Another Felt Flower!

Just a quick one today from me as I have taken a few weeks break from my crafting after the manic Christmas period!  I also was laid up with a heavy dose of flu and didn't feel up to doing anything except sleep!! 

Anyway - I made another one of the cute felt flowers, this time in red with a black middle.  It kinda has a poppy look about it which is nice.  I want to make some sunshine yellow with brown middles as they will look like gorgeous sunflowers then!!

Here is the red 'poppy' one

Cute isn't it!  It will be going onto my Facebook page shortly!

I am off to a concert tonight.  I cannot remember the last time I went to a concert, I'm sure it was A Shakira concert in Bombay a few years back though!!  Tonight it is John Newman.  I love his voice, very soulful and strong.  If you haven't heard of him, check him out below:

 

Pantomime

Just a quick post from me!  I recently started as a blogger for Avery UK.  In case you are not familiar with them, they do fab office products including almost every type of label that you can think of!  They have started a blog with a team of bloggers who will blog each month about various topics including business/office advice, reviews of events, restaurants and shows and lots of other interesting things.

I had a lovely first assignment - a trip to the pantomime, Cinderella which was showing over Christmas in Bristol.  If you would like to read my post on their blog about my panto experience, you can find it here.

Pretty Felt Flower Brooch

I was fiddling around last night trying to make a flower with felt but the felt was too thick for the type of flower I was trying to make!  Anyway, as I had already cut out some felt circles and didn't want to waste them, I made this instead!

 

I really love it and will be making some more in different colours.  I've done a tutorial in case you would like to have a go at making them - you can find it here.  Alternatively, once I have made some more, I will put them onto my Facebook page here where you can purchase them or order one in a colour of your choice!

Happy New Year and a Cinnamon Stick Fragrancer

Hi Everyone

Happy New Year to you all.  Hope that 2014 is a great year for everyone with lots of creativity going on!

I was browsing through Pinterest and saw these cute little cinnamon stick nativity ornaments and liked the idea of it but as I am not religious, the nativity scene didn't really appeal to me.  I made the frame up and decided it would be great to hang at anytime of the year as a fragrance ornament.  I just added a slice of dried orange (I did some of these myself before Christmas as they were expensive to buy already dried!!).  You can find instructions to make the frame and the nativity here.

I used a piece of jute string to hang it and just used my glue gun to attach it to the ornament.  I also stuck the orange slice and star anise with the glue gun and I put glue on the back where I had tied the raffia to secure it more.

Here is the one I made

As you can see I positioned my cinnamon sticks alittle differently at the bottom than shown in the tutorial but both ways look good.  I can now add fragrance oil to the orange and all of the other bits whenever required and as well as looking pretty, it smells lovely!

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!