where the dew drops cry and the cats meow

i've been in the countryside! and picked up a mini replica of stonehenge - i wasn't in wiltshire but hey ho. of course the only thing to do with a tiny stonehenge is to make jewelry:

the ones with the stone still sitting on the top happen to have their toes together (not quite an accurate replica) so they are basically very large and odd beads! i've used leather thong instead of chain to go with the druidy vibe. in a couple of weeks i should hopefully be helping to make a mini stonehenge stage prop (a la spinal tap) so keep an eye out for more of the same.

byob

i've been a bit under the weather lately and had a friends birthday party to go to, but what to do about pressies and booze??? solution - make skittles vodka and give them a box of beads : )

i used (washed) bead vials which happened to be shot-sized to give the bithday girl a taste of the rainbow - for this you need 5 clean containers to divide the vodka between, a bottle of vodka, 2 large bags of skittles and about 2 days. divide up the skittles and the vodka, add together in the bottles, shake, leave, drain, scrape off the top layer of gross, drink neat or if you're poorly- drink with lemonade. little origami box full of pretty beads cool but not necessary...

time to plant seeds

so far every crop of veg i plant has met with one disaster or other - lack of water, lack of light, huge triffid pumpkins killing them with their tendrils of death. but i have hight hopes for these little fellows:

i simply grabbed a free uni news paper, and made origami seedling boxes from its unread pages. the boxes are three sheets thick, the soil from pound land, the seeds form a variety of places which i can't quite remember at present. if all goes well i shall feast on fresh peas, cucumber, onions and radishes. also there are forget-me-nots, because they're pretty.

very small portions

things have been rather busy with work and uni lately, so my making things has been put on hold....but a girl still needs to eat, and if she happens to be eating ice cream, she may as well be making it too:

this is chestnut ice cream, another 'still chill' recipe which i didn't really stick to - chestnut paste (creme de marrons) is one of my favourite things, and as making things into ice cream can only ever improve them...

you will need:
around 225ml chestnut paste
about 300ml double cream (beaten 'til more solid)
about 50g of icing sugar
2 tablespoons of sherry, unless you're me and don't want to spend a tenner on sherry, so replace it with some muscovado sugar and half a cap of vaniller essence.

mix everything together and freeze in a shallow dish. then eat. in very small portions as it is incredibly rich!

making things for mothers day

my mother is rather wonderful, and in her characteristically subtle way sent me a knitting pattern for a 3D dove she wanted me to make for the occasion. the only problem is i haven't knitted in years! and the pattern was a hard one. i hope she doesn't mind - i designedand made her a crochet one instead:

i kept the pink beak and red eyes from the knitting pattern, and kind of made up the body shape as i went along...it's a little wonky, and the wings are far too curly, but hopefully she'll think it's charming : ) all i had to get was the wool, the beaks made form embroidery thread and it's stuffed with a sock that lost its friend. i also made her some bracelets with the quote from julian of norwich which she likes. it's all a bit childish this year, but hey - that's as good a theme as any.

dali mustaches

last night i was given a very stange but easy choice: either go outside in the cold and help get take-out, or stay in and make 19th century industrialist mustaches out of a scrunched up bit of old book spine. like that's really even a choice!

i simply ironed the spine fabric, cut out some mustache shapes in paper to see if they looked alright on (there was a lot of running back and forth to the mirror), and used them as a rudimentary template. they got sewn to an old, faded dali t-shirt. because we're cool like that : )

late presents are better than no presents

so at christmas i was like, "sorry i left your birthday present at home, it's a couple of months late but i'll post it when i get back." now we're in march i think it's finally time to send it. i found the offending pressie in the bottom of my wardrobe, unwrapped it as i thought it might be for me, chucked half of it away as it had gone off, bought some nice smellies to replace the bad, used the nice smellies in an emergency, and finally have replaced them with this:

i painted an old frame and made an origami butterfly to put in it, she likes pretty things of a decorative nature so hopefully she'll like this.  (she's also getting some crystal door knobs which you can see a bit in the top of the photo...they were part of the original present).

when life gives you lemons- make ice cream!

on the 28th of last month i posted 'not quite ice cream' which included my woe of a broken ice cream machine. since then i have found that some recipes don't require an ice cream maker as their fat content is so high that they won't do the horrible crystallising thing if frozen in a shallow dish....or in lemon skins:

to make these just whip up some double cream until it's pretty solid, add the contents of 3 lemons and the rind of 2, add icing sugar to taste, mix, freeze. if you want to fill empty lemon halves and chop them into quarters once they've frozen like i have then do. however, eating them out of the skins is a bit messy, but fun!

tiny paper cranes

originally i set out to make the world's smallest origami crane, then i found out that the smallest was made from a 1mm square of paper...as i am not currently in possession of a microscope, i'll settle for making mine from 38mm squares. they've been made into earrings, naturally.

fabric pens + canvas shoes = happy making!

cheap canvas flats are everywhere but they're a bit boring and they never last long. so i draw on them:

i've gone for a hermes theme this time and tried not to go too over the top (experience has taught me that less is more on the shoe doodle front).

these took me literally a couple of minutes to do with red and yellow fabric pens and will no doubt get trashed after a month or two serving as my everyday-uni-oh-my-god-is-that-the-time-do-these-even-match-shoes. the shoes themselves cost £4 and i already had the pens : )

hey there lonely girl

growing up, whenever i tried and failed to put bracelets on my mother would sing the first line of 'hey there lonely girl' by eddie holman (the first line is the same as the title of the song). i found myself singing it under my breath as i put on these three i made this morning:

the bright-garish-tribal look is in at the mo and it looks like accessorize buy their turquoise skull beads from the same seller on e-bay as i do. i bought the beads over half a year ago so am feeling rather uber ahead of fashion right now : )

to make these you will need: gold open chain, gold wire, beads, bells, colourful cord and half an hour or so spare. enjoy!