Christmas cooking and a full day in the kitchen

Today, we had an extremely chilled out day at home as we have both been working a lot recently and had lots to do with getting a whole new heating system in the house (including all new piping, radiators and boiler), me working two jobs and trying to get ready for Christmas and seeing friends and family - as lovely as that is, we just don't really seem to have had a quiet day at home for ages.

This meant that we really wanted to make the most of the time we had at home and together. We chilled in the morning and had a lye in, watched Sunday Brunch on the TV and then spent the rest of the day in the kitchen.

We have made our very first Christmas cake. It is a fruit cake but also has chocolate in too.

 The fruit and booze mixture looked and tasted pretty good on it's own

 It did then get quite tricky to mix in all of the eggs and dry ingredients. This is also the point when I was told that a wish should be made so fair point for mixing duties to change hands. Me and the hubby both got a wish this way.

 It looked and spelt delicious even before it went in the oven. We replaced the brandy that was in the recipe with Morgans Spiced Rum as you can see in the background of this picture.

 There was a little bit of mixture left over from filling the big tin so we did get these little tiny ones to eat with a cup of tea. Well it's only fair that we check it tastes alright before sharing it with other people at Christmas!

And finally, tah-dah!! The main event - our first ever Christmas cake.

We are having our very own Christmas day with some friends a few days early this year so that we can still see the family on Christmas day. This is for our very own "proper Christmas" on 19th December when we have a very chilled out day at one of our houses - cook our own Christmas dinner and just have a very chilled day together. There might even have to be a wander down to the local at some point just to fully complete the Christmas event - a tradition in my eyes that should always be maintained at Christmas.

Very busy that we have been indeed today. We also cooked two cottage pies (one for tomorrow and the other to freeze) and a huge pot of chilli for dinner with some leftover to go in the freezer (hopefully!)

Happy Birthday Lizzie Turner!!

One of my very close friends had a baby a few days ago. She was quite a bit early and absolutely tiny but is almost ready to go home now - she is doing very well.

Naturally I had to make a little something for her when she arrived. As she was early I wasn't quite as prepared as perhaps I should have been for this but I didn't do too bad. I did think about adding wings to the sack but I ran out of time and I think that it looks ok without. Her room is decorated with owls everywhere so this little outfit seemed quite fitting.

I did make the little hat as per the pattern that I found for a newborn but was very concerned when it was finished that it wasn't going to fit as it is sooo tiny.

However, as Lizzie came into this world slightly earlier than expected then it seems to fit pretty well.

It definitely does help that she is ridiculously cute - takes after her Dad so slightly unlucky in that sense but never the less she is gorgeous.

Congratulations Becky and Lewis (Mum and Dad)! I can't wait to meet her.

Congratulations Emma and Ross!

Happy wedding day! I hope you're having a fabulous day.

Ok so this is the opportunity I have to take to apologise for not blogging for a while. After the last post I was asked to make these for a friend of a friend who is getting married today. They are a surprise present from Ross to his new wife, Emma (maybe about now - I'm not sure what time the wedding is!) and so I was under strict instructions to keep my mouth shut. Not the easiest of tasks for me so I thought it would be best not to blog in case I blabbed!

I was given a lot of guidance from Ross as he was pretty sure what he wanted from these three frames. They contain both of their individual wedding vows and the central one will include the logo that they have used on their invitations and other wedding stationary.

This made things a lot easier in some ways - but just sticking it all down as he had shown in the pictures wasn't quite as easy as I'd thought.

There were a few practice attempts to try to get the arrangements correct and to figure out how they were going to work

Emma's frame - could we include a bottle of the bubbles that will be on the tables at the reception?

 We agreed that this one would look better without. But the hearts in this one should be more floaty and hap-hazardly arranged - like butterflies escaping I was told.

Ross's frame - Do we like the arrangement of the table confetti? Could we add a party popper in the top corner and have it look like the confetti is exploding from the party popper...?

The party popper is a good idea but might need to be cut down a little to fit in the frame properly once the frame is covering the edge of the mount board...hmmm. One to think about and figure out how this might work.

And finally - how was the central frame going to work with the ring on the chain. I had got the logo sorted and decoupaged all of the pieces - thank you Ross for printing the letters out separately for me so that I could trace these easily to be able to cut the individual pieces out. The story behind this as I believe (sorry if this isn't quite right!!)- this was Emma's original engagement ring which was bought when they didn't have too much money and wouldn't go with the wedding rings when these were bought for the wedding. It is also slightly broken. I am told that Emma still loves this ring and wanted to keep it but it just wouldn't fit with the wedding ring she now has. So she was bought a new ring and this is a way of keeping the original ring.

I tried a couple of ways of arranging this frame as I wasn't sure how the chain would fit in the frame with the mount etc.

I still like Ross's design better though I think so there must be a way of doing this...

Here's how all of the frames turned out...

The central frame was done just as Ross had requested

Emma's frame with the floaty butterfly hearts as requested.

And Ross's frame

Hehe - the top hat on his name wasn't actually intentional the first time - I was just arranging the pieces and this is where it ended up. I liked it so I thought I'd stick with it!

And so here they are...

If I do say so myself, I do quite like these. I'm really pleased to have been a part of Ross and Emma's big day and I hope they like them as much as I do.

Crafty July

Ok so I think it is safe to say that July was a pretty busy month one way or another. I was on holiday for a week - we went back to Yorkshire - the same place as we went to earlier this year. It was fabulous and there are far too many photos to include in this post so there will be a separate post to follow including those photos.

I thought I would fairly quickly show you what I have been up to in July though - mostly a little photo montage this time I think.

I finished the baby blankets that I was making for the hospital and have given these to my friend now to be delivered shortly as soon as they have been washed and sterilised properly.

 I have also had a few requests for my items to be made for people at work. My supervisor asked me to make a 30th Birthday card for one of our colleagues.

 And after the success of the owls I decided to give a go at making some other animals. Hmmmm...what would I choose - of course it had to be a tiny tortoise.

ONe big happy family! I have also made a little pink tortoise as well to match the pink owl.

My husband decided that the little green tortoise would be perfect as his wooly work pet so this one has since disappeared as well.

Once he had taken this in he was asked if there was any way that I could increase the pattern and make a larger version for one of his colleagues little boys. This is what I came up with.

 I even made a tiny little tortoise logo to stitch to him as a little logo on his belly.

Unfortunately the only problem with this was that as I had just doubled the yarn and increased the hook size as my method of increasing the pattern, the little holes in him were just the right size for a 6 month olds little fingers to get in and start trying to pull out the stuffing. I have therefore got this creature back at home for the time being - I might have to try another method of increasing the pattern and re-make this for him so that little fingers can't get in there.

Finally, yesterday we went to my husbands' Aunt and Uncle's 25th Wedding Anniversary celebrations. I don't have a picture of the finished card but you get the idea from this image before it was all stuck down. The picture is the same one that we used in the making of out wedding invitations and stationary  - for those of you who received one. I might have to make a post at some point to show you these - a little reminiscent post for those who haven't seen the stationary that we made a couple of years ago.

They seemed to appreciate the card and everyone had a thoroughly lovely day - the weather even stayed nice for the BBQ yesterday. Thank you very much Aunty Sarah and Uncle Martin.

More photo's to come of our holiday and I will try to keep you all more up to date this month with what I've been making. I have a little surprise going on at the minute which I can't quite reveal yet but I'm sure there will also be more owls and tortoises to come. If anyone would like to order one then please feel free to contact me and we can discuss a colour scheme and get one sent out to you. My email address is at the top of the page.

The owl and the caterpillar (and a few other animals too)

Wow! What a lovely weekend it was this weekend - almost too hot I have to say for me - I'm rather pale skinned so often struggle with the heat - plenty of suncream for me. It was rather nice to have a bit of lovely weather though - everyone almost seems happier when the weathers nice somehow - there seems to be a lot more smiling faces around and about.

I haven't been too creative over the last couple of weeks - slightly lacking in inspiration I think - I said before that I felt a bit lost without my blanket to be making and haven't quite found anything that has inspired me enough to replace it yet.

On Saturday my hubby was out at work so I was left in charge of dinner - brave I think!!! - but I don't think I did too bad. Salmon and vegetable parcels - with roasted new potatoes. I did run away at the point of figuring out all of the timings etc and actually putting it in the oven but I did the difficult bit!

 All wrapped up ready for the oven:

The only other thing that I have really done is to make an Owl. The pattern for this came from a group I follow on Facebook - they have been running a little craft-along online and this was the project. I had completely forgotten about it for a couple of weeks but finally got around to finding the pattern and having a go on Sunday. Here is the link to the free pattern. I made one complete owl yesterday and started a second.

The second one will be in these colours

Tonight we went for a little stroll along the canal not too far away - we went to explore what was in the opposite direction to where we have been before. It was definitely just as pretty and almost more relaxing as there were a lot fewer people along this way.

There was plenty of wildlife though including swans:

Baby coots (Mum was in the bottom right, just out of shot):

We took a wander along a bit further and found...

this lovely house - how amazing would it be to live here with the canal as your front garden! Maybe one day...we can dream!

Just outside we saw some mallard ducks - little ones again with Mum:

 A coot on a roost:

And just before we got back to the car, some peacock butterfly caterpillars - munching on the stinging nettles:

I love finding new things so close to home.

Lots of yarn

Long time, no post again today - sorry folks - I've been really busy with work and college and everything at the minute - I don't remember the last time I had a free evening.

My husband has got involved recently with my crafty-ness and got it into his head that the one thing that he might be able to do to help me was...shopping! He's been scouring eBay to find any bargains. So this week, the excitement has begun (and possibly ended as we don't really have the space or money for much more!!) I came home from work one day near the beginning of the week to find this humongous box waiting for me by the back door.

As always, I was really excited to see what's inside

 Yarn under there

 A whole box full!!! This is amazing!

A few random bits in there, small balls of yarn that's been taken from a bigger ball. A half started pirece that you can see on the top there. There was even a freebie from a magazine at some point. It was pretty cool but I wasn't too excited by this once it had arrived. There seemed to be a lot of bits of nothing particularly useful if I'm honest. I suppose I perhaps shouldn't have expected quite so much from such a large random box.

However yesterday I finally got round to looking through it all properly. Once it was all sorted and I'd seem what there was, it's actually a lot better than I'd first anticipated.

This looks a lot better! And below are the only bit's that I really can't see a use for and therefore unfortunately I think are going to end up in the bin...

Not bad really for such a random and huge box.

I finally got kicked into gear to look through and sort this out yesterday as when we got back from the Armed Forces Day celebrations there was another package waiting for me. This one was absolutely amazing and I was unbelievably excited about it.

The four packets of multicoloured were what arrived yesterday and I had even forgotten about the other mini pack that came even earlier in the week. The first pack was 5 balls of the blue yarn that you can see on the top of here.

Here's a massive treat for you all - I have finally plucked up the courage to include a photo of me. This will be a very rare occasion - possibly never to be repeated so make the most of it...

...are you ready?...

...here goes.

Me all dressed in red white and blue for Armed Forces Day and very proudly holding my new arrival of yarn.

I am so excited - I'm going to make a patchwork style blanket with these. I love the multi-colours and think it'll go really well in my little seat in my craft room. I think I do need to get a few more bits finished first but this will definitely be the next project.

Finally a little bit of catch up for you. Here's the card that I made for both Dad's for Father's Day a couple of weeks ago

And this week I was asked to make a slightly embarrassing card for someone at work's 30th Birthday. I have blurred out the photo's just in case he didn't want to be on the internet but you get the idea.

I have now finished quite a few blankets which I will be donating to the hospital in the next couple of weeks so watch this space for a blog dedicated to them.