Snow Globe

I must apologise for the delay in this post, I had to move house and as you can imagine my crafting items were not as important as say the kitchen!

Anyway thanks for your patience.

This is probably the most satisfying Christmas craft because snow globes seem like something you could not make at home but you can. And you can recycle to make it.

So what you need is a clean glass jar, a good option is a jar from mince pie filler.
Something cute to go inside, I have used a kinder surprise toy, a bit of artificial Christmas tree and some polystyrene.
Glitter, glycerin, water and some waterproof glue.

Glue some polystyrene to the inside of your lid and then glue your decorations to the polystyrene, that way they will be visible inside.

Fill your jar almost to the top with water (leave a bit to be displaced by your decorations)

Add a few drops of glycerin: -

Add about a teaspoon full of glitter: -

Make a line of glue on the inside of your lid and on the glass top of your jar, gently screw it on and leave to dry according to your glue.

And here is the finished product: -

Cute huh? And you can make as many as you like and make them really personal. I hope you enjoy making yours as much as I did.

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.

 

 

 



 



The Obligatory Pumpkin Soup

Would it be Autumn with out pumpkin soup? Probably but it would also be less warm and yummy!

So here is my warming super yummy, super quick, super soup:-

1/2 pumpkin peeled and seeded
1 sweet potato peeled
1 parsnip peeled
1 onion
1 glove of garlic crushed
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1tsp sea salt
2tsp rough ground black pepper
100g kale
1tblsp olive oil
1.2L vegetable stock
1tblsp orange squash

1. Dice the onion and place in a pressure cooker with the olive oil.
2. Dice the potato, pumpkin and parsnips into fairly large chunks.
3. Start frying the onion and add the spices and garlic.
4. Add the diced veg and give it a good stir.
5. Pour in your stock, seal the pressure cooker and cook for 15 minutes.
6. While the soup is cooking boil the kale until tender.
7. Once the soup is ready place it in a blender with the orange crush and wizz until smooth.
8. Add the drained kale and serve with home made bread.

MMMMM!

Wet Felting for Wet Weather

The weekend has been rather grey and damp so I decided to try a new craft, Wet Felting.

What it boils down to is taking dyed wool fibres, wetting them and rubbing them together until the fibres fuse together to get a solid fabric. It does take a bit of patience as some steps are repetitive but the result is really interesting.

I made two items, felt beads and felt coasters, both basic and easy to do. 

I won't list the instruction here as I found a fabulous site by some very talented ladies with tutorials that I followed to make these items.

So here is the web address: -

http://rosiepink.typepad.co.uk/rosiepink/tutorial-wet-felt-making-for-beginners.html

And if you want a full kit to get you started I suggest eBay as that is where I got mine from.

Beads: -

Coasters: -

Up close you can really see the different colours melded together.

So there you have it, proof that there is always a fun craft out there that you haven't even tried yet!

Not Exactly Seasonal French Cakes

I friend brought me some cakes from France called Financiers, and when I looked up the recipe I got really interested because it is quite unusual. I gave them a go and they are really yummy and fairly easy to make.

Here is a picture of one

And this is the very interesting recipe:-

• 125g salted butter

• 25g plain flour

• 125g ground almonds

• 100g caster sugar

• 3 egg whites beaten

• 50g sultanas , soaked in 3 tbsp rum

1. Butter and flour 24 financier moulds or two 12-hole mini muffin tins and put them in the fridge so the butter sets.

2. Melt the butter in a pan over a high heat until it starts to brown. Strain through a fine sieve. Cool. 

3. Mix the flour, almonds and sugar in a bowl. Fold in the egg white and stir in the sultanas and butter. 

4. Chill for half an hour, or overnight.

5. Heat the oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 

6. Pour the mixture into the moulds and bake for 10-15 minutes, until golden brown and risen in the centre. Cool before taking them out of the tins.


Incidentally if you have issues with Gluten this is a great as it has such a small amount of normal flour in it.