Layered Skirt

Spring and summer always make me want new dresses & skirts, and this year is no exception.

I love the skirts with lots of layers...

All floaty, and very feminate ...

...looking beautifully gothic..

and all in my favourite non-colour. The best ones are always handmade, gives them a unique look, also cuts the cost as these in shops usually cost a bomb.

Chocolate Crunchy...

...just the way we used to have at school
Ingredients
8oz plain flour
5oz Sugar
5oz marg
1oz cocoa powder
1 egg

Method
Place flour, sugar, cocoa powder and marg into a mixing bowl, the rub until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Add egg and mix
Press into a lightly greased tin
Cook at Gas mark 5, 375F, 190C, until just firm to touch. (this makes it slightly chewy, if you want it crunchier leave it a bit longer)
Cool, cut and serve

Stores for upto 5 days in a sealed container

pushchair foot muff

With Kai being so long I had huge problems finding foot muffs to keep him warm while in his pushchair. I spotted some online that were fleece blankets buttoned up at the end and attached to the puchchair, I decided I could make similar.
I took my old fakeleather coat and cut a rectangle out of it which I hemmed with a piece of fleece on the inside.

At the top I fastened 2 elastic hoops and buttons. I then attached 3 buttons on each side from the bottom, about 2.5inches apart. and then 3 button holes after these on each side so when done up it creates a pocket
The elastic at the top can be looped around the tubing of the pushchair and done up on the buttons. The feet the slip inside the pocket at the bottom. The 3 buttons at the base allows it to lengthen it still, undo the buttons, and move down a hole (you will end up with buttons with no way to do up).

The fleece kept Kai warm, and the fake leather kept him dry. He was certainly was snug in there, even in winter, especially with his heated rice penguin.

Cluster bracelet

This is the first cluster bracelet I made, and I am very happy with it :)

It took an evening to make, my hand ended up aching from cutting the headpins and bending them round

I used clear seed beads imbetween the Faux glass pearl beads

Intricate Quilling

These beautiful pieces of art are by Yulia Brodskaya, her quilling work is beautiful and I would love to be able to do something similar. I'm sure it'll take a lot of practice and hard work to get that good though.

Muffin Pizzas

This is a recipe Kai was taught at nursery, its very simple, quick to make and perfect for youngsters (with a bit of adult help).

Ingredients

Breakfast muffins

Pizza topping sauce (make your own, or Asda do a nice one in a jar)

Cheese

Any other pizza topping you like.

Method

Cut the muffins in half, and add a dollup of sauce on top of each. Cut cheese into strips.

Carefully spread the topping all over the top of each muffin

Add any extra toppings you want to.Put a cross of cheese on top of each muffin
Put in the oven at 180oC for about 15 minutes, or until cheese has melted and gone a little bit golden
& finally theres only one more thing to do....

...enjoy!!!

Recycling

I have been having a good sort out of my sons old clothes, sorting out those to pass down, to ebay, & to recycle. Some items were to faded, or badly stained to go anywhere but the bin, but, as with many baby/young childrens items, they had cute images on.

I roughly cut out the images, leaving as large a border as I could as I dont know how much I'll need when I use them.

I put them in a box so they are at hand should I wish to sew them onto another piece of clothing, or maybe use one that brings back memorys on a scrapbook page.

I also removed any fastenings such as zips, bottons etc, so these can be used again as well.

CBC - Picnic

I've been working along to the Creativity Blog Camp at my own pace and enjoying it immensly, getting photos on layouts that might have sat there for ages to come, as well as trying out new techniques. Here is from day 2's prompt word "Picnic"

I started by playing with the size of the photos, those I felt most important are the largest & going down in size in relevance of importance. I then printed them out, cut into circles and played with their positioning. I ended up putting them almost in chronological order so they'd tell the story.

I chose Gypsy - Migration to mount them on due to all its swirls and hints of green that went with all the greenery in the photos. All by itself this looked wrong so I cut it out into a circle and backed it onto Basic Grey - Urban Prairie - hay loft. I also used some basic grey letters to spell the title and then wrote in green pen the journalling in the space down the side of the photos, I tried to make my writing in a looped fashion to reflect all the circles.

It still didnt look look right so I dived into my embellishements and found some embossed sunflowers. I removed the brown centres and ended up with flowers that resembled the dandelion Kai has picked in one of the photos.

matching necklace, earrings and bracelet

I fell in love with this necklace from Primark and had to get it, but I do like my jewellery to match, and they didnt have anything that did, so I bought 2 of these necklaces, one to wear, and one to take apart and create these .....

A bracelet....

and matching earrings, I only had to add the hooks for the earrings, the rest came from the necklace.

Boys card

This is a card I made for my nephews 6th birthday. I took squares of blue patterned paper and backed them onto white card, then layered that onto orange and blue patterned paper.

I used this daisy and dandelion painter bear stamped image and paint palette, coloured in with promarkers.

Denim Patchwork Quilt Cover

I have loads of old Jeans that dont fit, far to worn, or stained to ebay, so want to put them to good use. One idea I had was to make a patchwork quilt from them & some of the ones I found while googling are beautiful...

I love how the embroidered patterns on the jeans are used on this one.
And the different coloured jeans, with the seams showing.

The frayed edges look just fab

& I think this one is a great example of how other fabrics can be incorporated into the design.

Plaited Bead Headband

I bought a plaited bead headband from primark as I wanted the beads. Having used the beads I needed I had loads left and decided to put together my own.

I took 5 strands of strong thread, long enough to go round my head, minus 2.5 inches and knotted them together.

I then threaded beads onto each of them

& plaited them together (1st thread on the right goes over the 3rd from the right, 1st thread on the left goes over the 3rd thread from the left, repeat until complete), then tie the ends.

I took a piece of elastic 2.5 inches long and attached some double sided tape to each end, and stuck the tied beaded ends to it.

I then wrapped more double sided tape around it, and then ribbon to hide it.

Then the only thing left is to wear it

Pulling my hair back...

Just under my hair (what seems to be the latest fashion, though I really dont think it suits me.

Or in the 1970's over the hair way.

K's Ice Cream Surprise

This is a very simple to make desert with so many possibilities.

Ingredients:
Cake, cut into slices (I used swiss roll)
Icecream (I used 2 tubs soft scoop vanilla)
Sweets/Fruit/Nuts (I used haribo, I wont next time ;-)
Large bar chocolate (I used my fav, cadburys dairy milk)

Initially line a freezable bowl with clingfilm, then line with slices of cake.

Put a layer of icecream over the cake. If its soft scoop you can use straight away, if not leave it out an hour, or until it becomes soft, first.

Then a layer of treats (sweets/nuts/fruit or whatever takes your fancy)

Add another layer of icecream...

Another layer of sweets....
then use icecream to level off. Put in the freezer until fully frozen.

When the ice cream is refrozen, melt chocolate, remove cake from the bowl and peel off the cling film.

Place on a plate & pour the melted chocolate over the top.

The chocolate will start to set and go hard. You can either eat it straight away or cover and freeze again until needed.

This is a gorgeous, sinful pud, though I wont use the haribo again, they go too hard with freezing and take forever to eat.

No sew altered top

ok, I know, this is meant to sewing saturday but its my blog so meh! :-p lol.My favourite T-shirt is getting a tad tight for me, so rather than giving it up I decided to alter it.

Unfortunately I started chopping before took pics, so this is my fav T-shirt minus the arms (they were getting a tad tight around the pits), the neckline (again, not enough give in it), and the bottom (so it matches the rest of the edges)

I made slits down the sides and added eyelets with my crop-o-dile which I then laced up with ribbon.

I then made slits in the back and weaved them together.
This is only the story so far....

The t-shirt is now too short, and rolls up. I need to find a way of lengthening it, hopefully to turn it into a long t-shirt without bringing too much attention to my lower waist (my particular problem area)