Sunday, 29 May 2011

Wooly Cupcake!

Posted by Alison on May 29, 2011 / No comments

I saw this last week and knew it had to be next on my list of things to make (in fact as soon as I saw it I was running up the stairs rummaging in my repurpose suitcase for suitable jumpers)!

I made my cupcake with a couple of old felted jumpers and a scrap of chiffon. It is smaller because my jumper arm wasn't long enough and has the nose from a reindeer on an old Christmas card as the cherry!

Mine is a lot less real and polished looking than easypeasy Grandma's but I love the bright colours and it certainly makes a much funkier pin cushion than my boring tomato!! This one is exclusively for my pretty pins though!

Syrup cookies

Posted by Alison on May 26, 2011 / 1 comment

These are so simple but so yummy, perfect to make when you have retreated to the kitchen to hide from the kids, yes it has been one heck of a week here.....

Syrup Cookies

1tbsp golden syrup

3oz caster sugar

4oz butter

8oz self raising flour

0.5tsp bicarbonate of soda

2oz sultanas

Melt the syrup, butter and sugar in a pan (make sure it does not boil!).

Remove from the heat and stir in the rest of the ingredients.

Roll them in to balls then roll them in some more caster sugar.

Bake for 10 ish mins at 180degC or until golden brown.

Oh how I love my stacking cooling racks!

Easy peasy!

Will spring ever arrive......

Posted by Alison on May 25, 2011 / No comments

This is the weather forecast for here for the next 5 days

It has been raining since I got back from Florida with maybe one or two days 'off' topped with 100mph winds yesterday, not good for the tidyness of the house or a Mummy's sanity.....!!

Fancy Frock Friday!

Posted by Alison on May 20, 2011 / No comments

Not much progress on the dress this week, although I have washed and dried the fabric and read the pattern! Hopefully I will get it cut out tomorrow then the fun begins!

DIY: How to recycle an unwanted tie.

Posted by Alison on May 17, 2011 / 3 comments

My Grandad had a clear out of his wardrobe recently and I salvaged a few things before they went to the charity shop, including 4 ties (obviously, the hoarder that I am...)

I didn't want the ties hanging around for too long in an unused state so I decided fabric flowers were the way to go! I have a mild obsession with fabric and yarn flowers so another few additions were welcome.

It is a super simple process.

Take a tie and a needle and thread

then fold over the end of the tie (to make a thicker bit to start wrapping round, you could tie a knot but this is a wool tie and the knot was bulky) then twist the tie and wrap it round the knot/folded bit, once about half way round twist and wrap again and keep going until you have gone round a couple of times then stitch it to hold the shape.

trying to show the twist and wrap!

then keep doing it until the tie is gone and a beautiful flower has appeared!

It really is that simple. They are quite bulky, especially if you use a wool tie like I did here, but they make fab corsages on smart jackets and coats. I have had many compliments about this one :)

Fancy Frock Friday!

Posted by Alison on May 13, 2011 / No comments

Welcome to the first ever Fancy Frock Friday, probably one of many as I attempt to make a birthday dress for little e! She will be 3 on the 8th August and this is the dress I am going to make (bottom right dress):

It is an advanced pattern so I have chosen the simplest of the 2 options!

The list of notions is impressive and I still have a lot to buy but this is the fabric I have chosen:

Floral for the main dress, ivory for the waist band, collar and cuffs and purple for the piping.

I have only made one proper party dress before so this could be a challenge!
The first party dress:


The shoes were nothing to do with me, my sister thought they would be a good idea!

I don't have a very good photo but you get the idea, an awful lot simpler than the one I am going to attempt!

Wish me luck and if anyone has any tips on making dresses like this they would be gratefully received!

Busy busy busy

Posted by Alison on May 10, 2011 / No comments

There has been frantic invitation making here over the last few evenings and am now waiting for the bride to send me the words for the inner and I will be finished, phew! Just the orders of service, place cards, favours, menus and table plans to do.......

I have also been working on some Wedding Anniversary party invites, just waiting for the ribbon I used to be in stock so I can finish them.

I am going to start a regular 'Fancy Frock Friday' in an attempt to encourage me to make little e's birthday dress sooner rather than later, it will start on Friday! Her birthday is the 8th August (she was an 08/08/08 baby!) so I have just under 3 months to make it and it is an advanced pattern, hopefully enough time!

Boy's linen trousers

Posted by Alison on May 10, 2011 in Boy's, Coo Creations, labels, trousers / No comments

Using the same method as my ladies shorts to boys shorts I made these linen trousers for Big E from a pair of my linen trousers I had shrunk! In fact they were the trousers I wore to Big E's christening!

Big E always has trouble telling the front and back of his trousers if there is no label so I made up some labels,

Not very clear but they should look like this

I love Highland cows, can you tell?!

Lots of fabric!

Posted by Alison on May 03, 2011 in fabric, Florida, wedding invitations / No comments

We brought an extra bag back from Florida which was about 50% full of this:

Fabric is so much cheaper in the US that it was hard to resist. The only thing that restrained me was that none of it was ethical so I didn't go mad as I try my best to only buy fair trade organic cotton.

Little e will get a Snow White costume out of it (in fact I think I have bought enough fabric to make 2 costumes!) but the Royal Blue velvet looks distinctly purple in natural light...

It was strange to walk round Joann's and see all the products I read about on the blogs, I would have definitely brought some Mod Podge home if space allowed but no such luck!

Now to decide what to do with it all but I have 50 wedding invites to do for the middle of May so it may be a while before any sewing gets done!

Home!

Posted by Alison on May 01, 2011 / No comments

Ahhhh, it feels nice to be home even if its is about 20 degC colder here than in Florida!

We had a super holiday even if we didn't get to see the Space Shuttle... Lots of family fun and a few fall outs but that is to be expected when two sisters that are polar opposites go on holiday together!

I am the dull one on the left!

The kids loved spending some quality time with Grandma, Grandad, Aunty M and Uncle J, Uncle J is absolutley adored by little e and Big E.

We all did Disney World together which was fun, Mum and M announced when Big E was born that our first trip to Disney would have to be together so they got their wish!