

My lovely home ec partner and awesome friend Tara (total promo there!) and I decided to make a Chocolate Biscuit Plum Pudding, where it looks like the pudding but once you cut into it it's actually chocolate biscuit! Possibly the biggest plot twist since that unavoidable time we've all bitten into a cookie to find that the chocolate chips are actually raisins. (*violently shudders*) So if you wish to recreate and join us on our journey of chocolate biscuit/plum pudding cake making here's the recipe we followed (including an exclusive photoshoot performed by yours truly). We got the recipe from here if you want to see the original.


Equipment:

• Spoon
• Pudding Bowl
• Rolling Pin
• Sharp Knife
• Holly cutters (optional)
• Small paintbrush

Ingredients:

• 375g biscuits
• 225g milk chocolate
• 225g dark chocolate
• 150g butter
• 225g golden syrup
• 100g marshmallows/raisins/malteasers/your choice. (we used malteasers)

Decoration Ingredients:

• Ready to roll white icing (250g)
• Ready to roll icing in green and red for details on top
• Icing sugar/cornflour to dust
• Water (or edible glue if you have it)

Method:

• Grease the pudding bowl well with butter (or line with cling film)
• Break half the biscuits into small pieces 

• Make the other half into fine crumbs by putting them in a bag and bashing them with a rolling pin. 

• Melt the chocolate, butter and golden syrup together

• Keep mixing and melting until your mixture looks like this
  
• Put all the dry ingredients (i.e all of your biscuits and your malteasers) in a bowl together.
  
• Pour the melted chocolate mixture into this dry mix. (I have no photo of this as it required both Tara and I to hold the bowl and pour and mix the two together. 
• Put your chocolate biscuit mix into your pudding bowl. 
  
  
  
• Refrigerate your cake.

We only have Home Ec once a week so on Thursday we will begin the icing process. Your chocolate biscuit should last for up to two weeks when refrigerated (if it's not eaten by then!). Stay tuned for part two: icing!

Pray for Paris

Over the weekend, a great tragedy occurred in Paris where 127 people were killed. We pray for everyone in Paris during this awful time. 

Mini Company

How after all of this time have I forgotten to mention my Mini Company?
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you..... "In A Jar"!!!!

The idea is simple; we have the necessities for a given occasion, such as a sleepover, all "in a jar". 

We have three jar options (so far):

• Sleepover In A Jar
• Christmas In A Jar
• Movie Night In A Jar (not pictured)

As you can see we have 2 different sized jars, the smaller one is €5 and the bigger one is €8. 

If you want to contact us you can do so here:

Email: stwolstansinajar@gmail.com

We're also on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Check us out!

Spinning

For P.E we are doing a 3 week module of Spinning and Circuits. Spinning is cycling on a stationary bike where you alternate between sitting and sprinting, standing and squatting, and standing with high resistance on the wheels (very heavy!). Or as I call it: "going nowhere fast". 

We have P.E for a double class last thing on a Friday. Spinning and circuits is enjoyable, but tiring. 

Mid Term!

I was sick for the first weekend of the mid term. (Cue sympathetic "awwww").

After a lot of sniffling, snoozing and "Sounds Good Feels Good" I got better. (yay!) 

I spent the rest of the mid term going out with friends, visiting family, and my cousin came up from Galway to stay with us near the end half of the week. It was great craic indeedio. The week flew by and all of a sudden it was November and we were back to school and back to TY Land....