Christmas Gift- Rosette Bracelet

OOOH! It's getting closer to Christmas!

Yes I truly am a small child inside :-D

So this week I am showing you how to make a really effective bracelet which I first saw on Kirstie Allsop's Homemade Christmas. In the show they use a lovely tartan material but me being a magpie I have gone with a shiny brocade. It is up to you, you may even just want to use some material you have lying around.

What you will need is: -

Fabric (less than 1 metre)

Scissors

Circle shape to draw around (mine is a cookie cutter 4cm in diameter)

Pen or fabric chalk

One button or large bead

Ribbon or more fabric to attach your rosette to and form the wrist strap

A clasp or button for the wrist strap

Needle and thread

1. Turn your fabric over and start drawing your circles which you will cut out. Try and get interesting bits of the pattern in your circle as you fold them in half later on. I used 21 circles but you can use a few more or less depending on how closely you have them stitched together.

 

3. Cut out the circles just outside the pens marks. I am sure you will be able to cut a neater circle than me!

4. You need to stop the edges fraying, one option is to hem the circle but for me brocade isn't just pretty, you can singe the edges with a flame like you can do with fabric ribbon. Just be careful that you only just singe the edge, you don't want to set the house on fire or create too obvious burns.

See the edge fuzz: -

The edge should look like this after:-

 (yes I know my circle is terrible! Luckily the end product doesn't show this too much)

5. Once you have all your circles ready you need to fold them in half and iron them a little so they keep the fold.

6. Now you sew through the very edge of one side and then keep stacking them on top. The amount of each circle you show is up to you.

 7. When you get back to the beginning you gently push the last half circle under the first.

(I added more to this as I was not happy with my wonky circles!)

 

8. Sew a button or bead into the centre to cover your previous stitches and give the piece a central focus. Then attach the rosette to your ribbon or other wrist strap. You can stitch it on or if you have strong fabric glue you can use that.

9. Create the clasp, the easiest method is just to add a button to one end of the ribbon and a button hole on the other. I used beading findings which clamp down on the ribbon and then a cute heart and bar clasp.

There you go, something different and home-made that looks expensive and very decorative, perfect for festive parties!

I hope you liked it, and remember just 29 days until Christmas! Woo!

Christmas Tree Decorations- Beaded Wreaths

Now don't look at me like that, I know it is not even December yet, but it takes time to create loads of Christmas decorations and other projects and I assume like me you have a day job. So I thought we could start now and by Christmas you will have loads of fun things to decorate your house with or give to your friends and family.

The first project I picked is really easy to do and doesn't cost much either. You should be able to get all this from any good bead shop or hobby store either on-line or off.

You will need: -

Some loops of memory wire (pick the diameter you want you wreath to be)
Either ribbon or coloured sticky tape
Silver or gold coloured wire
Round beads of your choice (faux pearls work well but I have chosen super cheap plastic spotty beads)
Wire cutters


1. See this section of memory wire, you need to cut a bit off so you have an overlap of the two ends.

 

2. Now if you are using tape you can tape over the loop to give you a more appealing base, I'm using ribbon so I start by making a loop in the middle of my piece of ribbon.

(yes my nail varnish is a bit crazy LOL)

3. Hold your ribbon loop to the top of the memory wire and start wrapping the ribbon around the wire.

Keep going and eventually knot the two ends together and cut off the excess. Don't worry about the knot you won't see it much in the end. Here it is completely wrapped: -

4. Take a length of wire and attach it to your loop by wrapping it over a couple of times and twisting the short end to the longer end.

5. Now the fun bit, add a bead to the wire and then wrap the wire once around the central core.

6. Then you just keep adding a bead and wrapping the wire round the middle. Wrap them both sides of the middle and if necessary go back through the gap between the bead and the wire to keep them fairly close together.

If you run out of wire just wrap the end a couple of times round the middle and start a new bit. Once you get back to the beginning wrap the wire a few times round the middle go back up through a bead and use the wire cutters to snip the end as close to the bead as possible.

TADA!

and another shot:- 

And here is a different colour: -

See easy, hope you enjoy making loads for your tree!

Banana Bread

Firstly I must apologise for the lack of posts. Life has gotten a lot more interesting recently and my energy has had to be spent elsewhere.

This recipe is adapted from one my Nonna (grandmother in Italian) gave my Mom. The brilliant thing about it is that you will never throw bananas away again because you can use the most over-ripe bananas and you just get a stronger flavour.


Banana Bread
2- 4 bananas
300g Wholewheat bread flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
30ml sunflower oil
150g dark brown sugar
2 free range eggs
100 g dried fruit
Milk to mix
Chopped nuts and demerara sugar to decorate

1. Preheat your oven to 180C.
2. Peel your over ripe bananas.

 

3. Put them in your mixer with the eggs and beat until smooth.

4. Add the oil and sugar and mix well.

5. Sift the flour (tip the bran back in), the baking powder and the salt.

6. Slowly add the flour mixture until you get a very thick paste, add your dried fruit and if it is quite dry add some milk.

 

 

The mixture should look like this.

 

6. Grease a loaf tin and pour in your mixture, then sprinkled with the nuts and demerara sugar.

 

 

7. Bake low down in the oven slowly for about 30 to 40 minutes, keep checking with skewer whether the inside is cooked as sometimes the middle stays sticky for ages! Or maybe that is just me wanting banana bread NOW.

 

And here is the finished product: -

 

 

 

MMMM, now I do a very naughty thing and cut slices and butter it like normal bread but if you are being good it is perfectly nice on it's own.