A Small Christmas Gift for Friends.....

A few days back I went out for dinner with some friends.  We all used to work together many years ago at an insurance company and we try to meet up for dinner whenever we can.  We call it our Supper Club!  We like to try a different restaurant each time and this time we went to Turtle Bay - a newish Caribbean restaurant in the centre of town.  I've actually been there before for lunch and an afternoon of cocktails!!  I really enjoyed it the last time I went and I was keen to try it on an evening.

Anyway - I wanted to take a small handcrafted gift along for my friends.  I decided to give each of them one of my handcrafted felt Christmas Pudding tree decorations and I also made them a tiny little felt gingerbread man brooch.

I've put a 1p coin next to them to show just how small they are!!

Next for the packaging.  I've recently taken delivery of my new We R Memory Keeper Gift Box Punchboard.  These are a fantastic invention and you can create lovely neat boxes in no time at all!  Here are the ones I made using Kraft card, I used the backside of one sheet and it is a different shade!

I wrapped the pudding and the gingerbread man in some tissue paper.  I love this paper, it is from Ikea, nice and bright!!

Now to decorate the outside of the box!  I recently dried some orange slices.  I think they look gorgeous dried and can be used for all diferent things.  I have put some on my door wreath this year as well!!  They are perfect for decorating my boxes!  I used a glue gun and stuck a Star Anise to the top of each one - mmm Star Anise smells lovely!!

I wrapped a small paper doily over the top of the box and stuck it down.  I then used my glue gun to stick the orange slice ornament on the top of it.

Cute aren't they!!

I popped them into a kraft paper bag with a stamped sentiment on.

and then made a quick stamped tag to finish it off!

My friends were delighted with their little package and actually thought the decorated box was the gift!  They were reluctant to unwrap it as they didn't want to spoil the decoration!!

Thanks for stopping by today x

My New Cake Pop Maker!

I'm sure many people already have one of these handy little machines!  I've been toying with the idea of getting a Cake Pop Maker for quite some time now but the prices seemed alittle high and I wasn't sure if I would use it enough to justify spending too much!  Well - last week I saw that Home Bargains had one on their website for just £10.99 and it was a 12 hole one!!  So I thought at that price it would be silly not to grab one!  If you'd like one as well you can find it here

It also comes with 2 packs of different sized sticks, a cooling tray and a pronged tool to make lifting the cake pops out easy.

Today I tested it out with an easy donut recipe that I found on Gourmet Gadgetry.  It was very easy to use.  The recipe has a slight error though as they mention putting salt in but don't include it on the list of ingredients so I had to guess!!  Anyway - I put in half a teaspoon of salt and it was just right.

 Before using the machine, the instructions for it advised that you rub alittle vegetable oil on the cooking plates.  I decided to use some Wiltons Cake Release instead of oil - just a tiny bit.

I used a teaspoon of the dough mix for each and it took approx 5 mins to cook them nicely.  I used the pronged tool to check if they were cooked inside and then removed them from the machine and rolled them around in a castor sugar and cinnamon powder mix.

They do taste very nice whilst still warm but I cooled the rest and then put the next lot in to cook!

I want to try a savoury recipe next, maybe onion bhaji!  There is one on the Gourmet Gadgetry blog here.  If anyone has any other nice savoury pop recipes for these machines please share!!



                                                               Thanks for stopping by!

Felt Christmas Tags

Well it won't be long now until Christmas.  I am not at all prepared this year as my dad has been unwell and is in hospital at the moment so I have been abit tied up with that.  Luckily, I don't have to many gifts to buy!

I helped to organise a 'Handmade Christmas Market last Saturday.  It was a big success and the people in my area really embraced 'Handmade' and came out in their droves to support it.  We had some fantastic feedback and I think we may do it annually now! 

Each year, I find there is one particular item that I make that proves to be really popular.  The year before last, it was some mini gingerbread bunting, last year it was felt Santas with keys attached.  This year it has been my personalised felt tags.

I am busy making more of these this week as I have quite a few ordered.  So far, all of the names have been different.  It's quite surprising really as you usually get a few people with the same name, especially with children as people seem to name their kids with whatever names are trendy at the time!