**waves**

Hi all, sorry I've been away but its busy busy busy here, my alterations are going BIG scale, :-) that is I'm decorating ;-(

I've also set myself the challenge to Scrap at least once a week.

I've barely got time to tweet let along blog ..... talking about tweeting, I know a few of you already use it but for those who dont you might want to pop over to Notes on Paper where Julie is doing a free course about Twitter.
Personally I love twitter, I use it to chat with people, keep up with current events, get advice, & have the odd moan ;-) I shall be following Julies course to see how I can use Twitter better.

Julie says the course is for peeps who want to....
•read about what on earth twitter.com does and is;

•learn about how Twitter might be useful to you;
•get more out of Twitter than you already are;
•hear practical ideas on making the site work for you;
•uncover some of the more artistic values and uses of Twitter.

Julie is far more eloquent than me so hop on over & take a look, & if you join twitter my username is @Lady_K_Black.

Pay it Forward

I've just entered a "pay it forward" at I Speak Melsh, so here I am paying it forward :)

I promise something handmade to the FIRST 5 people* who leave a comment here. However, to be eligible, you must repost this status, offering something handmade to 5 other people. The rules are that it must be handmade (or homemade) by you and it must be sent to your 5 people some time in 2011. Ready, set, GO!

*I'm adding a couple of proviso's to the people I'm willing to send to, just to make it a lil bit more fair on all of us.
  1. you must be a regular reader here.
  2. you cant have already entered this on my personal facebook account
  3. yes Mom this is real, no you dont have to enter as I'm happy to make you something anyway (she asked my lil sis if the fb one was for real & missed out on it :(
  4. I except swapsies (i.e say if Melsh was fast enough to be in the 5 first comments then I'd happily send her something)

Night time bookmark

I made this bookmark to go with a set of books I got for my sister-in-laws birthday.
I used star beads and wire, along with little silver ball beads and a moon charm.

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

Zack & I made a curried butternut squash from the Christmas Issue of Jamie Olivers cookery mag, similar to this one. Zack would normally turn his nose up at this type of thing & refuse to eat it but because he did most of it himself he was willing to give it a go.

It is delicious Winter food, warmed us all up, especially served with homemade rolls (the kids shaped them after the bread maker made the dough). There was enough for us to have for lunch the next day as well, it went down really well after walking back from pre-school with Kai.

Different Flavoured Drizzle Cakes

Having mentioned trying different flavoured syrups on Drizzle Cakes before I finally got around to it.

Bottom left is a chocolate cupcake with orange syrup drizzled over and topped with orange icing.
I made the syrup by melting sugar with freshly squeezed orange juice.
I came up with this idea after Carmen mentioned wanting to try orange drizzle cake.
I was hoping for a choccy orange taste but all we got was a very moist chocolate cake, it was lovely but I wanted it to have an orange taste to it, which it didnt. Next time I'll add orange zest to the cake mix

Bottom right is a chocolate cupcake with vanilla syrup drizzled over and topped with chocolate butter-icing.
I made the syrup by melting sugar with vanilla flavouring.
This cupcake was rather yummy, a chocolatey taste with a subtle hint of vanilla.

Top is a mocha with cream cake! Its a chocolate cupcake with coffee syrup drizzled over, topped with vanilla buttercream icing and a light dusting of cocoa powder.
I made the syrup by adding warm water to coffee granules before heating with sugar until it turned into syrup.
This was my favourite cake. It had a lovely mocha taste, with the "cream" topping making it feel rather indulgent.

Dimensions for box of Goodies

Tams from Droplets in a Rusty Bucket asked for the dimensions of the box of goodies, and I always aim to please so here it is...

The measurements are very simple due to me having to make quite a few. Dont let the 7.7cm put you off, if you start your measurements from the left of the sheet of A4 this will be how much will be left.

If anyone does make this box & blog about it as always I would appreciate a link back :)

Special Treat Breakfast Rolls

The talented Debbie showed how to make these Special Treat Breakfast Rolls & I just had to have a try.

I initially forgot to add the icing which it needs for that lil bit of sweetness. They are absolutely gorgeous!! definately a nice change to mince pies and went down well with my children as well. Simple to make, look rather more complex & taste divine! These are going to become a Christmas regular at ours.

Gifted Food Hampers

I totally forgot to take photos of my finished hampers, all but one which was hurried as I'd got minutes to wrap it before its recipients were due to arrive

Heres the one for my older bro & his other half - they have a fire so I put scented firecones instead of mince pies.
As baskets are usually so expensive I used a cat litter tray from poundland, brand new so nice & clean ;-p & they look just like draws, or deep trays.
Inside is firecone scented firelighters , Shortbread, Blackberry & Eldberry Jam, Chutney, Elderflower Champagne, Raspberry Vinegar and Gingerbread men. I would have liked time to add more, or even present it better but time got away from me.

Box of goodies

I always find it hard to buy presents for my niece and nephews, I dont want to get them something someone else has bought them, I want to get something they'll appreciate and use - so for Christmas I opt for sweets and money :) I know at there age I'd appreciate it, they have sweets so they have something to unwrap & use on the day, and money to buy something they really want but havent received yet.

I do put a lot of love & thought into it as each year I try to present them a little bit differently.

After seeing Nickys (Qwiksave's) Gift card card I decided to try & figure out how to do similar but in a box style.

Heres the net I invented, cut out of shiny snowy card.

I applied double sided tape to the tabs.

Here it is partially made up, you can see it has a flap to fold over.

I attach a little card with a paperclip on it to hold the money. Slip in the packet of sweets (snowballs). The box flap closes and then the card does

I finished off by sealing the box with peel offs.

(apologies for the poor quality pics, I was taking the piccies in the evening & electric lighting is not my friend)

If you want the measurements for the net of the box they are HERE.

Christmassy Bag Charms

As I cant see myself getting much time to craft this week I thought I'd share with you some more of the gifts I made people for Christmas

I started off by making the fimo charms - a gingerbread man, candy cane, christmas tree, wreath & wrapped present. I then attached these & beads along a few chains before adding the clasp

Each one is slightly different making it unique.

Happy New Year

I was very lucky bunny this Christmas ... I think as we all want Christmas to be "perfect" we focus too much on the things that go wrong, but the positives this year far out weighed the negatives, such as ........

This stunning hat the lovely Carmen (aka whoopidoo) gave me - its handmade & oh so burlesque goth gorgeousness! Soon as it was unwrapped it was on my head, by far beating the usual cracker crown!!!

Among other items my Mother & Father in law bought me these iron fist shoes, oh how I adore ironfist shoes!!! Can you see the skull face on them? no?

That better? & yes I was walking round in these very comfy shoes, along with my lovely hat and a black comfy tracksuit I'd been given on Christmas day feeling very chic, lol. Oh, & bat wings!!! Yes bat wings, read on & all will be revealed.

Its very rare that anyone will buy me craft goodies as they are never sure what to get me so thank goodness for the lovely Ruth (aka furrypig) ...

 .....who sent me a lovely parcel full of scrapbook goodies, jewellery making bits, bat cuddly toy, bat wings & mask!!! so, oh yes, the wings had to go on, & coz everyone knows what I'm like in my house no body batted an eye lid (no pun intended)

But my favouritist gift of all was...

Kinetic off Ry, my OH, not because its really fun, & definately the way forward in technology, but because we hadnt any spare money to buy each other gifts this year so he sold his limited edition PSP & DS to buy it me. It was a total surprise, I didnt have a clue.
2010 came to a rather slow end as we were/are all suffering from flu, along with most of the country but as 2011 sprand into life I felt a surge of motivation. Motivation to get my roof cleared of junk & get the items listed onto ebay, motivation to get the house decorated and replace items that really need replacing but I keep putting it off (I've found I have 4 tea towels left & only 2 of them are in a decent state, but I cant bring myself to spend silly amounts of money on them). Motivation to get entering competitions and filling in surveys to reduce actual cash costs. And finally motivation to declutter, spruce up and generally get organised.

As you can see my lil ol' blog here has been the start of the spruce up :) Its had a good ol' clean, a few renovations and a white wash. As my Archive list was getting rather long I now have a link to it at the top, I think its much easier to see like that. Theres a new contact form so you can say hi to me if you want, or ask questions straight to me rather than everyone seeing them in comments, and it no longer tries to open your email browser. Theres even new twitter & facebook buttons at the top of each post incase you see something interesting you feel like sharing :)
So what has a new year sparked for you? What are you motivated to do?